Sitting of 19 February 1990

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    BRITISH RAILWAYS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
    Read the Third time, and passed.
Oral Answers to Questions
  WALES

    Home Ownership
    Mr. Gow: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many houses and flats owned by local authorities have been sold to their former tenants since May 1979; and what proposals he has to extend the opportunities for home ownership within the Principality.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Walker): Over 79,000 dwellings have been sold to sitting tenants by local authorities and new towns in Wales. We are encouraging local authorities and housing associations to undertake a range of low-cost home ownership schemes. The most important initiative is the introduction by the Development Board for Rural Wales of the experimental flexi-ownership scheme, which allows tenants to buy their homes at a weekly outlay broadly the same as their rent payments.
    Mr. Gow: Is not the opportunity for the extension of home ownership at the heart of the Government's policy? Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us hope that his new initiative in Wales will be followed elsewhere in the kingdom?
    Mr. Walker: There is no doubt that the initial reaction to the flexi-ownership scheme launched only a couple of months ago has been one of enthusiasm by the tenants. The principle certainly needs to be examined and I hope that one day it will be applied to the whole country.
    Mr. Alan Williams: What advice would the Secretary of State give to those who followed his earlier advice to buy their home and who now find themselves caught in a Government-created trap, at their wits' end trying to meet higher mortgage payments and dreading the arrival of the first poll tax demand, yet knowing that they will have lost their right to be rehoused if their house is repossessed?
    Mr. Walker: I have no doubt that, if that is the case, the Labour party will revert to its policy of trying to stop the sale of council houses, as the right hon. Gentleman did when he was a Minister at the Welsh Office. However, I believe that all 79,000 are delighted with their purchase.
    Mr. Wigley: Does the Secretary of State realise that many people who have bought their council house—we all want maximum home ownership—find it next to impossible to keep up their mortgage payments and that many are back on waiting lists for council houses? Those waiting lists have almost doubled in some parts of Wales. What will the Secretary of State do about it?
    Mr. Walker: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not believe that many people who bought their council house at an enormous discount are back on the waiting lists. The majority of the 79,000 are delighted. I hope that the numbers will extend considerably in the coming years.
    Mr. Murphy: Does the Secretary of State accept that the proposals of Housing in Wales, Tai Cymru and housing associations in Wales are wholly inadequate to deal with the problems of housing for at least 70,000 people who are on waiting lists in the Principality? What about the 6,000 or 7,000 homeless people? Cannot the Secretary of State see that the people of Wales are looking to him for some way out of this misery?
    Mr. Walker: No, Sir. I am proud that in the lifetime of this Government there has been an enormous improvement in the housing stock of Wales, which dwarfs anything achieved by our predecessors.

    Standard Spending Assessment, Clwyd
    Dr. Marek: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the specific reasons for the standard spending assessment per capita in the county of Clwyd being the lowest in Wales.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Standard spending assessments for 1990–91 have been calculated to reflect as accurately as possible the relative position of every local authority in Wales.
    Dr. Marek: Is the Secretary of State aware that although the consultations might have involved the county councils, no one in Clwyd, particularly on Clwyd county council, can see why the standard spending assessment should be so low? It is plain daft. This is a serious matter. Members of Clwyd county council want to see the Secretary of State and one of his Ministers about it. Will he agree to meet them?
    Mr. Walker: It was not just a matter of discussions with the county councils; the standard spending assessments for 1990–91 were fully discussed and agreed by Welsh local authority associations. Clwyd might be dissatisfied with some factors, but, as a proportion of its relevant population, it has fewer pupils to teach and the second lowest unemployment rate in the counties. Clwyd county council should see how it can save by efficiency, instead of making extraordinary estimates, such as it is making now.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be general acceptance of his view that there is scope for increased efficiency, but that nevertheless Clwyd finds itself a victim of the change in formula? Is he further aware that within Clwyd, the district of Rhuddlan is simultaneously being hit in exactly the same way by the change in the method of calculating the formula? I hope that he will pay careful attention to that.
    Mr. Walker: My hon. Friend will agree that, if the Government sit down with local authority associations to try to agree a formula to assess needs and those associations agree to that formula, the Government cannot do much more.

    Regional Development Fund
    Mr. Knox: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total value of grants which Wales has received from the European regional development fund in each of the last three years.
    Mr. Peter Walker: Figures for European regional development fund assistance committed in Wales in each of the past three years are as follows: 1987, £57·8 million, 1988, £63·3 million and 1989, £28·8 million. The decline in 1989 was due to delays in Commission approvals. That will result in a rise in commitments in 1990.
    Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those grants play an important part in helping to create more jobs in Wales? Is he satisified that the source of those grants is sufficiently well publicised?
    Mr. Walker: Yes. The fund has played an important part and the Welsh Office has done a great deal in endeavouring to negotiate a range of grants for the benefit of Wales.
    Dr. Kim Howells: Will the Secretary of State ensure that whatever EC grants are available are used to help to remove the Albion colliery tip above the village of Cilfynydd, which is just a few miles down the valley from Aberfan? That village is threatened by the old Albion tip, which is causing grave discomfort to many of my constituents, who are also worried about their property.
    Mr. Walker: Irrespective of European grants, it is obviously important that all those concerned take the action that is required. I understand the hon. Gentleman's deep concern. As he knows, that matter is a basic responsibility of Mid Glamorgan county council. It has applied for grants to take certain action and the Welsh Development Agency has speedily agreed to give those grants—I believe that it approved them today or last week. I shall certainly keep a close watch to see that all the assistance needed by that county council is given.
    Mr. Livsey: On the RDF, what will the Secretary of State do about the integrated operations initiative put forward by Powys, Gwynedd and Dyfed? That initiative has been accepted as worthwhile by the Welsh Office and by the EC, but, apparently, it is now being blocked by central Government. Will the right hon. Gentleman do something to ensure that that initiative stays at the front of the queue instead of being pushed back?
    Mr. Walker: It is not a case of pushing back the initiative. Important negotiations and a change of emphasis are taking place in the Community. We certainly do our best for all the applications.

    Cleddau Bridge
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what financial assistance has been provided since 1979 to Dyfed county council in respect of the capital costs of the Cleddau bridge, Pembrokeshire.
    The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The Government made a £4 milion interest-free loan to Dyfed county council in 1979. No assistance has been provided since then.
    Mr. Bennett: Although I welcome the £4 milllion loan provided by the Government, is my hon. Friend aware of the considerable annoyance felt in Pembrokeshire because my constituents must pay 50p every time they cross the bridge when the rest of the road system is free? Why have my constituents been singled out for such an imposition when the rest of the road system is provided from taxation?
    Mr. Roberts: I assure my hon. Friend that his constituents have not been singled out, but Cleddau bridge is owned and operated by Dyfed county council. The policy on tolling operated by the present Government is the same as that operated by successive Governments—that users who enjoy the exceptional savings in time and money made possible by estuarial crossings should contribute directly to the costs involved through the payment of tolls.
    Mr. Gareth Wardell: Would the Minister care to tell the House how long the missing link in the county of Pembrokeshire on the M4 has been delayed because of the expenditure on roads by the former Secretary of State for Wales?
    Mr. Speaker: Will the M4 go over that bridge?
    Mr. Wardell: Yes.
    Mr. Roberts: I am happy to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the section of road to which the hon. Gentleman referred is far from Cleddau bridge. The hon. Gentleman should know, however, that we have eased congestion along the Baglan to Lonlas section by improving the Baglan roundabout. It is clear that the hon. Gentleman has not travelled that way recently. We have plans to improve all three sections between Baglan and Lonlas.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the latest unadjusted figures for unemployment in (a) Newport, (b) Gwent and (c) Wales; and if he will give the equivalent figures for 1979 on the most nearly comparable basis.
    Mr. Peter Walker: On 11 January 1990, the numbers of unemployment claimants in the Newport district, Gwent and Wales were 4,754, 14,051 and 90,349 respectively. Unadjusted figures for 1979 are not available on a basis that enables a valid comparison.
    Mr. Hughes: There have been at least 23 changes in the method of compiling unemployment statistics, all of which have reduced the overall total. Is poll tax yet another secret weapon in the Government's armoury to reduce the figures? The cost of collecting rates in Wales was £9 million, whereas poll tax will cost more than £25 million to collect, the cost of which will have to be borne by the charge payers. Is not it sheer hypocrisy by the Government to lecture our local authorities on financial prudence when they behave in this way?
    Mr. Walker: The income for the local authority in Newport must greatly benefit from the fact that unemployment there was 92 per cent. higher at the time of the general election than it is now.
    Mr. Denzil Davies: Is not the Secretary of State aware that there are 120,000 fewer industrial employees—involved in manufacturing, production and making things—in Wales now than there were in 1979? Is it any wonder that income per head in Wales is lower than in 1979 and that we are the poorest region in Britain?
    Mr. Walker: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, because the figures that he has just mentioned were given in a reply by me, the main drop involves those employed in the coal industry. I am glad that in the past three years there has been a big increase in the number of jobs in manufacturing. I am also pleased—obviously the right hon. Gentleman is not—that there has been an enormous increase in the number of jobs in the service industries. Many people in Wales delight in the fact that there is an enormous increase in both industries.
    Mr. Jack: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people were employed in Wales in (a) 1979 and (b) in December 1989.
    Mr. Peter Walker: In September 1989, the latest date for which information is available, there was a civilian work force in employment in Wales of 1,158,000. In September 1979, the figure was 1,160,000.
    Mr. Jack: My right hon. Friend's interesting answer reflects some of the problems with which he has had to cope in the restructuring of the Welsh economy. Can he be more specific and tell the House some of the initiatives that he has taken to boost employment in manufacturing and service industries? What programmes will he be pursuing in the next 12 months towards those objectives?
    Mr. Walker: If one takes into consideration the increased numbers in higher education in Wales compared with 1979, the figures for 1989 were higher than the 1979 ones. I am delighted that a range of initiatives have brought the financial services to Wales and a great deal of overseas investment. During the past three years Wales, with 5 per cent. of the population, has had 20 per cent. of all the inward investment into Britain.
    Mr. Foot: Does the figure that the Secretary of State gave mean that the Government have just got back to the employment figure for Wales that existed in 1979 when he, along with his associates, ran an election campaign to say, "Labour isn't working"? Will he respond to the invitation that I have given him many times, to make in Wales the speech that he occasionally makes in England, and give the figures of how much has been poured down the drain through the huge numbers of unemployed that have existed throughout the past 10 years? Those figures are still very high and much higher than in many parts of England.
    Mr. Walker: As the right hon. Gentleman knows better than anyone else, pits closed on a large scale under Labour Governments, as well as Conservative Governments. In the past 10 years there has been an enormous drop in the numbers employed in both the coal and steel industries, yet, in spite of that, this year there are as many people in employment as there were in 1979. I am glad that there is a great diversity of jobs, mainly in the private sector.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the difference between the time of the Labour Government and today is that those in work are working for companies making profits, so their jobs are much more secure than they were under the Labour Administration?
    Mr. Walker: Perhaps the most important fact for Wales is that it now has a diversity of job opportunities that it never had before.

    Local Government Finance (Advertising)
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much has been spent in total by his Department to advertise and provide information on the poll tax in Wales.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: I expect the total expenditure on information relating to the community charge to be around £400,000 in 1989–90.
    Mr. Jones: Now that we know that the average poll tax for Wales will be at least £47 higher than the Government's estimate, and that the Government's only response is the ridiculous idea of rate-capping Welsh local authorities that have never been accused of overspending by any Government, why do not the Government accept that all their plans for propaganda for the poll tax to persuade the people of Walls that it is a wonderful tax have been an abject failure? Should not the Secretary of State join his colleague, the Secretary of State for the Environment, and, rather than rate-cap Welsh local authorities, go cap in hand to the Treasury to get more money for them this year, to save hard-pressed Welsh ratepayers from this ridiculous tax?
    Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman has knowledge that I do not have—we do not know what the individual community charges will be; all we know is what we read in the press.
    As for capping, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales has made the position absolutely clear. Of course, we do not like the tremendous increases in spending that are proposed—we were talking about Clwyd county council a few moments ago. It is proposing to spend about 14 per cent. more in the coming year than it did this year—and this year it spent 9 per cent. more than the previous year.
    As for the information that we have given, we have published guides for households and for students about the community charge rebate, and four more leaflets are on the way, all of them in two languages.
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: In that information, will my hon. Friend continue to make it clear that those who benefit most from the community charge are the least well off in Wales—despite the attacks mounted on the people of Wales by local councils that set the community charge at unnecessary and ridiculously high levels?
    Mr. Roberts: We all know that single pensioners and single parents will certainly benefit from the community charge. There is an excellent rebate scheme, and we have published a guide to the community charge rebate.
    Mr. Rowlands: The Minister has admitted that he is ignorant of what is going on in Welsh local authorities. It

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    is now mid-February; will he tell us whether there is any possibility or probability that the Government intend to rate-cap any Welsh local authority?
    Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman knows only too well that we enjoy a particularly favourable position in Wales, in that the average community charge that we anticipated was about £100 less than the average anticipated in England. He also knows that the percentage of grant that the Government give local authorities in Wales is considerably higher than it is in England.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Have not the Government underprovided our excellent local authorities in Wales by about 4 per cent? If the Government resort to charge capping, will they not be attacking, in effect, the Conservative-controlled Vale of Glamorgan district council and independent-controlled Montgomery council? If charge capping takes place, the consequences will be cuts in schooling, housing and social services.
    The Secretary of State is seeking an alibi. He is passing the buck to our councils, but he is to blame for introducing a poll tax that the people of Wales do not want.
    Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman really cannot have it all ways. He is afraid that we want to restrain local authorities from overcharging their community charge payers. He would far rather allow the tremendous increases that we read about in the press to be imposed by local authorities. If he has any care for the electors and community charge payers, he should join the Government in urging local authorities to reduce their spending and their community charge. We all know the truth: local authorities are raising community charges as much as they possibly can and hoping to blame the Government for the outcome.

    Local Government Finance
    Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his latest information on the level of poll tax to be levied by (a) Carmarthen district council and (b) Dinefwr borough council; and what is the average for all the local authorities so far notified in Wales.
    Mr. Peter Walker: I have received no such information.
    Mr. Williams: Is the Secretary of State aware that Dyfed has the lowest average male earnings of any county in Britain? What has he to say to the 20,000 or 30,000 people in my constituency who are on low pay, live in very ordinary homes, are not eligible for any rebates and who will lose heavily when the poll tax bills arrive?
    Mr. Walker: Expenditure was based on a 7·1 per cent. increase on last year's budget, and only 15 per cent. of all local government expenditure in Wales will come from the poll tax. The hon. Gentleman should explain to his constituents how lucky they are.
    Mr. Rogers: I am amazed that the Secretary of State is ignorant about what is happening in local government in Wales. I am sure that he realises that many local authorities, including my own county council of Mid Glamorgan, have already set the level of poll tax. Those councils will now have to struggle for the resources to rebuild and reopen the Rhigos mountain road at the top end of the Rhondda valley, which has collapsed as a result of recent bad weather. Under the previous rating system,
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    a Welsh Office scheme gave 75 per cent. over and above a penny rate to cope with emergencies. Will the Secretary of State assure me that such money will be immediately forthcoming under the new system to open this vital road, which is the Rhondda's only access to west Wales, the heads of the valley and even into the midlands?
    Mr. Walker: That is a separate question and I shall look into the details.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Would my right hon. Friend care to speculate on the howls of outrage that will be uttered by people all over Wales if Labour's proposals for a roof tax are introduced? Under that tax, people would be charged not only on the basis of the capital value of their home, but on the basis of their income. Much unfairness would arise, because after a national Labour Chancellor had fleeced the taxpayers, 400 local chancellors would do the same at the town halls.
    Mr. Walker: One notices the total confusion and muddle in the Labour party on this matter. It is certain that if a Labour Government handled a new roof tax in the same rather ruthless way as they handled the rate support system, the people of Wales would have a bad time. When people throughout the Principality discover that they will have to pay a tax based on the capital value of their house, they will be very distressed.
    Mr. Barry Jones: I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the Conservative Cabinet invented the wretched poll tax. Did not he undertake in Cabinet to impose that unjust tax on the people of Wales? His name was on the poll tax Bill as it was dragooned through the House. These fairy tales from the right hon. Gentleman will lead to electoral disaster for his party. He will be remembered in Wales as the man who brought an unjust tax, the poll tax, upon our people. The poll tax and the right hon. Gentleman's endeavours to promote it are a stain on his ministerial reputation.
    Mr. Walker: In fairness to the hon. Gentleman, he has no ministerial reputation. We have introduced one poll tax. The shadow Cabinet of which the hon. Gentleman is a member has had three different types of roof taxes. We all look forward to seeing the detail of the one that he supports so that people throughout Wales can examine it.

    Teachers' Pay
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has as to the hourly pay of supply teachers and home tutors in (a) West Glamorgan, (b) Gwent and (c) Wales as a whole; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: Local education authorities have considerable flexibility on the pay of supply teachers and home tutors. They are not required to notify the Welsh Office of their local arrangements.
    Mr. Butler: Does my hon. Friend accept the recommendations of the interim advisory committee which, if implemented, would eradicate the discrimination against supply teachers in counties in Wales as outside?
    Mr. Roberts: I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that we accept the recommendations of the interim advisory committee—including those related to teachers on

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    short-notice contracts. As a result of those recommendations, the pay of supply and other teachers on such contracts would be calculated on the same basis as that of full-time or regular part-time teachers.
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Is my hon. Friend satisfied with recruitment to teacher training courses in Wales?
    Mr. Roberts: On the whole, yes, and I am glad to tell my hon. Friend that initial recruitment to the public sector training institutions in Wales exceeded the target by more than 17 per cent. That augurs well for the future and implies that teaching is still viewed as an attractive career.
    Dr. Thomas: The Minister's statement will be very welcome to all part-time or supply teachers. Is he satisfied that sufficient resources are available to Welsh local education authorities to employ the part-time and supply teachers required to ensure that the national curriculum is fully implemented?
    Mr. Roberts: A survey of teaching in Wales showed that the vacancy rate is about 1 per cent., which is similar to the rate for England and Wales combined. We are keeping a careful eye on the position and are doing our utmost to ensure an adequate supply of teachers. Other matters, including the employment of part-time and supply teachers, are for local authorities.

    Health Authorities
    Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to meet the chairman of the Welsh health authorities; and what matters will be discussed.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ian Grist): The date and agenda for the next meeting have not yet been determined.
    Mr. Griffiths: The Minister is aware of my concern that Dr. Joan Williams and Mr. David Else, who are employees of Mid Glamorgan health authority and shareholders and company directors of Medical Diagnostics Limited, and Dr. Stephanie Matthews and Dr. Keith Davies, who are employees of South Glamorgan health authority and shareholders and directors of Lifecare Advanced Medical Limited, have serious direct conflicts of interest between the income-generating work in the Health Service and their involvement in private companies. Will the Minister issue guidelines for the chairmen of Welsh health authorities making it clear that such activities fall well beyond the scope of acceptable private practice and will not be allowed in future?
    Mr. Grist: Health authorities, as employers, are responsible for ensuring that their employees' private interests do not conflict with those of the authorities. We are considering whether further guidance is needed to guard against the risk of conflict.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: Will the Minister meet representatives of local authorities in mid-Wales, as many of them are keen to establish a Mid Wales health authority based on Bronglais hospital, Aberystwyth?
    Mr. Grist: I know of the hon. Gentleman's concern for his local hospital, but I believe that he has been taken in by people who have raised unnecessary scares about it. East Dyfed health authority does a first-rate job.

    Community Care
    Mr. Michael: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate he has made of the cost to local authorities in Wales of implementing the community care proposals contained in the recent White Paper on community care.
    Mr. Grist: As we have made clear in the White Paper "Caring for People", the resources to be made available to local authorities in Wales to implement the new framework for community care will be determined in this year's public expenditure survey, following consultations with the local authorities which have begun.
    Mr. Michael: The Minister did not answer my question. Does he accept that in coming years, the increasing number of elderly people will require extra resources? Does he further agree that care in the community will cost money and must not be implemented on the cheap? Will he guarantee that the Government will make available enough money to enable local authorities in Wales to bear the burden that is being transferred to them by the National Health Service and Community Care Bill which is currently in Committee? Will he also ensure that such finance is ring-fenced, so that there will be no doubt about the resources available to look after our old people?
    Mr. Grist: As the hon. Gentleman is, with me, a member of the Standing Committee, he must be aware that the Government have every intention of ensuring that their policy works to the benefit of the old and dependent in society. We do not believe that resources should be ring-fenced because we put our trust in local authorities. Of course, we shall take into consideration any action that might have to be taken in the future, but at this stage we have faith in local authorities.
    Mr. John P. Smith: Will the Minister take this opportunity to comment on the shortfall in respite care allowances? My constituents are unable to take advantage of hostels for the mentally and physically handicapped because the abolition of the board and lodging allowance has penalised dependants. People do not receive the same amount of benefit if, to have a break, they put their dependants into respite hospitals.
    Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman will know that this is a subject for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security rather than for me. He will be aware of the increased funding by the Welsh Office for the mentally handicapped and the mental illness strategies.

    A55
    Sir Anthony Meyer: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what response has been received to the publication of "The A55—The Road of Opportunity"; and what further sections of the road will begin to be improved in the next financial year.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: The response to the publication of the document "The A55—The Road of Opportunity" has been very favourable. We will be announcing details of major trunk road schemes planned to start in 1990–91 in the Welsh Office commentary on the 1990 public expenditure White Paper due to be published in March.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that everyone concerned—the private developers and Clwyd county council—is taking full advantage of the glittering opportunities presented by the Government's tremendous success in driving ahead with that new road? Will he make a statement about when work is likely to begin on the badly needed Rhuallt hill improvement?
    Mr. Roberts: On my hon. Friend's second question, tenders for the scheme were invited on 19 January and are due for return at the end of March, and construction is expected to take about two years. We shall get going with the scheme as soon as possible.
    On the earlier part of my hon. Friend's question, I believe that the actions of the local authorities in connection with the enormous Government investment in the new road, and the proposals that are coming forward, are to be welcomed.

    South Glamorgan Health Authority
    Mr. Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next expects to meet the chairman of South Glamorgan health authority to discuss health services.
    Mr. Grist: My right hon. Friend has no immediate plans to meet the chairman of South Glamorgan health authority.
    Mr. Morgan: Does the Minister agree that such a meeting is urgently required? At a meeting on Wednesday this week, South Glamorgan health authority will consider an emergency proposal to close six hospitals. Three of them are in my constituency—St. David's and Glan Ely hospitals and Ely ear nose and throat hospital. The shortfall for next year's budget is £7·5 million, and as a result the authority is reduced to planning in a panic, and having to sell capital resources to fund a revenue shortfall. I should have thought that the Minister would regard that with the utmost seriousness.
    Mr. Grist: The hon. Gentleman will know that those proposals are the responsibility of the health authority. As they may eventually come before my right hon. Friend for a decision, it is impossible for me to talk about them. He will also know that the health authority that he and I share is the best resourced in Wales. In the forthcoming year its capital allocation will be increased by 122 per cent. which I think the hon. Gentleman will agree is fairly generous.
    Dr. Marek: How much extra will it cost the authority when it has to pay for its patients to be treated in England, and how much extra will it cost when the authority has to pay value added tax?
    Mr. Grist: The health authorities will be funded for value added tax and for contracts taken out elsewhere.
    The hon. Gentleman must understand that South Glamorgan health authority is as likely to attract inward patients as anywhere else, as it is a regional centre and a highly regarded university hospital-based authority.

    Polychlorinated Biphenyls
    Mr. Denzil Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects to receive the results of the recent tests carried out under the auspices of his Department into the level of polychlorinated biphenyls in Llanelli.
    Mr. Grist: Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution has taken two further samples, one from the playing field and one nearby, to validate the results of its original survey. The results of the samples will be available towards the end of March.
    Mr. Davies: Is the Minister aware that there is considerable concern in my constituency that this matter should be dealt with urgently? We know that one sample provided earlier showed high levels of PCBs in the field adjacent to an infants' school. So that pollution may be removed, will the Government, and the Welsh Office in particular, view sympathetically requests for financial help from the local authorities which are under considerable strain in this matter?
    Mr. Grist: Unless the right hon. Gentleman can produce proof of that strain, the work to which he referred will fall within the local authorities' ordinary duties. We want the results of the tests to be available as quickly as possible. Apparently a problem arises because the samples have to be dried before they can be examined; it is more a scientific problem than anything else.

    Rural Housing
    Mr. Livsey: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the provision of affordable housing in rural Wales.
    Mr. Grist: We are taking a wide range of measures to stimulate the provision of additional affordable housing in rural Wales, including substantial spending by housing associations and consultations about planning guidance on the provision of land for low-cost housing.
    Mr. Livsey: Is the Minister really aware of the housing crisis in rural Wales? Many youngsters are having to sleep outside and even in cars, and it is estimated that there are 100 such youngsters in Newtown. Does the Minister agree that the Welsh Office should change its planning rules so that rented housing and starter homes can remain in the local housing market for local people?
    Mr. Grist: That is precisely why Housing in Wales has launched its rural initiative, with 31 on-site schemes in preparation at the moment. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have out for consultation proposals that would make the planning laws a little more amenable to the sort of proposals that he suggests.

  ATTORNEY-GENERAL

    Director of Public Prosecutions
    Mr. Allen: To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what matters were discussed.
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what matters were discussed.
    The Attorney-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I frequently discuss matters of departmental interest with the Director of Public Prosecutions, and I last met him for that purpose on 14 February.
    Mr. Allen: Is the Attorney-General aware of the reports of the remarks of Sir Peter Leng, Army land commander in Northern Ireland from 1973 to 1975, to the effect that he was aware of the dirty tricks being performed by MI6 in Northern Ireland and the smearing of hon. Members of all parties? Is he aware that Sir Frank King, General Officer Commanding, said that he has "no quarrel" with Sir Peter's remarks? Will the Attorney-General now ask the DPP to consider whether criminal offences took place and to bring charges against those who deliberately sought to undermine democratically elected people in the House and elsewhere?
    The Attorney-General: Although the question relates to the DPP and the supplementary question to Northern Ireland, I can say to the hon. Gentleman that, as with all assertions of criminal conduct—I have read a report in the newspaper today—any relevant information that is brought to the attention of the police or the prosecuting authorities will be duly considered.
    Mr. Skinner: Has the Attorney-General seen the report published by the district auditor on the sale of cemeteries by Westminster council for 15p? Has he noted that the auditor said that the sale was unauthorised, unlawful and detrimental to ratepayers? When will the members of Tory-controlled Westminster city council be called to account? Why has the ball been kicked from one end of the field to the other for years without anyone being charged? Is it because Lady Porter is a friend of the Prime Minister and a member of the Tory party? Finally, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that if a Labour authority had done this, it would have been hung, drawn and quartered?
    The Attorney-General: I am responsible for the enforcement of the criminal law in England and Wales, where hanging, drawing and quartering went out some time ago. I have not seen the auditor's report to which the hon. Gentleman refers, but, if there is a question of liability, it sounds like a civil matter, not a criminal one.
    Mr. Latham: In view of the verdict of unlawful killing at the inquest on my former constituent, Petty Officer John Black, and the decision to seek a fresh inquest, can my right hon. and learned Friend say today, or discuss with the DPP, when a fresh inquest will take place? The man in question died in December 1983.
    The Attorney-General: Again, the question does not arise as part of the responsibilities of the Director of Public Prosecutions, but I can help my hon. Friend by saying that, unless I am badly mistaken, the application for a fresh inquest will be heard soon in the Divisional court, where it is already listed.
    Mr. Aitken: When assertions are made of attempts to overthrow a democratic Government by unlawful means, on what criteria does the Director of Public Prosecutions go into overdrive and put the accelerator down and when does he put on the handbrake? For example, does my right hon. and learned Friend recall that when similar allegations were made—admittedly from a different angle—by Mr. Peter Wright, the entire Law Officers' Department rushed round the world spending £3 million of taxpayers' money on hyper-legal activity? Why is no action taken when those assertions are made from a different angle?
    The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend does not do justice to his recollection of the "Spycatcher" case. The litigation, here and overseas, ended in the House of Lords in complete vindication of the Government's contentions. The action was undertaken to enforce the Government's right to lifelong confidentiality from those who have been members of the security services, and that contention was wholly upheld by the House of Lords. It had nothing to do with the Director of Public Prosecutions. When he is confronted with evidence that a criminal offence has been committed, there is neither accelerator nor handbrake but one measured pace.
    Mr. Fraser: Will the Attorney-General confirm that forgery with a view to disseminating defamatory information is a criminal offence and that no one in this country has the power to authorise the commission of crimes? Will he give an undertaking not to leave this serious matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but to report these exchanges to the DPP and then report back to the House of Commons on whether the DPI' will investigate it?
    The Attorney-General: No, Sir. It would be wrong to answer the hypothetical questions with which the hon. Gentleman prefaced his question. It is unnecessary to depart from the well-tried and well-proven practice whereby matters suggesting that criminal offences may have been committed are considered first by the police and then by the prosecuting authorities.

    Extradition
    Mr. Gow: To ask the Attorney-General whether he has any proposals to change the present law and practice relating to extradition between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
    The Attorney-General: I understand that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, who is responsible for United Kingdom law in this area, has no proposals for change. As to practice, we shall continue to seek the extradition of offenders from the Republic of Ireland whenever an appropriate case arises.
    Mr. Gow: Is not it the duty of the Government of the Irish Republic, with or without the Anglo-Irish Agreement, to do all in their power to ensure that those who are suspected of criminal offences, notably terrorist offences, are brought to justice? Is my right hon. and learned Friend continuing to make representations to secure the extradition to this country of Mr. Ryan?
    The Attorney-General: I believe that the Irish Government would accept the duty that my hon. Friend formulates. Mr. Ryan's case must be regarded as concluded in view of the decision of the Irish Director of Public Prosecutions, who is an independent official, as is the Director of Public Prosecutions in this country. I have the highest regard for the Attorney-General in Dublin. Mr. Murray. Each country has its own statute law with which it has to comply. Each country has independent judges and independent Directors of Public Prosecutions. Each of us desires that those who should be charged with serious criminal offences are brought to justice.

    Legal Aid
    Mr. Simon Hughes: To ask the Attorney-General what is the best estimate available to Law Officers of the cost per annum, at 1990 prices, of extending legal aid, on similar criteria to those applicable elsewhere in the legal system, to those representing the interests of the deceased at inquests.
    The Solicitor-General (Sir Nicholas Lyell): The latest estimate of the annual cost of extending full legal aid to representation at inquests was made in 1980. At 1990 prices the sum involved is £5·96 million. Advice and assistance under the green form scheme is currently available for such proceedings.
    Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to the Solicitor-General for that answer. Will he undertake to review the cost and the decision that it would not be justified to extend legal aid? He will be aware that verdicts at inquests vary between those producing a liability and open verdicts and that those verdicts may determine whether other prosecutions take place. Legal aid is important. Will there be a review of the right to legal aid at inquests?
    The Solicitor-General: Matters must be considered as a question of priority, and competing claims are continually examined. The latest claim to be granted by the Lord Chancellor, at a net cost of about £5 million—roughly the same figure as I mentioned earlier—provided assistance to about 5 million child potential claimants and 1·5 million elderly potential claimants in personal injury cases. The matter must be judged against such priorities.

    Director of Public Prosecutions
    Mr. Dalyell: To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what was discussed.
    The Attorney-General: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I have just given to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen).
    Mr. Dalyell: Following his undertaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), will the Attorney-General reflect on the penultimate paragraph of the letter from Colin Wallace to the Prime Minister of 19 February asking how it came about that the director of Army legal services, Major-General Whiteley, became involved in preparing a summary for the Appeal Court? Will he find out from colleagues such as Sue Marsh how that happened?
    The Attorney-General: I have many responsibilities, but they do not extend to the hon. Gentleman's question. There is nothing that I can usefully add to what I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North.

    Civil Justice Review
    Mr. Favell: To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on recent representations received on his plan to speed up the judicial process.
    The Solicitor-General: Implementation of the main recommendations in the report of the civil justice review is
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    being taken forward in the Courts and Legal Services Bill and in a programme of associated changes to the rules of court and administrative reforms.
    Mr. Favell: As a fellow lawyer, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that a lawyer's time is money, that the system often leads to far too long being spent on court procedures, and that the speeding up of that process would be most welcome?
    The Solicitor-General: I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the proposed administrative reforms will require litigants to put their cards on the table at a much earlier stage in a case. That should speed up the administration of justice and facilitate a reduction in costs.

  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    Eastern Europe
    Mr. Murphy: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations he has had expressing concern in the Third world that aid to eastern Europe will adversely affect the amount of aid available to it; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Alan Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy that total Overseas Development Administration expenditure for 1990–91 will be increased so that aid funds for eastern Europe do not reduce the amount available for developing countries.
    The Minister for Overseas Development (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): The Government are aware of concerns, here and overseas, that economic assistance to eastern Europe might adversely affect the amount of aid going to developing countries. I assure the House that the provision of United Kingdom assistance to eastern Europe is separate from and additional to our regular aid programme. which is growing in real terms. OECD member Governments affirmed in December that their support for economic reform in central and eastern Europe will not diminish their determination to give high priority to their development co-operation with the Third world.
    Mr. Murphy: Does the Minister accept that there is widespread concern among aid agencies in Britain that relief to eastern Europe is at the expense of relief to the Third world? Will she give a further assurance that over the next few years at least the poorest of the Third world will not be asked to subsidise the poor of eastern Europe?
    Mrs. Chalker: I have repeated many times that aid to eastern Europe is additional to and separate from aid to the developing world. That is exactly what we have decided and that is exactly what we have done.
    Mr. Williams: I very much welcome that assurance. In view of the highly volatile and rapidly changing position in eastern Europe, may we have an assurance that the Minister and the Government will be flexible in interpreting the need for assistance to eastern Europe and will be willing, if necessary, to draw upon the contingency fund?
    Mrs. Chalker: If that occurs, of course the Government will consider what is needed. However, we have been

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    flexible and provided $100 million to the Polish stabilisation fund which was not envisaged when we began talking about the know-how fund. When we saw the need for humanitarian assistance in Romania before Christmas, we immediately dispatched 1·8 tonnes of medical supplies. Last week my hon. Friend the Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office announced that we would be providing disposable syringes for Romania. We have also arranged for five injured young people from Romania to be treated here and we are considering at the moment another way of helping Romania. None of those things was even considered when we started down the path of the know-how funds of £50 million for Poland and £25 million for Hungary. We are being flexible and we shall continue to do so.
    Mr. Nelson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the momentous changes in eastern Europe provide some spectacular opportunities for private investment rather than more taxpayers' aid? Should not we differentiate between the much-needed infrastructural and basic support aid that we provide to the poorest countries and the probably greater case for more technology transfers and trade credits to eastern Europe?
    Mrs. Chalker: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In the 29 projects that were announced for Poland in December and the six further projects that we announced last month, it is interesting to see how much private organisations are adding to the incentive that the Government provided for the know-how funds. There will be joint ventures and many contributions from the private sector because the eastern European countries have a greater ability to attract private capital than some of the really underdeveloped countries.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend accept that many of us have a genuine and deep-seated feeling for the Third world? However, only a limited amount of money is available, and with Germany wanting to go headlong towards creating another surrogate state of East Germany, the amount of money required may stretch into billions of pounds. Whatever the world may want, Germany is likely to benefit. Who is going to pay for it? If anyone is to pay, why should it not be Germany? Why should not we help the Third world instead of helping the fourth reich?
    Mrs. Chalker: My hon. Friend takes his claim a little too far. We have spent more than £3,500 million in Africa over the past eight years and we shall continue to help the developing world. However, the Federal Republic of Germany has also been helping the developing world and it is helping eastern Europe greatly. We will do our bit, and I have no doubt that all Members of the European Community will continue to help adequately in the Third world and look to the need for democracies to be encouraged in eastern Europe.

    Africa
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what further measures he is taking to improve child health care in Africa.
    Mrs. Chalker: Almost everything that we finance in Africa, bilaterally and through multilateral organisations,
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    benefits children by encouraging sustainable economic and social development. Our health sector aid concentrates on preventive communuity-based systems in which mother and child health programmes have a central place. Child health also benefits from our support for family planning, provision of clean water and sanitation, education, especially women's education, and progammes to improve the status of women.
    Mr. Bowis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that her response is a welcome statement of the Government's programme? Does she further agree that with a more effective oral rehydration therapy programme we could save more children's lives than the total number of lives that were lost in the first and second world wars? Will my right hon. Friend also consider the fact that half the world's children are currently not protected by the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus programme of immunisation? Will she lead a children's crusade to improve the health of the world's children?
    Mrs. Chalker: We are already helping with immunisation through our contributions to UNICEF's major programme. With regard to oral rehydration therapy, we have been a major contributor to the World Health Organisation's diarrhoeal disease control programme which is responsible for promoting the use of ORT.
    Mrs. Clwyd: As the Minister knows, I have just returned from Ethiopia. Does she agree that in that country children are suffering most because of famine and war? Does she agree that the Foreign Ministers meeting in Dublin tomorrow should be asked to bring every effort to bear on the protagonists to end that bloody and increasingly vicious civil war and to bring the warring factions round the negotiating table?
    Mr. Chalker: I am glad to see the hon. Lady back safe and sound from Ethiopia. I have already asked my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary whether he will consider raising in the Foreign Affairs Council in Dublin tomorrow the urgent need for a peace settlement in Ethiopia. Of course, the children suffer—probably rather more than the hon. Lady and I know. I hope that we shall use all international forums to bring about peace swiftly.

    Tibet
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what environmental protection measures Her Majesty's Government propose to take in respect of Tibet.
    Mrs. Chalker: The Government have no plans at present to finance environmental protection measures in Tibet.
    Mr. Bruce: Will the Minister acknowledge the concern caused by the Chinese Government's attitude to Tibet, in terms of forcing changes to unsuitable crops, which has led to starvation, the stripping of rain forests and the area being used as an environmental dump? In those circumstances is not it appropriate that the British Government should apply some pressure to the Chinese Government to stop those practices and protect the interests of the native population of Tibet?
    Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman knows that the environment throughout the world is central to our

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    agenda. I fully acknowledge that developing countries will need additional resources to tackle problems, whether they be crop substitution or deforestation. As yet, we have had no request to help with environmental problems in Tibet. I sincerely hope that it will become possible, throughout that area, to take all such measures internationally as will prevent deforestation and the flow into the gulf of Bangladesh, which I have just visited, of much of the soils from those high regions.
    Mr. Cormack: Does my right hon. Friend agree that China's record in Tibet is disgraceful by any standards?
    Mrs. Chalker: Successive British Governments have regarded Tibet as autonomous, although recognising the special position of the Chinese authorities. That continues to be the Government's view, but we sincerely hope that China will give the people of Tibet their rightful stance.

Operation Clockwork Orange
3.32 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the statement of a genuinely distinguished soldier, General Sir Peter Leng, Scots Guards, a senior commander in Aden, subsequently Master-General of the Ordnance and a member of the Army Council, but, most relevantly, Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland for the years 1973–75 that, contrary to Government claims, the operation Clockwork Orange had official sanction to run."
I must persuade you, Mr. Speaker, that the matter is definite, that it is urgent and that it is important. The matter is definite, and it is fully reported in the first editions of yesterday's Sunday Times, under the by-line Barry Penrose and the heading "General Backs Wallace Claims". The four page 1 and page 2 articles were "pulled out," to use the trade term, for reasons that are revealing but not relevant to the application for the matter to take precedence over the announced business of the House of Commons.
The matter is important, because accuracy by Ministers to the House is important. You did me the courtesy Mr. Speaker, of being in the Chair for the Adjournment debate last Monday night, attended by about 70 Opposition Members and 30 Conservative Members. You will have heard, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces say, as reported at column 118 of Hansard, that operation Clockwork Orange was not approved.
At least the Select Committee on Defence might consider asking Sir Peter Leng to appear before it to clarify
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exactly what he meant. The Minister and the general cannot both be right. Who is the House of Commons to believe?
Mr. Tony Banks: The general.
Mr. Dalyell: That would be my view—[Interruption]. Well, the general has no axe to grind.
The matter is urgent, because it emerges that Clockwork Orange was masterminded by a senior civil servant, Dennis Payne, and that the General Officer Commanding, Northern Ireland, at the time, General Sir Frank King, has said that he has no quarrel with General Sir Peter Leng's account.
Nothing is more urgent than matters that go to the heart of the integrity of British Government. Nothing that this House of Commons has to consider is more urgent than the matter of integrity in the highest places.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"General Sir Peter Leng's statement on Colin Wallace."
As the House knows, under Standing Order No. 20, I have to announce my decision without giving reasons to the House. I have listened with care to what the hon. Gentleman has said. As he knows, I have to decide whether his application comes within the criteria of the Standing Order, and if so, whether the debate should have priority over the business already set down for today or tomorrow.
In this case, I regret that the matter that he has raised does not meet the requirements of the Standing Order and I therefore cannot submit his application to the House.

Points of Order
3.36 pm
Mr. Merlyn Rees: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—
Mr. Speaker: On this matter?
Mr. Rees: The point of order, Mr. Speaker, is on the role of Select Committees, arising out of this matter. We have had a rehearsal by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) of the facts as revealed in a newspaper, in an article that was withdrawn at the request of the Ministry of Defence—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I understand.
On the precise point about the Select Committee, Mr. Speaker, first, the Government denied that Clockwork Orange existed; then, they said that it was not authorised. Now, General Leng, whom I also respect and with whom I worked, and the General Officer Commanding, Northern Ireland, Frank King, both say that it was authorised, which is another part of the story.
On the point of order, Mr. Speaker, the Select Committee on Defence is considering the matters of papers and of authorisations. Can General Leng, as a former senior officer in the Army, be called before a Select Committee to give evidence on that point? Can the Government stop him so appearing? If he wishes, can he appear before the Select Committee on this point?
Mr. Speaker: It is not for me to give directions to a Select Committee from the Chair. As I understand it, it would be possible for that to happen.
Dr. John Cunningham: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not astonishing and unsatisfactory that, at the very time when the former President of the United States of America is being required to give evidence in respect of the examination by Congress of Admiral Poindexter on all those matters, it is proving impossible in the British House of Commons for the legislature to exert any effective scrutiny over these matters? It is grossly unsatisfactory that the activities of the Select Committees of this House are being circumscribed by Ministers in this regard.
In view of the latest statement by the highest-ranking officers in the armed forces that these matters of disinformation and smear were properly authorised, surely there is now an overwhelming argument for the House to have a proper examination of all the material interests in these matters.
It seems that only with some co-operation from the Leader of the House and the Government are we ever likely to get to the bottom and to the truth of these matters. Therefore, I appeal to the Leader of the House to join me in discussions through the usual channels to find a way in which we in the House and the public can find the truth of the matter.
Mr. Speaker: I am sure that that was heard on the Government Front Bench. It is not a matter for me.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Barry Jones.
Mr. Allan Rogers: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have called Mr. Barry Jones.
Mr. Barry Jone: On a point of order arising out of Welsh questions, Mr. Speaker. It may have been obvious to you, Sir, that, of the first 10 oral questions tabled, five were tabled by Conservative Members with English constituencies. From where I was sitting, the only Conservative Back Bench Members with Welsh constituencies whom I could see were the hon. Members for Pembroke (Mr Bennett) for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) and for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones).
I seek your assistance and guidance, Sir. I and my right hon. and hon. Friends believe that the questions tabled by English Members make it difficult for us to catch your eye in the limited time for Welsh questions. That may be a ploy to prevent us from catching your eye and perhaps to give assistance to Conservative Back Benchers, whose numbers are small. Can you help us on that matter?
Mr. Speaker: I think that I can help the right hon. Member. If a question on the Order Paper is reached, the hon. Member who tabled it will be called, from whatever constituency he comes. I think that we did rather well in Welsh questions today. We reached question 17 and only three hon. Members who had questions on the Order Paper were not called for a supplementary question. The hon. Gentleman's complaint does not hold water today.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: On a different point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will be aware that many millions of people, particularly those who live in constituencies near the Kent coast, are anxious, for one reason or another, about the future of the Channel tunnel. I understand that Ministers have resisted demands for a statement—they have made that resistance known for private notice questions too—on the grounds that there is no ministerial responsibility for the matter. It is important that no one is allowed to pull the wool over your eyes, Sir, as you are the guardian of Back Benchers and their constituents. I wish to bring to your attention two points which suggest that there is ministerial responsibility for the matter, and that a Government statement should be made.
Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member feels that strongly, he should table a question on the matter. If he is right, and there is Government responsibility, I am sure that he will receive an answer.
Several Hon. Members: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. We have just had Welsh questions. We are about to have an Opposition day debate on a motion tabled by the Scottish Nationalist party.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Alan Williams: On a point of order—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Many hon. Members, some of whom are now on their feet, wish to participate in that debate. We should get on with it, rather than have points of order which I cannot answer.
Mr. Rogers: Further to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), Mr. Speaker. You answered his

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question by saying that it might well be so. The original question was whether the Government had a right to prevent General Leng from appearing before the Select Committee. Can we understand from your answer that the Government have that right and have exercised it?
Mr. Speaker: I did not say that. It is a matter for the Select Committee.
Mr. Alan Williams: I want to return to the first point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have always regarded it as one of the most important elements of your responsibility to protect the rights of the House of Commons. I know that you regard it as a matter of seriousness when the House has been misled, even if inadvertently. We now have a rather unprecedented situation, in which we need your guidance to protect those rights.
The Prime Minister, as head of the Civil Service, is saying that she was misled by the Civil Service, and therefore inadvertently misled the House. The Prime Minister, as head of the security services, is saying that she was misled by them, and therefore inadvertently misled the House. Now the head of the armed services is saying that he was misled by them, and that he therefore misled the House. This is more than just one ordinary accident. We need at least a statement. Can you, Mr. Speaker, advise us how we can get one?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has made the point for himself. In answering a Standing Order No. 20 application, I am responsible only for the difficult decision whether to give it precedence over the business for today or tomorrow.
Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas: Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), Mr. Speaker. Over the years, it has been a convention for Welsh Members to participate in Welsh questions, during which we may discuss matters devolved to the Welsh Office. If it is to be the practice that English Members are to come to the defence of the Secretary of State for Wales, clearly there is less time for Opposition Members to question the Minister and we shall have to press for more time to be made available for Welsh questions.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Michael Jack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Is it on the same matter?
Mr. Jack: Yes, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Bennett: Yes, Sir.
Mr. Speaker: Very well. Let us hear Mr. Bennett first.
Mr. Bennett: Further to the point of order of the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Dr. Thomas), Mr. Speaker. Can we rest assured that this is a United Kingdom Parliament and that any hon. Member may take part in any part of our discussions? If the Labour party is so concerned about the matter, why are its three spokesmen on English health matters all Scottish Members of Parliament?
Mr. Jack: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I resent the imputation that English Members tabling questions on Welsh matters is a barrier to Welsh members entering the discussion. There is always the opportunity of a supplementary question. Hon. Gentlemen have ignored the fact that many of the matters, particularly those relating to north Wales, also relate to the north-west of England.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that I can say any more than I have said. Hon. Members need only look at the Order Paper today to see that virtually all hon. Members who were present in the Chamber—
Mr. Roy Hughes indicated dissent—
Mr. Speaker:—including the hon. Gentleman who is. shaking his head—were called to ask questions.
Mr. Richard Livsey rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet. This is a United Kingdom Parliament, and today we have a debate in the name of the Scottish Nationalist party. We should get on with it.

Points of Order

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
  Ordered,
  That the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications and Deemed Applications) (Scotland) Regulations 1990 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. John Mark Taylor.]

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
  Ordered,
  That European Community Documents Nos. 9762/89 and 9865/89 on preferences for Poland and Hungary be referred to a Standing Committee on European Community Documents.—[Mr. John Mark Taylor.]

Opposition Day
  [8TH ALLOTTED DAY] [IST PART]

    Ambulance Dispute
    Mr. Speaker: We now come to the debate on the dispute in the ambulance service in the name of the Scottish Nationalist party. I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    3.48 pm
    Mr. Jim Sillars: Before I start, I want to make one technical correction. We are not the Scottish Nationalist party but the Scottish National party, and there is more than just a semantic difference.
    Mr. Speaker: I apologise.
    Mr. Sillars: I was not looking for an apology.
    I beg to move,
    That this House recognises public concern about the prolongation of the ambulance dispute; acknowledges strong public support for the ambulance staff; is aware of the Government's role in prolonging the dispute; and calls upon the Secretary of State for Health to renew negotiations with representatives of ambulance staff in order to seek an end to the dispute on the basis of a just award and a pay review mechanism that will recognise the place of ambulance staff in our emergency services.
    The motion is tabled in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), myself and others in the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru. I acknowledge and recognise the co-operation of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) on behalf of the Labour party in ensuring that a single motion has been tabled by the Opposition today. Whatever political differences we may have in other areas, there are absolutely none in respect of this dispute.
    I notice that the name of the organ grinder, the Secretary of State for Health, is missing from the Government amendment. It also appears that he is missing from this debate. I am sure that many members of the public, as well as ambulance staff, will think it an absolute disgrace that the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not reckon that this subject is important enough to present himself to the House to state his case.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Sillars: I shall not give way, even for a kiltie.
    I shall refer to the Secretary of State for Health all afternoon because, with due respect to the other hon. Gentlemen, the organ grinder is far more important than the monkeys.
    On page 2 of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's letter of 16 February, which was sent to hon. Members, he refers to the trade unions and says:
    "They are still claiming 11·4 per cent. and are still insisting on a pay mechanism for ambulancemen"—
    I do not know why he fails to understand that women are also involved—
    "which would link them to firemen or other staff".
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    That statement from the Secretary of State was untrue. The position of the trade unions was made perfectly plain in a statement issued on 16 January. Paragraph 2 of that statement reads:
    "The pay rate aspect of our claim is the other major demand. In April 1989 our claim was 11·14 per cent. on the hourly rate. However, the unions are prepared to negotiate on this and, if necessary, lower our sights."
    Paragraph 4 states:
    "In November 1989, to facilitate negotiations, the ambulance unions dropped several key parts of the April 1989 claim.
    The parts of the claim dropped were:

    1. An increase in standby allowances

    2. An increase in annual leave

    3. The introduction of long service holidays

    4. A reduction in the working week

    5. The introduction of long service pay, after 5, 10 and 15 years' service."

    Any of those five objectives is perfectly legitimate for a trade union involved in negotiations—the 11·14 per cent. pay claim is perfectly legitimate. It says a great deal for the flexibility of the trade unions that they were prepared to make that type of offer to the Government. They were prepared to lower their sights on a major part of their claim and to drop a series of important aspects of it. The Secretary of State's letter, which was sent to all hon. Members, is wholly inaccurate. Perhaps that is why he finds it extremely difficult to come here this afternoon to try to justify his unjustifiable position.
    We have two reasons for tabling the motion. First, the ambulance staff have been in dispute for six months, and it is extremely important that the people that they elected, along with other concerned members of the public, appreciate that and do not forget those staff. In the past five weeks, momentous events have taken place in the Soviet Union, East Germany, other parts of eastern Europe and in South Africa with the freeing of Nelson Mandela. Various things have happened that have tended to push the ambulance dispute off the front pages and out of the media.
    I have been involved in industrial disputes, and I appreciate that people can believe that they have been forgotten. As a result of this debate, an important signal will be sent to the ambulance staff and to the public to say that the dispute is at the top of the parliamentary agenda and of the public agenda. From my experience as a trade union official, I stress to ambulance staff that the combination of public support for them and their commitment to the public is unbeatable. If they maintain their commitment to the public, they will achieve their objectives as redefined by the trade unions.
    The second reason for the motion is to produce a further critical examination of the issues, particularly against the changed political circumstances of the electoral prospects of the Tory party. That should make many Opposition Members consider their future carefully.
    I have looked at all that has been said in the debates, and there seem to be six main pillars supporting the Government's case. I shall examine them in turn. First, the Government say that it is wrong for management to engage in arbitration, and therefore that solution is rejected. Secondly, they say that no more money is available because each penny spent comes off patient care funds. The third pillar is combined with the fourth: the Government reject a pay review mechanism, similar in its objectives to that applied to the fire service, to avoid further disputes. The Government justify that through

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    their assertion that no true comparison can be drawn between the ambulance service and the police and fire service.
    The fifth pillar of the Government's case is that it is immoral to take industrial action in an essential service. The sixth pillar is that the organ grinder—the Secretary of State—claims that he has no personal responsibility for direct intervention.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Does not the hon. Gentleman contrast the statements that the Secretary of State actually makes with the number of times that he goes on radio and television to argue the case, while trying to be Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate and wash his hands of the affair?
    Mr. Sillars: Judas Iscariot at least got something. I take on board what the hon. Gentleman says, and I shall refer to the television stardom role that has been adopted by the Secretary of State.
    The first pillar in the Government's case is arbitration. The Secretary of State's position is set out in Hansard, on 24 October last year. He said:
    "Management cannot hand over the control of pay of large groups of people to third parties when it also has a responsibility to spend its money on the provision of patient service."—[Official Report, 24 October 1989; Vol. 158, c. 666.]
    I hope that everyone grasped the phrase.
    "cannot hand over the control … of large groups".
    The ambulance men and women number about 22,000 out of 1 million people in the National Health Service—just over 2 per cent. of the total staff involved. They could not be defined, even by an idiot, as a very large group.
    There are large groups, including the 100,000 doctors and the 490,000 nurses. Those are, by any definiton, very large groups. Their pay is not worked out by arbitration, but it is something near it, because there are pay review mechanisms that remove any possibility of industrial dispute.
    I say to the Secretary of State, who is not here, that the job of management is to consider all the elements that make up an organisation's activity. They must consider its revenue, materials, equipment, fixed capital formation in hospitals, human capital and, last but by no means least, staff motivation, commitment and morale. Those are the elements that go to make a challenge to management.
    There is now a distinct failure of management. For six months, they have failed to resolve a dispute that could easily be resolved by recourse to arbitration. To listen to the Secretary of State, one would think that arbitration was a completely new invention that had never been tried before and might lead to chaos and disaster.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman may care to reflect on the Secretary of State's previous role as an Under-Secretary of State for Transport. Every time the railway unions sought an increase, he constantly said, "Go to the Railway Staff National Tribunal"—the arbitration organisation.
    Mr. Sillars: Yes, that is the point I am making: there is nothing new about arbitration. It is a well-tried system employed to break down conflict and disputes or to resolve a dispute when that would be extremely difficult under normal circumstances.
    Dame Jill Knight: I am following carefully what the hon. Gentleman is saying.
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    Can he give some examples of arbitration used anywhere else in the Health Service instead of the Whitley council arrangements?
    Mr. Sillars: I have heard and read this argument before, and it is not relevant. Once upon a time, in every industry and undertaking, there must have been a first time when arbitration was invoked—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] That is a logical proposition that no one could confound.
    I have personal experience of arbitration; I have served as a member of an arbitration panel which tried to solve a dispute between teachers and management in local government in the mid-1970s. Arbitration is not the handing over of management control to the arbiters. Arbitration does not take place in a vacuum. No one ignores the realities facing the management and the trade unions.
    An arbitration panel is a tripartite body. The chairman is neutral; there is a nominee from the employers' side and another from the trade union side. They assess the award against the realities.
    I was the trade union nominee on an arbitration panel, and it sat in private. No one on it could get away with loose intellectual or economic arguments, or with stupid social arguments, no matter which side he represented. There was genuine concern on the part of the whole tribunal, and that applied to every arbitration that I have ever experienced—
    Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Sillars: No.
    These panels tried to reach certain objectives. One was to resolve the dispute fairly; the second was to leave the structure of management-trade union relations intact; the third was to injure neither party. Arbitration is a civilised way of resolving disputes. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) was right: it is ironic that the Government urge arbitration on a group of workers whose claim they do not like, but deny arbitration to another group whose claims they like in no circumstances—
    Mr. Walker rose—
    Mr. Sillars: I shall not give way. I do not want to upset the hon. Gentleman; he will get in later, but he has to wait his turn.
    The Select Committee examined arbitration. As I said before, somewhere along the line there must be a first time for arbitration. In the debate on 11 January this year, the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) said:
    "Last March, the Select Committee recommended that `the Government take the initiative in getting discussions started between the Management and Staff sides with the purpose of developing a mutually agreed arbitration procedure. We suggest that arbitration should be a last resort and that a strict timetable should be established and adhered to for issues referred to arbitration'."—[Official Report, 11 January 1990; Vol. 164, c. 1133.]
    The Select Committee foresaw difficulties of this kind, and put the idea forward. What a pity it was not accepted.
    Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman has some knowledge of arbitration, but he is not the only Member with knowledge of it. These are complex and intricate matters. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House from experience how Whitley works, and what impact arbitration for one group of workers would have on the standing of Whitley and on the Health Service?
    Mr. Sillars: One of the great problems of Whitley was beautifully summed up by Lord McCarthy, who said that it was made up of
    "employers who do not pay and paymasters who do not employ."
    I look forward to the day when I can stand here and claim to have piloted Concorde; I am sure that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) would get up and claim that he had done the same—
    Mr. Walker: I have.
    Mr. Sillars: I make no such claim.
    I now come to the second pillar of the Government's case—that no more cash can be offered because none is available, and that if it is made available it can only come out of patient care. The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has said several times that the cost of prolonging the dispute is twice as much as it would have taken to settle it. No Conservative Member, and especially not the Secretary of State for Health, has answered the question posed by the hon. Member for Livingston about how the Secretary of State can find money to prolong a dispute when he denies his ability to find money to settle it.
    There are other costs. It is said that the money must be taken from patient care, but there are other costs not inside the Health Service that are important to the community. What about police time? According to a parliamentary answer, the police in Scotland have turned out to 6,700 cases. Some 166,060 police man hours in England have been devoted to trying to tackle the problem in the ambulance service. What about the loss of police manpower in a society in which people are concerned about crime and security? Of course the loss is unquantifiable, but the citizen is entitled to ask why police are being sent to try to do the work of the ambulance staff when the work that they should be doing is securing the position of people in society.
    Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on the quality of service given by the police, the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force in undertaking emergency duties that should be carried out by the ambulance service? That service is of a low standard simply because the people in those services are untrained and inexperienced in carrying it out. They are not qualified to do it, they do not want to do it and they should not have to do it. The issue could be resolved if the Government stopped being so awkward and understood the desire of the ambulance workers to carry out the service that they have been trained for and should be paid to do.
    Mr. Sillars: I do not think that I have met anyone in the police who would argue for a moment that the police provide exactly the same standard of service. There is no question of that.
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Ynys Môn): Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Police Federation of England and Wales supports the claim of the ambulance men?
    Mr. Sillars: I am aware of that. I am a former fireman, and all the firemen that I know take exactly the same position.
    Pillars three and four of the Government's case are intertwined. They are a no-pay-review formula, linked to the assertion that, while ambulance crews are part of an
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    emergency service, they are somehow or other, in the Secretary of State's eyes, of a lower status. Last year, the Secretary of State said:
    "I do not accept that comparisons can be made with other emergency services, when only one tenth of the mileage of the ambulance service is taken up by emergencies."—[Official Report, 7 November 1989; Vol. 159, c. 855.]
    That is deeply insulting to ambulance crews.
    I hope that that gibe was not aimed at the crew in Lockerbie, which turned out within three minutes of the call about that disaster. If we went to Lockerbie ambulance station and looked at the log book, we could probably prove that only one tenth of the mileage was for emergency services, but that is not the relevant point. The relevant point is that, when the emergency arose, the ambulance men had the commitment to fulfil their obligations to the community.
    The Secretary of State's point of view shows a total incomprehension of how all our emergency services operate and the demands that they make upon the psychology, the physical condition, the bravery and the commitment of those engaged in them.
    Mr. Richard Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way.
    Mr. Sillars: No. I have given way fairly generously.
    I should like to compare the police, the fire service and the ambulance service. Some police officers undertake duties such as school crossing patrols. Those duties are important, but they do not constitute an emergency. Crime prevention is important, but it is not an immediate emergency. We can only guess at what special branch does, but I do not think that it engages in emergencies. The police have duties in community involvement and desk duties, and much time is taken up in court attendance. Those are all non-emergency activities, but no one would argue for a moment that the police are not an emergency service, because, when required, police officers have the ability to turn out.
    Mr. Holt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way now?
    Mr. Sillars: No. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman is not getting in.
    I am a former fireman, and my brother recently retired as a fire officer. Over the years, I have kept in touch with my mates in the fire service. They are involved in non-emergency work such as equipment cleaning, maintenance and repairs. Fire prevention staff rarely turn out in emergencies, and the service also uses part-time and retained firemen in various parts of the country who, by their very definition, do not work mainly in the fire service. Nevertheless, they turn out for emergencies. Lockerbie has a part-time fire station, yet it turned out within six minutes the first appliance to attend the disaster there. In the case of the police and fire services, it is not necessary to prove that their staff are always engaged in emergency turnouts.
    Ambulance staff are in exactly the same position. They undertake a great deal of routine work, but when there is a Clapham, a King's Cross, a Lockerbie or a Hillsborough, ambulance staff or whatever grade turn out to provide emergency services—and they all bring professionalism, skills, commitment and will power to the job in hand.
    From my own experience as someone who has served in the fire brigade, I can tell the House that a great deal is required of men and women who respond to emergency

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    calls. They are expected to go from dead stop to full ahead. One's heart is pounding and one's nerves are jangling, because one knows that one is about to encounter an horrific or potentially horrific situation. The police might find themselves confronted by an armed criminal. Firemen are expected to enter buildings full of flame and smoke from which other people are escaping. Ambulance staff must suppress the nausea they feel when dealing with injuries and burns that are horrible to contemplate and even worse to treat.
    My brother, a former fire officer, made a very good point to me over the weekend. He pointed out that firemen save lives in the sense that they take people out of burning buildings and other difficult situations, but that their work is only potentially life-saving. If a life is saved, it is saved by the ambulance staff who take over and use the skills that firemen do not have, from the moment the firemen hand over a burned or devastated human being into the caring hands of the ambulance service.
    The three services all have different characters, but they integrate in an emergency. When the Secretary of State says in a sarcastic voice that ambulance staff do not compare with firemen, we should remember that firemen acknowledge that ambulance crews turn out for more emergencies than they do. Also, every time that an ambulance crew is called out, it has to deal with a human being—which is not always the case in the fire service.
    I turn to the fifth pillar—the Secretary of State's accusation about the morality of the dispute. In the debate on 11 January, he said:
    "the industrial action organised and taken by the trade unions concerned is against patients and patient services, and it cannot be justified—as industrial action in any essential service cannot be justified."—[Official Report, 11 January 1990; Vol. 164, c.1115.]
    That is not a moral statement—it is moral blackmail. We as a society have no right to tell people that, because we need them, they must meet our demands, irrespective of the costs to themselves and to their families.
    If one were to try to lift the Secretary of State's views out of the depths of moral blackmail and on to a plane of genuine morality, the wording of that statement would instead read, "As industrial action in any essential service cannot be justified, we have special review mechanisms to ensure that our emergency services are never taken advantage of."
    If there is a moral equation between society and the emergency services, as in every other decent equation, morally there are two sides—there are rights on the public side but the public also have obligations to the people who serve them. The words that I read out are the moral equation; they are applied to the police and the fire service and they should be applied to ambulance staff.
    Now I come to the issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). He said that the Secretary of State had a personal responsibility to intervene. Hon. Members may have seen him on the Channel 4 programme. I thought at first that he was at a Nottingham Forest game, tossing the coin, but it turned out to be a commentary by him on the dispute. There is no question of his being a key player. He said on that programme that he is the man who provides the money, and how could he respond to ambulance staff demands? He has produced and presented radio programmes, and produced and presented the Channel 4 programme. I turned on the television set, and there he was in a
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    helicopter above the north of England. The public want him to come down out of the air, and get to the negotiating chamber along with the trade unions.
    Finally, there are the changed circumstances that I mentioned earlier—the Government's electoral prospects. My remarks bypass Conservative Members on the Front Bench, and are intended for Tory Back Benchers—an extremely anxious Conservative Party at present. The more that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) shakes his head, the more convinced I am about the accuracy of my statement.
    I shall quote from Scotland on Sunday, published yesterday, 18 February. Under the headline "Thatcher set to ride out stormy spell", the article quotes a "Downing Street source"—there are no guesses or prizes for who that might be—who
    "disclosed yesterday that Thatcher was reconciled to electoral setbacks as an inevitable consequence of mounting mortgage rates and high poll tax charges in England"—
    she is in the same boat in Scotland—
    "'The Prime Minister knows that the path of true love is never smooth'".
    It must come as a great surprise to all members of the public, racked by inflation, mortgage interest payments and high rents, that they are embraced in a passionate love affair with the Prime Minister, or that they are at least being propositioned by her.
    "'Of course it's all very painful. But it's painful because it's working'".
    Has it never struck the Tory Party that it is painful and that it is not working?
    If this is Bernard Ingham speaking he must be losing his marbles completely, because the article continues:
    "Medicine that works is always painful."
    That has never been my experience; it is sometimes true, but often it is not.
    "But this attitude is certain to deepen despair among back-benchers who fear a bitter backlash in the Tory heartlands."
    The article goes on to comment on the mid-Staffordshire by-election and the local government elections in England, Wales and Scotland.
    The quotation within a quotation from Scotland on Sunday demonstrates that the Tory Party's leader is now deep in the bunker, obsessed with a bunker mentality—a leader denying reality. She appears to have drawn into the bunker with her the Secretary of State for Health. Like first world war generals, they are driving their troops in front of them into the electoral slaughterhouse.
    Does anyone think that it will be pleasant to be a Tory canvasser on the streets for the Mid-Staffordshire election or the local government elections in England, Wales and Scotland? Let us consider those elections. The Government must attend to this problem, because their vested interests are involved. Do they want to go canvassing on the poll tax, water charges, the current level of inflation, current interest rates or current mortgages and rents, or on the difficult Budget that we are all told is coming, or with the National Health Service Bill still in Committee, agitating the general population?
    The Government cannot avoid campaigning on any of those issues. Do they really want to add to that poisonous cocktail their continuing dispute with the ambulance staff? Do their canvassers in the Mid-Staffordshire by-election campaign want to go down the pavements bumping into people who have just put money in the buckets of the ambulance staff, and asking them to vote Tory? It is absurd.

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    Any professional politician who wants to be in that position is in the bunker with the lady in Downing street—on the point of being medically unfit for leadership. The only conclusion that a Tory can draw from the present state of affairs—in his own interests, if not in the interests of the ambulance staff—is that he should seek to get genuine negotiations reopened to end the dispute. Tory Back Benchers can save themselves only by saving themselves from the folly of those on their own Front Bench.
    4.20 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
    "recognises the important contribution made by the skilled and dedicated service of ambulance staff; regrets that some have seen fit to prolong and intensify the action taken against patients in furtherance of the current pay dispute; appreciates the work of the police, the armed forces and the voluntary services in maintaining an adequate emergency service; supports the Government and National Health Service management on their handling of the dispute; calls on the trade union leaders to ensure that the undertakings they have given to maintain an adequate emergency service are met; believes that the dispute can only be resolved by the resumption of negotiations; and calls on the trade union leadership to recognise and act upon this.".
    Let me begin by saying to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) in respect of his latter remarks that, judging by the opinion polls in Scotland, we should not be taking any advice from him about how to maintain our position. After all, his party is sliding gracefully into third place behind the Scottish Conservative party.
    When we face the electorate, we shall expect to be judged on our record of good management of the Health Service, which can be seen partly in the record number of patients being treated in Scotland. Our record of good management of the Health Service arises from the fact that this Government have always sought to do what is right by the Health Service—which is not, perhaps, to take the advice of Opposition Members.
    No party represented in the House has a monopoly on admiration for the work of the ambulance service, and no party can claim that it alone supports the ambulance service and its workers. The Government support the ambulance workers and recognise their skill and dedication. It is interesting to note that, in a long speech, the hon. Member for Govan never once referred to the patient transport services arm of the ambulance service, but instead addressed all his remarks to the emergency services. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the trade unions' claim is for recognition across the board for all sections of the ambulance service on an equal basis.
    Having acknowledged the marvellous job done by the ambulance service, I must add that it is unfortunate that there should be industrial action in pursuit of a pay claim within that service, because there is no doubt that it is causing substantial disruption to the service and serious damage to patient care. The elderly are not being taken to their day centres. People are not getting to hospital for their courses of physiotherapy treatment, and waiting lists are being lengthened at a time when the Government are investing £7 million in reducing waiting lists in Scotland.
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    Once again, the Opposition support those who take industrial action resulting in waiting lists being lengthened and in patient care being disrupted.
    The admiration that we have for the ambulance service is perhaps reflected among those staff, of whom there are many thousands, who have continued to provide a full service and to carry out their duties, thus putting patients first. I should have thought that all Opposition Members would acknowledge and welcome their actions.
    I want to put on record the strain placed on senior management and on officers working to maintain essential services. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) should be shaking his head, because some people in the ambulance service have worked extremely hard to ensure that the 999 service has continued.
    Mr. John McAllion: The Minister will be aware that, two weekends ago, three people died in Dundee who might have been saved if ambulance workers had been able to attend them. However, the management locked out the ambulance workers and denied them access to life-saving equipment.
    Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman wants to refer to examples in Dundee, I am sure that he saw the same BBC programme as I did, in which an ambulance man confessed that he had put attendance at a union meeting before answering an emergency call. To his credit, he has apologised. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that the dispute will be settled by engaging in that kind of argument, I have to disagree with him. There is a clear duty on the ambulance service management to ensure that the Scottish ambulance service procedures are followed. Management have made it perfectly clear that, when those procedures are followed, they will do everything in their power to ensure that the service continues.
    Mr. Thomas McAvoy: I intervene only because the Minister referred to me earlier. He has referred to the senior management in the Scottish ambulance service. Does he not believe that morale in the ambulance service will be affected by Mr. James Wilby questioning the integrity of the people with whom he will have to work in future?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that his name is John, not James, Wilby. I believe that he is just as inaccurate in suggesting that Mr. Wilby has questioned the integrity of his staff. I know John Wilby, and his dedication to the ambulance service. He has spent most of his career in the service. It does not help to attack him in that way.
    Senior management and officers have worked extremely hard to maintain essential services. If only for the benefit of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn), I want to place on record my thanks to the police, the voluntary services and the Army, who have had to step in when patients have been put at risk. They have done so because there has been no alternative, despite the fact that a clear undertaking had been given by trade union leaders that the emergency service would be maintained. That undertaking has not been met in a number of instances.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: A very dear friend of mine had to be taken to hospital by the police because no ambulance was available. When I was at the West Kensington tube station the other day, some

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    ambulance men were collecting money from the public in buckets. An ambulance came along. I thought that it was going about its normal duties, but it just picked up the ambulance men, complete with cash buckets—presumably to take them to their next cash collection point.
    Mr. Forsyth: The House will have heard what my hon. Friend said. It is to be regretted that, despite the clear undertaking by trade union leaders that the emergency service would be maintained, that has not happened in a number of cases.
    Mr. CorbynWill the Minister give way?
    Mr. Forsyth: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.
    I noted that, over the weekend, the hon. Member for Govan was quoted in the newspapers as describing the tactics that are being pursued as "brilliant and exemplary". If he thinks that there is anything brilliant or exemplary about Edinburgh being left with only two ambulances to cover the whole city, I could not disagree with him more. He has a responsibility to ask those men, who are not even following the advice of their trade union leaders, to ensure that a proper service is maintained.
    Mr. Corbyn: Does the Minister accept that, all over the country, ambulance managements are standing down ambulance workers who are ready, able and willing to provide an emergency service, that they are asking the poice or the armed forces to deal with emergency cases instead, and that those who are sent in to carry out emergency work do not want to do it, are not qualified to do it and, furthermore, are not equipped to do it? Those whom they blame for having to do that work are the Conservative party and the Government. If he is genuine, why does the Minister not demonstrate his support for the ambulance workers by meeting the unions and coming to an agreement, so that a proper emergency service can be restored?
    Mr. Forsyth: If the men in the Scottish ambulance service are prepared to work to the TUC guidelines and to provide an emergency service, they will be paid 100 per cent. on the emergency side. On the patient transport side, if the TUC guidelines are followed and if the ambulance men are prepared to take elderly people to their day hospitals, they will also be paid 100 per cent. There is absolutely no need for local authorities to set up alternative services at a cost to the community charge payer, and there is every opportunity for an emergency service to be maintained within TUC guidelines if that is what the trade unions wish to deliver. The public are entitled to that.
    Mr. Siliars: Does not the Minister realise that, when a dispute involving an important public service continues for six months, there is at the heart of it a great struggle between the Government and the ambulance workers for public support, as that is a key element in any such dispute? Have not the public themselves passed judgment that the ambulance unions have conducted a brilliant campaign strategically and tactically, in that they have never withdrawn their services from the general public, who believe that, far from being brilliant, the Government's performance has been lamentable?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am sure that every person in Glasgow will note that the hon. Member for Govan is completely
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    unaware that a 999 service was withdrawn from his own constituency, and that he has described that as "brilliant and exemplary".
    Mrs. Maria Fyfe: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman cares to respond to the point just made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars)—that the public support the ambulance workers and have made that very clear for six months?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Lady will have heard me say that the Government also support the ambulance workers. We support them for the service that they provide. But if we were to take the advice of the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Govan, which seems to be the same, and if we were to allow some procedure for determining pay such as the hon. Gentleman suggests, pay in the Health Service would press upon resources and the hon. Lady would find that the public in her constituency would complain about the loss of the development of services in the Health Service.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Forsyth: I should like to make some progress. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later.
    For the benefit of the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), perhaps we should go back to 1986, as it is important to recognise the importance to the dispute of what has happened since then. Back in 1986, a new salary structure was agreed for the ambulance service, which included revised working practices and improved conditions. It was acknowledged by everyone on all sides that that represented a good deal for the ambulance service.
    I have examined what had happened to prices and to wages in the ambulance service since that good deal was obtained. I discovered that prices to April 1989 have gone up by 23 per cent. and the pay of ambulance men, including the current offer which applies from April 1989, has gone up by 31 per cent. So there has been a real increase in ambulance men's pay of 8 per cent. over the 1986 settlement, which every ambulance man to whom I have spoken has acknowledged as a good settlement; they are on record as saying that it was a good deal.
    Mr. Charles Kennedy: The Minister is talking about the increase in ambulance men's pay since 1986, but he should compare it with that of firemen and policemen over the same period. Firemen's pay has gone from a 7·3 per cent. increase in 1986 to one of 8·6 per cent. for the current financial year; policemen's pay has gone from a 7·5 per cent. increase to 9·25 per cent. for the current financial year, and ambulance men's pay has gone from an increase of 6 per cent. to the current offer of between 6·5 per cent. and 9 per cent. over the past 18 months; but in the intervening two years, their pay increase dropped to between 5 and 6 per cent. They have consistently lost in comparison to other emergency services.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: It is not an emergency service: it is the emergency arm of the NHS, not the NHS arm of the emergency services. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Forsyth: Perhaps I can answer the hon. Gentleman's point, as I did not hear what my hon. Friend said.

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    The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), is arguing a separate point. My point is that, in 1986, the ambulance service was completely restructured in terms of pay and conditions, and the ambulance men acknowledged that as a good deal. When we compare their position in 1986 to what it is now, we see that ambulance men's pay has increased 8 per cent. faster than prices. In real terms, their pay is better than it was in 1986.
    The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye asked me to make a comparison between ambulance men, fifth-year firefighters and other groups. I must be fair and say that the hon. Gentleman was right to say that, in terms of a comparison with firemen, the pay of ambulance men has not risen by as much, but in terms of the 1986 settlement, their pay has risen well ahead of inflation.
    The management's final offer to the ambulance men is fair and reasonable. I am not sure whether everyone is aware of the nature of that offer, but I am certain that the hon. Member for Govan, judging by his speech, is completely unaware of it. I know that the hon. Member for Govan is aware that the offer is a 9 per cent. increase in pay, backdated to 1 April 1989.
    Mr. Henry McLeish: It is over 18 months. Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Forsyth: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman later. I have already been very generous in giving way.
    The nature of the offer is a 9 per cent. increase on all rates, backdated to 1 April last year. That is 9 per cent. over the current year, and that would run until the end of September this year. On 1 October, there will be an opportunity to negotiate a further increase. In addition to that, there is an extra £500 for all staff with paramedical skills.
    Mr. Sillars: Will the Minister give way on that point?
    Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself until I have explained the offer—
    Mr. Sillars: There are only eight people in Scotland with paramedical skills.
    Mr. Forsyth: There is an extra £500 for staff with paramedical skills. I acknowledge that the number of people in Scotland with those skills is small.
    Mr. Sillars: Small? There are only eight.
    Mr. Forsyth: Actually, there are 24.
    Mr. Sillars: Only eight.
    Mr. Forsyth: No, 24.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Anyway, there are not very many.
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Govan did not mention the most important part of the offer. There is an offer of a joint review of the 1986 salary structure, without the preconditions on the scope or timing of the outcome. The offer provides the ambulance men with an opportunity to accept a 9 per cent. pay rise—and the small number, admittedly, with paramedical skills would receive the extra £500—and the opportunity in October to get a further increase. They would also be able to consider the 1986 arrangement and the work carried out by the
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    emergency services and the patient transport services. All that could be done without preconditions. The ambulance men have the opportunity to accept a good pay increase and have negotiations at the same time. That is a fair and generous offer.
    Mr. McLeish: Is the Minister aware that the Government have tried to confuse the public? Will he tell the House and the listening public what the nature of the offer is over 12 months from April?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman did not really mean to ask me that. The nature of the offer over 12 months from 1 April 1989 is an increase of 9 per cent. That is a pretty reasonable offer.
    Mr. McLeish rose—
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman wanted to know the nature of the offer from 1 April.
    Mr. McLeish: The offer is over 18 months. What does that offer equate to over 12 months? How much cash, in percentage terms, will the ambulance men and women receive in the 12-month period from April to April, not over the 18 months?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) is an Opposition Front-Bench spokesman responsible, I believe, for industry, but he does not understand the nature of this offer. I will tell him again.
    Over the 12 months from 1 April 1989 until 31 March 1990, the ambulance men will get a 9 per cent. pay increase that will be backdated to that date. Therefore, they will get a lump sum back payment. I hope that that is clear to the hon. Gentleman. From 1 April of this year until 30 September will also be 9 per cent., in so far as that 9 per cent. offer will extend over 18 months. On 1 October there will be an opportunity for a new arrangement to be reached.
    Mr. Skinner: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), characteristically, understands that point only too well.
    Mr. Skinner: Obviously, there is a gap between April and October, and that is the part that must be filled. We have 9 per cent. over 12 months and we have a gap of another six months. That makes 18 months. We have 9 per cent. They are paid over 18 months. That is roughly equivalent to 6·5 per cent. over 12 months.
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman disappoints me. He will know that the original offer was 6·5 per cent. That offer was recommended to the ambulance men by their trade union negotiators.
    Mr. Corbyn: They rejected it.
    Mr. Forsyth: They rejected it. The trade union leaders believed that an offer of 6·5 per cent, was fair, and they recommended it to their members, but their members rejected it. Management, being reasonable and flexible, offered 9 per cent. over 12 months. The offer that is being made now is 9 per cent. until 30 September this year, with the opportunity then to discuss arrangements for the remainder of that year and also to review the structure of the 1986 settlement.
    Mr. Robin Cook: Three times the Minister has said—I have been counting—that the offer is 9 per cent. over 12 months. It is important that we know whether the Minister is developing the Government's offer. I do not believe that I give away any secrets about this, but the Ministery will probably be aware that, the last time staff and management met Duncan Nichol before Christmas, it was made plain to Duncan Nichol that, if the offer was made at 9 per cent. for 12 months, the staff side could settle.
    The Minister must be quite clear with the words that he is using. If he is prepared to say that it is a 9 per cent. offer over 12 months, this debate will have fulfilled a useful function and we can resolve the dispute this evening. The Minister must be quite honest and clear. Is that what he is saying? If he is not saying that, he should not mislead the House by using the very form of words that the staff side said that they would be willing to settle for.
    Mr. Forsyth: The role that I am performing is educating the hon. Gentleman's colleagues about the nature of the increase in wages that ambulance men would enjoy in the period from 1 April 1989 to 31 March 1990, which would be a 9 per cent. increase. It is certainly true that the 9 per cent. that was offered is over an 18-month period, and it is certainly true that, having had their 9 per cent. increase, that would hold good until 30 September, when there would be an opportunity for further discussion about any increases subsequent to that.
    It is quite wrong for the hon. Member for Bolsover to imply that this is some kind of confidence trick. If it is a confidence trick, it is an expensive one, because it involved finding £6 million of new money to fund it. That is a very real movement on the part of management.
    Mr. Sillars: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Forsyth: I shall not give way. I must make some progress.
    The improved offer that was made by management, which cost £6 million in 1989–90, was not even discussed by the main trade unions involved, but was rejected out of hand. The Government's position is that this dispute can be settled by negotiation and discussion. Management made an improved generous offer, which cost an extra £6 million, and it was not even discussed by the unions involved. Instead, they have persisted in taking industrial action that has caused untold misery to many elderly and sick people.
    The hon. Member for Govan asked about the cost of the dispute. He asked how we can find the money to pay for the police, the Army and the voluntary services that are continuing to provide a service to the patient. The answer is simple: we have an obligation to try to maintain the emergency service, and that is what management have set out to do.
    The hon. Gentleman suggested that simply allowing one group of workers in the Health Service to leapfrog the established arrangements for determining pay and conditions would incur no cost. I could not disagree with him more. Our package is fair and reasonable. It gives a 9 per cent. increase for the current year and offers scope for further discussion, and the trade unions should resume negotiations first.
    The hon. Gentleman told us of his experience as a fireman and said that lives were saved by ambulance staff. He is right: lives often are saved by ambulance staff; but
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    they are saved also by doctors, nurses, technicians and many thousands of other dedicated people in the Health Service. All those groups have long since settled. Administrative and clerical staff settled for 6·25 per cent. from 1 April 1989, and ancillary staff settled for 6·5 per cent. from April 1989. Fewer than 1 per cent. of NHS employees have yet to settle. The bulk of them—dedicated professional people—have taken 6·5 per cent., which was the original offer recommended by the trade unions to the ambulance men.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: The Minister said that the difficulty was that any increased costs as a result of the increase in pay for ambulance personnel would have to come out of services, and that therefore other people within the Health Service would suffer. Is he saying that the cost of providing the police, for example, will come out of existing police budgets, that police budgets will have to suffer, and that those who depend on the police will suffer? Is he saying that the Government are providing new money to pay for the dispute and to pay for the police and other people involved? If that is what he is saying, is he not admitting that he is prepared to put dogma before the personal safety of patients, by finding extra money that could be paid to the ambulance personnel and get the dispute settled?
    Mr. Forsyth: I take that as a plea by the hon. Gentleman that community charge payers in his constituency should meet the cost of the dispute. If the costs of the police were not to be met centrally by Government, they would be yet another charge on the community charge payer. I do not think that it would be right to expect the community charge payer to meet the costs of policing. Of course, Labour-controlled councils that are setting up alternative ambulance services will do so at the cost of the community charge payer.
    The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) will remember that the previous Labour Government got into a mess over pay in the Health Service. That is why they had to cut the hospital building programme by one quarter. That is why they ended up cutting nurses' pay by one quarter in real terms. Inflation got out of hand. Because this Government have ensured good management within the Health Service, we have seen a development of the Service, more patients being treated and new services being provided—as in the hon. Gentleman's own constituency, where cardiac services have been expanded, which he has welcomed.
    When the bulk of the dedicated staff in the National Health Service have settled for 6·5 per cent., it cannot possibly be right to agree to make some provision for ambulance men that is outwith the normal methods of determining pay and conditions, simply because some of their members are prepared to put patient care at risk.
    The hon. Member for Govan said that we should try to move towards arbitration. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) asked whether he could give an example of that tried and tested procedure inside the Health Service. He was unable to do so, because there is no agreed provision for arbitration within Whitley. If we were to say to the ambulance men, "You can have arbitration," what about the other groups in the Health Service? What about the other groups within Whitley? What is the point of having Whitley if every group can simply disagree and move to arbitration?
    Mr. Sillars: Why not?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman says, "Why not?" The Health Service has well over 1 million employees, and 150,000 in Scotland. There would be chaos if every pay discussion went to arbitration. The system for determining ambulance pay and conditions within Whitley, which the hon. Gentleman repudiates, was satisfactory for several years when the settlements reached what was proposed by the ambulance men themselves.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Does the Under-Secretary not understand that the Whitley council provisions come from an age-old process that was established before we faced the tremendous difficulties of inflation that have persisted for 20 or 30 years? In my view, therefore, the whole Whitley council procedure should be rejigged to look at these matters—
    Mr. Sillars: And the Select Committee on Social Services said so.
    Mr. Forsyth: I am sure that the whole House will be impressed by the strong statement made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North against nationally organised bargaining through councils such as the Whitley councils. I hope that it will not embarrass the hon. Gentleman if I make common cause with him in a few moments.
    Management must be responsible for pay. Pay in the National Health Service cannot be a matter for Government to determine, especially when 70 per cent. of its costs relate to pay. Management must determine the balance between service development and the amount that it can put forward for improving wages and salaries.
    We are determined that there should be a better ambulance service in the future. We want to see more staff with paramedic skills. The hon. Member for Govan made great play of the fact that there are only 24 in Scotland. I should like to see a lot more—and our pay offer reflects that. It encourages people to acquire such skills. Although I approved a programme for increasing the numbers last November, it is now being held up by the dispute. We want the dispute to be resolved so that we can get on with establishing a service that has more paramedics.
    We have increased spending on the Scottish ambulance service by 40 per cent. in real terms—that is even more than the amount by which we have increased expenditure on the Health Service overall, which has increased by one third.
    Mr. Sillars rose—
    Mr. Forsyth: I have been very generous to the hon. Gentleman already—
    Mr. Sillars: Will the Minister give way on this point?
    Mr. Forsyth: Very well, I give way again to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Sillars: I thank the Minister for giving way. On Friday evening, I met a constituent who is a qualified ambulance man. On 16 August 1988, he received a letter congratulating him on his interest in undertaking extended training to become a paramedic. He then received a letter in February 1989, telling him how well he had done and that he had passed the pre-test examination. Then he got a letter on 3 July 1989, telling him:
    "Unfortunately, at the very last minute, our Professional Advisory Group have come into conflict with the Scottish Home and Health Department."
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    My constituent wants to become what is known as a paramedic, but cannot because of the Minister's Department. That is why we have only eight paramedics in Scotland.
    Mr. Forsyth: I do not recall receiving any correspondence from the hon. Gentleman about that case. If it goes back to July 1989, he has taken a long time to raise the matter—
    Mr. Sillars: I met the gentleman concerned on Friday.
    Mr. Forsyth: If the gentleman came to see the hon. Gentleman on Friday and the correspondence goes back to July 1989, as I have just said, the fact remains that, in November last year, we decided to increase the training of paramedical staff, and that is now being held up. The hon. Gentleman is simply scoring points, when the real issue is whether there are opportunities for people to acquire paramedical skills. There are such opportunities, but they are being held up by the dispute, and the hon. Gentleman is not really helping to resolve it.
    Mr. Dennis Turner rose—
    Mr. Forsyth: I shall give way once more.
    Mr. Turner: When will the Minister get round to telling us the cost of the dispute? The general public want to judge the Government on whether they have handled the dispute well or badly, as a result of the costs that the Government have incurred by continuing the dispute rather than settling it. Will the Minister please tell us the cost and set that against the pay increase that has been sought by the ambulance men?
    Mr. Forsyth: If the hon. Gentleman had been here from the beginning of the debate, he might be more enlightened. He asks me about the cost of the dispute, but the cost is not measured only in money; it is measured in all those elderly people who are not getting to their day centres or to their out-patient appointments, and in increased waiting lists. If the hon. Gentleman had been here to listen to the debate from the beginning, he would know that there is the opportunity for the ambulance men to get a 9 per cent. increase in pay and for discussions on the future of the service to continue.
    The point that I was seeking to convey when the hon. Gentleman intervened was that the management must be in a position to work out the balance between pay and service developments. If I can speak for the Scottish ambulance service—I am amazed that a Scottish nationalist Member should complain that the Secretary of State for Scotland should have responsibility for replying to the debate—
    Mr. Sillars: Where is he?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman should know that I speak for and on behalf of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland. My right hon. and learned Friend has responsibility for the ambulance service in Scotland. I thought it amazing that the hon. Member for Govan should complain about that and suggest that it should be the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, whose responsibilities are south of the border. That is an unworthy complaint.

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    I turn now to developments in the Scottish ambulance service, because I take it that the hon. Gentleman is interested in such developments in Scotland—
    Mr. Sillars: And in the rest of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Forsyth: We plan to spend £6 million on a new radio communications system and £4·7 million on eight new communications centres. We are planning the computerisation of the ambulance service and are currently carrying out trials and pilot studies on the use of helicopters in Scotland. We are also planning a reduction in single manning.
    Those developments are possible only if the management can judge what proportion of the resources should go into service development and what proportion into pay. If we were to listen to the hon. Member for Govan, all the resources would go on pay and there would be no service development. The first people to suffer would be the constituents of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and other people in rural areas, who will be the very ones to benefit from developments on single manning and from the use of helicopters to improve the emergency service.
    Management must be able to judge the balance between pay and such developments. It would be wrong for Ministers to second-guess them or to force them to take decisions that are not in line with their view of the development of the service.
    Mr. Turner: What about the cost of the police and the Army?
    Mr. Forsyth: From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner) is asking me about the police and the Army, and the hon. Member for Govan has already asked about parity for the ambulance service with the police and fire services. I advise the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) that I do not recall the last Labour Government arguing the case for parity between the ambulance service and the police and fire services. I recall them setting up the Clegg commission, and I seem to remember that the Clegg commission rejected parity on the grounds that accident and emergency work was only a small proportion of the duties of ambulance staff. I must tell the hon. Member for Govan that the ambulance service is the emergency arm of the Health Service; it is not the health arm of the emergency service—the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) made earlier from a sedentary position.
    It is right to say that the accident and emergency service accounts for only 10 per cent. of the journeys carried out by the ambulance service. Nothing has changed in the past 10 years to alter the arguments that were considered by the Clegg commission or the decision that was taken by the last Labour Government.
    Mr. Holt: Will my hon. Friend reconsider what he has said about Clegg, and note that, when the Clegg commission investigated this matter, it did so at the fag end of the inquiry, and that no substantial evidence was brought to bear? There were anecdotal remarks by the management on that occasion, but neither side in the dispute has subsequently provided any statistical evidence to show how much time is spent on emergencies and how much is spent on routine matters.
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend has been helpful in telling the House his view of what Clegg said. However, that does not alter the facts of the matter, the position of the previous Labour Government or the fact that, subsequent to Clegg, in 1986, when there was a reorganisation of the position of ambulance men, that argument was not deployed or found to be significant.
    Mr. Robin Cook: Perhaps I could help the Minister to refresh his memory of exactly what Clegg said on the matter. His comment on whether ambulance staff spent more of their time on emergency services is in paragraph 32 of the report. He said:
    "The employers also made clear to us their view that there was a distinction to be drawn between ambulancemen involved in emergency work (which occupied, in their view, only 10 per cent. of all activity) and the ambulancemen involved in the routine movements of patients."
    Is it not crystal clear from that statement that Clegg carried out no investigation and made no study of how much time was spent on emergency work? When the management quote Clegg, they merely quote back the echo of their own evidence to Clegg, which has never been substantiated.
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman's party was in power and gave the terms of reference. If it was his party's policy that the ambulance men should have parity with the firemen and police, it was open to it to give them parity when it was in Government. If the hon. Gentleman seriously argues that Clegg would not have recommended parity if he thought that there was a case for it, I must take issue with him.
    It is not a claim but a matter of fact that 10 per cent. of journeys are for accident and emergency purposes.
    Mr. Cook: It is not a fact.
    Mr. Forsyth: It is a matter of fact. If the hon. Gentleman argues that small acknowledgements should be made of the accident and emergency service and its activities, the final offer made by management provides for that. It provides for a complete review. Instead of fanning the flames of the dispute, the hon. Gentleman should urge the trade unions to go back to the negotiating table and seize the opportunity to put their arguments.
    Mr. Cook: The Minister has made an important and interesting statement. He has just said that it is a fact that one in 10 calls are emergency work. He must he aware that, when we have attempted to find evidence for that fact, we have been told in parliamentary answers that the information is not centrally available. He must also be aware that his colleague, the Secretary of State for Health, referred me to figures collected by York district health authority on behalf of the whole of England. Those figures show that, far from one in 10 calls being emergencies, the figure is one in five. Will the Minister please give us the evidence for the fact that he declaims?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman—[interruption.]—setting out the basis on which the figures have been compounded. [HON. MEMBERS: "Tell us now."]. If the hon. Member for Livingston seriously challenges the position that about one in 10 of ambulance journeys are for emergency purposes, he will find himself at odds even with the ambulance men themselves. I do not know how many

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    ambulance men he has spoken to recently. I spend quite a lot of time speaking to them. They tend to be outside most of my meetings these days. The fact is not in dispute.
    Even the hon. Gentleman must know that, in Scotland, the emergency service is organised on a separate basis for the non-emergency service in our urban areas. It is not a matter of great mystery how many patient journeys are emergency and how many non-emergency. If there is any variation in statistics, it is on the classification of journeys as either urgent or emergency journeys. The hon. Gentleman makes a non-point. If that is the best that he can do to undermine the Government's case that the trade unions should go back to the negotiating table, I look forward to his speech with interest.
    I certainly believe that pay negotiations in future should allow—this is where I agree with the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North, who, alas, has now left the Chamber—for more local flexibility to cover recruitment, retention and local needs. The inflexible national pay bargaining process which exists in many parts of the Health Service is increasingly nonsense. The ambulance service is a clear case where local management must have more responsibility and discretion in the future.
    We want a settlement of the current dispute. We want a better accident and emergency service, with more paramedical staff. We are interested in local productivity deals which will release resources for better pay. On the table now is a 9 per cent. increase in pay and the offer of talks without preconditions for the future. I urge the trade unions to take us at our word and to restore the service which the public are entitled to expect.
    5.4 pm
    Mr. Robin Cook: It is a sign of the desperation of the Minister's party in Scotland that he expressed satisfaction that it has managed to squeeze past the Scottish National party in the latest opinion poll by an amount which is the same as the margin of sampling error of the opinion poll. I warn the hon. Gentleman that it will take only another couple of speeches like the one that we have just heard to take his party back into third place.
    It is extremely revealing that it took us so long during the Minister's speech to drag out of him the fact that the Government's current offer is in truth an offer of 9 per cent. over 18 months. If the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues really believe that that is a fair, decent and honest offer, why did he go to such lengths to pretend that it was not 9 per cent. over 18 months? Of course he knows the truth. That is why it was so difficult for him to utter the words "9 per cent. over 18 months". It is well below the rate at which any group outside the Health Service and many groups within the Health Service have settled.
    It is entertaining that the Minister was caught out claiming as facts matters on which he did not have a brief. Let me amplify the point that I made to him in my intervention: during the previous debate on the ambulance service, the Secretary of State for Health referred me to the figures from York, claiming that one in 10 calls to the ambulance service were emergency calls. He went on helpfully to say that emergency calls in the Health Service are defined to include moving people who are seriously ill straight to hospital on the advice of a doctor.
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    I have consulted those figures. The figures collected in York show that the proportion of emergency patients as a proportion of all ambulance patients is 18·2 per cent. That is not one in 10, but almost one in five. The proportion of ambulance mileage spent on emergency calls is 28·6 per cent. of all ambulance calls. That is one in five of all patients and over one in four of ambulance miles. I ask again: where do the data come from to support the claim that one in 10 calls are to emergencies?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that my responsibilities extend only to north of the border. He asked me to justify the figure of 10 per cent. The figures are as follows: there were 156,770 accident and emergency journeys, 176,956 urgent journeys, and 1,664,020 passenger transport service journeys out of a total of 1,997,746. That substantiates my point that one in 10 journeys were for emergencies. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not feel that I have wasted the time of the House. Rather than go through the figures for all the health boards, perhaps he will be content if I write to him.
    Mr. Cook: We shall be interested to see those figures. If the Government are sitting on such figures, I find it perplexing that they decline to answer questions on them.
    I remind the Minister that we are debating a British dispute and a British motion. Even if the figures that he quoted are thrown in as the Scottish contribution to the United Kingdom figures collected by York, it is perfectly plain that one in five of all patients are carried in an emergency and over one in four of all ambulance miles are for emergency calls.
    Even if the figure were one in 10—the statistics do not support that contention—that exceeds the proportion of time spent by the police on emergency calls. It is probably broadly comparable with the amount of time that the fire brigade spends on emergency calls. No one would dream of contesting the fact that the police and fire brigade are emergency services because they spend only 10 per cent. of their time on emergency calls. Why, then, should Conservative Members make it such a point of principle to deny that for ambulance staff?
    What should cause most concern to the House, and undoubtedly will cause most concern and disappointment to the world outside, is that, during what was not a brief contribution to the debate, the Minister did not produce a single idea on how the stalemate would be broken. Not one new avenue of negotiation was opened up, not one new channel by which a second opinion might be taken. The only basis on which he held out the hope of settlement was if the staff side surrendered and accepted what has been on the table for the past three months. That was the Minister's sole contribution.
    This is the sixth occasion when I have addressed the House on this issue. If, on the first occasion, at the end of November, I had been asked whether I would expect to address the House on the same matter at the end of February, I would have had difficulty crediting it. I still have difficulty in believing that even this Government have proved so stubborn, so dogmatic and so indifferent to public opinion that they have stonewalled the dispute for almost six months and not even met the staff side for more than two months.
    My thoughts were unusually well expressed by the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), who, a fortnight ago in the London Evening Standard, was quoted as saying:

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    "That a settlement is not even remotely within sight is remarkable, that the two sides are not even talking is obscene."
    Most of my hon. Friends and, I suspect, some Conservative Members would agree with the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman can have him, if he likes.
    Mr. Cook: I rather suspect that, instead of having the hon. Member for Harlow, we shall have his seat at the next general election.
    Since that article, written only three weeks ago, three attempts have been made to bring the two sides together: by Church leaders, by an all-party group of Members of the other place and last week by the promptings of the chief ambulance officers—the very people whom Ministers keep telling us are the management of the ambulance service and should be allowed to get on with the process of negotiation themselves. Each of those three bids failed to bring about talks, because each time the management and the ministerial side refused to talk.
    Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the great British public see this as the Government seeking to grind the ambulance workers into dust while they, by their generosity and widespread support for the ambulance workers' case, refuse to allow the Government to do so?
    Mr. Cook: I will have comments to make about the degree of public support for the ambulance service later in my speech. It was notable that the Minister, although claiming to pay attention to opinion polls when they allowed the Tory party in Scotland to sneak into second place, ignored the opinion polls that related to the merits of the dispute.
    My hon. Friend leads me to question why the public support the ambulance workers. We have all had opportunities to see ambulance staff at work, and over the past six months many of us have found ourselves in circumstances when we have witnessed their absence and the cost in human terms of that absence. It occurred to me a fortnight ago when I appeared on "Question Time". Ironically, shortly after we began discussing the ambulance dispute, a member of the audience took a severe heart attack and we had to interrupt the recording to accommodate the incident.
    Hon. Members who have taken part in that programme will know that it is recorded in the Greenwood theatre, which is part of Guy's hospital. Although we were on the periphery of a major hospital complex, it was some time before a police ambulance arrived. When it did, it had no oxygen for the patient, who was breathless and in severe distress. The police had no training in resuscitation techniques—nor, to be fair to them, would it have been much value to them, because they had no resuscitation equipment. The only stretcher equipment that they had was an ambulance trolley, which was unsuitable for manoeuvring the patient up and down the steps. I am sorry to say that, when the patient reached Guy's hospital immediately round the corner, he was dead on arrival.
    Many cases have involved a patient having to wait for much longer periods than usual. Only last week, there was an inquest into the death of an 86-year-old man who fell down the stairs at home and broke his pelvis and seven ribs
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    in the fall. He waited eight hours before an Army ambulance came to collect him. His wife was quoted at the inquest as saying:
    "The waiting was really awful, sitting there thinking every car coming by was going to be an ambulance."
    I agree with the Minister that the public focus is caught by such cases. The public imagination is captured by emergency cases. I agree that those who depend on the non-emergency services are reminded of the dispute not just once in a while when they require emergency attention, but every week when they cannot attend their day hospital or get the treatment that they require. Many of their medical conditions will undoubtedly have deteriorated in the past six months, because there is no way that one can backdate physiotherapy treatments at the end of the dispute.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman gave the House a moving account of two incidents from his own experience. Will he join us in condemning those people who withdraw the 999 service and a service within TUC guidelines, and call upon all ambulance men to accept the advice which has been given and to maintain a 999 emergency service within TUC guidelines?
    Mr. Cook: Every time I have been asked, I have condemned those few ambulance crews that have not operated within the TUC guidelines. On every occasion, my advice to ambulance staff has been to adhere to them. One of the main reasons why those guidelines are not being fulfilled by ambulance staff is that the management have put every possible impediment and difficulty in the way of the crews fulfilling those guidelines.
    Ministers cannot avoid the fact that they have the responsibility that the dispute has continued for so long. Never once in those six months have Ministers sat down with the staff side to find a solution. No meeting, whether initiated by management or Ministers, has taken place within the past two months. Yet, while Ministers have been willing to tolerate the human cost, they have also been willing to shell out a large financial cost. That financial cost can be measured accurately, as human costs cannot.
    The Secretary of State for Health and the Minister are given to advocating that we should seek to privatise parts of the ambulance service, on the basis that it would cost less. It is rather perverse that they have both prolonged the dispute by contracting the service out to the police, who cost more. The cost of the police and Army cover for the ambulance service certainly exceeds £20 million, and has probably cost about £25 million. That is not counting the £5 million paid to hill farmers in order to provide a statement so as to postpone the debate on the ambulance service three weeks ago.
    Mr. Nigel Spearing: Is my hon. Friend aware that, on Friday, I received a written answer from the Secretary of State for Health which informed me that the London ambulance service did not yet know how much it had spent on military support, but that it had spent £7 million on additional support, of which £6·5 million went to the police up to the end of January?
    Is my hon. Friend aware that the London public resent their money being spent against their interests? Furthermore, for the second time in two months, they resent the fact that the Secretary of State for Health is not here to speak for himself.
    Mr. Cook: My hon. Friend quotes some helpful figures from London, which are part of the £25 million in my global total. To put my hon. Friend's figures in the best and most relevant perspective, it is necessary to look at how much is would cost to settle the dispute.
    To meet the entire cost of the claim from the staff side would be £10 million only. That is equivalent to less than half the amount that the Government have been willing to pay the police and the Army to provide substitute services. I do not believe that it would even take £10 million to settle the dispute. If the Government met the unions halfway, they could get a settlement for £5 million—one fifth of what they have paid the police and the Army.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Surely the hon. Gentleman appreciates the implications for the National Health Service of giving in to such an industrial dispute. Why were the hon. Gentleman's arguments not pertinent to the Labour Government in 1978 during the fire service's dispute? The Labour Government, of which the hon. Gentlemen was a supporter, brought in the green goddess fire engines and actively fought that dispute.
    Mr. Cook: I would not want the hon. Gentleman to overstate my support for the Labour Government on that occasion. For what it is worth, it was that dispute which resulted in the agreement, negotiated by my colleagues in the previous Labour Government, which has provided a pay mechanism in the fire brigade service and which has guaranteed 13 years of industrial peace. That is precisely why we find it incomprehensible that Conservative Members should resist the same deal for the ambulance staff.
    Although I understand that the personal experience of the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) will not necessarily change how he will vote on this occasion, or persuade him to speak in a different way, I had hoped, given his personal debt to the ambulance service, that the least he could have done about the dispute was to stay silent.
    Mr. Corbyn: I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed, but when he was explaining that to settle the ambulance dispute would cost £10 million, the Minister shook his head vigorously. We know that the Minister does not want to settle that dispute, and that he would rather break it. Has my hon. Friend speculated on how much money the Government are prepared to spend to destroy the dispute rather than to settle it and return a proper ambulance service to the people?
    Mr. Cook: I shall happily give way if Conservative Members want to tell us how deep those coffers are. It is interesting to note that the Government can always find enough contingency funds to raid when it suits their political prejudices.
    It is, of course, no criticism of the policemen or the Army personnel who have provided the service in the past four months to say that the money that has gone on that substitute service has, inevitably, purchased an inferior one. The police and Army personnel do not have the training or the experience to be exposed to the difficult and stressful circumstances in which they now find themselves.
    I note that, for once, the Government amendment recognises the skills and dedication of the ambulance staff. Although that does not persuade me to vote for their amendment, that recognition of those skills, albeit belated,
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    is welcome. One of the most unpleasant parts of the Government's response to the dispute has been the way in which they have sought repeatedly to under-value the skill and competence of ambulance staff or the stressful circumstances in which those skills are used.
    There has been much welcome talk of the skills of the paramedics. The Minister referred to those personnel, and was good enough to admit that the number of paramedics to whom he has offered the £500 is necessarily few. One of the main reasons why there are few paramedics is the pathetic provision made by the Government to provide the training necessary to acquire those paramedic skills.
    The great majority of the 24 paramedics in Scotland mentioned—I should add the seven qualified in the London area—are people who have acquired their paramedical qualification in their own time because they were not allowed time off to train. It is a sign of their motivation that, despite the fact that they had to study in their own time, they have done so and qualified. Many more want to train, and there are now parts of Britain in which there is a six-year waiting list for training as a paramedic, so great is the motivation of ambulance staff to acquire those skills.
    It also says much about the commitment of the ambulance staff and not just of those who have acquired the skills of a paramedic that, in just about every station in Britain, staff have given freely of their time and energy to raise the funds to purchase the equipment that those paramedics need.
    The Minister has responsibility for the Health Service in Scotland, and he will be aware that the Scottish ambulance service has 325 defibrillators. Every one of those has been bought by charitable money and from fund raising by the ambulance service—not one has been paid for out of Health Service funds. Every month, 800 people in Scotland are assisted by those defibrillators and resuscitated by them. If the Minister is serious about wanting more paramedics, he must accept that there must be more paramedical training throughout Britain, funded by the Government, and that, once trained, they will require the equipment necessary to do their job.
    Although the skills of paramedics are first-class, what makes me rather uneasy about Ministers' constantly focusing on those skills is the sub-text—the skills of the paramedics are being praised to play down the skills of qualified ambulance staff. Four out of five ambulance staff are fully qualified and they are trained in life-saving skills, which they use daily. Every day in Scotland, there are likely to be 1,000 emergency cases, which will require those skills. In London, as well as in parts of Scotland, there are ambulance staff who spend their entire time responding to emergency calls.
    The other week, I read an account of one of the ambulance crews called to the Clapham junction disaster. That crew spent three hours at Clapham junction, and on their way back to the station they were diverted to deal with a traffic accident caused by a motorist who had had a heart attack. Having taken the motorist to hospital, the crew were then sent from the hospital to deal with a woman in an advanced state of labour. When the crew arrived at her house, they were unable to move her and had to deliver her baby at home.
    In a single shift of some five hours, without a break, those ambulance staff demonstrated skills in coping with patients who were haemorrhaging severely, they applied splints to those with broken limbs, they lifted patients with

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    multiple fractures, they applied resuscitation techniques to a person with a severe heart attack and, finally, they demonstrated skills in obstetrics by delivering, unaided and without proper theatre equipment, a child at home. Many doctors could not span those skills, and few would expect to do so within a single shift.
    One of the consequences of the exacting demands on ambulance staff and the varied role that they must play in emergencies is stress. The mortality rate among ambulance staff is 10 per cent. higher than the average for manual workers. Few ambulance staff survive in work until the statutory age of retirement. Those who do so have an average period of survival in retirement of two and a half years only.
    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) referred to one of the contributing factors. The pulse and blood pressure of an ambulance crew on emergency duty will alternate rapidly several times in one shift—they will move from a resting mode to one of severe excitement. It has been measured and quantified by doctors who have accompanied ambulance staff throughout entire shifts on emergency calls. The Government know that, because, as I reminded Ministers in the last debate, they received a report in 1985 on stress among ambulance staff.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Under a Labour Government.
    Mr. Cook: No, there was not a Labour Government in 1985. I wish that there had been, but I am sorry to say that the Labour Government has receded further into history than 1985.
    I reminded the Secretary of State of that report in our last debate in January. I was not prepared for his response, which appeared in a parliamentary answer on 2 February. He said:
    "Consideration of the final report of the working party on the problems of long-serving ambulance men and women has not yet been completed. I shall consider the question of publication when it has been."—[Official Report, 2 February 1990: Vol. 166 c. 420.]
    That was a parliamentary answer from the same Secretary of State who, since he arrived at the Department of Health 18 months ago, has turned his madcap ideas about the Health Service into a White Paper, turned that White Paper into a Bill and now insists that the Bill will be implemented by April of next year. He has turned the entire Health Service upside down within three years, but, five years after getting a report of stress among ambulance staff, he has yet to decide whether to publish it.
    One of the key recommendations in the report, which is widely known if not widely published, is that the age of retirement for ambulance staff should be reduced to the age of retirement of the other emergency services—above 55. I offer this free advice and consultation—I would not dream of charging for my consultation, unlike Conservative Members—that it would be a useful gesture of conciliation if the Government were to say that they were prepared to look sympathetically at reducing the retirement age of ambulance men. That would not be a concession to the dispute; it would not be inflationary or have knock-on effects on other Health Service workers. If the Government were to make that gesture, it would create a mood of conciliation in which negotiations would be more fruitful.
    That gesture would show some of the flexibility that the Government keep demanding of the union side, but of which they have demonstrated precious little themselves.
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    However, it is partly because the staff have shown that flexibility and the public know the stress under which the staff work and the skills that they demonstrate when they work, that the public have given the ambulance staff, throughout the dispute, magnificent and unprecedented support.
    The public have given them support, not just in the opinion polls, in which the ambulance staff are scoring better than Conservative Members, but tangible support, in cash. It is estimated that £4 million has been paid in individual donations during the past five months to the ambulance service. That is more than any party in this House could hope to raise with buckets in the streets. Perhaps the most depressing lesson of this dispute has been that that massive evidence of public support counts for nothing under the Government.
    I presented a petition in the House on behalf of ambulance staff just before Christmas. It was signed by 4·5 million people—a record number of signatures on any petition presented to Parliament in its entire history. It was longer even that the petition represented by the Chartists in the 1830s. Since our last debate, I have received the official Government response to that petition. The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland assured us that the Government support the ambulance staff.
    The official Government response to the petition of 4·5 million people consists of a dozen lines that are a stale re-hash of the Government's position. The Secretary of State for Health sends longer letters than this to 15-year-old constituents who have written to him on the matter. The response contains not a word that the Government are in the least bit troubled about the evidence in the petition that they have not a shred of public support for their position.
    What I find perplexing about the Government's attitude in response to this dispute is that, in fairness to them, the dispute demonstrates a new trade unionism for which the Government can claim a large part of the credit. The political victory of the Conservative party in 1979 confirmed for many in the trade union movement that errors had been made in the winter of discontent.
    That is why, when the union leaders set out on this dispute, they set as their objective winning and retaining public support. It is the Conservative laws that have obliged trade unions to consult their members by ballot. In this dispute the unions have consulted the ambulance staff three separate times in individual ballots and on every occasion there has been a margin for action of 4:1.
    The tragedy is that the new unionism and the aproach on the part of the trade union leaders has turned out to make no difference to Government's response. Confronted by trade unions, their response has proved as reliable and boringly predictable as Pavlov's dogs. The clearest contradiction is that they have repeatedly urged unions to contemplate no-strike agreements. For the past six months, they have held out against a negotiating bid by the staff side which, if one strips away the rhetoric, is effectively an offer to negotiate a no-strike pay formula. It is Ministers, not unions, who are resisting that opportunity.
    The greatest damage that will be done by this dispute will not be the damage done to the emergency cases who should have been assisted earlier than they were, or even to those who have been unable to attend day centres in the past six months. The greatest damage that this dispute is likely to do is to kill that new trade unionism stone dead.

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    I can tell Ministers, if they have not worked it out for themselves, that the next time National Union of Public Employees finds itself in dispute with them, and its leaders turn to the members and say that the important thing is to win and retain public support, those leaders are likely to be reminded by their members that much good has it done the ambulance staff and that public support is an impotent weapon under a Goverment who understand only the arithmetic of power.
    There is still time to stop this message going out, show that massive public opinion counts for something and settle this dispute in a way that is fair to ambulance staff and gives patients the formula that they need to prevent the service from being disrupted again. If Ministers and Conservative Members are unwise enough to ignore that opportunity, they may find that public opinion will take its revenge the very next time that it is confronted with a ballot box.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand that, during my enforced absence, when I was dealing with constituency telephone calls, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that I was in favour of local bargaining. That was certainly not the intention of my intervention. I intended to say that a look at the Whitley council system should at least consider arbitration.
    5.38 pm
    Dame Jill Knight: In opening this debate, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) gave a good knockabout parliamentary performance. Although I listened carefully, I do not think that there were more than a couple of points on which I should like to take him up.
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: The introduction to this debate was serious and constructive, and my hon. Friends and I deeply resent the suggestion that it was knockabout.
    Dame Jill Knight: The hon. Lady is perfectly entitled to her opinion and I am entitled to mine. I am elected to this House to give my opinion from time to time and that is what I have every intention of doing this afternoon.
    Only a couple of points in the speech of the hon. Member for Govan require comment. First, he made great play of the Prime Minister being, as he described it, in the bunker. I suppose that he meant that she was being assailed and attacked from every side. I can inform the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was freely and democratically elected the Woman of the Year for the fourth year running by a poll on the "Today" programme. That shows the opinion of the public on the competence and admirable qualities of my right hon. Friend.
    The hon. Member for Govan mentioned the Clegg report. Whatever one may say about that report there is no doubt that Professor Clegg gave far more attention to comparability than did the hon. Member for Govan. It is true that ambulance men were tacked on to NHS ancillary staff, but the hon. Member for Govan should not be allowed to get away with the accusation that the professor,
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    given the important job of producing a report on behalf of the Standing Commission on Pay Comparability, did a sloppy job.
    A few moments ago I hurried out to get a copy of the report and read it once more. I understand that, during my absence, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) mentioned paragraph 32, which states that the employers believed that there was inadequate comparability. However, he missed the point that the next paragraph gives evidence from the unions. Information was taken from unions, and it was considered. As with all such reports, the important element of the Clegg report was its conclusion, reached after careful consideration:
    "ambulancemen's conditions of service are broadly the same as for NHS ancillaries."
    I am entitled, and it is my duty, to remind the House that, whatever the hon. Member for Livingston may say about his views having changed, when he was a member of the Labour Government, they set up the Clegg commission and accepted its report. Although I was in the House at the time, I cannot recall the hon. Gentleman strongly objecting to its conclusions.
    Opposition Members and large numbers of members of the public have been informed about the actual offer for the ambulance men. Roger Poole's continual claim that ambulance men have been offered only 6·4 per cent. was repeated this afternoon. I felt almost as though I were in "Alice in Wonderland": Alice was listening to the Red Queen saying that 6·4 per cent. is exactly the same as 9 per cent. I shall not carry the analogy any further, but it is extraordinary to pretend that 6·4 per cent. is the same as 9 per cent. It could be so only if salaries were to increase over an 18-month period to 9 per cent. but the period was chopped off after one year. In that case, something funny might begin to happen. But it is not happening: the 9 per cent. is on offer and has been since April last year, and the public do not know that. Even some ambulance men do not know it.
    Not only is the 9 per cent. backdated to 10 months ago, but 14 per cent. and 16·3 per cent. increases are on offer for paramedics, the latter figure being for those who work in London. By no stretch of the imagination can those figures be called 6·4 per cent. The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who has left the Chamber—I did not think that he would stay long—tried to maintain that the sums were the same. They are not. This is a generous offer to people who deserve it.
    Mrs. Fyfe: The hon. Lady is attempting to persuade the public that this is all a misunderstanding that has nothing to do with Government intransigence. If she is convinced that this is a fair offer, misunderstood by the public and ambulance men alike, why is she so reluctant to support the ambulance workers' demand for arbitration?
    Dame Jill Knight: I am trying to remind ambulance workers what the figures are. The hon. Lady must understand that public opinion, to which great attention has recently been drawn, is based on wrong information. The public believe that the offer is 6·4 per cent.; it would be good if they realised that the true figures were 9 per cent., rising to 16·3 per cent.—a generous offer to people who deserve one.
    Of course the ambulance workers do a good job and the public appreciate that—
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths rose—
    Dame Jill Knight: I must get on; many hon. Members want to speak.
    Nevertheless, it must be said that the service could be a great deal better. We should stop using ambulances to ferry round people for treatment, for instance. It has often appalled me to think of these expensive pieces of equipment hourly and daily doing a job that minibuses could do.
    I believe that the Government are right to encourage staff to obtain higher medical qualifications by paying them more. It beats me why there should be such solid opposition from the unions when the Government want to pay highly qualified people more money. That happens with teachers, doctors, accountants and even British Rail staff—everyone gets more money if better qualified. It is as simple as that; there is nothing wrong with it. Opposition Members, who have supported the unions which have fought this principle all the way, seem to think it wrong to improve the ambulance service and to pay more money to those who are more highly qualified.
    We all want the dispute settled; sick people and accident victims are in danger, and it is no use Opposition Members pretending otherwise. We know that people have been in danger and have not been attended to when they should have been taken to hospital. Whatever is said about public support, people are getting a little tired of collecting buckets. It upsets me that they are putting in money because they support the ambulance men but do not understand how much is on offer. It is rather sad to see old-age pensioners, perhaps living only on a pension, putting in money for people who earn much more than they do.
    Salaries are rising. A leading ambulance man or woman now on £10,888 a year will receive £11,868. Paramedics' pay will rise to £12,368. Those finding it difficult to spare money for the collecting buckets may not know how much money is on offer. The wages of qualified, as distinct from leading, ambulance men earning more than £10,000 a year will rise to more than £11,000.
    Are the collections quite honest? Who gives people permission to collect on the streets every day? If one wants to collect for the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, for children's charities, for the blind or for any other charity one must obtain a permit. There must be an agreement about places where collections are taken up, and details of the money must be audited. Opposition Members may think that this is funny, but it is not funny to con the public, and there is an element of conning in the collections. It is wrong that, day after day, collections should be taken up when, as far as I know, no permission has been given for them. There is certainly no supervision of the collection of the money or of how it is dished out. I am beginning to get letters about the matter, and I think other hon. Members will get letters, too.
    It is nonsense to suppose that the Government can grant all the union demands. At one stage, the union agreed and recommended the 6·5 per cent. offer, but now it is asking for 11·4 per cent. That would have disastrous results everywhere and there would certainly be cuts in service. There would be an immediate public outcry if cuts had to be made to pay the 11 per cent. that the ambulance unions seek. It would also be an awful blow to the morale of people in the other parts of the National Health Service, nearly all of whom have settled at 6·4 to 6·8 per cent. What will they think if they see people receiving more money as
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    a result of a dispute and a great deal of trouble? I can imagine the demands that the Government would have to face.
    It would be wrong to take the ambulance service out of the National Health Service. It would send out a dangerous signal if the House and the Government gave in to the demands, because it would be tantamount to saying that people who care for sick people or accident victims can have more money in their pockets by refusing that care. That is the terrible message that would go from here if we gave in.
    We all want this worrying strike settled. Could a way ahead be sought by making training more quickly available? The hon. Member for Govan cited a case which purported to show that a man had waited a long time for training. If that is true, the man had a genuine grievance, which should be examined. I do not know whether it is true, but I am told that ambulance men have to pay for their courses. Perhaps there is a way ahead along that avenue, which may lead to negotiation. I should like training to be made available much more quickly and cheaply for ambulance men who are striving to better themselves.
    What about opening a gate to local deals? We have seen the worth of the Northumbria experiment. There is no time to give details of it, but any hon. Member who has studied it knows that local effort in Northumbria has resulted in an excellent and much better service for patients. That is what we all want. Is there any possibility of agreeing a no-strike deal? Some of us would like to see the kind of deal that was worked out for the nurses because we never want to see another dispute like this one.
    I warmly welcome the statement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State that by, 1 October, the unions will be able to negotiate again, having had their 9 per cent. increase and back pay to April 1989. Perhaps, if people in the ambulance service looked at all the points that I have made, they could negotiate an even better deal in October. I urge the Government to stand firm but to make their case more widely known. They should also make quite clear what is on offer and the amount that the ambulance men currently receive. We must recognise that there are some things that we can do to smooth the progress of the negotiations so that the whole matter can be settled amicably and quickly.
    5.55 pm
    Mr. Michael J. Martin: I have been a shop steward and a full-time union officer, and have been involved in many disputes, most of which the public did not even hear about. Some went on for a long time, while others were settled quickly. The ambulance dispute reminds me of a problem in the highlands some years ago. Cleaners there had their hours cut by the Highland regional council, whose members thought they were being smart and were dealing with a bunch of part-time ladies who could do without jobs.
    Cleaners throughout the highlands went on strike a few months before the regional council elections. The councillors did not realise that the cleaners would get public sympathy, because they were from small villages and women took on those jobs because no one else would do them. In other areas of high unemployment, the women were doing such jobs not for pin money, but to keep body and soul together.

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    I was the union officer there at the time, and I saw a change in the attitude of the council members as soon as support for the cleaners started to appear. The councillors ran for cover and began to settle the dispute. However, it was too late; in the elections, many of them lost their seats on the council.
    The Minister says that management are there to manage. If a general election was pending in the next six months I guarantee that the Government would lean on management and tell them to settle the dispute. We are not dealing with industrial management who have private resources at their disposal but with a management who depend on Government for the resources to pay the staff. It is nonsense for the Minister to sit back and say that it is up to management to manage. He knows quite well that, if he telephoned the managers, they would jump and settle the dispute if they knew that that was the will of the Government. Convervative Members suddenly think that the Whitley council is marvellous. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) let the cat out of the bag.
    Mr. John Maxton: The hon. Lady has gone.
    Mr. Martin: No, the hon. Lady is still in the Chamber; I give her credit for that. She let the cat out of the bag when she talked about local negotiations. In some highland areas, when someone is asked to work overtime, he is told, "Your overtime will be a fish supper, so that you will not go without a meal." That is the attitude in some rural areas. The worst thing that could happen is a return to local negotiations. Rural areas would suffer, while urban areas would have some bargaining power.
    The Whitley council appeal procedure is cumbersome. Although there is nothing to take its place at present, that does not mean that the procedure should not come under scrutiny. The Minister misled the House when he said that the ambulance workers could easily use the Whitley council appeal procedure. He knows, even if other right hon. and hon. Members do not, that that procedure is so cumbersome that people sometimes have to wait two or three years for a hearing.
    The first stage of such an appeal is that the full-time union officer representing the appellant must find three nominees from the union side, at least one of whom must not be a member of his union. Management must also nominate three persons to sit on the appeal panel. There is usually failure to agree at the first stage, because it is eachy-peachy on both sides. Further stages of the appeal follow, and at each, written evidence must be submitted before there can be another hearing. Let us not kid ourselves that a dispute that has already lasted six months will be quickly resolved using the Whitley appeal procedure. It could take another two years.
    Right hon. and hon. Members may recall that the upgrading of nurses was argued about in the House 18 months ago, when nurses were told that any among them who were dissatisfied with their grading could use the Whitley appeal procedure. Only last week, I received a letter from a nurse telling me that she was involved in an appeal. Who are we conning?
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: There are hundreds more nurses in the same situation.
    Mr. Martin: I take the hon. Lady's word for that. I am highlighting the fact that putting more disputes in the pipeline will only aggravate the situation.
    Mr. Bill Walker rose—
    Mr. Martin: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because many other hon. and right hon. Members wish to speak, and it would be unfair of me to give way now.
    Earlier, I mentioned a cleaners' dispute in which I was involved as a full-time union officer, and the support that it received from the public. When the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) mentioned the bucket collections that are made by ambulance workers, she used, I believe, the word "con". I do not think that she really meant that. In any event, I can tell the hon. Lady that any collection that is taken by trade union members is well scrutinised and well recorded. No one gets away with any kind of con. It is dishonourable for any Member of Parliament to say that men and women wearing the uniform of one of the finest services in this country would try to con the public.
    In Glasgow, men and women, and even young boys and girls, do not walk past collection buckets without making a donation. My own daughter is not a political activist, but she tells me that, if she passes such a collection twice during her lunch hour, she will make a donation on both occasions. It is not so much the amount of money that is given as the gesture of public support that matters.
    There are those who argue that the public are uneducated or ill-informed, but if their hearts are behind the ambulance workers, as they are, the Government will have a tough job of resolving the matter—particularly if they take the attitude, "We'll leave it to management"; or, with a nod, and a wink to management, "Let them sit it out. They'll not get a ha'penny. Your job will be on the line if you settle this dispute."
    In London, many minicab drivers receive radio calls to turn up at St. Thomas's hospital and at other hospitals. Because they are paid only a set fee, they do not respond, saying, "We don't want to know." That is because the fare will be an elderly patient whom they will have to help into their cab—which is not designed for a person suffering from arthritis or some other severe ailment. On arriving at the patient's destination, he or she must be taken to the door of their home, the key found, and the door unlocked. I would hope that nine out of 10 cab drivers are decent enough to help an elderly person to and from hospital—but the fact remains that, if minicab drivers can avoid taking such fares, they gladly do so.
    It is shameful that a Government who claim to care for the people allow the elderly to be humiliated by making them use minicabs to travel to and from therapy. The same Government would not allow the Army to do such a bad job as to put our nation at peril from an intruder. The Government have a duty to settle the dispute. The Minister may think that it will be only a couple of months before ambulance staff are back at work, but as a former trade union officer, I can tell him that I have known of disputes on the records of the Trades Union Congress disputes committee that lasted for one and a half or two years.
    Dame Jill Knight: The miners went back in the end.
    Mr. MartinThe trouble with the hon. Member for Edgbaston is that she knows nothing about industrial

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    relations. The miners might have gone back, but they brought about the downfall of the Tory Government. She had better remember that.
    Mrs. Teresa Gorman: The miners also brought down the Labour Government.
    Mr. Martin: I do not recall the miners bringing about the downfall of the Labour Government. I can recall the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) saying in this House, "It's me or the miners." The people of this country chose the miners. In any event, I do not intend to be sidetracked by the hon. Member for Edgbaston. I was merely emphasising that, if the Government intend to take the same attitude as the hon. Member for Edgbaston—that, as the miners went back to work, so will the ambulance workers—I remind them that there are on record disputes that lasted years. Given the Government's attitude, the ambulance dispute also will last years. The Government owe it to the country to get the ambulance men back to work.
    6.8 pm
    Mr. Bill Walker: The speech to which we have just listened can be succinctly summed up by the words, "Scrap Whitley." I am sure that that is what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin) was telling the House. That may be what he and others want; it is certainly the cornerstone of the dispute.
    The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)—who is not in his place, but I understand why—has dissociated himself from the previous Labour Government. That come as no surprise, because I remember how he disagreed with the previous Labour Government over devolution. But now, in the hope of getting a seat on the Treasury Bench, the hon. Gentleman is prepared to support their policy.
    In his introduction, which I thought flippant and frivolous, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) indulged in all sorts of sideswipes about people whom he described as "organ grinders". The hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) is in her place to represent the Scottish National party. I remind her that members of the SNP came to the House and said categorically that they would not take part in or assist with any matters affecting England. But now we have the Govan edict—that the SNP will do what the hon. Member for Govan wants to do, any time, anywhere. That is no surprise, because the SNP has been described by its own supporters as a party with no policies, or policies for everything, and different policies for everywhere. We have seen an example of that today.
    The hon. Member for Govan complained that the Minister opening the debate was a Scottish Minister. I can just hear the same fellow complaining that the Minister was English. All Opposition Members, other than the nationalists, know and understand that.
    I shall now deal with the essence of the debate. The hon. Member for Govan—[HON. MEMBERS: "Look at him."] Have a good look, because it is a good kilt. I am proud to wear it because it is the Air Force kilt, and it is the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain this year. On Wednesday there will be Royal Air Force airmen in the House and that is why I am wearing it. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am responding to some of the uninformed comments of the Opposition.
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    The essence of this dispute is that the ambulance men have said that they do not accept Whitley rules. In the previous speech we heard one of the reasons why. I have news for the hon. Member for Springburn. I have some years' experience as a Whitley negotiator—[HON. MEMBERS: "You?"] Yes. I spent six and a half years as a Whitley negotiator, so I know something of the problems. I certainly endorse the comments of the hon. Member for Springburn about the delays in the appeal procedure. That is clearly part of the problem. But although the appeals procedure is slow—that has been proven down the years—it is often effective and it has produced good answers in the end. So should we scrap Whitley?
    Opposition Members cannot call for one group which is covered by the Whitley umbrella to have separate arbitration. One group cannot operate differently from the rest, and the hon. Member for Springburn knows that as well as I do. If we allow one group of workers to go to arbitration because they have gone on strike, we must allow all groups to go to arbitration. There is no way in between. I see the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) asserting that there is a way in between. That may be, but the proposal that has been put forward is, "We want arbitration." We must consider whether all the Whitley procedures—the way that negotiations are conducted and carried out—should be changed.
    My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health, will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the ambulance men have been given an offer that would take them through until the end of September. They have been told that, on 1 October 1990, they can negotiate for new structures and conditions—they have been told that the 1986 agreement is up for alteration.
    The Government have said that they are agreeable to the management's offer. If that is so, all the other groups that have negotiated under the Whitley rules—more than 90 per cent., or the bulk, of the people in the Health Service have agreed—could properly say, "If there is going to be a change of structure for one group, perhaps it should be considered for all groups."
    Clegg studied the problems in the light of the terrible industrial difficulties during the closing stages of the previous Labour government. A number of hon. Members have commented on the Clegg report. The important thing that was highlighted by Clegg, who was acting as the referee—one can criticise the referee, as a certain heavyweight boxer has recently—was that the ambulance service should not be considered part of the emergency services. If things have changed—there is a possibility that they have—and we are in a new era, with different arguments being put forward, perhaps there is a need for a complete review and an in-depth study of the issues. That could be a way to resolve the problem.
    I have never been in favour of trying to erect imaginary structures that are expected to produce answers with which we can all live, because usually a solution will present more problems the next time there is negotiation. That has been my experience, and I am sure it is true for many other people who have worked in industrial relations on both sides of the negotiating fence.
    I place on record my gratitude and thanks to the ambulance men in Scotland who have worked to the rules. I particularly thank those ambulance staff from north Tayside who have been carrying out normal duties, as that is much appreciated by my constituents.
    Mr. McAllion: Does the hon. Gentleman support the Tory councillors in Tayside who voted unanimously with councillors from other parties to set up an emergency service through the regional council?
    Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. It was not voted on. The position—[Laughter.] It did not get voted on. There was no division. The hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. McAllion) must understand that Tayside region Conservative councillors took the view that the ambulance service has nothing whatever to do with local government, and I agree with them. They do not think that they have any accountability; it is not their locus, so they should not debate or vote on it. My answer is yes, I support them.
    One must understand that the question to be resolved is whether employers should succumb to one group because they are working to rule and carrying out industrial action, or whether they should support the more than 90 per cent. of workers who have settled. Any sensible employer would support workers who have settled.
    My advice to the ambulance men is not to listen to voices from the Opposition Benches. Since 1979, they have been looking for a union or any cause that could somehow discomfort the Government, or put them in a bad light. They tried it with the miners and with other workers. The fact of the matter is—[Laughter.] The hon. Member for Moray may find this funny, but it is too serious a matter for joking. It is too important for the future of the ambulance men, the ambulance service and for patients, who are suffering at present. This is not a flippant or frivolous matter. Nothing to do with wages is ever flippant or frivolous to the people involved, whether they are the people who have to pay or those who hope to be paid.
    We are discussing whether Whitley has a future. I warn management very seriously that, if they succumb to blackmail—that is what industrial action is—they will put everything else that works at risk. Whitley is at risk. There are proposals to change Whitley and to say—as I understand the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North does—that there should be some form of arbitration service, and not necessarily the present appeals procedure. I accept that that procedure is slow and cumbersome, but in my experience it has worked.
    When I negotiated for people, they were always delighted when we appealed and were successful, even though it took some time. The pay was always backdated, which is a big advantage of working in the public service as opposed to outside it, where that system does not normally apply. That is why one can afford to be a little slower in reaching decisions in the public service.
    This is a serious matter of principle, and the principle is whether Whitley, and the interests of the 90 per cent. of Health Service workers who have settled, are worth defending. If we succumb to blackmail supported by Opposition Members, who are engaged in political opportunism—
    Mr. Ernie Ross: The hon. Gentleman seems to think that the dispute is the result of a plot by Opposition Members. Every Saturday, I stand with the ambulance men in the city square in Dundee, and there is no lack of people going about their business—not people wearing Labour party, SNP or SLD stickers but ordinary people, from the very young to the very old—who put money into the ambulance men's buckets. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that is?
    Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman is old enough to remember other similar disputes, in which—
    Mr. Ross: I do not.
    Mr. Walker: In that case, I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, who cannot be as old as I thought he was. As soon as a dispute is settled, feelings evaporate and views and attitudes change.
    The conspiracy is not one by the ambulance men, some of whom are trying to deal with a genuine grievance. They are going about it wrongly, but that is a different matter. In a number of instances they have a case for saying that conditions should be altered. That is not unusual; very few groups could not make such a case. The important point is that the Opposition regard the dispute as an opportunity. They are engaged in political opportunism. It is among Opposition Members that we find the intrigue and political machinations. I am not blaming the ambulance men, although they are mistaken in their methods and although they will live to regret the scrapping of Whitley. That is the important point and I want it on record.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: The hon. Gentleman should be extremely careful not to put words into other people's mouths. By saying that there is a case for looking at the Whitley council procedures and possibly bringing in arbitration as an alternative to a review procedure, we are not saying that Whitley should be scrapped. Let us be perfectly clear about that. No one says, "Scrap Whitley." We are merely saying that the Government should look at Whitley and improve it rather than allow it to fall into disrepute.
    Mr. Walker: The captain of the Titanic probably did not want to sink the Titanic, but people's actions have an effect—[Laughter.] Hon. Members should listen carefully. The other 90-odd per cent. of staff who settled under Whitley take the view that the system works, but Whitley may be killed off by the very people who should be making it work. Hon. Members know that the machinery depends on the active involvement of both sides to make it work. If one group—the ambulance men—says no to Whitley and decides to pursue its claim in a different way, the other 96 per cent. of staff may be tempted to do the same, and that would amount to scrapping Whitley.
    6.23 pm
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley: In recent months, Wales has faced similar problems to those confronting Scotland and England. We are grateful to the Scottish National party for introducing the debate and to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) for his introductory remarks. I take issue with the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) about the need for the Opposition to rattle round looking for causes to do in the Government. The Government are quite capable of doing incredible damage to themselves, as the poll tax and the ambulance dispute has proved.
    I thank ambulance workers in my constituency, in Wales and in general for the tremendous work that they do and for the dignity and restraint with which they have conducted themselves in the recent most difficult weeks. As hon. Members have said, they command overwhelming support in the community. A BBC poll undertaken in Wales showed that 100 per cent. of those asked supported

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    the ambulance workers. Only two people who were asked to sign a petition in my constituency, which carried 3,000 signatures, refused to do so.
    It is disgraceful that the dispute should have been drawn out for so long, when the Government could easily have found a way of reaching a settlement. The size of the ambulance workers' claim is quite reasonable. If hon. Members are happy to accept an annual salary increase in excess of 10 per cent., how can we say that the ambulance workers do not deserve a similar increase? What measuring rod can we use?
    The method of pursuing the claim has also been reasonable by and large, although today is a sad day in Wales because, in South Glamorgan, we have seen what amounts to a lockout; that represents a serious aggravation of the dispute, which the ambulance workers did not want. It is interesting to note that, this weekend, in the neighbouring county of Gwent, the ambulance manager passed control of the service to the ambulance workers themselves. That was an intriguing step forward, and reflects the sense of responsibility that the management felt the ambulance workers showed towards their work. I believe that that is generally so.
    I have taken the trouble to go round all three ambulance stations in my constituency—in Caernarfon, Pwllheli and Porth-madog—and I am deeply impressed by the sense of responsibility shown by the men and by the Transport and General Workers Union and its leadership. They have tried to stick to the rules laid down centrally by the unions, to ensure that those who could be adversely affected by industrial action are protected, and that the dispute does not endanger life and limb.
    I have noted the long hours that the ambulance workers often have to work. I have known some to work an all-day shift and then go on to all-night standby, at a rate of pay of £4 per full standby shift. That rate of remuneration compares badly with those of electricity and gas workers on standby work. Ambulance men may work as long as 24 hours on the trot; and one can well imagine the strain that that places on them.
    What can be the Government's motive for prolonging the dispute? It cannot be to establish 9 per cent. over 18 months as the norm, given what is happening in industry—at Ford and elsewhere. It is widely believed among ambulance workers that there is an attempt to use the dispute to split their work into two, with a professional upgraded staff for the paramedical part of the work and a taxi-driver-type service for the other part, which is eventually to be privatised. It would be a woeful state of affairs if the Government used the dispute to pursue their own dogma and to make one more stride towards privatisation.
    Perhaps some of the services in inner-city areas can be undertaken by something less than the full crew, and I understand that such a system has been experimented with in some cities. But in rural areas such as mine, it is not practical or possible to downgrade the service into a taxi-type service. Those areas need full-time professionals, because some parts of my constituency are 50 miles from the hospital to which the ambulance workers must take emergency cases. In my county, the average time for taking people to hospital is one hour, compared with seven minutes in some city areas. One cannot have a blanket approach, which I fear the Government have.
    Ambulance workers and emergency workers, who turn out to all sorts of emergencies—not just medical
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    emergencies. When the fire engines are called out, the ambulances are also called out, and the ambulance workers are often there first. They are often called out in police emergencies, too. If the fire service is entitled to index-linked pay, it is ridiculous that the pay of ambulance workers should not be index-linked. There should at least be parity of approach, if not parity in pay scales.
    It is important that training should be adequate. It would not be right to pay a higher rate to only a limited number of highly trained staff if training is not made available to the overwhelming majority. As the dispute seems to be escalating, I am also worried about ambulance cover in rural counties, especially if we have to rely on the Army. I understand that six Army ambulances would be available to cover the whole of Gwynedd. That would be impossible.
    I believe that there is a solution to the problem. 'We should lay on one side for a moment the percentage increase for this year and consider other aspects. The Government ought to say that they are prepared to allow next year's pay award to go to arbitration. They ought to accept that decision and be prepared to index-link it to average industrial wages. The Government should not use such a settlement as a basis for privatisation. The Government ought to agree to review the equipment that is available to ambulance workers—a subject that causes them considerable worry.
    If the Government adopted such an approach, I believe that there could be a settlement, based on a figure for this year which the Government could accept. We must find a way out of this dispute. An old constituent of mine, Wil Napoleon, who is dead now, had a very good dictum: "Never start a fight in a pub without a back door." I suspect that the Government have started a fight in a pub without a back door, and that they will have to pay the price.
    6.31 pm
    Sir Hector Monro: I listened with interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), and to his suggestions about how to resolve the dispute. It is important to hold negotiations as soon as possible without preconditions. I was a Health Minister in the early 1970s. There was a similar strike to this one in 1972–73, when we had to introduce civilian volunteer drivers. Fortunately, that dispute was resolved far more quickly than this one.
    I pay tribute,as did the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), to the ambulance men in my constituency, who provided such effective help at the time of the Lockerbie disaster. They have to deal with many serious accidents on the A74. They turn out rapidly in such emergencies. I pay great tribute to them.
    The National Health Service and the unions agreed a negotiating structure in 1986. They decided to proceed under the Whitley procedure by means of freely agreed negotiations. There was no place for arbitration in the 1986 agreement. Furthermore, arbitration is not an option in other parts of the National Health Service. We cannot change the rules of the game.
    In May 1989, management and unions reached agreement on 6·5 per cent. The unions put that agreement to their members on 20 June, but it was rejected. After that, the dispute began. On 4 December 1989, the National Health Service offered 9 per cent., backdated to 1 April

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    1989 and running through to September 1990. Leading ambulance men would have an increase of about £1,000 over 12 months and ambulance men and women would receive an additional £650, while those who are trained as paramedics would receive an additional £500. The unions responded with an 11 per cent. demand, with pay to be linked to police and fire service pay.
    The Labour party set out the terms of reference of the Clegg inquiry. The unions' demand was linked to the Clegg report, but Clegg said that there should be no link between the fire service, the police and the National Health Service.
    The 1986 agreement ought to be reviewed. There should be no preconditions. I do not understand why the unions insist on preconditions and will not return to the negotiating table. A 9 per cent. offer is on the table. To offer to renegotiate the structure without preconditions seems to me to be reasonable. A restructuring of the pay system, including Whitley and arbitration, would be on the table. Whether agreement would eventually be reached about that is another matter.
    The ambulance men and the unions would, if they were wise, start afresh and try to resolve the problem during the next few months. They have already been offered 9 per cent., backdated to April 1989. That is a reasonable offer. The unions ought to get round the table with the National Health Service and resolve the problem between now and September 1990. Between now and September, 9 per cent. would be paid to the ambulance men. If the unions took that course, it could lead to much happier times for ambulance men and women.
    6.37 pm
    Mr. Thomas McAvoy: The main reason for this claim is to retain the value of ambulance men's earnings. The unions have said that a pay mechanism, such as a pay review body, would be given serious and constructive consideration. Alternatively, the Government could propose a new pay mechanism. The unions have been flexible.
    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) referred to five key parts of the union's case. They have said that they are willing to drop those demands if that would help to solve the dispute. The unions are ready to negotiate on both the pay claim of 11·14 per cent. and the nature of the pay formula. Flexibility is there. The Government ought to respond.
    The emergency work of ambulance crews has been well illustrated. During the last few days, newspaper articles have suggested that the unions are almost defeated. I do not know whether those articles have been influenced by Government sources. If this dispute ends in defeat for the ambulance workers, working practices will be seriously affected.
    A disgraceful attack on Scottish ambulance staff was instigated by Mr. Wilby, the director of the Scottish ambulance service. He called into question the ambulance workers' commitment to the service and to their professional duties. How he thinks that that will contribute to future harmony in the Scottish ambulance service I do not know. Perhaps he got carried away by conducting the Government's political fight on their behalf. No doubt he will be rewarded with a mention in
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    either the new year's or the birthday honours list. When that happens, clearly it will be a reward for political service.
    The position in Scotland contrasts with that in Gwent, where common sense prevails and obviously the priority of the management in charge of the ambulance service is public service instead of defending the Government's battle ramparts. There should be no totem poles, as the Government have sufficient strength. To their credit, many Conservative Members, particularly the hon. Members for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and for Harlow (Mr. Hayes), have tried to get the Government to move, but the Government's position seems to echo the miners' strike. They are trying to show their strength and be macho, but true strength is the ability to be flexible and to negotiate. The Government should show their strength by negotiating with the ambulance workers.
    6.40 pm
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: I intend to be brief in summing up, first because the case is self-evident and has already been put more than adequately by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and hon. Members from other Opposition parties. Secondly, I should not like to give the Minister the excuse that he could not reply to all the points that have been raised because he ran out of time before we forced the issue to a Division. Therefore, I shall ask the Minister some basic questions.
    Throughout the debate, we have heard that it is costing £20 million-plus to subsidise alternative forms of support to replace the ambulance crews. Will the Minister give us a straight answer as to who is paying that money? Exactly where is it coming from? It has been mentioned that, were we to spend £10 million, which is all that it would take to settle the dispute, we should open the floodgates. I should be interested if the Minister could name any individual group that has ever used the emergency services as leverage to argue its own case in industrial discussions about wages. The entire industrial community recognises that the emergency services are different, and there is widespread support from all working people for the settlement of the dispute. I suspect that no one would try to use it as a lever.
    As we are referring to the emergency services, perhaps the Minister will be more forthcoming about dealing with the letter of 22 August 1978 from the private office of the then Leader of the Opposition than the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland was on "Left, Right and Centre" on Friday night, when his subdued and humble demeanour made me wonder how many charm schools he had visited recently. That letter was signed by Matthew Parris on behalf of the then Leader of the Opposition. It stated:
    "In all the comments she made during the Firemen's strike, Mrs. Thatcher linked her remarks not just to the firemen but to what she, and you, call Emergency Services. All three deserve to have their pay negotiations put outside the arena of industrial dispute by being given firm and automatic linkage to national price or wage rises."
    Will the Minister comment on that and tell us why the Conservative party seems to have changed its mind about the Clegg report? Conservative Members use it in their defence when we call for arbitration, but I was in the House in the 1970s when the Clegg report was published and the Conservative Opposition were very much against it. What has made the Conservatives change their minds in the intervening 10 years? Does the Minister accept that the report has been discredited in so far as it affects the

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    ambulance men, because it is quite clear that there was no real analysis of their situation then, and there is now a strong argument for a much better analysis?
    I should like to know exactly what the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland meant when he said that the current offer would hold good until October. He led us a merry dance round various statistics, mentioning 9 per cent., 6 per cent., 6·4 per cent., 6·5 per cent., 18 months, 12 months and the rest. But when he said that the offer would hold good until October, it was not clear whether it would hold good after October, and that seems a strange way of offering the ambulance workers a negotiating base. If the Government are not guaranteeing the ambulance men the continuation of their wage increase after October, surely there is little point in them even considering negotiation.
    The hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) said that negotiations should be reopened without preconditions, but the Government have placed preconditions on the ambulance staff in their negotiations because they are saying that there will be no pay review and no further increase forthcoming. Those are very tight preconditions for the Government to place on the ambulance staff, and I ask the Government to rescind them.
    The Minister referred to investment. According to a press release from the Scottish Office this month, it amounts to some £4·7 million in Scotland. Of course, everyone welcomes investment in the ambulance service. It was disingenuous of the Minister to say that those of us who support the ambulance staff do not want such investment in the ambulance service. No one knows better than the ambulance staff how desperately that investment is needed. In my constituency, and I am sure in the constituencies of many other hon. Members representing rural areas, there is not a single fete, show or bazaar during the summer months where the ambulance men do not have an ambulance on display—and available for use in the event of an emergency—to raise funds to provide equipment to improve the service to the local community. When we talk about improving health provision and the need for investment, the Minister should note that the ambulance men have done a great deal to improve the service through their own voluntary efforts to buy vital equipment such as defibrillators.
    I studied history, and one of my favourite books is "1066 and All That". Others who have studied history will know it well. One part of that book mentioned the arrival of what was known as "the face" and its implications for historical developments. Wars were fought over the face and deaths were caused by the face. It seems to me that the Government are more intent on saving their face than on resolving the ambulance dispute.
    If ambulance staff are at the point of ceasing to observe the TUC guidelines, that must mean that they are being forced into total despair, anger and frustration at Government action. No Opposition Member wants the TUC guidelines to be broken, nor do the vast majority of the ambulance staff, but the frustration is being caused by the growing chasm between the Government, and the ambulance staff and the public. If the Government were to accept our motion, they would show a genuine commitment to resolving the dispute, which we all want to be resolved.
    Mrs. Fyfe: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does the House have the right to demand to know whether
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    the Secretary of State for Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland have a reasonable excuse for absenting themselves for the entire debate?
    6.48 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Roger Freeman): As the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) rightly reminded the House, we have debated the subject a number of times. The best contribution that I can make to this short debate is to shed further light on Government policy on five particular points. I approach those five issues in a constructive and, I hope, enlightening fashion that will help to carry the debate further. I appreciate that a number of hon. Gentlemen have spoken with great passion and a sense of loyalty to their union colleagues and to the issues involved, but it seems to me that I can best serve the debate by answering the five key points that have arisen.
    First, the hon. Member for Livingston implied that in some way we undervalued the contribution of ambulance men and women. That is not the case. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), who has responsibility for health in Scotland, said, we all value greatly the role of ambulance men and women. Although I accept the very strong public sympathy for ambulance men and women and the understanding of their role, there is a difference between accepting that public sympathy and stressing that the Government have responsibility for settling public sector pay, however important a particular sector may be. It is not inconsistent for me to say that although the Government understand that public sympathy, we have a sense of responsibility.
    The hon. Member for Livingston asked me specifically about retirement and stress. He was right to make that point. Unquestionably some ambulance men and women suffer great stress, particularly when they leave a horrific road traffic accident to deal with another rostered duty. In due course we will consider the reports on this issue. Although it is true that policemen retire earlier than ambulance men, I must stress that the police pay twice as much superannuation contributions as ambulance men and women to achieve earlier retirement. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Livingston was right to raise the issue, and we shall consider it in due course.
    The second of the five main topics to arise in the debate was cost. The hon. Member for Livingston said that we could have settled the dispute some months ago, and that the dispute is inconsequential. He said that the cost of the police and Army services helping to provide emergency cover in certain areas has amounted to about £20 million. I do not dissociate myself from that figure, although it is an estimate and not all the bills have come in yet. In response to the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), I can state that those costs will be paid by the National Health Service—by the appropriate ambulance authorities.
    We are considering an additional cost because, although there may be some savings from staff who have absented themselves or are on lower pay, there will still be a burden. We cannot set the costs of the services provided by the police and the Army against the cost of increasing the pay of ambulance men and women in one year, because the cost recurs. The implications of agreeing to the union's demands for a pay review body or, failing that, binding

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    arbitration, would be much more expensive for the ambulance service. We must remember that the ambulance service costs about £200 million a year.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) referred to the 390,000 Whitley staff who would wish to share in any pay review body, mechanism or binding arbitration. The NHS pay bill is about £13 billion. In the debate before Christmas, the hon. Member for Livingston said that it was Labour party policy to agree to a pay formula. I hope that he has cleared that with his right hon. Friends the shadow Chancellor and the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, because such a pay formula would have significant financial implications for the Health Service and for public sector pay.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) asked a specific question about the offer that is on the table. That offer is backdated to 1 April, to increase the rate of pay by 9 per cent. per annum over an 18-month period. From 1 October this year, fresh negotiations on the further increase in pay will have to take place. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster reminded the House, rightly, that the increase is more than 9 per cent. in London—12 per cent.—and that we are putting on the table £500 per annum to increase pay for trained paramedics. That represents an extra £900 in cash for ambulance men and women over the 12 months beginning 1 April.
    The third main point to arise from the debate relates to emergency and non-emergency work about which the hon. Member for Livingston asked specific questions. All hon. Members would agree that some parts of the ambulance service are non-emergency in nature; there can be no dispute about that. I can give the hon. Member for Livingston the figures. In terms of the number of patients carried, 10 per cent. of the activity of the ambulance service is emergency work, to which should be added another 5 per cent. for doctors' urgent cases. That means that 15 per cent. of ambulance service activities involves emergency work. That figure is not dissimilar to the one that the hon. Member for Livingston quoted for York.
    We are in danger of confusing functions with the argument that we must have a full roster of ambulance men and women on which to draw in the event of an emergency. I suggest that some functions of the ambulance service are not of an emergency nature and can be contracted out. The experience in Northumbria and Wiltshire supports that contention.
    Mrs. Gorman: Will my hon. Friend confirm now or later the figures that I heard in a BBC broadcast to the effect that the average cost of a non-emergency journey is £40 per person? If that is correct, it must be cheaper to contract such work out.
    Mr. Freeman: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the fact that non-emergency functions, when contracted out, can be cheaper. We are not being prescriptive, and it is for the various ambulance authorities to decide which part of the service to contract out and when. However, my hon. Friend was correct—
    Mr. Wigley: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Freeman: No. I have only three minutes left and two points with which to deal, and one of those points was made by the hon. Gentleman himself.
    The fourth point to arise from the debate concerns training and equipment to which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) referred. The hon. Member for Livingston mentioned 14,000 qualified ambulance men. Of those, only 2,000 are fully qualified paramedics. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston wanted to know whether those 2,000 qualified staff have to pay for that additional training. They do not.
    We need to increase the proportion of ambulance men and women who are qualified paramedics. We want one paramedic in each emergency ambulance. Paramedics are qualified to provide drips, to unblock airways and to control heartbeats. We have only 2,000 ambulance men and women who are so qualified. I agree with the hon. Member for Livingston that we need to devote additional resources to training and equipment in the ambulance service. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland referred to steps that have already been taken to that end in Scotland. I confirm that my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health takes that issue very seriously. Over the coming months, we will be concentrating on how to improve training and the resources devoted to equipment in the Health Service.
    On national pay, we want greater local flexibility which, in some cases, means higher pay, paid for by productivity in the ambulance service. That should be possible. That is the correct route further to reward ambulance men and women.
    Mr. Poole knows that this dispute, including the pay review body, cannot be won on his terms. Surely both sides should sit down, without rancour or loss of face, but with common sense and good grace, and solve the dispute.
    Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
    The House divided: Ayes 207, Noes 276.

    Division No. 83]

    [6.59 pm

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Allen, Graham

    Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

    Anderson, Donald

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Canavan, Dennis

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Cartwright, John

    Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Ashton, Joe

    Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Clay, Bob

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Clelland, David

    Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Barron, Kevin

    Cohen, Harry

    Battle, John

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Beckett, Margaret

    Corbett, Robin

    Beith, A. J.

    Corbyn, Jeremy

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

    Cox, Tom

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Cryer, Bob

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Cummings, John

    Blair, Tony

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Blunkett, David

    Dalyell, Tam

    Boateng, Paul

    Darling, Alistair

    Boyes, Roland

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Bradley, Keith

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

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

    Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

    Dewar, Donald

    Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

    Dixon, Don

    Buchan, Norman

    Dobson, Frank

    Buckley, George J.

    Doran, Frank

    Caborn, Richard

    Douglas, Dick

    Callaghan, Jim

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    711

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

    Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

    Eastham, Ken

    Martlew, Eric

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Maxton, John

    Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

    Meacher, Michael

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

    Meale, Alan

    Fatchett, Derek

    Michael, Alun

    Faulds, Andrew

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Fearn, Ronald

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

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

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Fisher, Mark

    Morley, Elliot

    Flannery, Martin

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

    Flynn, Paul

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Mullin, Chris

    Foster, Derek

    Murphy, Paul

    Fraser, John

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

    Fyfe, Maria

    O'Neill, Martin

    Garrett, John (Norwich South)

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

    Patchett, Terry

    George, Bruce

    Pendry, Tom

    Godman, Dr Norman A.

    Pike, Peter L.

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Gordon, Mildred

    Prescott, John

    Gould, Bryan

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Graham, Thomas

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Radice, Giles

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Randall, Stuart

    Hardy, Peter

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Richardson, Jo

    Haynes, Frank

    Robertson, George

    Healey, Rt Hon Denis

    Robinson, Geoffrey

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Rogers, Allan

    Henderson, Doug

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Hinchliffe, David

    Rowlands, Ted

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Ruddock, Joan

    Home Robertson, John

    Salmond, Alex

    Hood, Jimmy

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Sheerman, Barry

    Howells, Geraint

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

    Short, Clare

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Sillars, Jim

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    Illsley, Eric

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

    Ingram, Adam

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

    Janner, Greville

    Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Soley, Clive

    Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

    Spearing, Nigel

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

    Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Kennedy, Charles

    Stott, Roger

    Kilfedder, James

    Strang, Gavin

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

    Straw, Jack

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Lambie, David

    Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

    Lamond, James

    Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Turner, Dennis

    Leighton, Ron

    Vaz, Keith

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Wallace, James

    Lewis, Terry

    Walley, Joan

    Litherland, Robert

    Warden, Gareth (Gower)

    Livsey, Richard

    Wareing, Robert N.

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

    Lofthouse, Geoffrey

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    McAllion, John

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Wilson, Brian

    McFall, John

    Winnick, David

    McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    McLeish, Henry

    Worthington, Tony

    Maclennan, Robert

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    McNamara, Kevin

    McWilliam, John

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Madden, Max

    Mr. Andrew Welsh and Mr. Daffydd Wigley.

    Marek, Dr John

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    712

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Gale, Roger

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Gardiner, George

    Alexander, Richard

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Gill, Christopher

    Amess, David

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Arbuthnot, James

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Atkins, Robert

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Gow, Ian

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Bellingham, Henry

    Gregory, Conal

    Bendall, Vivian

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Grist, Ian

    Benyon, W.

    Ground, Patrick

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Hague, William

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Boswell, Tim

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Bottomley, Peter

    Hannam, John

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

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

    Bowis, John

    Harris, David

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Brazier, Julian

    Hayes, Jerry

    Bright, Graham

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

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

    Hayward, Robert

    Browne, John (Winchester)

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Burns, Simon

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Burt, Alistair

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Butcher, John

    Hill, James

    Butler, Chris

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Butterfill, John

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

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

    Carrington, Matthew

    Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Carttiss, Michael

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Chapman, Sydney

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Churchill, Mr

    Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

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

    Hunter, Andrew

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Irvine, Michael

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    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

    Couchman, James

    Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

    Critchley, Julian

    Key, Robert

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

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

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwatar)

    Day, Stephen

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Devlin, Tim

    Knapman, Roger

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Knowles, Michael

    Durant, Tony

    Knox, David

    Dykes, Hugh

    Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

    Eggar, Tim

    Lang, Ian

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Latham, Michael

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Evennett, David

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Fallon, Michael

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Favell, Tony

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Fenner, Dame Peggy

    Lilley, Peter

    Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Fookes, Dame Janet

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Forman, Nigel

    Lord, Michael

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Luce, Rt Hon Richard

    Forth, Eric

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Maclean, David

    Franks, Cecil

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Freeman, Roger

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

    French, Douglas

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Fry, Peter

    Madel, David

    713

    Malins, Humfrey

    Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

    Maples, John

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Marland, Paul

    Speller, Tony

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Squire, Robin

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Mills, lain

    Steen, Anthony

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Stern, Michael

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Stevens, Lewis

    Mitchell, Sir David

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Moate, Roger

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Stokes, Sir John

    Moore, Rt Hon John

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Morris, M (N'hampton S)

    Sumberg, David

    Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

    Summerson, Hugo

    Moss, Malcolm

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Moynihan, Hon Colin

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Neale, Gerrard

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Needham, Richard

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Nelson, Anthony

    Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

    Neubert, Michael

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Thorne, Neil

    Norris, Steve

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Thurnham, Peter

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Page, Richard

    Tracey, Richard

    Paice, James

    Tredinnick, David

    Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

    Trippier, David

    Patnick, Irvine

    Trotter, Neville

    Patten, Rt Hon John

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Pawsey, James

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Viggers, Peter

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Waddington, Rt Hon David

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Walden, George

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Redwood, John

    Waller, Gary

    Renton, Rt Hon Tim

    Walters, Sir Dennis

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Ward, John

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Watts, John

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Wells, Bowen

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Wheeler, Sir John

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Whitney, Ray

    Rost, Peter

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Rowe, Andrew

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Ryder, Richard

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Wolfson, Mark

    Sainsbury, Hon Tim

    Wood, Timothy

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Woodcock, Dr. Mike

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Shersby, Michael

    Mr. Greg Knight and Mr. David Lightbown.

    Sims, Roger

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added,put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments):
    The House divided: Ayes 255, Noes 199.

    Division No. 84]

    [7.12 pm

    AYES

    Adley, Robert

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Bellingham, Henry

    Alexander, Richard

    Bendall, Vivian

    Amess, David

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Arbuthnot, James

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Atkins, Robert

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Boswell, Tim

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    714

    Bowis, John

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Brazier, Julian

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Bright, Graham

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

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

    Hill, James

    Browne, John (Winchester)

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Burns, Simon

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Burt, Alistair

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

    Butcher, John

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Butler, Chris

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Butterfill, John

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

    Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Hunter, Andrew

    Carrington, Matthew

    Irvine, Michael

    Carttiss, Michael

    Jack, Michael

    Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

    Janman, Tim

    Chapman, Sydney

    Jessel, Toby

    Churchill, Mr

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

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

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Key, Robert

    Colvin, Michael

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Conway, Derek

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Knapman, Roger

    Couchman, James

    Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Knowles, Michael

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

    Knox, David

    Day, Stephen

    Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

    Devlin, Tim

    Lang, Ian

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Latham, Michael

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Durant, Tony

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Dykes, Hugh

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Eggar, Tim

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Lilley, Peter

    Evennett, David

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Fallon, Michael

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Favell, Tony

    Lord, Michael

    Fenner, Dame Peggy

    Luce, Rt Hon Richard

    Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Fookes, Dame Janet

    Maclean, David

    Forman, Nigel

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

    Forth, Eric

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Madel, David

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Malins, Humfrey

    Franks, Cecil

    Maples, John

    Freeman, Roger

    Marland, Paul

    French, Douglas

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Fry, Peter

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Gale, Roger

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Gardiner, George

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Mills, lain

    Gill, Christopher

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Mitchell, Sir David

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Moate, Roger

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Gow, Ian

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Moss, Malcolm

    Gregory, Conal

    Moynihan, Hon Colin

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

    Neale, Gerrard

    Grist, Ian

    Needham, Richard

    Ground, Patrick

    Nelson, Anthony

    Hague, William

    Neubert, Michael

    Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Hannam, John

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

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

    Norris, Steve

    Harris, David

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Hayes, Jerry

    Page, Richard

    Hayward, Robert

    Paice, James

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

    715

    Patten, Rt Hon John

    Summerson, Hugo

    Pawsey, James

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Porter, David (Waveney)

    Taylor, John M (Solihull)

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Redwood, John

    Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

    Renton, Rt Hon Tim

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Thorne, Neil

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Thurnham, Peter

    Rost, Peter

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Rowe, Andrew

    Tracey, Richard

    Ryder, Richard

    Tredinnick, David

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Trippier, David

    Sainsbury, Hon Tim

    Trotter, Neville

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Waddington, Rt Hon David

    Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Shersby, Michael

    Waller, Gary

    Sims, Roger

    Ward, John

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

    Watts, John

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Wells, Bowen

    Speller, Tony

    Wheeler, Sir John

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Whitney, Ray

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Squire, Robin

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Wolfson, Mark

    Steen, Anthony

    Wood, Timothy

    Stern, Michael

    Woodcock, Dr. Mike

    Stevens, Lewis

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Stokes, Sir John

    Mr. David Lightbown and Mr. Greg Knight.

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Sumberg, David

    NOES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Allen, Graham

    Cohen, Harry

    Anderson, Donald

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Corbett, Robin

    Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

    Cox, Tom

    Ashton, Joe

    Cryer, Bob

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Cummings, John

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

    Dalyell, Tarn

    Barron, Kevin

    Darling, Alistair

    Battle, John

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Beckett, Margaret

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

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

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

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Dewar, Donald

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Dixon, Don

    Blair, Tony

    Dobson, Frank

    Blunkett, David

    Doran, Frank

    Boateng, Paul

    Douglas, Dick

    Boyes, Roland

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Bradley, Keith

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Dun woody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

    Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

    Eastham, Ken

    Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Buchan, Norman

    Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

    Buckley, George J.

    Fatchett, Derek

    Caborn, Richard

    Faulds, Andrew

    Callaghan, Jim

    Fearn, Ronald

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

    Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

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

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Fisher, Mark

    Canavan, Dennis

    Flannery, Martin

    Cartwright, John

    Flynn, Paul

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

    Foster, Derek

    Clay, Bob

    Fraser, John

    Clelland, David

    Fyfe, Maria

    716

    Garrett, John (Norwich South)

    Morley, Elliot

    Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

    George, Bruce

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Godman, Dr Norman A.

    Mullin, Chris

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Murphy, Paul

    Gordon, Mildred

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

    Graham, Thomas

    O'Neill, Martin

    Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Patchett, Terry

    Hardy, Peter

    Pendry, Tom

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Pike, Peter L.

    Haynes, Frank

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Healey, Rt Hon Denis

    Prescott, John

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Henderson, Doug

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Hinchliffe, David

    Radice, Giles

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Randall, Stuart

    Home Robertson, John

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

    Hood, Jimmy

    Richardson, Jo

    Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

    Robertson, George

    Howells, Geraint

    Robinson, Geoffrey

    Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

    Rogers, Allan

    Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Rowlands, Ted

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Ruddock, Joan

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Salmond, Alex

    Illsley, Eric

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Ingram, Adam

    Sheerman, Barry

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

    Short, Clare

    Kennedy, Charles

    Sillars, Jim

    Kilfedder, James

    Skinner, Dennis

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    Kirkwood, Archy

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

    Lambie, David

    Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

    Lamond, James

    Soley, Clive

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Spearing, Nigel

    Leighton, Ron

    Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Lewis, Terry

    Stott, Roger

    Litherland, Robert

    Strang, Gavin

    Livsey, Richard

    Straw, Jack

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Lofthouse, Geoffrey

    Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

    McAllion, John

    Turner, Dennis

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Vaz, Keith

    McFall, John

    Wallace, James

    McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

    Walley, Joan

    McLeish, Henry

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    McNamara, Kevin

    Wareing, Robert N.

    McWilliam, John

    Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

    Madden, Max

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Marek, Dr John

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Wilson, Brian

    Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

    Winnick, David

    Martlew, Eric

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Maxton, John

    Worthington, Tony

    Meacher, Michael

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    Meale, Alan

    Michael, Alun

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Mr. Andrew Welsh and Mrs. Margaret Ewing.

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House recognises the important contribution made by the skilled and dedicated service of ambulance staff; regrets that some have seen fit to prolong and intensify the action taken against patients in furtherance of the current pay dispute; appreciates the work of the police, the armed forces and the voluntary services in maintaining an adequate emergency service; supports the Government and National Health Service management on their handling of the dispute; calls on the trade union leaders to ensure that the undertakings they have given to maintain an adequate
    emergency service are met; believes that the dispute can only be resolved by the resumption of negotiations; and calls on the trade union leadership to recognise and act upon this.'.

    City of London (Spitalfields Market) Bill (By Order)
    Order read for consideration of Lords amendments.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Lords amendments be now considered.
    7.26 pm
    Mr. Peter Shore: The last time that the Bill was briefly debated in the House was on a revival motion on 1 December 1988. The House divided on that day, and the revival motion was carried by 107 to 23. Thereafter, the Bill went to the other place, where, after Second Reading, it went into Committee. Several of my constituents, including the organisers of the campaign to save Spitalfields from the developers, appeared before their Lordships and argued cogently and tenaciously against the main proposals of the Bill. As Spitalfields is an important part of my constituency, I too gave evidence.
    Although we did not defeat the Bill or win any substantial amendments, their Lordships recommended an increase in the provisions for planning gain—notably, a doubling to £5 million of the moneys for the community trust and a trebling of the moneys for training local people to acquire new skills—a sum of £150,000 over five years.
    Today is the last chapter in the story which began with the Second Reading debate in the House on 12 May 1988. I understand that today we may consider only the Lords amendments to the Bill. The amendments are very narrow indeed. As the promoters of the Bill described them, they are technical. Therefore, I would not be in order to use this occasion, as I have used previous debates, to deploy the main arguments against the bill—that moving the market from Spitalfields to Temple Mills is not proven on planning grounds and that the proposed redevelopment of the vacated Spitalfields market site takes wholly inadequate account of the needs of my constituents for additional housing and small workshops. Those major and potent arguments must be placed on one side. The debate is confined to the amendments made in the Unopposed Bill Committee of the House of Lords.
    The amendments on the Paper—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he is about to embark on comments which may be more appropriate to the next motion which I shall put to the House. At present. we are considering the Question, That the Lords amendments be now considered. Once that is disposed of, we can consider the Question, That the Lords amendments be made. The right hon. Gentleman might prefer to address his remarks to that question rather than to the one before the House now. I shall dispose of the first question, after which the right hon. Gentleman can speak on the second motion.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendments.
    Mr. Shore: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The amendments relate to clause 4, which authorises from the appointed day the establishment of the new site for the market in Temple Mills. Under clause 4(3), the corporation of the City of London is enabled to exercise

    719
    "all rights, powers, authorities, privileges, obligations and liabilities"
    in the new market site as they operated in the old Spitalfields site. Subsection (4) specifies certain amendments to both the City of London (Spitalfields Market) Act 1902 and the City of London (Various Powers) Act 1922. It has been argued that the wording of the original clause 4(3) was technically unsatisfactory and did not do that which it was intended to do. The amendments before us, therefore, are designed to clarify the real intention of the clause.
    7.30 pm
    The first amendment, inserting new clause (3A), reads:
    "For the avoidance of doubt it is hereby declared that no obligation relating to the holding of the market shall require the Corporation to permit the carrying on of market trading on any part of the new site on which the carrying on of such trading would constitute development for which planning permission has not been granted under the Town and Country Planning Act 1971."
    The new form of words raises the question of planning permission under the 1971 Act. This is the first reference to that Act that I have come across in all the debates on the Bill. My questions are simple. What developments relating to the carrying on of trading on the Temple Mills site would constitute development for which planning permission is needed? Was permission sought for any development on the present Spitalfields site? If so, was such an application ever refused?
    The second main amendment is to clause 4(4), and refers to the corporation's power to dispose of lands in the new Temple Mills site not required for the purpose of the market. The words added in the amendment free such land
    "from any trusts attaching to it by reason of that land having formed part of the site of the market."
    What trusts presently exist relating to land in the Temple Mills site? Is any compensation available to any trust whose interests may be involved? I look forward to the sponsor's explanation of the amendments and to his answers to my questions.
    Finally, I wish to express my regrets that the debate on this important Bill must be confined within the ambit of these amendments and that we cannot seek, as we would wish, to persuade the House not to proceed further with a Bill that rides roughshod over so many of my constituents.
    Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), and I shall deal briefly with the relevant points. First, I must emphasise that these Lords
    720
    amendments are no different from any other Lords amendments, and that the procedure is identical to that followed in all the private Bills that have been passed in this House since the right hon. Gentleman has been a Member. There has never been any opportunity of debating at this stage the principle of the Bill.
    As I have done previously, I acknowledge the right hon. Gentleman's deep constituency interest in this issue, and that of the hon. Member for Bow and Poplar (Ms. Gordon) who may wish to speak later. I am authorised to say that the hon. Members for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) and for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) fully support the Bill, as amended, because it is in the interests of their constituents.
    The right hon. Gentleman asked, first, about the developments for the carrying on of trading at the Temple Mills site. The answer is, arguably any market trading outside the new market buildings for which planning permission has been given, such as the car parks or landscaped areas on the Temple Mills site. That is the simple answer.
    Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asked what trusts presently exist and whether any compensation is available. There are no such trusts, so the question of compensation does not arise. I should explain what the trusts are. The corporation is subject to a trust, the beneficiaries of which are all members of the public who wish to come and trade. It is one of those archaic lawyer's delights. There is not a trust in the sense that the right hon. Gentleman and I, as occupants of the Clapham omnibus, would expect. Those are the answers to his questions.
    The Committee of this House found no need, after long debate, to make amendments. After many days of debate upstairs, for some strange reason their lawyers decided to gild the lily. There is no more to this than that. These are technical amendments, which do not alter by one jot or iota the principle of the Bill.
    Question put and agreed to.

    City of London (Spitalfields Market) Bill (By Order)

      CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)
      Order read for consideration of Bill, as amended.
      Question, That the Bill be now considered, put and agreed to.
      Ordered,
      That Standing Order 205 (Notice of Third Reading) be suspended and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—[The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
      Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

    Data Protection
    7.37 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I beg to move,
    That the draft Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1990, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.
    Before discussing the reasons for the order, I should like to say a little about the Data Protection Act 1984, under which the order will be made. The Act has its origins in the 1981 European convention for the protection of individuals with regard to the automatic processing of personal data.
    When the Act came fully into force on 11 November 1987, we were able to ratify the convention. The convention and the Act balance the duties of data users—that is, those who hold and process personal data on computers—with protection for data subjects—those about whom the data are held.
    Data users have an interest in the legislation, because compliance with the convention enables transfer of data to and from other ratifying countries without artificial obstruction; and data subjects benefit from the protection and the rights given to them under the Act. The legislation was enacted in July 1984, and Mr. Eric Howe became the Data Protection Registrar. Mr. Howe was recently reappointed for a further five-year term. The registrar is independent of Government and reports directly to Parliament: his fifth annual report was published in July 1989.
    The main duties of the registrar are to maintain a public register of data users to ensure registration by those data users, to promote observance of the data protection principles set out in the schedule to the Data Protection Act 1984; to give advice and guidance on good practice; to consider complaints, and generally to enforce the Act. With around 130,000 registered data users and hundreds of millions of automated personal data files, and new situations and issues arising every day, that is a substantial task. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Howe for the way in which he and his office have carried out their duties under the Act.
    In addition, I should say that the working of the Act is being reviewed by an interdepartmental committee chaired by the Home Office with representatives from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Employment and with the Data Protection Registrar as adviser. The terms of reference of the committee are as follows:
    "to review the implementation of the Data Protection Act, particularly with regard to the impact on data users of registration requirements; and to make recommendations."
    The review was occasioned by the Government's deregulation policy and concern among data users about administrative burdens arising from the Act. The committee hopes to report to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary fairly soon, but obviously I cannot say what its recommendations might be.
    Mr. Steve Norris: As a result of the review, will one of the options be the scrapping of the bureaucratic machinery by which privileges under the Data Protection Act are maintained? Surely my hon. friend agrees that it represents a considerable administrative operation involving many staff and a great deal of
    722
    money. There is a respectable school of thought that believes that all that is needed in the circumstances is the basic legislation and the right of access to the courts. In that event there would be an opportunity to save a great deal of public money and to provide a more realistic framework of protection.
    Mr. Lloyd: We are having the review because we want to ensure that the Data Protection Act does not merely do its job, but does it in a manner that results in the least burden on industry and on data users, while maintaining the protection that data subjects have a right to expect. The purpose of the committee is to go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) wants to go, subject to the protection that data subjects should have under the Act, which it was designed to give them.
    The order needs an affirmative resolution in both Houses if it is to come into effect. The Data Protection Act gives subject access rights to individuals. That means that they have a general right of access to automated personal data held on them by a registered data user. But there are exemptions, so that, for example, personal data held for the purposes of prevention or detection of crime are exempt if allowing access would be likely to prejudice that purpose.
    The Act also enables the Secretary of State to make certain further exemptions by order. Hon. Members may remember that we debated four such orders on 3 November 1987; an account of those debates may be found at columns 885 to 905 of the Official Report. One of them was the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987, made on 9 November 1987 under section 30(2) of the Act. It exempted data held for the purpose of regulating financial services from the subject access provisions of the Data Protection Act. The reason for the exemption is that, without it, a data subject could discover what information regulators held about him and thus frustrate the detection or investigation of his malpractice and potential court proceedings.
    While the protection of data subjects is very important and indeed at the heart of this legislation, should not their rights be overriding in all cases. In this particular case, Parliament considered that the interests of others—for example, those damaged by the suspected malpractice—must prevail.
    The order amends the 1987 order in the light of sections of part III of the Companies Act 1989, which will come into force on 21 February, and of part VIII of that Act, which it is proposed should be brought into force on 15 March.
    Mr. John Butterfill: What will be the effect of the order on data held about patients by the National Health Service? Will such patients be protected adequately, and will the concerns expressed by the medical profession be met?
    Mr. Lloyd: The order will have nothing to do with those categories, because we are discussing delegated legislation as a result of the Companies Act 1989 rather than legislation pertaining to data held on patients or other individuals in other sectors. As my hon. Friend knows, some private Members' legislation on that matter made such data more available to the individual concerned. It is to that and any subsequent legislation that my hon. Friend should look in this instance.

    723
    The order brings the 1987 order into line with new powers in the Companies Act 1989. First, while the Companies Act 1985 enabled the Secretary of State to require production and explanation of a company's records, the Companies Act 1989 allows competent persons other than departmental officials to carry out such inquiries. That will enable the Secretary of State to bring in special expertise in increasingly complex cases and will give more flexibility to cope with sudden increases in work load.
    Secondly, the 1989 Act will enable the Secretary of State to assist overseas regulators in the company law, financial services and insurance spheres by investigating in the United Kingdom on their behalf. The new power will protect United Kingdom investors by helping overseas regulators who are investigating wrongdoings that may have been perpetrated by persons who, undetected, would subsequently be free to carry on investment business into or in the United Kingdom. It will also help our investigators to gain reciprocal assistance from overseas regulators, particularly those who already have compulsory investigation powers that can be used on behalf of overseas regulators—for example, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
    The new power is thus a response to the current and expected sophistication and internationalisation of markets with transactions straddling one or more national borders.
    Mr. Butterfill: My hon. Friend will remember that, when we discussed the Financial Services Act 1986, considerable concern was expressed about the need for confidentiality in some areas. There was particular concern that some institutions in London, which relied upon confidentiality for their investors, should not have their legitimate interests prejudiced in a way that affected the viability of the London market and encouraged people to place their business outside London. Is my hon. friend satisfied that the order will not be a licence for overseas investigators to come in and look at everything that is going on, to the detriment of our market?
    Mr. Lloyd: My hon. Friend is right to be concerned. The order does not make it mandatory upon the Secretary of State to provide the information for which he is asked by an overseas agency or country, but it empowers him to transfer that information, when he thinks there is good reason, to countries that have also signed the convention—it has similar rules to the Act that we brought in. I am certain that we have the necessary safeguards and that the Secretary of State will not exercise his right to transfer that information without good reason.
    To unravel a suspected breach of the law, regulators frequently and increasingly find it necessary to trace transactions to all the countries to which they have ramified.
    Thirdly, part VIII of the Companies Act makes various amendments to the Financial Services Act 1986. Most of them relate to the powers of the Securities and Investments Board, which exercises powers under the Financial Services Act transferred by the Secretary of State. As Parliament recognised in approving the 1987 order, it may be essential for the effective operation of a regulator such as the board that individuals on whom data are held are not able to have access to those date.
    724
    Part II of the schedule to the order therefore updates the 1987 order to take account of modified or new functions under the amended Financial Services Act. In particular, the Companies Act amendments confer new powers to issue statements of principle and codes of practice to designated rules as applying directly to members of a self-regulating organisation recognised by the Securities and Investments Board and to use the enforcement powers in the Financial Services Act to assist an overseas regulator.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does my hon. Friend realise that one of the criticisms levelled at the way in which the Financial Services Act operates in practice has been that it has led to an enormous increase in regulations and, therefore, a huge increase in the cost of compliance for companies operating in London? Many of those companies feel that it has led them to be less competitive internationally. Is my hon. Friend happy that the increased number of regulations required by the order will not inhibit our domestic market?
    Mr. Lloyd: The Financial Services Act is not a matter for me and is certainly beyond the scope of our discussions tonight. The order does not give extra work to companies, but it gives the Secretary of State more freedom to make the investigations that he is already empowered to make and to transfer information abroad under conditions that are in our interests. It does not create any new burdens for the City, industry or any other data user.
    The principles, designated rules and codes of practice provide the primary regulator with more flexibility in regulating the carrying on of investment. The order is not controversial. It has been the subject of detailed discussion between my Department and the other Departments in Whitehall with the main interest in its subject matter. As the Act requires, the Data Protection Registrar has also been consulted and is content with the order. Therefore, I happily commend it to the House.
    7.53 pm
    Mr. Stuart Randall: The order is complicated and an example of how not to draft legislation. I refer specifically to part II of the schedule. I have spoken to a few people today, none of whom seems to understand what this is about. I appreciate the Minister's explanation, which has helped considerably. In the explanatory note, only two full lines are devoted to part II. If we are to produce such orders in future, the House should be given a proper explanatory note so tha.t we understand what we are dealing with.
    As the Minister said, the order deals mainly with consequential amendments emerging from the Companies Act 1989. It extends the list of functions in the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987, which is embraced by section 30 of the Data Protection Act. This means that individuals will be further denied access to computer files containing information about them. In losing that liberty, individuals give authorities the opportunity to identify fraud and maladministration in the financial services industry.
    The Government will claim that they have got the balance right between these two aspects, and are minimising individuals' loss of liberty against the broader benefit of stamping out maladministration. How do we

    725
    know that that is so? How can we be sure that the Government are not erring on the side of oppression—a strong word, but one which serves in tonight's debate?
    Mr. Butterfill: I do not know whether, in his constituency, the hon. Gentleman has experienced the same as I have in Bournemouth, West. There, a large number of investors in Barlow Clowes thought that they had lost their entire life savings. Only the generosity of the Government has enabled them to recover most of them, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for that. Surely the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) would accept that such fraud is sufficiently serious to warrant this order—indeed, makes it essential.
    Mr. Randall: I fail to see the logic of that. We all have constituents who have been affected by Barlow Clowes. However, a balance must be struck. We must ensure that people have access to files about themselves. The order would prevent people from having access to those files so that the Department of Trade and Industry could carry out investigative work and not be impaired by people making public information that would create difficulties for the DTI. I fear that the Government are erring on the side of oppression—I use that word intentionally, because it illustrates my point.
    It is exceedingly difficult to establish whether the balance is right. Why are the exemptions under section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 so extensive? The 1987 order, or the 1987 version of what we are discussing—now we have the television cameras on us, the public can see the scale of it—
    Mr. Irvine Patnick: It is small print.
    Mr. Randall: The Government Whip, who should be silent, says that it is small print. He strengthens my argument: the print is small and we can see the extent to which people's freedom of access to files has been limited. Why are the exemptions so extensive? For example, why, under the 1987 order, do the Bank of England's functions result in limiting individuals' access to their personal files? Why is that necessary? Why are the functions in relation to the certification of directors restricted?
    Some people might say that there are pretty obvious reasons for making personal files exempt under section 30 of the Data Protection Act. I am not sure on what grounds we could argue that tonight in the context of this order. No one here knows the principles on which those decisions are taken. I have given just two examples, but there are yards of them. How was the list arrived at? It arises from within the Department of Trade and Industry which in turn consults the Data Protection Registrar. The Minister explained that at some length. However, the power and influence of the registrar is exceedingly limited. It would be almost impossible for him or the Home Office to assess whether the huge list of additions that we are considering makes sense. The Data Protection Registrar, who is independent, is not, unlike the DTI, involved in investigative work, so he cannot make many suggestions.
    I imagine that the registrar would simply say that he could see no obvious reason why these functions should not exist. It is clear, therefore, that the role of the
    726
    indpendent registrar in establishing whether limits should be placed on individuals' access to personal files is highly limited. The initiative and power rest with the DTI.
    I am dubious whether the Government have struck the right balance between people's freedom to see files about themselves and the benefits of denying access in tackling corruption in the financial services industry. I am inclined to be a little suspicious of the Government in this respect. I suspect that they will tend to restrict people's access to their files merely because of the ethos of secrecy that pervades Whitehall. The Opposition see great virtue in creating a more open society. We should like a freedom of information Act that would go much further towards compelling Departments to provide information far more readily.
    Most other countries in the developed world, including Australia, Canada and the USA, are way ahead of Britain, and we are beginning to look outdated and obsessed with secrecy. Few would disagree with that proposition. There must be a change, and we must develop our democracy.
    Mr. Norris: The hon. Gentleman will know that, as a recently retired chairman of the campaign, I broadly agree with him about the desirability of a freedom of information Act. But does he agree that the Australian and American systems have fairly comprehensive exemptions relating to commercial confidentiality, because of the obvious desirability of such confidentiality in investigations of fraud?
    Mr. Randall: I do not argue against exemptions; I argue against unnecessary exemptions. I do not know from the information in the order whether these exemptions are necessary or unnecessary. I challenge hon. Members to judge whether they are. We cannot make an assessment, because the information is not available.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the order gives discretion to the Secretary of State? He will be accountable—eventually—directly to Parliament. Is not that the safeguard that we need?
    Mr. Randall: The hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The Secretary of State has certain powers and is expected to carry out certain functions. To do so he has to ensure that the availability of information does not prejudice the carrying out of those functions. The 1987 order and this order make the number of functions embraced by section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 very large—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I am reluctant to interrupt the debate, but there are limits. Presumably the order to which the hon. Gentleman is referring came before, and was approved by, the House. We cannot reopen that debate now.
    Mr. Randall: I agree. I am talking about the way in which this order extends the scope of the 1987 order. I question whether the list should be as long—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That would be going beyond the bounds of what is proper tonight. We are debating the merits or otherwise of the matters intended to be added to the list. We cannot discuss the generality of that list, or whether it is too long or too short.
    Mr. Norris: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely, at the point at which we approve the new order, we are reconstituting the earlier legislation—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to challenge my ruling, or to debate it, and that he cannot do.
    Mr. Randall: I do not challenge your ruling, as you very well know, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister referred to the additional functions of certain persons in assisting overseas regulatory authorities. Those functions make the overall list rather long, but I note your comments, and will refrain from pursuing the point.
    Other countries have shown that huge savings can be made by rooting out poor and inefficient administrations. Had they not encouraged more openness, the public in those countries could not have challenged the authorities, because they would not have had the information with which to do so. The information revolution in the developed world—it is directly related to the information held in the computer files referred to in the order—is moving at an incredible pace. We must match these impressive developments in technology and information with equally impressive developments in openness so as to protect people's privacy and access rights.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although we all accept that the rights of the citizen need safeguarding, if we allowed unlimited access to information, it could tend to inhibit the functions of an Executive and make it unduly cautious? If they know that everything they do may be subject to public scrutiny, an Executive may always be inclined to err on the side of caution and never propose anything innovative or exciting.
    Mr. Randall: I am not advocating unlimited access—that would he absurd—but this order prompts the question: are we going in the right direction? Massive changes are under way.
    I should like to deal with some specific parts of the order. Why does paragraph 2 of part I of the schedule limit access to personal files via section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 in connection with persons assessing overseas regulatory authorities? The Minister touched on that in his speech, but I should be grateful for a little more detail.
    One could argue that the exemption order is needed to investigate malpractice involving computer data in the United Kingdom. However, the files could be held at the same time in another country. One could argue that we have access via the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987 to United Kingdom regulators, and now we need access to overseas regulators. I accept that argument, but I am still not satisfied that we are maximising the extent to which we provide access by individuals to personal files. We seem to be using a massive sledgehammer to crack a very small nut.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest an arrangement under which information provided for the investigation of overseas fraud by an overseas regulator should be made available to a United Kingdom citizen who might be the subject of such an investigation by an overseas regulator?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is going well beyond the scope of the order.
    Mr. Randall: We all want corruption and maladministration to be eliminated. If a company or the Government wish to restrict access to personal files, the burden of proof for the restriction should rest with the company or with a Department. Why not make public the justification for restricting a person's access to his own files? That has not been referred to, but I do not see why it should not happen.
    I do not suggest that we should make public all the details surrounding a case involving corruption. Plainly, such information would have to be exempted. I am talking about setting the principle on which restriction of access to information is made public. I should be interested in whether the Minister finds that broad principle acceptable. To me it is not at all unreasonable. It may be hard for some people to swallow, but I think that this is how matters will continue to proceed, now and in the future.
    Part II of the schedule seems to relate to exempting, via section 30 of the Data Protection Act, certain new functions that are now part of the Financial Services Act 1986. I imagine that the new functions in that Act have arisen through changes in the Companies Act 1989. Perhaps the Minister will explain specifically the functions referred to in paragraph 4 of part II of the schedule because I cannot understand them. Paragraph 5 of part II talks about
    "Functions … in relation to exemption of advertisements".
    That is gobbledegook, and we should have had an explanation. I am sorry to have to ask the Minister to explain such things.
    Will the Minister explain the thinking behind paragraph I of part I of the schedule? It says that the Secretary of State would authorise an officer to carry out investigations. Why does the paragraph refer to an "other competent person"? Is it because the Department of Trade and Industry has reduced its staff to such an extent that it no longer has the expertise to carry out that vital work, or is it a deliberate policy to involve the private sector rather than civil servants? I have no hang-ups about the private sector, but I wonder whether such sensitive work involving personal privacy should not be done by Government officials.
    8.15 pm
    Mr. Steve Norris: The order follows a long tradition of orders that recognise the importance of data protection and the rights of subjects to have access to that data, while at the same time excluding such data from public access.
    Like the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), I should like to look in detail at the schedule. I shall comment first on the interesting substitution in part I:
    "or other competent person authorised by the Secretary of State".
    The 1987 order designated an officer. I assume that the new wording is necessary because, quite properly, in the discharge of his functions, the Secretary of State may wish to empower an outside investigator or inspector to gain access to information about a person that is pertinent. under the order.
    That is to say, it may be financial data about the person, which could lead to prosecution for dishonesty or fraud. If such an authorised "other competent person" was not mentioned in the order, the Secretary of State would be

    729
    limited in the way in which the powers could be exercised. Perhaps when my hon. Friend the Minister winds up he will comment on that.
    I was intrigued by the amendments in part II of the schedule. Paragraph 3 contains an interesting change because the words
    "rules, guidance, arrangements or restrictions"
    are to be removed and the words
    "rules, statements of principle, regulations, codes of practice, guidance, arrangements or practices"
    are to be substituted. It looks as if someone sat down with a lexicon or perhaps "Roget's Thesaurus" and tried to discover all the variations of the word "rules", having previously come up with only four.
    Why are "statements of principle" suddenly involved in the legislation? The House has been advised that this is merely a technical order. If so, why is it necessary to introduce something as fundamental as "statements of principle"? The original statement of principle in section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1984 included substantial exclusions. No doubt hon. Members will recall that. Those were exclusions of any information concerning
    "(a) the prevention or detection of crime;
    (b) the apprehension or prosecution of offenders; or
    (c) the assessment or collection of any tax or duty".
    I was on the Committee that examined that Bill in 1984 and for the life of me I could not think what other activity could not be covered by those exclusions, especially in the case of financial services. I am at a loss to understand why it is now necessary to include a new statement of principle in the entry relating to the functions under chapter XIV of part I of the Data Protection Act 1984, in place of the words
    "rules, guidance, arrangements or restrictions."
    Similarly, I am unsure why codes of practice are to be included. I imagine that that is because codes of practice, whether statutory or non-statutory, may have a binding effect on any regulations that are relevant under the order. Again, an explanation is needed.
    Even more intriguing is that, whereas in our original assessment, under part II of the Act there appears the word "restrictions", it no longer appears in the new form of words. I am again at a loss to understand why. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with those important matters when he winds up.
    The overall purpose of the order is to keep up to date the general principle of allowing the Secretary of State to keep secret such information as may be deemed to be sensitive in connection with a prosecution for fraud or a related offence of dishonesty. I take the extremely relevant point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West, when he outlined the delicate balance that must be struck between the general principle of providing access to confidential information on the data subject—which is the cardinal principle, laid down by the European convention—and the convention's recognition of the right to exclude information in certain sensitive categories.
    It is entirely reasonable to update the 1987 order. Throughout data protection legislation, not only in Australia and the United States but elsewhere, there runs the well-recognised principle that financial services markets and the investigation of fraud or dishonesty should legitimately be an exempted area. I am not sure that the order could not be more narrowly drawn. Whenever such orders are laid before the House, the onus should be
    730
    on the Government to demonstrate that not one jot of personal information shall be withhld from subject access unless there is concrete justification. I believe that that was the thrust of the argument of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West, and I agree that that should be the case.
    In respect of financial services investigations in particular, secrecy is all. Were the subject of such an investigation to be given any idea that information was held about him, he could take advantage of that knowledge to arrange his affairs so as to gain protection under the umbrella that the order will constitute. In that context, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will be aware of the current cases, which are sub judice, in which it is clear that information relating to the availability of knowledge on subject access could have been relevant to persons who have been charged with an offence.
    Mr. Randall: We all agree on the principles of the order. As to whether the list is too big or too small, I still contend that there is no way of assessing that and whether the Government have gone too far down the path to secrecy.
    Mr. Norris: Given that section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1984 draws exemptions as wide as
    "the assessment or collection of any tax or duty",
    the hon. Member makes a good point. My hon. Friend the Minister must make it clear that he has examined every detail of the order's applicability to information held about a data subject—and he must assure himself that in no way, and in no particular, does the subject access provision need further modification so as to allow the form of access to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
    Clearly, it is important that the order receives the approval of the House, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West agrees that there is no virtue in legislation that is hamstrung by not being related to other current legislation. To the extent to which the amendments contained in the order bring matters into line with the Companies Act 1989, obviously we cannot refuse to approve it. Nevertheless, the general principles of the European convention, which provide that in all but exceptional circumstances a data subject should have access to information held about him or her, are so important that, whenever such a measure comes before the House, it is vital that the Minister presenting it is assured that it is drawn as narrowly as practicable, to provide necessary confidentiality.
    I have always believed that, when Governments are in doubt, they should as a general principle be prepared to tell citizens what is done in their name. That principle should particularly guide my right hon. and hon. Friends, and I am grateful for the support for it shown by Opposition Members. That principle ensures that a democracy works to serve the people and is not governed in turn by officials who can hide behind a cloak of secrecy.
    In that context, my hon. Friend the Minister has some further explaining to do. However, in terms of the order's general principles and of the necessity to ensure that existing measures are updated in line with the Companies Act 1989, I commend it to the House. I trust that, when my hon. Friend winds up, he will give the officials in the Box something to do this evening and answer the points that I raised.
    I recall being invited to serve on the Committee considering the Data Protection Bill after my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) approached

    731
    me in the Lobby and asked, "What do you know about data protection?" When I replied, "Nothing," I found myself instantly on the Committee. That was the first on which I served on entering the House in 1983, and the principle of knowing nothing initially has stood me in good stead. I have applied it in respect of every other Committee on which I have served. However, aware as I am of the detailed nature of the order, I commend to my hon. Friend the Minister a thorough review of all the options available to him.
    8.27 pm
    Mr. Harry Cohen: I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) on a very good speech. He is one of the few right hon. and hon. Members to make sense of data protection legislation. As he said, his experience goes back to the Committee that considered the Data Protection Bill. He played an honourable role then and has done so since in respect of data protection matters, in ensuring that orders such as this are not so widely drawn that they make it impossible for individuals to be certain of their rights. Exemptions may be allowable in cases of fraud, but they should be clearly spelt out. I am sure that the hon. Member for Epping Forest agrees that there should be a role for the Data Protection Registrar.
    The Minister said that the order is not controversial. That may be true on the surface, because its wording is bland and vague—I suspect, deliberately so. However, the denial of access rights is not so non-controversial to the subject concerned. Last Tuesday, the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Jackson), said of the Data Protection Act 1984:
    "The Act—which was passed under the present Government—provides valuable protection for the individual, while recognising the need for controlled exchange in the use of personal data. The Government are wholly committed to the enforcement of the Act through the Office of the Data Protection Registrar."—[OfficialReport, 15 February 1990; Vol. 167, c.470.]
    The Government claim it as a credit, but the Data Protection Act 1984 is one of the worst in Europe. The Data Protection Registrar is powerless over enforcement of exemptions. Within four days of that statement, we are debating the order, and we can see the true nature of the Government's thinking on the Data Protection Act. They have put before the House an order which does the complete opposite of what the Minister said they would do.
    The order is just what it seems. First, it removes protection from the individual. Secondly, it removes any enforcement powers from the Data Protection Registrar.The Minister shakes his head, but the DPR is powerless over subject access exemptions. Thirdly, it provides no real information to the House concerning details of the orders.
    The Minister made a comment about the purpose of the order in relation to fraud. The order amends another order—the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemptions) Order 1987. Together, both orders list more than 230 statements about withholding rights of access to personal data from data subjects.
    When SI 1987/1905 was debated in the House, very little information was provided about it, even though some of the statements in the statutory instrument seemed quite broad. For example, in the middle of page 5, we find the words:
    732
    "Any functions of making available information for purposes or otherwise in connection with any functions specified in this Schedule in relation to Acts".
    Apart from being gobbledegook, when one considers that paragraph closely, one sees that the schedule to which it refers was a very broad schedule which became virtually open-ended when the exemptions were made. The order before us is exactly similar, and it is equally generous with its wording. For example, paragraph 4 would insert:
    "Functions of Secretary of State or designated agency under Chapter XV of Part I."
    I understand that to mean all functions of all designated agencies. That is a very broad order.
    The hon. Member for Epping Forest quite rightly said that orders about access exemptions should be drawn very narrowly, so that the House and the public can see exactly what is being allowed, and will know what exemptions will affect the right of individuals to see personal data, and when the DPR cannot get involved.
    I also note that, as with SI 1905, the Government have not provided any detailed reason that I can see why an individual's rights are being removed. Although the orders contain 230 statements or functions, they contain little detail about why we should refuse an individual access to personal data. The House is in the dark about how the exemptions will apply in practice. The only light that has been shed on the matter was in the Minister's statement tonight, at the beginning of the debate. This situation should be unacceptable to the House. Each subject access exemption represents a significant diminution of an individual's rights. Consequently, each exemption should be considered most carefully. Once allowed, an exemption is total, and once it is applied, the individual is powerless to do anything about it.
    In paragraph 220 of his fifth annual report, the Data Protection Registrar summarises what a subject access exemption means, saying:
    "The individual does not know that the data user has applied a subject access exemption and is in no position to make an appeal to test whether the data user has been properly applied or not."
    Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Gentleman tell me to which of the functions under section 30 he considers that this should not apply? Does he exclude dishonesty or incompetence, malpractice or the investigation of bankruptcy? Does he not agree that other people need protection, as well as the person who is being investigated?
    Mr. Cohen: Of course. I also think that exemption should be clearly defined; but we do not need 230 different statements of where they should apply. In a moment, I shall come to a particular example where I think subject access exemption may be applied, but let me finish the paragraph that I was talking about.
    I cannot understand why it is not possible for the Government to produce clear explanatory notes, such a.s notes on clauses, before they put a whole range of personal data into an information black hole. The notes would explain why a subject access exemption was necessary, so that we could judge the validity of the Minister's arguments in every one of the 230 cases.
    One case in which the exemptions could be misused is in the use of black lists. We know from debates in Committee on the Employment Bill that companies are using blacklists. They adversely affect individuals, perhaps because they are in a trade union or are involved in politics—which is their democratic right. Companies keep that

    733
    sort of information about people on their computers. An individual might want to get access to that information, but if it conveniently comes under one of those 230 statements, and so has become a subject access exemption, the individual will not even know that he is on a blacklist, judging from what the DPR said in his report. If he finds out, he will not get access to data because the law will have been changed by the broad wording in the order to make blacklists exempt.
    Mr. Butterfill: I am puzzled by what the hon. Gentleman is saying. It seems to me that we are considering an order that is limited to data protection for the regulation of financial services. I cannot see that a blacklist against an individual could have any connection with the regulation of financial services in the way that he suggests. Surely it has more to do with protection of the public from fraud and other undesirable practices, and I am sure that even the hon. Gentleman would not object to that.
    Mr. Cohen: The Financial Services Act 1986 was a thick Act and took a lot of time and consideration in the House. It had many clauses that could relate to blacklisting.
    A trade unionist might want information about a takeover because it affected the jobs of union members. The company could say that the union was affecting financial services and its stock market quote, and therefore it would use its subject access exemption to stop them getting the information. That could easily happen, because the Financial Services Act was so broadly drawn.
    I wish to raise further questions concerning the statements on the first page of the order that it was made
    "after consultation with the Data Protection Registrar".
    The Minister quoted that. I wish to enlarge on the subject of those consultations. Did the registrar agree with the Minister's wording of the order? Did he have any advice for the Minister, and was any of that advice ignored? I think that the House should know exactly what the DPR said.
    For example, did the DPR draw the Minister's attention to paragraph 232 on page 87 of his fifth annual report:
    "Exemptions from subject access right should be strictly limited and very carefully defined"?
    If the DPR was being consistent, he would give such advice. I should be interested to hear whether he did, and what the Minister's response was. As the Government have had two full years of operation to report on how the exemptions in SI 1905 have worked in practice, will the Minister say how many times subject access has been refused under the 1987 order?
    Did the registrar raise during the consultation process his advice in paragraph 221 of the fifth annual report:
    "I recommend that data users should be required to keep a log of the cases in which subject access exemption is relied upon and the reasons for using the exemption"?
    Has the Minister any views on that advice, which I should have thought the House would regard as reasonable?
    Such questions are important, especially considering the Minister who will exercise the power and control the many functions that facilitate subject access exemptions. That Minister will be the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, who is better known for his work in pursuit of privatisation than for his work to protect privacy. Privacy
    734
    comes very low on his list of priorities. He was the one who introduced the poll tax, which has smashed privacy to smithereens, yet we are to give him powers over it under the order. That hardly inspires confidence.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is also known for his rigorous pursuit of wrongdoers and that his action in trying to eliminate fraud and in dealing sympathetically with investors in Barlow Clowes shows him in a rather different light from that in which the hon. Gentleman seeks to portray him?
    Mr. Cohen: I shall not go into the issues surrounding Barlow Clowes
    Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): That is a good thing.
    Mr. Cohen: But deeds speak louder than words, and we have not had great actions from the Secretary of State to tackle the wrongdoers. The multi-billion pound fraudsters have not been dragged through the courts by the Secretary of State. Recently, the right hon. Gentleman took to court a case for which his Department was so badly prepared that the procedings collapsed in a shambles. The hon. Gentleman is on the wrong tack in saying that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has a good reputation in this matter; the right hon. Gentleman's actions do not support that claim.
    Mr. Michael Stern: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that much of the work of the Department of Trade and Industry—under whomever happens to be the Secretary of State—leads to major trials? I am not allowed to name the trial that started last week but, with his known fairness, the hon. Gentleman will agree that that trial could not have started and could not be expected, as it is, to last about six months—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) has stuck perfectly to the motion, and I am sure that he will continue to do so.
    Mr. Cohen: I shall not pursue that line, Madam Deputy Speaker. My response to the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) emphasised my view: many of the trials collapse in a shambles, and the wrongdoers have not been hauled before the courts and made to pay back the money of which they have robbed shareholders and the public.
    Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Cohen: No, I shall not give way; you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have asked me not to pursue these matters, but to stick to the order.
    Mr. Butterfill: My point relates specifically to the order.
    Mr. Cohen: In that case, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the order extends the ability of the Secretary of State to co-operate with investigators and regulators overseas? In view of the increasingly international nature of fraud, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the order represents a valuable contribution to the investigation of fraud?
    Mr. Cohen: Of course we need links with overseas crimebusters to bust crime internationally, and I support that, but I do not think that the order will necessarily contribute greatly to that task. It is more likely to affect the individual's rights of privacy, which should be preserved. Such rights may be just as much affected by a bland and vague order such as this as big criminals may be affected by it. That is what concerns me, and that is why the order should be more tightly drawn, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest said.
    Mr. Gary Waller: I have listened with great care to what the hon. Gentleman has said, and so far it has been very theoretical. He has had access to the reports of the Data Protection Registrar. The key question that we must all ask ourselves concerning the alteration is whether there are data to which the subject would previously have had access and which would have been useful to him which he is now to be denied. Can the hon. Gentleman give practical examples from the reports to which he has had access to demonstrate that fact?
    Mr. Cohen: Yes, my speech has been theoretical, but when the order is passed, a number of individuals will be denied the right to information that companies hold about them. At the moment, individuals have the right to information, and we are denying them that right. The examples will come after the order has been passed. I gave the House one example—that of a trade unionist trying to get information in a blacklisting case. Practical problems will arise when people are denied their subject access rights.
    All that the House can say about the order is this: first, we do not have enough information about how it will work in practice; secondly, we cannot tell whether it is drawn too widely, although in my view it is. We should ask the Minister for clearer information, and further detail should be given to the House on how the exemptions will apply in practice. Otherwise, abuses will occur and the House will be sending out the message that we do not really care about individuals' rights.
    I am getting rather tired of the Government's boasting, as the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science boasted last Tuesday, that the Data Protection Act provides valuable protection for the individual, only to undermine that Act by orders such as this. I advise hon. Members that, when they read words like "valuable protection for the individual" in Hansard, they should immediately understand them as having the same meaning when used by Ministers as if they had been used by A1 Capone.
    8.48 pm
    Mr. John Butterfill: I support the objectives of the order but I must join some of my Friends and Opposition Members in saying that the explanatory memorandum that accompanies the order is somewhat less than helpful—and nor is the English in which it is couched particularly easy to follow.
    The order would amend a large number of existing Acts and previous orders, and perhaps it would help if I ran through them. We are amending not only the Data Protection Act 1984 but the Companies Acts 1985 and 1989 and the Financial Services Act 1986.
    Mr. Randall: They are consequential amendments.
    Mr. Butterfill: I agree that they are consequential amendments, but they are amendments nevertheless. The interrelationship of the Acts and the other orders that we are amending is complex. It would have been much more helpful if the explanatory note had contained more information so that we could understand how the legislation interacts. Instead, hon. Members have been left to work it out for themselves—in my case, by a somewhat convoluted process. I am not an expert in such matters. However, I have done my best.
    Mr. Stern: May I underline my hon. Friend's point by saying that, when hon. Members are presented with an explanatory note, it always seems to be couched in a form of English in which "explanatory" is the exact reverse of the truth. With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall put the first sentence on the record so that those who read Hansard can appreciate in all their beauty the triple convolutions of the so-called prose that is supposed to explain what the order means. The explanatory note reads:
    "Section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 provides th.it personal data"—
    subject—
    "held for the purpose of discharging statutory functions"—
    "functions" becomes a subsidiary subject—
    "which are designated by the Secretary of State"—
    new subject—
    "by an order"—
    further new subject—
    "made under that section"—
    further new subject, although we have now forgotten which section is being referred to—
    "shall be exempt from the subject access provisions"—
    a triple noun—
    "of the Act in any case in which the application of those provisions to the data"—
    by now we have completely forgotten what data we are talking about—
    "would be likely to prejudice the proper discharge of those functions."
    Whoever wrote that sentence should enrol immediately in a course on clear English, because the one thing that that sentence is not is explanatory.
    Mr. Butterfill: My hon. Friend anticipates precisely the point that I intended to make. If he reads the second part of the explanatory note, the abuse of English and the defeat of the vaulting imagination of hon. Members will become even more apparent. It says:
    "Schedule 1 to the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987 ('the 1987 Order') designates functions for the purposes of section 30. The Schedule to this Order"—
    if my hon. Friends can follow which order we are now talking about—
    "contains amendments to the 1987 Order"—
    if we can remember which order we are talking about—
    "which are consequential upon the implementation of the. Companies Act 1989 ('the 1989 Act'). Part I of the Schedule, which comes into force on 21st February 1990, amends the entry relating to section 447 of the Companies Act 1985 (Secretary of State's powers to require production of documents) and designates functions under sections 83, 84 and 88 of the 1989 Act"—
    I defy, you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or anybody else to remember which 1989 Act we are now talking about—
    "(powers exercisable to assist overseas regulatory authorities). Part II of the Schedule to this Order, which comes into force on 15th March 1990, contains amendments relating to functions under the Financial Services Act 1986."

    737
    If that is supposed to be an explanatory note, we need to send some of our officials on a course in plain English.
    Mr. Cohen: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that he and the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) may be on dangerous ground by criticising the explanatory note? I was a member of a Statutory Instruments Committee, with my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), that considered official secrets. When we criticised the explanatory note, the Home Office Minister said that he had written it himself. Perhaps we could be told whether the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department wrote this explanatory note which, as the hon. Members for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) and for Bristol, North-West have said, is gobbledegook. If the Minister wrote it, they will be on dangerous ground for having criticised the grammatical efforts of their own Minister.
    Mr. Butterfill: At the risk of being proved wrong, my hon. Friend the Minister's command of the English language is a model of clarity and eloquence. Therefore, I am confident that the explanatory note was not drafted by him personally. No doubt he will confirm that when he responds to the debate.
    Mr. Stern: To pursue this line of argument, does my hon. Friend agree that we shall soon be demanding an explanatory note to the explanatory note of instruments of this nature? I am not sure that either my hon. Friend or I would wish public expenditure to be increased to such an extent.
    Mr. Butterfill: I should be the last person to wish public expenditure to be increased unnecessarily. However, this explanatory note could have been much clearer and longer so as to assist hon. Members in their examination of the order.
    Part I, paragraph 2, of the schedule refers to
    "functions of following persons in assisting overseas regulatory authorities".
    Will the Minister clarify that my understanding of the paragraph is correct? I thought that it enabled the Secretary of State to rule that information would not be made available to a member of the public if it should properly be withheld to allow the investigation of fraud by an overseas regulatory authority.
    It is an important power. If that is what the paragraph means, I support it. If that is not what it means, I believe that such a power should be included in the legislation. International fraud is becoming more common. The United Kingdom's financial services market is free and is extremely valuable to this country. It earns for the United Kingdom a vast amount of money in the form of invisible earnings, and I should be the last to want to lose them.
    The corollary to an international market is that, with modern communications and modern means of data transmission, fraud is that much easier to perpetrate and that much more difficult to detect. Serious international fraud can be defeated only if the regulatory authorities in the countries concerned can co-operate in defeating it. I hope that that is what is intended by the paragraph, and that the order will give effect to that intention.
    738
    On part II of the schedule, like my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris) I am somewhat puzzled about paragraph 3, which extends the previous entry for
    "rules, guidance, arrangements or restrictions"
    and substitutes for that
    "rules, statements of principle, regulations, codes of practice, guidance, arrangements or practices".
    I am not sure—nor will many other hon. Members be—why that extension needs to be made, what its practical effect on the denial of access will be and why those activities need to be protected as that section purports to protect them.
    Paragraph 5, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), deals with the exemption of advertisements. Am I correct in assuming that it relates to the section of the Financial Services Act which regulates advertisements so that they do not mislead the public and improperly induce people to make investments? If that were the case, it would be entirely proper for investigations into the exemption of advertisements to proceed in a way that did not alert those being investigated. But it is not entirely clear to me, and I suspect that it may not be entirely clear to other hon. Members here this evening, so it would be most helpful if my hon. Friend could explain that in more detail.
    Having asked some specific questions about the effect of the order, let me say a few words about the general philosophical approach which has been mentioned by hon. Members on all sides of the House this evening. As always, there is a conflict between the need to protect the public from fraud and misfeasance and plain incompetence on the part of certain authorities and the need to give the individual the right to access held about him on any givem file. We need to draw a very fine line.
    Hon. Members who have spoken this evening, including my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and certainly Opposition Members, would go a lot further than I would. If we are talking about freedom of information, which has been the subject of much of our debate, I urge some caution. It is not always in the public interest for all information to be disclosed.
    If we want to see the effects of a full right to information, we need only look at what happens in the United States, where everything in the process of government is open to public scrutiny. The effect is a politicised civil service. When the President of the United States and the Administration change, the new President changes the civil service, because he cannot do otherwise than have with him his political allies. That would be the regrettable effect if the right to information were pursued to its ultimate conclusion in Britain.
    Without wishing to flatter those in Whitehall who may be listening to the debate, one of the great assets of the British constitution is the impartiality of the Civil Service and the knowledge that civil servants may give advice to Ministers in confidence and protect their professional position as independent and impartial advisers to Government. We have the balance right in requiring the Government to account to the House for their actions and not to require civil servants to account for their actions. But I fear that what has been proposed this evening, particularly by the Opposition, could have that effect, and I genuinely believe that it would be a sad day for British democracy if that were to happen.

    739
    I am also concerned about the general tenor of some of the speeches from the Opposition. Opposition Members said that the right of an individual to inspect any file that may be held on him, for whatever purpose, is more important than some of the purposes in the order before the House. I cannot accept that. Section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984 states that its purpose is to protect the
    "public against financial loss due to dishonesty, incompetence or malpractice by persons concerned in the provision of banking, insurance, investment or other financial services or in the management of companies or to the conduct of discharged or undischarged bankrupts."
    I cannot see how we can afford to deny the public the protection that may be needed in the investigation of those activities simply because it may prejudice the rights of one citizen to obtain access to data held on him. Once again, I call in aid the Barlow Clowes case, which is directly relevant to this debate.
    Mr. Randall: I thought that we had had a considerable discourse on the need to have a balance between access to information and the need at times to restrict access to information so that investigations can take place.
    Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman said that, but I differ from him on where he would strike that balance. The hon. Gentleman was erring on the side of protecting the right of the individual to have access to information instead of erring on the side of the investigation of fraud and malpractices which I believe is more important.
    Mr. Randall: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is drawing the wrong conclusion, and I said nothing that could lead him to reach that conclusion. My point was that none of us in the House tonight can assess whether the Government have gone too far in compiling the list of restrictions. I do not know whether they have, and I challenge whether the hon. Gentleman knows. I believe that the Government may have erred on the side of secrecy simply because that is the general ethos of British society and certainly the position in Whitehall.
    Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman compounds my suspicions about his approach to the issue. He suggests that the Government would err on the side of secrecy when we are investigating matters of the utmost gravity for the protection of the public. I would not apologise for that. If it is necessary to protect the public from fraud and swindlers—I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman would ever be a swindler's friend, by any stretch of the imagination—the balance should lie with the protection of the public as a whole rather than with the protection of a single individual. The protection of the public as a whole must, by definition, be more important than the right of a single individual, however important the rights of that individual may be.
    If there is any doubt about the issue, we must always protect the public as a whole, although on occasion that may work to the detriment of the individual. That may be the price that we have to pay in a democracy for adequate protection, particularly when we are dealing with people who are capable of perpetrating vast frauds and swindles on an international scale. That protection is very important when we are dealing with extremely sophisticated operators who can switch money all over the world at the press of a computer key, and when it is extraordinarily difficult for the police in any one country to investigate anything in any depth.
    740
    If we are to defeat that type of international fraud and crime and protect the public in this country and elsewhere—that is the implication of the order—we must err on the side of caution. That may mean that the rights of one individual may occasionally be prejudiced. I would sooner do that than risk thousands of people being swindled.
    Once again, I refer to hundreds of my constituents who invested in Barlow Clowes. That case is relevant to the debate, because it involved another overseas regulator. The major losses did not occur with investments in this country, but with overseas investments. The Swiss companies involved were supposedly registered in Geneva, but it turned out that they were not registered at all. They did not even exist legally in Switzerland, yet my constituents sent money to box numbers in Geneva. I think that they were extraordinarily gullible and ill-advised, but they were advised by people in this country whom they thought were reputable. Money was also sent to Gibraltar. We must examine the ability of international regulators to co-operate with one another to defeat such fraud. Without a measure such as this, that will be totally impossible.
    I repeat that, if a balance is to be struck between the protection of an individual and the protection of the public as a whole, we must err on the side of caution.
    Mr. Cohen: Opposition Members agree that big fraudsters must he investigated and brought before the courts. However, the hon. Gentleman's argument is the same as that in favour of making all police records exempt, being subject access exemptions under the Data Protection Act 1984. The trouble is that there is no way of rectifying an abuse if incorrect information is placed on a person's file and he is subsequently badly treated. He cannot appeal. There must be an opportunity to set up appeal procedures. The Data Protection Registrar is like an ombudsman in these cases—investigating but keeping strict confidentiality. That would not interfere with investigations into potential big crime, but it would protect the individual. Why can we not have both?
    Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman's remarks worry me slightly. He is saying that we should not exempt police records or the records kept by regulators, for fear that that might prejudice an individual's right to know what information is being held about him. If such an investigation relates to a major fraud, which may be an international fraud, that is the price that society must pay if we are to be protected against that activity. There is no alternative to that protection. Therefore, I shall support the order.
    9.13 pm
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: Opposition Members agree with much of what the hon. Member for Bournemouh, West (Mr. Butterfill) said about the international aspects of this subject. It is extremely complex and increasingly important. I asked the hon. Member for Romsey and Waterside (Mr. Colvin), who is piloting his Computer Misuse Bill through the House, whether I could be on the Committee that considers the Bill. I look forward to Wednesday mornings in Committee, because these matters are important.
    In preparation for the debate on the computer hacking Bill, on 5 January I tabled several questions to the Home Office, giving it six and a half weeks to answer. I make no

    741
    complaint about the nature of the answers, because it is a delicate matter. It pertains directly to assisting overseas regulatory authorities.
    The first question that I tabled on 5 January for answer on 19 February was:
    "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to include provisions in his computer hacking Bill to promote safeguards to ensure that information stored in a DNA databank would not be open to misuse."
    The Minister, who is at the Dispatch Box, replied:
    "No. The Data Protection Act 1984"—
    that is one of the Acts that we are discussing—
    "already provides appropriate safeguards against misuse of personal data held on a computer database. These include a requirement that the data user must take security measures againt unathorised access."
    It is one thing to say that the data user must take security measures, but it is easier said than done. Does the Home Office have any evidence that serious measures along those lines are being taken? I recall that the week before last, members of the all-party group for the retail trade went to a famous store, which I think should be nameless. The store managers were open about saying what mayhem had been created when the computer of just one store was illicitly entered. We need to take any possible measures that would stop that type of—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is preparing himself for other debates dealing with hacking. Will he look at the order that we are considering, and bring himself more into line with it?
    Mr. Dalyell: My comments come under assisting "overseas regulatory authorities".
    Madam Deputy Speaker: That is quite true, but I fear that the hon. Gentleman was moving considerably away from that. I have been listening carefully.
    Mr. Dalyell: I shall come back, Madam Deputy Speaker.
    The next question that I tabled was:
    "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration he is giving to the use of DNA material unrelated to crime."
    I should like to put it on the record that the reply was:
    "DNA testing has been used to establish relationship in immigration and paternity cases."
    That work is excellent and wholly acceptable—and here we come to the "but"; I do not intend to speak for anyone other than myself, and this is a personal view—but I believe that authorities are entitled to use all the latest techniques of blood-testing in the fight against crime of any sort, and that includes fraud.
    Mr. Stern: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Dalyell: I would rather not give way until the hon. Gentleman has heard precisely the nature of my argument and then I shall, of course, give way to him.
    I also tabled the question:
    "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has for a DNA data bank for use in the fight against serious crime; what type of offences will be covered; what type of sample will need to be taken; and whether types of sample such as blood or hair-roots will be taken without the consent of the individual concerned."
    742
    I know that therein lies the rub. I know how difficult this is, and I also know that some of my hon. Friends take a different view—
    Mr. Stern: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
    Mr. Dalyell: In a moment.
    I also tabled the question:
    "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his policy towards legal powers to take samples, such as blood or hair-roots, in respect of screening people who there may be no reason to suspect of involvement in the offence."
    There could be a whole range of offences, one of which could certainly be fraud. I give way now to the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern).
    Mr. Stern: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has raised one "rub" as he calls it, about where the order might bite. However, there is another rub as well, and if I am lucky enough to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope to expand on this later. The hon. Gentleman is referring to data in a DNA bank being used for the detection of crime. Does he agree that we also have to determine the nature of the state that is determining that crime? Does he agree that to supply information through the order to the regulatory authorities of, say, France, is completely different from supplying exactly the same information under exactly the same circumstances to the regulatory authorities of, for example, Romania before the recent revolution? We are empowering the authorities to decide on the nature of the regime, as well as the nature of the crime.
    Mr. Dalyell: I am not sure that that is not unreasonable. I am not being led astray or leading anyone else astray.However, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point. There must be a value judgment of to whom the information should be given. Our European partners are our partners and, as the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West said, the measure has international implications.
    The next question that I asked is also relevant. It was:
    "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consult the Law Lords on the question which would arise if a doctor was asked to take a blood sample without consent, the question being how to obtain a sample from someone who refuses consent, and may physically resist having a sample taken, and on the question of the susceptibility of evidence obtained under duress by the courts; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State replied:
    "My right hon. and learned Friend is still considering the issues set out in the letter which my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister of State"—
    that is the noble Lord Ferrers—
    "sent to the hon. Member on 7 December."
    It was an extremely interesting and perceptive letter. He continued:
    "He is currently consulting the British Medical Association and the Association of Police Surgeons on the medical ethics of taking blood samples without consent from suspects in police detention and from convicted offenders. My right hon. and learned Friend will consider what further consultations are necessary in the light of their response. He has no plans to amend the law to enable the police to take blood or other samples from people who are not suspects or convicted offenders and who do not consent. The police are free to ask people to provide samples voluntarily."

    743
    Although it may be inconvenient and awkward, if hon. Members ask questions such as I have asked on this subject, they should not sit on the fence and pretend that it is entirely up to the Government to come to conclusions.
    This evening I have had an opportunity to put my two ha'po'rth into the argument. I have given the matter considerable reflection—otherwise I should not have written the letters that prompted the letter of 7 December. I should not have asked those questions unless I had taken the view that it is pretty legitimate to use all techniques known to modern science, many of which are developing all the time, to pinpoint crime.
    When does the Minister expect the discussions with the police surgeons and various other authorities to be finalised? I hope that when they are finalised, a hard line will be taken on the use of every available scientific, DNA and other technique. It is extremely cost-serving. If one takes that hard line, there is an argument for going ahead with one of the recommendations of Gordon Wasserman's committee, which was set up by the Home Office, that there should be an independent forensic unit to which those who get into trouble or who find themselves prosecuted could appeal.
    I have argued elsewhere that the forensic unit might well be based at the university of Strathclyde—[Laughter]—where distinguished work has been done on an academic base for the whole of the United Kingdom. I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall) laugh. If that work had been done in Hull, I should have said the same thing. But he is not my constituent and nor do I have many constituents—I could probably count them on the fingers of one hand—who work in the university of Strathclyde. I am an east-coast Scot, and east-coast Scots are different from west-coast Scots.
    There is a strong argument for using every forensic technique available for this and other types of crime. After the discussions with the police authorities, I look forward to an announcement that the Government feel that every sort of technique should be available. I for one undertake to support and vote for any measure designed to take advantage of every scientific technique available, even if some of my colleagues, understandably, scream about civil liberties.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I ask hon. Members who wish to speak to look at the explanatory note and I remind them that this is a narrow debate. The order is consequential on the Companies Act 1989 and the Financial Services Act 1986. Comments must be pertinent to that. Otherwise, I shall rule hon. Members out of order.
    9.25 pm
    Mr. Michael Stern: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your comments. My remarks will be brief.
    It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) directly, and to take his argument a stage further. Instead of supporting him, as I do, by simply saying that all forensic and other techniques should he used in solving crime and apprehending offenders, I shall explore the nature of the crime that we are considering in deciding whether the techniques should be applied. I apologise to the House for the fact that some
    744
    of my examples will come, not from my work in the House, but from work outside. I have a declared interest as a partner in a firm of chartered accountants, and the examples arise from my work there.
    The explanatory note contains four words which in principle are anodyne, but which in practice contain a dangerous extension of powers—"assist overseas regulatory authorities". I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) that when we are dealing with fraud in general and financial fraud in particular it is necessary to consider it on a worldwide basis. Recent fraudsters, as in the Barlow Clowes operation and the Dover plan, would not have been caught or brought to justice without international co-operation. We must applaud international cooperation.
    We are dealing with fraud that takes place in the context of our western European society and values. There are other frauds, or frauds as they would be defined elsewhere in the world, which are not so clearly pigeonholed. For example, how will the powers provided in amending the data protection regulations in the light of the Companies Act 1989 be applied where a person appears to have committed a detailed and marked offence against the exchange control regulations of an African country? That will cause considerable moral problems to Opposition Members. Many African countries maintain and impose severe penalties of imprisonment for breaches of their exchange control regulations.
    South Africa, for example, has one of the most vicious exchange control regimes in the world. Do we intend to give powers to the Data Protection Registrar to shop someone who has broken the South African exchange control regulations? Many people in that country are desperate to get out, but they are held there by the force and the threat of force implied in the South African exchange control regulations.
    In case the House believes that such stringent regulations are peculiar to South Africa, I should say that Nigeria operates similarly strict exchange control regulations. People equally fear being shopped by other regulatory authorities for breaking those Nigerian regulations. I have dealt with refugees from both those countries; those who have broken the respective exchange control regulations have a strong fear of violence.
    Mr. Jeremy Hanley: My hon. Friend has mentioned a most tricky point—irregularities in a regime that most of us regard as repressive and in need of reform. Does he agree, however, that we might be forced by necessity to co-operate in certain actions on behalf of the regulators of a country, be it South Africa or any other, if we are to receive reciprocal assistance from that country in our search for malefactors who are residents or national of this country and who have taken investors' funds to South Africa or elsewhere? Therefore, it might be necessary to co-operate with the undesirables to achieve the greater end.
    Mr. Stern: I accept that. My hon. Friend has raised something about which the order says nothing, when it should.
    If we are seeking to co-operate with, for example, South Africa to search out and to bring to justice a fraudster currently living in Europe, I accept that we shall get such

    745
    co-operation from South Africa only if we offer reciprocal co-operation to enable that regime to bring to justice a fraudster who originates in South Africa.
    There is a distinction to be drawn, however, which is not drawn in the order. Although I should be happy to see regulations permitting us to co-operate with the South African regime on matters of fraud, I would not want our regulations to permit the British authorities to co-operate with that regime on matters relating to exchange control. South Africa possesses such control, whereas we, as a result of Government action, do not.
    I am looking for some assurance not only about the Data Protection Registrar's entitlement to assist overseas regulatory authorities against the apparent wishes of the individual, but about how the registrar will be able to discriminate between one particular type of offence and another. We should consider, as a matter of civil liberty, whether we should give such undisclosed powers to the registrar so that, without reference to Parliament, he can discriminate in such cases.
    Mr. Hanley: Perhaps I am wrong, but I felt that the power was granted to the Secretary of State and, through him, to the Data Protection Registrar. Ultimately, it is the Secretary of State who must sanction the decision. The registrar, worthy and honourable though he is, would need to refer for guidance in such cases to the Secretary of State.
    Mr. Stern: My hon. Friend is quite correct, but in an open society can we not go further? Are we not entitled to look to the Secretary of State to declare to the House when he has exercised these blanket powers of discrimination which the order offers him? I should be grateful for some reassurance from my hon. Friend about exactly how—perhaps in the Data Protection Registrar's annual report or some other way—it might be possible for the Secretary of State to report to the House on how the powers should be used.
    I quoted an example of repressive African regimes. I shall quote another example that is germane to the debate in the light of earlier references to the Barlow Clowes affair. There has recently been a belief among many overseas investors who have chosen to invest in this country through Gibraltar that the British authorities, in the light of the Barlow Clowes affair, have been attempting to hound them. I would be very worried indeed if, in passing this order, which contains the powers to assist overseas regulatory authorities, we gave the Secretary of State powers, through the Data Protection Registrar, to make undue inquiries of perfectly genuine investors who happen to use Gibraltar as a means of investing in this country. Many such investors feel that too much of that sort of thing has been going on already.
    The joke in Gibraltar at present is that, whereas a few years ago it was believed that, if this country sent gunboats to Gibraltar, they would be to assist Gibraltar against possible invasion from Spain, the belief in Gibraltar now, in view of the arguments over the airport, is that, if gunboats were sent to Gibraltar, they would be to repress the Gibraltar Government.
    Mr. Hanley: Surely not.
    Mr. Steen: That is the view that is currently held.
    746
    There is considerable suspicion that the powers given in the order could be used with insufficient discretion, of which Parliament might not be apprised. That could happen unless some mechanism were built in to advise Parliament of the way in which those powers were so used.
    There is one aspect in which the order does not go far enough. I accept that this is a problem generally with data protection legislation. The order applies only to data as defined in the Data Protection Act. There has been a growing belief in the House for a number of years that, as matters have moved on since the original Act, the definition of "data", and therefore the definition within the order, is inadequate.
    We have had many debates in the House about, for example, medical records. They are probably the most personal and potentially most damaging record about any individual. They are not covered by the Act and, quite rightly, will not be covered by the Act under this order, because the order relates solely to financial matters. I wonder whether, in considering the order, we should look again at the extent to which financial information about an individual or company will be exempt from the order because it comes outwith the strict definition of data as laid down in the Act.
    How many times have we heard of—and in our professional lives seen—the bank manager, at the end of an interview, write down, "This man is a con merchant"? That record is based on the opinion that the bank manager formed during the interview; it will stay on a personal or company file and will not be open to regulation under the Act because it is not data—it is not in technically permanent form.
    Mr. Hanley: Being a renowned chartered accountant, my hon. Friend may well remember the case in which a certain watch was seized by taxation officials because engraved on the back of it was a Swiss bank account number. The defence of those who owned the watch was that it was not data as defined under the Act. It was not a record: it was a watch with an engraving. The courts said that, because the watch was engraved with information, it could be regarded as a record. Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that perhaps the courts can take such matters into account as the need arises?
    Mr. Stern: I should like to think that my hon. Friend was right. However, I have been advised that it is not yet open to the courts to extend the definition of data in that way. I would like reassurance from the Minister about whether such an extension of "data" could be made.
    Mr. Waller: My hon. Friend is hitting on an important point by referring to the fact that we are discussing electronically recorded data protected under the Act. Does he agree, however, that, if we did not provide an exemption of the sort suggested in this order, computers could not be used in the pursuit of crime, because of the danger that recorded material could be made available to the subject of that pursuit? To pursue international or national crime efficiently, it is necessary and sensible to have exemptions of the sort that we are discussing.
    Mr. Stern: My hon. Friend is right. I hope that neither he nor the House will take my remarks as suggesting any doubt of the need for an order of this sort. I merely maintain that any order of this sort must be drawn as

    747
    tightly as possible, and applied with the greatest discretion. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will assure me that there will be mechanisms to ensure such discretion.
    On the basis of experience, I must point out, finally, that orders of this nature change the reality in which they operate by their very passage. I remember that, some years ago, a similar order was passed by the United States Congress, laying down regulations for United States investors in Swiss banks. I came across this example because I was advising a Panamanian investor in the United Kingdom who happened to invest, perfectly legitimately, in a Swiss bank.
    The Swiss banks wrote to all their customers telling them that the regulations had just been passed by Congress and that they would be obliged within six months under Swiss law to disclose certain information under the regulations, which were part of the US-Swiss convention. The banks strongly urged their customers to remove their accounts if they felt that they did not wish certain information, which they listed, to be disclosed to the US authorities. These letters were sent, couched in the strongest possible terms, to all customers, whatever the source of their funds and whether or not the banks knew that source.
    Is not my hon. Friend the Minister concerned that, by giving additional powers to assist overseas regulatory authorities, he may be causing widespread ripples with the stone that he has cast into the pool tonight?
    9.44 pm
    Mr. Michael Brown: One opens a can of worms when one goes back to the primary legislation from which a statutory instrument flows. I agree with the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) on the explanatory memorandum to the order. In all my time in the House I have never found it necessary, when reading a statutory instrument, to find about four previous references to help the House to arrive at a decision.
    First, I went to the Library to find section 30 of the Data Protection Act 1984, the source of this statutory instrument and the order that was introduced in 1987 and which this one amends. The House would do well to remember why we have to have such statutory instruments. Section 30(1) of the 1984 Act, which comes under part IV headed
    "Regulation of financial services etc",
    states:
    "Personal data held for the purpose of discharging statutory fuctions to which this section applies are exempt from the subject access provisions in any case in which the application of those provisions to the data would be likely to prejudice the proper discharge of those functions."
    That is the source of all our problems about data protection, the order that is before the House and the one that was introduced in 1987. Section 30 (2) of the 1984 Act states:
    "This section applies to any functions designated for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Secretary of State,".
    When the Home Secretary framed the Data Protection Act, I do not think that he had any idea of the number and scope of the statutory instruments that it would require.
    I went to the Library earlier today to look up the Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) Order 1987 which this statutory instrument amends. I should like to make an urgent plea
    748
    for the convenience of all hon. Members. The Library staff are quite expert at looking up references, but it took them a long time to trace the statutory instrument that we are amending. In future when an explanatory memorandum to a statutory instrument is brought before the House, it should have upon it the number of the statutory instrument to which it refers. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) will support that plea.
    Mr. Hanley: My hon. Friend and I were in the Library together trying to find the references. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Vote Office should have copies of the primary legislation at least on the day that an order is discussed? My hon. Friend and I were both in the Vote Office today and, as he knows, there was no copy of the Companies Act 1989 or the Companies Act 1985.
    They are large volumes of weighty legislation, but surely two or three copies of the primary Act should be available so that we can refer to them before discussing such important issues.
    Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He and I were reduced to photocopying the relevant extracts of the primary Act.
    We are amending a statutory instrument that has about 12 pages and discussing an order to amend one line on one page. Will there be other statutory instruments to take up the time of the House to amend that statutory instrument of 1987?
    Mr. Bob Cryer: I am pleased to note the hon. Gentleman's new-found and unprecedented interest in statutory instruments. Some of us have been examining them for much longer than the hon. Gentleman. Did he vote for or against the primary legislation which gives powers to the Secretary of State?
    Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is right to ask that question, because he was not in the House between 1983 and 1987. He and other hon. Members will know that I have frequently taken an interest, as the hon. Gentleman has done, in secondary legislation. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman serves on Standing Committees, but whenever I do so, I invariably raise points—sometimes to the chagrin of the Whip—regarding any clauses that—
    Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman makes a great defence for himself, but perhaps he will return to the subject of the order.
    Mr. Brown: The order makes an important amendment to a comprehensive statutory instrument. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to ensure in future that when the House is asked to amend data protection legislation, the resultant measure is consolidated into one Act of Parliament.
    9.50 pm
    Mr. Randall: With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker. The debate has been most interesting. The order is complex and badly drafted, but our debate was fundamental to the freedoms of the people of this country, and to ensuring that our institutions operate effectively and efficiently in wiping out corruption arid malpractice wherever possible.
    The essence of the debate has been the balance between protecting civil liberties and the freedom of individuals to

    749
    see files about them, and at times restricting availability to information, to ensure that proper investigations into corruption can be undertaken.
    I hope that, whenever we review the Data Protection Act 1984, those principles will be kept in the forefront of our minds.
    9.52 pm
    Mr. Peter Lloyd: The debate has been thorough and exhaustive, and the most pertinent intervention was made by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, when you said that the scope of the order is extremely narrow. So it is. I sympathise with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. Randall), who referred to the complicated nature of the matter and sought an explanatory memorandum. That request was made by other hon. Members on both sides of the House. Having read the order myself, I understand the point that they make.
    Mr. Hanley: I am sorry to disagree with my hon. Friend, but although the order may be narrow in scope, as he says, does he not agree that it is extremely wide in its effect and has international implications? The measure is not so narrow as to be unimportant, but is wide enough to be extremely vital to the protection of investors in this country and worldwide.
    Mr. Lloyd: I did not say that the order is not important, for I agree with my hon. Friend that it is. However, the changes that it makes are relatively narrow in scope, even though they provide a very necessary additional opportunity for my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to use his powers to combat malpractice.
    It was clear that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West was asking not so much for an explanatory memorandum on the order as for the Data Protection Act 1984, and the Data Protection (Regulation of Finance Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1987 to be brought into line with the Companies Act 1989, which made it necessary to change some of the 1987 order.
    The order does not extend the list of categories of information that may be withheld. Many hon. Members have the impression that it does. If it did that, I would have followed their argument. The order changes only one part of the 1984 Act, and that was identified by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West as part II, paragraph 5. I shall return to that in a few moments.
    The balance of the law under these orders is very clear, and was set by the principal legislation, which it is not our place to discuss this evening, as it was exhaustively discussed at the time.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Norris), who is not with us at the moment, was on the Committee which considered the Data Protection Act 1984, and I suspect that he has the advantage over most of us, with the exception of my hon. Friend the deputy Patronage Secretary, who was also a member of the Committee.
    Mr. Michael Brown: My hon. Friend rightly draws the House's attention to the fact that nothing is changed by what the House does tonight. We are merely tidying up, following the passage of the Companies Act 1989. That is why I strongly believe that now is the time for the powers
    750
    that be to consolidate everything to do with data protection—the Data Protection Act 1984 and the Companies Act 1989. Is the time not coming when someone should consolidate all the legislation on data protection into one statute?
    Mr. Lloyd: Many parts of our legislation could usefully be consolidated, but it is extremely time-consuming for the draftsmen and for the House. I understand the point that my hon. Friend is making, but I cannot promise that consolidation can be carried out at an early date.
    I disagree when my hon. Friend says that the Order is merely tidying up. It is consequential on the legislation, and it does two important things. First, it makes it possible for my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary to call experts, apart from officials in his Department, to investigate certain data. That is only sensible because the complexity, particularly in financial matters, is so great that one needs to call those people with special knowledge to assist—whether they are accountants, specialist lawyers or people with experience of banking. All those people will be bound by the rules of secrecy, and they will be operating on his behalf, seeking information and understanding so that the Home Secretary may use it for the purposes determined by the Act.
    The second important thing that the Order will do is to enable the Home Secretary to make the information available to overseas regulators who have signed the convention, when he believes that it will be in the interests of uncovering malpractice. He does not have to supply the information, but he may decide to do so, and it is very much in our interests that we supply information to help investigators of fraud and malpractice by overseas officials who have powers in that area. It is also very much in our interests to receive such information in return.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) was right to draw our attention to Barlow Clowes, because that is a good example of alleged fraud or irregularity transcending international boundaries. In that case, it was necessary to be able to exchange information across frontiers, and it was a pity that we were not able to do that earlier. Some of the difficulties that investors have suffered might then have been avoided.
    The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, West was extremely worried that what might be acceptable in general might be oppressive in practice. I remind him that the registrar is there and is required under the Act to keep an eye on the way in which the provisions are implemented and to make an annual report to Parliament.
    I said that I would return to the question of advertising in paragraph 5 of the schedule. The provision now covers details of advertisements, particularly in unlisted securities where fraudulent claims may be the start of a malpractice that needs to be followed up. The order extends slightly the amount of information that may be withheld in such circumstances. I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman would want to avoid that. The Labour party usually emphasises that fraud in the City and in business should be pursued actively and hard, and I am sure that he would not want to deny the correct authorities powers to do that.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest, who served on the Committee, wondered about the additional expertise—a point that I have mentioned. He talked about codes of practice. The codes of practice referred to in the order enable the Home Secretary to give guidance and indications to a primary regulator, such as the Securities

    751
    and Investments Board, on how to conduct itself in the matter of the information that may be withheld. The order does not extend this information but gives guidance that is necessary to ensure that it may be obtained and used for the proper purposes.
    Let me answer the questions of the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen). I have explained that the order does not extend any of the items of information that can be withheld, except in the small area that I have outlined. The hon. Gentleman wanted the information that may be withheld set out clearly, but then went on to complain that it was set out extremely clearly and in great detail. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. I agree with him that, when the information is set out in great detail so that one can see precisely what categories are included, there is quite a lot to get through, but that is part of the openness for which the hon. Gentleman called. He asked whether the registrar was content with the order: he was consulted and was certainly content.
    I think that I have replied to most of the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West, who wanted to ensure that the philosophical approach was sensible and balanced, and I believe that it is. The basic philosophy is contained in the original Acts, which were exhaustively debated.
    The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) referred to several questions that he has tabled to Home Office Ministers. I cannot add to the answers that we gave him at the time, but I am glad that he is determined to chase us to ensure that information—especially relating to DNA and other means of identifying and getting to the root of particular sorts of crime—is thoroughly used and pursued. He is right in that. We are aware of what the hon. Gentleman seeks, and we agree with him, but I hope that he will accept that this is a complex matter and that discussions need to be carried through to ensure not merely that we make the best use of that avenue of information but that we make use of it in such a way that it does not impinge unnecessarily and in an unwarranted manner on the rights of individuals.
    Mr. Dalyell: I realise that this is a complex matter, but I should not have thought that it would take six weeks to
    752
    provide an answer to the question. Does the Home Office accept that it has a responsibility to make a fairly early statement on the report by Gordon Wasserman—one o its senior officials—on related forensic issues? The sooner that happens, the better it will be for forensic science. Some of us recognise that there are real difficulties over recruiting forensic scientists. The Government ought to pay regard to that problem.
    Mr. Lloyd: I understand the hon. Gentleman's paint, but it is not a matter on which I ought to comment this evening.
    It is a narrow order. It makes three changes that are, I believe, uncontroversial. Many questions have been asked and suspicions about the original legislation have been aroused. However, suspicions have not been aroused about the three changes that the order makes. Therefore, I happily commend it to the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That the draft Data Protection (Regulation of Financial Services etc.) (Subject Access Exemption) (Amendment) Order 1990, which was laid before this House on 30th January, be approved.

    Data Protection
      EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(5), (Standing Committees on European Community Documents).
      EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
        ANIMAL WASTE
        That this House takes note of Community Document No. 9728/89 relating to veterinary rules on animal waste and prevention of pathogens in feedstuffs; and supports the Government's intention to secure an outcome which provides for the continued availability of a hygienic and practical means of disposal of animal waste.—[Mr. Dorrell.]
      STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c
      Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5), (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.)
      STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c
        HILL LIVESTOCK
        That the draft Hill Livestock (Compensatory Allowances) (Amendment) Regulations 1990, which were laid before this House on 31st January, be approved.—[Mr. Dorrell.]

    Concessionary Television Licences
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dorrell.]
    10.6 pm
    Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: It is a great pleasure for me to raise the subject of sheltered housing and concessionary television licences. Earlier this evening I shrewdly suspected, and hoped, that I might be able to go home for dinner, but I underestimated the absorbing interest of data protection. Never in so short a time have I seen so many knowledgeable colleagues arrive in the Chamber—no doubt galvanised by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department—to participate in such a distinguished fashion in a highly interesting debate.
    I am grateful for the support of many hon. Members. Many of my colleagues have raised the subject in Adjournment debates. Not frequently do we find in constituency after constituency represented by colleagues on both sides of the House the anomalies with which I hope to deal. There is, therefore, much concern about the subject.
    My purpose is to find a way round over-rigid implementation by the Home Office-in the process becoming more bureaucratic than is strictly necessary-of the May 1988 regulations. I shall concentrate on those regulations and will pray in aid some constituency cases to illustrate the anomalies. There are many similar cases throughout the country about which I have heard and regarding which I have received letters from councils of all political persuasions. At a time when the Government are not enjoying universal popularity, we ought to concentrate on annoying the minimum number of people over such small measures. Sadly, that is not the case here.
    I intend to refer briefly to the unsatisfactory state of affairs over wider concessions, causing unnecessary political damage, to which I have already referred. Successive Governments, whatever they might have done in opposition or as individual Members of Parliament, have never conceded free television licences for all pensioners. I do not urge that now and I do not propose to argue one way or the other, but as there was no overall granting of free television licences, quite rightly, concessions were granted to residential homes and to sheltered accommodation with communal services. That arrangement has continued for 20 years, and as with any such arrangement, there has been a constant challenge for the enlargement of those concessions.
    We then reach the Armageddon for the Home Office in the case of Kirklees metropolitan borough council against the Home Office of 1987, which is known as the Kirklees decision. It meant that visiting housing stewards and the presence of an alarm system in mainstream housing constituted a communal facility and therefore at least potential eligibility for the concession. Immediately, panic rose from the bottom floor to the top floor of the Home Office as it was realised that those concessions could go way beyond the Government's original intention some 20 years before, which the Home Office now sticks to, and which is for schemes
    "equivalent or comparable to residential homes."
    That led to the May 1988 revised regulations.
    The Government's reaction has not been commendable. They have been unprepared to grant a total
    754
    concession to the elderly—I would not quibble with that—and they could not withdraw from existing concessions for obvious political reasons, so instead of minimising the anomalies and making the best of a worthy situation, which dictates that concessions should be granted, the Government decided on extremely restrictive regulations of the existing concessions—the May 1988 revised regulations—giving the absolute minimum and holding back everything they could. The result has been rigidity, anomaly and, politically, the worst of all worlds.
    I shall not discuss the May 1988 regulations in any great detail. There are four regulations and I shall concentrate on the fourth, although for the information of the House, I shall refer briefly to the others. The first qualification for concession refers to accommodation specifically provided for retired people over the age of 65 and certain categories of disablement. The second qualification is a resident warden or one who works for at least 30 hours a week. The third is a communal facility within a common boundary and the fourth, on which I wish to concentrate, is:
    "There shall be a group of at least four dwellings with a common and exclusive boundary encompassing all and only the accommodation."
    That is God's gift to anomaly. I shall criticise it specifically in a moment, but first I have a few general criticisms of the overall picture.
    The Government are misguided and appear mean in their institution and rigid interpretation of the regulations. I regret that the unsatisfactory background, the unfairness and getting the balance wrong are not wholly restricted to the subject of this Adjournment debate. It is pretty obvious, bearing in mind the increased numbers of elderly people, that there is a tendency for more sheltered housing to be built or converted from mainstream housing by local councils, particularly in urban areas, although I represent a rural constituency. That is the worry to the Home Office of the Kirklees decision.
    There are an increasing number of scattered units of accommodation for the elderly on many large estates across the country in the midst of mainstream housing. Instead of facing up to that and spending a little more money—and therefore not having to face this Adjournment debate tonight—the Government have retreated into their shell. They have performed a kind of Custer's last stand over what they claim to be the original intention of the scheme, which is now outdated.
    I cannot say that I shall play Sitting Bull to my hon. Friend the Minister's General Custer, but as my hon. Friend leaves this place—we must recall that General Custer did not leave—I hope that he will be prepared to consider the matter and perhaps have a word with my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office. I believe that this is a matter more for Ministers than for the civil servants who loyally carry out their duties and who, when they are told to be restrictive, are—and with due deference and respect to my hon. Friend the Minister, no one can be more restrictive than the Home Office or, regrettably, be so more effectively.
    Many anomalies have been drawn to my attention since notice of this Adjournment debate appeared on the Order Paper. There is widespread concern not only from Leominster district council, but from the National Federation of Housing Associations, Age Concern, the Consumers Association and district councils, which have contacted me from such places as far apart as Malden and Camden.
    Mr. Tim Devlin: What about Stockton?
    Mr. Temple-Morris: Yes, and from Stockton.
    I want to refer to two anomalies in Leominster, with which my hon. Friend the Minister is familiar. They are examples of this ridiculous anomaly, and I hope that the House will forgive me if I mention them specifically. The first relates to Burton gardens and Burton crescent in Wembley. The accommodation there is now a sheltered scheme and it has communal facilities, a warden and a clearly demarcated section on the housing estate. However, before the warden and alarm were installed and before restrictions were imposed in 1986 making it much more difficult for tenants to buy that type of council housing, the bold tenant—no doubt encouraged by the Government—of 25 Burton crescent decided to buy his old people's accommodation. He duly did that and became the only private owner on that estate.
    At the moment, Burton gardens, which runs into Burton crescent, gets the concession in toto. The part of Burton crescent up to No. 25 also receives the concession I am grateful in that regard to my hon. Friend the Minister, who granted an additional concession to the original adjudication after my first intervention in the matter.
    However, no one beyond No. 25, on exactly the same estate, receives the concession. No. 25 is preceded by the odd Nos. 21 and 23. Nos. 21, 23 and 25 are all joined together. They are old people's ground-floor flats in units of three, all joined together. Because Nos. 21 and 23 are joined to No. 25 and separated by a very small car parking space from the earlier numbers that receive the concession, they do not receive it. All the flats above No. 25 do not receive it either.
    If that example is frankly ridiculous, then the second example of Cornwall gardens at Tenbury Wells in my constituency is even more so. That is a council-owned site and one turns into it from Berrington road in Tenbury Wells. Where one turns into it, there are two flats. Nos. 7 and 9 Berrington road, which are part of the wholly council-owned site. After those flats there is an entrance and right of way granted by the council to a pub car park. On the other side of that entrance the estate continues. The estate was bought as a whole, is administered as one estate and was built as one. Only that solitary little entrance to the pub car park separates Nos. 7 and 9 from the rest of the estate.
    The estate has excellent communal facilities. I enjoyed a nice cup of coffee and some hospitality when I inspected it. Knowing that my hon. Friend the Minister might challenge me and say that I have not been there, I advise him that I went there in January. There is a recreation room, a laundry, a warden, an alarm system and so on.
    When the two existing sitting tenants at Nos. 7 and 9 eventually cause a re-let, the full television licence fee, rather than £5, will have to be paid. The Government should do something about that practice, but they do not seem to have learnt the lesson that, if one pleases a few of the people a lot of the time, one will at least make some progress. It is not for me to lecture my hon. Friend the Minister on that matter, and he would not be responsible for it either.
    I shall review some possible policies and practical suggestions in a descending scale of generosity. The first is a general concession to all pensioners, a matter on which
    756
    the House voted towards the end of the last Parliament, and which I do not press tonight. The second is a concession to all pensioners entitled to housing benefit or a community charge rebate—in other words, whether they are in or out of sheltered housing. The third is a concession to all pensioners living in purpose-built sheltered accommodation. That means the public sector and—an increasing bone of contention, as more and more people spend their last savings on buying sheltered accommoda—tion the private sector also.
    The fourth policy, which I recommend to rriy hon. Friend, is a concession to all pensioners living in purpose-built or adapted local authority and/or housing association accommodation. That covers all developments—urban, rural, large and small estates. That represents a logical compromise.
    My hon. Friend will forgive me when I say that I do not expect a generous response from him tonight. I will not even press him for one. However, I suggest that we have less rigidity in the application of the May 1988 rules. One method would be by way of ministerial discretion. I expect that my hon. Friend will say that Ministers do not have discretion, and that therefore we are stuck with rules that have been drafted as restrictively as possible.
    I have been trying to be constructive. Concentrating on what I have called policy No. 4, I ask my hon. Friend to consider that there shall be a group of at least four dwellings with a common and exclusive boundary encompassing all and only the accommodation. Therefore, a little thing such as the entrance to a pub car park completely ruins those who happen to be caught out on the wrong side of it. I suggest that we should add the words, "save and except where the accommodation is clearly part of a coherent, unified and separate sheltered housing scheme." That would get shot of many anomalies. However, I am afraid that it would not alter the major problems, as that can be done only if we address purpose-built and/or adapted public housing as a whole. If my hon. Friend the Minister will consider that point, we will make progress.
    I can imagine the Minister's advisers going to him tomorrow morning, saying "It is a legal nightmare. They will be challenging us here and there. The only way in which we can defend it is to keep within the corral. Minister, you cannot do this or that." It would be nice if, once upon a time, we could see an Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office doing what I want-and, if he viewed the matter reasonably independently, what he also would want.
    Therefore, in the name of a little more decency, and certainly in the name of fairness, I commend what I have said and the limited, minimal solution that I have outlined to my hon. Friend.
    10.24 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Peter Lloyd): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Temple-Morris) on securing this debate and on raising this subject. It is one in which he has taken a persistent and concerned interest on behalf of his constituents, as his detailed promenade down Burton gardens and other local streets, and his other many exchanges with the Home Office, have shown. I am grateful to him for providing a useful opportunity this evening to explain why we changed the

    757
    concessionary licence scheme nearly two years ago, and to clear up, I hope, some of the misunderstandings and misconceptions that seem to have arisen since.
    I start by explaining briefly how the scheme evolved, and why it became necessary to change it. The scheme was formally established on a statutory basis on 1 January 1969. It was intended to rationalise the television licence requirements in old people's homes. Previously, residents in some homes had been treated as though they were exempt from licensing, while others were required to pay the full licence fee.
    The scheme was also intended to cover sheltered housing schemes for pensioners run by local authorities or housing associations which were considered to be directly comparable with old people's homes. At a later date, the scheme was extended to cover disabled or mentally handicapped people living in similar accommodation. The scheme was thus introduced for the best of motives, to correct what was seen as an anomaly. Entitlement was clearly linked to the type of accommodation occupied, and the way in which it was run, rather than to the personal circumstances of the occupant.
    Over the years, the number of people benefiting from the concession has steadily increased. When the regulations were changed in May 1988, that number stood at 776,000 people. It has since gone up by over 91,000. So the change was clearly not an effort—certainly not an effective effort—at covert restriction. It sprang from the necessity, after the court action to which I shall refer in a moment, to make what were believed to be the existing rules more coherent and sustainable at law.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Lloyd: Yes, I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, although I have only a little time.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister accept that changes are being made in those statistics even now? Some of my constituents who receive the concession are being told, even at this stage, that it will be withdrawn. Does not this need clarifying?
    Mr. Lloyd: It has been clarified. That was the whole purpose of the change. The position was anomalous before, as the court decision suggested. Although some people have lost, undoubtedly a great many more can now benefit.
    As I have said, the change sprang from necessity after that court action. Thus, the figure now exceeds 867,000 people, and 80 per cent. of those beneficiaries live in sheltered housing schemes rather than conventional residential homes. It is the application of the regulations to people in sheltered housing—my hon. Friend referred to this specifically—that seems to cause most uncertainty.
    As hon. Members will remember, early in 1987 the scheme ran into particular difficulties following a successful High Court action by Kirklees metropolitan borough council. It had sought judicial review of our decision not to issue the licence to the occupants of some council accommodation. We had thought that the employment by the council of officials to visit all council
    758
    tenants to collect rent and to sort out housing problems did not constitute a communal facility, as required by the regulations then in force.
    The court disagreed, and that judgment has far-reaching implications. It called into question our other interpretation of the regulations—that the accommodation must form groups and be specially provided for pensioners or disabled people.
    It quickly became clear that the Kirklees judgment had effectively opened the way for local authorities to bring within the scheme large numbers of people living in what was essentially mainstream housing. By providing some sort of visiting care service or communal alarm system, they could claim that the accommodation was specially provided and formed a group with a communal facility. It was never the intention that the scheme should expand in that way, as I think my hon. Friend will agree, and it would have been very expensive in terms of revenue lost to the BBC.
    We therefore had to act to protect the BBC's finances, and to avoid the complete breakdown of the scheme. A simple solution would have been to abolish the scheme, but we did not want to take away a long-standing concession which had benefited many people. We therefore considered a number of options for change. These included the possibility of linking entitlement to a social security or other benefit; but there was no consensus as to the most appropriate linkage, and to grant the concession to pensioners receiving a particular benefit would have provoked claims for similar treatment from non-pensioners in receipt of the same, or broadly comparable, benefit. That would have widened the scope of the scheme considerably, and could have been even more anomalous than the previous arrangements.
    Moreover, we believe that that type of approach would have been wrong in principle. The television licence fee is not a proper instrument of social policy. The right way to help the less well-off is through the pensions and benefits system, leaving it to individuals to decide for themselves how best to spend their own money. After much thought, therefore, we concluded that the most sensible thing to do was to restore the underlying intention of the scheme. As I explained earlier, this was to benefit retirement pensioners and disabled people living in residential homes, or in sheltered housing schemes which were directly comparable with such homes.
    To give effect to this decision, we introduced new regulations which defined more closely the type of sheltered accommodation that would qualify in future. These regulations came into force on 19 May 1988.
    To qualify as equivalent to a residential home under the new regulations, sheltered accommodation must now satisfy the following conditions. First, it must form part of a group of at least four dwellings within a common and exclusive boundary. That is where the examples that my hon. Friend gave fall outside the rules. Secondly, it must be specially provided by way of erection or conversion for occupation only by retirement pensioners or disabled people. Thirdly, it must be provided or run by a local authority or a housing association. Fourthly, it must be served by a full-time or residents warden. Fifthly, there must be a communal facility within the boundary intended to meet the need of the resident. Perhaps I might explain why we imposed those conditions and say a little about how we apply them in practice.
    Mr. Devlin: I am dealing with a case where concessionary television licences have been withdrawn because the buildings are not joined together. That was not on my hon. Friend's list of five conditions. I raised the matter with the Minister of State, Home Office, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), one Question Time but I have received no answer since.
    Mr. Lloyd: The concession would not have been withdrawn from someone who was in receipt of the concession. Nor would it have been withdrawn because the buildings were not joined together. It might have been withdrawn because the buildings were not within an exclusive boundary. I cannot deal from the Dispatch Box with a case of which I know nothing except what my hon. Friend has just said. If he would like to communicate with me about it, I shall be happy to reply and explain.
    The reason why there must be a group of four dwellings within a common boundary is that the housing must be seen to form a cohesive, self-contained group, encompassing all and only the accommodation in question—just like a residential home.
    We cannot accept, for instance, that a line drawn on a map round some parts of a mixed housing estate constitutes a common and exclusive boundary for the purposes of the regulations.
    Thus, sheltered housing interspersed with mainstream housing cannot qualify. Nor can sheltered housing units physically separated from others by things such a shops, car parks or non-sheltered housing be regarded as part of the same scheme for concessionary television licence purposes.
    We realise that local authorities sometimes choose to regard these separated housing units as part of a single scheme for their own administrative purposes, and find it hard to understand why we cannot do the same. The difficulty is that, when running a statutory scheme, it must be made clear—the Kirklees judgment established that—which accommodation qualifies and which does not. Hence our insistence on comparability with a residential home and the need for a common and exclusive boundary.
    It would have been extremely difficult to devise a formula that would have allowed some separated housing units in reasonably close proximity to qualify, while excluding other units further afield which did not seem to
    760
    be part of the scheme. If we had sought to do that, we should have provided God's gift to anomaly, to use my hon. Friend's colourful phrase. That would have been unworkable in practice and would undoubtedly have produced those anomalies on which the Kirklees judgment was predicated.
    I now turn to the warden cohdition. In our deliberations, we considered carefully whether it would be right to include schemes served by a visiting or mobile warden. That is the case in my hon. Friend's constituency. We concluded that it would not. We recognise that many local authorities see mobile wardens as a more cost-effective way of caring for the needs of their elderly residents, and we welcome that. But the fact remains that to extend the scheme in that way would run counter to the long-standing principle. The reason for including sheltered housing schemes in the first place was that, as generally organised, they were regarded as being on par with residential homes, including the provision of resident warden.
    My hon. Friend made several suggestions about how we might consider the rules. Obviously, we shall keep the scheme under review and make a particular point of reviewing his suggestions, but we can offer no prospect of further change, and I would mislead the House if I said otherwise. The ministerial discretion would be a vehicle for huge further anomalies and further opportunities to take these matters to court. Therefore, we shall not follow that avenue. We shall look carefully at his suggestions and those of any other hon. Member or organisation. I can see no real opportunity for any change in the foreseeable future.
    Mr. Temple-Morris rose—
    Mr. Lloyd: As the time is coming when I must sit down, I cannot give way to my hon. Friend. I am grateful to him for enabling me to set out this complex issue which, although designed as a helpful concession is, alas, still a source of misunderstanding and resentment.
    The motion having been made after Ten o-clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
    Adjourned at twenty-four minutes to Eleven o'clock.

ENVIRONMENT

  Competitive Tendering
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what savings have been made across local government as a whole as a result of subjecting local authority contracts to competitive tendering.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  No precise figures are available at present. However, the Audit Commission's occasional paper "Preparing for Compulsory Competition" published in January last year indicated that local authorities can obtain savings of 20 per cent. or more in contract price, irrespective of whether work has been won by the private sector or by an authority's own work force.

  PSA and Crown Suppliers
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the progress of financial decisions relating to the privatisation of the Property Services Agency and the Crown Suppliers.

  Mr. Chope
  Financial decisions in relation to the Crown Suppliers privatisation are expected to be taken in the first half of this year. It is too early to say when those in relation to PSA privatisation will be taken.

  Global Warming
  Mr. Sean Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what the Government are doing through their various agencies to combat global warming; and what is the total sum spent on this in the current year.

  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action his Department is taking, through its various agencies, to combat global warming; and what is the total to be spent on this in the current year.

  Mr. Trippier
  Among many initiatives, the Government actively support the work of the inter-governmental panel on climate change and are leading efforts to gain support for an international framework convention on climate change. We have also taken the lead in international initiatives to phase out the production and consumption of CFCs which are important greenhouse gases. We have amended the Building Regulations to improve the energy efficiency of new houses and announced the establishment of a new centre for the prediction of climate change. In 1990–91 my Department expects to spend over £6 million on climate change-related research and we are contributing £750,000 to the work of the inter-governmental panel on climate change. Other Departments also have important programmes on global warming, for example, the Overseas Development Administration's support for projects to conserve the tropical forests and the research funded by the Department of Education and Science through the research councils.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list in order of percentage loss or gain the grant-related expenditure for the standard spending assessments allocations for all English districts in 1989–90 and 1990–91; and if he will list for each the proportion of the population of each authority living in urban areas.

  Mr. Chope
  I have today placed in the Library a table showing the information requested on grant-related expenditure assessments and standard spending assessments for all non-metropolitan districts in England. I cannot provide information on the proportion of the population living in urban areas as there is no standard way of classifying such areas.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report the rate proposed for 1990–91 and the average rate per head payable in the current year for Castle Point district council.

  Mr. Chope
  I estimate that the average domestic rate bill per adult for Castle Point is about £318 in 1989–90. I have no firm information on the proposed community charge for 1990–91.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report the rate proposed for 1990–91 and the average rate per head payable in the current year in Southend-on-Sea.

  Mr. Chope
  I estimate that the average domestic rate bill per adult for Southend-on-Sea is about £363 in 1989–90. I have no firm information on the proposed community charge for 1990–91.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report the rate proposed for 1990–91 and the average rate per head payable in the current year for Wealden district council.

  Mr. Chope
  I estimate that the average domestic rate bill per adult for Wealden is about £292 in 1989–90. I have no firm information on the proposed community charge for 1990–91.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what considerations informed the decision to treat business and domestic property in a different manner in respect of rates.

  Mr. Chope
  I refer the hon. Member to our Green Paper "Paying for Local Government" (Cmnd. 9714) published in January 1986, and our explanations during parliamentary consideration of what is now the Local Government Finance Act 1988.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will provide figures for inner London and outer London of the amount of poll tax payable in 1990–91 per adult as against rates, together with the contribution made by the safety net.

  Mr. Chope
  I have no information on 1990–91 community charges payable in inner or outer London. Tables showing the information requested but based on assumed community charges were placed in the Library on 11 January.
  477
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how, with reference to paragraph 3.36 of his Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England), the figure of £59·11 is arrived at; how poll tax payers and council officials can check its validity; and what effect the choice of this figure has on the standard spending assessment arrived at for Grimsby.

  Mr. Chope
  The figure referred to in the Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England) was determined by my right hon. Friend after full consultation with local authority representatives. It accounts for £82 per adult of Great Grimsby's SSA.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) how, with reference to paragraph 3.40 of his Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England), the figure of £5·56 is arrived at; how poll tax payers and council officials may check its validity; and what effect the choice of this figure has on the SSA arrived at for Grimsby;

  (2) how, with reference to paragraph 3.40 of his Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England), the figure of £9·56 is arrived at; how poll tax payers and council officials may check its validity; and what effect the choice of this figure has on the SSA arrived at for Grimsby;

  (3) how, with reference to paragraph 3.40 of his Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England), the figure of £4·35 is arrived at; how poll tax payers and council officials may check its validity; and what effect the choice of this figure has on the SSA arrived at for Grimsby.

  Mr. Chope
  The figures referred to in the Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England) were determined by my right hon. Friend after full consultation with local authority representatives. They are used to calculate the other services SSA element for county councils. Following this calculation, there is a transfer of £1 per adult to all districts in the county of Humberside, including Great Grimsby.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the total poll tax figure appropriate to Grimsby; and what account he has taken of(a) the kind of service, (b) the social and economic problems of the area, (c) the state of housing stock and (d) levels of unemployment, poverty, single-parent families and homelessness in arriving at it.

  Mr. Chope
  All charging authorities, including Grimsby, could set a community charge of £278 (before the safety net and special grants) in 1990–91 if they and the authorities precepting on the collection fund in their area spent at the level of their standard spending assessments. The assessment for each notifiable authority takes account of the services provided by that authority as set out in the Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England). That report also sets out the indicators used to calculate SSAs, such as social conditions (including housing conditions), low incomes and single-parent families, and the weight given to each.

  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much Lambeth council will receive from the uniform business rate, revenue grant and other non-poll tax sources of revenue for 1990–91.

  Mr. Chope
  Lambeth charge payers will benefit from revenue support grant, business rates and inner London 478
  education grant paid to help meet the cost of services provided by Lambeth, the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority and the Metropolitan police. In 1990–91 these will amount to £174,276,383, £50,465,924 and £9,475,207, respectively.

  Lambeth council will also receive specific grants from the Government to help meet specific expenditure. Lambeth can raise revenue through its own fees and charges for services provided.

  Some charge payers in Lambeth will pay a reduced community charge as a result of community charge benefit and transitional relief, which will be paid for by the Government.

  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received in the past 12 months from officials or members of Suffolk county council relating to the size of Government grant for 1990–91; and what inquiries his Department has made to date into the spending plans of Suffolk for 1990–91.

  Mr. Chope
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State received two written representations from members of Suffolk county council; one in July 1989 concerning total standard spending, grant distribution and the safety net; the other in November 1989 concerning Suffolk's standard spending assessment, new duties of local authorities and the safety net. In addition, I met my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Porter) to discuss Suffolk's representations.

  No inquiries have been made specifically to Suffolk county council about its spending plans for 1990–91, but all authorities have been requested to supply to the Department details of their budgets within seven days of their budget decision.

  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a breakdown of his figure of £176·40 per head for Tonbridge and Mailing, given in his reply to the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Mailing on 30 January,Official Report, column 178, into its main components.

  Mr. David Hunt
  It is not possible to provide the breakdown requested. There are no components of revenue support grant. Grant is unhypothecated and is paid to receiving authorities in support of the revenue expenditure of authorities in their area.

  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Durham, North-West on 5 February,Official Report, columns 431–32, what is the corresponding amount and proportion of the education component of grant-related expenditure assessments 1989–90 for each authority which derives from the operation of factors relating to the payment of London weighting and other cost differences between London and surrounding areas and the rest of the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Chope
  The information requested is shown in the table:
  479

  Amount and proportion of the 1989–90 education grant related expenditure assessment (adjusted for changes in function between 1989–90 and 1990–91) deriving from the London based area cost adjustment factor

  Authority

  Amount of education GRE derived from the area cost adjustment in £ millions

  Percentage of education GRE derived from the area cost adjustment

  City of London

  0·054

  9·1

  Camden

  3·455

  9·1

  Greenwich

  5·386

  9·1

  Hackney

  5·976

  9·1

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  2·986

  9·1

  Islington

  4·204

  9·1

  Kensington and Chelsea

  1·950

  9·1

  Lambeth

  6·907

  9·1

  Lewisham

  5·632

  9·1

  Southwark

  5·577

  9·1

  Tower Hamlets

  5·978

  9·1

  Wandsworth

  5·510

  9·1

  Westminster

  2·802

  9·1

  Barking and Dagenham

  3·683

  8·6

  Barnet

  4·767

  6·3

  Bexley

  3·986

  6·3

  Brent

  7·617

  8·6

  Bromley

  4·613

  6·3

  Croydon

  5·591

  6·3

  Ealing

  7·373

  8·6

  Enfield

  4·925

  6·3

  Haringey

  5·332

  8·6

  Harrow

  3·479

  6·3

  Havering

  4·294

  6·3

  Hillingdon

  3·958

  6·3

  Hounslow

  3·761

  6·3

  Kingston upon Thames

  2·106

  6·3

  Merton

  3·538

  8·6

  Newham

  7·011

  8·6

  Redbridge

  4·000

  6·3

  Richmond upon Thames

  2·020

  6·3

  Sutton

  2·777

  6·3

  Waltham Forest

  4·232

  6·3

  Berkshire

  2·584

  1·2

  Buckinghamshire

  1·245

  0·7

  Essex

  4·251

  1·0

  Hertfordshire

  5·785

  2·1

  Kent

  1·366

  0·3

  Surrey

  6·239

  2·6

  West Sussex

  0·734

  0·4

  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will set out a table showing for each year since 1979 the direct total grants made to Waveney district council in(a) cash terms, (b) constant price terms and (c) cash terms per head of population;

  (2) if he will set out a table showing for each year since 1981 the direct total grants made to Suffolk county council in (a) cash terms, (b) constant price terms and (c) cash terms per head of population.

  Mr. Chope
  The information is as follows:
  480

  Direct Revenue Grants—1 Waveney

  Cash Terms1

  Constant Price Terms 1981–822

  Cash Terms per Head of Population £

  (£ million)

  (£ million)

  1981–82

  3·308

  3·308

  33

  1982–83

  3·611

  3· 368

  36

  1983–84

  3·947

  3·517

  39

  1984–85

  4·298

  3·649

  42

  1985–86

  4·416

  3·570

  43

  1986–87

  4·862

  3·789

  46

  1987–88

  5·216

  3·860

  49

  1988–89

  5·382

  3·714

  51

  1989–90

  5·815

  3·750

  55

  1 Excluding Domestic Rate Relief Grant.

  2 Using GDP Deflator.

  Direct Revenue Grants—1 Suffolk

  Cash Terms1

  Constant Price Terms 1981–822

  Cash Terms per Head of Population £

  (£ million)

  (£ million)

  1981–82

  90·036

  90·036

  150

  1982–83

  93·920

  87·599

  155

  1983–84

  94·948

  84·608

  155

  1984–85

  97·534

  82·797

  158

  1985–86

  90·914

  73·240

  146

  1986–87

  92·285

  71·927

  147

  1987–88

  98·124

  72·622

  155

  1988–89

  104·403

  72·049

  163

  1989–90

  99·397

  64·101

  156

  1 Excluding Domestic Rate Relief Grant.

  2 Using GDP Deflator.

  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will set out a table showing for each year since 1979 the expenditure of Waveney district council in(a) cash terms, (b) constant price terms and(c) cash terms per head of population;

  (2) if he will set out a table showing for each year since 1981 the expenditure of Suffolk county council in (a) cash terms, (b) constant price terms and (c) cash terms per head of population.

  Mr. Chope
  The information is as follows:

  Net current expenditure—Waveney

  Cash terms

  Real terms 1981–82 prices1

  Cash terms per head2

  £ million

  £ million

  £

  1981–82

  3·360

  3·360

  34

  1982–83

  3·815

  3·558

  38

  1983–84

  4·299

  3·831

  42

  1984–85

  4·437

  3·767

  43

  1985–86

  4·820

  3·883

  47

  1986–87

  5·204

  4·056

  50

  1987–88

  5·524

  4·088

  52

  1988–89

  5·905

  4·075

  55

  1989–90

  6·694

  4·316

  63

  Net current expenditure—Suffolk

  Cash terms

  Real terms 1981–82 prices1

  Cash terms per head2

  £ million

  £ million

  £

  1981–82

  161·042

  161·042

  268

  1982–83

  175·258

  163·463

  289

  1983–84

  186·098

  165·832

  304

  1984–85

  195·393

  165·869

  317

  1985–86

  205·461

  165·519

  329

  1986–87

  223·867

  174·482

  356

  1987–88

  243·835

  180·462

  384

  1988–89

  266·449

  183·876

  417

  1989–90

  280·023

  180·587

  438

  481
  1Using the gross domestic product deflator to convert from cash values to constant prices.

  2Population figures used to derive per capita values are latest available office of Population Censuses and Surveys mid year estimates of total population.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the standard spending assessment totals for 1990–91 for each service within(a) the district other services block and (b) the county other services block for the London borough of Westminster; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  Neither the SSA element for the district other services block nor the SSA element for the county other services block is broken down between sub-services within the element. The services covered by each element are listed in annex D to the Revenue Support Grant Distribution Report (England). The figures for the two elements for Westminster are:

  £ million

  District level services

  51·583

  County level services

  14·819

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether his plans for regulations concerning the disclosure of anonymous poll tax data will give community charges registration offices the option of whether to disclose data; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  The limited amount of personal information that may be disclosed and the circumstances in which such information may not be disclosed are prescribed in part II of the Community Charges (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1989.

  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) on 12 February,Official Report, column 56, if he will make an estimate of the monetary value of the shift in the burden of business rates from the north to (a) the London boroughs and (b) the London borough of Hillingdon.

  Mr. Chope
  I estimate that as a result of the revaluation and move to a uniform poundage, the non-domestic rate burden in the north will reduce substantially. The table below shows the aggregate reduction at 1989–90 prices in rate bills in the northern regions and the corresponding increases in London. The figures make no allowance for the effect of the transitional arrangements and are based on the rating lists deposited on 20 December 1989.

  Change in non-domestic rate burden

  £ million

  North West region

  290

  Northern region

  140

  Yorkshire and Humberside region

  150

  Inner London authorities

  610

  Outer London boroughs

  20

  On the same basis, I estimate that non-domestic ratepayers in Hillingdon will face increases of about £13 million.

  Mr. Knapman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library a revised 482
  version of table 5 in the analysis of the effect of the new business rating system published by his Department on 20 December 1989, showing changes in rate bills by English region for the property of private business and nationalised industries.

  Mr. Chope
  The analysis to which my hon. Friend refers, a copy of which is in the Library (Deposited Paper NS 5522), relates to properties occupied by private businesses and nationalised industries. Table 5 of the paper, unlike the other tables, inadvertently included property occupied by local authorities. I am therefore, as my hon. Friend asks, placing in the Library a revised table covering the property of private businesses and nationalised industries only.

  Mr. Alfred Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what reply is being sent to the letter to the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities of 29 January on Manchester and the poll tax from the leader of Manchester city council.

  Mr. David Hunt
  [holding answer 13 February 1990]: I have replied to the letter of 29 January from the leader of Manchester city council making clear that high community charges in Manchester would not be the result of our settlement but due solely to the council's own budget decisions. I have pointed out to Mr. Stringer that a community charge of £700 plus which he has argued would be needed to keep services in Manchester running at this year's level implies expenditure in 1990–91 more than 40 per cent. higher than the comparable amount for this year. Even charges of £450 or a little below would imply increases in spending approaching some 20 per cent. Under the settlement Manchester receives an increase in SSA over GRE of 13·3; per cent.—the highest increase for all metropolitan districts.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will issue guidance to those responsible for administering the community charge in Bradford and elsewhere that application forms for rebates should be made available in bulk to local advice agencies, including citizens advice bureaux and law centres.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  I have been asked to reply.

  Local authorities have statutory responsibility for the administration of the community charge benefit. It is for each authority to decide where claim forms should be made available.

  Local Government Staffing
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out a table showing for each year since 1979 the(a) full-time, (b) part-time and (c) total staffing levels of Waveney district council.

  Mr. Chope
  The information is as follows:

  Waveney district council: staffing levels at June

  Full-Time

  Part-Time

  Total

  1979

  819

  79

  898

  1980

  746

  74

  820

  1981

  742

  86

  828

  1982

  725

  74

  799

  1983

  750

  103

  853

  1984

  722

  87

  809

  1985

  743

  110

  853

  483

  Full-Time

  Part-Time

  Total

  1986

  773

  108

  881

  1987

  778

  115

  893

  1988

  789

  113

  902

  1989

  781

  129

  910

  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out a table showing for each year since 1981(a) full-time, (b) part-time and (c) total staffing levels of Suffolk county council.

  Mr. Chope
  The information is as follows:

  Suffolk County Council: Staffing Levels at June

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Total

  1981

  11,625

  9,868

  21,493

  1982

  11,479

  9,504

  20,983

  1983

  11,595

  9,929

  21,524

  1984

  11,521

  10,169

  21,690

  1985

  11,463

  10,371

  21,834

  1986

  11,394

  10,954

  22,348

  1987

  11,463

  11,598

  23,061

  1988

  11,397

  12,338

  23,735

  1989

  11,207

  12,017

  23,224

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy on the payment of grants to owners of sites of special scientific interest for the purposes of(a) preventing damage to, and (b) enhancing, the nature conservation interest of the land.

  Mr. Trippier
  The Government encourage the Nature Conservancy Council to use the powers set out in section 15 of the Countryside Act 1968 to protect and enhance the nature conservation interest of sites of special scientific interest and its powers to assist financially any person to carry out any project which is conducive to nature conservation interests.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the current statutory seaward limit of sites of special scientific interest in tidal waters.

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

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to increase the sentences and penalties available to magistrates courts under part 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in line with the proposals contained in the recent White Paper on criminal justice.

  Mr. Trippier
  There are at present no plans to do so. The level of fine on summary conviction for offences under part 1 of the Act against the most vulnerable species is set out at the current statutory maximum.

  Large Combustion Plants
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the targets set by the European Community directive on large combustion plants.

  Mr. Trippier
  The Government have agreed to the European Community directive on large combustion plants. It commits us to reducing sulphur dioxide 484
  emissions from existing plants by 20 per cent. by 1993, 40 per cent. by 1998 and 60 per cent. by 2003 from their 1980 base line, and emissions of nitrogen oxides by 15 per cent. by 1993 and 30 per cent. by 1998, as well as setting stringent emissions standards for new plants. My Department issued a consultation paper on 31 August 1989 explaining in detail our proposals for implementing the directive. A copy of the paper is in the Library of the House.

  Gipsies
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment for what reasons he issued a direction in November 1989 under section 9 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968 to Hertfordshire county council requiring it to provide sites for a further 110 caravans for gipsies residing in or resorting to the county; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment directed Hertfordshire, in November 1988, because of the county council's lack of progress in making adequate site provision for those gipsies residing in, or resorting to, its area.

  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has written to local authorities drawing their attention to the direction issued to Hertfordshire county council under section 9 of the Caravan Sites Act 1968.

  Mr. Chope
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has written to other poor-performing local authorities drawing their attention to the direction issued to Hertfordshire, and has since directed Surrey county council in similar terms.

  Wild Birds
  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will publish such records as are kept of the numbers of protected wild birds destroyed annually by those so authorised by him;

  (2) to what extent he authorises the destruction of wild birds from time to time that are otherwise protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act; to whom such authorisations are granted; and why the exemptions are made.

  Mr. Trippier
  Details of the numbers of birds killed under licences granted under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, where known, are included in the Government's annual reports to the European Commission of derogations made under the EEC directive on the conservation of wild birds. Copies of the reports are available in the Library and are circulated to interested bodies.

  Licences to kill wild birds are granted to relevant individuals and authorities principally to preserve public health or public or air safety, to prevent the spread of disease, or to prevent serious damage to livestock, foodstuffs for livestock, crops, vegetables, fruit, growing timber or fisheries.

  Beaches
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the Government's current plans to deal with the pollution of Britain's beaches.
  485
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  There are investment programmes totalling £1·4 billion at November 1989 prices to improve bathing water quality. It is expected that 95 per cent. of bathing waters will comply with EEC standards by the mid-1990s, and the full compliance programmes should be completed within 10 years.

  House of Commons (Repairs)
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether there is a cash limit on the amount of money to be spent on minor repairs at the House of Commons in 1989–90.

  Mr. Chope
  Minor repairs to the parliamentary estate are funded from class XX, vote 18 which is cash limited.

  AEG grades

  Support grades

  Stores grades

  Totals

  Total number of eligible staff as at 3 February 1990

  446

  45

  13

  504

  Total number non-respondents

  10

  1

  1

  12

  Number who have opted to second

  304

  30

  12

  346

  Percentage who have opted to second

  68

  66

  92

  69

  Number who have opted to leave TCS before privatisation

  122

  11

  0

  133

  Percentage who have opted to leave TCS before privatisation

  27

  24

  —

  26

  Number who have opted to transfer outright to purchaser

  10

  3

  0

  13

  Percentage who have opted to transfer outright to purchaser

  2

  7

  —

  3

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received seeking a guaranteed minimum level of Crown business to the privatised Crown Suppliers.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 14 February 1990]: None.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the buying agency business line of the Crown Suppliers needs to be adopted by a Crown Department if it is to be able to continue serving public sector needs after privatisation.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 14 February 1990]: Individual Government Departments, including the Crown Suppliers are already responsible for ensuring that public sector procurement procedures are complied with. Following privatisation any Government Department will be able to employ the Crown Suppliers to act as its agent to carry out these procedures on its behalf.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the percentages and absolute numbers of Liverpool staff who opted for secondment to the privatised Crown Suppliers before the provision of a guaranteed job back in the Civil Service; and how many opted for secondment after that guarantee was given.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 14 February 1990]: Of the 95 Liverpool staff who were eligible, 12(13 per cent.) opted originally for secondment to the purchaser of the Crown Suppliers. Of the 96 Liverpool staff who are eligible today, 57(59 per cent.) have now opted for secondment.

  Bed-and-Breakfast Accommodation
  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest figure for the number of people living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation in Manchester.

  Mr. Chope
  Such statistics are not maintained by my Department. Manchester city council operates policies which avoid putting homeless families into bed-and-breakfast accommodation.

  Crown Suppliers
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will provide a percentage and absolute number breakdown by grade of the final responses of the administrative and executive grades, stores and support grades to the Crown Suppliers secondment exercise.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 14 February 1990]: Following is the information:

  Conferences
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if his Department will be represented at the conference on liability under environment legislation, organised by the Institute for International Research, to be held in London on 27 to 28 February.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 16 February 1990]: No.

  Uniform Business Rate
  Mr. John Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the impact of the uniform business rate and the non-domestic revaluation on properties in the areas of urban programme authorities, overall and by type of property.

  Mr. Chope
  Businesses in the areas of the 57 urban programme local authorities in England will on average face substantially lower rate bills as a result of the new system of business rating. At the uniform business rate of 34·8p for 1990–91, the aggregate rate bills of such businesses would be £508 million or 16·3 per cent. lower than in 1989–90 before transition. Most classes of property benefit on average from lower bills. All businesses will have the guarantee that the uniform business rate will in future rise by no more than the rate of inflation. These reforms will therefore give a major fillip to businesses in inner-city areas.

  The full figures requested by my hon. Friend are as follows:
  487

  Aggregate of old rate bills

  Aggregate of new rate bills (before transition)

  Change

  Change

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  Percentage

  Shops

  659·8

  639·7

  -20·2

  -3·1

  Offices

  553·9

  499·5

  -54·3

  -9·8

  Factories

  765·7

  447·4

  -318·3

  -41·6

  Warehouses

  393·4

  263·5

  -129·9

  -33·0

  Other properties

  744·6

  759·5

  14·9

  2·0

  All properties

  3,117·4

  2,609·6

  -507·8

  -16·3

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Ethiopia
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the latest information he has on the famine situation in Ethiopia.

  Mrs. Chalker
  As the House knows, up to 4 million people are at increasing risk and some 1·1 million tonnes of food aid will be required up to the end of October of which about half has already been pledged. Our critical objectives remain to get the earliest distribution of food particularly within Tigré, as agreed on 18 January, and to find a speedy route towards the end of fighting and a negotiated solution.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance is being offered to the inhabitants of Tigréand Wollo in northern Ethiopia; and what steps are being taken to ensure that such assistance is getting through.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Since the middle of 1989, we have made commitments of food and other emergency assistance to the value of some £5·8 million for the benefit of those threatened by famine in Tigré. This assistance is being channelled through British non-governmental organisations which have long experience of work of this kind in Ethiopia. The world food programme is also advising on the situation and how best to ensure that the food aid reaches those for whom it is intended. Because of the military situation in Wollo, it has not so far been possible to provide aid to that region.

  Cambodia
  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what United Kingdom assistance has been given to the non-Communist resistance in Cambodia in the past 12 months.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Since 1 March 1989 a total of £702,000 has been provided, mainly through UNBRO and British NGOs, for non-Communist Cambodians living in camps on the Thai border.

  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a further statement about Government policy on(a) bilateral and (b) multilateral aid to Cambodia; and whether he will give details of Britain's contribution to date in each case for the current financial year.

  Mr. John P. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his officials' recent visit to Cambodia.
  488
  Mrs. Chalker
  I refer the hon. Gentlemen to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Motherwell, North (Dr. Reid) on 15 February at column 351.

  Ms. Abbott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he has taken to ensure that food is not being sent from United Nations Border Relief Organisation camps on the Thai-Cambodia border to Khmer Rouge soldiers.

  Mr. Tom Clarke.
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what further investigations have been made on reports of the diversion of food and other aid to Khmer Rouge soldiers fighting in Cambodia, from the camps on the Thai-Cambodia border.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We have repeatedly sought and been given assurances by UNBRO that food and other aid supplies intended for families and ordinary people in Thai-Cambodia border camps are not diverted, either directly or indirectly to the Khmer Rouge.

  I saw the camps for myself last week and reiterated our concern. UNBRO officials assured me that they were taking all possible steps to ensure that supplies went to the people for whom they were intended and that they were looking again at their monitoring procedures. British embassy officials based in Bangkok also visit the camps regularly to monitor the situation.

  Vietnam
  Mr. Sedgemore
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his Department's consideration of the issues raised in the report by the International Monetary Fund staff report for the 1989 article IV consultation, 11 August 1989, on Vietnam's economy.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Government welcome the positive initial steps taken by the Vietnamese authorities towards more market-oriented policies.

  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what programme of aid Her Majesty's Government have developed for Vietnam.

  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans he has to re-establish a bilateral aid programme with Vietnam.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Government have provided some assistance to Vietnam to help the people who are returning to resettle there. As I said in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. Nicholson) on 16 January, consideration is also being given to whether the time is right to provide support for community development programmes administered by British non-governmental organisations in Vietnam.

  Debt
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much debt owed by developing countries Her Majesty's Government propose to write off in this coming year.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We have already cancelled the old aid debt of 23 countries, and rescheduled on concessional terms other official debt of 12 countries. The 1988 Toronto summit agreed to provide such debt relief to the poorest countries pursuing economic reforms, and we expect more to benefit in 1990.

  South Africa
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what factors determine Britain's aid programme to South Africa.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Our aid programme is a practical demonstration of our commitment to promote fundamental change leading to the creation of a just, democratic and non-racial society in South Africa. It is helping to prepare for the day when South Africa's black citizens will be playing the major role in government and in economic development. Our programmes are planned and implemented directly with community groups, nongovernmental organisations and some universities.

  Mr. Galloway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the recent visit to South Africa by the Minister for Overseas Development.

  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on the recent visit to Johannesburg by the Minister for Overseas Development.

  Mrs. Chalker
  While in Johannesburg on 30 January I visited the Alexandra health centre, which is one of over 200 community projects that we support in South Africa. I met many of the teachers involved in the Molteno literacy project which we have helped for nearly 10 years and which has developed teaching materials now in use in well over 5,000 primary schools. I also visited the new British Council offices.

  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the outcome of the Minister for Overseas Development's visit to southern Africa and the Southern Africa Development Co-ordination Committee.

  Mrs. Chalker
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave on 15 February at column 352 to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway).

  Eastern Europe
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of United Kingdom aid given to ex-Communist countries to liberalise their economies is given on a multilateral basis.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We have only just started giving aid to the reforming countries of eastern Europe, and precise statistics are accordingly not yet available. But a substantial proportion of the United Kingdom's aid to eastern Europe will be given multilaterally.
  490
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what funds are being made available for students from central and eastern Europe to study development economics in the United Kingdom.

  Mrs. Chalker
  No funds are currently set aside specifically for this purpose. However some £750,000 will be available in 1990–91 for students from eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to study in Great Britain through the FCO scholarships and awards scheme. Applications from students wishing to study development economics will be considered along with other applications.

  In addition, we hope to establish a general scholarships programme through the know-how funds. This will be administered by the British Council. Detailed proposals are awaited and no financial limits have yet been set. Development economics will certainly be a discipline in which training will be eligible for support.

  Mr. John Garrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy that in all future years aid to eastern Europe will be additional to aid for developing countries.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Government's substantial economic support for eastern Europe is entirely separate from and additional to our regular aid programme. We shall maintain our substantial aid programme to developing countries.

  Brazil
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the latest discussions with Brazil on rain forest matters.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We have continued our discussions with Brazilian institutions on the details of individual project proposals and several project proposals are now being considered by the Brazilian Government. We expect the Brazilian Government to approve the first project under the memorandum of understanding, a research project to investigate the relationship between deforestation and climate, involving the Institute of Hydrology, within the next few days. We hope to reach agreement shortly on some of the other projects which could then begin in the second quarter of the year.

  Black Rhino
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what aid is directed toward programmes aimed at protecting the black rhino.

  Mrs. Chalker
  In my answer to the hon. Member of 29 November 1989,Official Report, column 257, I referred to the list, placed in the Library of the House, of wildlife conservation activities in general in Africa in which we are involved. This includes the funding of a gamewarden to co-ordinate the Kenya rhino rescue project. We are now actively considering ways in which we may be of further help in conserving rhino in Tanzania.

  Tibet
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether in the forthcoming year Her Majesty's Government will fund a cultural or medical aid package to Tibet.
  491
  Mrs. Chalker
  The Government have no plans to fund a cultural or medical aid package to Tibet.

  Bangladesh
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was discussed with the Government of Bangladesh during the Minister for Overseas Development's recent visit.

  Mrs. Chalker
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) on 15 February, column 350.

  Food Production
  Mr. Jacques Arnold
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the overseas aid programme contains any provision for developing new technologies to increase food production in developing countries.

  Mr. Favell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what action the Overseas Development Administration is taking to increase food production in developing countries through research on sustainable systems of agriculture.

  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what contribution is made through research and development funded from the aid programme to efforts in developing countries to improve food production.

  Mrs. Chalker
  I regard research on sustainable agricultural systems for developing countries and its dissemination as an important part of the British aid programme. The Overseas Development Administration has recently published a new "Strategy for Research on Renewable Natural Resources", a copy of which I have placed in the Library of the House. This strategy lays stress on the need for all natural resources research programmes to take account of factors which make for sustainable and environmentally sound development. Total expenditure on renewable natural resources research under the Overseas Development Administration research strategy in FY 1989–90, including contributions to the programmes of international agricultural research centres, will be some £19 million, of which nearly 90 per cent. will be related to food production and the technologies needed to increase it. Specific research programmes which bear directly on agricultural sustainability will include among others farming systems, agroforestry and soil science, and will be carried out at centres of excellence such as the Overseas Development Natural Resources Institute and the Oxford Forestry Institute. The transfer and adaptation of newly developed technologies is assisted through our bilateral country programmes.

  India
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on the quality of Her Majesty's492
  Government's aid programme to India, in view of the recently published investigation carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

  Mrs. Chalker
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. Dunnachie) on 15 February at column 351.

  Children's Education
  Mr. Wells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of the United Kingdom aid budget is spent on education; how much of this is spent on primary education; and whether he has any plans to increase spending in this area.

  Mrs. Chalker
  In 1988, expenditure on technical co-operation in education, including sums provided to the British Council amounting to £42 million, came to about £95 million or 23 per cent. of total technical co-operation. Some £1·7 million or 0·4 per cent. of total technical co-operation was specifically for primary education, but there are other projects which benefit both primary and other areas of education. Some £6·5 million or 3·2 per cent. of the ODA total financial project aid was spent on education; £1·1 million or 0·6 per cent. was on primary education. In determining how much the ODA spends on the various levels of education in each recipient country it takes into account existing or proposed projects by those organisations.

  We shall wish to discuss with Education Ministers of Commonwealth countries at the Commonwealth conference of Education Ministers in Barbados later this year what proportion of our assistance they wish us to commit to primary education. We shall undertake discussions with other Governments in the light of the forthcoming world conference on education for all.

  Mr. Wells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has as to the proportion of children worldwide who fail to undertake or complete primary education.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The following information on the percentage of children enrolled in primary education is taken from the World Bank world development report 1989. In an explanatory note the report states that the figures are estimates of children of all ages enrolled in primary schools. Figures are expressed as the percentage of pupils to the population of school age children. Figures in italics are for years other than those specified. While many countries consider primary school age to be six to 11 years, others do not. The differences in country practices in the ages and duration of schooling are reflected in the figures given. For some countries with universal primary education the gross enrolment figures may exceed 100 per cent. because some pupils are younger or older than the country's standard primary school age.

  I have no information on the number of children who fail to complete the period of primary education.
  493

  Primary

  Total

  Male

  Female

  1965

  1986

  1965

  1986

  1965

  1986

  Low-income economies

  173

  1103

  —

  1113

  —

  192

  China and India

  183

  1113

  —

  1124

  —

  1101

  Other low-income

  149

  176

  160

  183

  137

  168

  1. Ethiopia

  11

  36

  16

  44

  6

  28

  2. Bhutan

  7

  23

  13

  29

  1

  17

  3. Chad

  34

  43

  56

  61

  13

  24

  4. Zaire

  70

  —

  95

  —

  45

  —

  5. Bangladesh

  49

  60

  67

  69

  31

  50

  6. Malawi

  44

  64

  55

  72

  32

  55

  7. Nepal

  20

  79

  36

  104

  4

  47

  8. Lao PDR

  40

  94

  50

  102

  30

  85

  9. Mozambique

  37

  82

  48

  92

  26

  73

  10. Tanzania

  32

  69

  40

  70

  25

  69

  11. Burkina Faso

  12

  35

  16

  45

  8

  26

  12. Madagascar

  65

  121

  70

  125

  59

  118

  13. Mali

  24

  22

  32

  27

  16

  16

  14. Burundi

  26

  59

  36

  68

  15

  50

  15. Zambia

  53

  104

  59

  112

  46

  101

  16. Niger

  11

  29

  15

  37

  7

  20

  17. Uganda

  67

  —

  83

  —

  50

  —

  18. China

  89

  129

  —

  137

  —

  120

  19. Somalia

  10

  20

  16

  26

  4

  13

  20. Togo

  55

  102

  78

  125

  32

  78

  21. India

  74

  92

  89

  107

  57

  76

  22. Rwanda

  53

  67

  64

  68

  43

  66

  23. Sierra Leone

  29

  —

  37

  —

  31

  —

  24. Benin

  34

  65

  48

  87

  21

  43

  25. Central African Republic

  56

  66

  84

  81

  28

  5o

  26. Kenya

  54

  94

  69

  97

  40

  91

  27. Sudan

  29

  50

  37

  59

  21

  41

  28. Pakistan

  40

  44

  59

  55

  20

  32

  29. Haiti

  50

  78

  56

  83

  44

  72

  30. Lesotho

  94

  115

  74

  102

  114

  127

  31. Nigeria

  32

  —

  39

  —

  24

  —

  32. Ghana

  69

  63

  82

  75

  57

  59

  33. Sri Lanka

  93

  103

  98

  104

  86

  102

  34. Yemen PDR

  23

  —

  35

  —

  10

  —

  35. Mauritania

  13

  46

  19

  57

  6

  35

  36. Indonesia

  72

  118

  79

  121

  65

  116

  37. Liberia

  41

  —

  59

  —

  23

  —

  38. Afghanistan

  16

  —

  26

  —

  5

  —

  39. Burma

  71

  —

  76

  —

  65

  —

  40. Guinea

  31

  29

  44

  40

  19

  27

  41. Kampuchea, Democratic

  77

  —

  98

  —

  56

  —

  42. Viet Nam

  —

  100

  —

  107

  —

  94

  Middle-income economies

  193

  1104

  199

  1108

  186

  1100

  Lower-middle-income

  189

  1104

  196

  1108

  181

  1100

  43. Senegal

  40

  55

  52

  66

  29

  45

  44. Bolivia

  73

  87

  86

  93

  60

  82

  45. Zimbabwe

  110

  129

  128

  132

  92

  126

  46. Philippines

  113

  106

  115

  107

  111

  106

  47. Yemen Arab Republic

  9

  79

  16

  125

  1

  31

  48. Morocco

  57

  79

  78

  96

  35

  62

  49. Egypt Arab Republic

  75

  87

  90

  96

  60

  77

  50. Papua New Guinea

  44

  —

  53

  —

  35

  —

  51. Dominican Republic

  87

  133

  87

  131

  87

  135

  52. Cote d'Ivoire

  60

  78

  80

  92

  41

  65

  53. Honduras

  80

  102

  81

  103

  79

  102

  54. Nicaragua

  69

  98

  68

  93

  69

  103

  55. Thailand

  78

  99

  82

  —

  74

  —

  56. El Salvador

  82

  70

  85

  69

  79

  70

  57. Congo, People's Republic

  114

  —

  134

  —

  94

  —

  494 495

  Total

  Male

  Female

  1965

  1986

  1965

  1986

  1965

  1986

  58. Jamaica

  109

  —

  112

  —

  106

  —

  59. Guatemala

  50

  76

  55

  82

  45

  70

  60. Cameroon

  94

  107

  114

  116

  75

  97

  61. Paraguay

  102

  99

  109

  102

  96

  97

  62. Ecuador

  91

  14

  94

  —

  88

  —

  63. Botswana

  65

  105

  59

  101

  71

  109

  64. Tunisia

  91

  118

  116

  127

  65

  108

  65. Turkey

  101

  117

  118

  121

  83

  113

  66. Colombia

  84

  114

  83

  112

  86

  115

  67. Chile

  124

  110

  125

  110

  122

  109

  68. Peru

  99

  122

  108

  125

  90

  120

  69. Mauritius

  101

  106

  105

  105

  97

  106

  70. Jordan

  95

  —

  105

  —

  83

  —

  71. Costa Rica

  106

  102

  107

  103

  105

  101

  72. Syrian Arab Republic

  78

  111

  103

  117

  52

  105

  73. Malaysia

  90

  101

  96

  100

  84

  99

  74. Mexico

  92

  114

  94

  115

  90

  113

  75. South Africa

  90

  —

  91

  —

  88

  —

  76. Poland

  104

  101

  106

  101

  102

  101

  77. Lebanon

  106

  —

  118

  —

  93

  —

  Upper-middle-income

  197

  1104

  1102

  1107

  193

  1101

  78. Brazil

  108

  105

  109

  —

  108

  —

  79. Uruguay

  106

  110

  106

  111

  106

  109

  80. Hungary

  101

  98

  102

  97

  100

  98

  81. Panama

  102

  106

  104

  109

  99

  104

  82. Argentina

  101

  109

  101

  109

  102

  109

  83. Yugoslavia

  106

  95

  108

  95

  103

  94

  84. Algeria

  68

  95

  81

  105

  53

  85

  85. Korea, Republic

  101

  94

  103

  94

  99

  94

  86. Gabon

  134

  126

  146

  127

  122

  125

  87. Portugal

  84

  117

  84

  131

  83

  123

  88. Venezuela

  94

  110

  93

  110

  94

  110

  89. Greece

  110

  106

  111

  106

  109

  106

  90. Trinidad and Tobago

  93

  95

  97

  93

  90

  96

  91. Libya

  78

  —

  111

  —

  44

  —

  92. Oman

  —

  94

  —

  101

  —

  86

  93. Iran, Islamic Republic

  63

  117

  85

  127

  40

  107

  94. Iraq

  74

  99

  102

  107

  45

  91

  95. Romania

  101

  97

  102

  98

  100

  97

  Low- and middle-income

  178

  1103

  184

  1112

  162

  194

  Sub-Saharan Africa

  141

  166

  152

  173

  1

  158

  East Asia

  188

  1123

  —

  1131

  —

  1117

  South Asia

  168

  184

  183

  198

  152

  169

  Europe, Middle East, and North Africa

  183

  197

  194

  1104

  171

  191

  Latin America and Caribbean

  198

  1108

  199

  1110

  196

  1108

  17 Highly indebted

  188

  1106

  191

  1109

  184

  1104

  High-income economies

  1105

  1102

  1106

  1103

  1105

  1102

  OEDC members

  1107

  1102

  1107

  1103

  1106

  1102

  Other

  174

  190

  180

  194

  17

  187

  96. Spain

  115

  101

  117

  104

  114

  103

  97. Ireland

  108

  100

  107

  100

  108

  100

  98. Saudi Arabia

  24

  71

  36

  78

  11

  65

  99. Israel

  95

  99

  95

  98

  95

  100

  100. New Zealand

  106

  105

  107

  106

  104

  104

  101. Singapore

  105

  115

  110

  118

  100

  113

  102. Hong Kong

  103

  105

  106

  106

  99

  104

  103. Italy

  112

  97

  113

  99

  110

  99

  104. United Kingdom

  92

  106

  92

  105

  92

  106

  105. Australia

  99

  106

  99

  106

  99

  105

  106. Belgium

  109

  96

  110

  95

  108

  97

  107. Netherlands

  104

  114

  104

  113

  104

  115

  107. Austria

  106

  100

  106

  100

  105

  100

  109. France

  134

  112

  135

  113

  133

  111

  496 497

  Total

  Male

  Female

  1965

  1986

  1965

  1986

  1965

  1986

  110. Germany, Federal Republic

  —

  97

  —

  97

  —

  97

  111. Finland

  92

  104

  95

  104

  89

  104

  112. Kuwait

  116

  98

  129

  99

  103

  96

  113. Denmark

  98

  98

  97

  98

  99

  98

  114. Canada

  105

  105

  106

  106

  104

  104

  115. Sweden

  95

  99

  94

  97

  96

  99

  116. Japan

  100

  102

  100

  101

  100

  102

  117. United Arab Emirates

  —

  100

  —

  99

  —

  101

  118. Norway

  97

  98

  97

  97

  98

  97

  119. United States

  —

  102

  —

  103

  —

  103

  120. Switzerland

  87

  —

  87

  —

  87

  —

  Total reporting economies

  182

  1103

  188

  1110

  170

  195

  Oil exporters

  168

  1110

  178

  1114

  159

  1105

  Non-reporting non-members

  1102

  1105

  1103

  —

  1102

  —

  1 Weighted average.

  Oban-Korup Rain Forest
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what aid Her Majesty's Government are giving to Nigeria and Cameroon, directly or indirectly related to helping protect the Oban-Korup rain forest; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Overseas Development Administration is contributing to the sustainable development of the Korup national park in Cameroon and the Oban hills area of Nigeria, both by supporting the World Wide Fund for Nature through the joint funding scheme and from bilateral country programme funds.

  Our present total commitment for Korup is £700,000 over the period 1987 to 1992. It includes a soils survey, preparation of a master plan, and a contribution to the World Wide Fund for Nature's work in setting up new agroforestry areas and buffer zone protection.

  For the Oban hills area, we have spent £210,000 on the design of a conservation master plan, and an Overseas Development Administration team has just visited Nigeria to draw up proposals for future assistance.

  Development Assistance
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish a table showing British official development assistance, as defined by the OECD, in constant 1989 prices, for each year since 1979.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The answer is as follows:

  Net official development assistance 1979 to 1988 at constant 1989 prices

  Constant 1989 prices

  £ million

  1979

  2,098

  1980

  1,377

  1981

  1,676

  1982

  1,481

  1983

  1,453

  1984

  1,399

  1985

  1,466

  1986

  1,417

  1987

  1,323

  1988

  1,589

EMPLOYMENT

  Jobcentres
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he has any plans regarding the privatisation or contractorisation of jobcentres and their services.

  Mr. Eggar
  No. As my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State announced on 1 December 1989,Official Report, column 461, the employment service will be launched as a Next Steps agency in April. Agency status will involve the setting of clear objectives and targets for the employment service and will clarify accountability for policy, management and performance. This will enable the employment service to provide greater value for money and improved customer service. My right hon. Friend also announced that the employment service will progressively integrate its jobcentre and benefit services. This will represent a significant improvement on the present system where most people have to visit both a benefit office and a jobcentre as part of claiming benefit and looking for work.

  Enterprise Allowance Scheme
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the cost to the Exchequer for each job created as a result of the enterprise allowance scheme.

  Mr. Eggar
  For the financial year to March 1989, the net cost to the Exchequer for each entrant to the enterprise allowance scheme is estimated at £1,900.

  Small Firms Loan Guarantees
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the cost per job to the Exchequer of jobs created as a result of the Government's small firms loan guarantee scheme.

  Mr. Eggar
  The net Exchequer cost of the loan guarantee scheme per person leaving the unemployment count is estimated to be of the order of £450. This figure is derived from the costs of a typical loan adjusted by the benefit, tax and national insurance savings relating to those leaving the count in the first year of a loan as a direct result of the scheme.

  Reactive Dyes
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment to whom a leaflet published by the Health and Safety Commission, warning of the health hazards of reactive dyes, is being circulated; what are the main precautions the leaflet advises workers and employers to adopt; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The leaflet "Your Health and Reactive Dyes" published by the Health and Safety Commission on 1 February 1990, is being distributed widely in the finishing sector of the textile industry and is also being sent to the Society of Dyers and Colourists and to further education establishments specialising in textile technology. The leaflet is specifically intended to inform workers. The main precautions which the leaflet advises are: to open, dispense and weigh out dye powders at a dust control booth; to clean up any spillages by vacuum or wet method; to wear a suitable respirator and protective clothing when instructed to do so; to pay attention to personal hygiene and to seek medical advice if specified symptoms occur.

  Small Firms
  Mr. Grylls
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many small firms used his Department's small firms advisory service in 1989.

  Mr. Eggar
  In 1989 the small firms service in England handled 314,625 inquiries and provided 50,013 counselling sessions to 35,572 clients.

  Health and Safety Commission
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he has yet received advice from the Health and Safety Commission on whether regulations should be made under section 235 of the Companies Act 1985.

  Mr. Nicholls
  The chairman of the HSC has written to me with the Commission's advice on this matter. There are no present plans to introduce regulations.

  Action for Jobs
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the total expenditure attributed to the action for jobs campaign in 1988–89.

  Mr. Eggar
  Total expenditure on the action for jobs campaign in 1988–89 was £600,000.

  New Businesses
  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many new businesses were started over the past year.

  Mr. Eggar
  [holding answer 14 February 1990]: In 1988, the latest year for which figures have been published by my Department. the net increase in the number of VAT-registered businesses was 64,000, an average of just over 1,200 per week. This was the net result of 230,000 new registrations and 166,000 deregistrations. Early indications from data collected by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise are that there was a net increase of some 80,000 in 1989, or 1,500 per week on average.

LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL

  Private Security Firms
  Mr. George
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will list the names of all the private security firms currently employed by his Department, the number of employees for each firm on the contract, the total value of each contract and the total value of all contracts for each financial year since 1984–85.

  Sir Geoffrey Howe
  No security firms are employed by my Department.

  Paternity Leave
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Geoffrey Howe
  At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of the recently agreed entitlement to two days paid paternity leave.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Gymnasium
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Lord President of the Council on how many occasions in the past 12 months clothing belonging to right hon. and hon. Members has been reported as going missing while they have been using the House of Commons gymnasium; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Geoffrey Howe
  None.

  Refreshment Department
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, under which vote the £370,179 shown as the total for staff costs, including wages and salaries, social security costs and staff meals, in the account for the House of Commons refreshment accounts in the year 1988–89, is shown in the appropriation accounts.

  Mr. Beith
  The sum referred to represents the cost of meals provided by the Refreshment Department for its staff, the wages of casual staff, and overtime payments and associated social security contributions wholly attributable to the banqueting services of the Department. Since 1 April 1980, when the Refreshment Department became a Department of the House, those costs have been met from the Department's trading fund, the accounts of which are approved each year by the House of Commons Commission and presented to the House by Mr. Speaker, together with the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon.

  The wages of all the permanent full-time staff of the Refreshment Department are met from the House of Commons: administrative vote (class XXA, vote 1); and appear in the appropriation accounts for that vote. In 1988–89 expenditure on wages, allowances and national insurance contributions for the permanent full-time staff of the Refreshment Department was £2,632,853.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Female Teachers
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to assist female teachers to take a break in their career and then return to teaching.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The Government are keen to encourage former teachers to return to teaching. On 18 January 1990, my right hon. Friend announced a £4 million education support grant programme over two years to help LEAs attract qualified teachers back into teaching and recruit new mature entrants. This funding will help LEAs to provide career break and keeping-in-touch schemes, job-share and part-time working and creche facilities. In addition, LEA training grant scheme funding is available for updating the skills and knowledge of qualified teacher returners. It is for LEAs and schools as employers to take advantage of these funds to respond to the specific needs of women returners.

  Student Loans
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the average debt expected for a student starting his or her degree course in autumn 1990 under the student loans system and studying(a) a three-year arts or humanities degree, (b) a four-year engineering degree and (c) a five-year medical degree at an English university or polytechnic.

  Mr. Jackson
  The loan facility is available to support students' maintenance. The size of the debt in any individual case will depend on the amount of loan facility drawn down. The size of the facility does not relate to the nature of the course.

  If inflation runs at 3 per cent., a student at a higher education institution outside London and living away from home, starting a course in 1990–91 taking up the maximum loan facility in each year, would have a total debt in real terms of £1,317 for a three-year course, £1,922 for a four-year course, and £2,592 for a five-year course.

  Mr. Haselhurst
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will consider weighting student loans to take account of regional variations in the cost of accommodation.

  Mr. Jackson
  The loan facility, like the maintenance grant, will be available at three levels, according to whether the student is living during term time in the parental home, away from home in London, or away from home outside London. Differences in regional accommodation costs were also taken into account in distributing the higher education access fund between the various sectors. We wish the UFC and PCFC to have regard to relevant accommodation costs in making allocations to their institutions.

  National Vocational Qualifications
  Sir Fergus Montgomery
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he is taking to improve co-operation in bringing about the comprehensive framework of national vocational qualifications.

  Mr. Jackson
  The work of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) lies at the heart of 502
  Government policy for the reform and rationalisation of vocational qualifications. When NCVQ was established in 1986, the Government accepted the advice that a voluntary process of reform, through the procedures of NCVQ, represented the best way of securing the commitment of all concerned with the formulation and delivery of quality national vocational qualifications.

  My right hon. Friend attended NCVQ's council meeting on 29 January 1990 when he acknowledged the progress that had already been made and invited the council to identify ways in which he might assist in its future work. He plans to hold a further meeting with the chairman and chief executive of NCVQ as part of that process, and continues to keep in close touch with the major examining and validating bodies offering vocational qualifications.

  Further Education
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the number, and the relevant percentages, of young people aged 16 and 17 years who are currently in full-time education.

  Mr. Jackson
  Estimates of numbers and percentages of the population of 16 and 17-year-olds in full-time education in England in 1988–89 are as follows:

  Aged 16

  Aged 17

  Numbers

  per cent.

  Numbers

  per cent.

  ('000s)

  ('000s)

  School

  223

  33·1

  148

  20·5

  Full-time further education (excluding YTS)

  114

  16·9

  101

  13·9

  Full-time further education (YTS)

  13

  2·0

  5

  0·7

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many local education authorities in their submissions to him of funding schemes for further education have named 1 April 1991 as the date for delegation of budgets; how many of these authorities have had this date changed by him to 1 April 1990; if he will list the local education authorities in both categories; and under what powers he imposed these changes.

  Mr. Jackson
  The following local education authorities named 1 April 1991 as the date for delegation of budgets:

  Bolton

  Durham

  Rotherham

  Havering

  Sunderland

  Ealing

  Hillingdon

  Merton

  Bexley

  Cleveland

  Doncaster

  Kingston

  Barnsley

  Rochdale

  St. Helens

  Sutton

  Barnet

  Waltham Forest

  Hertfordshire

  Using powers under section 140 of the Education

  503
  Reform Act 1988 my right hon. Friend has to date modified the schemes of the following local education authorities to introduce delegation from 1 April 1990:

  Cleveland

  Doncaster

  Havering

  Kingston

  Solvent Abuse
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps are being taken to educate children about the dangers of solvent abuse.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The National Curriculum Science Order requires that pupils should study the risks of solvent abuse and how it affects body processes. The Department will be supporting LEA expenditure of up to £7 million in 1990–91 on preventive health education, including education about solvent abuse. The Department has also contributed funding towards the production by Re-Solv of a video on solvent abuse for use in schools.

  (a) Target

  (b) Intake

  University

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1987

  1988

  1989

  Bath

  147

  162

  177

  156

  122

  131

  142·0

  Birmingham

  159

  159

  159

  189

  157

  164

  160·0

  Bristol

  134

  134

  134

  164

  132

  146

  139·0

  Brunel

  95

  85

  75

  36

  27

  38

  25·0

  Cambridge

  222

  227

  227

  249

  221

  213

  202·0

  Durham

  269

  274

  279

  293

  276

  271

  284·0

  East Anglia

  165

  180

  200

  212

  157

  172

  194·0

  Exeter

  348

  388

  423

  489

  374

  441

  474·0

  Hull

  148

  154

  160

  224

  146

  131

  215·0

  Keele

  162

  167

  167

  198

  127

  153

  178·0

  Leeds

  317

  322

  327

  393

  285

  329

  327·0

  Leicester

  320

  330

  340

  393

  320

  321

  308·0

  Liverpool

  146

  151

  156

  170

  126

  140

  142·0

  London: Goldsmiths College

  395

  395

  395

  395

  353

  346

  337·0

  London: Institute of Education

  530

  540

  550

  598

  523

  528

  497·5

  London: Kings College

  234

  239

  239

  244

  206

  175

  159·0

  Loughborough

  189

  209

  229

  251

  171

  183

  210·0

  Manchester

  266

  218

  223

  248

  271

  232

  232·0

  Newcastle

  165

  170

  175

  219

  174

  185

  188·0

  Nottingham

  203

  203

  203

  249

  206

  209

  218·0

  Oxford

  150

  150

  150

  186

  145

  137

  150·0

  Reading1

  116

  116

  352

  393

  114

  113

  360·0

  Sheffield

  146

  146

  146

  194

  140

  137

  153·0

  Southampton

  115

  115

  115

  176

  108

  130

  112·0

  Sussex

  111

  121

  126

  144

  104

  139

  146·0

  Warwick

  345

  382

  422

  439

  345

  355

  387·0

  York

  98

  98

  98

  163

  111

  110

  120·0

  Aberystwyth

  178

  183

  183

  248

  156

  175

  212·0

  Bangor

  180

  185

  195

  110

  150

  97

  93·0

  Cardiff

  189

  194

  199

  36

  176

  187

  176·0

  Swansea

  158

  163

  173

  321

  146

  129

  165·5

  Total

  6,400

  6,560

  6,997

  7,780

  6,069

  6,217

  6,706

  1 incorporating numbers for Bulmershe college of higher education from September 1989

  Qualified Teachers
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what are the numbers of successful and unsuccessful applicants for qualified teacher status, holding degrees from institutions in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh. west Africa and the West Indies; what is the average length of wait for qualified teacher status for

  Mummified Relics
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central of 9 February,Official Report, column 795, whether he will take steps to establish how many aboriginal and Maori skulls and skeletal remains are in United Kingdom universities.

  Mr. Jackson
  No. Responsibility for university collections rests solely with the institutions concerned.

  University Intakes
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will publish(a) the target intake figures for each university education department or faculty for 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 and (b) the actual intake in each case for 1987, 1988 and 1989.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  Initial teacher training target and intake figures for individual universities are as follows:

  successful applicants from these countries; and if he will give the preceding information for each of the last five years for which information is available.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The arrangements for according qualified teacher status changed with effect from 1 September 1989. Prior to that date, teachers trained overseas could be granted qualified teacher status under paragraph 2(b) of schedule 5 to the Education (Teachers) Regulations 1982 provided their course of initial teacher
  505
  training was comparable to a course of training available

  Country or Region

  India

  Pakistan

  Bangladesh

  West Africa

  West Indies

  Total

  1985

  Total Considered

  171

  55

  17

  35

  26

  304

  Accepted

  57

  16

  10

  2

  2

  87

  Rejected

  114

  39

  7

  33

  24

  217

  1986

  Total Considered

  144

  44

  18

  26

  19

  251

  Accepted

  35

  15

  8

  4

  3

  65

  Rejected

  109

  29

  10

  22

  16

  186

  1987

  Total Considered

  185

  29

  14

  47

  34

  309

  Accepted

  20

  7

  0

  2

  5

  34

  Rejected

  165

  22

  14

  45

  29

  275

  1988

  Total Considered

  105

  35

  19

  47

  19

  225

  Accepted

  14

  5

  6

  2

  0

  27

  Rejected

  91

  30

  13

  45

  19

  198

  1989

  Total Considered

  123

  36

  21

  62

  26

  270

  Accepted

  18

  7

  8

  1

  3

  37

  Rejected

  105

  29

  13

  63

  23

  233

  Institute of Food Research
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the number of scientists employed at the Institute of Food Research at(a) Reading, (b) Norwich and (c) Bristol at the beginning of each of (i) 1988, (ii) 1989, (iii) 1990 and (iv) 1991.

  Mr. Jackson
  The figures in the following table refer to scientists employed, or expected to be employed, as at 1 April in each year. Those for 1990 and 1991 are estimates. The table excludes vacancies but includes period appointments.

  Bristol

  Norwich

  Reading

  Total

  11988

  143·0

  200·0

  100·0

  443·0

  11989

  141·5

  192·5

  87·0

  421·0

  21990

  86·0

  199·0

  113·0

  398·0

  21991

  0·0

  231·0

  156·0

  387·0

  1 Actual numbers.

  2Planned numbers.

  Universities Funding Council
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he next plans to meet the chairman of the Universities Funding Council; and what matters he expects to discuss.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. Friend meets the chairman of the Universities Funding Council from time to time in the course of normal business.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Sentencing
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Attorney-General how many recent appeals there have been against over-lenient sentencing; and how many were successful.
  506
  in this country. Details of the applications considered are contained in the table. Detailed information on the average time taken to process cases is not available.

  The Attorney-General
  Since February 1989, when the power became effective, I have applied for leave to refer the sentencing in nine cases to the Court of Appeal. Leave has been granted in seven such cases, and sentences have been increased in six of the cases. I have withdrawn two cases in the light of later information. I have referred one case to the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland; the sentence in that case was also increased.

  Crown Prosecution Service
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Attorney-General how many defendants were prosecuted in 1988–89 by the Crown prosecution service in(a) magistrates courts and (b) the Crown court.

  The Attorney-General
  The Crown prosecution service prosecuted 1,234,344 defendants in magistrates courts and 121,912 in the Crown court during 1988–89.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will meet the Director of Public Prosecutions to discuss relations between the police and the Crown prosecution service.

  The Attorney-General
  I refer to the answer that I gave today to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen).

  Director of Public Prosecutions
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what subjects were discussed.

  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the Director of Public Prosecutions; and what matters were discussed.

  The Attorney-General
  I refer the hon. Gentlemen to the answer that I gave today to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen).

  Serious Fraud Office
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Attorney-General when he last met the head of the Serious Fraud Office; and what matters were discussed.

  The Attorney-General
  I frequently discuss matters of departmental interest with the director of the Serious Fraud Office and last met him for this purpose on 13 February.

  Management Consultants
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Attorney-General, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Oxford, East on 31 January,Official Report, column 189, if he will list the research reports commissioned by the Lord Chancellor's Department as part of the civil justice review and give the cost of each contract; and if he will list any similar reports commissioned from outside management consultants since 1985 and give their date of completion and cost.

  The Attorney-General
  The following reports were commissioned by the Lord Chancellor's Department as part of the civil justice review:"Personal Injuries Litigation Study": Inbucon Management Consultants Limited: 10 June 1985 to 31 January 1986: £140,498.
  "Small Claims Study": Touche Ross Management Consultants: 9 December 1985 to 30 September 1986: £92,000.
  "Commercial Court Study": Coopers and Lybrand Associates Limited: 17 March 1986 to 28 November 1986: £72,340.
  "Enforcement of Debt Study": Touche Ross Management Consultants: 17 March 1986 to 9 January 1987: £138,000.
  "Housing Cases Study": School for Advanced Urban Studies at the University of Bristol: I March 1986 to 9 January 1987: £144,702.
  The Lord Chancellor's Department has commissioned work from a number of management consultants since 1985 but only the following has been commissioned to report on an area similar to those listed above:
  Touche Ross: "A survey of Solicitors' firms conducting criminal legal aid work": October 1988: £24,000.

THE ARTS

  Three Graces
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what meetings he has had with(a) the Victoria and Albert museum, (b) the National Heritage Memorial Fund and(c) other interested parties on the future of Canova's Three Graces.

  Mr. Luce
  I have had a meeting with the director and other representatives of the Victoria and Albert museum and the director of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. I have also discussed the matter with the chairmen of the reviewing committee on the export of works of art and the National Art Collections Fund.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what representations he has received about the future of Canova's Three Graces.

  Mr. Luce
  I have received a number of representations about the future of Canova's Three Graces.

CIVIL SERVICE

  NATO Exercises
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service what contribution his Department will make to the NATO exercises due to be held in Norway during March.

  Mr. Luce
  None.

WALES

  Community Hospitals
  Mr. Alex Carlile
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the current number of community hospitals in Wales; and what he expects the figure to be in five and 10 years' time.

  Mr. Grist
  There are currently 30 community hospitals in Wales. On the basis of health authorities' present plans a further five such hospitals may be completed by 1995 and perhaps as many as 11 within 10 years.

  Welsh Counties Committee
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what subjects were discussed when he last met the Welsh Counties Committee.

  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met leaders of district councils in Wales; and what subjects were discussed.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  I met representatives of the Welsh Counties Committee and the Council of Welsh Districts on 30 January to discuss local authority budgets for 1990–91.

  Health Authorities
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what recent representations he has received from health authorities within Wales.

  Mr. Grist
  My right hon. Friend receives many representations from health authorities in Wales on a wide variety of issues.

  Pollution Inspectorate
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met Her Majesty's inspector of pollution; and what matters were discussed.

  Mr. Grist
  I met Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution on 28 November 1989 to discuss waste disposal in Wales.

  Transport
  Mr. John P. Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received from bodies concerned with the development of transportation systems within Wales.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  I and my officials have frequent dealings with local authorities and others about the development of transport systems within Wales.

  Public Appointments
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the total number of appointments to public bodies which have been made(a) solely by himself and (b) jointly with other Ministers from June 1987 to the present day.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  The totals are 660, and somewhat over 500, respectively.

  Toxic Waste
  Mr. Rogers
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has to reduce the dumping of toxic and other wastes within Wales.

  Mr. Grist
  Waste minimisation is central to the Government's integrated pollution control proposals. However, there will always be some wastes that will have to be disposed of, preferably as near as practicable to their points of origin.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has concerning the possible release of toxic effluent from the Trehir tip at Bedwas and the Coed-y-Brain tip at Llanbradach; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Grist
  My right hon. Friend does not collect such information. The responsibility for the regular inspection, including such matters as leachate control and monitoring, of all licensed sites or those operated under a council resolution, rests with the district council, which has appropriate powers under the Control of Pollution Act 1974.

  The National Rivers Authority and Dwr Cymru are responsible for the monitoring of discharges into water courses and sewers respectively.

  Welsh Language
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the recommendations made to him by the Welsh Language Board.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  My right hon. Friend is considering the practical implications of the board's recommendations for legislation and other related matters. The board has also been concerned with a range of other matters where it has been instrumental in finding practical solutions to problems experienced by Welsh speakers.

  Agriculture
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received from farming organisations about the downgrading of his Department's agricultural department at Ruthin.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  I have received a number of representations from the National Farmers Union, the Farmers Union of Wales, the Country Landowners Association and the Welsh Mountain Sheep Society. I have assured these organisations that the present high level of service will continue both from the area office which will be maintained at Ruthin and from the enlarged divisional office at Caernarfon.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the community charge in Wales.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  The House debated Welsh local government finance matters on 24 January. I have no plans to make a further statement.

  Mr. Coleman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the available proposed final community charge figure for Welsh local authorities.

  Mr. Grist
  Welsh local authorities are in the process of setting their budgets for 1990–91. Until that process has been completed, charging authorities cannot set their community charge. The figures requested are therefore not available.

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Ray Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the most recent figures for male and female unemployment in the Ogmore constituency, Ogwr borough and Mid Glamorgan county council areas and the total in Wales; and what were the equivalent figures in June 1979.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  On 11 January 1990 there were 1,888, 3,053, 14,831 and 67,736 unemployed males in the Ogmore constituency, Ogwr borough, the county of Mid Glamorgan and Wales respectively. Comparable figures for unemployed females were 595, 1,086, 4,373 and 22,613 respectively. Figures for June 1979 are not available on a basis that enables a valid comparison to be made.

  M4
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will announce the successful tenderer for the building of the missing part of the M4 near Port Talbot.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  Construction of the M4 between Baglan and Lonlas will be undertaken under three separate contracts. We announced the tenderer for the first contract, Earlswood to Lonlas, on 16 February.

  Higher Education
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has to improve local authority higher education in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The Wales Advisory Body for Local Authority Higher Education, which advises my right hon. Friend on higher education matters, has considered a report setting out proposals for strengthening the provision of local authority higher education in Wales. The proposals will now be the subject of a consultation seminar arranged for 5 March. WAB will consider the report again on 6 April taking account of the comments made at the seminar, and will then decide what advice to offer my right hon. Friend.

  Accountancy Firms
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, further to his reply to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby of 18 December,Official Report, columns 57–58,

  511
  concerning the accountancy firms employed by his Department, if he will indicate (a) the names of the six firms, (b) a list of payments made to each in 1988 and 1989 and (c) details of the consultancy contracts given to each firm.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  The information is as follows:Firm and Project
  Coopers and Lybrand
  Developing and implementing All Wales Strategy, including Resource Management, for NHS in Wales.
  Price Waterhouse
  Project 2000—option appraisal of nurse training.
  Advice on longform reports and fraud and system audit.*
  Peat Marwick
  Review of financial accounting systems for NHS in Wales.
  Ernst and Young
  Advice on computer audit.
  Touche Ross
  Provision of financial advice on longform reports, reporting accountant consistency and project management.*
  Deloittes
  "K" setting.*

  Those marked with an asterisk were jointly appointed with DOE as part of the water privatisation proposals. The full cost of the "K" setting project is being borne by DOE.

  It would be inappropriate on grounds of commercial confidentiality to list individual payments. However, total payments amounted to £292,373 in 1988 and £117,238 in 1989.

  Rateable Values
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he will provide for the districts of Cardiff, Monmouth and Pembroke the number and rateable value of houses and so on with a rateable value not exceeding £100 and by(a) £50 steps to £400, (b) £100 steps to £800,(c) £800 to £1,000, (d) £1,000 to £1,500 and (e) over £1,500.

  Mr. Grist
  The information requested is not available centrally.

  A55
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much the development of the A55 has cost over the last 10 years.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  Expenditure on major improvement schemes on the A55 for the financial years 1980–81 to 1988–89 totalled £374·3 million; forecast outturn for 1989–90 is £69·5 million giving total expenditure of £443·8 million over the 10-year period.

  Unemployed People
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make available statistics showing the number of people registered as unemployed who are not in receipt of benefit.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Information is not available in the form requested.

  Private Security Firms
  Mr. George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the names of all the private security firms currently employed by his Department, the number of employees for each firm on the contract, the total value of each contract and the total value of all contracts for each financial year since 1984–85.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  My Department currently has contracts with two private security firms, the Royal British Legion Attendants Company Limited and Delta Security. Detailed information in relation to individual contracts is treated on a commercial in confidence basis, but the aggregated number of employees engaged by the two firms on our contracts with them presently varies between 11 and 13. The total value excluding VAT, of all contracts with private security firms from 1984–85 is as follows:

  £

  1984–85

  64,229

  1985–86

  68,550

  1986–87

  72,989

  1987–88

  72,989

  1988–89

  75,835

  1989–90

  81,196

  Disabled and Elderly People
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the organisations representing or concerned with the needs of(a) elderly people, (b) people with physical, sensory or mental disability and (c) carers which receive financial support from his Department, together with the figure for each such organisation for the financial years 1987–88, 1988–89 and the current financial year.

  Mr. Grist
  The information requested is as follows:

  (a) Elderly People

  Elderly Initiative Grant Scheme

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  (i) Voluntary Organisations

  Cardiff City Farm

  —

  —

  4,977

  DayBreak Trust

  —

  33,972

  41,984

  South Glamorgan Care for the Elderly

  5,682

  34,886

  98,916

  South Riverside Community Development Centre

  —

  68,245

  48,221

  (ii) Statutory Organisations

  Clwyd County Council

  1,687

  12,430

  20,439

  Clwyd Health Authority

  30,375

  104,030

  151,996

  Gwent County Council

  4,050

  43,482

  13,585

  Gwent Health Authority

  5,105

  98,416

  130,827

  Gwynedd County Council

  —

  38,250

  —

  Mid Glamorgan County Council

  23,972

  106,392

  108,187

  Mid Glamorgan Health Authority

  —

  9,000

  14,625

  Powys County Council

  —

  —

  26,454

  Powys Health Authority

  —

  —

  26,351

  South Glamorgan County Council

  22,950

  50,176

  28,453

  South Glamorgan Health Authority

  25,183

  88,124

  115,529

  West Glamorgan County Council

  103,545

  415,974

  259,403

  S64 Health Services and Public Health Act 1968

  British Association for Service to the Elderly

  —

  —

  12,000

  Help the Aged (Wales)

  —

  805

  1,347

  Age Concern Wales

  46,498

  44,358

  74,900

  513

  (b) Physical, sensory, mental disability

  People with a Physical and/or Sensory Disability

  S64 Health Services and Public Health Act 1968

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Wales Council for the Disabled

  80,775

  68,500

  198,750

  Wales Council for the Deaf

  23,213

  28,573

  47,700

  Wales Council for the Blind

  12,194

  15,078

  15,500

  Arts for Disabled People in Wales

  14,498

  15,000

  20,000

  Physically Handicapped Able Bodied

  —

  —

  10,000

  Slippage (local groups)

  —

  31,620

  —

  Other

  Wales Disabled Drivers Assessment Centre

  5,000

  5,000

  5,000

  Voluntary organisations and others

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  BAAF

  24,806

  —

  16,519

  Catholic Children's Society

  26,840

  3,454

  45,940

  Mencap in Wales

  49,620

  41,979

  52,050

  Pengwern Hall

  25,500

  26,775

  29,000

  SCOVO

  47,400

  63,823

  84,748

  DRIVE

  58,722

  —

  —

  Pre-School Playgroups Association

  21,500

  —

  —

  Arts for Disabled People in Wales

  —

  4,200

  1,672

  Clinical Psychology Training

  70,800

  73,250

  41,250

  Education Research Project

  18,826

  2,930

  —

  First Choice Housing Association

  12,236

  8,000

  —

  Stackpole Project

  —

  122

  —

  Training Support Unit

  67,006

  64,210

  —

  "Working Together" Training Course

  10,000

  25,000

  —

  "Patterns for Living" Training Course

  8,676

  —

  —

  South Wales Federated Housing Association

  3,000

  —

  —

  British Institute of Mental Handicap

  4,562

  —

  3,795

  Barnado's

  738

  —

  —

  Challenging Behaviour Project, Dyfed

  —

  —

  1,555

  Advocacy Project, Bryn-y-Neuadd Hospital

  —

  —

  24,000

  Cartrefi Cymru

  —

  —

  14,500

  Sub total

  450,232

  313,743

  315,029

  All Wales Advisory Panel

  1,459

  4,835

  10,000

  Total

  10,047,505

  13,755,240

  18,865,116

  Section 64 Health Services and Public Health Act 1968

  CUSS (slippage)

  3,665

  —

  —

  Note: The figures for 1987–88 and 1988–89 represent actual payments.

  The figures for 1989–90 represent allocations to the bodies concerned.

  People with a Mental Illness

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  S64 Health Services and Public Health Act 1968

  Wales MIND

  59,550

  57,863

  157,166

  1 Provisional.

  (c) Carers

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  S64 Health Services and Public Health Act 1968

  Crossroads (Wales)

  12,611

  16,826

  17,000

  St. David's Foundation (slippage)

  —

  237

  —

  Some of the foregoing organisations, eg Wales MIND, are concerned with the interests both of sufferers and carers in the relevant field.

  In addition, support for all these client groups is given by way of other programmes, notably urban programme
  514
  1 Provisional.

  People with a Mental Handicap

  All Wales Mental Health Strategy

  County Joint Planning Teams

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Clwyd

  1,131,620

  1,669,883

  2,536,091

  Dyfed

  724,055

  1,030,790

  1,537,940

  Gwent

  1,400,599

  1,875,467

  2,852,000

  Gwynedd

  1,561,391

  2,025,635

  2,557,085

  Mid Glamorgan

  1,906,820

  2,604,240

  3,200,000

  Powys

  480,037

  652,227

  916,971

  South Glamorgan

  1,153,803

  1,660,498

  2,360,000

  West Glamorgan

  1,237,489

  1,917,922

  2,580,000

  Sub total

  9,595,814

  13,436,662

  18,540,087

  and joint finance. A detailed breakdown is not readily available but in global terms, per client group, the figures are as follows:

  Urban Programme

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Elderly people

  249,000

  285,000

  571,000

  People with a physical/sensory disability

  133,000

  152,000

  241,000

  People with a mental handicap

  108,000

  —

  —

  People with a mental illness

  81,000

  58,000

  58,000

  Carers

  52,000

  67,000

  106,000

  Notes:

  1. Figures represent provision made.

  2. Mental handicap strategy moneys 'taken out' of UP after 1987–88.

  Joint finance and mental health development moneys

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Elderly People

  122,000

  312,003

  195,000

  People with a Physical/ Sensory Disability

  13,000

  —

  22,000

  515

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  People with a Mental Illness

  1,389,000

  1,364,356

  1,424,000

  Elderly Mentally Ill

  582,000

  1,313,339

  707,000

  People with a Mental Handicap

  342,000

  314,358

  —

  Other client groups1

  4,000

  43,000

  —

  Mixed client groups2

  —

  44,109

  —

  Unspecified

  —

  —

  —

  1 Alcohol related problems, Autism, AIDS, acute, renal problems (mainly elderly).

  2 Physical and mental handicaps, mental illness and elderly mentally ill.

  Retail Prices Index Error Moneys

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Elderly People

  —

  33,200

  24,300

  People with a Physical/Sensory Disability

  —

  41,038

  128,346

  People with a Mental Handicap

  —

  4,000

  6,845

  People with a Mental Illness

  —

  1,600

  3,770

  Carers

  —

  —

  10,170

  Notes:

  1. RPI payments only applicable for 1988/89 and 1989/90.

  2. Includes £7,600 grant to the Wales Carers' Alliance.

  Opportunities for Volunteering Scheme in Wales

  Grants (up to a maximum of £15,000) are given to all the above client groups but in the time available cannot be disaggregated.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer of 12 February,Official Report, column 10, if he will list the draft circulars issued by his

  Total expenditure1

  Preseli-Pembrokeshire

  South Pembrokeshire

  Dyfed

  At constant prices2

  At constant prices2

  At constant prices 2

  Cash

  Value

  Percentage increase on previous year

  Cash

  Value

  Percentage increase on previous year

  Cash

  Value

  Percentage increase on previous year

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  1979–80

  3,043

  5,730

  n/a

  2,022

  3,807

  n/a

  80,844

  152,226

  n/a

  1980–81

  3,868

  6,154

  7·4

  2,487

  3,957

  3·9

  96,606

  153,706

  1·0

  1981–82

  3,667

  5,314

  - 13·7

  2,495

  3,616

  -8·6

  106,940

  154,972

  0·8

  1982–83

  3,595

  4,859

  -8·6

  2,381

  3,218

  -11·0

  113,391

  153,256

  -1·1

  1983–84

  4,003

  5,169

  6·4

  2,592

  3,347

  4·0

  120,506

  155,610

  1·5

  1984–85

  4,184

  5,147

  -0·4

  2,431

  2,991

  -10·7

  126,488

  155,605

  0·0

  1985–86

  4,409

  5,147

  0·0

  2,776

  3,241

  8·4

  130,335

  152,165

  -2·2

  1986–87

  4,628

  5,227

  1·5

  3,115

  3,518

  8·6

  147,245

  166,300

  9·3

  1987–88

  4,829

  5,179

  -0·9

  3,292

  3,531

  0·4

  159,590

  171,166

  2·9

  31988–89

  5,060

  5,060

  -2·3

  3,538

  3,538

  0·2

  174,299

  174,299

  1·8

  31989–90

  5,928

  5,540

  9·5

  3,943

  3,685

  4·2

  192,445

  179,855

  3·2

  1 Total expenditure for Block Grant purposes.

  2 Deflated to constant 1988–89 price basis using GDP deflator.

  3 Provisional.

  n/a denotes not applicable.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give the figures for the total number of staff employed by each of Dyfed county council, South Pembrokeshire district council and Preseli-Pembrokeshire district council in each year since 1974–75.

  Number of full-time employees

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  l1989

  Dyfed

  8,388

  8,324

  8,091

  7,992

  7,984

  8,058

  7,846

  7,693

  7,883

  7,856

  7,917

  Preseli Pembrokeshire

  532

  521

  500

  512

  n/a

  504

  507

  503

  494

  492

  496

  South Pembrokeshire

  354

  336

  330

  306

  298

  287

  284

  282

  278

  280

  272

  516
  Department between 1 January 1987 and 31 January 1990 which have not been followed up with a full circular and which deal with the needs of, and provision for, disabled people in the fields of (a) health, (b) social services, (c) housing, (d) education and (e) transport.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Three draft circulars have yet to be followed up by a full circular. They are:

  (i) Services for People with Physical and/or Sensory Disabilities (issued 29 December 1989).

  (ii) House Adaptations for Disabled People (issued 28 December 1989).

  (iii) House Renovation Grants (issued 28 December 1989).

  It is intended to issue the final version of (i) next month.

  Local Authority Expenditure
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) if he will give details of the expenditure of Dyfed county council in each year since 1974–75 in(a) cash terms and (b) constant price terms; and if he will indicate the percentage increase in each year in real terms;

  (2) if he will give details of the expenditure of Preseli-Pembrokeshire district council in each year since 1974–75 in (a) cash terms and (b) constant price terms; and if he will indicate the percentage increase in each year in real terms;

  (3) if he will give details of the expenditure of South Pembrokeshire district council in each year since 1974–75in (a) cash terms and (b) constant price terms; and if he will indicate the percentage increase in each year in real terms.

  Mr. Grist
  The information requested for each year since 1979–80 is given in the table. Comparable figures for 1974–75 to 1978–79 are not available centrally.

  Mr. Grist
  The information held by the Department regarding the number of full-time and part-time employees for March of each year is set out in the following tables. No information on employees by individual authorities is held by the Department prior to December 1978.
  517

  Number of part-lime employees2

  1979

  1980

  1981

  1982

  1983

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  Dyfed

  5,296

  5,374

  4,996

  5,123

  5,336

  5,349

  5,341

  5,538

  6,166

  6,296

  6,294

  Preseli Pembrokeshire

  39

  42

  41

  41

  n/a

  38

  42

  46

  53

  53

  62

  South Pembrokeshire

  21

  18

  18

  22

  26

  24

  24

  26

  25

  28

  27

  1 Provisional.

  2 There is a wide variation in the hours worked by part-time employees in different local authorities.

  n/a Denotes not available.

  Hospitals
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on proposals by the European Community to charge value added tax on new building and fuel for National Health Service hospitals and the action he is taking to increase capital and revenue allocations to ensure that health authorities are reimbursed for such expenditure.

  Mr. Grist
  The Government are reviewing the most appropriate way of compensating health authorities for the application of VAT to new construction. An announcement will be made in due course.

  The capital and revenue allocations announced recently to health authorities take into account the effect of the charge in relation to VAT on fuel and power.

  Highways
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the total budget of the Welsh Office highways department in(a) 15, 1988–89 and (b) 1989–90; and what proportion of this money was spent in Gwynedd, Clwyd and Powys.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  Gross provision was £136 million in 1988–89 and £157 million in 1989–90; outturn expenditure was £153 million in 1988–89. The proportion of these moneys spent in Gwynedd, Clwyd and Powys is not yet available.

PRIME MINISTER

  Paternity Leave
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Prime Minister what paternity leave is allowed to staff in her Department; and if she will make a statement.

  The Prime Minister
  At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements following agreement in principle with the Civil Service unions for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

  Criminal Justice System
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Prime Minister what recent representations she has received concerning the operation of the criminal justice system.

  The Prime Minister
  I receive a wide range of representations about the criminal justice system, many concerning sentencing.

  A White Paper "Criminal Justice and Protecting the Public" (Cm 965) published on 6 February sets out our proposals for a coherent statutory framework for sentencing.

  EC (New Member States)
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will raise at the next meeting of the European Council the responsibility for the cost to the European Economic Community of admitting new member states, including East Germany.

  The Prime Minister
  There is a consensus within the EC that no decisions on applications for membership of the EC will be possible until at least 1993. The implications of German unity for the EC will of course be discussed fully within the Community.

  Engagements
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 15 February.

  The Prime Minister
  On 15 February I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I had further meetings later that day.

  Local Authority Taxation
  Mr. Allan Stewart
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) what consideration she has given to the constitutional implications of different forms of local authority taxation being imposed on Scotland and England;

  (2) what consideration she has given to the economic consequences of different forms of local authority taxation being imposed on Scotland and England.

  The Prime Minister
  The Government have no intention of introducing different forms of local authority taxation in Scotland and England. To do so would cause immense trouble in both places.

  Inflation
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Prime Minister what assessment she has made of the level of price rises which might be deemed likely to feed inflation.

  The Prime Minister
  The Autumn Statement forecast is for RPI annual inflation to fall to 5·75 per cent. by the fourth quarter of 1990. It is not the practice to provide more detail than published in table 2·7 of the Autumn Statement.

  Mr. Leo Marks
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what approaches have been made to the authorities by Mr. Leo Marks for information and permissions relating to his book and history relating to alleged betrayal involving the Dutch Resistance and the Special Operations Executive during the period 1939 to 1945; what response has been sent; and if she will make a statement.
  519
  The Prime Minister
  Mr. Leo Marks has used, over several years, the publicly available facility of seeking and obtaining information for his book from the SOE adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

  Mr. Colin Wallace
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what steps she has taken to trace the 200-page file sent by Mr. Colin Wallace to 10 Downing street in 1984; and whether she will outline the circumstances in which it went missing.

  The Prime Minister
  I have nothing to add to the information contained in the letter of 30 January from my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Mr. Marshall), a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

  Post Office Letters
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations she has received about the privatisation of Post Office Letters.

  The Prime Minister
  The Government have received a number of such representations from members of the public and organisations, the majority urging privatisation or the introduction of some form of competition.

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister if she will identify where in the Official Report she or other Ministers answered the question put to her on 15 February by the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke).

  The Prime Minister
  I have nothing further to add to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) on 15 February 1990 at column 391.

  Northern Ireland
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what recent representations she has had from Lord Callaghan on issues related to security in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

  The Prime Minister
  None.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Public Expenditure (Uprating)
  Mr. Ian Stewart
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what items of public expenditure are subject to uprating by reference to the retail prices index(a) by statute and (b) by current policy commitment.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  A large number of public service pension schemes are increased in line with the retail prices index under the Pensions Increase Act 1971 and are specified in schedule 2 of that Act. The main schemes are as follows:

  Principal Civil Service Pension Scheme;

  Local Government Superannuation Scheme;

  Police Pension Scheme;

  Firemen's Pension Scheme;

  Judicial Pension Scheme; and

  Overseas Pensions administered by the Overseas Development Administration.

  The Government are also committed to increase armed forces pensions in line with the RPI, although this is not
  520
  required by statute: the increases each year are paid under regulations (Order in Council for the Navy, royal warrant for the Army and Queen's regulations for the RAF: the powers to make regulations are provided under three separate Acts of Parliament).

  The following Department of Social Security and Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services benefits are uprated by statute by the movement in prices, for which this Government have used the retail prices index:

  Retirement Pension (Basic RP, and SERPS, Pension Increments, and Graduated RP);

  Widow's Benefits (excluding Widow's Payment);

  Industrial Death Benefit;

  Industrial Disablement Benefit;

  Invalid Care Allowance;

  Attendance Allowance;

  Invalidity Pension;

  Severe Disablement Allowance;

  Guardian's Allowance; and

  Child's Special Allowance.

  There is no statutory requirement with respect to war pensions but these are uprated by the RPI by current policy commitment.

  There are also a number of contracts between Government and other bodies which are subject to uprating by reference to the RPI.

  Industrial Investment
  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the level of manufacturing investment in the last two quarters.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) on 15 February,Official Report, columns 378–79.

  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on the levels of industrial investment in the light of the Confederation of British Industry's latest survey.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Manufacturing investment reached a record level in 1989 after six years of growth averaging 8 per cent. per year.

  Balance of Payments
  Dr. Reid
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest forecast for the current account of the balance of payments for 1989.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The CSO's latest estimate is for a current account deficit of £20·3 billion in 1989, in line with the Autumn Statement forecast of around £20 billion.

  Personal Allowances
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer by how much personal allowances would need to be increased, in cash and percentage terms, so that in conjunction with a one penny cut in the basic rate of tax, revenues remained the same, taking the impact of tax paid for someone on income levels from £5,000 up to £50,000 in steps of £5,000 and indicating the number of people brought into tax as a result of these changes.

  Mr. Lilley
  A one penny cut in the basic rate combined with a 1½ per cent. increase in allowances and the basic rate
  521
  limit over their 1989–90 levels would cost about the same in a full year at 1990–91 income levels as indexing allowances and the basic rate limit by 7·7 per cent., the amount required for statutory indexation. The 1½per cent. increase in allowances would result in about 650,000 more individuals being liable to tax compared with indexation.

  Estimates are based on a projection of the 1987–88 survey of personal incomes and are provisional. Further information is given in the tables:

  Table 1: A 1½ per cent, increase in the 1989–90 levels of personal allowances and basic rate limit, compared with indexation, 1990–91

  Allowance

  £

  per annum

  Personal allowance (aged under 65)

  -170

  Personal allowance (aged 65–74)

  -220

  Personal allowance (aged 75 and over)

  -220

  Married couple's allowance (aged under 65)

  -100

  Married couple's allowance (aged 65–74)

  -130

  Married couple's allowance (aged 75 and over)

  -130

  Additional personal and widow's bereavement allowance

  -100

  Aged income limit

  -700

  Taxable income bands

  Basic rate limit

  -1,200

  Table 2: Effect on Tax Liability of a 1½ per cent, increase in the 1989–90 levels of personal allowances and the basic rate limit and a one penny cut in the basic rate of tax, compared with indexation, 1990–91

  Income

  Increase(+)IDecrease(-) in Tax Liability

  £

  Single Person1

  Married Man2

  per annum

  £ per annum

  £ per annum

  5,000

  20·85

  62·05

  10,000

  -29·15

  12·05

  15,000

  -79·15

  -37·95

  20,000

  -129·15

  -87·95

  25,000

  -8·75

  -137·95

  30,000

  37·00

  77·00

  35,000

  37·00

  77·00

  40,000

  37·00

  77·00

  45,000

  37·00

  77·00

  50,000

  37·00

  77·00

  1Assumes single person receives no other tax allowances and reliefs except the personal allowance (aged under 65).

  2Assumes married man with wife not working and no children, who receives no other tax allowances and reliefs except the personal allowance (aged under 65) and the married couple's allowance (aged under 65).

  Personal Equity Plans
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for each year that personal equity plans have been in operation what is(a) the number and proportion of people with personal equity plans who are on the higher rate of tax and (b) the cost to the Exchequer in total of personal equity plans and per person with a personal equity plan.

  Mr. Lilley
  Information on personal equity plans is available only in respect of the number of plans and the amounts invested.

  Estimates of the costs to the Exchequer are as follows:
  522

  Total

  Per Personal Equity Plan

  (£ million)

  (£)

  1986–87

  Negligible

  Negligible

  1987–88

  5

  10

  1988–89

  15

  35

  1989–90

  20

  30

  Costs are expected to increase in future.

  Income Tax
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many households where the woman is the single earner will lose their present entitlement to the additional tax allowance in 1990–91 as a result of Government proposals for independent taxation.

  Mr. Lilley
  Under existing law a husband who does not have sufficient income to make full use of the married man's allowance can transfer any surplus to his wife. Under independent taxation he will be able to transfer any surplus married couple's allowance but his personal allowance is not transferable. However, where the married man's allowance was transferred to a wife in 1989–90 the transitional arrangements announced in the 1988 Budget will mean that, in addition to her own personal allowance and the transferred married couple's allowance, the wife will receive a further allowance. This will ensure that the couple's total allowances in 1990–91 are not less than their total allowances in 1989–90 as a result of the change to independent taxation. It is estimated that in 1990–91 just under 200,000 married couples will benefit from this transitional relief.

  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many single people and married couples do not pay tax in 1989–90.

  Mr. Lilley
  Provisional estimates of the numbers of adult non-taxpayers in 1989–90 are 7·7 million single people and 3·2 million married couples.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the reduction in the standard rate of income tax would need to be to secure a £216 per annum benefit to the average taxpayer.

  Mr. Lilley
  Estimates for a single person and a married man on average male earnings in 1990–91 are given in the table:

  Reduction in income tax from a cut in basic rate in 1990–91

  Reduction

  Gain to individual

  Per cent.

  £ per annum

  Single person1

  1·5

  2191·89

  Married man1

  2·0

  2221·45

  1 Assuming average earnings for full time adult males in all occupations. In 1990–91, they are assumed to be £303·8 per week; in line with the assumptions of the growth in average earnings in 1989–90 and 1990–91 (from £256·3 per week in 1988–89) as published in paragraph 3.02 of the 1989 Autumn Statement.

  2 Calculations assume that 1989–90 personal allowances and the basic rate limit have been indexed by 7·7 per cent, to 1990–91. The gain to an individual quoted in the table is that figure closest to £216 per annum obtainable from a basic rate reduction to the nearest ½ per cent.

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many tax units would become liable for
  523
  income tax in 1990–91 if personal allowances were frozen at their 1989–90 level; and how many of these would face marginal tax and benefit withdrawal rates of (a) 40 per cent. or over, (b) 60 per cent. or over, (c) 80 per cent. or over and (d) 90 per cent. or over.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: In 1990–91 it is estimated that just over half a million single people and married couples would be brought into tax if personal allowances were frozen at their 1989–90 levels in 1990–91. The estimate is based on a projection of the 1987–88 survey of personal incomes and is provisional.

  Estimates by marginal rate of tax and benefit withdrawal are a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security.

  Profit-related Pay
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many people are currently in profit-related pay schemes; how many were in each of the years since it was introduced; how many registered schemes have existed in each year; and what is the distribution of schemes by number of people in them.

  Mr. Lilley
  The information is as follows:

  Live Registered Schemes

  December 1987

  December 1988

  December 1989

  Number of participants

  1–50

  244

  517

  650

  51–100

  64

  114

  149

  101–500

  88

  156

  245

  501–1,000

  23

  28

  37

  Above 1,000

  11

  15

  31

  Total schemes

  430

  830

  1,112

  Participating employees

  72,000

  122,000

  226,000

  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the average income and the distribution of income of those in profit-related pay schemes.

  Mr. Lilley
  Average annual earnings of participants in registered profit-related pay schemes were about £12,000 in March 1989. I regret that information on the distribution of earnings is not available.

  Workplace Nurseries
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the revenue raised from taxing workplace nurseries as a benefit in kind.

  Mr. Lilley
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on 12 February,Official Report, column 15.

  Business Expansion Schemes
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total cost so far of business expansion tax relief for 1989–90; and what was the cost in previous years of the scheme.

  Mr. Lilley
  The estimated cost of relief for 1983–84 to 1989–90 is as follows:
  524

  £ million

  1983–84

  50

  1984–85

  75

  1985–86

  85

  1986–87

  95

  1987–88

  110

  1988–891

  130

  1 Provisional.

  A forecast of £60 million for the cost of relief for the business expansion scheme in 1989–90 was published in "The Government's Expenditure Plans, 1990–91 to 1992–93" (chapter 21, ref CM 1021, appendix F), but no information is yet available centrally from official sources to provide a reliable estimate of the outturn.

  Imports
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest trends in imports.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  In the fourth quarter of 1989, import volumes (less oil and erratics) fell by 4 per cent. This is clear evidence that import growth is slowing sharply in response to the slowdown in domestic demand.

  Mortgages
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the average level of mortgage entered into in each region of the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Lilley
  Estimates of the average new building society mortgage for each region on all dwellings for the third quarter of 1989 are given in the table:

  Region

  Average New Mortgage

  £

  Northern

  28,400

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  29,600

  East Midlands

  34,700

  East Anglia

  44,600

  Greater London

  60,900

  South East

  53,200

  South West

  43,700

  West Midlands

  33,800

  North West

  31,300

  Wales

  30,200

  Scotland

  26,500

  Northern Ireland

  24,200

  United Kingdom

  38,300

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many mortgagors claiming mortgage tax relief have an outstanding mortgage greater than(a) £30,000, (b) £35,000, (c) £40,000 and (d) £45,000; and what is their average annual income.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Provisional estimates for 1989–90 are given in the table:

  Mortgage greater than

  Mortgagors (thousands)

  Average total income

  £

  £

  £

  30,000

  2,100

  23,500

  35,000

  1,600

  23,500

  40,000

  1,200

  24,500

  45,000

  900

  26,000

  525
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table showing the average outstanding mortgage for mortgagors claiming mortgage interest tax relief for annual income ranges(a) under £5,000, (b) £5,001 to £7,500, (c) £7,501 to £10,000, (d) £10,001 to £15,000, (e) £15,001 to £20,000, (f) £20,001 to £30,000, (g) £30,001 to £50,000 and (h) over £50,000.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Provisional estimates for 1989–90 are given in the table:

  Range of total income

  Average mortgage

  £ per annum

  £

  under 5,000

  12,300

  5,001 to 7,500

  14,900

  7,501 to 10,000

  17,700

  10,001 to 15,000

  19,600

  15,001 to 20,000

  23,700

  20,001 to 30,000

  28,200

  30,001 to 50,000

  42,200

  over 50,000

  78,700

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will update the table published in his reply to the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay),Official Report, 15 May 1989, column 16, on mortgage tax relief, giving projections for 1990–91.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Latest estimates for 1989–90, based on the assumption that interest rates remain at current levels for the rest of 1989–90, are given in the table. These are based on projections to 1989–90 of information in the 1987–88 survey of personal incomes and the 1986 family expenditure survey and are provisional. Projections for 1990–91 will depend on the levels of borrowing and interest rates.

  Tax units receiving mortgage interest relief by range of total income 1989–90

  Range of total income

  Numbers receiving mortgage interest relief (thousands)

  Average value of relief per mortgage

  Total cost of relief

  (£)

  (£ million)

  Up to £4,000

  320

  450

  150

  £4,001-£5,000

  130

  420

  50

  £5,001-£6,000

  140

  470

  70

  £6,0001-£7,000

  230

  520

  120

  £7,001-£8,000

  440

  570

  250

  £8,001-£9,000

  450

  640

  290

  £9,001-£10,000

  390

  640

  250

  £10,001-£12,000

  870

  610

  530

  £12,001-£15,000

  1,440

  700

  1,000

  £15,00l-£20,000

  2,030

  750

  1,510

  £20,001-£25,000

  1,220

  790

  970

  £25,001-£30,000

  660

  870

  570

  Over £30,000

  980

  1,270

  1,240

  Total

  9,300

  750

  7,000

  Investment Growth
  Mr. Butterfill
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the United Kingdom investment growth figures for each of the last 10 years; and if he will list comparable figures for each of the other European Community countries.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Information on gross fixed capital formation in the United Kingdom is published by 526
  the CSO in "Economic Trends Annual Supplement" 1989 and for 1988 in "Economic Trends" December 1989. Figures for each of the other EC countries are published by the OECD in "Economic Outlook" December 1989.

  Trade Deficit
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest forecast for the trade deficit for the current year.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  A new forecast will be published at the time of the Budget in March.

  Paternity Leave
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ryder
  At present, paternity leave is not available to civil servants. However, Her Majesty's Treasury is finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

  Premium Bonds
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for the last 10 years for which statistics are available (a) the size of the nation's investment in premium bonds, (b) the proportion of these funds available for prizes, (c) the value of the prizes and (d) the notional odds against winning a prize for a person with a £100 investment in premium bonds.

  Mr. Ryder
  The net investment in premium bonds, the value of prizes paid and the odds against winning a prize in any month with a holding of £100, for each of the last 10 financial years are as follows:

  Net investment at 31 March (£ million)

  Value of prizes paid in year (£ million)

  Odds at 31 March with holding of £100 (to nearest whole number)

  1979–80

  1,405

  79

  185 to 1

  1980–81

  1,462

  93

  141 to 1

  1981–82

  1,506

  101

  145 to 1

  1982–83

  1,586

  104

  150 to 1

  1983–84

  1,674

  110

  157 to 1

  1984–85

  1,768

  122

  110 to 1

  1985–86

  1,833

  135

  110 to 1

  1986–87

  1,926

  141

  110 to 1

  1987–88

  2,093

  138

  110 to 1

  1988–89

  2,273

  139

  110 to 1

  None of the money invested in premium bonds is paid in prize money. Premium bond prizes are paid from a prize fund calculated on the total value of bonds eligible to participate in the prize draw. The variable rate of interest used to calculate the value of the prize fund has been at the following levels in the last 10 years:

  Percentage per annum

  From:

  1 July 1980

  7·0

  1 November 1984

  7 ·75

  1 August 1987

  7·0

  1 July 1988

  6·5

  527
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table in the Official Report to show for each of the last five years and for the six months before, and the six months following the increase

  Bond denomination

  Number in thousands

  January to June

  July to December

  £

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1989

  1989

  5

  802

  52

  55

  57

  32

  30

  2

  10

  831

  1,010

  1,002

  995

  567

  505

  63

  20

  66

  149

  163

  177

  121

  102

  18

  25

  52

  71

  72

  76

  43

  40

  3

  30

  42

  69

  74

  80

  56

  46

  10

  40

  28

  41

  44

  49

  33

  28

  5

  50

  204

  273

  290

  318

  198

  171

  27

  100

  123

  159

  167

  176

  247

  95

  152

  200

  39

  49

  52

  56

  53

  28

  25

  300

  17

  21

  22

  24

  23

  12

  11

  400

  10

  12

  13

  16

  14

  8

  7

  500

  36

  46

  52

  58

  49

  27

  22

  1,000

  28

  39

  51

  62

  52

  29

  24

  2,000

  21

  35

  58

  75

  60

  33

  27

  Note: Because premium bonds are issued only in certain denominations, for some purchases it is necessary to issue two or more bonds to make up the total value of the purchase. At present the average number of bonds issued for each purchase is 1·13.

  National Insurance Earnings Limit
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many male and female employees with earnings above the upper earnings limit for national insurance contributions pay income tax at the standard rate only.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: In 1990–91 about 2·1 million employees will pay income tax at the basic rate and have earnings above the upper earnings limit for class 1 national insurance contributions. Of these, about 1·8 million are male and about 300,000 female.

  Inheritance Tax
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much revenue would be raised from freezing the inheritance tax threshold at its 1989–90 level; and how many estates would be brought into tax as a result.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: The direct revenue yield, in a full year at 1990–91 levels, from freezing the inheritance tax threshold at £118,000 rather than increasing it in line with indexation is estimated to be about £85 million. About 3,000 estates would be brought into tax by this measure.

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish a table on the same basis as that given in his reply to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) in the Official Report, 18 July 1988, column 433, on reductions in inheritance tax liability relative to the 1987–88 rate scale, giving figures for 1990–91.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Assuming statutory indexation of the 1989–90 rate scale, the inheritance tax liability on transfers in 1990–91 is estimated to be about £320 million lower than on an indexed 1987–88
  528
  in the minimum purchase of premium bonds to £100, the number of bonds and the number of purchases of bonds at each denominational value at which they could he sold.

  Mr. Ryder
  [holding answer 13 February 1990]: The number of premium bonds issued for each denominational value is shown in the table:

  rate scale. The distribution of the reduction in inheritance tax liability, by percentiles of the 22,000 estates which are expected to pay tax on 1990–91 transfers, assuming an indexed 1989–90 rate scale, is as follows:

  Percentiles of estates

  £ million

  (a) top 1 per cent.

  75

  (b) top 5 per cent.

  150

  (c) top 10 per cent.

  190

  (d) bottom 70 per cent.

  l65

  (e) bottom 60 per cent.

  160

  (f) bottom 50 per cent.

  150

  (g) bottom 25 per cent.

  l40

  1 includes about £20 million from about 8,000 estates which would be liable under the indexed 1987–88 rate scale but not liable under the indexed 1989–90 rate scale.

  Corporation Tax
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the cost in 1990–91 and in a full year of reducing the small companies rate of corporation tax to 20 per cent.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Table 4.5 of the 1989 Autumn Statement shows the direct effect of a 1 percentage point change in the small companies rate is £35 million in 1990–91. The corresponding full year effect is £50 million.

  Subject to the qualifications in that table, the costs associated with a 5 percentage point reduction to 20 per cent. may be expected to be broadly pro rata to the effects of a 1 percentage point change.

  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated cost in 1990–91 and in a full year of introducing stock relief based on the retail prices index into the corporation tax system.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Information is not available on which to base a reliable estimate of this cost.

  Private Medical Insurance
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what is the cost in(a) 1989–90 and (b) a full year of tax relief on private medical insurance; how many people benefit; and what proportion of these already have private medical insurance;

  (2) how many people he expects to benefit in 1990–91 from the introduction of tax relief on private medical insurance; how many of these are pensioners; and what is the income distribution of those who gain.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 12 February 1990]: Tax relief on private medical insurance for the over-60s will not be available until April. The cost in 1989–90 will be nil, and in 1990–91 about £40 million. This estimate is based on the assumption that about 600,000 individuals, with 330,000 policies, are to benefit in the first year of the relief and that about 90 per cent. of these already have private medical insurance. In subsequent years, as take-up increases, this proportion is expected to fall and the amount of tax relief will rise. The further details requested are not available.

  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what would be the effect of indexing personal allowances(a) fully, (b) three quarters of full indexation, (c) half of full indexation, (d) quarter of what would be necessary for full indexation and (e) not indexing at all, on (i) tax revenue in both 1990–91 and in a full year, (ii) the average gain per person on incomes of £5,000, £10,000, £15,000, £20,000, £30,000, £40,000 and £50,000 plus and (iii) the number of people paying tax;

  (2) what would be the effect of indexing personal allowances (a) fully, (b) three quarters of full indexation, (c) half of full indexation, (d) quarter of what would be necessary for full indexation and (e) not indexing at all, on a one-earner family of four on an income of £5,000, £10,000, £15,000, £20,000, £30,000, £40,000 and £50,000.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 12 February 1990]: Available information is given in the tables. All estimates

  Table 4: Gain for one-earner family of four of increasing personal allowances and basic rate limit from their 1989–90 levels

  Gain for one-earner family of four1 under:

  Income

  Full indexation

  ¾indexation

  ½indexation

  ¼indexation

  £per annum

  £per annum

  £per annum

  £per annum

  £per annum

  5,000

  87·50

  65·75

  43·75

  22·00

  10,000

  87·50

  65·75

  43·75

  22·00

  15,000

  87·50

  65·75

  43·75

  22·00

  20,000

  87·50

  65·75

  43·75

  22·00

  30,000

  380·00

  285·20

  190·00

  95·20

  50,000

  380·00

  285·20

  190·00

  95·20

  1 Assumes the married man receives all the income and that he receives no other tax allowances and reliefs except for the personal allowance and the married couples allowance in 1990–91.

  Inland Revenue (Scotland)
  Mr. Norman Hogg
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Inland Revenue jobs are located in Scotland.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 12 February 1990]: About 6,500.

  Mr. Norman Hogg
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many jobs are currently located at the Inland Revenue office in Cumbernauld; and what projection is made of staffing levels over the next five years.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 12 February 1990]: There are currently about 1,050 permanent posts at the Inland
  530
  assume independent taxation and that the basic rate limit is increased in line with personal allowances. Estimates in tables 1 to 3 are based on a projection of the 1987–88 survey of personal incomes and are provisional.

  Table 1: Tax Revenue Cost(-)/Yield(+)

  1990–91

  Full year

  Increase

  £ million

  £ million

  Full indexation

  -1,670

  -2,270

  Three-quarters of full indexation

  -1,260

  -1,710

  Half of full indexation

  -850

  -1,150

  One-quarter of full indexation

  -430

  -580

  Table 2: Average gain to individuals of increasing personal allowance and basic rate limit from their 1989–90 levels, at 1990–91 levels of income

  Average1 gain per individual under:

  Income (lower limit)

  Full indexation

  Three-quarters indexation

  Half indexation

  One-quarter indexation

  £ per annum

  £ per annum

  £ per annum

  £ per annum

  £ per annum

  Under 5,000

  50

  40

  25

  15

  5,000

  65

  50

  35

  15

  10,000

  80

  60

  40

  20

  15,000

  80

  60

  40

  20

  20,000

  100

  75

  50

  25

  30,000

  335

  255

  170

  85

  40,000

  370

  275

  185

  90

  Over 50,000

  370

  275

  185

  95

  1 Based on individuals liable to tax in 1989–90.

  Table 3: Effects on number of individuals of increasing personal allowances and basic rate limit from their 1989–90 levels, at 1990–91 levels of income

  Decrease in number of individuals liable to lax

  Increase

  '000s

  Full indexation

  810

  Three-quarters of full indexation

  630

  Half of full indexation

  440

  One-quarter of full indexation

  200

  Revenue offices in Cumbernauld. Staffing levels over the next few years will depend on a number of factors, including levels of work and progress with computerisation projects.

  Consumer Spending
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the figures for consumers' expenditure on rent, rates and water charges in table 1·6 of the "Monthly Digest of Statistics" include mortgage interest; and if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing for each year since 1979 in nominal and real terms the amount spent on local authority rents, other rents, rates, water and sewage charges, and mortgage interest.
  531
  Mr. Norman Lamont
  [holding answer 12 February 1990]: Mortgage interest payments are not included in consumers' expenditure.

  A split of local authority and other rents is not readily available. Estimates since 1979 of total rents paid, imputed rent (in respect of owner-occupation), and rates, water and sewage charges are given in the table in nominal and real terms. Figures for mortgage interest (gross of tax relief) are available only in nominal terms and to the nearest £ hundred million.

  Rents paid

  Imputed rent

  Rates, water and sewage charges

  Mortgage interest

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  Current prices

  1979

  3,367

  6,522

  3,464

  4,800

  1980

  3,841

  7,830

  4,377

  7,000

  1981

  4,998

  9,114

  5,333

  7,900

  1982

  5,989

  10,160

  6,274

  9,300

  1983

  6,352

  11,181

  6,182

  9,300

  1984

  6,508

  11,917

  6,587

  11,700

  1985

  6,988

  12,783

  7,151

  16,000

  1986

  7,394

  13,622

  8,031

  17,000

  1987

  7,920

  14,439

  8,843

  19,600

  1988

  8,568

  15,474

  10,032

  22,300

  At constant 1985 prices

  1979

  7,532

  10,886

  6,694

  —

  1980

  7,491

  11,162

  6,794

  —

  1981

  7,377

  11,490

  6,818

  —

  1982

  7,201

  11,899

  6,912

  —

  1983

  7,043

  12,259

  6,974

  —

  1984

  6,945

  12,584

  7,061

  —

  1985

  6,988

  12,783

  7,151

  —

  1986

  6,997

  13,027

  7,245

  —

  1987

  7,087

  13,208

  7,343

  —

  1988

  7,184

  13,404

  7,449

  —

  Rateable Values
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will provide for Grimsby the numbers and rateable values of houses with a rateable value not exceeding £100 and by(a) £50 steps to £400, (b) £100 steps to £800, (c) £800 to £1,000, (d) £1,000 to £1,500 and (e) over £1,500.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 15 February 1990]: This information could not be produced without a disproportionate expenditure of time and resources.

  German Reunification
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the likely cost to the United Kingdom of German reunification; and if he will give the amount and the years in which it is likely to arise.

  Mr. Ryder
  [holding answer 15 February 1990]: My right hon. Friend is monitoring the steps being taken on reunification closely. However, it is too early to assess whether there are any costs to the United Kingdom, and if so what they may be.

  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the effect of German monetary union on the nature and timing of European monetary union.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 15 February 1990]: It is far too soon to assess the implications on European monetary
  532
  union of any possible monetary union between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic.

ENERGY

  Private Security Firms
  Mr. George
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list the names of all the private security firms currently employed by his Department, the number of employees for each firm on the contract, the total value of each contract and the total value of all contracts for each financial year since 1984–85.

  Mr. Wakeham
  The Department of Energy has only one contract, with Securicor, for one post at one of its out-stations. The actual cost of this service is a matter of commercial confidentiality.

  Combined Heat and Power
  Mr. Charles Wardle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what initiatives the Energy Efficiency Office is taking to promote the use of combined heat and power.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  My Department is actively promoting combined heat and power through the best practice programme. In particular my Energy Efficiency Office has planned a series of regional CHP marketing events to be held in 1990.

  Sizewell B
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy when he next expects to meet the chairman-designate of Nuclear Electric to discuss the generation costs of Sizewell B; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  My right hon. Friend and I meet the chairman-designate of Nuclear Electric regularly to discuss a wide range of nuclear issues.

  Paternity Leave
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wakeham
  At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

  NATO Exercises
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what contribution his Department will make to the NATO exercises due to be held in Norway during March.

  Mr. Wakeham
  None.

  Global Warming
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what action his Department is taking, through its various agencies, to combat global warming; and what is the total to be spent on this in the current year.

  Mr. Wakeham
  Much of the current research into global warming centres on ascertaining its detailed
  533
  scientific basis which does not fall within the responsibility of my Department. But we have various programmes concerned with particular aspects of energy production and supply which are highly relevant to future reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide, which is the main greenhouse gas emitted by the non-transport energy sector. They are:
  renewable forms of energy (1989–90 forecast expenditure £18 million)
  nuclear R&D (£137 million)
  energy efficiency R&D (£8·9 million)
  clean coal combustion (£2·5 million).

  The privatisation of the electricity supply industry will promote further efficiency (and hence lower emissions) in the supply of power; and the non-fossil fuel obligation will ensure that both nuclear and renewable technologies make appropriate contribution to reductions in emissions.

  Officials from my Department have made, and are continuing to make, a strong input to the deliberations of the response strategies working group of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. The United Kingdom report for the energy and industry subgroup of the working group was recently published as Energy Paper 58—"An Evaluation of Energy Related Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Measures to Ameliorate Them". A copy of that paper is in the Library of the House.

  Departmental Energy Policy
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy to what extent environmental criteria determine energy policy within his Department.

  Mr. Wakeham
  My Department's general aims centre around ensuring that the nation's energy needs are met, both now and in the future, in a manner which makes best use of resources, within the framework of Government policy and of our international obligations. These considerations include the preservation of the environment, both at the national level and more widely. On a detailed level, my Department's research and development objectives (published in the "Annual Review of Government Funded R&D") include environmental acceptability as a specific criterion.

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is his latest assesssment of the potential energy savings from a programme of energy efficiency measures.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  Across the economy, consumers could improve their energy efficiency by at least 20 per cent. through cost-effective measures.

  Nuclear Fusion
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what research his Department is funding into nuclear fusion technology.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Department contributes to fusion research through the current Community fusion programme by supporting JET and the programme of work undertaken by the AEA.

  Energy Paper Projections
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy when the projections in Energy Paper 55 will be next updated.
  534
  Mr. Peter Morrison
  The projections for the long-term contributions to energy supply from different renewables contained in Energy Paper 55 are kept under review. As the results from our renewable energy research programme become available they are fed into the regular reviews of the individual technologies that are undertaken. Since the publication of Energy Paper 55 our research has indicated that these published projections are still broadly appropriate given the uncertainty attached to such projections.

  Electricity Code of Practice
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy whether persons who are(a) suspected of illegal extraction of electricity or (b) have been convicted of that offence are to be excluded from the code of practice on disconnections.

  Mr. Baldry
  The requirement for public electricity suppliers to prepare a code of practice on the payment of bills is designed to give guidance to all domestic consumers. The codes are to be drawn up by the public electricity suppliers in consultation with the consumers committees and approved by the Director General of Electricity Supply.

  Combustion Plants Directive
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if it remains the policy of his Department to meet the targets set by the large combustion plants directive; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Government are determined to implement in full the EC large combustion plants directive.

  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what assessment he has made of the adequacy of the present programme for retrofitting power stations to ensure compliance with emission levels, as determined by the European Community directive on large combustion plants.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Government will be assessing the electricity generators' plans for complying with the EC large combustion plants directive. The retrofitting of the 4 GW Drax power station is already under way and further retrofits are in prospect.

  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what contribution he estimates low-sulphur coal can make to meeting the emission levels set by the European Community directive on large combustion plants; what steps are being taken to protect United Kingdom sources of low-sulphur coal; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  The burning of low-sulphur coal is an option open to the electricity generators as they prepare their plans to comply with the EC LCPD. The source of such coal will be a matter for the generators. The best protection of the United Kingdom coal industry is for it to produce reliable supplies which are competitive on the world market.

  Amoco Application
  Mr. Sahnond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy on what date Amoco submitted its final annex B to the Department for the development of the Everest and
  535
  Lomond gas fields and for the CATS transmission system; and in what time scale the application is likely to be decided.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  No such development plan has yet been received by my Department.

  Generation Prices
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what are his Department's latest estimates, expressed in pence per kilowatt hour, of the price of advanced gas-cooled reactor generation and gas turbine electricity generation in stations of similar size.

  Mr. Baldry
  The prices paid for electricity from different generating stations are currently the subject of commercial negotiation between the area boards and the generators.

  Electricity Interconnector
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is the capacity expressed in megawatts of the current electricity interconnector between Scotland and England; on what time scale it is to be upgraded; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) on 6 February 1990 at column 585. I shall ask the chairman designate of the National Grid Company to write to the hon. Member.

  Scottish Electricity
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is the latest estimate from the Department of the likely requirement for each of the next 10 years of Scottish-generated electricity in the English grid.

  Mr. Baldry
  This is a commercial matter for the companies concerned and will depend on market prices in England and Wales and the prices at which the Scottish electricity companies are prepared to offer electricity.

  Neptune Consortium
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy whether the Neptune Consortium has sought approval from his Department for the development of North sea fields or transmission systems.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  No, nor would I necessarily expect to receive such an application from a group which I understand is a prospective purchaser of gas from the North sea.

  Mining Skills
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he has met with, or received representations from, the company Mining Skills; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  No.

  Coal
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will call for a report from British Coal on pricing policy on selling coal to the new power-generating companies.
  536
  Mr. Baldry
  No. As I indicated to the House on 4 December at column 29, under the new contracts with National Power and PowerGen British Coal's prices will continue to fall each year in real terms. The details of these contracts are still being negotiated between the parties. In Scotland, British Coal is continuing to negotiate commercial terms for coal supply to the SSEB, in the light of the recent court judgments. British Coal's pricing policy is a commercial matter for the corporation.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy (1) if he will give details of the sulphur content in deep-mined coal in (1) Yorkshire, (2) Nottinghamshire, (3) Wales, (4) Scotland, (5) north-east England and (6) Derbyshire;

  (2) if he will give details of the sulphur content in opencast-mined coal in (1) Yorkshire, (2) Nottinghamshire, (3) Wales, (4) Scotland, (5) north-east England and (6) Derbyshire;

  (3) if he will list the private mining companies operating licensed mines in (1) Scotland, (2) Wales, (3) Yorkshire, (4) Derbyshire, (5) Nottinghamshire and (6) north-east England.

  Mr. Baldry
  These are matters for the British Coal Corporation.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is the sulphur content in imported coal from (1) Colombia, (2) South Africa, (3) China, (4) Australia, (5) America, (6) Poland, (7) Belgium.

  Mr. Baldry
  Detailed information is not available centrally for all of these countries, but the bulk of coal imports, particularly from the United States and Australia, is of relatively low sulphur specification, primarily for use in the metallurgical industry. Steam coal imports from Colombia are also relatively low in sulphur.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy when he last had discussions with private mining companies involved in opencast mining; and what he discussed.

  Mr. Baldry
  My right hon. Friend met representatives of the National Association of Licensed Opencast Operators on 7 December 1989. A range of issues affecting the prospects of the licensed mine sector were discussed.

  Union of Democratic Mineworkers
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is the total and source of financial contributions from public funds to the Union of Democratic Mineworkers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  My Department makes no payments to the Union of Democratic Mineworkers.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy when he last met representatives of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers; and what he discussed.

  Mr. Baldry
  I met the president of the Union of Democratic Mineworkers on 23 January to discuss a range of issues affecting the coal industry.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Single Market
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what studies Her Majesty's Government have undertaken with regard to the effect of the single European market in 1992 on trade with Asian and African developing nations.

  Mr. Redwood
  I understand that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development has authorised payment towards the conduct of a study by the Overseas Development Institute on the effect of the completion of the internal market on developing countries. The study is scheduled for completion in July 1990. An interim briefing paper is already available.

  My Department has also given careful consideration to the external implications of the single market programme. The removal of remaining trade barriers will make it easier for non-EC companies to do business across the Community. After 1992, Asian and African developing countries will continue to enjoy preferential access to the Community market under arrangements established by the Lome convention and the generalised scheme of preferences.

  Catalytic Converters
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will set out the research and findings that have been given by Warren Springs laboratories on carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles with and without catalytic converters.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  WSL has made no direct comparisons between catalyst and non-catalyst versions of popular makes and models of cars. Catalyst-equipped versions of these vehicles have not been available.

  Our experience of catalyst cars is confined to specialist imports and manufacturers' prototypes, with relatively new catalysts.

  We will measure emissions from production catalyst cars as they become available in the vehicle parc.

  Our experience with relatively new catalysts shows a conversion efficiency of 80–90 per cent. for CO, hydrocarbons and NOx WSL has done no work as yet on degradation of catalyst performance with age, in use.

  In non-catalyst cars, the CO and HC emissions would ultimately be oxidized to CO2 in the atmosphere over periods of several months. Catalysts effect this oxidation at the tailpipe immediately.

  Number of defendants

  Security(ies) Involved

  Date(s) of Offences or alleged Offences

  Outcome

  2

  Joseph Stocks and Sons (Holdings) Ltd.

  11 December 1980 and a day between 15 April 1980 and 11 December 1980

  Both convicted

  1

  Harris and Sheldon Group plc

  Day between 4 June 1981 and 18 June 1981

  Convicted

  2

  Blockley plc

  9 August 1982

  Acquitted

  1

  Martin the Newsagent plc

  6 March 1984 and 9 March 1984

  Convicted

  1

  Thomson T-Line plc

  5 December 1985

  Acquitted

  1

  Reardon-Smith Line plc

  28 May 85

  Convicted

  1

  AE plc and Cadbury Schweppes plc

  3 November 1986 and 14 October 1986

  Convicted

  1

  The British and Commonwealth Shipping Co. plc and Steel Brothers Holdings plc

  14 October 1986 and 14 November 1986

  Convicted

  1

  Wordplex plc

  30 April 1987

  Acquitted on Appeal

  538
  The difference in CO2 emissions between models with or without catalysts therefore depends almost entirely on the respective fuel consumptions. At present, catalyst vehicles have to operate at relatively rich air-fuel ratios, leading to a fuel consumption penalty of the order of 10 per cent.

  Financial Services Act
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received, and from whom, about section 62 of the Financial Services Act.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department receives a considerable number of representations on various aspects of the Financial Services Act. In recent months some of these have referred to section 62A, which will be inserted by section 193 of the Companies Act 1989 and which will limit the rights of action conferred by section 62. The Department will shortly be consulting over its proposals for the implementation of section 62A.

  Capital Flows
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will publish a table showing the annual capital flows, including loans granted and loan interest repaid, between the United Kingdom and the five poorest countries by 1990 standards in Latin America, Africa and Asia since 1975.

  Mr. Redwood
  It is not possible to provide the information requested without disproportionate expenditure.

  Insider Dealing
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the individuals prosecuted by the Department of Trade and Industry for insider dealings since January 1979 and indicate how many prosecutions succeeded and how many failed.

  Mr. Redwood
  Insider dealing became a criminal offence in July 1980. Since then there have been prosecutions by the DTI (or by the Department of Trade) for insider dealing offences of 21 individuals where the case has been determined. Eleven were convicted, but the conviction of one of them was overturned on appeal. Information about these prosecutions is as follows:
  539

  Number of defendants

  Security(ies) Involved

  Date(s) of Offences or alleged Offences

  Outcome

  2

  Mercantile House Holdings plc

  5 January 1987

  One convicted, case against the other withdrawn

  3

  Press Tools plc

  5 August 1987

  All Acquitted

  1

  Piccadilly Radio plc

  19 December 1988

  Convicted

  1

  Wheway plc

  10 November 1987

  Acquitted

  1

  Centreway Industries plc

  3 July 1987, 9 July 1987, 29 July 1987, 30 July 1987

  Acquitted

  1

  Ealing Electro-Optics plc

  between 20 June 1988 and 20 July 1988

  Acquitted

  1

  Minet Holdings plc

  25 November 1987

  Convicted

  Prosecutions have also been concluded in the case of five other individuals. One of those prosecutions was by the procurator fiscal, two were by the Director of Public Prosecutions and two by the Crown prosecution service.

  Insolvency
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether, further to his reply to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby of 21 December 1989,Official Report, column 393, the insolvency service or any other Government agency collects information about the going concern qualifications received by failed companies.

  Mr. Redwood
  No such information is collected either by the insolvency service or any other Government agency.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will bring forward legislation to clarify and increase the effectiveness of the company rescue procedures in the Insolvency Act 1986, in particular to reduce the need to go to court for guidance on interpretation.

  Mr. Redwood
  I have no plans at present to do so, though the insolvency service monitors the effectiveness of current insolvency legislation.

  As is the case with new legislation, particularly where new concepts, such as the administration procedure, are introduced, precedents are established by early court decisions. As time goes on the need for court involvement is reduced.

  Companies Acts
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has taken steps to encourage companies to disclose non-financial and qualitative information.

  Mr. Redwood
  The Companies Act 1985 requires companies to disclose a range of such information in the directors' report. The Government favour any disclosure of such information by companies which goes beyond the requirements of the Companies Acts when companies consider that this would be helpful.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he will consider legislation to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to explain the safety of their products;

  (2) if he will consider legislation to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to explain the steps taken to conserve energy;
  540
  (3) if he will introduce legislation to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to detail the steps taken by the company to control pollution;

  (4) whether he will consider legislation to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to state the amount spent on employee training;

  (5) whether he will introduce legislation to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to list steps taken to conserve energy;

  (6) whether he will seek to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to explain the steps taken to enhance employment opportunities for women;

  (7) if he will consider legislation to amend the Companies Acts to require the directors' reports of large companies to explain action which the company has taken to conserve Britain's natural resources.

  Mr. Redwood
  No. It would be unreasonably burdensome to require all large companies to provide such information. Companies are best placed to decide, in the light of their individual circumstances, whether this information is likely to be of interest to their members and other users of their reports and accounts.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will introduce legislation to amend the Companies Acts to give all employees of large companies a statutory right to receive a copy of the company's annual report and accounts.

  Mr. Redwood
  No.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will introduce legislation to amend the Companies Acts so as to require the directors of large companies to file details of any information which they pass to their brokers.

  Mr. Redwood
  No.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of Slate for Trade and Industry whether he will take steps to amend the Companies Acts to require directors' reports of large companies to explain the steps taken to safeguard and promote health and safety of their work force.

  Mr. Redwood
  My right hon. Friend has no present plans to exercise his power to make regulations under paragraph 10 of schedule 7 to the Companies Act 1985.

  Invisible and Visible Trade
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will publish a table showing(a) the net invisible trade and (b) the net visible trade between the

  541
  United Kingdom and the five poorest nations, by 1990 standards, in Latin America, in Africa and in Asia since 1975.

  Mr. Redwood
  Information on invisible trade with individual countries is not available. The information requested on the balance of visible trade between the United Kingdom and the poorest nations in South America, Africa and Asia is given in the table:

  United Kingdom visible trade with the five countries with the lowest per capita GNP in South America

  Exports (fob) minus imports (cif)

  £'000

  Haiti

  Guyana

  Bolivia

  Dominican Republic

  Honduras

  1975

  2,004

  -18,160

  -13,728

  1,407

  3,471

  1976

  1,820

  -7,883

  -13,830

  5,248

  4,097

  1977

  2,352

  -12,873

  -25,266

  8,477

  5,863

  United Kingdom visible trade with the six countries with the lowest per capita gross national product in Africa Exports (fob) minus Imports (cif)

  Ethiopia

  Chad

  Guinea-Bis

  Zaire

  Mozambique

  Malawi

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  1975

  5,428

  808

  192

  -7,410

  7,426

  -10,688

  1976

  -2,331

  -501

  312

  -20,843

  -6,113

  -18,847

  1977

  14,561

  574

  514

  -45,010

  -2,270

  -35,612

  1978

  12,614

  4,993

  2,787

  -77,912

  6,970

  -25,654

  1979

  3,094

  372

  -235

  -44,753

  5,166

  -19,113

  1980

  10,696

  82

  482

  -24,969

  333

  -20,651

  1981

  11,490

  363

  595

  4,466

  16,047

  -12,741

  1982

  16,735

  1,080

  430

  5,189

  3,856

  -21,624

  1983

  22,021

  2,235

  384

  9,936

  19,455

  -23,877

  1984

  49,613

  2,905

  499

  28,573

  6,794

  -42,333

  1985

  52,284

  748

  1,207

  -222

  4,435

  -66,693

  1986

  27,710

  -1,555

  1,105

  17,024

  11,841

  -28,426

  1987

  33,271

  -94

  1,136

  17,598

  14,587

  -26,153

  1988

  39,210

  -1,125

  903

  17,590

  18,644

  -2,565

  1989

  31,376

  2,640

  1,156

  19,350

  5,686

  2,714

  United Kingdom visible trade with the five countries with the lowest per capita gross national product in Asia Exports (fob) minus imports (cif)

  Bhutan

  Bangladesh

  Nepal

  Laos

  Burma

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  £000

  1975

  8

  6,264

  1,783

  -15

  3,724

  1976

  31

  4,987

  1,006

  176

  4,333

  1977

  35

  5,051

  2,104

  336

  8,675

  1978

  24

  27,255

  634

  1,509

  20,663

  1979

  2

  27,807

  4,234

  215

  12,644

  1980

  93

  37,354

  750

  688

  15,165

  1981

  -17

  30,147

  656

  477

  24,423

  1982

  89

  32,624

  795

  526

  38,888

  1983

  98

  25,797

  -1,102

  569

  17,235

  1984

  86

  5,089

  890

  483

  10,068

  1985

  109

  34,274

  -1,513

  517

  10,306

  1986

  75

  14,101

  -1,644

  1,310

  4,743

  1987

  396

  18,929

  376

  1,120

  20,915

  1988

  12,289

  13,769

  -4,416

  1,330

  7,258

  1989

  35

  25,743

  -504

  -1,369

  8,733

  Enterprise Initiative
  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will supply figures for the number of firms that have applied for and obtained subsidised consultancies under the enterprise initiative(a) for the period up to July 1989 and (b) for the period from July 1989 to date.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The information requested is as follows:

  13 January 1988 to 30 June 1989

  1 July 1989 to 2 February 1990

  Applications received

  29,863

  12,786

  Completed projects

  6,572

  6,803

  542

  Haiti

  Guyana

  Bolivia

  Dominican Republic

  Honduras

  1978

  3,524

  -23,423

  -15,893

  8,681

  6,220

  1979

  2,048

  -14,390

  -28,019

  4,456

  5,029

  1980

  1,902

  -15,184

  -24,458

  6,730

  3,151

  1981

  1,102

  -21,872

  -24,184

  3,847

  4,554

  1982

  1,087

  -37,410

  -16,231

  4,409

  -37

  1983

  2,621

  -29,127

  -10,122

  4,933

  2,491

  1984

  2,334

  -43,043

  -2,882

  6,915

  -4,979

  1985

  3,581

  -33,971

  -3,991

  6,750

  -2,113

  1986

  4,248

  -41,798

  -6,563

  7,580

  3,933

  1987

  4,706

  -43,131

  -11,140

  15,250

  5,747

  1988

  5,916

  -32,928

  -7,195

  8,712

  -404

  1989

  5,763

  -41,307

  -11,518

  14,296

  -6,603

  Source: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.

  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will supply figures for the number of firms, by standard planning region, that have applied for and obtained subsidised consultancies under the enterprise initiative.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The information requested is as follows, as at 2 February 1990:

  DTI Region1

  Applications received

  Completed projects

  North East

  2,168

  626

  North West

  6,075

  2,264

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  3,929

  1,389

  543

  DTI Region1

  Applications received

  Completed projects

  West Midlands

  4,490

  1,518

  East Midlands

  2,731

  904

  South West

  4,005

  1,009

  East

  3,516

  812

  South East

  10,597

  2,840

  Scotland

  2,834

  1,240

  Wales

  2,304

  773

  Total

  42,649

  13,375

  1 Data is collected for DTI Regions and for Scotland and Wales.

  Bookmaking Industry
  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and. Industry if any scrutiny is under consideration of the role of the bookmaking industry in respect of the control of shareholding in the company Satellite Information Services through the introduction of approved shareholdings; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 15 February 1990]: No such scrutiny is under consideration.

  Footwear Industry
  Mr. Henderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if the British Government have put any proposals to the European Community in discussions on the current general agreement on tariffs and trade round concerning the footwear industry;

  (2) what restrictions on footwear imports he is pressing for in the current general agreement on tariffs and trade round; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  [holding answer 15 February 1990]: The Government's objectives in the current round of GATT negotiations are to expand trade, not restrict it. We are not, therefore, pressing for restrictions on imports of footwear. We have been in regular contact with the footwear industry over the past year about the issues raised in the current negotiations and have passed to the European Commission the details the industry has given us of tariff and non-tariff barriers in Third-world countries. We will make every effort to ensure that these are properly addressed as the detailed phase of the negotiations begins this year.

  Personal Data
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will seek to amend the Data Protection Act to ensure that companies holding personal data for the purpose of crime prevention are not prosecuted for contravening the Act because theirs is a purpose for which such companies were not so registered.

  Mr. Mellor
  I have been asked to reply.

  We have no plans to do so.

  HEALTH

    Bonuses
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if it is the practice for health authority managers to be paid performance-related bonus, following revenue-saving unit closures.
    544
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    The assessment for performance-related pay will take account of all the objectives set for the manager concerned. improving the use of an authority's resources or developing new patterns of service.

    Blood Transfusion
    Mr. Kennedy
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what volume of blood was donated via the blood transfusion service in(a) 1989, (b) 1984 and (c) 1979;

    (2) what volume of blood was imported for use in the National Health Service in (a) 1989, (b) 1984 and (c) 1979; and if he will indicate which countries supplied the imports, giving percentages;

    (3) what was the volume of blood used by the National Health Service in (a) 1989, (b) 1984 and (c)

    Mr. Freeman
    The available information is given in the tables. No whole blood was imported for use in the National Health Service during the years 1979, 1984 and 1989.

    National blood transfusion service for England and Wales Numbers of units of blood donated 1979, 1984, 1988

    Units

    11979

    2,144,484

    1984

    2,158,626

    1988

    2,140,810

    1 Number of donors reporting to blood transfusion centres.

    National blood transfusion service, England and Wales2 Units of blood issued to NHS hospitals, 1982, 1984, 1988

    Units

    1982

    1,637,536

    1984

    1,730,049

    1988

    1,704,705

    2 Excludes Oxford region, for which figures are not available.

    Urban Development
    Mr. Thornton
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will provide estimates showing for each financial year from 1987–88 to 1990–91 the amount of actual or planned expenditure designed to support the urban programme.

    Mr. Freeman
    Capital funds allocated to health authorities in support of the urban programme are:

    £ million

    1987–88

    11·5

    1988–89

    11·3

    1989–90

    11·2

    1990–91

    11·0

    Figures are at cash for each year.

    Shropshire Health Authority
    Mr. Conway
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the number of(a) out-patients, (b) day-patients and (c) in-patients in Shropshire health authority's area in 1978–79 and 1988–89.

    Mr. Freeman
    The information requested for 1978 and 1988–89 is given in the table:
    545

    Patients treated, NHS hospitals, Shropshire district health authority, 1978 and 1988–89

    1978

    1988–89

    In-patient cases treated

    39,929

    52,498

    Day cases

    1,329

    3,047

    New out-patients

    49,393

    56,306

    Total out-patient attendances

    207,991

    211,655

    Source: SH3 return 1978; SH3a, KP70, KH09 and KH18 returns, 1988–89.

    General Practitioners
    Mr. Fisher
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients have been removed from general practitioner lists in the last six months.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    I refer the hon. Member to the reply that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State gave the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) on 8 January at column 508.

    Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any plans to make Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease a notifiable disease; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Freeman
    We have no plans to do so. The study to be conducted by Dr. R. G. Will—I refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) on 10 January at column 665—is considered to be a more reliable method of monitoring the incidence of this disease.

    Abortion
    Mr. Alton
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give the numbers and percentages of abortions performed on pregnancies under statutory grounds 2 (alone) and 3 (with any other) for each week of gestation from 18 weeks to 28 weeks.

    Mr. Freeman
    The information requested is given in the table:

    Number, and percentage of all abortions, performed under the Abortion Act 1967, by gestation weeks, and statutory grounds1 2 (alone) and 3 (with or without 2) on residents and non-residents of England and Wales, 1988

    Gestation weeks

    All grounds(Nos)

    2 (alone)(Nos)

    Percentage

    3 (with or without 2) (Nos)

    Percentage

    18

    3,192

    2,827

    88·57

    181

    5·67

    19

    1,911

    1,661

    86·92

    89

    4·66

    20

    1,495

    1,243

    83·14

    70

    4·68

    21

    948

    845

    89·14

    42

    4·43

    22

    1,035

    939

    90·72

    32

    3·09

    23

    1,039

    988

    95·09

    19

    1·83

    24

    69

    48

    69·57

    1

    1·45

    25

    6

    —

    —

    —

    —

    26

    9

    —

    —

    —

    —

    27

    7

    —

    —

    —

    —

    28

    —

    —

    —

    —

    —

    1 Statutory grounds.

    Notes:

    1. The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.

    2. The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.
    546
    3. The continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk or injury to the physical or mental health of any existing child(ren) in the family of the pregnant woman greater than if the pregnancy were terminated.

    4. There is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.

    5. To save the life of the pregnant mother.

    6. To prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the child.

    Ambulance Stations
    Mr. Allen
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many official visits he has paid to ambulance stations in the last 100 days.

    Mr. Kenneth Clarke
    None. However, I visited Northumbria ambulance service headquarters on 24 January 1990.

    British Medical Association
    Mr. McFall
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he last met the British Medical Association to discuss the National Health Service and Community Care Bill.

    Mr. Kenneth Clarke
    I have had no meetings with the British Medical Association specifically about the National Health Service and Community Care Bill since it was laid before the House. Discussions about our proposals in the White Paper "Working for Patients" last took place on 18 October 1989. I have had recent meetings with the BMA on the pay, terms and conditions of its members.

    Health Provision, North-West
    Mr. Tony Lloyd
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he intends to respond to the letter of 17 November 1989 of the hon. Member for Stretford requesting a meeting to discuss health provision in the north-west.

    Mr. Freeman
    My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State replied to the hon. Member on 29 January 1990.

    Operations (Cancellations)
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many theatre sessions were cancelled in the Lancaster health authority in each of the last five years for which figures are available in(a) urology and (b) orthopaedics; and how many of these cancellations were due to (i) non-attendance of the consultant and (ii) non-attendance of the patient.

    Mr. Freeman
    Information requested about theatre sessions is given in the table:

    Cancelled operating theatre sessions in the Lancaster health authority

    Urology

    Trauma/Orthopaedics

    1985–86

    5

    27

    1986–87

    7

    52

    1987–88

    10

    58

    1988–89

    11

    66

    1989–901

    7

    69

    1 Part year.

    547
    The reasons for the cancellation of theatre sessions are extremely varied and no information is held centrally to distinguish, for example, cancellation resulting from the upgrading of theatre facilities from the non-availability of consultants or non-attendance of patients.

    Head Lice
    Mr. Cartwright
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what evidence he has received about the increase of head lice among schoolchildren; and what advice his Department has issued to district health authorities on this matter;

    (2) what evidence he has received about the increase of head lice among schoolchildren; and, what advice his Department has issued to local education authorities on this matter.

    Mr. Freeman
    Information about the incidence of head lice infestation is not available in the form requested. We have the following information on infestations identified by school nurses:

    Health Surveillance by Nurses: Maintained Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Special Schools.

    1984

    1985

    1986

    1987–88

    Number of Infestations1 (England)

    Number of pupils examined (thousands)

    9,401·9

    7,288·2

    6,089·6

    4,546·3

    Number of pupils found to be infested (thousands)

    132·1

    105·5

    94·6

    91·4

    Infested pupils as a percentage of the maintained school population

    1·74

    1·42

    1·29

    1·27

    1 Infestations include head lice, vermin, scabies, ringworm, impetigo and verrucae

    Responsibility for the control of head lice infestation amongst school children lies with the individual health authorities through co-operation between the school health services and local education authorities.

    It is for them to determine the policy for dealing with this problem in the light of local circumstances. Many have stopped routine head inspections and are now pursuing approaches which, for example, combine selective inspections with far more emphasis on health education programmes and advice to parents and children on managing the problem. The Department issued advice on the control of communicable diseases including Pediculosis (head lice) in 1977. This guidance document is currently being revised. The Health Education Authority has also issued guidance.

    Speech Therapists
    Mr. Cartwright
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of unfilled vacancies for speech therapists in Greater London; and what steps are being taken to fill these vacancies.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    This information is not available centrally in the form requested.

    AIDS
    Mr. Chris Smith
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy that any consideration he gives to applications for grant funding from other organisations providing support, care, counselling and education to people with HIV or AIDS will not prejudice his Department's continuing support for the work of the Terrence Higgins Trust.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    The Department awarded the Terrence Higgins Trust a grant of £450,000 for the 548
    financial year 1989–90 towards the administrative costs of its health education, drugs education, counselling support and buddy and helper cell programmes. We have agreed in principle to continue grant aid up to a maximum of £450,000 for 1990–91. In determining the final level of grant for the coming financial year, our primary consideration will be the trust's record of achievement in the current year.

    General Medical Council
    Mr. Hoyle
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he has on the fees incurred by an individual bringing a case to the General Medical Council.

    Mr. Freeman
    Individual complainants are required to provide the GMC with a sworn statement of evidence in support of their complaint and have to pay the legal fees involved. For any subsequent disciplinary action the GMC offers complainants the services of its solicitor free of charge. Complainants who choose to use their own solicitors will normally be reimbursed part of their legal costs by the GMC.

    Mr. Hoyle
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health what information he has on the procedures operated by the General Medical Council if a general practitioner is referred to the council by both an individual and his Department.

    Mr. Freeman
    In such circumstances, I understand that the GMC will normally take action on the referral from the Department which contains the evidence which has already been established against a doctor.

    Mr. Hoyle
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the procedure for ordering a second hearing of a case before the General Medical Council.

    Mr. Freeman
    Statutory Instrument 1988 No. 2255 governs the procedures to be adopted by the GMC in respect of disciplinary hearings. As the council is responsible for implementing these procedures I suggest the information requested is sought from it.

    Mr. Hoyle
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether his Department has a policy of giving way to an individual when both wish to proceed with a case to the General Medical Council; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Freeman
    There is a long-standing arrangement under which the Department sends the General Medical Council information on cases which have a bearing on a practitioner's professional conduct. The Department does not act as a complainant or make a formal reference to the General Medical Council—it merely passes on the information in its possession. Any action taken on this information is a matter entirely for the General Medical Council. The Department is not a party to that action.

    Regional Allocations
    Mr. Cousins
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to make a substantive reply to the question from the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central tabled for priority written answer on 30 January, to which he gave a holding answer.

    Mr. Freeman
    I replied to the hon. Member on 15 February.

    NHS Reform
    Mr. Bradley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many applications he has received for the establishment of fund-holding practices from general practitioner practices in Manchester.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    Formal applications cannot be made until there is legislative provision for fund-holding. Practices have been invited to return forms to their RHAs registering their interest in fund-holding. We do not have details of the numbers of interested practices in individual FPCs.

    North Western RHA
    Mr. Bradley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many consultants now work in the North Western regional health authority and the South Manchester health authority; and how many did so in 1979.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    The number of hospital medical and dental consultants, in the North Western regional health authority, at 30 September 1979 and 1988, were 1,078 and 1,284 respectively.

    Details of consultants working in district health authorities are not available centrally.

    Mr. Bradley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been spent so far(a) in Manchester and (b) nationally by (i) his Department, (ii) district health authorities and (iii) family practitioner committees to prepare for the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Bill.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) on 14 February at columns 308–9.

    Junior Doctors
    Mr. Terry Davis
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the number of junior hospital doctors working a one-in-three rota.

    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
    Recent reports from health authorities indicate that at September 1989 some 5,103 junior doctors (around 22 per cent. of the total) were on rotas of one in three with prospective cover or worse. That number is planned to fall to 4,230 by September 1990, of which some 2,942 (around one in eight) are on rotas which are also considered locally to be onerous. "Prospective cover" means contractual cover for the annual and sick leave of colleagues.

    Ambulance Dispute
    Mr. Tony Banks
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much has been paid by the London ambulance service to the Metropolitan police for costs arising from the present dispute in each week, from the commencement to the latest date for which figures are available.

    Mr. Kenneth Clarke
    The sums paid by the London ambulance service to the Metropolitan police in respect of the costs arising from the ambulance dispute are as follows:

    Period covered

    Cost (£)

    23–24 October 1989

    131,566

    Week ending

    550

    Period covered

    Cost (£)

    12 November 1989

    537,235

    19 November 1989

    601,063

    26 November 1989

    525,724

    3 December 1989

    471,856

    10 December 1989

    504,854

    Later information on a weekly basis is not currently available, but expenditure is continuing at roughly the same level.

    Myeloid Leukaemia
    Dr. Cunningham
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will update the list of the 20 areas with the highest incidence of myeloid leukaemia contained in his answer to the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) of 15 April 1986,Official Report, columns 371–72.

    Mr. Freeman
    The information requested is not immediately available in the form requested but will be extracted for local authority district areas for 1988. I will let the hon. Member have the results as soon as they are available.

    NHS Funding
    Mr. Ashley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the regional health authorities in rank order according to the percentage of National Health Service money(a) allocated to the regions in 1989–90 and (b) that will be allocated in 1990–91 using the new formula.

    Mr. Freeman
    [holding answer 15 February 1996]: The table gives the ranking of each regional health authority according to the percentage of National Health Service money allocated in 1989–90 and 1990–91:

    Region

    Ranking 1989–90

    Ranking 1990–91

    Northern

    10

    10

    Yorkshire

    6

    6

    Trent

    2

    2

    East Anglian

    14

    14

    North West Thames

    7

    7

    North East Thames

    4

    4

    South East Thames

    5

    5

    South West Thames

    8

    8

    Wessex

    11

    11

    Oxford

    13

    13

    South Western

    9

    9

    West Midlands

    1

    1

    Mersey

    12

    12

    North Western

    3

    3

    Notes:

    1. 1989–90 is based on allocations for services provided in the region using the resource allocation working party formula (RAWP).

    2. 1990–91 is based on the allocations for resident population, calculated using the new allocation formula, adjusted for the effect of cross boundary flows, so that they are on a comparable basis to 1989–90.

    3. Both 1989–90 and 1990–91 are before the additions for SIFT supra-regional services and other special additions specific to individual regions.

    Mr. Ashley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the regional health authorities in rank order according to the growth money(a) they received in 1989–90 and (b) will receive on current assumptions in 1990–91.
    551
    Mr. Freeman
    [holding answer 15 February 1990]: The table gives the ranking for each regional health authority according to the amount of cash increase over the previous baseline for the region, allocated for 1989–90 and 1990–91:

    Region

    Ranking

    Ranking

    1989–90

    1990–91

    Northern

    9

    11

    Yorkshire

    6

    7

    Trent

    2

    2

    East Anglian

    14

    12

    North West Thames

    7

    10

    North East Thames

    4

    4

    South East Thames

    5

    3

    South West Thames

    8

    8

    Wessex

    11

    9

    Oxford

    13

    13

    South Western

    9

    6

    West Midlands

    1

    1

    Mersey

    12

    14

    North Western

    3

    5

    Notes:

    1. 1989–90 is based on the allocations for services provided in the Region using the resource allocation working party formula

    Domestic rateable subjects at 1 April 1988

    Stirling

    Perth and Kinross

    Ross and Cromarty

    Skye and Lochalsh

    Bands of rateable value

    Number

    Total rateable value (£)

    Number

    Total rateable value (£)

    Number

    Total rateable value (£)

    Number

    Total rateable value (£)

    £0 to £300

    677

    127,893

    3,201

    505,831

    2,351

    419,310

    1,106

    168,606

    £301 to £600

    13,435

    6,551,918

    25,321

    11,489,921

    10,309

    4,843,669

    1,832

    797,024

    £601 to £900

    9,286

    6,576,092

    12,951

    9,312,270

    4,209

    3,013,623

    544

    395,687

    £901 to £1,200

    4,376

    4,553,954

    6,870

    7,138,130

    1,379

    1,390,534

    179

    180,148

    £1,201 to £1,500

    2,176

    2,884,471

    2,807

    3,727,934

    199

    261,652

    27

    35,006

    Over £1,500

    1,341

    2,386,397

    1,078

    1,876,567

    79

    153,699

    13

    25,910

    Croft houses/separately assessed caravans

    127

    38,106

    270

    55,701

    1,572

    397,544

    1,935

    445,746

    Total

    31,418

    23,118,831

    52,498

    34,106.354

    20,098

    10,480,031

    5,636

    2,048,127

    Green Pound
    Sir David Steel
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what changes have been made over the past 12 months in the green pound arrangements for Scottish farmers; and what estimate he has made of the effect this has had on their standard of living.

    Mr. Rifkind
    In April 1989, as part of the price-fixing settlement. we obtained a substantial devaluation of the green pound, reducing United Kingdom monetary gaps generally by half, and in the case of beef removing the gap completely. The devaluations were estimated to boost Scottish farm incomes by between £15 and £20 million in a full year.

    In January this year an EMS realignment created new negative monetary gaps for some currencies, including sterling. Under agreed rules, such gaps are removed automatically and the United Kingdom will benefit from a devaluation of about 1·5 percentage points, which will add about £6·5 million to Scottish farm incomes in a full year.

    Sir David Steel
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what measures he proposes to take to reduce the disadvantage to Scottish farmers as a result of the current levels of the green pound and interest rates.

    Mr. Rifkind
    The disadvantage to Scottish and other United Kingdom farmers will be overcome by reducing
    552
    (RAWP).

    2. 1990–91 is based on the allocations for resident population using the new allocation formula, adjusted for the effect of cross boundary flows, so that they are on a comparable basis to 1989–90.

    3. Both 1989–90 and 1990–91 exclude the additions for SIFT supra-regional services and other special additions specific to individual regions.

  SCOTLAND

    Rateable Values
    Mr. Austin Mitchell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will provide for the districts of Stirling, Perth and Kinross and Ross, Cromarty and Skye the number and rateable value of houses and so on, immediately prior to the introduction of the poll tax with a rateable value not exceeding £100 and by(a) £50 steps to £400, (b) £100 steps to £800, (c) £800 to £1,000, (d) £1,000 to £1,500 and (e) over £1,500.

    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
    Information is not available in the form requested. The available information is given in the table:

    monetary gaps through devaluation of the green pound in the current price-fixing negotiations. We are seeking a substantial devaluation as part of our commitment to remove all monetary gaps by 1992. The high level of interest rates is necessary to control inflation which, if unchecked, would harm the farming industry as much as other sectors of the economy.

    Private Security Firms
    Mr. George
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the names of all the private security firms currently employed by his Department, the number of employees for each firm on the contract, the total value of each contract and the total value of all contracts for each financial year since 1984–85.

    Mr. Rifkind
    Information relating to the value of current contracts with private security companies and the number of staff employed on these contracts are matters of contractual and commercial confidentiality which it would not be proper to disclose.

    The total value of all contracts awarded during the period 1984–85 to 1988–89 is show at column 1, and details of the private security companies with which contracts are currently in operation are set out at column 2:
    553

    1. Year

    Total value of all contracts (inclusive of VAT) £

    1984–85

    68,384

    1985–86

    70,468

    1986–87

    261,306

    1987–88

    294,229

    1988–89

    515,982

    2. Companies

    Group 4 Total Security Ltd

    Chubb Wardens Ltd

    Shorrock Guards Ltd

    Burns International Security Services (UK) Ltd

    Wackenhut UK Ltd

    Castlemilk Enterprises Ltd

    Paternity Leave
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Rifkind
    At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

    House Prices
    Mr. Allan Stewart
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he will estimate the number of houses owned by Glasgow district council which have a market value of less than £10,000;

    (2) if he will estimate the number of houses owned by Scottish local authorities which have a negative market value.

    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
    My right hon. and learned Friend has no basis on which to make such an estimate.

    Slumberdown Limited
    Mr. Robin Cook
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what regional development grants or other industrial assistance have been paid in the past six years to Slumberdown Limited, or its parent company the Walter Alexander Group, in respect of its premises at Broxburn; and what was the value of each such payment.

    Mr. Rifkind
    One payment of £128,945 of regional development grant has been made.

    NHS Expenditure
    Mr. Bill Walker
    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what financial allocations he has made to health boards for 1990–91.

    Mr. Michael Forsyth
    My right hon. and learned Friend has allocated £2,061·498 million to health boards in Scotland to meet their gross recurrent expenditure commitments on hospitals and community health services in 1990–91. This figure includes £89·891 million allocated for specific commitments including NHS review, national cardiac surgery services, AIDS, nurse training and pay 554
    review body awards. After expected income is taken into account, the net cash allocations to individual health boards are as follows:

    Health Board

    Recurrent Expenditure (net) £ million

    Argyll and Clyde

    142·956

    Ayr and Arran

    111·671

    Borders

    32·801

    Dumfries and Galloway

    54·062

    Fife

    103·308

    Forth Valley

    96·487

    Grampian

    184·696

    Greater Glasgow

    503·944

    Highland

    77·960

    Lanarkshire

    164·513

    Lothian

    319·217

    Orkney

    6·076

    Shetland

    7·214

    Tayside

    184·386

    Western Isles

    10·646

    1,999·937

    A further £36·511 million will be distributed during the year for specific initiatives to tackle waiting lists, for the breast cancer screening service and other specific initiatives.

  SOCIAL SECURITY

    Old Age Programmes
    Mr. Pawsey
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish a list showing expenditure on programmes for old age as a proportion of gross domestic product at market prices for European Community member states for each year since 1983.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    The latest statistics available were published in June 1989 in issue 1989/2 of Eurostat's "Rapid Reports on Population and Social Conditions", a copy of which is in the Library.

    Income Support
    Mr. Summerson
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when income support was increased to fund the balance of community charge after rebate, and by how much.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) on 5 February 1990 at column 524.

    Students (Benefits)
    Mr. Bill Walker
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he expects to announce his proposals for the withdrawal of social security benefits from students.

    Mr. Scott
    It is Government policy that full-time students should be funded from one source—the educational maintenance system. To this end we propose to withdraw entitlement to unemployment benefit, income support and housing benefit from the majority of students from the start of the next academic year in September. The regulations to give effect to these proposals have today been referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee for consultation. The draft regulations describe those
    555
    students in vulnerable groups who will retain eligibility to income support and housing benefit. They also set out the proposed treatment in the income-related benefits of top-up loans and payments from the access funds.

    Bereavement
    Mr. Andrew Smith
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will consider amending social security regulations to exempt recently bereaved claimants from the actively seeking work provision for a specified period.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    We do not consider that a change to the legislation is required. In determining whether a person has taken reasonable steps in any week to actively seek employment, the regulations require an adjudication officer to have regard to all the circumstances of the case. This provision allows an adjudication officer to take into account exceptional circumstances, like bereavement, in determining whether the actively seeking work condition has been satisfied.

    Transitional Protection
    Mr. Andrew Smith
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many income support claimants are in receipt of a transitional addition at present; and how many were in receipt before the April 1989 uprating.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    It is estimated that next month about 485,000 income support claimants will be in receipt of normal statutory transitional protection. The corresponding number immediately before the April 1989 uprating was estimated at 1·2 million.

    Mr. Andrew Smith
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what information he has on the change in benefit income to claimants following the introduction of the transitional protection arrangements, currently in practice.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    As a result of the transitional protection arrangements noone who has been continuously on benefit since April 1989 in unchanged circumstances will have suffered a reduction in benefit income in cash terms. We estimate that 95 per cent. of claimants on income support either saw an increase in that benefit income in October, as a result of the restructuring of premiums for older and disabled pensioners, or will see such an increase in April 1990 as a result of the general uprating.

    Mr. Andrew Smith
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he has any plans to amend current transitional protection regulations.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    We amended the regulations as recently as December 1989. We have no plans for further amendment.

    Industrial Injuries and Adjudication
    Dr. Godman
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will provide a breakdown of the figure given in the Official Report, 7 February, column 978, concerning claims made under regulation 13 of the Social Security (Industrial Injuries and Adjudication) Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 1986, by geographical region; and if he w ill make a statement.
    556
    Mr. Scott
    The geographical distribution of new claims and review applications made under regulation 13(2) of the Social Security (Industrial Injuries and Adjudication) Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 1986 is estimated to be as follows:

    Region1

    New claims and review applications

    North Eastern

    15,000

    London North

    300

    Wales and South West

    800

    Midlands

    800

    North Western

    5,500

    Scotland

    2,300

    London South

    1,300

    Great Britain

    26,000

    1 Standard social security regions.

    Note:

    Based on special returns received from local offices up to 30

    November 1989 extrapolated to the end of December 1989.

    Personal Allowances
    Mr. Meacher
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will give a table for the income support personal allowances for(a) a single person aged 18–24 years, (b) a single person aged 25 years plus and (c) a couple without children, showing (i) the illustrative figures in the technical annex to the 1985 White Paper, (ii) the illustrative figures uprated by the ROSSI index since then, (iii) the amount provided to compensate for the exclusion of 20 per cent. at rates from housing benefit and (iv) the personal allowances for April 1990.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    The information requested is in the table:

    Aged 18–24 single £

    Aged 25 + single £

    Couple, no children £

    Technical annex to 1985 White Paper

    24·00

    30·60

    48·00

    Uprated by ROSSI1

    28·28

    36·06

    56·56

    Help towards 20 per cent, domestic rates from April 1988

    1·00

    1·30

    1·30

    Help towards 20 per cent, community charge from April 19892

    1·15

    1·30

    2·30

    April 1990 rates

    28·80

    36·70

    57·60

    1 Based on movement in the index of retail prices (less housing) between November 1985 and December 1989 (the latest date for which the index is available).

    2 These amounts were introduced to coincide with the introduction of the community charge in Scotland in April 1989. They replaced the amounts previously included to help towards 20 per cent, of domestic rates but continue to provide help towards domestic rates for people in England and Wales.

    Disability
    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many people are currently in receipt of(a) attendance allowance and (b) severe disablement allowance;

    (2) how many people are in receipt of attendance allowance at (a) the higher rate and (b) the lower rate; and what is the average period for which attendance allowance is paid.
    557
    Mr. Scott
    The estimated number receiving these benefits in 1989–90 is set out in the following table:

    Higher rate

    Lower rate

    Total

    Average length of award

    Attendance allowance

    320,000

    475,000

    795,000

    3 years

    Severe disablement allowance

    —

    —

    265,000

    —

    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are currently in receipt of(a) invalidity pension and (b) invalidity allowance; and how many were disqualified from each in the past year.

    Mr. Scott
    At 2 April 1988, the latest date for which figures are available, there were 1,047,500 people in receipt of invalidity pension. Of these 509,100 were also getting invalidity allowance (IVA) and in addition there are 360,300 people who do not receive invalidity allowance because the rate of additional pension or guaranteed minimum pension they receive exceeds the rate of invalidity allowance which would have been payable. I regret that information on the number of people disqualified from invalidity benefit is not available.

    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are currently in receipt of invalid care allowance.

    Mr. Scott
    The estimated average number receiving invalid care allowance in 1989–90 is 110,000.

    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are in receipt of(a) the disability premium, (b) the severe disability premium and (c) the disabled child premium.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    In May 1988, the latest date for which this information is available, the number of claimants receiving each of these premiums was as follows:

    Numbers

    (a) Disability premium

    248,000

    (b) Severe disability premium

    35,000

    (c) Disabled child premium

    14,000

    Source: Annual Statistical Inquiry.

    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people have been disqualified from receiving severe disablement allowance in the last year; and for what reasons.

    Mr. Scott
    I regret that this information is not available.

    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people receive disability benefit; how many receive this benefit at the main disability percentage levels; and how many have been disqualified from receipt of this benefit in the past year.

    Mr. Scott
    In April 1988, the latest available date, 189,000 people received disablement benefit. The distribution of assessed levels of disability is as follows:

    Percentage assessment

    Number of claimants

    1 to 19

    25,000

    20 to 24

    66,000

    25 to 34

    47,000

    558

    Percentage assessment

    Number of claimants

    35 to 44

    22,000

    45 to 54

    11,000

    55 to 64

    7,000

    65 to 74

    4,000

    75 to 84

    2,000

    85 to 94

    1,000

    95 to 100

    4,000

    Total

    189,000

    Figures on numbers of disqualifications are not available.

    Reduced Earnings Allowance
    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people are in receipt of reduced earnings allowance.

    Mr. Scott
    Including previous recipients of special hardship allowance, some 150,000 people are estimated to be recipients of reduced earnings allowance.

    Social Fund
    Mr. Wareing
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what percentage of applicants for a social fund loan have received money advice(a) nationally, (b) regionally and (c) in each local Department of Social Security office area.

    Mr. Scott
    Information at national and regional levels in the period 1 April 1989 to 31 January 1990 is given in the table. Information relating to each local office could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

    Number of money advice interviews as percentage of loan applications processed

    per cent.

    National

    2·3

    London North

    1·2

    London South

    1·5

    Midlands

    2·4

    North East

    1·8

    North West

    3·9

    Scotland

    2·1

    Wales and South West

    2·6

    Self-Employed People
    Mr. Worthington
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what numbers paid national insurance contributions as self-employed people in each of the years 1979 to 1989.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    I refer the hon. Member to my answer to the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) on 16 November 1989 at column 442. Agreed figures for 1988–89 are still not available.

    Private Rents
    Mr. Tony Banks
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) what guidance has been issued to local authorities on the matter of poll tax and inclusive private rents;

    (2) what subsidy arrangements have been made for local authorities where housing benefit payments are to be made on the basis of inclusive rents becoming the new net rent after the abolition of rates.
    559
    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    Guidance on the subsidy arrangements for community charge benefit and other matters connected with inclusive private rents was contained in circular HB/CCB (90)2, a copy of which is in the Library.

    Mr. Tony Banks
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what guidance has been given to rent officers in reaching determinations of eligible rents under the housing benefit regulations.

    Mr. Chope
    I have been asked to reply.

    The Rent Officers (Additional Functions) Order 1989 lays down the basis on which rent officers assess the rents paid by, and accommodation occupied by, private tenants claiming housing benefit. Advice on how rent officers might approach this task—particularly in circumstances where no direct market evidence is available—was included in a study of the private rented housing market commissioned by the Department from the consultants Price Waterhouse. Copies of that report were circulated to rent officers and placed in the Library in February 1989.

    Young People
    Mr. Meacher
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the number of young people affected by each change listed in the reply to the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett),Official Report, 27 July, columns 878–84, and the cost or saving incurred by his Department as a result.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    [ holding answer 15 December 1989]: The cessation of entitlement to income support for most 16 and 17-year-olds in September 1988 was estimated to have affected approximately 100,000 young people and reduced expenditure by around £100 million. The vast majority of young people who chose to participate in YTS received a training allowance at a rate exceeding income support. The additional costs of these allowances, and the cost of training provision, were borne by the Department of Employment's Training Agency. At the same time, the extension of eligibility to child benefit during the child benefit extension period affected around 43,000 young people at a cost of £4·85 million a year including the consequential effects on dependency additions. The overall cost of increasing personal allowances for income-related benefits by 50p above inflation from April 1989, including increases for children aged under 16, was estimated at around £70 million in a full year. In July 1989 extra help was provided for 16 and 17-year-olds receiving income support who have to live independently, and all those receiving housing benefit only, affecting around 17,000 young people at a cost of £3·7 million a year.

    Further information could be produced only at disproportionate cost.

    Local Government Finance
    Mr. Blunkett
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what are his best estimates of the number of applications for deductions from income support for poll tax arrears in 1990–91, the number which will be enforced; the costs of servicing each deduction, and the staffing implications of the increased workload.
    560
    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    [holding answer 5 February 1990]: The Department expects that in any year in England, Wales and Scotland some 850,000 applications for deductions from income support may be made in respect of the community charge, though the number will depend on the extent to which authorities choose to recover unpaid charges using this particular method. We expect about 700,000 of the applications to be enforced. The average annual cost to the Department of servicing each application is estimated to be £26. The total staffing requirement in Great Britain is now estimated to be approximately 470 posts. People in receipt of income support are entitled to maximum community charge benefit which reduces their community charge bill by 80 per cent.

    Income support levels were adjusted in April last year to include help towards the average minimum contribution to the community charge that recipients would be expected to pay.

    The amounts included were £1·15 a week for single people aged 18 to 24, £1·30 a week for single people aged 25 or over and £2·30 a week for couples. These amounts form part of the overall benefit levels which will be uprated from April this year.

    Spending Power
    Mr. Nellist
    To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish tables using the assumptions in his answer to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) on 22 June 1988,Official Report, columns 575–80, but using expenditure and benefit figures appropriate for families in Coventry, together with a column showing the extent of the differences resulting from the April 1988 social security changes.

    Mrs. Gillian Shephard
    [holding answer 6 February 1990]: The information requested is set out in the tables.

    The tables use the methods and assumptions contained in the technical annex to the 1985 White Paper "Reform of Social Security" and in "Impact of the Reformed Structure of Income-Related Benefits" published in 1987. They illustrate the impact of the changes on claimants in April 1988, by comparing the results of applying the old and new benefits rules (with an assumed uprating for the fonner) to the personal circumstances of a sample of cases.

    As indicated in the reply to the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden) on 22 June 1988, the result is a hypothetical comparison with what people might have got under the old system. The passage of time, and subsequent changes to the benefit scheme render such comparisons increasingly hypothetical and unrealistic.

    It should be noted that, although the comparisons are based on average local authority housing charges in Coventry, they do not necessarily reflect either the wide variety of rents and domestic rates that people in the borough actually pay or real families' circumstances and their housing arrangements.

    Finally, the comparisons take no account of the housing benefit transitional cash protection announced on 27 April 1988.
    561

    Old benefit system at hypothetical rates April 1988 Coventry local authority Married couple with 2 children aged 4 and 6

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Earnings head

    60·00

    70·00

    80·00

    90·00

    100·00

    110·00

    120·00

    130·00

    140·00

    150·00

    160·00

    170·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    1·22

    3·92

    6·62

    9·32

    12·02

    14·72

    17·42

    20·12

    22·82

    25·52

    National insurance

    3·00

    4·90

    5·60

    6·30

    7·00

    9·90

    10·80

    11·70

    12·60

    13·50

    14·40

    15·30

    Family income supplement

    28·70

    23·70

    18·70

    13·70

    8·70

    3·70

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Child benefit

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rent rebate

    18·78

    17·53

    16·28

    15·03

    13·78

    12·26

    10·18

    6·88

    3·58

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Rate rebate

    5·46

    5·06

    4·66

    4·26

    3·86

    3·29

    2·47

    1·17

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    Free school meals

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Free welfare milk

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Net weekly spending power

    94·48

    95·93

    97·36

    97·31

    97·26

    94·57

    92·54

    94·34

    96·27

    96·54

    102·94

    109·34

    New benefit system from April 1988 Coventry local authority Married couple with 2 children aged 4 and 6

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Earnings head

    60·00

    70·00

    80·00

    90·00

    100·00

    110·00

    120·00

    130·00

    140·00

    150·00

    160·00

    170·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    1·22

    3·92

    6·62

    9·32

    12·02

    14·72

    17·42

    20·12

    22·82

    25·52

    National insurance

    3·00

    4·90

    5·60

    6·30

    7·00

    9·90

    10·80

    11·70

    12·60

    13·50

    14·40

    15·30

    Family credit

    40·32

    34·65

    28·99

    24·37

    19·75

    16·67

    12·19

    7·71

    3·23

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Child benefit

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    14·50

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rent rebate

    7·52

    5·94

    4·36

    3·07

    1·79

    0·93

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Rate rebate

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Net income after housing costs

    90·85

    91·70

    92·54

    93·23

    93·93

    94·39

    95·38

    97·30

    99·22

    102·39

    108·79

    115·19

    Difference between systems

    -3·63

    -4·23

    -4·82

    -4·08

    -3·33

    -0·18

    +2·84

    +2·96

    +2·95

    +5·85

    +5·85

    +5·85

    Old benefit system at hypothetical rates April 1988 Coventry local authority Married couple with 3 children aged 3, 8 and 11

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Earnings head

    60·00

    70·00

    80·00

    90·00

    100·00

    110·00

    120·00

    130·00

    140·00

    150·00

    160·00

    170·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    1·22

    3·92

    6·62

    9·32

    12·02

    14·72

    17·42

    20·12

    22·82

    25·52

    National insurance

    3·00

    4·90

    5·60

    6·30

    7·00

    9·90

    10·80

    11·70

    12·60

    13·50

    14·50

    15·30

    Family income supplement

    32·90

    30·50

    25·50

    20·50

    15·50

    10·50

    5·50

    0·50

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Child benefit

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rent rebate

    19·82

    17·92

    16·67

    15·42

    14·17

    12·77

    11·12

    9·47

    6·34

    3·04

    0·00

    0·00

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Rate rebate

    5·79

    5·18

    4·78

    4·38

    3·98

    3·49

    2·84

    2·19

    0·96

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·95

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    Free school meals

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    5·10

    2·55

    0·00

    Free welfare milk

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Net weekly spending power

    109·85

    113·04

    114·47

    114·42

    114·37

    111·88

    110·98

    110·98

    109·79

    111·93

    112·74

    116·59

    New benefit system from April 1988 Coventry local authority Married couple with 3 children aged 3, 8 and 11

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Earnings head

    60·00

    70·00

    80·00

    90·00

    100·00

    110·00

    120·00

    130·00

    140·00

    150·00

    160·00

    170·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    1·22

    3·92

    6·62

    9·32

    12·02

    14·72

    17·42

    20·12

    22·82

    25·52

    National insurance

    3·00

    4·90

    5·60

    6·30

    7·00

    9·90

    10·80

    11·70

    12·60

    13·50

    14·40

    15·30

    Family credit

    51·72

    46·05

    40·39

    35·77

    31·15

    28·07

    23·59

    19·11

    14·63

    10·15

    5·67

    1·19

    Child benefit

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    21·75

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rent rebate

    5·86

    4·28

    2·70

    1·42

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Rate rebate

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Net income after housing costs

    107·84

    108·69

    109·53

    110·23

    110·79

    112·11

    114·03

    115·95

    117·87

    119·79

    121·71

    123·63

    Difference between systems

    -2·01

    -4·35

    -4·94

    -4·19

    -3·58

    +0·23

    +3·05

    +5·87

    +8·08

    +7·86

    +8·97

    +7·04

    562 563

    Old benefit system at hypothetical rates April 1988 Coventry local authority Single person with 2 children aged 4 and 6

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Earnings head

    60·00

    70·00

    80·00

    90·00

    100·00

    110·00

    120·00

    130·00

    140·00

    150·00

    160·00

    170·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    1·22

    3·92

    6·62

    9·32

    12·02

    14·72

    17·42

    20·12

    22·82

    25·52

    National insurance

    3·00

    4·90

    5·60

    6·30

    7·00

    9·90

    10·80

    11·70

    12·60

    13·50

    14·40

    15·30

    Family income supplement

    28·70

    23·70

    18·70

    13·70

    8·70

    3·70

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Child benefit

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rent rebate

    17·56

    16·31

    15·06

    13·81

    12·30

    10·65

    8·57

    5·27

    1·97

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Rate rebate

    5·07

    4·67

    4·27

    3·87

    3·30

    2·65

    1·83

    0·53

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    5·85

    Free school meals

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Free welfare milk

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Net weekly spending power

    97·77

    99·22

    100·65

    100·60

    100·12

    97·22

    95·19

    96·99

    99·56

    101·44

    107·84

    114·24

    New benefit system from April 1988 Coventry local authority Single person with 2 children aged 4 and 6

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    £

    Earnings head

    60·00

    70·00

    80·00

    90·00

    100·00

    110·00

    120·00

    130·00

    140·00

    150·00

    160·00

    170·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    1·22

    3·92

    6·62

    9·32

    12·02

    14·72

    17·42

    20·12

    22·82

    25·52

    National insurance

    3·00

    4·90

    5·60

    6·30

    7·00

    9·90

    10·80

    11·70

    12·60

    13·50

    14·40

    15·30

    Family credit

    40·32

    34·65

    28·99

    24·37

    19·75

    16·67

    12·19

    7·71

    3·23

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Child benefit

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rent rebate

    1·44

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Rate rebate

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    0·00

    Net income after housing costs

    89·67

    90·66

    93·08

    95·06

    97·04

    98·36

    100·28

    102·20

    104·12

    107·29

    113·69

    120·09

    Difference between systems

    -8·10

    -8·56

    -7·57

    -5·54

    -3·08

    +1·14

    +5·09

    +5·21

    +4·56

    +5·85

    +5·85

    +5·85

    Old tax and benefit system—assuming average local authority rent and rates for Coventry and a simple rescaling of April 1987 benefits to April 1988. Lone mother with two children aged four and six.

    Not working after one year on benefit

    Working part-time earning £20

    Working part-time earning £40

    £

    £

    £

    Supplementary Benefit

    45·93

    30·89

    14·35

    Earnings

    —

    20·00

    40·00

    Tax

    —

    0·00

    0·00

    National Insurance

    —

    0·00

    2·00

    Fares to Work

    —

    2·92

    2·92

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    22·28

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    6·21

    Housing Benefit

    26·92

    26·92

    26·92

    Child Benefit

    19·40

    19·40

    19·40

    Free School Meals

    2·55

    2·55

    2·55

    Free Welfare Milk

    1·83

    1·83

    1·83

    Net Weekly spending power

    68·14

    70·18

    71·64

    Benefit system from April 1988

    Assumptions as in Impact of reformed structure of income related benefits" October 1987

    Average local authority rent and rates for Coventry.

    Lone mother with two children aged 4 and 6

    a. Not working after one year on benefit

    Income Support

    45·35

    Rent

    22·28

    Rates

    6·21

    Housing Benefit

    26·00

    CHB

    19·40

    FSM

    2·55

    FWM

    1·83

    Net Weekly spending power

    66·64

    Difference between systems

    -1·50

    564

    Benefit system from April 1988

    Assumptions as in "Impact of reformed structure of income related benefits" October 1987

    Average local authority rent and rates for Coventry.

    Lone mother with two children aged 4 and 6

    b. Working part time earning £20

    c. Working part time earning £40

    Income Support

    40·35

    20·35

    Earnings

    20·00

    40·00

    Tax

    0·00

    0·00

    NI

    0·00

    0·00

    Fares to work

    2·92

    2·92

    Rent

    22·28

    22·28

    Rates

    6·21

    6·21

    Housing Benefit

    26·00

    26·00

    CHB

    19·40

    19·40

    FSM

    2·55

    2·55

    FWM

    1·83

    1·83

    Net weekly spending power

    78·72

    78·72

    Difference between systems

    +8·54

    7·08

  FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

    Sanctions
    Mr. Allen
    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list all those countries against which the United Kingdom is operating sanctions, the sanctions in each case and the countries or organisations requesting such sanctions.

    Mr. Waldegrave
    We have implemented a variety of restrictive measures on our trade and other relations with a number of countries. These include:

    (a) controls through COCOM on the export of high technology equipment which could be used for

    565
    military as well as civil purposes to a number of proscribed destinations, including to the Soviet Union, eastern Europe and China. COCOM comprises the NATO countries, less Iceland, as well as Japan and Australia.

    (b) restrictive measures against South Africa. I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) on 15 February 1990 for a list of the measures adopted by the UK in conjunction with the European Community. We have also agreed with the Commonwealth a number of measures. These are:

    (i) The strict enforcement of the mandatory arms embargo against South Africa;

    (ii) A re-affirmation of the Gleneagles declaration of 1977, which called upon Commonwealth members to take every practical step to discourage sporting contacts with South Africa;

    (iii) Agreement upon and commendation to other Governments of the adoption of the following further economic measures against South Africa:

    (a) A ban on all new Government loans to the Government of South Africa and their agencies;

    (b) A readiness to take unilaterally what action may be possible to preclude the import of Krugerrands;

    (c) No Government funding for trade missions to South Africa or for participation in exhibitions and trade fairs in South Africa;

    (d) A ban on the sale and export of computer equipment capable of use by South African military forces, police or security forces;

    (e) A ban on new contracts for the sale and export of nuclear goods, materials and technology to South Africa;

    (f) A ban on the sale and export of oil to South Africa;

    (g) A strict and rigorously controlled embargo on imports of arms, ammunition, military vehicles and paramilitary equipment from South Africa;

    (h) An embargo on all military co-operation with South Africa;

    (i) The discouragement of all cultural and scientific events except where these contribute towards the ending of apartheid or have no possible role in promoting it;

    (j) A voluntary ban on the promotion of tourism to South Africa;

    (k) The implementation of any European Community decision to ban the import of coal, iron and steel and of gold coins from South Africa.

    (c) Restrictions not aimed at particular countries, such as those of the missile technology control regime, resulting from our commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, and controls on the export of material used in production of chemical weapons.

    (d) Special restrictions are applied to arms exports to certain countries, for example, in the middle east, reflecting our wish not to fuel or prolong conflicts in the region, and our determination to take a firm line on state-sponsored terrorism.

    Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what has been the result of discussions held between his Department and representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, over the number of officials allowed residence in each country.
    566
    Mr. Waldegrave
    We have agreed to work towards a state of relations where limitations on numbers will no longer be necessary. For the moment each side will keep its own numbers within agreed overall limits. A review of progress will be held in due course. We do not foresee difficulties for either side in ensuring adequate representation, both official, and as regards journalists or business men.

    Paternity Leave
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Sainsbury
    At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave. Authority does, however, already exist to allow staff special leave to cope with unforeseen domestic difficulties, for example, at the time of the birth of a second or subsequent child. This discretion has occasionally been exercised.

    NATO Exercises
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what contribution his Department will make to the NATO exercises due to be held in Norway during March.

    Mr. Waldegrave
    There are no NATO exercises due to be held in Norway during March. A Norwegian national exercise, designated "Cold Winter", is planned to take place in which forces from several members of the Alliance, including the United Kingdom, have been invited to participate. The FCO, in accordance with the provisions of the 1986 Stockholm agreement, notified all CSCE states on 30 January of the United Kingdom's participation in the amphibious landing part of this exercise.

    Chemical Weapons
    Mr. Macdonald
    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the continued production of chemical weapons by any signatory nation to a chemical weapons convention.

    Mr. Waldegrave
    As my replies to the questions from the hon. Member for Western Isles on 31 January and 11 December last year noted, the draft chemical weapons convention under negotiation in Geneva would prohibit the production of chemical weapons immediately upon the convention's entry into force. This provision has been agreed by all states participating in the negotiations, including the United Kingdom.

    Hong Kong
    Mr. Tony Banks
    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what system of control the authorities in Hong Kong have in place to ensure up-to-date information on ivory stocks is duly recorded; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Waldegrave
    All holdings of ivory over 5 kg must be licensed and are being entered on the Hong Kong
    567
    authorities' computer. Ivory may be traded between licensed holders and their total stocks are adjusted accordingly on the computer. Any increases in ivory holdings require further licences. Stocks are subject to surprise checks to ensure that these procedures are complied with.

  NORTHERN IRELAND

    Computer Security
    Mr. Colvin
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what steps his Department has taken, and is taking to improve the security of its computer systems.

    Mr. Cope
    For unclassified but sensitive systems, the Northern Ireland Departments and the Northern Ireland Office follow the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) guidance covering all aspects of IT security. CCTA advice is based on analysis of security risks, requirements and the identification of countermeasures using the CCTA risk analysis and management methodology (CRAMM). The application of CRAMM computer security is kept under continuous review by CCTA and the Northern Ireland Departments.

    Following a recent review of all unclassified but sensitive systems a number of additional security countermeasures have been introduced and action plans have been drawn up to apply further improvements where appropriate.

    In addition the central information systems division, department of finance and personnel provides central support, advice and training on CRAMM to information technology staff in the Northern Ireland Departments. More stringent conditions apply to classified systems.

    Alanbrooke Road, Belfast
    Mr. Peter Robinson
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the cost of the measures taken to close Alanbrooke road in Belfast.

    Mr. Cope
    The cost of providing the physical security measures at Alanbrooke road is a matter for Short Bros. plc.

    University Students
    Mr. John D. Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many undergraduates there are from(a) Northern Ireland and (b) the Republic of Ireland at each of the two universities in Northern Ireland.

    Dr. Mawhinney
    Provisional information for the 1989–90 academic year is as follows:

    Northern Ireland

    Republic of Ireland

    University of Ulster

    Full-time

    6,458

    979

    Part-time

    1,939

    73

    Queen's university

    Full-time

    6,094

    247

    Part-time

    755

    15

    School Rolls
    Mr. John D. Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many pupils there are at each secondary school in the constituency of Newry and Armagh.

    Dr. Mawhinney
    The latest available information is as follows:

    Enrolment (At January 1989)

    Abbey Grammar

    711

    Armagh Secondary

    624

    Markethill High

    418

    Newry High

    568

    Newtownhamilton

    103

    Our Lady's Girls' Grammar, Newry

    766

    Royal Armagh

    558

    Sacred Heart Girls' Grammar, Newry

    778

    St. Brigid's Boys' High, Armagh

    332

    St. Catherine's College, Armagh

    826

    St. Colman's College, Newry

    771

    St. Joseph's Boys', Newry

    545

    St. Joseph's High, Crossmaglen

    539

    St. Mary's Girls' High, Newry

    544

    St. Patrick's High, Ready

    832

    St. Paul's, Bessbrook

    1,240

    St. Patrick's Grammar, Armagh

    717

    Tandragee Junior High

    277

    Supplies (Purchase)
    Mr. Beggs
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what guidance has been given to Northern Ireland bodies funded by his Department to source materials and equipment from Northern Ireland suppliers prior to making purchases from companies in the Irish Republic.

    Mr. Cope
    Northern Ireland Departments are required to comply with the EC directives on fair competition between member states. However, a major effort has been and continues to be made to promote the sourcing of goods and services within Northern Ireland by the public sector with exhibitions throughout the Province and the publication of a comprehensive directory of public purchasers.

    Schools (Strangford)
    Mr. John D. Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many pupils are at each secondary school in the constituency of Strangford in(a) the maintained, (b) the controlled and (c) the integrated sectors of education.

    Dr. Mawhinney
    The latest available information is as follows:

    Enrolment1

    Maintained

    St. Columba's High, Portaferry

    405

    Controlled

    Comber High

    593

    Donaghadee High

    320

    Glastry High

    470

    Movilla High

    663

    Newtownbreda High

    740

    Regent House Grammar

    1,613

    Scrabo High

    487

    569

    Enrolment1

    Integrated

    Lagan College

    545

    1 At January 1989.

    Mr. John D. Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many pupils there are in each of the primary schools in the constituency of Strangford in(a) the maintained, (b) the controlled and (c) the integrated sectors of education.

    Dr. Mawhinney
    The latest available information is as follows:

    Enrolment1

    Maintained

    St. Anne's, Donaghadee

    53

    St. Finian's Newtownards

    234

    St. Mary's, Portaferry

    348

    St. Mary's, Comber

    31

    St. Mary's, Ballygowen

    61

    St. Mary's, Kircubbin

    211

    St. Patrick's, Portaferry

    80

    Controlled

    Alexander Dickson

    181

    Andrews Memorial

    506

    Ballykeigle

    55

    Ballyvester

    77

    Ballywalter

    136

    Belvoir Park

    295

    Braniel

    351

    Cairnshill

    355

    Carrickmannon

    69

    Carrowdore

    151

    Castle Gardens

    617

    Comber

    457

    Cottown

    45

    Donaghadee

    342

    Greyabbey

    65

    Killinchy

    228

    Kircubbin

    58

    Kirkistown

    43

    Leadhill

    184

    Londonderry Model

    266

    Loughries

    73

    Millisle

    204

    Money rea

    136

    Newtownards Model

    401

    Newtownbreda

    247

    O'Neill Memorial

    45

    Portaferry

    46

    Portavogie

    134

    Victoria, Newtownards

    797

    Victoria, Ballyhalbert

    79

    West Winds

    256

    1 At January 1989.

    Note There are no integrated primary schools in the constituency of Strangford.

    Terrorist Suspects (Montage)
    Mr. Molyneaux
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what progress has been made in identifying those members of the Stevens inquiry team responsible for leaving in a Bangor restaurant a montage of terrorist suspects; and what disciplinary action has been taken.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 29 January 1990]: I am aware of no such incident involving the Stevens inquiry team. I understand that a delegation of visiting overseas police officers left an information pack of unclassified
    570
    material in a Bangor hotel which was returned promptly to the police by a member of staff. It may be this incident, which did not constitute any security breach, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.

    EC Funds
    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received from the European regional development fund in each financial year up to 31 December 1989; how much of those receipts each year represented a cash addition to the Northern Ireland economy; and how much each year was used to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: The following amounts were received from the European regional development fund:

    Financial year

    Total

    £ million

    1975–76

    2·9

    1976–77

    7·2

    1977–78

    6·4

    1978–79

    4·0

    1979–80

    16·0

    1980–81

    21·0

    1981–82

    16·4

    1982–83

    18·0

    1983–84

    13·5

    1984–85

    16·9

    1985–86

    18·4

    1986–87

    23·2

    1987–88

    45·9

    1988–89

    46·7

    1989–903

    123·0

    Total

    2279·5

    1 Provisional outturn

    2 The figures show total ERDF receipts brought to account in Northern Ireland. It should be noted that awards totalling £10–5 million were decommitted by the European Commission on failed industrial projects.

    3To December 1989.

    ERDF assistance is earned by industrial and infrastructure projects, and by programmes combining elements of both. Receipts for infrastructure projects undertaken by non-central Government bodies are passed on to them and represent a direct benefit to those bodies by enabling them to reduce their capital indebtedness.

    Receipts for infrastructure projects undertaken by central Government and for industrial projects are paid into the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. All the receipts are subject to normal EC audit arrangements.

    The overall level of receipts is taken into account in the Government's decisions on public expenditure allocations, and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be feasible.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received from the European social fund in each financial year up to 31 December 1989; how much each year represented a cash addition to the Northern Ireland economy; and how much was used to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland.
    571
    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: The following amounts were received from the European social fund:

    Financial year

    Total

    £ million

    1973–74

    —

    1974–75

    3·4

    1975–76

    0·0

    1976–77

    6·4

    1977–78

    7·5

    1978–79

    15·0

    1979–80

    15·0

    1980–81

    23·0

    1981–82

    25·0

    1982–83

    35·2

    1983–84

    38·0

    1984–85

    38·0

    1985–86

    25·0

    1986–87

    53·3

    1987–88

    56·4

    1988–89

    36·1

    1989–902

    127·1

    Total

    404·4

    1 Provisional outturn.

    2 To December 1989.

    Receipts earned by the private sector and by non-central Government public sector bodies are paid to the claimant. The receipts represent cash additions to the recipients. Receipts earned by central Government are paid into the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. All ESF receipts are subject to EC audit arrangements.

    The overall level of receipts is taken into account in the Government's decisions on public expenditure allocations, and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be feasible.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland has received in each financial year since 31 March 1987 from EEC sources apart from payments under the three structural funds.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: The following amounts have been identified as being received in Northern Ireland from European Community sources other than the three structural funds in the last two financial years:

    Financial year

    Total

    £ million

    1987–88

    27·6

    1988–89

    27·8

    Most of the receipts in this category are from the guarantee section of the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund. However, it should be noted that the bulk of guarantee section receipts are disbursed centrally by the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce and details of payments are not generally maintained at regional level.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much money Northern Ireland received in each financial year up to 31 December 1989 from the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund, guidance section; how much of those receipts were 572
    paid to the private sector and how much to the public sector; how much of those receipts represented a cash addition to the Northern Ireland economy; and how much was used each year to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: The following amounts were received from the European agricultural guidance and guarantee fund guidance section:

    Individual capital projects

    £ million

    Financial year

    Private sector

    Public sector1

    Other guidance schemes (private sector)2

    Total

    1974–75

    —

    —

    0·25

    0·25

    1975–76

    0·45

    —

    0·21

    0·66

    1976–77

    1·87

    0·31

    0·27

    2·45

    1977–78

    1·28

    0·31

    1·28

    2·87

    1978–79

    0·70

    0·24

    2·46

    3·40

    1979–80

    1·27

    0·20

    3·21

    4·68

    1980–81

    1·91

    1·05

    3·35

    6·31

    1981–82

    1·43

    1·3

    4·69

    6·25

    1982–83

    2·47

    0·99

    3·30

    6·76

    1983–84

    1·59

    0·38

    14·65

    16·62

    1984–85

    0·95

    0·28

    13·29

    14·52

    1985–86

    3·56

    0·03

    11·83

    15·42

    1986–87

    2·58

    0·11

    5·96

    8·65

    1987–88

    3·29

    —

    5·99

    9·28

    1988–89

    2·31

    0·51

    10·05

    12·87

    41989–90

    22·12

    —

    —

    32·12

    Totals

    27·78

    4·54

    80·79

    113·11

    1 Includes the Milk Marketing Board, which is not financed from public funds although it is a statutory body.

    2 Includes reference to the approximate share of total expenditure in Northern Ireland on various structural schemes which were applied throughout the United Kingdom.

    3 Provisional outturn.

    4 To December 1989.

    All these receipts represent cash additions to the recipients and are subject to normal European Community audit arrangements.

    In addition, £443,000 has been received by the public sector for socio-economic training.

    The overall level of receipts is taken into account in the Government's decisions on public expenditure allocations and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be feasible.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much of the money received by Northern Ireland in each financial year up to 31 December 1989 from EEC sources has been paid into the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: EC receipts received by the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund in respect of grants paid to Government have been distinguished in the public income and expenditure account only since 1983–84. The figures from that date are as follows:

    Financial year

    Total

    £ million

    1983–84

    27·8

    1984–85

    27·8

    1985–86

    18·5

    1986–87

    50·6

    573

    Financial year

    Total

    £ million

    1987–88

    73·6

    1988–89

    67·7

    11989–90

    12·6

    Total

    278·6

    1 To December 1989.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much of the receipts which Northern Ireland has received from the European regional development fund since 1973 has been earned by(a) infrastructure projects undertaken by non-central Government bodies, (b) infrastructure projects undertaken by central Government and (c) industrial projects.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: The following amounts have been received from the European regional development fund to 31 December 1989:

    £ million

    Infrastructure:

    Non-central Government

    106·0

    Central Government

    71·3

    Industry

    77·7

    Programmes1

    24·5

    Total2

    279·5

    1 These programmes combine elements of both industry and infrastructure.

    2 Includes estimated receipts for the first nine months of the 1989–90 financial year.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much of the receipts which Northern Ireland has received from the European regional development fund since 1973 has been earned by(a) the private sector, (b) non-central Government public sector bodies and (c) central Government.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: The following amounts have been received from the European regional development fund to 31 December 1989:

    £ million

    Private sector

    15·8

    Non-central Government public sector bodies

    114·7

    Central Government

    149·0

    Total

    279·5

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much of the £57·9 million of receipts received under the special urban renewal regulation for the Belfast area represented a cash addition to the Northern Ireland economy; and how much was used to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: All £61·8 million of the money due under the urban renewal regulation has now been received. The availability of receipts under the regulation was taken into account when determining public expenditure in Northern Ireland, thereby enabling public expenditure to be set at a higher level than would otherwise have been feasible.

    Rev. Ian Paisley
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much was Northern Ireland's share 574
    of the United Kingdom's payments into the European Economic Community from 1 January 1973 to 31 December 1989; how much was Northern Ireland's share of the receipts for the same period; and how much of those receipts was used to offset Government expenditure on Northern Ireland.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 8 February 1990]: It is not possible to determine Northern Ireland's actual share of the United Kingdom's contribution to the European Community because payments are made on a national and not a regional basis. Similarly it is not possible to identify the full extent of receipts from the Community. However, a Northern Ireland attributed share of the contribution to the EC is calculated as an accounting mechanism necessary because of the operation of a separate Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund. This national attributed share does not count as an item of expenditure within the Northern Ireland public expenditure programme and has therefore no bearing on the level of public expenditure in the Province.

    Figures for the notional attribution of part of Northern Ireland's share of the United Kingdom's payments and for those areas where the receipts can be separately identified are as follows:

    £ million

    Financial year

    Attributed share (part)

    Identified receipts

    1973–74

    1·0

    —

    1974–75

    5·6

    3·6

    1975–76

    7·9

    3·6

    1976–77

    12·7

    16·0

    1977–78

    16·0

    16·8

    1978–79

    23·9

    23·0

    1979–80

    28·1

    36·5

    1980–81

    28·2

    51·0

    1981–82

    50·3

    47·8

    1982–83

    65·6

    61·4

    1983–84

    65·6

    92·4

    1984–85

    67·9

    93·1

    1985–86

    74·4

    85·9

    1986–87

    62·3

    87·9

    1987–88

    191·6

    2139·2

    1988–89

    197·2

    123·5

    Total

    698·3

    3881·7

    1 Attributed share figures for the last two years are provisional estimates which will be revised when final details of tax revenues are determined.

    2 From 1987–88, outturn figures include certain EAGGF guarantee section receipts for which the Department of Agriculture for Northern Ireland assumed accounting responsibility on 1 April 1987.

    3 This comprises total identified EC receipts in Northern Ireland, including those from outside the main EC funds.

    All receipts represent cash additions to the recipients and are subject to normal European Community audit arrangements.

    The overall level of receipts is taken into account in the Government's decisions on public expenditure allocations and their availability enables public expenditure to be maintained at a higher level than would otherwise be feasible.

    Rural Action Project
    Dr. Godman
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he has received a report from the interdepartmental working group on the future of the Rural Action Project, Northern Ireland; and if he will make a statement.
    575
    Mr. Needham
    [holding answer 12 February 1990]: No. The interdepartmental committee on rural development has only recently been set up and is unlikely to have even an interim report with us before March.

    Stormont
    Rev. Martin Smyth
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what building will be vacated in the Stormont estate with the transfer of civil servants to the Castle Court building; and what plans there are for the use of the vacant offices.

    Mr. Cope
    [holding answer 12 February 1990]: The transfer of civil servants to the Castle Court building will vacate part of Castle Buildings in the Stormont estate. It is proposed that the space freed in Castle Buildings will be used by DHSS staff moving from Dundonald house, and the space thus vacated in Dundonald house will be used by DANI and NIO, alleviating current overcrowding and allowing greater centralisation of departmental functions.

    Cave Hill
    Mr. William Ross
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what information he has as to the presence of mineral ores in commercial quantities in or under Cave hill.

    Mr. Needham
    [holding answer 13 February 1990]: None.

    Coleraine Hospital
    Mr. William Ross
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) if he will ensure that the proposed option appraisal for the hospital needs of the Coleraine area is definitive and reach a final conclusion as to the needs of the area;

    (2) what provision he is making for new hospital building in Coleraine in the current and the next five financial years; and what provision he is making to carry over from one financial year to the next sums allocated but not spent in each financial year;

    (3) what steps he is taking to ensure that the new hospital building for Coleraine is completed by 1997;

    (4) whether he will make it his policy to accept the findings of the option appraisal for the Coleraine hospital and immediately it is available build on the basis of its conclusions.

    Mr. Needham
    [holding answer 13 February 1990]: Responsibility for preparing the option appraisal lies with the Northern health and social services board. Provided that it is carried out to the standards required under the Government's guidelines, the appraisal should lead to a final decision on the future provision of acute hospital services in the Coleraine, Ballymoney and Moyle area. The earliest on-site dates which can be accommodated within the Department of Health and Social Services major development programme are 1993 for a phased redevelopment of Coleraine hospital and 1997 for a new hospital. The completion date will depend on which option is chosen.

    Mr. William Ross
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what sums have been expended on Coleraine hospital on(a) new building work, (b)
    576
    maintenance and (c) other capital expenditure in each of the last 10 years; and in the case of (a) above what was provided by the major sums expended in that period.

    Mr. Needham
    [holding answer 13 February 1990]: The information is as follows:

    (a)

    (b)

    (c)

    New building work

    Maintenance1

    Other capital expenditure2

    £

    £

    £

    1978–80

    176,598

    104,983

    1980–81

    430,492

    148,348

    129,411

    1981–82

    734,248

    126,970

    272,017

    1982–83

    59,819

    156,327

    332,315

    1983–84

    31,612

    251,629

    106,833

    1984–85

    1,924

    231,683

    83,854

    1985–86

    349,312

    187,192

    1986–87

    224,228

    98,988

    1987–88

    236,874

    213,464

    1988–89

    259,721

    221,639

    1 Building and engineering.

    2 Capital works, furniture and equipment.

    Expenditure at (a) provided a 72-bed geriatric unit and 15-place day hospital.

    Fishing Industry
    Mr. John D. Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what benefits are available to fishermen who are restricted to only one day's work per week due to the inclement weather; and if he will make a statement on social services assistance to those presently employed in the fishing industry at Portavogie.

    Mr. Needham
    [holding answer 14 February 1990]: Unemployment benefit is available to fishermen for those days of the week on which they are unable to work because of inclement weather provided that their earnings for that week do not equal or exceed the lower earnings level for national insurance contribution liability. This is currently £43 a week. Income support may also he available to fishermen who work for fewer than 24 hours a week subject to the normal rules regarding income and capital.

    The provision of social services in the Portavogie area is the responsibility of the Eastern health and social services board. The board would consider sympathetically any requests for social services assistance made to it by those employed in the fishing industry at Portavogie or their families.

    Births
    Mr. William Ross
    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table to show how many births there were in each hospital in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years; what rare per thousand this represented in the catchment areas of those hospitals in Northern Ireland; and what is the number of births in each hospital to United Kingdom women from outside Northern Ireland and citizens of the Irish Republic.

    Mr. Needham
    [holding answer 14 February 1990]: The number of live births in hospitals in Northern Ireland for each of the five years from 1984 to 1988 are shown in the table. The other information requested is not available.
    577

    Births in Northern Ireland by hospital 1984–88

    Hospital

    1984

    1985

    1986

    1987

    l1988

    Ulster

    2,983

    2,015

    2,090

    2,121

    2,070

    Mater

    728

    748

    878

    936

    863

    Royal Maternity

    3,520

    3,547

    3,630

    3,499

    3,467

    Belfast City

    2,917

    3,027

    3,132

    2,959

    2,929

    Samaritan

    161

    132

    33

    Hospital

    closed

    Downpatrick Maternity

    742

    706

    745

    674

    674

    Lagan Valley

    1,139

    1,129

    1,104

    1,191

    1,233

    Bangor

    1,009

    138

    —

    —

    —

    Ards

    70

    1,000

    1,026

    1,074

    993

    Route

    960

    941

    999

    1,016

    1,032

    Robinson Memorial

    344

    338

    352

    346

    305

    Dalriada

    64

    75

    65

    52

    17

    Cushendall

    19

    15

    11

    5

    —

    Moyle

    424

    402

    489

    543

    611

    Carrickfergus

    124

    117

    136

    114

    61

    Mid-Ulster

    1,023

    1,036

    968

    985

    959

    Massereene

    129

    122

    139

    129

    —

    Ballymena Cottage

    312

    260

    240

    189

    106

    Waveney

    1,172

    1,186

    1,317

    1,467

    1,537

    South Tyrone

    958

    886

    933

    927

    914

    Tower Hill Maternity

    152

    177

    156

    122

    50

    Craigavon Area

    2,195

    2,213

    2,252

    2,316

    2,295

    Banbridge

    193

    172

    155

    175

    96

    Daisy Hill

    1,857

    1,855

    1,813

    1,839

    1,807

    St. John of God

    8

    11

    7

    4

    —

    Altnagelvin

    2,846

    2,855

    3,066

    3,053

    3,089

    Anderson House

    285

    218

    207

    138

    —

    Roe Valley

    61

    17

    —

    —

    —

    Strabane

    122

    79

    12

    —

    —

    Tyrone Country

    1,123

    1,097

    1,119

    1,163

    1,018

    Erne

    961

    1,013

    986

    888

    926

    1 1988 figures are for financial year 1988–89—the other figures shown are for year ended 31 December.

  DEFENCE

    Polish Ex-Service Men
    Mr. Barry Field
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what advice his Department will give to the dependants of Polish ex-service men who settled in the United Kingdom as to the circumstances in which his Department will be prepared to offer them assistance with their resettlement in accordance with undertakings given to the ex-service men when they were settled in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State will write to my hon. Friend.

    Air Defence
    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects that the improved United Kingdom air defence ground environment/integrated command and control system will be in operation.

    Mr. Alan Clark
    In the early 1990s.

    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what effect Staff Requirement (Naval and Air) 908 will have on the date of coming into operation of the improved United Kingdom air defence ground environment/integrated command and control system.

    Mr. Alan Clark
    None.

    Arbitration
    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects that the arbitration between the Ministry of Defence and UKSL will be completed.

    Mr. Alan Clark
    Discussions on the interpretation of aspects of the MOD-UKSL contract are commercially confidential. It is not possible to predict when they might be completed.

    Search and Rescue Helicopters
    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 January,Official Report, columns 690–91, how many persons were in the Independent Television network camera crew which embarked on the search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet at Glasgow airport; and whether any facility fee was paid to his Department.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    Two persons were carried. No charges were levied against the camera crew. The extra costs to the Ministry of Defence were small.

    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 January,Official Report, columns 690–91, what landing charges were paid for the search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet which landed at Glasgow airport; and who paid them.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    Landing charges of £23·20 for landing at Glasgow on the outbound and return trips were paid by the Ministry of Defence.

    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 January,Official Report, columns 690–91, what were (a) the times of departure from Prestwick of the search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet, (b) the time of its arrival at Glasgow airport, (c) the time of its departure from Glasgow airport and (d) the time of its arrival over the search area.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    The times were as follows:(a) 08.04, (b) 08.15, (c) 08.34 and (d) 09.13.

    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 January,Official Report, columns 690–91, at what time the radio breakdown was discovered which delayed the departure of the search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet; and when this fault was rectified.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    The defect was discovered at approximately 07.20 and was rectified at approximately 08.00.

    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 January,Official Report, columns 690–91, what is the normal route to the Ben Nevis area from Prestwick by the search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    The route from Prestwick to Fort William taken by search and rescue crews will vary depending on circumstances such as predicted weather over the flight paths and the time of day. Given the prevailing weather conditions of the area the normal route is via the Crinan canal and then along the coast to Ben Nevis.
    579
    Mr. Menzies Campbell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 11 January,Official Report, columns 690–91, what time the request was received that an Independent Television network camera crew be carried on the search and rescue helicopter from HMS Gannet; and when the request was granted.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    The request was received by HMS Gannet at approximately 07.20 and permission was given shortly afterwards.

    Mr. Cohn Wallace
    Mr. Dalyell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the source or sources of his statement of 12 February,Official Report, column 116, that by all accounts Colin Wallace took a great interest in collecting any information, story or rumour which might be of interest.

    Mr. Archie Hamilton
    The collection of information as background for briefing is a normal feature of the duties of information officers. The statement to which the hon. Member has referred was intended as a general acknowledgement of the long hours and considerable effort expended by Mr. Wallace in understanding all aspects of the Northern Ireland situation which might have been relevant to the fight against terrorism. Evidence to that effect was given to the Civil Service appeal board, and is available to Mr. David Calcutt QC in his inquiry.

    Submarines
    Mr. Boyes
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on progress in the ELF submarine communications programme; what are the reasons for the delays in installation of a trial ELF transmitter in Glengarry; and when he now expects to submit a notice of intention to develop an ELF facility to the Highland regional council.

    Mr. Neubert
    [holding answer 9 February 1990]: Work on ELF communications continues at the Admiralty research establishment. A decision to proceed with limited testing of the technology at Glengarry will depend on the availability of resources. I cannot speculate therefore when a notice of proposed developments might be submitted.

    US Military Personnel
    Mr. Cohen
    To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many United States military personnel are living off base in the United Kingdom; and what estimate he has made of the lost revenue to local authorities arising from these persons being exempted from paying the community charge.

    Mr. Chope
    I have been asked to reply.

    The Ministry of Defence estimates that 12,500 US military and civilian personnel currently live off-base. I estimate that if they were subject to the community charge for standard spending these personnel would pay a total of £3,475,000 to local authorities in 1990–91. Individual local authorities in England will, however, receive sufficient revenue support grant to enable them to set a charge, before the safety net, at the level of the community charge for standard spending (£278 in 1990–91) if they budget to spend at the level of their standard spending assessment. The grant system therefore compensates for the fact that US military and civil personnel do not pay the personal charge.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Private Security Firms
    Mr. George
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the names of all the private security firms currently employed by his Department, the number of employees for each firm on the contract, the total value of each contract and the total value of all contracts for each financial year since 1984–85.

    Mr. Curry
    The following list shows the companies that currently have contracts with the Department to provide private security guarding, together with the number of employees involved:

    Number of posts

    Blackwater Property Protection Service

    1

    Compass Security Ltd.

    4

    Reliance Security Ltd.

    1

    Securiguard (London) Services Ltd.

    2

    Shorrock Guards Ltd.

    10

    UK Security Services Ltd.

    2

    Wakenhut (UK) Ltd.

    1

    In keeping with normal commercial practice it would not be appropriate in these cases for me to give the value of each individual contract. Contracts are not necessarily made for financial years but our calculation of the total value of all the contracts in each financial year is as follows:

    £'000

    1984–85

    170

    1985–86

    277

    1986–87

    297

    1987–88

    312

    1988–89

    329

    1989–90

    358

    Meat Exports (West Germany)
    Mr. Pawsey
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the level of redundancies or lay-offs in the meat industry following the decision of the West German Government to ban meat imports from the United Kingdom.

    Mr. Maclean
    The German authorities have not banned imports of meat from the United Kingdom, but have imposed additional certification requirements for beef. I understand that these requirements do not now apply to boneless beef and that trade in bone-in beef is continuing. Thus the impact on our total meat export trade is only limited. Moreover, in 1989 our beef exports to Germany represented only about 1 per cent. of our total beef production.

    Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
    Mr. Alan W. Williams
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) how many bulls at artificial insemination centres in the United Kingdom have been found to be afflicted by bovine spongiform encephalopathy; and what estimate can be made of the number of calves that these would have fathered during their lives;
    581
    (2) what are the latest figures for the number of (a) bulls and (b) cows affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy;

    (3) whether there is any restriction on the sale of calves from bulls later diagnosed as affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

    Mr. Maclean
    Up to 9 February, BSE had been confirmed in 9,976 cows and 22 bulls in Great Britain. Five of those bulls were found at artificial insemination centres and are estimated to have sired around 1,000 calves between them. Research is in hand to establish whether the BSE agent is transmitted in semen. However, analogy with sheep scrapie suggests that such transmission will not occur and restrictions on the progeny of affected bulls are not, therefore, appropriate.

    Mr. Alan W. Williams
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will consider introducing a substantial educational programme for farmers including leaflets, booklets and the use of video film to help them recognise the symptoms of bovine spongiform encephalopathy-infected animals.

    Mr. Maclean
    Information about BSE has been disseminated extensively through the farming press and has received wide coverage in other press and media. Advisory leaflets are given to all farmers who report a suspect case of BSE. In addition, Ministry veterinary staff make regular presentations, involving widespread material, to farming groups.

    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the regulations concerned with preventing meat from cattle slaughtered because they are infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy from reaching the human food chain and for ensuring that cattle slaughtered for food are not infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

    Mr. Maclean
    The legislation is as follows:

    The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (No. 2) Order 1988 (as amended).

    The Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Compensations Order 1990.

    The Bovine Offals (Prohibition) Regulations 1989.

    Mr. Ron Davies
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is(a) the largest number of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy recorded on a single farm, (b) the average number of cases per affected herd,(c) the proportions of herds which have had a single case, (d) the proportion of all dairy herds that have had one or more cases and (e) the proportion of all beef herds that have had one or more cases.

    Mr. Maclean
    The information for Great Britain is as follows:

    29

    1·75

    63·3 per cent.

    10·3 per cent.

    0·7 per cent.

    Scrapie
    Mr. Alan W. Williams
    To ask the Minister Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he plans to place any restriction on the sale of breeding rams affected by scrapie.

    Mr. Maclean
    Research into scrapie has shown that the infective agent is not transmitted in semen. Controls on breeding rams are not, therefore, appropriate.

    Paternity Leave
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Curry
    At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

    NATO Exercises
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what contribution his Department will make to the NATO exercises due to be held in Norway during March.

    Mr. Maclean
    None.

    Veterinary Officers
    Dr. David Clark
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many veterinary officers were permanently employed in all grades of the state veterinary service throughout England, Scotland and Wales in 1989 and currently; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Gummer
    In 1989 422 veterinary staff were permanently employed in all grades of the state veterinary service throughout England, Scotland and Wales. The current figure is 430. It is likely that this number will increase particularly for food safety work including meat hygiene. This was recognised in the recent review of veterinary manpower under the chairmanship of Dr. Ewan Page.

    Food Research
    Dr. David Clark
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will list all the research projects currently being carried out at the Institute of Food Research in Bristol and indicate which ones will be transferred to other research establishments, giving the name of the research establishment in each case;

    (2) if he will list the projects his Department is funding and the amount of this financial contribution to these projects at each of (a) Leatherhead Food Research Association, (b) Campden Food Preservation Research Association, (c) Huddersfield polytechnic, (d) Sheffield polytechnic and (e) Dorset Institute of Higher Education for (i) 1988, (ii) 1989, (iii) 1990 and (iv) 1991.

    Mr. Gummer
    I have placed in the Library of the House a copy of my Department's programme of external research and development on food for 1988–89 and 1989–90. Proposals for 1990–91 are currently under consideration.

    Dr. David Clark
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the organisations and committees which give him advice on food safety research; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Gummer
    I receive advice on research and development (R&D) into food safety from my own officials and the following bodies:

    (a) the Priorities Board for R&D in Agriculture and Food;

    583

    (a) the Steering Group on Food Surveillance;

    (c) the Food Advisory Committee;

    (d) the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment;

    (e) the Veterinary Products Committee; and

    (f) the Advisory Committee on Pesticides.

    From time to time, I also receive suggestions from other outside organisations.

    The Government are firmly committed to funding research and development on food safety and hygiene issues of concern to consumers, producers and industry.

    Perrier
    Dr. David Clark
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will place the results of his Department's tests on Perrier water in the Library.

    Mr. Gummer
    The results of my Department's tests on Perrier water were made available by the Food Safety Directorate in the form of news release 67/90 on 15 February. A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.

    Pesticides
    Dr. David Clark
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list all(a) pesticide residue levels and (b) levels of pesticide residue breakdown products he has set, indicating the level and type of food and the date when the levels were set; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Gummer
    Statutory maximum residue levels (M RLs) for a range of pesticides used on the more important components of the United Kingdom diet are set out in the Pesticides (Maximum Residue Levels in Food) Regulations 1988, SI No. 1378, made on 1 August 1988. Schedule 1 of the regulations lists MRLs for cereals and products of animal origin and came into force on 2 August 1988. Schedule 2 lists MRLs mainly for fruit and vegetables and came into force on 31 December 1988. Schedule 3 lists the individual pesticides and describes how their residues are to be defined in terms of their metabolites or breakdown products.

    Fungicides
    Dr. David Clark
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will place the results of his Ministry's tests on the presence of the ethylene biodithiocarbonate fungicides and ethylene thiourea in various foods in the Library.

    Mr. Gummer
    The Government's working party on pesticide residues carries out a programme of tests on food for pesticide residues, which has included these substances. The results are published: the latest report covering 1985–88 came out on 13 March 1989.

    Very recently the results of tests for residues of these substances in a range of foodstuffs have been published by Friends of the Earth and Parents for Safe Food. These were carried out by an independent analyst and showed that the majority of the produce had negligible or no detectable residues. A few samples showed levels which, while giving no cause for concern, on health grounds were above predicted levels. With the agreement of the sponsors MAFF will be repeating these tests, both on the samples used by their analyst and on further samples. The results will be placed in the Library of the House, and published.

    Domestic Animals (Diseases)
    Mr. Morley
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the diseases known to his Department that can cause domestic animal death, but which would not bar their meat from human consumption.

    Mr. Maclean
    Any animal which has died from any disease is prohibited from being sold for human consumption under the Slaughterhouse (Hygiene) Regulations 1977. The Meat Inspection Regulations 1987 require the meat inspector to have regard to the indications of unfitness set out in schedule 2 to those regulations: those indications include both specific diseases and more general symptoms or conditions.

    Poultry Slaughtering
    Mr. Morley
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why poultry slaughter figures are being reorganised from 10-day to monthly figures; and i F he will make a statement.

    Mr. Maclean
    There are no such 10-day statistics on poultry slaughter.

    Cattle Offal
    Mr. Illsley
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the food products and types of food products which are made, have added to them or are constructed from(a) beef cattle offal, (b) mechanically recovered beef or beef offal and (c) beef cattle residues.

    Mr. Maclean
    The Department does not hold such information. However, all meat products offered for sale must comply with the provisions of the Food Act 1984, the Food Labelling Regulations 1984 and the Meat Products and Spreadable Fish Products Regulations 1984. In addition, the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 prohibit the sale, or use in the preparation of foods for sale for human consumption, of bovine brain, spinal cord, spleen, thymus, tonsils and intestines.

    Salmon
    Mr. Trotter
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will list the organisations which have made representations to his Department in support of the commercial drift netting salmon industry of the coast of north-east England.

    Mr. Curry
    The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has received a large number of letters from organisations and individuals about this fishery and the current statutory review following section 39 of the Salmon Act 1986. Those who have made representations in favour of the fishery include:

    Anglo-Scottish Fish Producers Organisations Ltd.

    Beadnell Parish Council

    Cornish Fish Producers Organisation Ltd.

    Federation of British Port Wholesale Fish Merchants Associations

    Fisheries Organisation Society Ltd.

    National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations

    North Eastern Sea Fisheries Committee

    Whitby Cobleman's Association

    Yorks and Anglia Fish Producers Organisation.

    585
    Ministers in the Department have also held meetings with representatives of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations and a number of local salmon net fishermen.

    Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce
    Mr. Morgan
    To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will make it his policy to relocate the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce, currently in Reading, into the premises at Crown buildings, Cathays park, Cardiff, to be vacated in April 1991 by the insurance services group of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

    Mr. Curry
    My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Northern Ireland and myself are currently examining the location of part of the work of the intervention board away from Reading.

  TRANSPORT

    Severn Crossing
    Mr. Stern
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the target date for the completion of the second Severn crossing and its approach roads.

    Mr. Atkins
    The decision on timing will depend on our final evaluation of the tenders; we remain on course to provide the second crossing by the mid-1990s.

    Paternity Leave
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Atkins
    At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

    NATO Exercises
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what contribution his Department will make to the NATO exercises due to be held in Norway during March.

    Mr. Portillo
    None.

    A27, Worthing
    Mr. Higgins
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many houses on the preferred route announced for the development of the A27 in the Worthing area are officially blighted; how many owners have begun negotiations for their sale to his Department; and how many sales have now been completed.

    Mr. Atkins
    The Department's preferred route for the A27 Worthing to Lancing would involve the acquisition of land from some 120 houses. Blight notices have been accepted from 79 owners. Of these, 59 have settled compensation with the district valuer and 25 have completed sales to the Department.

    Air Safety
    Mr. Kirkwood
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from interested parties regarding the near miss involving an Air UK civil airliner and a military Tornado aeroplane which occurred over Kelso on Wednesday 31 January.

    Mr. McLoughlin
    The responsibility for investigating airmiss reports rests with the independent joint airmiss working group. This group arranges for all interested parties to make representations to the investigators and in this case it includes the Ministry of Defence, the civil operator and the air traffic control unit which was providing an advisory service to the civil aircraft at the time.

    Mr. Kirkwood
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to investigate the near miss involving an Air UK civil airliner and a military Tornado aeroplane which occurred over Kelso on Wednesday 31 January; if he will make it his policy to publish a report on the background to the incident; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. McLoughlin
    The investigation of airmiss reports is the responsibility of the independent joint airmiss working group. The group meets regularly to consider the circumstances surrounding every reported airmiss. Details of its deliberations and assessment of the risk and cause are published every four months by the Civil Aviation Authority.

    Mr. Kirkwood
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether the civil aircraft involved in a near miss with a military Tornado aeroplane over Kelso on Wednesday 31 January was in unregulated air space at the time of the incident.

    Mr. McLoughlin
    The incident is the subject of a full investigation by the independent joint airmiss working group. From the facts available at present, it would appear that both aircraft were in unregulated airspace at the time of the incident.

    Mr. Harry Barnes
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) how many of the incidents reported to the joint airmiss working party since 1 January 1987 of helicopters coming dangerously close to other aircraft when operating to, from or between offshore installations (1) took place in controlled air space, (2) had aircraft operating under instructions given by air traffic control to either captain, (3) took place in air space for which an advisory service was available, (4) had aircraft in receipt of advisory services and (5) operated outside either controlled air space or advisory services;

    (2) how many reported incidents there have been to the joint airmiss working party since 1 January 1987 of helicopters being claimed to have come dangerously close to other aircraft when operating to, from and between offshore installations; what were the identities of the other aircraft, by type and operator; at what heights the incidents took place; and in which cases either the helicopter or the other aircraft were on approach or take-off;

    (3) if he will prepare and publish a report on the lessons to be drawn from the incidents of helicopters coming dangerously close to other aircraft;
    587
    (4) in which cases where incidents have been reported to the joint airmiss working party since 1 January 1987 of helicopters coming dangerously close to other aircraft when operating to, from or between offshore installations the incidents have been categorised as A, B or C; and where the responsibility for each incident has been laid.

    Mr. McLoughlin
    These are matters for the Civil Aviation Authority, which has the statutory responsibility for the safety regulation of civil aviation.

    I have drawn the questions to the attention of the chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority and will ask him to write to the hon. Member direct.

    A3 (Noise)
    Mr. David Howell
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he will complete his review of noise insulation and noise barrier needs to protect residents living adjacent to the A3 trunk road on the Ladymead to Hog's Back section.

    Mr. Atkins
    No review of noise insulation is being undertaken. I can agree to four of six noise barriers proposed as an interim solution pending the longer-term improvements to this section of the A3 recently announced. The case for two of these barriers nearest the A31 bridge is not made, but is being re-examined following the recent alterations to the A3 northbound carriageway. It is not possible to say yet when this re-examination will be completed.

    Motorway Exits
    Mr. Hunter
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he is taking to eliminate the queueing which is occurring at the exits of junction 6 on the M3 at Basingstoke.

    Mr. Atkins
    The installation of peak hour traffic signals is being considered to deal with this problem pending longer-term solutions. A scheme for the grade separation of the Black Dam roundabout was added to the trunk road programme last year. This should overcome the problems in the longer term.

    Mr. Hunter
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he is taking to remove the danger of stationary vehicles in queues in nearside lanes waiting to leave motorways.

    Mr. Atkins
    The proposals announced in "Roads for Prosperity" (Cm. 693) in May 1989, including widening and junction improvements of substantial lengths of existing motorway, will go a long way to reducing congestion, including that caused by vehicles queuing to leave motorways. In the case of some junctions not scheduled for major improvement, minor schemes such as installation of signal controls can reduce queuing, especially at peak periods.

    Scottish Lowland Airports
    Mr. David Marshall
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the reasons for the delay in the announcement of his decision on the review of Scottish lowland airports policy; and when he now expects to make it.
    588
    Mr. McLoughlin
    There has been no delay. Careful consideration is being given to the very full response to our recent consultation, and my right hon. Friend hopes to announce his decision before long.

    St. John's Wood Station (Escalators)
    Mr. Kaufman
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to his reply on escalators at St. John's Wood to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton,Official Report, 12 February, column 112, concerning work on the out-of-service escalator at St. John's Wood station, if he will seek from London Underground an explanation as to why a notice states that the escalator in question will be out of service until early April.

    Mr. Portillo
    This is a matter within London Underground Limited's management responsibility.

    Road Projects
    Mr. Matthew Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will publish tables showing the estimated completion dates for the major road projects outlined in the roads White Paper in 1987 and the present estimated completion dates; and if he will make a statement;

    (2) if the roads report promised in the White Paper, "Roads for Prosperity", has been completed; and if he will make a statement;

    (3) when he plans to complete and publish the roads report promised in the White Paper, "Roads for Prosperity"; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Atkins
    Preparation of the roads report is complete and will be published very shortly. The report will include tables showing details of all schemes in the national trunk road programme, including completion dates where appropriate. It will cover the schemes under construction or in preparation at the time of publication of "Policy for Roads in England 1987" and additions to the programme made since, including those announced in the White Paper, "Roads for Prosperity" published last May.

    A30 (Dualling)
    Mr. Matthew Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what is the present target date for completing dualling of the A30 in(a) Cornwall and (b) Devon; and if he will make a statement;

    (2) what progress has been made in drawing up plans for dualling the whole of the A30 in (a) Cornwall and (b) Devon; and if he will make a statement;

    (3) whether the review of plans for the dualling of the A30 in (a) Cornwall and (b) Devon, promised in the White Paper, "Roads for Prosperity", has been completed; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Atkins
    Dualling of the A30 in Devon, west of Exeter, is planned to be completed by the end of 1993.

    Current plans for the improvement of the A30 in Cornwall do not provide for dual carriageways throughout, but the assessment of needs of the whole route foreshadowed in "Roads for Prosperity", which will start later this year, will include consideration of the need for further dualling.

    A38 (Dualling)
    Mr. Matthew Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what stage plans for the dualling of the A38 Liskeard to Bodmin have reached; if the review promised in the White Paper, "Roads for Prosperity", has been completed; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Atkins
    We expect to consult the public on possible route options in the autumn. The assessment of needs of the A38 between Exeter and Plymouth is expected to start later this year.

    Network SouthEast
    Mr. Channon
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will direct British Rail to give priority in its investment plans for Network SouthEast to improving rolling stock.

    Mr. Parkinson
    Network SouthEast has already identified rolling stock as its top investment priority. It is planning to invest some £1·2 billion over the next three years, of which about 70 per cent. will be for replacement of old stock and additional trains to relieve overcrowding.

    Mr. Channon
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has received from British Rail about the timing of investment plans to improve the least satisfactory commuter lines in Network SouthEast.

    Mr. Parkinson
    Network SouthEast will be bringing forward various investments over the coming months to back up its efforts to achieve the quality objectives over every route by 1993. I know that it has begun work on detailed investment proposals for modernising the north Kent lines and the London-Tilbury-Southend line and I look forward to receiving its formal investment submissions as soon as they are ready.

    Pollution
    Mrs. Ann Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, further to his answer of 15 January,Official Report, column 46, what was the sample size of the 1988 survey which showed 3·6 per cent. of heavy goods vehicles emitting excessive smoke; and what results were obtained from the regional roadside visual checks of exhaust smoke from heavy goods vehicles undertaken by his Department's vehicle inspectorate in 1985, 1986 and 1987.

    Mr. Atkins
    The figures requested are:

    Year and region

    Number checked

    Number emitting excess smoke

    Per cent, emitting excess smoke

    1985

    North

    18,637

    663

    3·56

    Scotland

    8,583

    640

    7·46

    South West and Wales

    17,050

    1,690

    9·91

    South East

    22,855

    2,703

    11·83

    1985

    National

    67,125

    5,696

    8·49

    1986

    North

    17,032

    805

    4·73

    Scotland

    7489

    300

    401

    South West and Wales

    11,731

    1,083

    9·23

    South East

    20,821

    2,154

    10·35

    590

    Year and region

    Number checked

    Number emitting excess smoke

    Per cent, emitting excess smoke

    1986

    National

    57,073

    4,342

    7·61

    1987

    North

    21,029

    894

    4·25

    Scotland

    7,130

    199

    2·79

    South West and Wales

    13,368

    1,242

    9·29

    South East

    29,338

    2,532

    8·63

    1987

    National

    70,865

    4,867

    6·87

    1988

    North

    7,824

    235

    3·00

    Scotland

    3,817

    68

    1·78

    South West and Wales

    10,195

    475

    4·66

    South East

    17,726

    650

    3·67

    1988

    National

    39,562

    1,428

    3·61

    1989

    North

    8,874

    275

    3·10

    Scotland

    4,175

    48

    1·15

    South West and Wales

    6,921

    263

    3·80

    South East

    12,938

    346

    2·67

    1989

    National

    32,908

    932

    2·83

    Mrs. Ann Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has about pollution from motor vehicles, including motor cycles, detected by his Department's vehicle inspectorate since 1986, including excessive smoke emissions and excessive noise; and whether he will in future take steps to publish annually a separate analysis of such information.

    Mr. Atkins
    The percentages of heavy goods and passenger service vehicles failing their annual test for excess smoke or for defective exhaust systems are as follows:

    Excess smoke

    Defective exhaust

    PSV Percentage

    HGV Percentage

    PSV Percentage

    HGV Percentage

    1986–87

    1·34

    1·09

    2·29

    0·97

    1987–88

    1·60

    1·18

    2·86

    1·11

    1988–89

    1·42

    1·06

    2·76

    1·72

    The percentages of vehicles selected at random seen emitting excess smoke during roadside surveys were:

    Heavy goods vehicles (Statistical checks) Percentage

    Public service vehicles (Deregulation survey) Percentage

    1985

    8·49

    —

    1986

    7·61

    —

    1987

    6·87

    1·89

    1988

    3·61

    1·18

    1989

    2·83

    1·31

    The numbers of cars, light goods vehicles and motor cycles failing their MOT test for excess noise is not recorded separately. There are currently no checks for excess emissions in the MOT test.
    591
    The vehicle inspectorate executive agency publishes statistics relating to its work in its annual report, copies of which are in the House of Commons Library. It is going to expand the amount of data it publishes.

    Ferries (Safety)
    Mr. Terry Davis
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he will publish the report and recommendations of phase I of the research programme into the safety of roll-on roll-off ferries.

    Mr. McLoughlin
    All the projects in phase I of the Department of Transport-sponsored research programme into ways of increasing the safety of ro-ro passenger ferries have now been completed. The steering committee which has been supervising the programme has nearly completed its assessment of the results, and I expect to receive its report next month. I will, of course, need to consider that report, but it is my intention to make the report and the results of the research widely available as soon as possible.

    Clapham Rail Accident
    Mr. Bowis
    To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to receive British Rail's response to Sir Anthony Hidden's report on the Clapham Junction railway accident; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Portillo
    The chairman of the railways board, Sir Robert Reid, sent me his initial response to Sir Anthony Hidden's recommendations earlier today. I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Library.

    I am pleased to see that the railways board has been able to accept all the recommendations which apply to it. It has already implemented many of these, including all those that required urgent action.

    Several of the recommendations depend on developmental work for their full implementation. I know that Sir Robert Reid and the board are anxious to press on with full implementation as quickly as practicable, and to ensure that the systems are right before installing them. The railway inspectorate is discussing the detailed programme of implementation, including the prototype trials now going ahead, with BR. The implementation of some other recommendations depends on a satisfactory outcome to negotiations between BR and the railway unions: I am sure that both sides will do all they can to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the railway.

    Part of the cost of implementation of the Hidden report is covered by the £125 million for safety measures already included in BR's expenditure plans for the next three years and endorsed by the Government. I have asked BR to produce detailed estimates of the cost of implementing the longer-term recommendations; it is now assessing these and will include them in its 1990 corporate plan, which I shall be discussing with it later in the year. We will continue to ensure that BR has adequate funds for safety.

  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Human Rights
    Mr. Maclennan
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in what manner the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on 592
    Human Rights and by the international covenant on civil and political rights are directly secured by domestic law to everyone within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    The provisions of our common and statute law have always recognised basic human rights and freedoms. New laws are drafted in the light of international conventions and covenants; and, where necessary, existing laws are amended in the light of international judgments to meet our obligations.

    Mr. Rooker
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about compliance by the United Kingdom with covenants on civil and political rights, detailing how decisions of United Kingdom courts are communicated to international bodies monitoring such covenants.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    The United Kingdom fully meets its obligations under the various international instruments dealing with civil and political rights to which it is party. Details of court decisions relevant to a particular international instrument would normally be included in the United Kingdom's regular reports to treaty-monitoring bodies.

    Criminal Proceedings
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any proposals to reduce the time taken to complete hearings in criminal proceedings.

    Mr. John Patten
    We have urged magistrates and court clerks to concentrate on reducing delays. A training video, "Court in Action", was launched earlier this year. A management information system has been introduced to help magistrates courts monitor their performance and performance targets have been set. We have authorised additional court clerk posts, and we shall be issuing guidance later this year on listing and efficient use of court resources. We intend to extend the operation of statutory custody time limits to the whole of England and Wales by the end of the year.

    My noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has taken steps to tackle delays in the Crown court through the provision of more resources and improved management. Additional judges have been appointed and new courtrooms opened.

    We shall be monitoring the impact of these initiatives carefully.

    Paternity Leave
    Mr. Redmond
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what paternity leave is allowed to staff in his Department; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Waddington
    At present paternity leave is not available to civil servants. The Treasury is, however, finalising arrangements for the introduction of an entitlement to two days' paid paternity leave.

    Departmental Circulars
    Mr. Vaz
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the name and number of every circular issued by his Department since June 1979; and what monitoring is done for their implementation.
    593
    Mr. Waddington
    Since 1979 the Home Office has issued each year an average of about 75 circulars to local and police authorities. A list giving details of these circulars is prepared quarterly and a copy sent to the Clerk to the Select Committee on Home Affairs. To list the name and number of every circular and to establish what monitoring has been done for their implementation would require a disproportionate use of resources.

    Departmental Advisers
    Mr. Vaz
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names and previous occupations of advisers currently appointed to his Department, stating their current salaries.

    Mr. Waddington
    The information is as follows:

    Mr. John Godfrey—seconded from Daiwa (Europe) Ltd

    Mr. John Taylor (from 19 February 1990)—barrister-at-
    law

    It is not the practice to disclose the salaries of special advisers as they are negotiated individually in relation to previous outside earnings and are therefore confidential.

    Dr. Malde Modhwadia
    Mr. Vaz
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the case of Dr. Malde Modhwadia of 245 Goodwood road, Leicester; and when he estimates the case will be resolved.

    Mr. John Patten
    The hon. Member is aware that inquiries are now being made into new information about this case. I understand that these inquiries will be completed shortly and I will write to the hon. Member as soon as we have had an opportunity to consider the results.

    London Prisons
    Mr. Cox
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any plans to co-opt on to the local boards of visitors at each London prison members from the local education authorities which are shortly to be set up.

    Mr. Mellor
    No. At least two members of the board of visitors to prison establishments are required to be Justices of the Peace, but it is not otherwise the practice to appoint members to boards by virtue of their office. In making appointments to boards of visitors, consideration is rather given to the abilities of the individual candidate to discharge the duties effectively and the desirability of maintaining, so far as possible, a representative balance on the board in terms of age, sex and social and ethnic background.

    Prison Officers
    Mr. O'Brien
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department which prisons have failed to meet their full establishment figures for prison officers; and what is the shortfall of staff in each of these prisons.

    Mr. Mellor
    The initial complement figures set for each establishment during the introduction of the "fresh start" arrangements have already been modified in many instances and are in the process of further revision. They will continue to be reviewed during the period of the 594
    framework agreement to take account of the resources available to the prison service and of the progressive reduction in the working week for prison officers. This continuing series of changes means that any list of complement figures for each of the 124 establishments around the country would be misleading and unreliable. Nationally the position remains that we have provided and will continue to provide all the additional staff promised under "fresh start": the number of prison officers in post has risen by nearly 20 per cent. over the past three years.

    Mr. Lofthouse
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the total shortage of trained prison officers in England and Wales.

    Mr. Mellor
    Although there are still problems in particular establishments, there is no general shortage of officers in the prison service. We are having no difficulty in attracting good quality recruits and are continuing to provide all the additional staff promised under "fresh start." The number of prison officers in post is now over 20,000, nearly 20 per cent. higher than three years ago.

    Private Security Firms
    Mr. George
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the names of all the private security firms currently employed by his Department, the number of employees for each firm on the contract, the total value of each contract and the total value of all contracts for each financial year since 1984–85.

    Mr. Waddington
    The following private security firms are currently employed by my Department:

    Burns International

    Chubb Wardens Limited

    Compass Security

    Group 4 Total Security Limited

    Potton Leisure Limited

    Real Security

    Reliance Security

    Securicor

    Securiguard Services Limited

    Security Express

    Security Services

    Wray Security.

    The value of each contract is a matter of commercial and contractual confidentiality. Information about the total value of all such contracts for each year since 1984–85 is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. Information about the number of staff employed on each contract is also not readily available; in some cases the number varies from day to day according to operational requirements.

    Community Service Orders
    Mr. Grylls
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the average time between sentencing and the start of the community service order in(a) inner London and (b) the rest of the country.

    Mr. John Patten
    The implementation of the national standards for community service orders, which were introduced in April last year, is being monitored through quarterly returns from all probation areas. During the first six months (April to September 1989) the following delays were recorded between sentencing and the start of the community service work, based on the returns received and coded so far:
    595

    Delays in days

    Inner London probation areas

    Areas outside inner London

    Number

    per cent.

    Number

    per cent.

    0 to 6

    127

    19·00

    4,737

    47·8

    7 to 9

    137

    20·50

    1,912

    19·3

    10 to 13

    139

    20·75

    1,570

    15·8

    14 to 20

    139

    20·75

    1,074

    10·8

    21 and over

    127

    19·00

    627

    6·3

    669

    100·00

    9,920

    100·0

    The most frequent reason for delay in beginning work in inner London was the unavailability of work placements. Other reasons included the offender's failure to turn up for interviews or work, health, domestic or mental problems, further offending, conflicting employment commitments and administrative error.

    Mr. Grylls
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proportion of criminals sentenced to community service orders completed their full hours.

    Mr. John Patte
    [holding answer 16 February 1990]: The information requested is published in "Probation Statistics England and Wales 1988" (table 6.11). In 1988, the proportion of community service orders that were terminated on completion of the specified number of hours was 72 per cent.

    Violent Crime
    Mr. Lofthouse
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what further proposals he has to combat and reduce the incidence of violent crime.

    Mr. John Patten
    Our proposals in chapter 3 of the White Paper, "Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public" (Cm 965), include empowering the Crown court to impose longer sentences on serious violent and sexual offenders where this is necessary to protect the public. I also refer the hon. Member to the reply given to questions from the hon. Members for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and for Hemsworth (Mr. Buckley) and the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), on 25 January at column 864

    Licensed Hotels
    Mr. Barry Field
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will take steps to compile statistics on how many licensing benches insist on a dry lounge in licensed hotels.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    No. It would not be practicable to compile statistics of the very many different types of conditions which licensing justices may attach when granting an on-licence; and we have no reason to suppose that licences granted under part IV of the Licensing Act 1964 do not normally have a "dry room" condition.

    Drug Trafficking
    Mr. Sheerman
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many persons now serving sentences in British prisons have been convicted of crimes related to drug trafficking.

    Mr. Mellor
    The available information on the type of drugs offence for England and Wales is published annually 596
    in "Prison statistics England and Wales" (Table 1(a) of the volume for 1988, Cm 825). Information on custodial sentences imposed in the United Kingdom for drug trafficking offences is published annually in "Statistics of the misuse of drugs: seizures and offenders dealt with. Supplementary tables" (Table 2.6 of the issue for 1988). Copies of both volumes are in the Library.

    Crime Prevention
    Mr. Sheerman
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what percentage of the Home Office research unit budget is spent on evaluating the crime prevention potential of different building materials.

    Mr. John Patten
    None, although some crime prevention demonstration projects funded from time to time may involve, among other things, "target hardening" of doors, windows and frames through improved materials and design.

    New Prisons
    Mr. Heffer
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what sites for new prisons he has considered and rejected in the north-west over the last two years.

    Mr. Mellor
    During this period the Home Office has considered some 40 possible sites. Only one of these, at Fazakerley, Liverpool, is being actively pursued at present. Discussions on a number of the sites were on a confidential basis, because of commercial considerations, and it would not be right to list all of the sites involved.

    Pop Concerts
    Mr. Janner
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he intends to introduce measures to ensure that all security staff at pop concerts are trained in fire control and emergency evacuation; and if he will make a statement;

    (2) whether he intends to introduce proposals to ensure that the conditions of entry to pop concerts are better publicised; and if he will make a statement;

    (3) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that a common grid map should be devised and used by emergency services at all pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (4) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that all sites used for pop concerts are surveyed for crowd safety purposes; and if he will make a statement;

    (5) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that all vendors on the sites of pop concerts are prevented from selling alcohol, or drinks in bottles or cans; and if he will make a statement;

    (6) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that an emergency control room should be set up at all pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (7) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that an evacuation plan approved by the emergency services should be prepared prior to all pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (8) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that the heads of security at all pop concerts should be allowed access to non-classified local emergency plans; and if he will make a statement;
    597
    (9) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that there should be a defined head of security and a named site controller for all pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (10) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure that there should be a VHF exclusive frequency used for radio communications at all pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (11) whether he proposes to introduce measures to ensure the reduction of crowd build-up at entry points to pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (12) whether he will introduce legislation to ensure that all senior supervisors at pop concerts are (a) within constant radio contact and (b) trained in fire control, emergency evacuation and cardiac pressure and resuscitation; and if he will make a statement;

    (13) whether he will introduce measures to ensure adequate training and discipline of security staff employed at all pop concerts; and if he will make a statement;

    (14) whether he will introduce measures to ensure that all first-aid posts and treatment centres at pop concerts should be left to trained first-aid personnel; and if he will make a statement;

    (15) whether he will introduce measures to ensure that one person at pop concerts should be stationed on the stage with the authority to stop the show at any time; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    Under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982, or in London the London Government Act 1963, responsibility for controlling places which are used for public musical entertainments, including pop concerts, is vested in the local authority. One of the purposes of this licensing regime is to ensure that places used for such entertainments have adequate standards of safety and hygiene and the legislation empowers local authorities to attach terms, conditions and restrictions to an entertainments licence. When considering the issue of such licences the local authority will generally have regard to any observations submitted to it by the police and the fire authority, to which advance notice of the application must be given.

    We have no present plans for any fundamental alterations to the existing arrangements for the licensing of public entertainments. The local authority is best placed to determine, in the circumstances of each individual application, exactly what conditions relating to crowd safety should be attached to any particular entertainments licence.

    To assist local authorities and fire authorities, as well as managers and licensees of premises, we are shortly to publish a comprehensive "Guide to Fire Precautions in Existing Places of Public Entertainment and Like Premises". This consolidates and to some extent revises existing guidance and contains specific advice on fire safety at pop concerts. We are also considering, in consultation with other agencies with an interest in the question, whether any further guidance should be issued to local authorities about crowd safety at public musical entertainments.

    Immigration
    Mr. Cohen
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will provide a summary of the compelling and compassionate circumstances in which 598
    visitors from abroad initially refused entry by immigration officials have been allowed to visit, since the implementation of the relevant change in the immigration rules.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    The information is not available in the form requested. Paragraph 10 of the guidelines on the handling of representations by Members of Parliament in immigration cases, which were sent to right hon. and hon. Members under cover of a letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Renton) on 14 December 1988 gives examples of the sort of exceptional and compelling circumstances which would justify deferment of removal. These examples are not exhaustive and each case is considered on its merits.

    Mr. Michael Morris
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what proposals he has to change the requirement for United Kingdom citizens resident in Hong Kong who marry other nationalities to be resident in the United Kingdom for three years before the spouse is granted permanent right of abode.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    We have no present plans for changes in the relevant law and practice other than those necessary to implement the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on 20 December 1989 at column 363.

    Court Escort Services
    Mr. McFall
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on his policy towards privatising court escort services.

    Mr Mellor
    We are at present considering the outcome of the further studies into the likely cost-effectiveness of contracting out court escort services to the private sector, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) commissioned (his statement on 1 March 1989 at columns 277–88 refers to that). We hope soon to announce our conclusions.

    INFORM
    Mr. Michael Morris
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what grant has been given to INFORM; and for how long.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    INFORM became operational on 1 January 1988. The Home Office funding is designed on a reducing basis over three years: £50,000 in the first full year of operation, and £40,000 and £30,000 in the subsequent years. The amounts in the respective financial years are £25,000 in 1987–88, £45,000 in 1988–89, £35,000 in 1989–90 and (provisionally) £15,000 in 1990–91.

    Mr. Michael Morris
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when Dr. Barker was appointed chairman of INFORM; and for how long her appointment runs.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    We understand that Dr. Barker has been chairman of INFORM since its inception; that she was formally appointed chairman by the board of governors when INFORM became a limited company in February, 1989; and that the length of her appointment is at the discretion of the board of governors.

    Mr. Michael Morris
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the annual report of INFORM was published.
    599
    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    Under the terms of its grant INFORM is required to submit a report on its activities each year. The last such report was received by the Home Office in May 1989. Copies may be obtained from INFORM, and I am asking it to send one to my hon. Friend.

    Association of Chief Police Officers
    Mr. Flynn
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what subjects were discussed when he last met the Association of Chief Police Officers.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    There has been no further formal contact between my right hon. and learned Friend and the Association of Chief Police Officers since I replied to a question from the hon. Member on 5 December at column 182.

    Horserace Totalisator Board
    Mr. Squire
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how much, in each case, the Horserace Totalisator Board has invested in capital expenditure for the racecourse division and Tote Credit Ltd over each of the last six years ending 1989–90; and what is the current asset value in each balance sheet.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    Other than its annual report submitted to Parliament or in its annual returns to Companies House concerning Tote Credit Ltd and Tote Bookmakers Ltd, the Tote does not publish detailed breakdowns of the information requested as it regards such information as commercially sensitive.

    Figures for Tote Credit Ltd's capital expenditure as given in its returns are as follows:

    £000

    1983–84

    131

    1984–85

    225

    1985–86

    188

    1986–87

    243

    1987–88

    262

    1988–89

    12,593

    1Includes substantial one-off expenditure on the new Wigan headquarters which were opened by my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd) on 28 February 1989.

    Figures for 1989–90 are not yet available.

    The net book value of capital expenditure for Tote Credit Ltd on 31 March 1989 was £4,333,000.

    Medical practitioners occupying complemented medical officer posts in London prisons as at 7 February 1990

    Establishments

    Principal Medical Officer

    Senior Medical Officer

    Medical Officer

    Part-time Medical Officer

    Total

    Ashford

    —

    1

    1

    —

    2

    Brixton

    1

    1

    6

    2

    10

    Feltham

    —

    —

    2

    2

    4

    Holloway

    1

    1

    3

    2

    7

    Latchmere House

    —

    1

    —

    2

    3

    Pentonville

    —

    1

    3

    2

    5

    Wandsworth

    —

    2

    2

    2

    6

    Wormwood Scrubs

    1

    1

    1

    4

    7

    Total

    3

    8

    18

    15

    44

    Information Storage
    Mr. Rathbone
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact on the application of the Drug Trafficking Offences Act 1986 of the requirement of the Data Protection Act or other legislation controlling information storage and retrieval.

    Mr. Mellor
    The Drug Trafficking Offences Act enables banks and other financial institutions to disclose suspicions to the enforcement authorities without infringing the law on confidentiality and personal privacy. The evidence is that it has achieved this objective. The Government have stated, however, that they are keeping the working of the Drug Trafficking Offences Act under continuing review, and that they are prepared to take whatever action is necessary if problems are found to arise.

    Mr. Rathbone
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact on the applications of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 of the requirements of the Data Protection Act or other legislation controlling information storage and retrieval.

    Mr. John Patten
    I have no reason to believe that the application of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 has been impeded by the confidentiality or privacy requirements of other legislation. We will, however, keep the matter under review.

    Mr. Rathbone
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the impact on the application of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 of the requirements of the Data Protection Act or other legislation controlling information storage and retrieval.

    Mr. Mellor
    I have no evidence that the application of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 has been impeded by the confidentiality or privacy requirements of other legislation, but I will keep this matter under review.

    London Prison Doctors
    Mr. Cox
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the number of fully qualified medical doctors employed in each of the London prisons as at 7 February.

    Mr. Mellor
    The following is the information requested:

    DNA Testing
    Mr. Dalyell
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is his policy towards legal powers to take samples, such as blood or hair roots, in respect of screening people who there may be no reason to suspect of involvement in the offence;

    (2) what proposals he has for a DNA databank for use in the fight against serious crime; what type of offences will be covered; what type of sample will need to be taken; and whether types of sample such as blood or hair roots will be taken without the consent of the individual concerned;

    (3) whether he will consult the Law Lords on the question which would arise if a doctor was asked to take a blood sample without consent, the question being how to obtain a sample from someone who refuses consent, and may physically resist having a sample taken, and on the question of the acceptability of evidence obtained under duress by the courts; and if he will make a statement.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    My right hon. and learned Friend is still considering the issues set out in the letter which my noble Friend the Minister of State sent to the hon. Member on 7 December. He is currently consulting the British Medical Association and the Association of Police Surgeons on the medical ethics of taking blood samples without consent from suspects in police detention and from convicted offenders. My right hon. and learned Friend will consider what further consultations are necessary in the light of their response. He has no plans to amend the law to enable the police to take blood or other samples from people who are not suspects or convicted offenders and who do not consent. The police are free to ask people to provide samples voluntarily.

    Mr. Dalyell
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to include provisions in his Computer Misuse Bill to promote safeguards to ensure that information stored in a DNA databank would not be open to misuse.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    No. The Data Protection Act 1984 already provides appropriate safeguards against misuse of personal data held on a computer database. These include a requirement that the data user must take security measures against unauthorised access.

    Mr. Dalyell
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration he is giving to the use of DNA material unrelated to crime.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    DNA testing has been used to establish relationship in immigration and paternity cases.

    Blundeston Prison
    Mr. David Porter
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make it his policy to publish the prison department's report into the serious disturbance in January at Her Majesty's prison, Blundeston.

    Mr. Mellor
    As indicated in the reply which I gave to a question by my hon. Friend on 18 January at columns 378–79, the regional director for the south-east region of the prison service is examining the cause of this demonstration. It is not the practice to publish internal management documents but I shall write to my hon. Friend when the regional director's report has been received and considered.

    Management Consultants
    Mr. Andrew Smith
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Oxford, East on 31 January,Official Report, columns 203–4, who awarded the contracts on (a) the practicality of private sector involvement in the remand system to Deloitte Haskins and Sells in 1988 and (b) the organisation of the prison service above establishment level to PA Consulting Group in 1989; what was the cost of each contract; and if he will list any similar reports commissioned from outside management consultants since 1985 and give their date of completion and cost.

    Mr. Waddington
    The Home Office awarded a contract to Deloitte Haskins and Sells for a study into the practicality of private sector involvement in the remand system, and another to PA Consulting Group for a review of the prison service organisation above establishment level. For details of the assignment to Deloitte Haskins and Sells I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his question on 13 February 1990 at column 131. The duration of the contract awarded to PA Consulting Group for a review of the prison service organisation above establishment level was extended in July 1989 and again in December 1989, and remains extant. The total cost of this assignment will not be available until April 1990. For details of similar reports from outside management consultants awarded and completed since 1985, I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to his question on 31 January 1990 at column 203.

    Bingo
    Mr. Illsley
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider amending the appropriate legislation to allow the advertising of bingo games.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Atkinson) on 17 January at column 265.

    Correspondence
    Mr. Home Robertson
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will reply to the letter from the hon. Member for East Lothian dated 11 December 1989 about a claim for a refund of the cost of a passport on the part of Mrs. Cameron of Musselburgh, East Lothian.

    Mr. Peter Lloyd
    A reply will be sent within the next few days.

    Motor Vehicle Pollution
    Mrs. Ann Taylor
    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has about offences relating to pollution from motor vehicles since 1987, including excessive smoke emissions and excessive noise; and whether he will take steps in future to publish annually a separate analysis of such offences.

    Mr. John Patten
    The available information about offences relating to motor vehicles is published annually in Home Office statistical publications. Summary information is set out in the bulletin entitled "Offences relating to
    603
    Motor Vehicles, England and Wales"; the most recent, number 34/89, included data for 1988. Detailed information is given in the publication, "Offences relating to Motor Vehicles, England and Wales, Supplementary Tables". Copies of these publications are available in the Library.
    604
    Details of noise offences, offence group 22, are included in the supplementary tables publications.

    For information relating to emission of smoke offences, I refer the hon. Member to my reply to her question on 15 January 1990 at columns 33–34.

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

The Homeless Mentally Ill: Care
Baroness Fisher of Rednal Baroness Fisher of Rednal asked Her Majesty's Government:
What initiatives they are proposing to regional health authorities concerning the growing incidence of homelessness involving ex-psychiatric hospital patients.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper): My Lords, we are aware of and concerned about this problem. We are currently in discussion with health and social services authorities and voluntary bodies in central London, with a view to identifying practical steps to help people get the support they need. We hope that any approach developed for central London will prove a useful model for other parts of the country.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that Answer. Is she aware that it is not only a London problem? I can speak with great experience of Birmingham. Do the Government realise that the run-down of mental hospitals is causing a terrific financial and managerial burden on hostels that originally were meant to cater for homeless alcoholics, but the same hostels are almost becoming mini-institutions catering for the former patients of psychiatric hospitals? Do not the Government feel that their policy of closing down mental hospitals without adequate community services is a wrong one?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are aware that this is a problem that goes wider than that applicable to central London. As I said in my original Answer,
2
the intention is to study the central London problem not simply to solve that, but in order to replicate the findings throughout the country. The closure of mental hospitals has never been a primary object of government policy. In the White Paper Caring for People, published last November, the Government emphasised that the number of mental illness beds should be reduced only as a consequence of the development of new services. We have made it clear that Ministers will not approve the closure of any mental hospital unless it can be demonstrated that adequate possible alternatives have been developed.
Lord Renton: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that regarding the mentally handicapped, the need for them to be settled in the community is being largely solved by help from the various voluntary societies including MENCAP? Can my noble friend say whether the voluntary societies are able to help in the case of psychiatric patients?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this aspect of the matter. We very much recognise the work of the voluntary organisations in this field. As regards the homeless mentally ill initiative affecting psychiatric patients, the Government have had a number of discussions with voluntary organisations and others with direct experience of helping the homeless in London. These organisations include St. Mungo Housing, Bondway Housing Association, Thames Reach and the psychiatric team for single homeless people at Guy's Hospital.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, if the Minister has referred to a new initiative, then it is a bit late. Will the Minister confirm that it is the intention of the Government to impose some limits on local authority expenditure because of the inequities of the poll tax? I believe that over 100 local authorities are involved. Can the Minister give the House an assurance that such cuts in public expenditure for electoral reasons will exclude the provision for community care, especially housing, in order to meet the appalling problem described by my noble friend?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, concerning funding, the Government certainly do not regard community care as a cheap and easy option. Nevertheless, we take the view that much can be done within existing resources given local commitment and collaboration which we believe to be there. However, gross spending on hospital and community health services for mental illness grew by 20 per cent. in real terms between 1978–79 and 1986–87 to £1,149 million. That is the most recent figure available. Estimated gross expenditure on local authority services for mentally ill people rose in the same period by 46 per cent. in real terms to £44 million. I feel sure that the noble Lord will agree that money is not the only consideration.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I ask the Minister to apply her mind to the question that I put to her. I am impressed by the list of statistics. The question is: is it true that the Government are proposing centrally to impose a clampdown on local authority expenditure concerning about 100 local authorities? Can she give an assurance that the cuts that will be required of those local authorities will not include housing provision for homeless people?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the Government are by no means intending to impose a clampdown on local authorities. They are intending that local authorities should react responsibly to their local responsibilities.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, following on from the query raised by my noble friend Lord Renton concerning what is being done for those who seek help from the voluntary organisations for the mentally ill as opposed to the mentally handicapped, is my noble friend aware that the National Schizophrenia Fellowship in Bournemouth has sought approval to convert a house to act as a hostel for schizophrenic patients in that area? Is she further aware that notwithstanding many efforts, two successive houses were chosen, but in each case the planning committee of the local district council turned down the request on the ground that "it is a jolly good idea, but not in our area, please"? Does my noble friend not agree that that situation is disgraceful, and can she say whether the Government can bring some pressure to bear to get the Bournemouth District Council to act as good Christians?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, there has been concern in recent years about how to make effective arrangements for the continuing care of mentally ill people being treated in the community. In this context we believe that the voluntary organisations have a very important role to play. The department has already issued National Health Service planning guidelines. Shortly detailed guidelines will be issued to ensure that by 1st April 1991 all district health authorities are required to initiate in collaboration with local social service departments explicit individually tailored care programmes for all such people.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of the growing concern in the Churches about the strain on the clergy—mainly Church of England and Catholic clergy—who live in these areas, particularly the inner cities, and who have these folk on their doorsteps very regularly? Can she assure us that in any consultations about the right way forward the views of such clergy will be taken into account?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, as I said at the outset, we are aware of the general concern. All interested parties who can make a contribution will be consulted. I should like to re-emphasise that the care programme approach, reinforced by the new specific mental illness grant to local authorities payable from 1st April 1991, should have a significant impact on the provision of adequate locally based services.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, does the noble Baroness agree that the care of the mentally ill coming out of institutions is a problem on its own and is quite different from the care of people who are frail, infirm or physically ill in a minor way? Such people require highly skilled attention. Voluntary help is often totally inadequate and cannot be relied upon for dealing with these especially difficult cases.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the research and evaluation funded by the Department of Health has shown that, most commonly, homeless mentally ill people—the group to which the question is directed—have had care organised outside hospital but have subsequently lost touch with services. In the future, we are working to direct our efforts to ensure that the numbers losing touch in this way will fall as a result of the care programme approach.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that in the heart of London a hospital has been empty for more than 10 years? I do not blame the present Government for that, but it has been empty all that time. It used to provide 250 beds. It is called St. Olave's. Would it not be a good idea to use it to help the people to whom the Question refers?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for drawing that point to my attention. I shall look into the matter.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, is the Minister aware that one of the resident psychiatrists at Holloway Prison has told me that he and his colleagues have recognised more and more that they are treating in prison now the same women they used to treat in psychiatric institutions? Does she not agree that that is strange care in the community for the mentally ill?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, it is difficult to obtain reliable figures on the position across the country in regard to how people are being dealt with. As I said previously, in many cases homeless mentally ill people have had care organised outside hospital but have lost touch subsequently with the services. This

5
is a consequence of the new approach; it has developed as a result of the new approach. It is something at which we are looking and which we hope to be able to avoid in the future.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I wonder whether we ought not to move on to the next Question. We have had 11 minutes on this one.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead): My Lords, we have taken 11 minutes. It is perhaps the moment for the next Question.

ACAS
2.48 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is the role and the future of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, the role of ACAS is to promote the improvement of industrial relations. There are no plans to change the role or functions of ACAS.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that since its inauguration 17 years ago ACAS has been successful in either stopping strikes or preventing strikes in more than 90 per cent. of cases referred to it? Does he not recall that the London Underground unofficial strike was resolved by ACAS and that the Post Office strikes were resolved by ACAS? What is more, the very serious police dispute was resolved by ACAS. Why do not the Government refer the ambulance dispute to ACAS?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, if the noble Lord wished to ask about the ambulancemen's dispute, why on earth did he not table a Question in those terms on the Order Paper? This Question quite obviously refers to ACAS. Therefore, perhaps I may answer the part of his supplementary question which I think is appropriate. Yes, ACAS has been successful. The noble Lord said that the service has helped to settle 90 per cent. of disputes, but I think the figure is about 80 per cent. However, that is still a very high success rate.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, every organisation and trade union in the country can consult ACAS. The only time they are stopped from doing so is when this Government prevent an attempt to settle a dispute which could be resolved by ACAS. Therefore is it not time that they changed their wretched policy?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord knows perfectly well the answer to that accusation. There is an adequate method of negotiation for the ambulancemen and that is what is taking place. There is no such thing as compulsory conciliation.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that ACAS has a panel of very
6
distinguished mediators and arbiters? Would it not, therefore, be a good idea to make much more use of their services than appears to be the case in current circumstances? Finally, what is the Government's attitude to arbitration?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the Government's attitude to arbitration and conciliation is an extremely good one. Indeed, the number of inquiries received has increased from 303,000 in 1987–88 to 360,000 in 1989–90. Therefore this is something which we fully support.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that the obstinacy of the Government has proved to be extremely expensive? They have now spent £20 million on employing police to undertake extra work, whereas £ 10 million would have resolved the dispute. How stupid can the Government get?

Football: Safety at Sports Grounds
2.51 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton Lord Graham of Edmonton asked Her Majesty's Government:
How they intend to promote implementation of the Taylor Report on the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the Government intend to require all-seated accommodation at football league grounds and to create a national review body for safety at such grounds by setting up a Football Licensing Authority under Part I of the Football Spectators Act 1989. The guide of safety at sports grounds will be revised as quickly as possible and we shall use powers under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 so that local authorities are required to include mandatory conditions in safety certificates.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, does he agree that post the Taylor Report the football industry is entering a phase in which the leadership of the Government could be most important? Moreover, can he tell us whether in implementing the report's recommendations the Government will lay stress on the involvement of, among others, football club supporters who I believe can play a major part in this?
Also the Minister referred to all-seated stadia. Did he notice the announcement over the weekend about the exciting prospect of a new stadium on Merseyside, designed, I believe, to provide an opportunity for Everton and Liverpool to share a new ground? However, does he acknowledge that planning difficulty is being experienced by local authorities in agreeing over the siting of new stadia? Further, will he consider issuing a planning guidance note which would be helpful?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, it is true to say that the Government welcome the report of Lord Justice

7
Taylor. So far as concerns supporters, it draws attention to improvement to their environment, to amenities and to safety. Therefore, it lays great stress on the welfare of supporters. The membership of the Football Licensing Authority has not yet been decided, but the interests of football supporters will be considered.
As regards new stadia, the Government support the Taylor recommendation that there should be an advisory design council set up by the Football League and the Football Association. Local authorities will be able to ensure that any new ground complies with the safety recommendations contained in the report. Moreover, the Government certainly hope that any new ground will also provide all the amenities which the report recommends.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is not one of the major features of the Taylor Report to remind clubs of their duty to take care of the people whom they attract to their grounds?
Viscount Ullswater: Yes, my Lords; I agree with my noble friend. Indeed, football is part of the leisure and entertainment industry and clubs are responsible for the safety of the people who attend their grounds.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, can the noble Viscount tell us what happened to the identity card scheme?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is probably well aware that the report of Lord Justice Taylor did not recommend continuing with the scheme and the Government were happy to accept that recommendation.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the diminution in bad behaviour at football matches, and mainly outside the grounds, owes a great deal to the involvement of the official supporters' clubs and their national movement? Further, will he accept from me that when setting up a body of people to decide on the guidelines for football, it would be tragic if the official supporters' clubs were left out, bearing in mind the objective contribution that they could make?
Viscount Ullswater: Yes, my Lords; I agree. The Government recognise the support and encouragement of the football supporters' associations and the contribution they can make. That applies both nationally and locally.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, can the noble Viscount remind the House, if he can be accurate, how much the Football Trust has pledged towards the implementation of some, if not all, of the recommendations in the Taylor Report?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the Football Trust has said that it will contribute £75 million towards the implementation over a period of 10 years.
Lord Northfield: My Lords, provided that the money goes to the clubs which can least afford to
8
make their stadiums and grounds all-seated, will the Government consider making a grant to the trust to help it proceed much more quickly in bringing about these improvements?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, it is the Government's policy that the clubs should be responsible for the costs involved in making the accommodation in these stadia all-seated. We do not propose to make grants to the football clubs.
Lord Monson: My Lords, quite apart from the fact that many traditional football fans of all ages actually prefer to stand, does the noble Viscount agree that all-seated stadiums are by no means an automatic panacea? In fact, apart from anything else, seats can be ripped out and used as weapons.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, many of those aspects were carefully investigated by Lord Justice Taylor when he made his report. It would be wrong to suggest that the idea that seats could be used as missiles was not taken into consideration. However, it was thought that the benefits of having all-seated stadia were paramount.

Mr. Salman Rushdie: Death Threats
2.57 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich Lord Harris of Greenwich asked Her Majesty's Government:
On how many occasions the Director of Public Prosecutions has considered complaints concerning threats to the life of Mr. Salman Rushdie, and on how many occasions proceedings have been authorised.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, in the past year the Director of Public Prosecutions has considered letters from 39 correspondents comprising complaints in respect of five instances of alleged threats to the life of Mr. Rushdie. Three police reports have been received in respect of allegations against individuals. Additionally, one article and one letter published in national newspapers have been considered. In respect of each instance the director decided after very careful consideration that there was insufficient evidence to justify the institution of criminal proceedings.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that reply. However, does he recall that it is now just over 12 months since Ayatollah Khomeini imposed his death sentence on Mr. Rushdie? Is he also aware that since that time we have witnessed a series of threats made in this country against the life of Mr. Rushdie who is still obliged to have armed detectives by his side in order to ensure that he is not murdered? Is he further aware that we have also witnessed constant threats which have been made by a number of individuals, including Dr. Siddiqui, and that we have seen banners carried in public processions saying, "Kill Rushdie"? In those circumstances does he not agree that it is rather odd that criminal proceedings have not been instituted against a single individual?
The Lord Chancellor: No, my Lords. The Director of Public Prosecutions concluded in the light of all the evidence available to him to which I have referred that it was not appropriate to institute criminal proceedings. In particular, in relation to Dr. Siddiqui he gave careful consideration to all the evidence available to him, including video evidence, concerning the remarks and actions of this person and received advice from leading counsel as to whether such remarks gave rise to any criminal liability. The evidence available to the director was insufficient to render it appropriate to commence proceedings. Accordingly, he was bound to conclude that proceedings Should not be instituted.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, can the noble and learned Lord say whether the decision not to prosecute was taken solely on the grounds of evidence or whether the matter of proper public policy was a part of the consideration?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, my understanding is that it was taken on the grounds that I have mentioned; namely, that the evidence was insufficient.
Viscount Tonypandy: My Lords, are the Government giving consideration to preventing these public exhibitions in which the Moslems seem to believe that they have a right to take over our streets and call for the death of whatever person has been condemned by the ayatollah?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, as I have said, the Director of Public Prosecutions has carefully considered every instance that has been brought to his notice in which this subject was raised. In deciding whether or not to institute prosecutions, the director must be bound by the evidence available in the light of the law. Every citizen is entitled to expect consistency from prosecuting authorities. Nevertheless, the director regards as a matter of extreme gravity any conduct on the part of any person within this jurisdiction which amounts to the offence of incitement to murder. It will remain his policy, with the full support of the Attorney-General, to deal accordingly with evidence establishing such conduct that may be placed before him.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor aware that millions of people up and down the country have seen with their own eyes evidence of the death threat being made by Dr. Siddiqui and others? They have seen with their own eyes people parading through our streets with banners, shouting, "Kill Rushdie". Does the noble and learned Lord agree that if other people did that, they would probably be clapped in gaol or at least prosecuted? Is he further aware that this is doing no good to race relations in this country when the majority of the population believe, rightly or wrongly, that there is one law for one section of the community and another law for another section?
Finally, are these death threats not considered serious? They do not appear to be since no prosecutions have taken place. However, if they are
10
not, why is Mr. Rushdie granted an armed guard at such huge cost to the British taxpayer?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the question of an armed guard for Mr. Rushdie is not a matter for the Attorney-General, and I speak here primarily on behalf of the Attorney-General at present. It is a matter for those responsible for ensuring his safety so far as possible.
Regarding the earlier questions, particularly the reference to television, the brief extracts from Dr. Siddiqui's speech which were shown on television were insufficient to provide a reliable basis for determining whether an offence had been committed. The director, together with leading counsel, was supplied with a video recording of the whole speech and the events relating to it. He was therefore able to base his decision on all the available evidence.
I am sure your Lordships feel that in taking a decision whether to prosecute, the Director of Public Prosecutions ought to take account of all the evidence available to him and decide whether to institute a prosecution on the basis of that evidence. It would not be right that prosecutions should be determined by popular view or popular demand on a particular occasion. However, I emphasise the view of the director about the nature of any circumstances suggesting that the offence of incitement to murder had been committed. I believe that that view is clear and should commend itself generally.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, has the noble and learned Lord read the report of last night's meeting convened in the East End of London by Dr. Kalim Siddiqui, the director of Britain's Moslem Institute? The report stated that:
"… youngsters at the meeting—some under 10-years-old—gave their support to the death sentence".
Does the noble and learned Lord agree that our children—I repeat the phrase "our children"—should not be admitted to meetings of this kind, especially at such an age? Will he consider consulting his colleagues on whether a suitable Minister can ask the leaders of the Moslem community, including Dr. Siddiqui, to see him? He can then communicate our sense of outrage that children should be brought into this matter.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I am answering this Question as spokesman for the Attorney-General because the responsibility for prosecutions is a matter for him in his personal capacity. The Question relates to prosecutions. On the question of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, it would not be appropriate for me to make any comment on these circumstances. However, I shall take note of his suggestion and bring it to the attention of those of my colleagues who have responsibility in the matter.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: My Lords, does the noble and learned Lord agree that the very basis of our democracy is that every citizen in this country is entitled to live in freedom under the law unless he offends against that law? Mr. Rushdie's case

11
establishes that that principle no longer runs in this country.
Is the noble and learned Lord not replying to the Question on behalf of the Government? Prosecutions depend on the energy which is shown in collecting evidence. Will the noble and learned Lord agree that it is no good looking at a picture on television and saying, "That is insufficient evidence"? Has the Attorney-General instructed the Director of Public Prosecutions to go out and seek the evidence which is shown prima facie on the television and on the streets of this country in order to establish a prosecution?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I entirely agree that freedom under the law is essential in our democracy. An aspect of that is that people should not be prosecuted except on the basis of evidence sufficient to justify a prosecution. Turning to the reference to items seen on television, the comment I have already made indicated that the Attorney-General's consideration of these matters was not restricted to what was shown on television. The Director of Public Prosecutions obtained a video of the whole speech and of the circumstances relating to it. In the light of the whole evidence available to him, he came to the conclusion that I have narrated.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: My Lords, is the noble and learned Lord aware that many of us still remain puzzled that not a single prosecution has been initiated against a single individual, notwithstanding the clear evidence before our own eyes that death threats have been directed at Mr. Rushdie? Was the noble and learned Lord saying, when he referred to the law—I think I quote him correctly—that the present law is insufficient? If so, no doubt the Government will decide to bring forward further proposals. If I may say so, they have rightly taken the view that terrorism is a grave matter which requires the most robust response by government. If the present law is inadequate, what steps do the Government propose to take to deal with that issue?
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the decision on whether or not to prosecute has been decided, in the light of the evidence, on the basis of the existing law. The law in relation to incitement to murder is the law set out in Section 4 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. I know of no proposal to change that section. However, in deciding whether or not a prosecution should be taken the Director of Public Prosecutions has to apply that section to the evidence available to him about the whole circumstances arising in the situation complained against.

Capital Allowances Bill [H.L.]
3.10 p.m.
Report received.
Clause 139 [Supplemental]:
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 125, line 36, at end insert ("including activities relating to the recording of such knowledge").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the leave of the House, in moving Amendment No. 1 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 which stand in my name. As a prologue to my presenting these amendments to the House I should say that at the last meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee on Consolidation Bills I expressed anxiety that matters relating to capital allowances on patents and know-how were not consolidated into the present Bill but had to remain in what is known as the principal Act; namely, the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988. The evidence given suggested that capital allowances for the important matters of patents and know-how should be dealt with under that Act. I did not understand the arguments in favour of that.
I had considerable support at the Joint Select Committee from Members of another place and also from Members of this House for my view. It seemed to me odd that a Bill entitled Capital Allowances with a separate section, Part VII, on scientific research should not include references to capital allowances on patents and know-how. Patents and know-how are obviously the direct products, assets and property, known as intellectual property, arising in the course of scientific research. It seemed to me therefore that at least for the convenience of practitioners in the field of patents and know-how and intellectual property rights, such as lawyers, research workers, research organisations and advisers of all kinds, there should be a reminder that the provisions of the Capital Allowances Bill do not apply to patents and trade marks.
After that introduction, I presume to refer to the relevant principles involved in the law as regards the consolidation of Bills. That is to be found in Erskine May. I am not yet sufficiently presumptuous to say that I am trying to bring Erskine May up to date in this field, but most of the cases cited in Erskine May to justify the propositions to which I shall refer have dates of nearly 70 years ago. I am obliged to Mr. Keith in the Public Bill Office for providing me with the relevant pages of Erskine May which deal with Consolidation Bills. The principles that I shall apply in submitting my amendments are the following.
Erskine May states on page 494:
"Where the title of a Bill is only to consolidate the law on a particular subject, it is out of order to amend the provisions of the statutes which by the bill are to be consolidated and fused together".
I accept that there should be no change of law in consolidation. However, if Members of the Joint Select Committee are satisfied by the circumstances—I stress the word circumstances—relating to the Bill in question, amendments may be excepted from that rule and may be moved to such a Consolidation Bill. That is the first proposition that I shall apply. There may be circumstances in relation to the other matters which will follow which would justify my amendments.
My second proposition arises directly from Erskine May, which states that an amendment would be allowed,
"which would make the words of the bill express more clearly the law as it stands"
—that is to say, the law as it stands in 1990 and not the law as it stood in 1921 when most of these matters were decided upon.
The third proposition from Erskine May which I shall pray in aid to support my amendments is as follows:
"An amendment which seeks to bring the bill into conformity with the existing law, if the Chairman is satisfied that the bill, as reported from the Joint Committee, would nevertheless effect an alteration of the law".
We had a long discussion in the Select Committee. Although the chairman did not record that he was satisfied that the Bill, as reported from the Joint Committee, would nevertheless effect an alteration of the law, the general opinion of the committee was that some clarification of the present position in relation to patents and know-how on capital allowances should be considered.
My first amendment is to Clause 139 of the part of the Bill which relates to scientific research. Clause 139(1)(a) states:
" 'scientific research' means any activities in the fields of natural or applied science for the extension of knowledge".
I have tabled my amendment for the purposes of clarifying the present position of the law. The amendment suggests that there should be added to line 36 of page 125 the words,
"including activities relating to the recording of such knowledge".
That seems to me a commonsense and simple proposition to put forward. Scientific research is usually recorded. However, the word "activities" in this part of the Bill and the reference to applied science bothers me as regards their meaning. Therefore the words,
"activities in the fields of natural or applied science",
must mean that there should be some recording of those activities and of the knowledge that has arisen from them. Therefore it seemed to me that by way of clarification a definition of scientific research should include the recording of the knowledge gained from it in some way or other. Once it is recorded it becomes generally known, usually in the form of know-how. Therefore, I submit that that amendment would be helpful as regards the definition of scientific knowledge.
Some people may think that the words "natural science' that appear in the definition are odd. However, having had considerable experience of the natural sciences triposes at Cambridge and having consulted the Oxford Dictionary I can declare that the world "natural" includes not only biological matters but also physics, chemistry and mathematics.
The words "applied science" in the definition also suggest that scientific research has some practical and perhaps industrial application. Therefore it seems to me necessary to clarify what is meant by,
"activities in the fields of natural… science"
by including the words,
"including activities relating to the recording of such knowledge".
With the leave of the House, I turn now to Amendment No. 2. The amendment proposes the addition of the words "including exploitation thereof at the end of Clause 139(1)(c). The rather lengthy paragraph (c) states that:
"references to expenditure incurred in scientific research do not include any expenditure incurred in the acquisition of rights in, or arising out of, scientific research, but, subject to that, include all expenditure incurred for the prosecution of, or the provision of facilities for prosecution of, scientific research".
Therefore one cannot obtain money under that definition for applying for patents and creating intellectual property rights.
In this context the word "prosecution" has quite a different connotation from the one that we heard earlier this afternoon. Therefore, if expenditure includes:
"expenditure incurred in the prosecution of, or the provision of facilities for the prosecution of, scientific research",
it seems to me that the word "facilities" must include funds available for the scientific research. It should not include merely the apparatus or the staff employed in the laboratory. The facilities must include some kind of funding. Often funding can result from exploiting the scientific research in ways of which many noble Lords will be aware. Therefore the intention is to clarify that the facilities for the prosecution of scientific research must include facilities for the exploitation of scientific research in the related trade or trades.
I turn now to my third amendment which concerns paragraph (d) which defines:
"references to scientific research related to a trade or class of trades".
In my view those words support my argument in favour of the previous amendment that exploitation of scientific research is relevant.
The paragraph continues:
"(i) any scientific research which may lead to or facilitate an extension of that trade or, as the case may be, of trades of that class".
I suggest that the words,
"whether by its exploitation in the course of trade or otherwise",
should be added to paragraph (d). The paragraph would then read:
"references to scientific research related to a trade or a class of trades include—
(i) any scientific research which may whether by its exploitation in the course of trade or otherwise lead to or facilitate an extension of that trade or, as the case may be, of trades of that class".
I have presented rather circuitous arguments. I am glad that from a sedentary position once again the noble Baroness agrees with that observation. However, these are important matters and I am trying to bring us up to date as to the significance of scientific research and what the term should include. I am relying upon the proposition in Erskine May that it is proper when consolidating a Bill to introduce words which would clarify the existing law. I beg to move.
The Lord Chancellor: As the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has pointed out, the Bill is a pure consolidation. It makes no change in the law. The Bill has been examined by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, of which the noble Lord is a

15
member. The committee unanimously agreed to lay the report before your Lordships.
The committee has considered the Capital Allowances Bill which was referred to it. It has heard evidence on the Bill and made the amendments set out in the annex to the report to improve the form of the Bill. The amendments have already been given effect to. The committee is of the opinion that the Bill as amended is pure consolidation and represents the existing law and that there is no point to which the attention of Parliament should be drawn.
The noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, has suggested three alterations to the existing Bill. The effect of the first amendment would be to make into scientific research the recording of the results of the research. Clearly the necessary recording of experiments is part and parcel of research. That does not need to be mentioned. However, the amendment appears to be wider, and since it changes the existing wording in Section 94(1) of the Capital Allowances Act 1968 it could be expected to go wider than the scope of the existing provision. In those circumstances I feel that I cannot accept the amendment in a consolidating statute.
The effect of the second amendment would be to bring into the definition of expenditure on scientific research in Clause 139(1)(c) the exploitation of the results of scientific research. We all know that once something has been discovered in the course of scientific research it is very often exploited. However, the exploitation of the results of scientific research need have nothing to do with the scientific research itself. It is an activity consequent on that research. Again the amendment would appear to alter the existing law.
The effect of the third amendment would be to make clear that the references to scientific research related to a trade included scientific research which might lead to or facilitiate an extension of that trade. The trade might well be extended by way of exploitation of the results of scientific research, but I cannot accept that an express reference to it in the Bill is desirable.
Clause 139(1)(d) was orginally enacted in Section 31(1) of the Finance Act 1944 in the same words. There is a risk that any alteration would be read at least as an attempt to change the law. So far as I know there is no evidence that anyone has ever had any difficulty with the existing provision. I believe that to be true in relation to the other matters which the noble Lord's amendments seek to change. I agree entirely with him about the importance of patents and know-how. However, I urge him to accept the joint committee's view that its amendments were the appropriate amendments and that the Bill as it now stands is a satisfactory consolidation which states the existing law.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his clear exposition of the matters. He has introduced references to certain Acts which were not before the committee when I was present. Having heard what he has said I shall consider his remarks. In those
16
circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 not moved.]
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 126, line 4, after ("includes") insert ("patents and know-how and").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment refers to the definition of an asset in Clause 139(1)(e). As paragraph (e) now stands:
" 'asset' includes part of an asset".
What is meant by an "asset?" The word appears in Clause 136 and 137 onwards and appears prima facie to refer to apparatus or, for example, a building to contain the experimentation. However, in my view, on a proper reading of Clauses 136 onwards, the word "asset" includes those assets arising from scientific research; namely, patents and know-how. I confess at once that I am therefore in difficulty in my amendment, in that it states that the words "patents and know-how" should be inserted after the word "includes" so that paragraph (e) would read:
" 'asset' includes patents and know-how and a part of an asset".
On the question of know-how, the answer given earlier by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor helps me. He said that, whenever scientific research takes place, it is usual to record the results of that research. As soon as that scientific research is recorded, it becomes know-how. It is the know-how in relation to that research. I therefore ask the noble and learned Lord to have regard at least to that aspect of the amendment. I beg to move.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, at the risk of intruding unnecessarily into the learned discussion, perhaps I may say that, if the expression "know-how" is to be included in a capital allowances Bill, it should also include registered designs and the new design right created by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. I suspect that that extension of the law would be outside the remit of a consolidation Bill.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, with respect, the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, is right on that point. Sections 520 to 533 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 provide for allowances and charges to be made to taxpayers in respect of capital expenditure on the acquisition and disposal of patent rights and know-how. On the other hand, Part VII of the Capital Allowances Bill concerns expenditure on scientific research, not on the disposal of patent rights or know-how. Scientific research might lead to patentable discoveries or might result in know-how, but, whether or not it does, Part VII covers expenditure on scientific research.
The noble Lord's amendment would bring into Part VII of the Bill expenditure on the acquisition or disposal of patents and know-how. If the amendment were made, one consequence would be that disposal

17
of patent rights would then fall within Clause 138, which would be entirely wrong. The same is true of know-how. I hope that having raised that point, which I agree is extremely important, the noble Lord may think it wise in the circumstances of this consolidation Bill to leave the provisions as they are.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that exposition. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, for his helpful intervention. However, with great respect to both the noble and learned Lord and the noble Lord, I cannot agree that the phrase "know-how" must inevitably include copyright, designs and trademarks. Know-how is the written record of research. How can it possibly be said, in the case of a chemical experiment, that a design arises from that research? One is making a new product. There is no question of copyright or design.
It is rather difficult to proceed, given the fact that the noble and learned Lord has told the House that to introduce patents and know-how into the Bill at this stage would be contrary to the provisions of Clause 138. In those circumstances, I shall read what he said. I thank him for his kind observations. After all, it is an important matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
In the Title:
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran moved Amendment No. 5:
Line 2, at end insert ("other than certain enactments relating to patents and know-how").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment raises the matter of the Title to the Bill. As it now stands, the Bill seeks, "to consolidate certain enactments relating to capital allowances.
In my view and the view of many Members of both Houses at the recent meeting of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, there should be a further reference in the Title to the fact that the Bill does not include matters relating to patents and know-how.
The reason for that view reflects the common-sense approach to the matter. In these days of advanced technology and the advancement of science: generally, patents and know-how are often the life-blood of comparatively small firms. Such firms do not have large legal departments and their accountants may not be familiar with matters of importance to their business; namely, patents and know-how. If they consulted the Capital Allowances Bill—
"An Act to consolidate certain enactments relating to capital allowances"—
they would have to search through over 142 pages to see whether it applied. They would then see that Clause 161(11)—a reference which the Committee decided should be included—on page 143 states:
"Chapter 1 of Part XIII of the principal Act (which relates to patents and know-how) contains further provisions relating to capital allowances".
In order to assist persons who are interested in the problem of capital allowances, patents and trademarks, it seems to me common sense that the
18
Capital Allowances Bill should immediately put them on their guard that they must look elsewhere if they wish to deal with the important question of patents and know-how. They would have to plough through over 142 pages to find just three lines relating to the matter. That does not seem to be the way to assist persons in industry.
The amendment to the Title of the Bill which I suggest in my amendment would cover the position. The Title would therefore read:
"An Act to consolidate certain enactments relating to capital allowances other than certain enactments relating to patents and know-how".
The word "certain" appears to have crept into my amendment. From a drafting point of view, perhaps the word "certain" should not be included and the Title should include a clear statement that the enactments relating to capital allowances in the Bill do not include enactments relating to patents and know-how. I apologise for that slight error in the amendment. I am sure that it is my fault. With the leave of the House, I should like to delete from the amendment the word "certain" so that the amendment would read,
"other than enactments relating to patents and know-how".
I beg to move.
Lord Mishcon: My Lords, we entirely appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, speaks with authority on behalf of the certain section of practitioners among whom he has always been a leading light. Perhaps I may speak for practitioners generally who ask not to be misled by consolidating statutes which seek to help understanding and not to create misunderstanding. If a Bill which seeks to consolidate certain enactments relating to capital allowances does nothing else, it tells the practitioner that it relates only to the consolidation of certain enactments. The practitioner is warned that there may very well be other enactments relating to capital allowances which have not been consolidated in this Bill. I cross out the word "certain" in view of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd. But if we add the words,
"other than enactments relating to patents and know-how"
the immediate impression created for the practitioner is that there is only one exception to the rule in regard to a consolidating statute relating to capital allowances—the exception that relates to patents and know-how—and therefore he can rely on this consolidating Bill to cover every other enactment and every other aspect statutorily in relation to capital allowances.
On behalf of general practitioners—not on behalf of the specialist practitioner for whom the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, speaks with such authority—I ask that this amendment be disagreed to.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, the interest and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, in this matter are known to all noble Lords. I join with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, in acknowledging it freely. On the other hand, it is important to bear in mind that there are people other than such experts who have an interest in this

19
consolidation. It is to deal with the concerns of what I might call the constituency that the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd, represents that the Joint Committee decided to insert Clause 161(11), which states:
"Chapter I of Part XIII of the principal Act (which relates to patents and know-how) contains further provisions relating to capital allowances".
I think that that is entirely accurate. I believe that it would be not helpful to seek to elaborate the Title. The fact that these are not all enactments relating to capital allowances is emphasised by the use of the word "certain" in the Title as it stands. In fact, if and when this consolidation goes through, as I hope it will, the standard works will have an index in which those concerned with patents and know-how will quickly be directed to the provisions of Section 161(11). That was the course taken by the Joint Committee in order to deal with the concerns raised before it very properly by the noble Lord.
I hope therefore that in the light of all the considerations heard, noble Lords might feel that his work has been well done and recognised by the Joint Committee in this way, and that the House has already given effect to that.
Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran: My Lords, I am very much obliged for the kind words said about me by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. There is another expert on intellectual property rights in this House at the present time. The noble Lord, Lord Cawley, is sitting opposite me and his splendid work in that field has been known for many years.
The intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, emphasises the difficulties that people find in obtaining information on simple matters without going to vast expense—in this case, the capital allowances for patents and know-how. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is a most distinguished practitioner with a large solicitor's office. I am speaking of the small solicitor in the country. He may be asked for advice by the directors of a small firm that has produced good inventions—the lifeblood of the firm must be good inventions. The solicitor says, "Yes, there is an Act—the Capital Allowances Act. We shall get a copy of that and study it." To his horror he finds that he must search through the whole Act. Meanwhile the machine that counts the time that he spends goes ever upwards and in no time at all hundreds of pounds go forth in legal fees.
Therefore, in my simple approach to these matters I felt that the Title, despite the erudite objections raised by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, should include something to the effect that this Bill does not include anything about patents and know-how. I had hoped that the noble and learned Lord would have been sympathetic. I fully realise that my amendments are not perfect and I had hoped that by the next time the Bill comes forward the noble and learned Lord himself might be able to suggest something in the Title to warn off people so that they are aware that this Bill has nothing to do with capital allowances for patents or know-how and
20
thus save the time and expense of small firms in particular of finding out about these important matters.
In these circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

British Railways Order Confirmation Bill
Brought from the Commons, read a first time, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936), deemed to have been read a second time and reported from the Committee.

Town and Country Planning Bill [H.L.]
3.45 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
This is the first of four Bills on the Order Paper in my name. If I may, I shall speak to all four together, and then move the other three formally, together with the consequential Motion in connection with the fourth. I should like to offer my compliments and thanks—and I trust also those of the House—to the Law Commission and the draftsman who have made such an excellent job of this enormous task of consolidation.
The last major consolidation of the Town and Country Planning Acts was in the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, which has been considerably amended by primary legislation, including the Town and Country Planning (Amendment) Act 1972, the Local Government Acts of 1972 and 1985, the Land Compensation Act 1973, and the Town and Country Planning Act 1984.
The result of the constant addition of material into the text of the 1971 Act and the repeal of extensive parts of it has been a loss of coherent structure. This is especially apparent in Part IV of the 1971 Act dealing with special controls. The system of controls relating to listed buildings and conservation areas and to hazardous substances are so voluminous as to justify whole Bills relating to these topics alone. They have therefore been consolidated in the second and third Bills under my name, the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Bill and the Planning (Hazardous Substances) Bill.
In other respects, the structure of the Town and Country Planning Bill broadly corresponds to that of the 1971 Act. The only difference is the creation of a new Part which relates to Crown land and includes material from the Town and Country Planning Act 1984 and the Building Restrictions (War-Time Contraventions) Act 1946.
Finally, there is the Planning (Consequential Provisions) Bill, which is ancillary to the three main Bills. It deals with a number of technical and transitional matters, including repeals and consequential amendments.
The Law Commission has, in accordance with usual practice, issued a report on the consolidation

21
in which they make a number of recommendations for minor technical amendments to remove anomalies and inconsistencies which came to light during the consolidation exercise so that the law can be stated in a clear and straightforward fashion.
There is a special Motion on the Order Paper relating to this consolidation. The Planning (Consequential Provisions) Bill is an essential part of the consolidation, but it is not, in the strict sense, a consolidation Bill. It is most conveniently dealt with along with the other three Bills, by the Joint Committee, but the rules of the House require that the House must refer it to the Joint Committee specifically. The other Bills will go through to the Joint Committee in the ordinary course.
I beg to move that the first of the four Bills be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I have already spoken to this Bill. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Planning (Hazardous Substances) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time, and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.

Planning (Consequential Provisions) Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Bill read a second time.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, to which I referred earlier.
Moved, That the Planning (Consequential Provisions) Bill [H.L] be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and it was ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Food Safety Bill [H.L.]
3.50 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that Her Majesty and His Royal Highness, having been informed of the purport of the Food Safety Bill, have consented to place their prerogatives and interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament, for the purposes of the Bill.
Bill read a third time.
Clause 5 [Food authorities and authorised officers]:
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 4, line 10, after ("islands") insert (", regional").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, with the agreement of your Lordships, I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 2 since the amendments are linked. The purpose of these two amendments is to have the same flexibility in Scotland as is proposed in England and Wales—for the Secretary of State (in the case of Scotland) to have the permissive powers that the Ministers have in England and Wales to decide which should be the appropriate food authorities. The problem that arises—is that there seems to be some discrepancy between the treatment of Scotland on the one hand and of England and Wales on the other. It therefore does not seem unreasonable that the two should be brought into line.
However, there is a further reason for my moving the amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, was kind enough to write to me on the subject and to indicate in his letter the reasons why the Government did not feel disposed to accept an earlier amendment to this effect. He explained that in 1983 there had been changes in Scotland in the application of the Food and Drugs Act and that these had been moved to district level. Perhaps I may quote from his letter. He added that:
"The Bill does allow the co-operation of trading standards departments in the field of food standards in as much as the food authorities (in Scotland the District and Islands Councils) can authorise persons other than their own officers to undertake their responsibilities under the Bill. This leaves the way open in practice for Trading Standards Officers to act as agents for food enforcement should the authorities judge it economical to do so".
He stated that there was in fact this flexibility in practice.
Perhaps I may remind noble Lords that I am president of the Institute of Trading Standards Administration. I have put this letter to the officers in Scotland. I received the reply that since 1983 there has been no move to include TSOs in any co-ordination or liaison groups. They further point out (and it is very important for the efficient implementation of this important Bill) that it is only in Scotland that each food manufacturer or trader has two home authorities: the region—namely, the

23
TSOs for trade descriptions, weights and measures and price marking—and the district for compositional labelling. In England and Wales, on the other hand, there is only one authority responsible for all consumer protection functions. It follows from that that there is a strong case for closer co-ordination in Scotland, which apparently has not occurred since 1983. This admirable Bill provides an opportunity for stimulating such co-ordination and making it at least permissive. I therefore feel that in all those circumstances your Lordships would wish to support the amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, I moved a similar amendment to that which has been so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, at the Committee stage of the Bill. Quite frankly, I was disappointed with the response that I received at the time from the Minister. I too have had the benefit of seeing the letter that the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, sent to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, on the subject. It is admirably friendly and lucid in many ways. However, it finally comes down in favour of not making the concession for which the amendment, I think, reasonably asks.
The case has been fully stated by the noble Lord, Lord Ezra. The only point that I mention, which may not be of immediate importance but could be of some importance in the not-too-distant future, is this. If the single market is achieved on time, that in itself may require a reappraisal of functions. Therefore, the flexibility that the Bill gives in England and Wales for such a reappraisal, should the need arise, should be extended to Scotland.
I hope that on this occasion the Government will give a more sympathetic response to the amendment.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I shall be interested to hear what my noble friend on the Front Bench has to say in response to the amendment. Both noble Lords who have spoken to it know Scotland well and will appreciate that the geography is very different from that south of the Border. The local government arrangements are also different. As the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, said, every citizen in Scotland is involved with two authorities, the district and the region, except where there is a unitary authority, which is in only a small part of Scotland, However, one has to remember that the regional council may not be geographically close to an event. For example, if there were a problem in Oban, the regional council headquarters is in Glasgow. If there were a problem in Wick, the regional council headquarters is in Inverness. One has to remember that there is therefore a remoteness. Communications are not easy.
The fact that there is a discrepancy between the remainder of the country and Scotland does not matter. We often have discrepancies and welcome them in Scotland, We need a flexibility that is suitable for the operation of the system. I shall listen with interest to my noble friend on the very detailed point that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, has made. It is outside my experience. But it is within my experience that, for example, the public analyst in
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Tayside, where I live, is employed by the regional council. That public analyst could perfectly well work as an agent for the district council in Angus. That would be a flexible arrangement which would work very well in my view. I have been content with the system as it stands. However, I shall make up my mind when I have listened to my noble friend. I hope that that is helpful.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, I am a little surprised and disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, continues to press this matter. During Committee the noble Lord, with support from the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, put down amendments designed to designate regional councils in Scotland as "food authorities". I explained then, and, as has been stated, the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, Minister of State at the Scottish Office has since written to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, to emphasise that Scottish Ministers had no wish to alter in any way the present arrangements. The single tier unitary system whereby EHOs of island and district councils have sole responsiblity for food law enforcement was put in place after very careful consideration as recently as 1983. As my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour said, demographic circumstances are different in Scotland and the seat of the regional council can often be very remote from parts of the region that it covers.
The present arrangements, I am assured, work very well. Indeed, Scottish Ministers are firmly of the view that to turn the clock back again and create some statutory role for TSOs would not only give rise to uncertainty but be completely at odds with the will of most industry and consumer interests.
As I have said before, we recognise that in a limited number of organisations there is a call for close co-operation between EHOs and TSOs. If this cannot be achieved by administrative means, then the Bill provides scope for the "food authority" to enlist and authorise others, who could be TSOs. But that decision we believe must be one for the food authority. There is no need for fundamental revisions in statutory responsibility.
I appreciate that all the noble Lord is seeking at this stage is an enabling power similar to that which we have in England and Wales and which would enable the Secretary of State to allocate some or all of the district councils' food responsibilities to regional councils. However, the Government cannot agree to this change. It would inevitably be unsettling. Once the power was there the arguments closed by the 1983 decision to go for a unitary system would be reopened and there would be pressure from trading standards officers for changes to be made. This is clearly undesirable when the existing systems works well and was reviewed so recently.
Of course if the structure of local government in Scotland were to be looked at again at some future date and the Government decided to make changes, primary legislation would inevitably be required and, if appropriate, the issue would be addressed and debated then.

25
The noble Lord, Lord Ezra, quoted from a letter written by my noble friend Lord Sanderson. I emphasise the final point made in the letter. It stated:
"This leaves the way open in practice for Trading Standards Officers to act as agents for food enforcement should the food authorities judge it economical to do so. That is a matter for decision at the working level, and there is nothing in the Bill to impede it".
The noble Lord, Lord Gallacher, raised a particular point but I suggest that we jump that hurdle when we reach it.
To sum up, these amendments are not acceptable to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland for the good reasons that I have given. I hope that this further explanation, even if it is not welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Ezra, will convince him that he should withdraw his amendments.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, with the leave of the House, will the Minister say whether Strathclyde region, for example, is pressing to be a food industry?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I do not believe so.
4 p.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, I thank the Minister for the full comment in the amendment that I have moved, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Gallacher. As she expected, I was sorry to hear her remarks. At first I was disturbed by her suggestion that the object of the amendment was to put the clock back. There is no question of doing so. As she later mentioned, it is a proposal for a permissive amendment to put Scotland on all fours with England and Wales.
I am disturbed by the concern of trading standards officers in Scotland. After all, the success of such legislation depends upon those who must carry it out. They are the environmental health officers and trading standards officers. It is most important that those two eminent groups have a full understanding, one with the other. I have been advised that trading standards officers in Scotland believe that since 1983 the system has not worked as flexibly as it should have worked and, as the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, said in his letter, it did work. That is a matter of great concern.
I do not propose to push the amendment to a Division. I merely wish to register the concern of trading standards officers in Scotland. It should be the responsibility of government to ensure that the concern is set at rest so that it is effectively implemented and everyone involved in carrying out the legislation can work closely together. I hope that the fears of trading standards officers in Scotland—they are a worthy group of people—can be allayed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 2 not moved.]
Clause 17 [Food safety and consumer protection]:
The Viscount of Falkland The Viscount of Falkland moved Amendment No. 3:
Page: 13, line 47, at end insert—
("() No regulations under subsection (1)(c) above authorising the irradiation of food shall be made before the
26
draft Directive on food and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation has been adopted by the Council of Ministers.").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, during the course of our debates on the Bill the subject of irradiation has caused the most bitter argument, although nothing is ever very bitter in your Lordships' House. It has certainly attracted the attention of those outside, in the press and the media, and I have no doubt it will continue to do so when the Bill passes to another place.
It may be that when our debates began in this House many noble Lords were somewhat ignorant of the subject of irradiation. We have dealt with the subject at length and I hope that your Lordships are now better informed about the process in terms of adding to food safety and also understand the fears held by those of us who were more anxious about its introduction than the Government. We remain anxious, and those of us who opposed the introduction of food irradiation as part of the Government's largely laudable package of measures to improve food safety believe that many questions remain unanswered.
Those unanswered questions are the cause of my amendment. The provision falls a good deal short of that which I put forward in an earlier amendment, which I withdrew. I had intended to move the amendment on Report but another amendment brought forward many of the same arguments. The matter was reached late at night and to have dealt with it then would have been unfair not only to your Lordships but also to those outside the House who follow our deliberations closely. I refer particularly to those who are interested in the new development; for example, customers, consumers, retailers, manufacturers, and so forth.
As the subject of irradiation passed through the debates in your Lordships' House an unusual aspect was the fact that we received a report from the Select Committee on Irradiation. Rather unsatisfactorily, I suggest, it was squeezed into the dinner hour. Nevertheless, some of us spoke for longer than the Government wished in order to express our fears and to seek further information from noble Lords who had served on the committee. Although only four members of the committee were present we received a clear message which is contained in its report. It is the substance of the amendment I have tabled today.
Although the Select Committee guardedly accepted in principle that irradiation could be a useful tool in helping the Government in their fight for food safety, it recommended that we should wait until the EC directive on irradiation has been approved by the Council of Ministers. Member states of the EC will then have an opportunity to meet and agree on its introduction. It can be done in a co-ordinated way with the proper backing of all members of the EC and decisions can be made on its introduction into retail and catering outlets, restaurants, and so forth.
It was also unusual that during the course of the Bill through your Lordships' House three television programmes were shown on the subject of irradiation. I hope that your Lordships saw those

27
programmes and did not see just one of them because I thought that one programme was rather biased in support of the Government's view of the matter; namely, that the process is completely safe. Even that programme was rather cautious about saying that it was completely, absolutely or wholly safe. Those descriptions have been used in recent weeks not necessarily by the noble Baroness on the Government Front Bench but by various government spokesmen.
On the information that the people of this country have—and I am perfectly prepared to concede that some of that information has not been wholly understood—it is quite clear that there is a general anxiety about the process. It is not an anxiety about the unfortunate name of the process—irradiation—which many people confuse with the happenings in Chernobyl and other places. I believe that most people now gather that the danger about this process is not the radiation levels but what happens to the food as a result of the process when the structure of the food is broken down. They are worried about what happens in the long term if food is taken which has been irradiated over long periods. In my view, that has not been adequately explained to the public.
I have introduced this amendment in order to give us just a little more time. When we press for immediate action the Government are quick to say we must wait to see what happens in the other countries of Europe and must not be too hasty. On this occasion, they want to be hasty. One can see the reason for that. There has been an unfortunate increase in cases of food poisoning in recent times, for one reason or another. The Government want to be seen to be acting in a positive and radical way to deal with that. Some noble Lords may have suffered, as I did, from the salmonella outbreak. However, in most cases of food poisoning which have taken place the contaminated food is not in any event necessarily suitable for the irradiation process.
Furthermore, it emerged from the television programme last Thursday evening that the professor of microbiology at Leeds University, who has been carrying out some experiments for quite some time on listeria, has some evidence to show that not all the listeria is killed or eliminated by the irradiation process. Indeed, in some cases you can see a multiplication of the listeria after irradiation. There is a warning note there. If we wait until the European Community directive is approved by the Council of Ministers, we shall have a little more time to think about the process. Perhaps the Government will be putting themselves rather less at risk should something go wrong in the long term.
I suggest to your Lordships that to try to introduce this process of food irradiation into the country through regulation is thinking only in the short term. I do not think that the Government have fully considered what could happen in the long term. They are only concerned with dealing with this present problem of listeria and salmonella. Nobody would argue but that irradiation increases the shelf life of certain goods which are suitable for irradiation.
However, this Bill is not about shelf life but about food safety.
My postbag—I am sure this is the case with other noble Lords—reflects that those mostly concerned about this matter are parents of small children. It is all very well for noble Lords and others outside who can go and choose for themselves. Indeed, I suggest that there will not be much opportunity to buy irradiated food because the major supermarket chains except for Sainsbury's, have said quite categorically that they will not introduce it. Sainsbury's has said, perfectly properly, that it will be introduced if there is customer demand for it. The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, put that view himself in this House and I see nothing wrong with that. However, if I understood the tone of that speech on that occasion, he believes it unlikely that there will be immediate demand.
However, let us consider the case of people in institutions, schools and even restaurants. On the television programme the other evening the honourable friend of the noble Baroness, who I think is the Minister for food safety, admitted in a rather airy way that the Government were having problems regarding irradiated food in restaurants. I should think they are having problems with that. How will that be marked on a menu? One of the policies of the Government is that people should be given more choice. However, let us suppose that a lorry driver goes into a transport cafe. How will it be indicated to him whether or not certain elements of his meal have been irradiated? That area must be a minefield. I am sorry that the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, is not present because I know that he has some fears about that.
I am sure that in certain cases—for example, school meals—inevitably people will be exposed to irradiated food and I hope that that does them no harm. I do not suppose that Oliver Twist, if such an unfortunate individual existed now, would care very much when he asked for more porridge whether or not it was irradiated. He would just want more porridge. Therefore, I suggest that this has not yet been sufficiently thought through.
My amendment proposes that the Government should wait and put the brake on this matter. I believe that they should not hammer us. That was the attitude of the honourable friend of the noble Baroness on television. Some of us find that attitude of certain members of the Government increasingly irritating. It assumes that millions of us are all idiots but that the Government are absolutely right. The public are right to be concerned about this new process and have a right to be assured that it is perfectly safe, which it is not. I do not suggest that it is unsafe. We just do not know enough about it.
I leave those thoughts with the House and commend my amendment to your Lordships. I believe that it is moderate and sensible and gives a short period for consideration. If more research is being carried out, then it gives time for those findings to be available. I beg to move.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, I should like to support the amendment for slightly different reasons. My reasons are purely practical. It is an enormously complicated and expensive process which is highly emotive. We do not really know exactly what regulations will emerge in Europe. We cannot afford to be out of step because if we produce a regulation which we have to withdraw at the end of the day, that will be very expensive and will not help the cause of irradiation, if there is such a cause.
Too often we are out of step with Europe in any event. In this case it appears to me absolutely logical, as we said in our report on irradiation, that we keep in step with Europe. I commend that approach. We could get into a lot of trouble, a lot of people could be put to a great deal of expense and we could look extremely foolish. Therefore, it appears to me to be common sense to keep in step with Europe and to await the outcome of those regulations with everything in place in the Bill so that the Government can go ahead step by step along with our friends in Europe.
Lord Borthwick: My Lords, I have listened with great interest to the debate. I disagree with much of what has been stated.
The Americans lost more people in the Korean war as a result of irradiation than from enemy action. There was a breakdown of the irradiation system. All of the food came from America and fed the troops very well. I think that they probably quite liked it. However, something went wrong and the system of irradiation broke down. They began to become very ill and died. The death rate was higher than it would have been from a battle.
Irradiation kills a lot of useful things as well as things; that are not useful. We must attune our bodies to the areas in which we live. Some people drink the water of the Ganges and live happily. If British people tried to do that, they would probably not come out again. After two sniffs of the evening air when going past the Ganges, they would probably go down with fever next morning because they do not have the immunity of the natives which has been developed over many years.
For those reasons, I am very much against the introduction of irradiation. It is a very bad thing.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, at Committee Stage we moved a similar amendment to the one moved by the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. Sadly, we had no joy from the Government on that occasion. I do not anticipate any change of heart in spite of the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland's eloquence this afternoon. Nevertheless, the Opposition firmly support the principle that the Government would save themselves a great deal of aggravation if they moved in step with the Community on this important issue.
It is ironic that while Clause 18 of the Bill paves the way for being communautaire (whether we cross bridges before we come to them or not) the Government have signified in clear terms their firm intention to proceed ahead of Europe, with unknown
30
consequences for the trade and for consumers. The Government are acting with undue haste and are needlessly making trouble for themselves. Nevertheless, I support the amendment.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I hope that the Government stand their ground. I was astonished to hear the noble Viscount, when proposing this amendment, stating that we were probably ignorant of the subject. The subject has been canvassed for 30 years to my knowledge. I say that because I was then Minister for Science.
No noble Lord has mentioned the fact that this amendment deals with gamma ray irradiation. The public does not know the difference between alpha, beta and gamma. The public proceed on the dog latin motto omnia nuclear pro magnifico. We are in danger of becoming a nation of hypochondriacs and litigants like America, which is my mother's country. I am getting rather tired of it all.
We know all that there is to be known about gamma ray irradiation at the present time. It is known that it does not wash woollens, it does not pay income tax and that it will not wind up clocks. However, it will kill a certain number of bugs. Nobody can say that anything is absolutely safe because it will not destroy toxins which are already there. However, it will make food a great deal more healthy and safer than it is at present. That is a certain fact. Future knowledge may lead us further on.
The idea that the Community must tell us whether or not we eat irradiated food is to put the matter the wrong way round. Why should we restrict ourselves to food which the Council of Ministers allows us to eat? Why can we not choose for ourselves? Even if the Government are not infallible—and I have never known a government which were—why should we not be allowed to pass regulations of our own about what we eat in the form of chocolate, or the speed limit on our roads, instead of having all of this nonsensical pseudo-scientific talk fed to us day after day, even at the Third Reading stage of Bills?
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, this situation is reminiscent of an earlier stage when the noble and learned Lord spoke as he has just spoken. I found myself left with one paragraph. In that paragraph I stated that we had been studying this matter for 20 years. We had been asked by the World Health Organisation to implement some provisions urgently in relation to the care of chickens. The decision of the Council of Ministers does not guarantee anything in relation to food safety. I suggest that the Government get a move on.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, has spoken as he spoke before, and I am afraid that I am going to speak as I spoke before, since this is the last chance for your Lordships' House to look at food irradiation. I should like briefly to run through the arguments against proceeding with this process with undue haste. I shall do no more than list them, since they were developed at earlier stages of the Bill. It is, however, important to do so.

31
Irradiation destroys vitamins. It damages the structure of food; if it did not, it would not be effective. It creates chemical processes whose long-term effects on humans are uncertain, to put it no higher. It does not of course make one glow in the dark, and I have little sympathy for protest groups which harp on dangers of radioactivity at the proposed dose, for which the evidence is minimal.
Irradiation is far from totally effective in protecting against hazards in food. Furthermore, the destruction of beneficial bacteria means that any contamination that takes place after food has been irradiated is that much more serious.
The evidence from safety studies is, I believe, a good deal less impressive than is often claimed. Epidemiological studies—that is, on populations exposed to irradiated food—are almost totally lacking. It is no argument to say that many people have been fed with such food if proper trials have not been conducted in order to discover what happened to those people. (Witness the dangers of smoking which were discovered after some 400 years.) Toxicology is an extremely imprecise science. Many of the animal studies relied upon would not meet current standards of evidence. Anyone who has looked at these matters will know that assurances of absolute safety can never be given, which makes all the more alarming some of the recent claims from the side of the Government. However, one looks, in the environmentally conscious 'nineties, for a rather firmer basis of relative safety, as some committees have pointed out. The major scientific database that underpins all the judgments on safety is a manifest shambles of disorganisation.
Then one has bias, mostly of the unconscious variety. Scientists will always want to play with their science, and technologists with their technology. They do not usually take kindly to those people with possibly a wider focus who want to be quite sure that they have it right first. That is especially true when they have something in their sights which they feel could be of great benefit to mankind. One can understand that situation. One of the things that worries me about the present debate is the enthusiasm, amounting almost to passion, in some pro-irradiation quarters. It is better to be dispassionate in matters that concern people's well-being.
There are reputable scientists and there have been reputable committees, including expert committees, who would not agree with what the Government are intending to do. If that were not the case, I would be foolhardy indeed to stand here and say what I have said. However, I am doubly strengthened by the observation that experts in this kind of field have a track record of blunders that makes me astonished that they can continue to give the assurances that they do without going bright red in the face. Since we last debated irradiation a week ago there have been two scientific findings that illustrate this point. We have been told for years that fluoride in the water supply at one part per million poses no danger to health. It has even been called a fake controversy. The latest American studies suggest that fluoride may cause cancer. The claims and enthusiasm for
32
fluoride have their counterparts in the irradiation debate. At Sellafield the often-denied connection between radiation and leukaemia in the local population appears now to have been made.
"Some of the doses implicated"—
I read in Saturday's Independent—
"are within the levels previously considered safe".
Does anyone sit down, I wonder, and examine the system that produces those wrong results—not merely wrong, but dangerous—with a view to understanding why it happens so often, and doing better next time? Shall we have to learn the hard way with food irradiation as well? To proceed now would be to go against the weight of public opinion in this country—a point which has already been made—and against the whole trend towards a fresher and more natural food supply and lifestyle.
I understand the arguments for consumer choice, as soon as (but not before) the safety issue is resolved; but I wonder whether the Minister has taken in the implications once irradiation is in the food supply. The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, has referred to some of them.
I have here an invitation to an official dinner which came the other day. Suppose irradiation were already a fact. What do I do about it? Do I ring up the secretary and say, "Are you having irradiated food?" He probably will not know. He probably will not know who the caterers are. Do I put it in my diary or do I not? Suppose a neighbour rings me up and says, "We should like both of you to come to Sunday lunch. We have some people we should like you to meet on Sunday". Do I ask, "Are you having irradiated food?" It is hardly a good social ploy. Do I keep a card index of friends and acquaintances who have irradiated food? Do I keep it up to date, constantly modified?
That is the everyday reality. Buying food for home cooking is the easy bit. I know all that because I went through it when I was allergic to a range of foods and drinks. In effect, the exercise of choice is just not possible unless one suffers the life of a hermit. Once irradiation is in the food supply, we are all in for it, whether we like it or not.
I am well aware that I have spoken more strongly than the amendment may warrant but that is because I believe that irradiation is a bigger issue than the Government have been willing to concede. I urge the Minister to accept this extremely modest amendment. 4.30 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, has not the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, terribly misled himself and is he not misleading us by taking one American report on fluoride, which suggests that it may cause cancer, and trying to leave in your Lordships' minds, presumably having it in his mind, that that will be the same for every other type of advance in the scientific processing of food or other things that we take into ourselves? He is thereby implying that that will apply equally and precisely to irradiation, upon which we are well aware that studies have been continuing for 20 years. We do not even know whether the American report was a one-off which happened to hit the press and whether it is substantiated. It is

33
dangerous for your Lordships to be given the thought, without the noble Earl having said so, that the position would be the same. I hope that your Lordships will view cautiously what he said in that manner.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am most grateful for the last words of my noble friend Lord Mottistone. I cannot compete with my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham or the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, but in 1985 when I became a junior Minister in the then DHSS I was given the in-house responsibility for ionising radiation of food. I thus have quite a long pedigree of familiarisation with that process. I have had the opportunity, for instance, of seeing the excellent research undertaken in Northern Ireland. I have had plenty of opportunity to question and to be informed. My conviction as to the safety and Tightness of the process is thus, I submit, well-founded.
Following what the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, said, I must say that my regret that the process was named "irradiation" has proved to be right. If for instance it was called long-life food, or even food ionising or whatever, I wonder whether we should be gathered here today querying a process of scientifically proven safety. I arrived at MAFF in 1987 asking, "When are we going to bring in food irradiation?"
I have listened most carefully to what has been said today, at various stages of the Bill and in our debate; and I must say that it was a novel experience for me to be squeezed into the dinner hour. On the question of delaying the introduction of irradiation until agreement is reached on the proposed European Council directive, I recall that my noble friend Lord Middleton described the recommendation in his sub-committee's report to this effect as,
"consistent with the Committees' cautious approach".
I was particularly struck by the comment of my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour at the Committee stage. She indicated that when the committee agreed that recommendation she was under the impression—which she believed she shared with other members—that Community agreement was imminent. She went on to say that, if that were not the case, she could understand the Government's point in proceeding.
I believe that it would be wrong for the Government to allow their hands to be tied by the amendment for a number of reasons. First, the difficulties in Europe are political. They do not concern the safety of the process. Secondly, the technical standards applied to irradiation are not in dispute in Brussels. We shall be able to anticipate them and therefore there is no question of the United Kingdom introducing a different standard. Thirdly, if other provisions, such as the type of food to be irradiated, are subsequently agreed for the European Community as a whole they will obviously be incorporated into our own domestic regime. Fourthly, we need to act now to make available a safe and effective alternative treatment for the decontamination of herbs and spices. Fumigation by ethylene oxide will cease to be allowed within the
34
Community at the end of this year. There is widespread support for the use of irradiation for that purpose. Fifthly, and most importantly, the Government believe that irradiation offers real public health benefits through enhanced food safety.
There are few in the Government who support the European ideal more warmly than my right honourable friend the Minister. However, Community agreement on the directive in question is some way off. If the amendment were to be accepted we should be giving Ministers in other member states power to decide upon the timing of the introduction of food irradiation here even though some of them have already felt it appropriate to introduce it for their own consumers. We should thus be abrogating our right to take our own decisions in areas not yet covered by harmonised arrangements. That was a point most ably made by my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham.
We should also be putting ourselves in the position that we should be unable to take a decision until all others had done so. As I have previously made clear, the Government concur fully in the wish to have one harmonised set of rules across the whole EC. We very much hope that the current deadlock in Brussels will be broken soon; but, as I said in our debate on the sub-committee's report, it would be a brave Minister who would now risk a forecast as to when agreement might be reached.
I also cannot help feeling that the amendment is spurious. Members of your Lordships' House who oppose the process have given up their attempt to attack irradiation on its merits as an issue of food safety. There is a recognition, which is borne out by the recommendations of the sub-committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Middleton, that irradiation under carefully controlled conditions, including proper labelling, has a role to play in improving food safety. Moreover, the Government are required to consult on their detailed proposals for regulations and to set them out in a statutory instrument which will be laid before the House. In those circumstances, I feel that this is a spurious, delaying amendment, with the undesirable constitutional overtones that I have already described.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, mentioned Professor Lacey. I am aware of the claims made on television last week about the effect of irradiation upon listeria in poultry meat. I can only say that these claims are in complete conflict with the published findings of research at Queen's University, Belfast, and elsewhere. The published research shows that the level of dose envisaged for poultry meat will bring about a very significant reduction in listeria numbers, a reduction of about 90 per cent., in fact. These published results are supported by the findings of research conducted by my department which have not yet been published in full.
I shall be very interested to look into the claims. It is slightly unusual to give a new scientific finding on a television programme without having first written scientific papers to support it. I can inform the House that as soon as we became aware of these claims we wrote asking for full details to be supplied to us as soon as possible. I should add that statements made on that particular programme about listeria's

35
ability to grow at low temperatures are nothing new. This particular property of the bacterium is very well known. That is one of the reasons for the stress which the Government have laid all along on the need for good hygienic practices and close attention to temperature control following irradiation.
The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, mentioned the problem of labelling in restaurants. The noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, also spoke on the same subject. The noble Viscount is quite wrong to suggest that we are having problems over labelling in catering establishments. We have made it quite clear that we shall provide for that and we are consulting widely over it. In any event the proposed EC directive does not cover that point. The Government will have to work out the UK solution to this issue.
The noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, said that we must not get out of step with Europe. I could not agree with him more. I see no reason whatever to delay in providing enhanced food safety and in providing British consumers with the choice already available to French, Belgium, Italian and Netherlands consumers. That means that the millions of British holidaymakers in Europe, perhaps even the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin of Bewdley, may already be eating irradiated food.
But what have your Lordships to fear? As I have said before, there will be no compulsion for the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, the noble Lord, Lord Mackie of Benshie, or indeed anybody else, to eat food treated with ionising radiation. Consumer choice is the name of the game. The likelihood is that very few foods will be irradiated. Indeed at the moment there are many foods for which the process is not suitable, but it is suitable for poultry meat, shellfish and herbs and spices. These are all important uses of irradiation from a food safety point of view. We shall provide for full and clear labelling. We shall not relax our efforts to make food as safe as possible, but irradiation is such a valuable adjunct to our armoury that we would be wrong to delay. When the Community reaches agreement on this matter, should our rules differ we will of course amend them, as will France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. For all these reasons I cannot accept this amendment.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. The noble Baroness said that the difficulties in Europe are political. I imagine that most difficulties in Europe are political. I am not absoluely sure what she meant. All I am saying concerning this amendment is that we should wait until Europe resolves whatever its difficulties are even if they are political. However, I fancy that they are more than that.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, asked why we should be dictated to by Europe as to what food we should and should not have. As I understand it, the truth of the matter is that we are in Europe and the result is that we shall have some measure of dictation concerning what we have and do not have in the way of food and other things. I do not believe that that will be bad in all cases.
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This is a very limited amendment. The noble Baroness has been eloquent but she has not answered all my points by any means though she has clarified some. A great many people in the country have expressed concern not about the safety of the measure but about the haste with which the Government are engaged in bringing in the process. I would not be responding to my responsibilities and it would be unfair of me if I let the matter go. I shall have to put the amendment to your Lordships' House for a decision.
4.46 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 3) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 76; Not-Contents, 120.

DIVISION NO. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Kennet, L.

Amherst, E.

Listowel, E.

Ardwick, L.

Lockwood, B.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Longford, E.

Bonham-Carter, L.

McCarthy, L.

Bottomley, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Mais, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Molloy, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Monkswell, L.

Monson, L.

Carter, L.

Mulley, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Nicol, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Northfield, L.

Cobbold, L.

Ogmore, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Peston, L.

Craigavon, V.

Phillips, B.

David, B.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Raglan, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Rea, L.

Ennals, L.

Rochester, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Roll of Ipsden, L.

Ezra, L.

Seear, B.

Falkland, V. [Teller.]

Serota, B.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Shackleton, L.

Gallacher, L.

Stallard, L.

Galpern, L.

Stewart of Fulham, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Grey, E.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Hampton, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Underhill, L.

Hughes, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hunt, L.

Wedderbum of Charlton, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

John-Mackie, L,

Kearton, L.

Winstanley, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abercorn, D.

Blatch, B.

Airey of Abingdon, B.

Blyth, L.

Aldington, L.

Boardman, L.

Allerton, L.

Borthwick, L.

Arran, E.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Ashbourne, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Auckland, L.

Butterworth, L.

Aylestone, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Balfour, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Beloff, L.

Carnock, L.

Belstead, L.

Cawley, L.

Bessborough, E.

Coleraine, L.

37

Colnbrook, L.

Margadale, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Marsh, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Merrivale, L.

Cox, B.

Mersey, V.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Milverton, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Monk Bretton, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Diamond, L.

Mottistone, L.

Elibank, L.

Mountevans, L.

Elles, B.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Munster, E.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Newall, L.

Erne, E.

Norrie, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Orkney, E.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Pennock, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Gisborough, L.

Polwarth, L.

Goold, L.

Pym, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Hailsham of Saint

Reay, L.

Marylebone, L.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Rodney, L.

Havers, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Henley, L.

St. Davids, V.

Hesketh, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Hirshfield, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Hives L.

Seebohm, L.

Home of the Hirsel, L.

Selborne, E.

Hood, V.

Shannon, E.

Hooper, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Hunter of Newington, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Stedman, B.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Strange, B.

Joseph, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Kaberry of Adel, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Killearn, L.

Kimball, L.

Strathspey, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Sudeley, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Swinton, E.

Layton, L.

Terrington, L.

Long, V.

Teviot, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Lyell, L.

Trefgarne, L.

McCollof Dulwich, L.

Trumpington, B.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Ullswater, V.

Malmesbury, E.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Mancroft, L.

Wise, L.

Manton, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
[Amendment No. 4 not moved.]
Clause 28 [Appointment of public analysts]:
4.53 p.m.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 20, line 17, leave out ("this section") and insert ("subsection (1) above").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7.
Noble Lords may recall that in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Carter, moved an amendment to enable public analysts to continue to undertake analytical work on behalf of food businesses. At that time, I did not believe there was a problem about the drafting of Clause 28(2) which called for an amendment. However, I undertook to look in to the matter and write to the noble Lord. As a result, we came to the conclusion that these three amendments are needed.
On reflection, we consider that it would be prudent to be able to remove any doubt as to what activities
38
fall foul of the prohibition on public analysts' involvement in food businesses. We propose to do this by providing a regulation-making power. We intend that such regulations will list what activities will preclude people from acting as a public analyst. It is difficult to set out an exhaustive list and the use of regulations rather than the Bill will enable adjustments to be made more easily to the list. Examples of what we would propose to include initially are directorships of food businesses, full-time or part-time employment in such a business and retainers accepted from such a business. I assure noble Lords that we do not intend generally to prevent public analysts from undertaking work for food businesses on an ad hoc basis. However, we need to be sure that there are appropriate arrangements to avoid conflicts of interest. In drafting the regulations there will of course be full consultation with interested organisations in the usual way.
We wish also to make a change to Clause 31 which will allow for official samples to be passed on where the analyst feels there may be a conflict of interests as well as in the circumstances already provided for in the current text, such as lack of expertise or appropriate equipment. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness for explaining the amendment. I recognise the difficulty the Minister has had with the clause and subsection. There is still a degree of imprecision in the wording. I presume that this will be taken care of in the regulations. We shall look at those very carefully when they come before us.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 20, line 19, at end insert ("; and in subsection (2) above the reference to being engaged directly or indirectly in a food business includes a reference to having made such arrangements with a food business as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Ministers").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 31 [Analysis etc. of samples]:
Baroness Trumpington Baroness Trumpington moved Amendment No. 7:
Page 21, line 17, leave out ("an effective") and insert ("the").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 35 [Time Limit for prosecutions]:
Lord Lucas of Chilworth Lord Lucas of Chilworth moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 24, line 28, at end insert—
("; and unless there has been served on the person charged a notice in writing of the date and nature of the offence alleged, such notice to be served before the expiration of the period of thirty days beginning with the date when evidence which the person proposing to institute the proceedings considers is sufficient to justify a prosecution for the offence came to his knowledge.
(2) Such a notice as is mentioned in subsection (1) above may be served on any person either by serving it on him personally or by sending it to him by post at his usual or last known residence or place of business in the United Kingdom or, in the case of a company, at the company's registered office.

39
(3) For the purposes of subsection (1) above—

(a) a certificate of a person who institutes proceedings for an offence mentioned in that subsection which states that evidence came to his knowledge on a particular date shall be conclusive evidence of that fact; and

(b) a document purporting to be a certificate of such a person and to be signed by him or on his behalf shall be presumed to be such a certificate unless the contrary is proved".).

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I should like again to thank my noble friend the Minister for the series of fairly concentrated discussions that have taken place since we last discussed the subject matter of the amendment. I am most grateful to her. I return to this amendment because I feel that some misunderstandings arose during our discussions at Report stage. For example, my noble friend suggested at one time that the amendment sought to give special protection to food manufacturers, importers and sellers. That was not the intention; and the amendment, if noble Lords were minded to accept it, does not seek to do so either.
The amendment seeks to insist that enforcement authorities investigating a complaint should notify formally within a reasonable length of time any likely plaintiff that an investigation is being undertaken. There are a number of examples of where enforcement authorities have not instituted legal proceedings—indeed it was not necessary for them so to do—until some months after they became aware of evidence. I suggest that such delay may have been due to shortage of resources or because of a queueing system. Whatever the reason, delay makes it difficult for the plaintiff to conduct internal investigations when many events will have taken place since the offence was perceived to have been committed.
I believe that an amendment requiring enforcement authorities to give notice within a very short space of time that they are minded to carry out an investigation which may lead to allegations is only right. The requirement would be there to help the plaintiff in making his own examinations and in carrying out his own internal inquiries. Whatever the outcome of the enforcement officer's investigation may be, that can only make more clear either a prosecution or, indeed, a defence. I trust that I have made the intentions of the amendment quite clear. I commend it to your Lordships' House.
5 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment. Unless this is agreed to, how can an individual who is being prosecuted possibly prepare an adequate defence in respect of an offence which is most probably a minor offence and, what is more, almost certainly an accidental one, allegedly committed as long as three years previously?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth for the remarks he made. As I said before, I think that the time limits in the legislation are reasonable. Therefore, I should be reluctant to see them effectively undermined by the qualification proposed in the amendment. As my noble friend said, we have discussed many of the potential
40
problems together. However, we should like to give some further thought to one aspect of the problem raised by him.
If an environmental health officer or a trading standards officer undertakes an inspection of premises, the owner is on notice that if all is not in order he may be prosecuted. If he takes a sample, regulations under Clause 32(2)(e) provide that he gives notice of the fact to the "persons in charge". We can look at the problems described by my noble friend in making any such regulations. If a prosecution stems from a complaint by a consumer and the proprietor is not aware of it, I can see that it may be difficult for him to defend himself later when proceedings are taken against him.
However, perhaps I should say that I believe the enforcement officer would usually visit the business promptly when he receives a significant complaint to check the position. Moreover, I am assured that most, if not all, authorities already operate procedures whereby the proprietor or the person in charge would be informed of a complaint. But if there is a problem it seems to me that it may be suitable to address it in a code of practice for enforcement authorities and not in the Bill. I undertake that we shall look at the matter in that context.
I should perhaps add that in all such cases the enforcement officer would normally interview the proprietor or other person in charge. If he wished to use the replies of the interviewee he would have to caution him first and explain the nature of the complaint in accordance with the provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. If he did not caution the interviewee, the replies would not normally be admitted as evidence by the court. If there are problems in practice about which my noble friend is aware, I should be most grateful if he would let me have full details of them. I ask for such details because it is very difficult to judge from anecdotal evidence. I should be very glad if he would write to me giving me chapter and verse. I hope thereby that we can settle this problem—if, indeed, it is a problem—once and for all. In the circumstances, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Lucas of Chilworth: My Lords, I am grateful for the contribution made by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. He underlined the fact that there is a serious matter under consideration here. I am also grateful to my noble friend the Minister for what she said. Of course I shall respond to her invitation to provide chapter and verse of those cases which have been brought to my attention where, I believe, it would have been more helpful had a more prompt response been made by the trading standards officers or others.
I listened carefully to what my noble friend said with regard to what a court may take note of. I was reminded of the discussions we had over defences which were available to manufacturers and retailers. It seems to me that we should be looking at the problem which I have outlined to your Lordships with that aspect in mind. Whether a visit is made promptly is perhaps by the way; what I seek is

41
an assurance that my noble friend will embrace somewhere the requirement to give formal notice.
My noble friend has given an undertaking to give further thought to one particular aspect and also to what may be contained in a code of practice, which is provided for in Clause 41. I am grateful to her for that consideration. Therefore, I do not wish to proceed further with the matter this afternoon. However, I hope that before the Bill becomes enacted we may actually see what is in my mind on the face of the legislation rather than in one of a number of codes.
I shall beg leave to withdraw my amendment shortly, but since I am on my feet and since I do not propose to take part in the next stage of the Bill's proceedings, I wonder whether your Lordships would allow me to thank my noble friend the Minister for her courtesy throughout the proceedings. She has certainly helped me over a number of problems. I should also like to thank her for her unfailing humour during at least two rather long late-night sittings on the Bill.
I do not know whether your Lordships noticed the fact that during the Report stage we had—and I think for the first time in Parliament—the unique and extremely pleasurable attendance of three noble Baronesses conducting the proceedings on the Bill. We should perhaps mark that fact. Indeed I was reminded on one occasion of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta "The Mikado" and especially "Three little maids … are we". I can only say that although those three little maids may have been wary, I suspect that our three little maids who conducted the proceedings on the Bill were not unwary of what lay before them. Therefore, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
An amendment (privilege) made.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
This important Bill which brings together legislation covering the whole of Great Britain received a broad welcome from all sides of your Lordships' House on Second Reading. That positive response continued through most of the subsequent discussions. The spirit of co-operation has also been most evident within the government team. I must pay tribute to the very valuable contributions made by my noble friends Lady Hooper, Lady Blatch and Lord Strathmore and Kinghorne. It was especially pleasant to reactivate the old team of "Little and Large", particularly when my noble friend Lady Hooper has a great deal of other legislation with which to preoccupy her.
My noble friend Lord Lucas of Chilworth has slightly stolen my thunder because I was going to say that we had created a little piece of history. Opposition Peers must have been terrified at being faced with not one, not two, but three battling Baronesses for the first time. I venture to add that the Lords show the Commons the way.
I also wish to thank the noble Lords, Lord Gallacher, Lord Carter and Lord Tordoff, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, for their unfailing
42
courtesy and good humour. The noble Earl, Lord Halsbury, my noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour, my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham and the noble Lord, Lord Hunter of Newington, also deserve my thanks. Your Lordships have put a lot of careful work into the Bill and this is shown by the fact that we made about a hundred amendments to it. Last but certainly not least, I wish to thank all those officials and my private secretary for their hard work and for putting up with me through what I might call thick and thin. I have also learnt an enormous amount about a wide range of subjects such as elvers, guar gum, Mr. Babbage's differentiating engine and some things that I should have preferred not to discuss so soon after dinner!
Your Lordships are well aware that the Bill contains a considerable number of enabling powers. We have looked at some length at the way in which secondary legislation is scrutinised by interested parties, with the help of a number of your Lordships on both sides of the House, including my noble friend Lord Mottistone, who moved the first amendment on the subject. The Government brought a comprehensive amendment at Report stage to extend the provision for consultation and this received a positive response.
The issue which we discussed for longest and in the greatest depth was food irradiation. We had the benefit of the debate on the report of your Lordships' committee, chaired by my noble friend Lord Middleton. I hope that I was able to reply to some of the concerns expressed by explaining the Government's intention and the World Health Organisation's view that food irradiation has real potential for reducing food poisoning. I also emphasised our commitment to consumer choice. In this context that means making available irradiated food under strict controls and ensuring that it is properly labelled so that the consumer can make an informed choice.
I thank your Lordships very much for the close scrutiny that has been made of the Bill. I commend it to the House and wish it God speed to another place.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Trumpington.)
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, on behalf of the Opposition I wish to express our thanks to the Government for the manner in which the Bill has been handled in your Lordships' House. On Second Reading, it received what is popularly known as all-party support; that is to say, on all sides of your Lordships' House the speeches were strongly in favour of the Bill, complimentary about its purpose and complimentary also about the skill with which it had been drafted. The compliments about drafting skill, however, did not extend to the Committee stage because your Lordships managed to devise more than 180 amendments to table to the Bill. Some of them, I am glad to say, were accepted by Her Majesty's Government. Unfortunately some of the better amendments were not. Needless to say, most of the better amendments were tabled by Her Majesty's Opposition.

43
I too noticed with considerable alarm the composition of the Government's half-back line on Report. I wondered whether I had strayed by some mischance into a ladies' night but I realised to my consternation that I had not. My consternation gave way to regret that I had failed on behalf of Her Majesty's Opposition to table as many amendments on Report as I had been urged to do. It was not that I wanted the honour and glory of moving them; it was simply that I felt that if I had tabled more I should have had my wrist metaphorically slapped far more often than I did. That said, however, I congratulate the noble Baroness particularly on the skilled way in which she handled the Bill and her two assistants for their backing aid, which I thought was of a most exemplary character.
I also wish to thank my colleague, my noble friend Lord Carter, for his support, and to congratulate speakers on all sides of the House for the expeditious way in which they dealt with the Bill. Other noble Lords, please copy! Like the noble Baroness, I wish the Bill well in the other place. I do not think that it will have quite as untroubled a passage, from what I hear. Nevertheless, we have set them a good example. The purpose of the Bill is first class and I hope that it soon passes into law.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, from these Benches perhaps I may join in thanking the noble Baroness and her team, both inside and outside the House. I hope it is not improper to say so, but having had the opportunity of discussing certain amendments with the noble Baroness I found myself confronted with an entirely female team of assistants and officials. This potential sixsome is formidable indeed. Nevertheless, they were a group of people prepared to listen to what was said to them and to agree, where they felt it was possible to agree, and to bring back amendments in the name of the Government, for which I am extremely grateful.
There are still some matters which we should have liked to see in the Bill, such as, the independent food agency for which my noble friend Lord Ezra pressed. He also would have liked to see trading standards officers more fully integrated into the system. I raised this splendid hare of "superglue" meat, as it was subsequently referred to, which seemed to hit the popular press at an amazing rate during the week. That culminated, I may say, in the ultimate situation of being discussed by Ms. Katherine Whitehorn in the newspaper the Observer yesterday. I could not have put it better myself, except that I think I did. She said:
"there isn't anything intrinsically more wicked about using up little pieces of meat in this way, than there is about using bits of pig's cheek to make brawn—provided that we know what we are getting".
That has been the theme running through many of the amendments that have been debated in your Lordships' House—the fact that consumers ought to be aware of what product they are getting, what it contains and how it is made. I think that we have gone some way towards that.
I understand that my honourable friend the Member for Truro in another place has received
44
some Answers to a number of Written Questions in the last 24 hours. I am glad to say that the tone of the Minister's reply is at least reassuring. I note in particular that the labelling rules which he talked about will apply equally to catering supplies as they do to retail sales. This is talking specifically about meat bonded together with blood plasma. I am not sure whether it is worse to mention this before or after supper!
I believe that it was important to raise this matter. I hope that the Government will keep a beady eye on it. Again, the trading standards officers are somewhat worried as to whether the provisions in the Bill will be adequate to deal with the problem as it develops. It is a matter which I believe the noble Baroness has agreed to discuss further with me in the period between the Bill leaving this House and reaching the other place.
Once again I wish to thank the Minister for the great help that she gave, particularly in relation to the freedom of information amendments which we discussed before the Committee stage. She came back at Report stage with her own amendments on that. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, is still worrying about removing manufacturing processes from the face of the Bill. I sincerely believe that he is mistaken and that the problems which he genuinely has are covered by the trade secrets legislation rather than merely manufacturing processes. Any matter which is secret to a process will of course be maintained as a secret, except in the most dire circumstances when the Minister can override that.
All we have done is to stop manufacturing processes which are not secret being revealed to the public in the cause of public safety. I hope that eventually the noble Lord will be able to accept that, although I see him looking fiercely at me; so perhaps he is not yet in that position. Once again I thank the Minister for the Bill, which will do much good for food safety, provided that it does all that the Government intend it to do.
Lord Mottistone: My Lords, I too wish to thank my noble friends Lady Trumpington and Lady Hooper for the courteous way in which they have handled the Bill and for the many amendments they have either accepted as they were or to which they have tabled amendments of their own. I also thank them for the way in which they have written good letters to try to put my mind at rest on certain matters. The Bill is a good Bill. However, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, brought up the matter of Clause 33(7) as I was not proposing to do so. What he had to say was in my opinion misguided. I believe he only introduced that matter as a kind of token. It is unfortunate that manufacturing processes will not be treated in the ways they have been heretofore. However, that is another matter. I hope that the Bill proceeds well through another place and that it is not mucked about. I hope that the point on manufacturing processes will be brought back into the Bill in another place. In all other respects I wish the Bill well.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Social Charter: ECC Report
5.21 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale Lord Allen of Abbeydale rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the European Communities Committee on a Community social charter (3rd Report, HL Paper 6).
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall begin by thanking those who have put down their names to speak in this debate which shows every sign of being an interesting one. It may be one-sided but we shall see whether that is the case. The report is one in which the practice was followed of publishing a version with the evidence and another shorter version without the evidence. I hope that that practice is found to be useful.
The committee's inquiry into the Community's proposals for a social charter could not begin until after the Summer Recess. The House will recall that the Government are committed to delaying agreement on Community proposals until both Houses have had an opportunity to comment. As the European Communities Committee has a responsibility to make its conclusions known before a final decision is taken by the Council of Ministers, that meant that this time the committee had to aim at reporting before the European Council on 8th and 9th December of last year.
Although the inquiry was therefore quite short, the sub-committee concerned, Sub-Committee C, had an opportunity to hear the key witnesses, including the Minister of State from the Department of Employment, Mr. Eggar, and informally those from the European Commission. The committee, as ever, is greatly obliged to the witnesses for their help. It is also indebted to its clerk, Mr. William Sleath, for his helpful service.
At the European Council in December the social charter was adopted by 11 member states. The United Kingdom was alone in dissenting. However, that is not the end of the story. Indeed in a sense it is only the beginning. There is general acceptance, as the conclusions at the Madrid summit made clear, that there is a social dimension to the internal market. Over the coming years the implementation of that social dimension is likely to remain near the top of the Community's agenda. The United Kingdom Government for their part would, I know, put special emphasis on the conclusion at the Madrid summit that for the well-being of Community citizens priority must be given to the creation of jobs. However, the Commission, with the approval of the 11 other member states, sees an important role, subject to that overriding aim, in formulating proposals to make a reality of the charter. In passing I should say that our report made the point that, along with full United Kingdom membership of the European monetary system, adoption of the social charter, whether one likes it or not, has become something of a touchstone for judging the United Kingdom's commitment to the development of the Community.
The first draft of the charter appeared in May of last year and further drafts followed in September and October. It is the October draft on which the
46
committee's inquiry was based. The draft is printed with the report. It showed considerable differences from the earlier versions. However, the member states were not given much opportunity to negotiate on this final version. The committee believes that more time should have been allowed for ironing out remaining problems in the text. However, the French presidency and the Commission were adamant that the charter should be discussed, and if possible settled, at the December meeting of the Council. Perhaps they were influenced by what they regarded as a failure on the part of the charter's critics to respond to the compromises which appeared in the October draft.
The introduction to our report tries to summarise the 12 categories of fundamental social rights which are set out in the charter. Some of these are not controversial. I think that all our witnesses accepted that health and safety provision, equal treatment for men and women, freedom of movement and vocational training are all legitimate areas if there is to be a charter at all. There are also some absentees. There is nothing about mandatory worker representation on all boards and young boys will still be able to deliver our morning newspapers. Those are two matters on which there had been a lot of anticipatory comment in this country. However, there are certainly other elements in the charter which are calculated to provoke more argument; for example, part-time work and minimum rights to annual paid leave.
Our report recognised that there was a perfectly understandable groundswell of support in other member states for some form of social charter which would look to benefits for workers, children, the elderly and the disabled as well as those accruing from the market to shareholders and managers. At the same time we recognised the feeling of the United Kingdom Government that more restrictions and rules would be likely to result in more loss of jobs and more unemployment. But for our part we found it hard to accept that a social charter necessarily implied a mandate for unrealistic regulation which could smother economic growth. We noted that the preamble to the charter recognises in terms that employment development and creation must be given first priority. We noted also that what was in contemplation was acceptable to the Germans, the French and the Italians, who are hardly less interested than we are in economic growth.
The general principle underlying our report mirrored that of the Select Committee's recent findings on the Delors Report, that the United Kingdom would have a greater say on the social charter in particular and on the future of the Community in general if it could persuade its partners that it was fully committed to the Community. That was one reason why the report recommended that the Government should accept the draft as a basis for negotiation. That did not mean that the committee believed the final draft of the charter to be faultless. It did not embrace the charter with, say, the enthusiasm of the Labour Party, whose fervour led it to take the significant step of abandoning the closed shop. Rather, we believe that a commitment by the Government to work towards

47
a compromise on the text would have allowed them to carry more weight in suggesting improvements. As it was the Government were forced into isolation.
The report argues that the charter should have been a statement of generally accepted principles, for the most part contained in existing Community law or in international agreements. The report also argues that some detailed provisions still feature in the final draft which sit rather uncomfortably in their surroundings; for example, some of the provisions about children and adolescents. We believe that that material would have been better left out. Such material in the charter itself tends to prejudge issues which are more suited to detailed legislation, whether at Community or national level. The exclusion of the material would have made the charter, in our view, more consistent. in tone and form as a statement of generally accepted principles.
Although under the final version of the charter responsibility for implementation is to be divided between member states, the Community and employers and others responsible at local level, the charter itself does not spell out where the dividing lines are to be. Some of the rights in the charter were to be the subject of proposals from the Commission; others were not. The choice in the end will be determined by the Treaty of Rome as amended by the Single European Act and within that framework by the principle underlined at the Madrid summit of subsidiarity—namely, that action should be taken at Community level only when the objective can be better reached in that way than by leaving the matter to member states.
It was quite clear to us in the course of our inquiry that, although the latest text of the charter acknowledges subsidiarity and also respect for national practices, critics feared that the failure of the charter itself to specify at what level each proposal would be implemented would mean that in the event more action would inevitably be taken at Community level. That is why we recommended that the charter should have provided explicitly that its adoption would not affect or prejudice the question of legislative competence to implement its provisions. We felt that had that been done it might have allayed to some extent fears that the charter was designed to pre-empt decisions in areas of disputed competence.
The committee's report was written before the Commission issued its action programme to implement the charter, although we had some informal indication of what was in prospect. That programme, now that we have it, does a good deal to clarify the proposed divisions of responsibility. The programme consists of 43 new initiatives, of which 17 are for legally binding directives. The idea would be to spread the programme over the next three years. The proposed legally binding directives are certainly not limited to uncontroversial areas. However, at the same time some of the topics which could have proved to be controversial are to be left to member states to implement. In particular, wage-setting is described in the programme as a matter for the member states and the two sides of industry alone. The Commission proposes to limit
48
itselt to expressing an opinion which will impose no legal obligation.
In a Written Answer to a Question on 15th January (at col. 511 of Hansard) the noble Lord who is to answer the debate said that the United Kingdom Government had been unable to support the proposals for a charter and that the charter was therefore not applicable in the United Kingdom. I believe that the Minister would readily agree that that does not dispose of the issue and that the United Kingdom will not be able to simply ignore proposals for action in the areas covered by the charter. For one thing the comparison between the charter and existing international and Community obligations, which for convenience we set out in the appendix to the report, shows that the United Kingdom is already committed to much of the charter's contents.
The United Kingdom's decision to reject the charter has no effect on the power of the Commission to submit proposals to the Council of Ministers on the lines it has indicated. Indeed, the Prime Minister herself said in a written reply on 13th February in another place that the Commission had the right to make proposals on any matters falling within the competence of the Community. No doubt when the time comes the United Kingdom, along with other member states, will engage in the usual vigorous negotiation of every proposal made. There are indications that some of the other member states will have difficulties over some of the detailed proposals.
The United Kingdom, unlike the others, is not, as it were, morally committed to the principles enshrined in the charter, but the Government can hardly stand aside when the draft directives start to appear and refrain from arguing about content and competence. In some areas, probably including proposals dealing with health and safety, the powers likely to be invoked could mean that the council could act by qualified majority vote so that this country would be bound even though it might not have voted for the proposal in council.
As I said at the beginning, therefore, the story of the social charter is far from over. Perhaps I may make the modest claim that as the statements of intent in the charter are translated into proposals for action over the coming years, and as argument takes place over those proposals, this report may act as a useful summary of the arguments surrounding the charter at the time of its adoption. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the European Communities Committee on a Community social charter (3rd Report, HL Paper 6).—(Lord Allen of Abbeydale.)
5.37 p.m.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, we for our part should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and his committee on three counts: first, for the fascinating review in the report of opinions on the charter. Everything from the soaking wet to the positively dehydrated is there. It is a very good source for students of attitudes towards the charter. Secondly, and in some ways more importantly, we should like to thank them for the very balanced judgment with which they reached their conclusion

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at the end of the report. They say that the Government should accept the present draft as a basis for negotiation. That is a very modest, reasonable and well argued conclusion. We feel that that is a very good way into the debate.
Thirdly, we should like to thank them for their account, particularly via the evidence put forward by the Minister of State, Mr. Eggar, following the speech made by the former Secretary of State, Mr. Fowler, on 29th November in another place, of Mrs. Thatcher's view of the social charter. That fills out the statement which the Prime Minister made to the Daily Mail in May last year:
"The Social Charter was a throwback to a Marxist period: a class struggle period".
Those Ministers who have been responsible for developing the Government's policy in relation to the social charter have been committed to developing that approach.
I want this evening, first, to analyse the Government's arguments for saying that the social charter is a throwback to the Marxist period—a period of class struggle—and then to specify the Opposition's position. If I misunderstand and misrepresent the Government's position, I know that the Minister will be quick to correct me.
As I understand it—this is an attempt to summarise the argument advanced by Mr. Eggar before the committee—there are three contentions. First, the social dimension now means improving the standard of living of citizens and workers in Europe by encouraging unrestricted competition rather than by encouraging social action; in other words, in the form of minimum standards of terms and conditions and minimum industrial rights. The social dimension, which everyone thought meant social action, now means competition. That astonishing argument derives from the fact that the remainder of the partners accepted, particularly at the Madrid Summit, various points in the preamble, notably, the reference to job creation as a top priority, together with the principle of subsidiarity and other points.
The Minister appears to suggest that, if the principle of job creation as a priority is included in the preamble, the remainder of the charter, including the action programme, is therefore inevitably what he calls a mish-mash of contradictions; and that the remainder of Europe is totally misguided in not appreciating that, when it allowed the Prime Minister to include the phrase "job creation", it torpedoed the rest of the charter. That seems to be the guts of the argument. Perhaps the Minister will tell me if I am wrong.
If that is the Government's argument, there are three points that I should make. First, why do the Government, Mr. Eggar, Sir Norman Fowler and the Prime Minister never give us any evidence that job creation can be maximised only if the labour market is totally deregulated, and that we are the only country in Europe to see that? Secondly, why do they grossly exaggerate the extent to which the charter and the action programme constitute a programme for regulation at European level?
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The evidence advanced by Mr. Eggar in the committee's report was non-existent. He was asked at one stage whether he or the Government had made any estimate of the effect of the charter on jobs. He said that, unfortunately, they had not done so, but—as I understand it—that someone in the Commission had told him that that was the case. Unfortunately, we do not know who that was. It might have been the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield; that is the kind of thing that he would say. It might have been Sir Leon Brittan; that is the kind of thing that he might have said. It was not the Commissioner responsible, Mrs. Papandreou, although various attempts have been made on the Government's part to insinuate that she said precisely that. In fact, she said that no one could say one way or another. That is the conclusion to which anyone would come if they considered the objective evidence about the relationship between job creation and deregulation.
There are a number of kinds of evidence which I must list briefly for the House. There is the evidence on the non-wage side which is largely the Government's own evidence. In the early 1980s the Government asked the Department of Employment and the PSI to carry out a number of studies to see how far the existing employment protection facilities in this country discouraged employment. The answer was that most employers did not think that they had much to do with it, so the Government stopped inquiring.
Secondly, on the wage side and the question of whether job creation is minimised by regulation or deregulation, the Government sponsored and the Department of Employment paid for a number of studies into the abolition of wages councils to see whether their abolition had led to a growth in employment. The answer was that, although wages continued to decline, employment also continued to decline, so the Government stopped commissioning such studies. One might say that there was some international evidence of minimum wage regulation and its effect on job creation. The trouble is that, as is always the case with international studies, if one goes to one economist, one is given one set of arguments, but if one goes to another, one is given a quite separate set of arguments and the overall effect is magnificently inconclusive.
Thirdly, if one moves into the realm of economic theory, one finds those economists who on the whole support the Government, such as Professor Minford, who says that his model tells him that (deregulation creates jobs. However, one finds other economists, such as Deakin and Wilkinson who say that low wages are linked to high absenteeism, low productivity, little capital investment and a low rate of technical advance. The Government no longer pretend to cite any iron-clad evidence to suggest that deregulation creates jobs and regulation destroys jobs.
I turn now to the Government's gross exaggeration of the charter's supposed effects. When Mr. Eggar addressed the committee, he spoke as if the charter and the action programme involved a Community-wide minimum wage. As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, that is not the case. It will not be regulated across the Community

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and regulations imposing minimum wages are not suggested either in the charter or in the action programme. Again, Mr. Eggar spoke as if all 43 items in the action programme produced regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, reminded the House, that is not the case. Of the 17 directions, which are legally binding in some sense, 10 are concentrated in the area of health and safety. The Minister spoke at one time as though we had already adopted the qualified majority rule across the area covered by the social charter. As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, it appears that, if the qualified majority rule is to operate in the foreseeable future, it will do so in the area of health and safety and will not commit us legally to anything else in general at this time, if the Government desire to veto the results.
One can only turn therefore to the Government's record in their attitude towards not this social charter but previous documents and attempts on the Community's part to create a framework of social rights. One cannot explain the Government's attitude. One cannot explain the rejection—and I am sure that the Minister will refer to this point tonight—of the modest proposal in the committee's report that the Government should accept the present basis of the charter as a reason and basis for negotiation. One sees that against the background of the Government's 10-year campaign against the introduction of all kinds of social standards in the EC—their failure fully to implement the equal pay and equal treatment directive; their evasion of the transfer of undertakings directive; their blocking of all progress on the fifth directive; their blocking of the Vredeling directive; and their opposition to the Commission's proposals for protection in such areas as hazards including for example, benzene and carcinogens. One cannot understand that approach unless one sees it in the Government's terms; in other words, in terms of a large part of the legislation which they have put through the House.
Much as we should like to do so, we cannot believe that, if further modifications were made—and significant modifications were made at Madrid in an attempt to get the Government on board—the Government, under the Prime Minister, will reverse their policy of the past 10 years and accept any form of social regulation in the EC as a consequence of 1992.
So I come to the second observation that I want to make briefly in this House; namely, to define the position of the Opposition. I should like to make four points very quickly. First of all, we favour Britain adopting similar industrial rights, both individually and collectively, to those which at present apply in the best of EC countries. In other words, we believe in a levelling up and not a levelling down. We would rather follow the higher standards of countries in Europe than the lower standards.
Secondly, we do not accept—certainly the Government pray in aid no evidence—that the employment consequences of social justice, which is what it comes to, are so coercive, especially in 1992, that not only can we make no advances but, if we adopt the Government's policy, we must have continued deregulation.
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Thirdly, in the case of collective rights—I hope that other speakers on this side of the House will have more time to develop this topic than I have—it is not so much a case of the social charter as the action programme. There is very little in the action programme which pertains to collective rights. Certainly there is very little which pertains to collective rights in a legally enforceable way. Therefore if one talks about collective rights in terms of the action programme, one has to look for a benchmark toward the standards of the ILO rather than to the standards of the action programme.
Finally, we believe that an across-the-board, community-wide approach is absolutely vital in this field. Given the existence of a single market, there has to be pressure toward a single structure of labour costs. There is bound to be pressure toward a single structure of labour costs. Without some commitment to common minimum standards, however slowly and however subject to local variation, that pressure will be downwards. Therefore, to us the alternative to social dumping is social regulation and if it is a choice between social dumping and social regulation we go for social regulation.
With a few moments to spare I come to the question of the closed shop. Whenever that matter is debated noble Lords opposite and Members in another place seem to be particularly concerned that the Labour Party should find time to explain its position on the closed shop. I must therefore beg leave of the House to spend a few moments on this matter.
It seems to me that the argument concerning trade union membership as a condition of employment is entering a third phase. The first phase began in effect with the Mogul case at the turn of the century and ended in 1971. Then the argument was that since the House of Lords had said that an employer's closed shop was perfectly lawful, that employers could discriminate, keep out, refuse entry and expel so long as they were motivated by the desire to defend their trading interests, then what was right for employers was right for unions and what was needed by employers was needed by working men and working women. That was the position and our position until the 1971 Industrial Relations Act when a previous Conservative Government introduced the concept of unfair dismissal.
The issue then was whether unfair dismissal should cover dismissal on grounds of union membership. At that time and indeed until the entry into office of this Government the general position was that under certain conditions dismissal on grounds of refusal to belong to a trade union would be fair. If certain arrangements were made for conscientious objection, we might argue about the extent of that. If certain alternatives were offered, perhaps an agency shop, we might argue about that. But the position of the major political parties from 1971 to 1979 was that within that general framework union non-membership was a ground for fair dismissal. That was the position until the present Government sought to undermine it in what we regarded as a partisan way.
We would argue that that two-act drama—if drama it be—has now been changed by the

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emergence of the social charter. The social charter offers workers a series of individual and collective rights: the right to collective bargaining, the right to recognition and the right not to be refused a job on grounds of being a trade unionist, not merely on grounds of not being a trade unionist. Yet Section 11 of the social charter says quite simply that "freedom to join or not to join" has to be protected and must not be visited with "any personal or occupational damage". Of course it does say—as the Government do not like to be reminded—that it is not only freedom to join or not to join a trade union but freedom to join or not to join a professional association. That is something which the Government do not mention. They do not and have not included it in their Bill in another place.
We have taken the view that the social charter is not an à la carte menu; it is table d'hôte. If one accepts the social charter in general, one has to accept each one of the headings. If the social charter gives freedom to join or not to join without any personal or occupational damage, then that must be accepted. That is the position of our party. Therefore we say that so long as it applies to trade unions and professional associations, so long as the rights on both sides are genuinely equal, so long as they cover trade union activists as well as trade unionists and so long as they cover blacklists on both sides, then the direct justification of membership or non-employment is no longer possible under the terms of the social charter.
In conclusion, I should have thought that there is a degree of flexibility which the Government would welcome. No doubt the Minister would welcome a more flexible position if he were able to adopt it. No doubt he would like nothing better. His problem of course is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister still believes that the social charter is the final expression of Marxism and he is stuck with the consequences.
5.58 p.m.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I was interested but not altogether convinced by the exposition of the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy—or should I call it perhaps a rationalisation—of the Labour Party's position on the closed shop. But I do not propose to follow him down that road except to say that the opposition of my party, particularly to the pre-entry closed shop, is well known. I think there is no need for me to elaborate on it now.
The opinion of Sub-Committee C, on which I had the honour to serve during this inquiry, has been so well explained by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, that there is little that I need add on the general position. Perhaps I may simply support most strongly the proposition that this country should adopt a positive approach to the charter by seeking through negotiation to adapt it to industrial conditions in this country. In my view the pace at which political and economic change in Eastern Europe has occurred since the report was published makes it all the more desirable that the United Kingdom should demonstrate its commitment to the development of the Community in this way.
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The part of the charter on which I wish to speak is Section 17, dealing with information, consultation and participation for workers. In that section the key paragraph reads:
"Information, consultation and participation for workers must be developed along appropriate lines, taking account of the practices in force in the various Member States".
That phrase stems from the Fifth Company Law Directive. It is significant that it is also reflected in the proposal for a Council directive complementing the European Company Statute which is now being considered by an ad hoc sub-committee of your Lordships' European Communities Committee.
Under Article 6 of that directive one of the possible options that could in certain circumstances become available to any European companies that might be formed is what is called a standard model of participation, which must be,
"in conformity with the most advanced national practices".
That is a concept that I welcome. It has long seemed to me that in the field of employee involvement our aim should be to improve this country's international competitiveness by building on the practices already operating, if not in European companies, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, seemed to be saying, at least in our own more progressive companies.
To that end, in 1982 I was privileged to introduce an amendment to the Employment Bill of that year which was accepted in principle by the Government and eventually became Section 1 of the Employment Act 1982. Your Lordships will recall that that is the section which makes it a statutory requirement for any company employing more than 250 people in the UK to include in its annual report a statement describing the action that it has taken during the financial year to develop arrangements aimed broadly at providing employees with informtion on matters of concern to them, consulting employees or their representatives so that their views can be taken into account in making decisions affecting their interest and encouraging the involvement of employees in the company's performance through a share scheme or other means.
Just before the section came into force on 1st January 1984 the then Secretary of State declared that he would be watching developments closely and would be profoundly disappointed if it appeared that even a minority of employers appeared to be willing, by inactivity, to provide ammunition for those who agreed that prescriptive legislation such as that which would be imposed by the draft Vredeling and Fifth Company Law Directives was the only way of achieving progress. Yet according to a report published by the British Institute of Management last year, there is now general agreement that the requirement to make such statements has had little practical effect. Surely the time has come to make it obligatory that at the very least in all UK companies employing more than a certain number of people there should be consultative bodies of some kind.
Against that background I find it depressing to learn from the evidence of Mr. Tim Eggar, the Minister of State for Employment, to Sub-Committee C that the Government are still

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averse to any further legislation in this field. In its evidence earlier this month to the sub-committee inquiring into the proposed European Company Statute and Council Directive, the CBI also stated that it was still its view that arrangements for employee involvement were best left to voluntary agreement between employers and employees.
Fortunately not all employers are so slow moving in their attitude. I have been encouraged to learn, for example, that the British Institute of Management has proposed what it calls a UK option under which public companies employing more than 1,000 people would give influence at board level by granting the same right as shareholders collectively by means of a trust which would be deemed to have sufficient equity to call an extraordinary general meeting or to put items on the agenda for an AGM. For this purpose, the deemed level of equity would be that defined in the fifth directive as 5 per cent. of subscribed capital or 100,000 ecu. The Involvement and Participation Association has suggested a somewhat similar equity option under which measures to encourage significant employee share ownership would be supplemented by a legal provision that an employee share trust which owned 5 per cent. of a company would have the right to nominate a non-executive director for election at a general meeting.
The association has further drawn attention to the code concerning employee involvement, which received praise from the Government when it was produced jointly by the IPA and the Institute of Personnel Management in 1983. At that time the Government declined to give the code statutory backing. When he replies to the debate, I shall be grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will tell us—and I have given him notice of this question—whether he agrees with the IPA that seven years after 1983 it is time for government to reconsider the idea of introducing enabling legislation to strengthen that code.
Those are some of the ways in which the Government could demonstrate their willingness to make progress in this field, if only, as the report that we are debating recommends, they would accept the draft charter as a basis for negotiation.
6.7 p.m.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, first I should like to apologise for the fact that I shall not be able to stay until the end of the debate. Unfortunately I have a long-standing engagement and I shall have to leave early. I am very sorry for that because I think that it will be a very interesting debate.
I was a member of Sub-committee C whose report on the Community social charter is now before your Lordships. I welcome the opportunity to speak from the Back-Benches on the report. The committee worked very quickly and very thoroughly in an endeavour to produce its report in advance of the Strasbourg Conference last year. Of course we were seeking to influence the Government prior to that conference. We do not appear to have done so. I believe that that is a great pity.
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The principles involved in the social charter are surely entirely admirable. Indeed, almost all the witnesses we saw, whether or not they agreed with the charter in its entirety, agreed with the objectives. The idea is that all citizens should feel that they have a stake in the Community and will gain some benefit from it. Indeed, that is seen as essential for sustained economic growth.
Moreover, all, including the UK Government, are agreed that priority must be given to job creation. Disagreement arises as to the means by which this objective is to be achieved. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who chaired the committee, has already outlined the reasons for the committee's report and has explained the categories of fundamental social rights to which it refers. As he has explained, these include freedom of movement, provisions for workers to receive fair remuneration, social protection, training, equal treatment for men and women, basic health and safety provisions, and so on. Much of this is apparently acceptable to the Government. However, it seems that the provisions concerning freedom of association, collective bargaining and the right to organise in trade unions worry the Government.
In the time at my disposal, I should like to concentrate on employment although the charter covers a great deal more than that. There was a time when the UK led the world in providing legislation giving rights at work. The UK Government have ratified—and indeed the present Government have not denounced—International Labour Office Conventions 87 and 98 which are concerned with freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively. As my noble friend Lord McCarthy, has explained, they are in similar terms to the provisions of the charter.
However, since 1979 rights of employment have been eroded. We no longer have the fair wages resolution which was first introduced in 1945 and was supported by all governments until the present administration. Other protective legislation has also disappeared with amendments to the Employment Protection Act. Sections of that Act allowing unions to go to arbitration in low wage cases, and also to refer to the Advisory Conciliation and Arbritration Service cases where trade union recognition has been refused, have disappeared. Wages councils have had their powers eroded and some of them have also disappeared. We have no minimum wage provisions outside the remaining wages councils and they no longer cover young people.
The employment legislation introduced by this Government has concentrated almost entirely on restricting union freedoms. The right to belong to a trade union has been removed from employees at GCHQ, even though there is no evidence that the ordinary employees formerly covered by union agreements were in any way a security risk. The Government's attitude to employment rights is that employees have to be protected from their unions rather than from unscrupulous employers. To me—and I have spent a lifetime working in the trade union movement—that attitude to employment issues is absolutely bizarre.

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It is quite clear that that attitude is not shared by those responsible for drafting the social charter. They believe that unions do have rights—not privileges but rights—and that they must be protected; as must the individual right to belong or not to belong to a trade union. That is supported by the Trade Union Congress which has stated that it accepts the social charter in its entirety. However, it believes in an even-handed approach and complains that the Government appear to give much greater weight to the right not to belong to a union than to the right to belong.
The social charter also includes the right to take collective action; that is, the right to strike. That also appears to cause problems for the Government. It is maintained that that is contrary to British tradition and practice where it has always been possible for employers to dismiss employees who strike because strike action involves breach of the contract of employment. The right to strike in Britain has been provided by a system of trade union immunities. However, those immunities are constantly being eroded as a result of successive pieces of legislation.
When members of the committee met representatives of the TUC we questioned them about the difference in practice between this and other EC countries where the contract of employment is merely suspended during a strike and not terminated as in Britain. Of course, it is now incumbent upon unions to inform their members on the ballot paper that the proposed action could mean that their contract of employment could be terminated.
The TUC responded that its prime aim was that a system should be established which protects from dismissal workers participating in industrial action. Changes to the law since 1979 have, it states, weakened the rights of individuals taking industrial action and encouraged employers to adopt a heavy-handed attitude to disputes. For example, the TUC states that, despite widespread public concern about safety standards in ferries, P&O sacked over 1,000 employees who were in dispute about the company's arbitrary imposition of worsened terms and conditions of employment. It states that it cannot be right for workers to be treated in that way.
Another aspect of the social charter that appears to cause the Government concern is the proposition about remuneration for workers. As my noble friend Lord McCarthy has pointed out, the Government appeared to express the view that what was envisaged was a minimum wage across the entire Community. However, the charter refers to a decent wage and, apparently, that is to be achieved in accordance with the traditions of the various member states. That was made clear when Mrs. Papandreou, the EC Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, met the Select Committee on Employment in the other place. It is a bland, even pious, statement and perhaps does not go as far as some of us would like. However, that is what is stated in the charter.
Mrs. Papandreou also dealt in some detail with the charge that the charter would have the effect of lessening competitiveness and thus reduce jobs and job opportunities. She said:
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"In the Charter we do make a reference to the employment problems in that we give priority to job creation. I do not think that the creation of new jobs should be at the expense of the working and living conditions of the people. It is not, according to my opinion, a straight line between job creation and the standards of living and working conditions for the workers. On the contrary, what we see in many countries is that the level of employment goes in parallel with the standard of living and working conditions, with higher standards in health and safety and with participation and with more involvement of the workers. I do not think that the implementation of the Charter is going to have a negative effect on job creation".
As has already been pointed out, the original draft of the charter has been watered down quite substantially in an attempt to gain the support of the UK Government. For example, it has been made clear that the section covering information, consultation and participation of workers—indeed, the whole subject of worker participation—could be developed in such a way as to take account of existing traditions. That covers the attitude of the UK Government that employees should participate via wider employee share ownership.
Moreover, the principle of subsidiarity means that each country will develop its own commitment to the charter via its own national institutions. Only some of the measures will be the subject of directives; others will not be the subject of Community legislation. Surely it is right that that statement of laudable aims—a fair standard of living, reasonable working hours, good working conditions, freedom of association, good standards of health and safety, and so forth—should receive support.
There is nothing particularly new about that. The idea of a social dimension can be traced back to the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Article 118 of the treaty lists a number of areas in which the Commission should have the task of promoting close co-operation between members states. They cover employment, labour law and working conditions, social security, health and safety, and the right of association and collective bargaining. Other articles deal with equal pay, freedom of movement, vocational training, and so forth. Therefore, the aims are not new. What is new is the desire to make some progress as a result of the Single European Act.
For all those reasons, and for others set out in the report, the committee, of which I had the honour to be a member, urged the Government to emphasise their willingness to endorse a Community social charter; to acknowledge the substantial amendments already made to meet their objections; and to concentrate on persuading the European Council to do more to carry into the text principles contained in the preamble. I am sure that the committee—which was unanimous in its view—was right to reach that conclusion and I commend it to your Lordships.
6.18 p.m.
Lord Bridges: My Lords, I wish to explain at the outset that, although I was a member of the Select Committee and fully endorse its report, I was not a member of the sub-committee which wrote that document and the remarks which I am about to make are entirely personal.
The Minister of State for Employment told the sub-committee that the Government did not object

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to the charter in toto but to the current version of it. Nevertheless, I detect that the Government's reaction is one of considerable reserve, even scepticism, to the idea of a social charter. Such a general feeling appears to lie behind the Government's decision not to participate in the vote at the Strasbourg European Council. I may be wrong, but the impression created is that the notion of a charter dealing with social issues in the European Community is unwelcome to the Government, who find it an inappropriate way of addressing the subject. Such broad declarations of principle are thought to be vague, uncertain and risky—a rather un-British way of proceeding. That general attitude is the subject of what I have to say and it is that to which I wish to draw your Lordships' attention.
I do not find the idea of a social charter unjustified or inappropriate. After all, charters have a long history in this country. As the Prime Minister reminded us in her reflections on the bi-centenary of the French Revolution in Paris last year, our own rights and liberties can be traced back to the greatest charter of them all—the Magna Carta of 1215. The Bill of Rights is the charter which has framed our constitutional evolution. In the last century the Chartist movement embodied the political aspirations of a mass of people for a generation. Most of those objectives have since been enacted by statute. When Churchill and Roosevelt wrote their statement of war aims, the result was called the Atlantic Charter.
Therefore, when it is hinted that broad statements of principle in political matters with legislative effect are alien to our law-making, we do not need take such objections too seriously. Indeed, one may criticise some of our own legislation for its excessive particularity and detail. Perhaps we should write better laws if we included in them fuller statements of principle. They might be more widely understood and more readily interpreted. At any rate, I do not believe that it is sensible to criticise the social charter on those grounds, as some have done.
My second reason for regretting the Government's reaction to that proposal to date is the effect which it has produced on the other member states of the Community. The Government seem to have created the impression by that and other actions that Britain is back to its old hobbyhorse—the creation not of a real community but of a mere free trade area, with a minimal institutional framework and few supporting policies in other fields. I do not believe that to be the Government's view. It would be quite inconsistent with the terms of the Treaty of Rome and of the Single European Act. However, I believe that that impression now prevails in some other Community countries and what has been said about the social charter has contributed to that result.
When we consider the current political context in Europe, it is clearly not a good moment to fall out unnecessarily with our Community partners. We are in the middle of a major programme of work—the creation of a single European market and the adoption of the many measures necessary for that end. The events in Eastern Europe create fresh problems but enormous opportunities for the future.
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In such circumstances it is surely wise to show sympathy and understanding whenever we can for the aspirations of our partners and to express our open support for their entirely praiseworthy objectives in the area of social policy, even if we have reservations on detail. Trench warfare from immobile, fixed and hostile positions is not likely to lead to victory in this campaign. On the contrary, the position can easily be outflanked.
There is a third reason, nearer home, for doubting whether the Government's attitude towards the social charter is altogether wise. I refer to the position of our trade union movement. The TUC and many of its most powerful unions were among the most strenuous opponents of our entry to the Community. I find it one of the most welcome recent developments of our political life that that policy has changed and that, broadly speaking, most British trade unions now accept our membership of the Community as a fact of life.
This Community initiative—the social charter—is approved by trade unionists in large measure in this country not, I suggest, because of a narrow calculation that that might give them some privileges which they could not obtain from our own Government but because it justifies the view which they have taken of our future in the Community as a whole. I believe that it is very much in the interests of this country that the trade union movement should be encouraged to continue the policy which it has adopted. For that reason also I regret the Government's reserve and non-participation in the Strasbourg decision.
My suggestion is that in order to see that proposal correctly we need a broader angle and a longer perspective than the Government have yet offered us. I find no difficulty in supporting wholeheartedly the conclusion in paragraph 38 of the committee's report. That seems to me to be a very fair and fully justified recommendation. I hope that in the detailed negotiations which will now follow the Government will be able to adopt a more forthcoming and rather more far-sighted attitude. I fully support the terms in which my noble friend Lord Allen of Abbeydale introduced this Motion.
6.26 p.m.
Lord Irvine of Lairg: My Lords, the most depressing feature of the debate about the social charter is the Government's hostility to social objectives which are broadly uncontroversial in the rest of Europe and if adopted would create no more than a reasonable expectation that the workforces within the single market will share equitably in the benefits intended to flow from it.
The Government's response to the whole concept of the charter affords yet further grounds for our Community partners to be deeply doubtful about our European credentials. I make a selection from the press notices emanating from the Department of Employment, giving extracts from recent speeches by Government Ministers. They add up to a crescendo of hostility to the charter.

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On 26th April 1989 the then Employment Secretary, Mr. Fowler, said:
"What we do not accept are measures which impose unnecessary regulations and costs on employers, measures which will destroy jobs".
On 28th September he was even more explicit:
"We believe that the draft social charter points in the wrong direction—towards a Europe of greater regulation and additional restrictions on business growth and not towards a Europe of increased employment opportunities and falling unemployment".
On 3rd October the Minister of State, Mr. Eggar, was even more condemnatory. He said:
"The European social charter is ill-conceived and bad for small firms… It will not create a single job. What it will do is create more red tape and further regulations which will directly harm the growth and development of the small business sector".
Lord Strathclyde: Hear, hear!
Lord Irvine of Lairg: My Lords, he went on to declaim:
"Why should Brussels make it impossible for youngsters under sixteen to do paper rounds and take on Saturday jobs?"
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who is fulsome with his "Hear, hears"—and not for what I say but for the quotations from the Government Ministers—will abstain from "Hear, hearing" on that point because that at least is a heresy which has since been repudiated by the European Commission. Indeed, that was something to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, referred to at the outset when he opened this debate.
On 18th October Mr. Eggar revealed,
"that the UK Government has considerable reservations about the whole concept of a Social Charter. Our approach, our traditions, lead us to believe that one is not needed. What we are firmly against, however, is the existing draft of the Social Charter".
On 7th November Mr. Fowler was no less hostile. In an address to a CBI seminar he attacked the charter as calculated to increase costs and destroy jobs. All that was preceded by statements by the Prime Minister herself of the character to which my noble friend Lord McCarthy referred.
In reality the Government's position is that any enhancement of workers' rights which could conceivably be said to be likely to increase employers' costs is to be rejected on that ground alone because it is said that increased costs necessarily lead to job losses. Of course, that is pure assertion. The proposition that a workforce which is fairly dealt with and better trained is likely to be more productive is ignored. The proposition that a homogeneous floor of workers' rights is a corollary of the very concept of the single market, necessary if there is to be popular enthusiasm for it, is ignored. The argument for social justice within the single market goes by default. There is a depressing similarity between the Government's response to the concept of a social charter and its record of securing for workers in this country the rights that they are already guaranteed under European law. I pass over altogether the diminution of rights of individual employees which this Government have imposed in domestic law. I confine myself to the European dimension.
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In practice, the Government's policy has been to do as little as possible, as late as possible, and to delay as long as they can in securing for workers in this country the rights that they are guaranteed under European law. A good example of that situation is The European Commission v. United Kingdom Government in 1982. Legislation providing for equal pay for work of equal value, the Equal Value Amendment Regulations 1983, was introduced because the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that United Kingdom law was inadequate to protect workers' rights under Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome. The Government resisted to the last ditch. The Commission made a formal finding that the UK Government were in default. The Government did not respond to diplomatic pressure; they fought the reference to the court, all the way to inevitable defeat.
The story is the same in regard to efforts for women to be protected against discriminatory retirement ages, basically 65 for men and 60 for women. That was the Marshall case which was brought not by the Commission but by the individual concerned. The Government had resisted demands for equal retirement ages for men and women for many years and only acted when their hand was forced. The result was the equal retirement age provisions of the Sex Discimination Act 1986. I could offer other such examples, but I abstain in the name of economy.
Much of the Government's antagonism to the social charter stems from an inability or unwillingness to come to terms with the existing obligations of the United Kingdom under European law. To that extent their stance is that of the ostrich. When it comes to the charter, the Government single out for special attack the provision of Article 5 that all employment shall be fairly remunerated. However, as I understand that article, it does not require any particular minimum level of income or minimum conditions but only that employees be remunerated fairly according to national circumstances. That situation is confirmed by the Commission's action programme, as we were told by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale.
The spectre has been raised by Ministers many times that the charter will make part-time and temporary work more expensive and that that will cost jobs. However, already the equal treatment directive of 1976, as interpreted by the European Court, extends the general protection against discrimination in pay on the grounds of sex to part-time workers. In Britain 85 per cent. of such workers are women, which is much the same percentage as for the Community as a whole. They are already entitled to be treated equally pro rata to the hours they work, unless there are objective commercial reasons for the difference in treatment. The charter does not affect that situation.
The charter recognises the right to join or not to join a trade union. I do not understand the Government's concern about Article 11. Already in this country employees cannot be dismissed for being or not being trade unionists. The new Employment Bill, which is passing through another place, extends the same protection to job applicants. That was

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not Mr. Fowler's original intention. His original intention was to outlaw discrimination in recruitment only where the reason for it was that the applicant was not a member of a trade union. The Government were subsequently persuaded, by pressure from my party, to outlaw discrimination in recruitment also on the ground that an employee or prospective employee was a member of a trade union. Therefore on that point we are coming into line with the proposed charter.
Under Article 13 the right to strike is given,
"subject to the obligations arising under national regulations and collective agreements".
Therefore the charter has no impact on the right of the United Kingdom to decide the limits of lawful strike action in the United Kingdom. It leaves untouched all the legal requirements as to ballots, restrictions on political strikes, secondary action and picketing under United Kingdom law.
I wonder whether the Government truly fear, from this part of the charter, nothing other than that, under it, employers may be unable to continue the unfairest aspect of our current labour legislation. My noble friend Lady Turner referred to the fact that an employer who dismisses the whole of his workforce which is on lawful strike action after a lawful ballot can do so with impunity without having an industrial tribunal decide whether it was fair or reasonable for the employer to do so. I doubt if there are many who would think that this is an employer's right for which the Government should go to the wall in resisting the charter.
It may be that Article 16—equal treatment for men and women—is not to the Government's liking, despite the Community law to which we are already subject in this area. Article 16 provides that, for instance, measures should be developed that would enable men and women to reconcile their vocational and family obligations. That will mean in practice career breaks, family leave, parental leave, including parental leave for men, and flexible working arrangements allowing a worker to come back on a more flexible basis; for example, part time after childbirth.
An increasing number of major employers in this country, particularly in the banking and financial sector and the retail sector, are making arrangements of that kind for good commercial reasons; otherwise they will not be able to recruit sufficient skilled workers in the 1990s. Surely not to encourage this trend will severely reduce our ability to compete within the single market.
Lastly I should like to refer to Article 15 under which every EC worker must be able to have access to vocational training and have access to that training throughout his working life. Surely it would be folly to deny our employees a right to training that will be accorded by our competitors within the single market. The statistics are well known and discouraging. Only 30 per cent. of our workforce have recognised qualifications equivalent to one O-level, compared to at least 70 per cent. in Germany. Only 40 per cent. of our engineers have recognised qualifications, compared to 70 per cent.
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in Germany. The number of apprenticeships in Britain is down by half since 1979.
I am sure that it would be of interest to the House if the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he makes his contribution for the Government to this debate, would say what the Government's reaction is to the obligations to provide vocational training as proposed in the social charter. We await with keen interest the noble Lord's contribution to this debate. There is no member of his party other than he who has chosen to contribute to this debate. The Benches behind him are empty. We are entitled to infer from this total want of contribution to the debate from the Government Benches that either there is no Member on those Benches who is sufficiently interested to contribute to this important subject, which is unlikely; or, more likely, that there is no one from the noble Lord's Benches who is willing to defend the stance that his Government are adopting to the dismay of the rest of Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, anticipated in opening this debate that it would prove to be one-sided, but only by the choice of the Government Benches.
I am as confident that the conclusion of the Select Committee's report in paragraph 38 is right as I am pessimistic that the Government will pay any attention. This is a Government who are not for learning. Their rooted inability to free themselves of their prejudices to workers' rights means that yet again we are likely to be sidelined in Europe, reduced to a querulous irrelevance, refusing unless compelled to do what everyone else, by agreement, is enthusiastically putting into practice.
If I may be so bold as to offer a modest postscript to the Select Committee's advice to the Government in paragraph 38, it is this: make a careful analysis of what are this country's obligations under European law already, together with existing workers' rights under United Kingdom domestic law; then one will find that much in the charter is not new at all and that what is new can surely be justified in terms of economic efficiency, deriving from a better trained and more flexible workforce, operating upon a homogenous floor of basic workers' rights. That in the long term is essential for that popular enthusiasm of the single market upon which its ultimate success must depend.
6.40 p.m.
Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I spent the weekend reading the report and much of the evidence. I thought, not for the first time, that the Government need look no further than a report of a Select Committee of your Lordships' House for the material for an act of statemanship. It is contained in that report. The committee's opinions are expressed clearly, sympathetically and wisely as to what opportunity lies before this country at present on this, among other matters, related to our membership of the EC. But, unfortunately, governments can scarcely wait to hear from Select Committees before they begin to rubbish their conclusions.
I see the noble Lord, Lord Aldington, in his place. He was a chairman of a Select Committee some years ago. Its report was received with acclaim as a

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document of foresight and wisdom and a close analysis of the unpleasant side of Britain's future. He was roughly handled by the Government at the time. They feared the Select Committee's conclusions. They thought that they were damaging to the Government and might harm their reputation for being what they are not. That seems to be likely in the present case.
Of course when we have a chairman of Select Committee of the experience and skill of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, we have a first division civil servant at work, and the imprint of a permanent secretary, and an admirable one too, is to be found on the report.
In my reading over the weekend, I read a comment to the effect that Europe does not exist; it is merely a collection of mistakes. There is a lot of truth in that. Europe is a collection of mistakes. Unless we are careful, a few more will be made in the near future. One thing is pretty clear now. If the EC cracks up, Europe will turn into a Balkanised collection of states, which would be a tragic development out of the present upheaval in Europe. We are leaving Mr. Gorbachev to say all the things that are worth saying about the future of Europe. We should have a contribution of our own to make.
The value of the report and of the draft Community social charter lies in the fact that something is beginning to be put into the Community which it does not yet have—a sense of purpose which will attract the interest and support of the common people of our continent. The noble Lord, Lord Bridges, in an admirable speech, referred to what the Government's approach to Europe appears to be: a free trade area with as little institutional machinery around it as possible. That is just what is wrong with it. People do not feel that the European concept has any substance. It does not get down far enough. It gets lost in the common agricultural policy. There are issues that Europe could now be expressing in human terms which would make a great difference to our attitude towards the European Community. We want more people in the European Community. We have something than can form the nucleus of a new and wider concept of Europe.
I know that a document of this kind can be criticised for being woolly. An old term has been resurrected for government use—"mish-mash". Are we so clever at expressing ourselves that we scorn such a document, comprehensive in general terms, and probably written in language which it would be difficult to construe in legislative terms? The charter provides the substance of what everyone wants out of life in the European Community. It is a reflection of our European standards and hopes. If we can put that document on its way towards implementation, we can try to get right our priorities and to look at the possibilities and disappointments which may lay ahead.
I am not enthusiastic about giving terms to such documents which we may never be able to live up to. To describe the charter as a collection of fundamental social rights frightens me a little, because there are many rights floating about the world at present but not enough are settling in
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different parts of the world. Human rights have been widened considerably in the past 30 or 40 years; but we can see how far we still have to go before they will be real to those for whom they are placed as safeguards and aspirations.
Why do we carp all the time about Europe? I sometimes wonder whether we genuinely intend to get there. I reflect upon my experience of the difficulties of party policy on the adherence to the European idea and I must say that that experience was disagreeable. Prime Minister Heath got the European Communities Bill through the other place on the votes of 60 dissidents from a Labour Party three-line Whip who were led by me. I was immediately challenged by the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party for dissenting from a three-line Whip; but the Government had not done much better. They had given the Conservative Party in the other place a free vote which suggested that they did not have the courage of their convictions, if convictions they had, to ask their supporters to rally around and give them a good entry into the Common Market.
We had to have a referendum after that. What happened? No one seemed to want to go into Europe. It was going to be given to the public to decide. The referendum was an emphatic endorsement of our then provisional membership of the European Community. What happened after that? The voice of the people was pretty well sabotaged by every government who came thereafter because there was no enthusiasm for what the Government had a mandate to do. I shall not dwell on that point. It is in the past. However, it does not provide the foundation for the right spirit today, because, looking back on the history of our association with Europe, there is not much that inspires those who today are being asked to adopt an adherence to the European idea.
We want to generate a good deal more enthusiasm for membership of Europe. We are saying all the right things in your Lordships' House just now, but the trouble is that not enough people are saying them. We still have to have a voluntary body called the European Movement to try to stimulate the spirit of Europe and a vision of the future. While everybody is grubbing around with the economic detail, someone must look with a vision of the future.
There is no future for Britain outside partnership with our European friends—none. We all know that we do not have the resources. Small nations must merge, federate, ally or join in partnership with others. There must be enough between them to enable a concerted effort to be made to replace in a novel form of association of separate nations the economic and political power of those who in the past have gathered under the American or Russian flags in the great land masses in attempts to get consolidated political opinion. A lot of that is now breaking up.
I welcome the opportunity of pledging myself as far as the future is concerned. I have never wavered in this regard. I have believed for years that Britain's destiny is in Europe. We are slow to realise that. I wish that we had a Prime Minister with a greater sense of historical purpose and vision. What an

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opportunity for leadership there is now, with the world in turmoil. But every utterance that comes from No. 10 Downing Street about events in Europe is one of caution and withdrawal. I thought yesterday that the Prime Minister was about to resign her membership of Europe altogether because something that she thought should not happen and was not on the agenda is now inevitable. That is not the spirit in which to enter Europe.
We should see that if we do not keep close to our European friends they will go ahead of us. We need them a great deal more than they need us. We should realise that. I hope something will go out from this debate. We should have more of them in order to foresee what may be happening in Europe which could provide the opportunity to avert some of the graver mistakes that may lie ahead. We have opportunities but in my view we are in serious danger in the turmoil of events which are now flashing through Europe with amazing speed.
6.53 p.m.
Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, as a Member of Sub-Committee C, which undertook this inquiry, I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for the way in which he introduced the report and for outlining the reasons behind the committee's approach and recommendations. The charter is not a binding document; it is largely a statement of intent on broad principles relating to the social rights of workers within the Community.
At the time of the inquiry the action programme was not available. It now is and I suggest that the two should be seen together. Had the action programme been available during the inquiry, some of the fears expressed by some of the witnesses might have been removed or at any rate mitigated. It certainly clearly sets out the responsibilities of the Commission, the national government and the two sides of industry in a way that the charter did not.
As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, and as the report indicates on page 13, paragraph 30, negotiations on the charter became symbolic as a measure for judging the United Kingdom's commitment to the future development of the Community. It was because of this that the sub-committee urged the Government to accept the broad principles of the charter and then negotiate the details through the action programme and through the subsequent draft Community legislation.
The committee regretted that the Government appeared to be so intransigent, because, as we state on page 13, paragraph 33,
"the latest text of the Charter has gone a long way towards meeting the United Kingdom's objections".
Moreover, the action programme has taken aboard even more of the Government's concerns. So it seems a pity that by our public stance the UK appears to be so hostile to Europe. Yet simultaneously it also appears that the Government have been negotiating on some of the issues: otherwise we might not have had the changes that are seen in the action programme.
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Of course the Government cannot expect to win all the time; with 12 countries involved there must inevitably be compromise, and we should gracefully accept that compromise. None of the witnesses who appeared before the committee, with the possible exception of the Engineering Employers' Federation, said that they were opposed to a charter as such. Those who were critical, including Mr. Tim Eggar on behalf of the Government, were opposed to the terms of this particular charter. Fundamentally, their opposition was based on the premise that the Community's concern should be with wealth and job creation and that the workers would, in the normal course of events, benefit from such developments.
They also felt that some of the measures indicated could be a burden and would reduce the Community's competitiveness. This view was vigorously contested by other witnesses. I do not propose to go into the details of that argument. My noble friend on the Front Bench has already done so to a great extent. Nevertheless, it is important to remind ourselves that the single market is about the free movement of people as well as the free movement of goods, services and capital.
As my noble friend Lady Turner indicated, the Community has consistently involved itself with social problems. The Madrid heads of government conference in June last year said in its final communique:
"The European Council considered that in the course of the construction of the single European market social aspects should be given the same importance as economic aspects and should accordingly be developed in a balanced fashion".
It seems that by the introduction of the social charter we are attempting to balance the two issues. Nowhere is it suggested in either the charter or the action programme that there should be uniformity of working conditions or of social provisions throughout the Community.
Nevertheless there must be some agreement on the principles on which these are based. The mutual recognition of qualifications is a typical example of the kind of principles that we must have if there is to be free movement. A considerable part of the action programme is concerned with stimulating debate and putting forward opinions as to how these matters can be fairly dealt with. Many of these issues involve my own special field of interest of equal opportunities between the sexes. As my noble friend Lord Irvine of Lairg has already indicated, the Community has been deeply involved in this issue since its first directive on equal pay in 1974.
The social charter seeks to build on the work already undertaken. Community legislation in this field has complemented national legislation. In all Community countries there have been individual programmes by national governments. Community action has been based on two principles; first, that the resources which women in the Community provide should be sufficiently developed so that they can make a greater contribution to the wellbeing of the Community; and secondly, that, as a human right, women should not be exploited vis-a-vis their male colleagues and that such exploitation should not give one country an unfair advantage over another. From these tenets, the directives on equal

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access to pay, employment and training and to social security have flowed and have been amplified by action programmes.
The current action programme elaborates on the principles set out in the charter, proposing four initiatives for promoting greater equality between the sexes; first, a third Community programme on equal opportunities for women; secondly, a directive on the protection of pregnant women at work; thirdly, recommendations concerning child care; and, fourthly, recommendations concerning a code of good conduct on the protection of pregnancy. The measures proposed to safeguard the conditions of those involved in what is termed non-traditional work patterns—for example, part-time work—will affect women very considerably.
The action programme also draws attention to the fact that the earlier directives on parental leave, on burden of proof and on retirement age have not yet received Council agreement. It urges a resumption of deliberations on these matters. The main body of opinion among women in this country would fully support that view, particularly in relation to parental leave. Perhaps the Minister will note that point. He might also note the fact that, of the four proposed measures on women's equality, only one would have binding effect on member countries. That one falls within the ambit of health and safety at work, so no doubt the Government will find that acceptable. But this emphasis on recommendation, on opinion and on further discussion is typical of the action programme. Some—I am afraid that I should be one—would regretfully conclude that too little of the programme is to have binding effect. No doubt the Government will be comforted by this. Because of the watered-down nature of the action programme, one might ask what all the fuss has been about. Surely the Government should ask themselves that question. Equally, those who support the charter might ask whether it will, as a consequence, have any effect. Personally, I should have preferred the action programme to be more binding. But I nevertheless think it is to be welcomed. It is a charter, pointing to principles that we need to consider and abide by within the Community. It is also a signpost to Community progress and one to which I suggest your Lordships will return in the very near future.
7.5 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, one of the difficulties of the debate this afternoon has been the way in which it has taken place. All noble Lords have spoken in support of the social charter but nobody on the Government Benches has been prepared to stand up and argue the case. It is a rather difficult debate to contribute to because there has not been the normal to and fro. The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, suggested that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is a volunteer. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is fronting for the Government, I wonder whether he is not a volunteer but a pressed man. However, we shall not think any the worse of him for that.
I thought that I would try to introduce a couple of elements different from those that have been mentioned before. While I support virtually
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everything previous speakers have said, a number of different elements need to be brought out. First, I should like to refer to the Government's reaction to the social charter. Something that comes to my mind is an experience I had in the company I worked for 20 years ago. A product designed in the United States was being marketed in this country. However, circumstances in the United States were different from those in this country and so the product needed to be developed. Unfortunately, the engineering department was not prepared to devote resources to developing the product. The attitude was "not invented here". It was not the department's baby and so it was not interested in the product. As a result, a very good product for the United Kingdom market with export potential beyond that died on its feet through lack of support.
The Government's attitude to the social charter reminded me of that. Their attitude is that as they have not thought about it they will not support it. They are prepared to let it die on its feet. The social charter is rather more important than that. It is on this point that I diverge from most of the speakers who have contributed to the debate. Most of them have spoken in terms of the employment effects and of the attitude of workers to the single market. My concern is wider than that. I am concerned about the attitude of individuals in society to society at large. If individuals do not feel part of that society and do not believe that it is a positive and constructive society, they will rebel against it.
The message coming from the Government seems to be that they want people to be paid low wages; they want bad pension provisions; they want poor medical services; they want discrimination against the disabled, women and foreigners; they positively want unhealthy and unsafe working practices; they want poor training and above all they want to get out of Europe. That is obviously not what the Government want but it is the impression they give to the rest of the world. They also give that impression to the people of this country. It is wrong. I would hope that it is unfair to the Government but I am, unfortunately, a little doubtful.
Perhaps we should look at what the Government profess. They profess to be in favour of competition. Indeed, I think that we should all like to see a measure of competition. They profess to be in favour of a free market. However, there is no such thing as a free market; it just does not exist. Every market is circumscribed with certain rules and regulations. We have only to look at the market which operates in this country to see that this is so. After 10 years of Thatcherite free market philosophy we still have regulations which prevent publicans from watering the beer. That is just an example. Moreover, we still have the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act which seeks to provide a safe and healthy environment for people at work, albeit not very well enforced. However, it is still on the statute book. Therefore, even our market after 10 years of Thatcherism is circumscribed by certain rules and regulations.
I hope that when we talk about competition we will talk about fair compeition and that we will talk about competition in terms of more effective working together; in other words, teamwork. A

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company which can engender better teamwork will be more successful than a company which does not enjoy success in that respect. The same applies in terms of knowledge. The company which can use knowledge better than its competitor will win out in the end. That aspect could be summarised as more effective training. Moreover, the companies which use their capital resources more effectively and efficiently and invest better than their competitors will also win out in the end. I think that that is the kind of competition we would all applaud.
However, when the competition leads effectively to poorer living standards, low pay or poverty wages for workers, poorer care for the community and discimination against various people in favour of others, I would argue that that is unfair competition. It is not the sort of competition that the Government seek to promote—at least, I hope that it is not what they are seeking to promote.
There are many elements within the social charter. I shall not list them all because other speakers in today's debate have done so. However, in essence I think thay many of them could be supported by the Government. I hope that they will say that they are in favour of a decent pension provision and that they are in favour of good training provisions. I also hope that they will say that they are opposed to discrimination against disabled people, women and other categories of persons. Perhaps we shall hear something about that from the Minister.
Having discussed certain aspects of the social charter, I should like to return to two points. One relates to domestic social peace. I am thinking now in terms of discrimination, the projection of a society which is fair, which seeks to be fair and which adopts a charter to support that aim. I am thinking also of the problems that we have in Northern Ireland where for years the minority community has felt discriminated against. The Government have taken action in that respect. In my view that is perfectly laudable. However, why can they not embrace the social charter so as to give a wider expression to that action?
Social conflict goes a little wider than just Northern Ireland. During this century we have seen the most enormous social conflict that ever existed in the history of mankind. I refer to the Second World War, the 1939–45 war or the great patriotic war, depending on how you describe it. Millions of people were killed during that time. If we look at the seeds and the kernels which gave rise to such conflict, we can see that they were embedded in the discriminatory attitudes of the German and Japanese establishments before the war.
We are moving into changing times. Since the Government first started pronouncing on the social charter, we have seen amazing changes in Eastern Europe. Those changes will need a reaction. One of the most important mechanisms we have to deal with that changing pattern of international relations is the EC. We have the mechanism in the social charter to speak not only to our own communities—because we have problems there in terms of certain aspects which the charter
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addresses—but also to communities which will join us or will aspire to do so. It is important that we should have a framework of social cohesion which enables people to work and live together, but which does not contain the seeds of, or the recipe for, conflict for the future.
In my view the Government should change their mind about the way they project their reaction to the social charter. I hope that over the next few weeks and months we may see a change in attitude; that is, not only towards thinking in terms of what the social charter will do for us or against us but also towards thinking about it in more positive terms. In other words: what can it do for our community, the wider community, and not just the EC? We should be thinking in terms of the example it can give to the whole of Europe; that is, the Europe about which Gorbachev has talked, between the Urals and the Atlantic. I hope that the Government will grasp the opportunity and that they will see the social charter as a tool for good and not, as they appear to do at present, as a tool for bad.
7.16 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I too was a member of Sub-Committee C, which produced this report under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. He skilfully guided us to a unanimous conclusion which has so far received the unanimous support of all speakers in the debate today. Moreover, I suspect that it will receive the support of all those who have yet to speak with the exception of one speaker—the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who will be in exactly the same position in which this Government find themselves again and again in their negotiations with our European colleagues. It is not a comfortable situation and it is not a noble situation.
As the Prime Minister once said, isolation is not leadership. I must say that I have great sympathy with the noble Lord in having to answer this debate because I regard him as a closet European. As such it must go against his instincts to have to adopt this extraordinarily negative attitude to a charter that consists of a series of propositions which to most of us would seem self-evident but which to none of us would seem objectionable. For him to have to dream up plausible and apparently respectable arguments against the charter is indeed a hard task, with so little support as a sounding board behind him.
As I expected, your Lordships have covered the ground extremely thoroughly. Indeed many of the matters that I wished to raise have already been dealt with and dealt with in a much better way that I could have done. As a consequence I shall be able to abbreviate my speech to a relatively short oration. I shall try not to waste your Lordships' time.
It seems to me that the main issues which the report raised were, first and foremost, whether the social charter falls within the competence of the European Community. The matter is covered pretty thoroughly in the body of the report. It was also covered very clearly in the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. Therefore, I do not propose to go into that aspect on this occasion.

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Secondly, the report raises the much wider question of whether the social charter is desirable. I wish to examine that at slightly greater length. The Government's view, as expressed by Mr. Eggar, who spent some time with the committee, was that, while a social charter of principles was desirable in principle, in practice this one was not, primarily because it did not pay sufficient attention to the priorities agreed in the Madrid communiqué of the Council. It did not pay sufficient attention to job creation, though that appears prominently at the beginning of the social charter, to subsidiarity, though that appears again and again in the social charter, or to national traditions, mention of which appears quite frequently in the charter and also in the action programme.
I found that aspect of Mr. Eggar's argument unconvincing, just as I found unconvincing his other suggestion which has been mentioned before and which was supported by the evidence of the Institute of Directors. That evidence, I have to say, must have been written before Lord Shaftesbury was born. It suggested that the idea of a decent wage, always called "a minimum wage", should be Community-wide. There is no suggestion in the social charter that this is so. In addition, another of Mr. Eggar's statements was that it was not so. Nonetheless the suggestion—which almost amounted to misinformation—continued to be made by some people in the evidence that they submitted to us. Mr. Eggar's position raised two questions in my mind. First, were the reasons that he gave the real ones? Secondly, were the British Government's tactics wise and well considered?
Perhaps I may deal with the latter first because in his masterly speech the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, dealt with the tactical problem with extreme skill and unanswerable logic. I also agreed with him profoundly when he said that it appears to outsiders—"outsiders" meaning not only other members of the Community but those who are not members of the Government—as though the Prime Minister hankers after the old free trade area of the late Mr. Reginald Maudling rather than the Treaty of Rome which we signed. It is particularly ironic that this should be her apparent stance since at this moment members of the existing free trade area are queueing up to join the European Community.
However, the tactics seem to me to have been misguided for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, gave. In the evidence submitted to us Mr. Eggar constantly told us how constructive our attitude had been to the negotiations about the social charter. It is a peculiar use of the word "constructive" if we then proceed to vote against the matter which we were being constructive about. However, that was his position and as usual we find ourselves in the "Strathclyde position"—alone against the unanimous belief of our colleagues. That cannot possibly increase our influence. It must be better to say, "Yes, but", in the words of Sir Leon Brittan, rather than, "No, on no account". I cannot understand what lay behind those tactics. I can only say that they seem to be self-defeating.
If we return to the real reasons or what were the real reasons for the Government's posture—which I
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hope will be described to us later by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde—it was noticeable that everyone agreed that a social dimension to the internal market was desirable. However, the great difference which emerged was in the interpretation of the two words "social dimension". Mr. Eggar's interpretation of a social dimension was that the benefits of the completion of the single market flowed through improving the standard of living of the citizens and workers of Europe. Mr. Delors' interpretation was that the internal market should be designed to benefit each and every member of the Community.
It seems to me that the implicit assumption that lies behind the Delors interpretation is that the trickle-down effect may not reach all the groups within the Community and that some intervention is necessary to ensure that each and every member of the Community benefits from increased, growing economic success. The implicit assumption behind the Eggar interpretation was put rather crudely by the Institute of Directors, which said:
"The Internal Market Programme itself … contains a social dimension".
That is, no social intervention is necessary. That seems to me to be the implicit assumption which lies behind the Government's disagreement with the social charter. If that is the case, they should never have agreed to the Madrid communiqué.
In addition, the evidence is that the trickle-down effect in any society does not reach all and every member of the community without some governmental or social intervention. During the past 10 years here in a period of high economic growth the living standards of those on benefit have fallen further behind average living standards. The real increase in the value of welfare payments has been less than in periods of slower economic growth. That indicates that positive action must be taken if we are to give each and every citizen the benefit of increased prosperity.
An even more dramatic illustration than that which I read in the Economist over the weekend is that in the United States the expectation of life for males in Detroit and Harlem is lower than it is in Bangladesh. If that does not make people think, I do not know what will. What we are doing here by deregulation is creating an underclass which the trickle does not reach. All it receives is a drop from the rich man's glass.
I suspect that one of the problems of the social charter lies in a doctrinal difference that exist between Social Democrats and Christian Democrats in the European Community and the Conservative Party over here. The Christian democrats in the European Community accept a responsibility for the social consequences of the market. That is apparently not the case with our Government.
Beyond that, all governments in the European Community believe that a social consensus, as they call it, needs to be built; that it is a condition for economic success; that a social charter provides a balance to the internal market; that this is socially necessary; and that it is the duty of governments to underpin economic and financial success by strengthening the social consensus. I should have thought that that was a pretty self-evident fact. It is

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a fact, a belief, a view or an acceptance of a government responsibility which I believe every previous Conservative Government in this country would have accepted as a truism. It is an extraordinary and sad state of affairs that this Government do not accept it.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I wish to join the noble Lords who have thanked your Lordships' committee for this report, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for guiding its work and for introducing the debate in the way that he did. We must congratulate the committee, as other noble Lords have said, in the light of its difficulties with the constant amendments to the changing drafts of the charter and of the fact that the Commission's action programme became available to them—as my noble friend Lady Lockwood said—only at the very end. It is to that action programme that I wish to address some of my remarks in the hope that we can obtain further elucidation of government policy on it. This is the first time that the Government have had the chance to put forward their remarks on the action programme as the debate in another place took place only two days after its official publication.
As my noble friends have made clear, we on this side of the Chamber share the view of the committee that the statement of aims in the charter is to be welcomed. The committee stated in its report that it is:
"a statement of the Community's determination to spread the benefits of the Single Market amongst all its citizens".
The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, referred to that in a way that I cannot improve upon. The president of the European Trade Union Confederation said in 1988 that he saw the provision as forging:
"a Europe which links democracy, social justice and economic success".
That is the basis of our position.
As many noble Lords have pointed out—for example, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, and my noble friends Lord Houghton and Lord Monkswell—the importance of the social charter and the action programme is growing, not decreasing. The freeing of Eastern Europe from authoritarian control opens up new opportunities for democracy in Europe as a whole. However, with them come new dangers of instability. Those require a united Community with social policies which will prevent the process of liberation from becoming a process of social dumping which would be injurious to the interests of working people both in the East and in the West. At the very least this was hardly the opportune moment for the United Kingdom to stand aside yet again in isolation. What, after all, are the Government's objections to the charter? Some of your Lordships have listed them, but basically I believe they rest upon two propositions. Both those propositions appeared in the speech of the Secretary of State in another place on 29th November, when he said that it would be a terrible irony if the freeing
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of Eastern Europe from bureaucratic regulations were to be replaced by,
"a flood of new controls from Brussels".—[Official Report, Commons, 29/11/89; col. 726.]
It would be a much worse tragedy if liberation in Eastern Europe was the occasion for jettisoning those very social measures which are the conditions necessary for a society which is both efficient and decent.
Are the Government not detracting a little from that proposition now that they have studied the action programme? I believe my next point has not been made tonight. It is worth noting that the Commission promotes many of the measures in the action programme as suitable for social dialogue, for promoting social solidarity and for strengthening the economic and social cohesion of the Community. Those are purposes to which we are committed under Articles 118b and 130a and 130b of the treaty. On what grounds do the Government resist the measures to which those objectives are attached?
As I have said, we await, perhaps with trepidation but also with some anxiety, the views that the Minister will give us on the action programme. He can be quite frank as he does not have to worry too much about pleasing anyone behind him. The Secretary of State made a comment on the action programme which has already been quoted. He said that it contains:
"43 Community instruments, including 17 legally binding directives".—[Official Report, Commons, 29/11/89; col. 724.]
The first point I have to make on that is an important point and is that 10 of the 17 directives concern themselves with health and safety. The Secretary of State made his position on that quite clear when he said that the Government could accept general health and safety regulations. We must give the Government credit on health and safety. That is one area where, although the problems are not conquered, great success has been achieved in the Community. The record testifies to what can be achieved when all the member states work together. Why are the Government so blind that they cannot see that similar advantages would accrue in other areas if they adopted a similar position in those areas? What is so magical about health and safety that it does not allow the Government to co-operate on workers' welfare?
As regards the other directives, I believe there are four which would have legal effect and there are also six decisions which might have legal effect. I do not know whether the Government object to those, as they concern such matters as disabled workers, the elderly and vocational training for the most part. There are also 15 opinions and recommendations which would have no legal effect, although, as my noble friend Lady Lockwood said, many of them are important, not least that concerned with the child care and maternity programme. There are five instruments which remain rather obscure in the action programme. They concern vocational training, conditions of sub-contracting workers, social clauses in public contracts, profit sharing and procedures on workers' rights to consultation in complex, European-scale undertakings. I hope the Government will tell us which items in that list they

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object to. The Government do not object to 10 of the 17 objectives. Therefore the number of directives they object to is cut down to seven. Which of the six decisions and which of the instruments do the Government object to and on what grounds? On what grounds are those matters different from health and safety? Those other issues concern matters within the working environment. I say "working environment" advisedly because that is a matter on which majority decisions can be taken, so isolation may not be enough to stop progress on many of those issues.
The Government have also objected to Community action on the grounds of subsidiarity. The principle of subsidiarity means that what can appropriately be done at national level should not be the subject of action at Community level. That is hardly a plea available to the Government. According to their record so far on most of these matters the Government do not wish any action at all at any level. They have defined subsidiarity to mean inactivity. However, having listened to the debate this evening, it seems to me that there is a sad but unavoidable fact which provides the explanation of the Government's isolation on these issues. Simply from an analytical point of view, if one looks comparatively at the social and labour legislation of member states, one finds a chasm. On one side of the chasm stand pretty well all the other member states—one might question one or two—and certainly all the larger member states while on the other side, unhappily, stands the United Kingdom. On that other side there is a common thread which is expressed in a variety of national institutions where the pursuit of flexibility and efficiency in the labour market has been linked with the protection of workers and maintained both by legislation and collective bargaining. A leading Italian author, Professor Giugni, expresses this as building:
"a labour law which suits the needs of our industrial culture and also combines the objectives of social purpose with those of efficiency".
It is the objective of social purpose which the Government do not share. One does not have to look to socialist governments to find such policies at work. I share fully the view suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, on this issue. At European level this is not a party point. It is no wonder that the Conservative Party finds it difficult to find fellows with whom to sit at the European Parliament. This is not a party point. One does not have to look at socialist governments to see this point exemplified. One can look at the Federal Republic of Germany, which has consistently followed this path. The government of the most powerful capitalist society in the Community sustains the strongest system of worker participation in Europe in the structures of co-determination. When they deregulated fixed-term or part-time contracts in 1985 they did not deregulate merely by sweeping away controls. They retained protections for the workers concerned and also for those under the Kapovatz system, which had become an abuse of flexible hours.
In a very different society in Italy one finds exactly the same thread. When legislation was established
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in 1983 which removed obstacles for employers to part-time work the part-time workers were given priority rights to full-time employment if it was available and full protection in social security matters. One also finds that the part-time work schemes had to be negotiated with trade unions. That is a different balance but there is a very similar aim, clearly on the other side of the divide.
Against that, the United Kingdom's policy of the past 10 years, and more particularly of the past few years—with the exception of health and safety; and let us hear why that is such a great exception—stand out very bleakly. There has been a steady reduction of the social rights and legal protections of both workers and trade unions. The Government tend to rely on the argument that we have heard for so many years that one cannot allow such burdens on business. The Minister murmurs in assent. I invite him to look at employers in the other member states, who are on the other side of the chasm, and see whether that great burden of social legislation prevents them from competing against British firms. They do not find that the cost of workers' rights makes them uncompetitive: in many cases, quite the contrary.
We have been over the ground again and again. If the Government do not want to accept the conclusion that emerges from all the debates—that there is no evidence to support their case that the burdens on business are a reason for excluding all kinds of social protection—they must stand alone in their isolation. They stand in isolation from the facts. Across the Community as a whole there is no evidence to suggest that the social measures outlined in the charter and in the action programme would lead to loss of jobs. The Commission believes, on the contrary, that they would lead to the development and creation of employment, which is the Commission's priority.
There is one further point. The charter enshrines a package of rights for workers and their unions. Those are the rights to consult and bargain collectively, to join or not to join trade unions, and to strike as part of the right of association. That is a limited right, it is true, as my noble friend Lord Irvine has pointed out. On another occasion no doubt we can debate those limits. That is a package of rights. The action programme suggests that there will not be Community legislation on the matter. Therefore the subsidiarity argument is met. The European Trade Union Confederation is very critical of that decision. It wants basic Community legislation, as my noble friend Lord McCarthy said, as part of building a floor of labour relations throughout the Community.
The Minister must remember, as his right honourable friend mentioned in his speech in another place, that it is a package of rights which hangs together. We are in favour of it as a package, but it cannot be shredded into bits and pieces as the Government always want to do. The Minister cannot pick and choose the fundamental right to join or not to join a union, to bargain, strike, and so on. He cannot put his thumb into the charter, pick out a right-not-to-join plum and say what a good European

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am I. That is not the way it works. The charter has an inherent logic, which we support. It cannot be shredded.
Both the charter and the action programme take for granted a level of collective consultation, collective bargaining and negotiation between the social partners which is not to the Government's liking. I found it sad to see that the Confederation of British Industry in its evidence (on page 20 of the evidence) also suggested that the charter,
"would potentially disrupt industrial relations, requiring companies to decide a wide range of issues through collective bargaining rather than individually with employees".
That was the first time that I was aware of that view from the CBI. I hope that it will not persist in that view. That is also the Government's view.
Perhaps I may make one small criticism of the report of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Allen. The international sources set out in the table to the report did not include the conventions of the International Labour Organisation. The minimum standards of the ILO are those most widely recognised in the world. One reason for including them in the report is that the preamble to the charter itself states that it draws inspiration from the ILO conventions. I do not suggest that is why the committee omitted the conventions, but the Government must be pleased that they were not included.
Not only have the Government abrogated four major ILO conventions since they came to power, but in its report of 28th April 1989 the ILO Committee of Experts—a body respected throughout the world as independent experts—held that the condition of our laws on trade union rights, the dismissal of strikers and sympathetic action contravenes the minimum levels laid down by the Convention on Freedom of Association. To that must be added the fact that the ILO has condemned the banning of collective bargaining for teachers and the infringement of union rights at GCHQ as breaches of our international obligations. It is therefore relevant to look at the ILO standards which we should like our labour laws to meet.
Finally, it is astonishing to find the Minister, Mr. Eggar—who has been much in evidence tonight and for whom the noble Lord will have to answer—putting it to the committee that positive rights for workers in this country to organise, to bargain, to participate or to strike in place of the traditional immunities could not be supported because that would mean,
"upsetting the balance of industrial relations legislation",
and,
"changing something that has been unchanged since 1906".
As my noble friend Lady Turner suggested, it is the Government's own legislation which has upset the traditional balance by smashing the traditions which grew out of 1906 and led to levels falling below minimum international standards.
The truth is that the Government prefer individualised employment relations. I am sure that the Minister will agree that that is their position. That is why they are cut off from the very broad
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philosophy which appears in the charter. They abhor tripartism. They either reduce the number of trade unionists or eliminate trade unionists from public bodies wherever they can. No other state in the Community has changed the direction of its social policy in that way. Perhaps tonight the Minister will give us not the old recording about burdens on business but a new number, one that acknowledges that even at this late hour, having had time to absorb the contents of the action programme, at least the Government will not obstruct the fulfilment of the social dimension which is needed for the Community to play its full role in Western Europe, and indeed in the whole of Europe.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps he will allow me to intervene. He suggested that the Government, whom I support, were dedicated to the elimination of trade unionists. Does the noble Lord realise that it was largely the trade union vote which put them in office?
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his question. I think that we should both read Hansard. I said that the Government had tried to to get rid of trade union representation on a number of tripartite bodies. So far as concerns trade unionists, the Government want to get rid of those rights—and have done so in a certain respects—which make trade unions effective.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, with respect, that is not what the noble Lord said. Perhaps he will consult Hansard.
7.48 p.m.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, this has been a useful debate on a very interesting report from the Select Committee on the European Communities. The committee has carried out a detailed and thorough examination and deserves praise for putting the report together in such a short space of time. I believe that the essential aims of the Government and of the committee are very close. We are all firmly committed to the principle that the single market must serve the interests of everybody in the Community. In particular, it must create the climate for job creation and development.
I want to respond to as many of the detailed points which have been raised this evening as possible. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has left us. I should say that I have grown accustomed to her face on the other side of the Dispatch Box. However, it has been a joy tonight to see the noble Lords, Lord McCarthy and Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, instead.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, and the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, criticised the Government Back-Benchers for not being here to hear me speak. I believe that there are two reasons that that. First, they support the Government's view concerning the social charter. Secondly, they probably have every confidence in my ability to reply to the accusations of noble Lords opposite.
I should respond to the contention of the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, that the critics of

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the charter, by whom I understand he means the Government, did not respond constructively to the amendments agreed in negotiations. I must tell the House that we were a part of that process of negotiation.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, if the Minister is replying to me, perhaps he will get the facts right. I commented that it was perhaps what the French presidency and the supporters of the charter concluded. I did not say that it was the reaction in this country.
Lord Strathclyde: Fair enough, my Lords. I must have misunderstood the noble Lord. However, the point remains that we took a full part in the process of negotiation. We participated constructively in the discussions and supported a number of the changes that were made, but those changes did not go far enough for us to accept the full charter.
The Government's position was summed up by the Prime Minister in her Statement in another place following the Strasbourg meeting of the European Council in December. There were three main concerns. The first was the effect of the Commission's proposals on jobs and unemployment. There can be no doubt that the charter would lead to more legislation, more rules and more regulations. There is ample evidence for that in the Commission's action programme of measures necessary to implement the charter. Of the 43 new initiatives in the action programme, almost half involve legally binding proposals. The general thrust of the Commission's intentions is therefore regulatory.
Yet the Government have pursued a very successful policy in their 10 years in office of getting rid of unnecessary rules and regulations and encouraging greater flexibility in the labour market. Much of our success in bringing down unemployment is due to our policy of deregulation. Noble Lords should look more carefully at the results. We now have an unemployment rate of 5–9 per cent., the lowest level since September 1980 and well below the average for the Community as a whole of 8–9 per cent. Those are OECD figures.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, does the Minister not admit that even on the OECD figures, since the Government have made 30 changes in the way in which they calculate those figures, one must add 30 per cent. to achieve the proper figure?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord knows that that is not true. If he listens a little longer he will hear some further proof.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, said that increased costs do not necessarily mean lost jobs, but what about the effect on international competition, not just within the European Community, but with Japan, the USA and the rest of the world? We do not need reports and studies to see how successful we have been. We can see the results. In the 1980s this country grew faster than any other European country, in stark contrast to the previous two decades when we were at the bottom of the league table. We have changed the pattern.
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There are more people in employment than ever before. That is social progress. There is now wider choice and more jobs.
The Community already agreed at the summit in Madrid last June that completion of the single market offered the best chance of improving living and working standards and that in moving towards that goal in 1992 job creation and development should have top priority. In the Government's view the effect of the charter and some of the proposals in the action programme will be to reduce labour market flexibility, add to employers' costs, damage the competitiveness of Europe's firms, particularly in world markets, and have an adverse effect on employment prospects.
Our second main concern about the social charter was the question of subsidiarity. We have heard a good deal about that this evening. Let us be clear as to its meaning. It means that action should be taken at Community level only where the desired objectives cannot be achieved by action within member states, either at national or local level. Both the charter and the action programme include statements about the need to respect the principle of subsidiarity. However, despite those statements there are a number of proposals in the action programme with regard to which we do not see any need for Community involvement.
Let us take, for example, holiday entitlements, working hours and pay for part-time workers. Those matters are best dealt with in free negotiation between employers and employees.
The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, mentioned a number of articles of the social charter to which he implied that the Government were opposed. He referred to articles about the right to belong to a trade union, about equal treatment and particularly about access to training. The Government have never said that they are opposed to those provisions. They are parts of the charter that we could support. The Government have made it clear that they are committed to improved training by setting up TECs. In terms of records on training, the Government have done far more than the last Labour Government ever even imagined possible. A sum of £3 billion is now being spent compared with £500 million then.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, pointed out that the action programme does not set out a minimum wage. However, it proposes an opinion on a decent wage. There are two points to be made in that respect. How can member states implement an opinion on decent wages unless there is a regulation of some kind of the negotiation of wage levels? If there is, what business has the Community to pronounce on that subject? Surely the principle of subsidiarity is that there are some areas in which the Community has no role at all. I believe that this is one of them.
It is important to recall that we are not alone in our concern about subsidiarity. This too was an issue on which there was unanimous agreement at the Madrid summit.
Our third main concern was about the extent to which social and labour market policies need to be

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harmonised and standardised. Again this was an issue on which all heads of government reached agreement at Madrid. They agreed that where action is taken at Community level it must respect national practice and tradition. The Community embraces a wide variety of social systems and practices. That very diversity has enabled each country to make progress in its own way and at its own pace.
I have said enough to show why we were disappointed with the charter. It was out of step with important criteria which we and the Community hold dear.
I now come to detailed points. First, let me address the points made by the Committee in its report on the charter. It is gratifying to note that a number of points that it made supported the Government's position; for example, the fact that in many places the charter confuses principle and detail and lacks a clear division of responsibility for implementation between the Community, national governments and local agreements. However, I must say that I find it surprising that the committee should have reached the conclusion that we should have accepted the draft charter as a basis for negotiation. That displays a misunderstanding of the significance of the social charter and its effect on the future developments of social policy within the Community.
Specifically, the committee took the view that the charter should be a statement of generally accepted principles contained in existing law or in international agreements. That would make it merely a restatement of commitment to the social dimension of the Community. If the charter had simply been such a document, the Government would have had considerably less difficulty with it. That was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges. We are not opposed to those kinds of statement.
We argued precisely those points during the course of the detailed negotiations. In a debate in another place on 29th November, my colleague, the Minister of State for Employment, Tim Eggar, whose name has been mentioned a great deal this evening, made clear that we could have contemplated a short declaratory statement, setting out broad objectives, taking account of the Madrid conclusions, particularly the conclusion that gave priority to job creation, respecting the principle of subsidiarity and taking account of the diversity of national practice.
I must also say something about what has been portrayed as an inconsistency between our refusal to adopt the charter despite the fact that it repeats a number of commitments which we have already accepted in other international agreements. Appendix 3 of the committee's report sets out those commitments in the form of a table.
There is a good deal of difference between those other international agreements and the commitment that we would have made in the social charter. In the case of other international objections, the key word is flexibility. The Government can choose in the first place whether or not to ratify a particular agreement. If they choose to ratify, they have flexibility in the method in which they meet the
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new obligations. In most cases there is scope for withdrawing agreement to a particular commitment where it is no longer thought to be appropriate.
There is no guarantee of flexibility in agreements reached at Community level. Member states may be challenged before the European Court of Justice, which may dictate a particular formula for implementation.
Moreover, the charter was not simply a consolidating document drawing together all relevant international commitments and giving them a Community seal of approval. The charter invited the Commission to bring forward an action programme of measures to implement the charter and, as I have already mentioned, the action programme contains no fewer than 43 different new initiatives, of which almost half are for legally binding instruments.
With regard to the committee's recommendation on the issue of subsidiarity, in paragraph 36 of its report it criticises the charter for its lack of a clear division of responsibility for implementation as between the Community, national governments and local agreements. It recognises that supporting the charter could be taken as support for Community action in areas where national or local action would be more appropriate. Again, it is gratifying to find support for the Government's view in the report. But the committee goes on to underline the fact that the text acknowledges the general need for subsidiarity and respect for national practices. It concludes that the appropriate place for debate about the level at which action should be taken is in the context of the detailed negotiations on individual proposals.
I hear the point that the committee makes, but it seems to me to be unrealistic. The committee seems to be saying that all the Government's concerns about subsidiarity were justified but that there were nevertheless sufficient safeguards already written into the document to enable us to sign up and argue about the details later. I regard that as negotiating within an air of mendacity. That is also an imprudent way of proceeding, particularly when it was quite clear from the Commission's action programme that in a number of areas the Commission was intent on pushing for Community standards whereas the UK's view was that matters should be left to member states.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, suggested that only those directives dealing with health and safety would be dealt with by qualified majority voting. We do not know that. We shall have to see what the Commission proposes. We cannot be sure that it will not bring forward as many proposals as it can in addition to those dealing with health and safety on a qualified majority legal basis.
The main point is that this Government do not sign up and argue the details later as perhaps some noble Lords opposite would like us to do. The draft social charter was a flawed document. To have signed it would have committed us to taking steps to implement the rights contained in it; and our adoption of it would have made it very difficult, if not impossible, to argue against what we had agreed

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to in the charter. That is the difficulty that some other member states will be faced with as the detailed negotiations on specific proposals in the action programme get under way. That is why I have to say that the committee's recommendation that the UK should have accepted the charter as a basis for negotiation was misjudged. Such an approach would have served only to weaken our negotiating position and not strengthen it.
We have not turned our backs on social Europe as some have alleged. We fully support the single market programme—indeed we have a record second only to Denmark when it comes to implementation of the single market measures. That is hardly anti-communautaire. We share the view of the Community as a whole that completion of the single market offers the best chance to improve living and working conditions throughout the Community.
We reject the notion that the single market is uniquely for business, as though business interests were in some way separate from those of ordinary people. We must free business to create wealth, which alone can permit the improvements in living and working conditions that all of us seek.
Our approach assumes some basic social protection. We believe that everyone has a right to effective and easily available social protection. This should cover pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits; it should provide an adequate income to everyone.
The state has a massive commitment to social security, accounting for £51 billion or nearly one-third of public expenditure. Add to that extensive occupational and private pensions. We have a comprehensive social assistance scheme that provides adequate income for all groups living permanently in the country, whatever their nationality. But we believe firmly that further economic progress is the essential prerequisite of further advances on the social front. Only by making economic progress is it possible to maintain and strengthen our high levels of social protection. That is precisely the view that the committee took in paragraph 31 of its report when it said:
"a social dimension to the Community will have to fall into step behind wealth and job creation".
Members of the House may have seen a recent article in the Spectator by Tim Congdon. It was essentially about the issue of fiscal harmonisation. He argued that by sticking to a low tax policy, the UK would encourage foreign investment and improve incentives and that this would lead on to higher growth. There are parallels here with the Government's deregulation policy. By getting rid of unnecessary rules and regulations we have encouraged enterprise and initiative and this in turn has led to more jobs and greater prosperity. We cannot afford to undermine this progress by adopting proposals which will add to the sum of regulation. Other European governments spend more and more of their wealth. This Government have reduced the proportion of government spending. That has been excellent for growth and that is why, if there is to be a two-speed Europe, Great Britain will be in the fast stream.
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There are areas where the Community has a necessary role: the achievement of the single market requires the agreement of all member states since no single member country can make it work. There also need to be some general principles by which we should all abide. I refer in the employment field to such items as the freedom for workers to move around within the Community, freedom to engage in an occupation, freedom of establishment, mutual recognition of qualifications, equal pay and equal treatment for men and women, the importance of training and a healthy and safe working environment wherever people are in the Community.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, drew attention to those measures in the action programme for women. We are committed to equal opportunities for men and women, as she recognises. We have the second highest participation rates for women within the Community and women's contributions will be even more vital in the 1990s. But more legislation is not necessarily the key to greater equality of opportunity. Can regulation help to create jobs? Indeed, I believe, and the noble Baroness heard me say so earlier, that only businesses can do that and if we curb businesses our opportunities will diminish.
Let me take for an example worker participation, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Rochester. Many countries within the Community attach great importance to legal requirements governing worker participation. They are right to follow the paths which are best suited to their conditions and circumstances. We in Britain are also committed to employee involvement. We have recently issued a booklet People and Companies, which reports what we believe to be one of the major success stories of British industry in recent years. But unlike the report referred to by the noble Lord, we believe that the success has been based not on legislation but on voluntary co-operation and diversity. The key to success has been to allow companies to develop their own approach to these issues.
Making rules is always the easy part. What counts is implementation. As I said, the United Kingdom's record is one of the best among the 12 member states. What we sign up to we bring into effect. I do not accept the claim made by the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, that the United Kingdom is dragging its feet. The Commission presented a report on implementation to the internal market council on 21st December which confirms the United Kingdom's excellent record. We have implemented more measures of the single market than all others bar one. In fact our record is even better than the latest report would suggest and, as Mr. Delors himself said, our record is as good as any.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, said that the Prime Minister thought that this was a Marxist document. The Prime Minister and the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, know a lot more about Marxism than I do. I am quite happy to take the view of my right honourable friend the Prime Minister on that point.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, also spent some time talking about the closed shop. I shall have to read Hansard very carefully tomorrow because I am

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not quite sure whether at the end of it all he came down for or against the pre-entry closed shop. No doubt that is something that we shall be able to discuss at considerable length in the summer when we have the Employment Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn of Charlton, asked what proposals we can accept. We still await detailed proposals of the proposed action programme. Subject to careful scrutiny of the detailed proposals I believe that there will be a considerable number of measures that we shall be able to support, in particular health and safety and freedom of movement. I have to say that some pose real difficulties for the United Kingdom and justify our reservation over the package as a whole, since we cannot see how they contribute to economic growth or justify a role for the Community as a whole.
The noble Lord was also quite right to point to changes in Europe, especially in Eastern Europe. I believe that these developments vindicate our caution. We believe in a strong Europe but not a fortress Europe. It must be better able to compete with the international market. For this we need flexibility. The worst policy today would be to tie ourselves to particular models belonging to yesterday's world, and I refer in particular to worker participation and the regulation of hours.
The noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, said that the Opposition wanted to accept the practice of other European countries. The noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, echoed that sentiment, although not in the same words, when he said that we should acpept the traditions normal on the Continent. I may have exaggerated his words but that was the gist of them. I have to ask noble Lords these questions. Do they really want the Community to dictate how we manage our affairs? Do they really want other countries and their traditions forced upon us? That is important. In France, one cannot do more than seven hours' overtime a week without special permission. In Germany, weekend working is strictly controlled. In Belgium, according to the Commission's own study, women can work at night only by special royal decree. In Greece, night work is forbidden with few exceptions for all female employees in industrial enterprises. This Government are not pressing for excessive overtime and unsocial hours. We are saying that the people are perfectly able to decide for themselves what hours they work. Such matters are best left to free negotiations at the workplace.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, does the noble Lord agree with this: He knows very well that we never said any of those things. Can he answer the question put to him by my noble friend? What is so special about health and safety? He does not want regulations on working hours, wages or protection of children because they raise costs. Yet he does not abolish all the legislation on health and safety. Surely that adds to cost also. What is so special about that?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, what an extraordinary question for the noble Lord to ask. Is
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he suggesting that any future Labour Government would do away with health and safety legislation? That is the way his question came across to me. It seems quite obvious to me why we have health and safety legislation in this country and why we seek to increase it where it has proved necessary.
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, the noble Lord knows very well what I am saying. If the Government were consistent in their position, they would abolish health and safety legislation. If they do not, they are inconsistent.
Lord Mottistone: Nonsense, my Lords!
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, precisely.
The noble Lords, Lord Houghton of Sowerby and Lord Monkswell, mentioned Eastern Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Houghton, was particularly refreshing on the subject. He talked about the lack of vision in this country and in particular within the Community. But the Community already has a sense of purpose: that is, the free market and 1992; the free movement of people, of goods, of capital—the free market which basically means freedom. A CAP is not a good example where the European Community has been successful in instituting its policies. With 1992, we now have an opportunity to see whether all the countries that want to see greater European integration can produce it before we become involved in other issues such as the social charter.
This Government do not wish to go on carping about Europe, or even to be seen as carping about Europe, because we believe that we are genuine Europeans. We want the remainder of Europe to accept our policies for growth. It is the Conservative Party that has always had the vision on Europe.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, the noble Lord really must withdraw that. The Conservative Party fought election after election on the basis that if we joined Europe it would be the ruin—I remember one slogan—of farmers, farm workers and farming throughout the land. For the noble Lord to say that the Conservative Party has been the leader in this field is a travesty.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I bow to the noble Lord's greater knowledge because I know that his party has been proponents of the idea ever since the beginning. But it was a Conservative Prime Minister who brought this country into Europe. It was under a Conservative Government that the idea of 1992 was conceived. It was a Conservative Government who brought in the Single European Act. And where was the Labour Party in all that time? We all know that even in 1983 it had a manifesto commitment to bring us out of the European Community. Yet here the members are all exhorting us to accept a social Europe. There is one reason for this sudden contradiction.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, dare the noble Lord bring to his lips the name of the Conservative Prime Minister who brought us into Europe?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I have no difficulty with that, but the noble Lord is missing my point. I am talking about the Labour Party and how it has changed. The reason it has changed is that after nearly 11 years out of office, and with the pathetic opposition that it has provided over the past 11 years, it sees the only effective opposition to this Government's policies is with the red dawn rising over Brussels. That is the truth. This Government are keen to look ahead. The social charter is now passed. It was a political declaration but one which we believe also commits the signatories to a package implementing measures many of which we have not had sight of. We must now move to the next stage.
The Commission has now published its action programme setting out its stall. We await detailed proposals of the action programme. Subject to careful scrutiny of detailed proposals, I believe that there will be a considerable number of measures that we shall be able to support. Some pose real difficulties for the UK and justify our reservation over the package as a whole since we cannot see how they contribute to economic growth or justify a role for the Community as a whole.
However, we shall be considering each and every measure in the action programme. We shall not be sulking in our tents. We intend to participate fully and constructively in all negotiations. We shall be listening to what the Commission and other member states have to say, and we shall be applying the criteria that they and we have agreed; namely, will the measures create jobs and are they best undertaken by the Community or best left to member states? Far from hindering our ability to negotiate, we believe our stance on the charter has left our hands free to explore each and every proposal as it comes forward. Noble Lords can be sure that in doing so we have at heart the interests of everybody in this country and in the Community at large.
8.18 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: My Lords, we have had an interesting debate. As I said at the beginning, it has been one-sided although in the past half-hour we have seen the government spokesman doing his best. I was very anxious that this should not develop into a party political struggle. I was particularly pleased to have the support of a fellow Cross-Bencher in the admirable speech of my noble friend Lord Bridges.
I was a little disappointed but not in the slightest degree surprised by what the Minister said. I realise that his hands are tied. However, he said some rather strange things; for example, about the attitude of the Commission and the effect of the opinion the Commission proffers on wages. I do not think it is appropriate for me to go into detail at this stage on the various points that he made. He completely failed to convince me that the committee was wrong in thinking that it would have been better, for a number of reasons, for this country to join the social charter and to have got in so that not only could it argue about the charter but could give the impression that it was really concerned with the future of the Community and with the social dimension—matters
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on which I am afraid the Minister's speech still leaves us in some doubt.
However, he went at such a rate in his 30 minutes' reading that I should like to leave the matter there, in particular since I have another speech to make later this evening. Like other noble Lords, I shall study what he said in Hansard. However, I hope that the Government will study in Hansard what other people have said and note some very helpful and constructive points which have been made in the course of the debate. I commend the Motion.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Trade Union Act 1984 (Amendment) Bill [H.L.]
8.20 p.m.
Read a third time.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, before moving that the Bill do now pass to succumb to its destiny of infant mortality in another place, I wish to say a brief word of thanks to noble Lords on all sides of the House for their support and attendance on so many occasions and at great personal inconvenience. They did so to seek to meet by reason the Government's objections and to convince them that there was a problem.
As yet the Government see no problem and regard the Bill as a tiresome, otiose misconception. But there is always hope: the matter will be kept under review; perhaps amendments to the Employment Bill now before another place will be introduced. If not, in accordance with my undertaking to your Lordships, I shall introduce an amendment in this House in the summer, if necessary, when the opinion of your Lordships may be taken for the third time of asking.
In conclusion, I wish to thank in particular my noble friend the Minister for the exemplary conduct of his part in the affair and for his good offices in so far as it was possible for him to render them. I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Campbell of Alloway.)
Lord McCarthy: My Lords, on behalf of those who supported him I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, for taking the lead. Throughout he has been indefatigable, persuasive, flexible and reasonable. Like so many others who have been indefatigable, persuasive, flexible and reasonable he has met his reward.
The noble Lord has also isolated the Government. He was not alone in doing so; he was not present earlier but the Government were similarly isolated this evening. The difference is that his supporters on his side of the House turned up and they argued very well on his behalf. We thank the noble Lord greatly for what he has done so far and for saying that he will continue the fight. We wish him the best of luck.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, from these Benches I support the Motion that the Bill do now pass and renew my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, on having obtained support for it from all sides of the House. Like him and like the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, I hope that the objective of the Bill can be met by an amendment to the Employment Bill, now in Standing Committee in another place, when it comes to this House.
Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords, I wish simply to put on record for old times' sake my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell. As I have told him, rightly or wrongly, I received advice that the debates which took place during the earlier stages of the Bill were not ones in which I ought to participate. However, I wish to put on record my congratulations to him on getting the Bill to this point.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: I am grateful, my Lords.
On Question, Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

Civil Aviation Authority (Borrowing Powers) Bill
8.24 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
I am pleased to be able to present to your Lordships' a short and straightforward Bill which contains only two clauses. However, its purpose is threefold. First, it increases the total amount that the Civil Aviation Authority is permitted to borrow from the current limit of £200 million to a new limit of £500 million. Secondly, it allows the Secretary of State to agree further increases in the borrowing limit up to a maximum of £750 million, subject to affirmative resolution. Thirdly, it allows the Civil Aviation Authority to borrow funds denominated in units of account such as European currency units in addition to conventional currencies.
I turn first to the £300 million increase in the borrowing limit. It is vital if the authority is to be able to raise the finance it needs for the large capital investment programme now under way which will cost about £600 million over the next 10 years. The authority's borrowing limit was last increased in 1980 when the current limit of £200 million was set and the CAA's borrowing projections indicate that the £200 million ceiling will be reached this year. Therefore, we need to agree a new limit now so that the authority can press on with its investment programme.
Many of the capital projects being implemented by the CAA are long term. The authority will not be able to start to recover the cost from the airlines through user charges until the new equipment is fully operational later in the 1990s. Therefore, the authority will have to borrow the necessary finance.
The authority's investment plans reflect the vigour with which it is going about its task; it covers a very wide range of equipment and systems which are
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designed to increase the amount of traffic which can be handled, and, above all, handled safely, in the skies over Britain. I am sure that those of your Lordships who have experienced frustrating airport delays, particularly at holiday times, will agree that money spent on increasing airspace capacity—with no short cuts on safety—will indeed be well spent.
Perhaps I might quote a few examples of projects in the pipeline. The latest single project within the £600 million programme is the new en-route centre which will cost some £200 million. This will be a new control centre for all traffic which is en route over England and Wales. It is expected to increase capacity by about 40 per cent. when it becomes fully operational in 1996.
Another major project is the so-called central control function, also known as the tunnels in the sky concept. It involves a major restructuring of the airspace over South-East England and will increase capacity in the terminal manoeuvring area over the South-East by at least 30 per cent. when it is fully in place in 1995. It will cost about £30 million.
There are also other projects; for example, the new computer at the West Drayton Control Centre which will be operational this year, new radar installations in Scotland, new oceanic and Scottish en-route centres and many more. I mention these to give your Lordships an idea of the kind of projects which the CAA has in hand to increase capacity, to maintain safety and to help solve the problems of delays which have become all too familiar in recent years.
I believe that the present capital programme represents a full and proper response by the CAA to the growth in demand for flying. It will also—and I stress this again—enable the CAA to maintain the safety standards which are already at a very high level and which I am sure all your Lordshps will agree must stay that way. But, as I have already emphasised, the authority will be unable to keep up the momentum of these and other vital projects unless Parliament agrees to increase the limit on its borrowing from £200 million to £500 million.
I now turn to increases in the limit beyond £500 million. The Bill requires that when the £500 million limit is reached, which we anticipate will be towards the end of 1995, it can be increased only by affirmative resolution. Therefore, Parliament will have the opportunity to review the matter again at that time. The Bill also sets an upper limit of £750 million, beyond which further primary legislation will be required. This figure was set as being sufficiently high to give the authority the flexibility it would need to accommodate its projected borrowings without being so high as to postpone unduly the time when Parliament would have the opportunity to debate the CAA's borrowing limit again in a new Bill.
The third aspect of the Bill is to make it quite clear that the authority's existing power to borrow funds in currencies other than sterling includes the power to borrow units of account. Your Lordships might wonder why we have thought it necessary to include this apparently obscure measure in the Bill so I shall explain.

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Some noble Lords may remember that towards the end of 1988 we introduced the Civil Aviation (Air Navigation Charges) Bill. Its purpose was to clarify that existing legislation—Section 73 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982—gave the Secretary of State the power to prescribe that charges for air navigation services levied on airlines by Eurocontrol could be denominated in units of account. We have a similar problem of interpretation with Section 10 of the 1982 Act (which this Bill is amending) as it gives the CAA the power to borrow in sterling and other currencies but it does not specifically mention units of account.
As a result of the Civil Aviation (Air Navigation Charges) Act 1989, the CAA will soon start to receive the bulk of its revenue in European currency units instead of US dollars. Therefore, at some date in the future the authority may wish to borrow money in the form of ecus. For example, the CAA might wish to borrow ecus for working capital to match ecu debtors in the balance sheet. At the moment the authority has no plans to take out ecu-denominated loans, but we feel that this added flexibility should be made available in case it is needed.
I hope I have said enough to convince your Lordships of the need for this short but important, Bill. It reflects what the CAA is doing to improve services and maintain safety for us all as travellers. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Viscount Davidson.)
8.30 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Viscount for outlining the purpose of this Bill and for doing that so quickly in the light of the debate which is to follow dealing with transport and the disabled. In reading the speeches from the other place I believe that there was only one critical speech. I do not intend to make a critical speech. I also noted that numerous other opportunities were taken in the other place to comment on the work of the CAA. I do not propose to do that except to refer to one or two items which I believe are relevant to this Bill.
Naturally, we appreciate the purposes of the Bill; that is, to alleviate aircraft delays, to give some easement of congestion and to assist air safety. I was very pleased to notice the emphasis of the Bill, to which the noble Viscount referred, that, should it be required to go beyond the £500 million limit up to a maximum of £750 million, then there must be an affirmative resolution. That will give a rare opportunity to the House to discuss the work of the CAA.
It has been made clear that the CAA's financial objective is to recover the whole of its costs—and this is in general—and to achieve a reasonable return on capital, which we are told is a target of 8 per cent. over the next three years to be met by charges levied on users of services such as airlines. An investment programme, to which reference has been made, is to be spread over 10 years. Is it therefore intended to levy charges on a variable basis year by year?
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In connection with that, I understand that the CAA undertakes regular consultation with those who pay for its services. The CAA handbook states that it is done:
"so that frank discussion about the cost and quality of services can take place and the consequent level of charges can be reviewed".
In the light of the definite projects for which the borrowing and investment programme is intended, I ask the noble Viscount whether such discussions have taken place.
The noble Viscount also referred to two particular projects: a £30 million project to increase capacity in the terminal manoeuvring area in South-East England, which he said will increase capacity by 30 per cent.; and the en route centre at an expenditure of £200 million, which will increase capacity by 40 per cent. On 5th May in your Lordships' House in reply to a Question on air space capacity, the noble Viscount reminded us that the CAA is to advise this summer on the adequacy of UK air space and airport capacity up to the year 2000. Until that advice is received—and I believe that that will be during the summer—how definite is the estimate of 30 and 40 per cent. to which the noble Viscount referred and to which I have just drawn attention?
I should refer here to a comment in the CAA's current annual report. I shall not give the actual wording but it states that air space is a finite resource. It cannot be extended but can only be used more intensely. For that purpose, it can only be dealt with by the use of sophisticated technology. That is one reason why we support the purposes for which the increased borrowing is required. However, it is perhaps pertinent to repeat the statement—and I am not permitted to quote it—of a Conservative Member in the debate on the money resolution. He said that while there may be provision for extra planes in the sky, the problem is having adequate controls to enable aircraft to take off and land.
In the light of that observation and the encouraging reply given by the noble Viscount to my Question on 5th February as to whether the CAA advice would include the role which regional airports will play, I was very pleased to note that Mr. Patrick McLougnlin, Minister for Aviation and Shipping, said in the money resolution debate on 17th January:
"The Government place great emphasis on the role of regional airports in serving their localities. It seems nonsense that people have to travel from Leeds, Bradford or Derbyshire to London to get the flight that they require. The Government would like to see regional airports take up as many opportunities as possible". [Official Report, House of Commons, 17/1/90; col. 369.]
That may seem irrelevant to the discussion on the Bill but as that was an observation made by a Minister in the other place, I believe that it is good to have it on record in your Lordships' House. In fact, almost those precise words were repeated by Mr. McLoughlin in the Third Reading debate in the other place on 1st February, at col. 540.
I ask how much of the required borrowing will be needed for work in connection with recruitment and training of additional air traffic controllers. It is generally agreed that it is on such officers that the easing of aircraft congestion and the assurance of safety depends. Does not the noble Viscount agree that there has been some backwardness in the CAA

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making such preparation for the future? Did the authority underestimate in the past few years the need to increase the number of air traffic controllers?
That leads to views expressed in debates in the other place regarding the efficiency of the CAA. We must keep in mind in that direction that the airlines paid some £200 million in air traffic charges alone to the CAA last year. We know that the effectiveness of the CAA was considered by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in 1983, a report being presented in November of that year. And yet an announcement was made six years later, on 12th December, that there was to be another reference of the CAA ' to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It has been suggested in some quarters that that reference is intended only to look into the national air traffic services, which, for abbreviation purposes, I shall refer to as NATS. That provides the navigation services on which something like 80 per cent. of the CAA staff are engaged. I believe that we agree that inquiries into public undertakings are always desired but it seems strange that after only six years the CAA should again be referred to the MMC.
It has been suggested that the reference is confined only to NATS. Will the Minister confirm that position, because I have read carefully—or at least I hope I have—the Written Answer to Mr. Haselhurst given by Mr. Redwood, the Under-Secretary of State for Corporate Affairs at the DTI, from which it would appear that the reference is to investigate the efficiency of the Civil Aviation Authority and in particular the navigation and air traffic control services. If only those are to be investigated, then my reading of that reply is wrong. If my interpretation is wrong, I must ask why it is only the affairs of NATS which are to be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
This is a very important matter because, during consideration of the Bill in another place, references were made to the possibility of NATS being separated from the CAA. The opposition spokesman, Mr. Peter Snape, made it quite clear that any such proposal would need to be examined with the utmost care. That would require the most careful investigation not only of NATS but of the work of the CAA.
I understand that it is proposed to transfer the West Drayton Air Traffic Control Centre to another site. Reference was made in the other place to the transfer being made to a 30-acre greenfield site in Hampshire. The Minister replied in the other place that that is only one of several sites under consideration, but he added that outline planning permission had been given. I should like to ask the noble Viscount whether planning permission has been obtained for the other sites under consideration and whether the transfer to the greenfield site in Hampshire is more definite than has been indicated? How much of the proposed borrowing would be involved in the transfer of the air traffic centre?
I hope that the Minister can answer those questions. I wish the Bill well. We fully agree with its purposes.
8.42 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, I should like to thank the Minister for introducing the Bill. I stated on an earlier occasion in your Lordships' House that at party conferences this year the CAA were good enough to bring a display which I found extremely impressive and totally confusing. It gave some conception of the kind of problems that an air traffic controller would experience in dealing with the area around London. Blips appeared on the screen to indicate the amount of traffic that they had to deal with during the cycle of a day's operations.
It is quite clear that there is a need for further sophistication of the systems underlying air traffic control in this country, because our airspace is becoming extremely congested. I wonder how long we can continue to increase the amount of air traffic coming into this part of the world. I know that there are those in your Lordships' House who would wish us to take any aircraft that cared to come into our area at any time in the future, lest it should go by mistake to Charles de Gaulle or to Amsterdam. I do not necessarily share that view.
There are three areas on which I should like to touch in regard to the CAA. The first concerns the question of Eurocontrol. The ultimate aim so far as Europe is concerned is to have a much more integrated control system than we have at the moment. How far will the plans being put forward by the CAA integrate or conflict with that kind of plan? What we do on our own little patch is insignificant compared with what happens in Europe as a whole.
The second item concerns regional airports, a subject which has been mentioned in another place. One constantly worries about the fact that regional airports, although they are doing better than they were a few years ago, still seem to be constrained by bilateral agreements with other countries. One hopes that the Government will continue in their liberalisation policy—if that is not a word to which they object too strongly—and that more international flights will fly into regional airports up and down the country.
The noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, will not be surprised if I raise the question of the amount of airspace used by our defences. It has been suggested on many occasions that that space could be handed over to civil flying, in particular the east coast routes. I hope that the noble Lord has something to say to us on that subject tonight. There is no doubt that if the east coast routes were made available, it would ease the position of aircraft exiting from the London traffic control area and would eliminate the congestion which now occurs somewhere over the Midlands.
I support the Bill. There is no doubt that the Civil Aviation Authority has a very important task to perform on behalf of everybody involved in flying. I wish it well and I hope that the money will be as wisely spent as it has been in the past.
8.45 p.m.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, for good or ill, we find ourselves under the most intensively used piece

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of airspace in Europe. On the one hand there are purely domestic flights from London to the North, flying at a low level. However most Air Force bases are in eastern England and many training areas are over Wales, and therefore one has a conflict approximately over Daventry. Apart from the conflict between domestic aviation and defence requirements there is the fact that a great number of transatlantic flights from the Continent go out over Britain. They fly from south to north. Therefore we find ourselves with a very substantial air traffic control problem which is not entirely of our own making.
I have welcomed this Bill certainly once and possibly twice during discussions on other issues in this House. The Bill authorises a very competent capital expenditure programme which gives us, for want of a better expression, a Rolls-Royce in terms of air traffic control, not only in terms of what it is seeking to do in London and Manchester but what it is seeking to do with all the airspace above us.
The CAA must be congratulated. They have pushed on to produce an air traffic control system which will be valid in 20 years' time. The noble Viscount is to be strongly supported for introducing this Bill. However, I can see two problems which have not been touched on more than remotely this evening. One is the problem of the provincial airports. The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, mentioned them in his speech. I part company with him in that I feel that he mentioned them for the wrong reason. If people do not wish to fly from provincial airports, then I do not think that we should use investment, or in this case an air traffic control system, to force them to do so. That is an issue over which we have crossed swords in this House on a number of occasions over the years. I stick to my commitment. An air traffic control system must reflect the requirements of the consumer, not the disciplines set upon the consumer. It should also, quite rightly, make the consumer pay—and that is what we are discussing tonight.
I mentioned that we are getting a Rolls-Royce of an air traffic control system. However, one problem that occurs to me is that the road ends at Dover. This programme may never be complete because it will develop to take account of consumer needs and we shall have a very good air traffic control system for the UK. What will happen, however, when a plane crosses the Channel and sets off to continental Europe? We know that flow control has been discussed. We, with our colleagues on the Continent, are looking, if not at an integrated system, at an interface system that makes the process as simple as possible. If it is simple, whilst preserving security it will also be cost effective.
Flow control—the noble Viscount mentioned tunnels in the sky—puts a plane down nearly every 10 minutes. The railways ran on that basis in the 1840s. It was called train separation. Is that the way ahead? I do not believe it is, and so will the noble Viscount tell me how we are getting on with our European colleagues? We know that the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, fought hard for a better system, not just for Britain, which is what we are discussing tonight, but for Europe as a whole. It
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is no good shipping an aeroplane out of Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester or Glasgow if, as I say, when it reaches the barrier, somewhere over the Channel, between the CAA's area of control and the rest of Europe, the aeroplane has to turn back, hang about or go round in circles. In fact the aeroplane does none of those things, because it is not dispatched from a British airport until it has a slot.
Will the noble Viscount tell us what our European colleagues are doing? Will any of the money that we are "authorising" tonight be devoted to obtaining a better deal for the British air traveller when he goes into continental Europe?
The last question I should like to ask, which I have touched upon briefly, is: does the expenditure plan, which we are in a sense agreeing at arm's length, take account of the outcome of the Lowlands Airport Review for Scotland? If it does, why are we being kept waiting to hear the outcome of that review?
8.52 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the general welcome given by your Lordships to the Bill. I appreciate that whenever the chance to debate civil aviation arises your Lordships make the most of the opportunity to raise related subjects which are felt to be important. Some of the subjects that have been raised tonight may be outside the Bill's purview. Nevertheless, I shall try briefly to answer all the questions which have been put to me. If I fail to do so, I shall write to noble Lords.
Perhaps I may start by reminding the House, in view of what has been said, what the CAA is looking at in its review. It is considering the adequacy of United Kingdom airport capacity in the longer term. That involves producing forecasts of airport and air space capacity, considering the role of the regional airports, seeking to assess the case for deferring the construction of additional runway capacity in the South-East until capacity elsewhere is taken up, examining alternative methods of managing demand, including the use of price mechanisms, and considering air traffic control implications of locating additional runway capacity at different sites in and near the South-East, and the results of all that work are, as noble Lords are aware, due this summer in the form of advice to the Secretary of State.
I shall enlarge on the regional airport situation which the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, mentioned. It would be wrong of me to try to predict the findings at this stage, but I emphasise and repeat that the Government of course encourage regional airports to cater for as much local demand as possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Underhill, asked whether it is intended to raise charges on a variable basis and whether discussions on charges with users have taken place. The CAA reviews its charges annually and they are varied as necessary after consultations with users of its services. The noble Lord also asked about the MMC reference. The MMC reference recently announced by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is essentially concerned with navigation and air traffic control services, but it will look in particular at the

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management of the CAA's investment programme and the CAA's system for improving efficiency, and so it is in line with the Bill's objectives to facilitate efficient investment for the benefit of air users.
The noble Lord also asked whether some of the CAA's increased borrowing is to be spent on more training of air traffic control staff and on their employment. The increase in borrowing powers under the Bill is to allow the CAA to raise the finance for capital projects and not for running costs such as staff salaries. However, the CAA is increasing the recruitment of air traffic controllers. It is up from 80 in 1988 to 200 this year and will be 240 annually from 1991.
The noble Lord also asked about planning permission being granted for a new en-route centre in Hampshire. The CAA has identified a number of possible sites for the new en-route air traffic control centre. Two possible sites near Fareham in Hampshire have been announced but no decision has yet been taken. Planning conditions for both sites are being discussed with the local council.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, mentioned air traffic congestion. Delays in 1989 were no worse than those of 1988, although traffic was up by 7 per cent. The average air traffic control delay from United Kingdom airports last summer was about 14 minutes. Admittedly, there were delays of about three hours at weekends and that was of course worse during the French air traffic engineers' strikes, but the CAA is making capital investment to deal with that position and hence the Bill. European air traffic control authorities, including the CAA, are co-ordinating well to keep delays to a minimum.
The noble Lord also, surprisingly, asked about releasing military air space for civil use to relieve air space congestion. I must apologise to him because I misheard him the other day. I now have an answer which I believe will satisfy him better than the one which I gave him on that occasion. Air space along the east coast is kept continually under review by the National Air Traffic Services. One of the two east coast military training areas was permanently closed last year and part of the remaining one will be removed this year for the planned extension of upper air routes over the North Sea. A trial will start in March in which a limited number of scheduled services betweeen Heathrow and Aberdeen, Teesside and Newcastle Airports will fly through east coast air space outside the existing regulated route structure. Air traffic services will be provided jointly by the civil and military agencies.
Civil aircraft are allowed to fly over firing ranges and other danger areas along the east coast when they are not being used. The size and operational hours of those areas are kept under review. Elsewhere in the country aircraft from the north heading to Spain, Portugal and beyond now have permanent access to military air space over Wales and the West Country.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, asked about the current review of Scottish Lowland airports policy. All I can tell him at this stage is that it would be wrong to view the outcome of the review as a
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foregone conclusion. The review is intended to bring out arguments on both sides and the Government will be announcing a decision when all responses have been fully considered, which will be in the near future.
The noble Lord also asked what our European colleagues are doing and whether any of the money would be spent in Europe. The United Kingdom and its European colleagues are planning to harmonise and, probably in the next century, integrate air traffic control in Europe. Flow management is being integrated and none of the money will be spent in Europe.
If I have not answered all the questions I shall of course read Hansard and I undertake to write to noble Lords. I hope that I have answered most of the questions. I therefore ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Hill Livestock (Compensatory Allowances) (Amendment) Regulations 1990
8.58 p.m.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne rose to move, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 31st January be approved—[8th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Earl said: My Lords, these draft regulations, which apply to Great Britain, further amend the Hill Livestock (Compensatory Alowances) Regulations 1984. Comparable regulations have also been made in Northern Ireland. They bring into effect the increased rate of hill livestock compensatory allowance (HLCA) for hardy breed ewes in the severely disadvantaged parts of our less favoured areas, to be paid under the 1990 scheme which the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food announced in a statement in another place on 30th January.
Your Lordships will be familiar with the system whereby financial support in the form of headage payments on beef cows and ewes is given to livestock producers in our less favoured areas. It is a long-standing one, dating back to the 1940s. Since 1976 that assistance has operated under European Community legislation, currently the EC Structures Regulation 797/85. These payments are designed to compensate for the permanent natural handicap affecting farming activity in the less favoured areas, the objective being to ensure the continuation of livestock farming in the hill and upland areas with a view to preserving the rural fabric by keeping people in the less favoured areas and conserving the countryside. The European Community contributes 25 per cent. of eligible expenditure.
The agriculture departments traditionally carry out each autumn a thorough-going review of economic conditions in the hills and uplands in conjunction with representatives of farming interests. The 1989 review showed that average net farm incomes of livestock producers in our hill and upland areas are forecast to fall in 1989–90 in real

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terms though this followed an increase in real terms in 1988–89. This year's forecasts suggest that in particular incomes for specialist sheep producers in the high hill areas will come under pressure and, as noble Lords will know, there is very little scope for diversification into other activities in these areas. The particular difficulties currently being faced by the specialist sheep producers in the high hills, we believe, justify an increase in the rate of compensatory allowance.
The draft regulations now before the House will increase the level of allowance paid for hardy breed sheep kept on severely disadvantaged land by 75p from £6.75 to £7.50 per animal. All other HLCA rates and conditions will remain unchanged for 1990. The increased rate will cost an extra £5.2 million in a full year. This will bring total HLCA payments up to a figure of some £125 million a year—a very substantial figure—which clearly demonstrates the Government's full and continuing commitment to support the livestock sector in the less favoured areas.
Finally, I should refer to some significant changes to the HLCA rules stemming from the decision by the Council of Ministers last November to amend the EC structures regulation. These changes will not take effect until 1st January 1991 and are not therefore of immediate relevance to the regulations before the House today. If I might summarise, the purpose of these regulations is to give extra assistance to livestock producers in the most disadvantaged parts of the less favoured areas where farming conditions are very difficult and where government assistance is of crucial importance if we are to maintain a farmed landscape in the areas concerned. I commend them to the House.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 31 st January be approved.—[8th Report from the Joint Committee.]—(The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.)
Lord Carter: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister both for explaining the regulations and for the welcome announcement of an increase of 11 per cent. in money terms in the HLCAs for ewes on the higher hills. As the noble Earl said, the income of these farmers has been quite severely depressed in recent years. They face very hard farming conditions. There will be a review in autumn 1990 and the noble Earl can be assured that we shall all be watching it very carefully to ensure that the full needs of the farmers in the LFAs will be met by the increase next year.
As the noble Earl will know, there is a problem for beef and sheep producers even in the disadvantaged areas and not the LFAs. It is a pity that no action has been taken to assist these very hard-pressed farmers. With that proviso, I am very glad from these Benches to repeat the welcome for this announcement.
Earl Peel: My Lords, while fully accepting the principle of the HLCA payments as laid out by my noble friend, for the purpose principally of
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supporting the social structure of farming communities within the less favoured areas, I must express my deep concern as to what effect such a system has had, and perhaps more importantly is still having, on the upland environment. There is no doubt that the use of headage payments—I stress the word headage—simple though these may be to administer, has resulted in the loss of many thousands of acres of heather moorland and consequently valuable wildlife habitat.
This has occurred either directly through the specific increase in sheep numbers or indirectly through certain farming practices which have evolved since the war when the present subsidy system, as we know it, started. But whichever way we look at it, headage payments are supporting a system which in this day and age is, in my view, unacceptable and totally incompatible with environmental requirements. Despite the registration of ewe numbers under the Commons Registration Act 1965, huge amounts of heather have been and are still being eaten out on common land and elsewhere.
The statistics are innumerable. The NCC has calculated that 70 per cent. of the heather coverage has now disappeared in Cumbria; 40 to 50 per cent. in the North Yorkshire Moors and 40 per cent. in the Yorkshire Dales. I believe the situation is even worse in Northumberland. Another figure which I recently read and which I find quite astonishing is that the RSPB has calculated that 1–75 million acres of heather have disappeared in the United Kingdom since the war. More importantly, that disappearance is continuing. In addition to that, between the years 1980 and 1989, 2 million sheep have appeard as regular stock ewes in the less favoured areas.
Furthermore, with the proposal—my noble friend on the Front Bench made reference to this—to phase out the variable premium in favour of increasing the ewe premium and the HLCA payment, the problem is likely to get considerably worse. I realise that there are suggestions that there should be a limit of a thousand ewes per holding, but that is fairly meaningless as most flocks are well under that. Even so, I am sure that there will be ways in which most people will be able to circumnavigate that problem through partnerships, and so forth.
As I said earlier, I fully accept the need to provide some type of support within the less favoured areas. There is no doubt about that. We must maintain the social structure, but at the same time I believe that support must work more closely with the kinds of operations that we now see under the ESA, the environmentally sensitive areas system, where payments are made more on acreage than on a headage basis and there is a firm commitment to environmental objectives. That is crucial. I urge the Government, who have done so much recently to help restore the balance between agricultural output and conservation, to look again at this most unsatisfactory and outdated system of headage payments within less favoured areas. Public money cannot continue to be seen to be aiding and abetting

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severe environmental damage. There are alternative systems. We must start implementing them immediately.
The Earl of Swinton: My Lords, I should like briefly to support my noble friend Lord Peel. None of us wants to see hill farmers with their backs to the wall. They are, it is fair to say, the salt of the earth in many cases. The last thing I should like to see is their having a bad living and starving. The effect of what my noble friend has said about the disppearance of the heather moorland is that instead of sheep farms we see forestry. Once the land has been overgrazed by sheep, it becomes sick, and there is then no alternative but to plant trees.
Forestry, with all respect, does not employ local people as much as farming. Therefore it is in the interests of hill farmers themselves that a more sensible system than this should be worked out. My noble friend on the Front Bench said that this had been going on since 1940; that is, for 50 years. Surely after 50 years it is time to look at the matter more sensibly and try to make it work more in line with conservation.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, we have had a short and useful debate on these draft regulations and I am grateful for the comments that have been made. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for his contribution and I shall attempt to reply to my noble friends Lord Swinton and Lord Peel.
I have listened with great interest to what noble Lords have had to say about the need for action to maintain and indeed restore our heather moorlands. There is no doubt that there have been substantial losses in heather moorland, the causes of which have been explained so forcefully today. Of course ecological overgrazing by sheep in the uplands has played its part. Air pollution and the wider use of the countryside by urban populations have also contributed in certain areas. I well understand the calls for action to arrest the decline and specifically for some redirection of the agricultural support regime in the uplands with that objective.
There are wider pressures for encouragement to farmers to pursue agricultural practices which are beneficial to the environment. The Government have responded positively to those pressures in recent schemes. I mention the environmentally sensitive areas, the farming and conservation grants and the farm woodlands schemes, all of which have these objectives in mind. A further possibility for action specifically directed at the uplands has been secured only very recently through the amendment to the EC legal provisions which will allow member states to take account of environmental requirements in the HLCA scheme. The Minister has already made clear his intention to consider these possibilities very carefully over the months ahead. I do not think that I can say more this evening.
As I acknowledged in my opening speech, the specialist sheep producers in the high hill areas are experiencing particular difficulties at this time. I
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believe that the additional assistance the Government are now proposing to give them is fully justified.
Earl Peel: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, he said earlier that he regarded air pollution as one of the reasons for the disappearance of heather. I think that this is perhaps a rather far-fetched argument. To my knowledge there is no evidence to substantiate it. From what I have seen, it is certainly not the case.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Disabled Transport
9.7 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale Lord Allen of Abbeydale rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what further steps they are taking to meet the transport needs of disabled people.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to begin by thanking those who have put down their names to speak in this short debate even at this advanced hour. I have to confess that when I was thinking about what I might say this evening, I felt, to begin with, a trifle discouraged. I could not help recalling that when the Government spent millions and millions of pounds on new headquarters for, of all departments, the Department of Health, they evidently clean forgot to provide any facilities for wheelchair users, as we discovered when some of us took part in a deputation soon after Richmond House was commissioned.
The other day at Question Time, the noble Lord, Lord Hesketh, made it clear that of all the topics in which the Department of the Environment was not interested, the plight of the disabled at Oxford bus and railway stations stood high on the list. But further reflection reminded me that the Department of Transport has quite a good record of endeavour in the topic we are now discussing, especially through its disability unit, which makes up in energy what it lacks in size. The Secretary of State has, for example, a statutory responsibility to issue guidance about making access to public transport vehicles easier for the disabled. He is assisted by the Disabled Persons' Transport Advisory Committee, appointed under the Transport Act 1985. This is an opportunity to pay tribute to the sterling work put in by the committee, many members of which are themselves disabled. It submits excellent reports which are laid before Parliament, though they are not printed and published.
One of the difficulties is that not nearly enough is known to the public about what is done, what is in contemplation and what are the the problems. The inability to make people realise what is possible and to affect public attitudes towards achieving it, and also to instil more confidence into the disabled themselves, is a theme which runs through much of what I have to say.
In this country—and we are not unique in this respect—about 12 per cent. of the population, some 6 million people, can use the available means of transport only with difficulty or not at all. That 12

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per cent. has to be seen in the context of there being now only about 36 per cent. of households which are without a car. Modifications to present forms of public transport to make it possible for an appreciable proportion of the 6 million who cannot or dare not use the system would represent a potential source of extra custom on a scale nowhere in sight from any other source. I need not rub in the point that the cost to society of a person who is immobile and who has to be cared for is high, bearing in mind the fact that he or she may have to live and be maintained in a home, or, if housebound, may be dependent upon carers coming in. For the individual, mobility is perhaps the biggest single factor in achieving an independent life.
When we talk about disabled people, we are talking about people with widely varying forms of disability and widely varying needs. One has to be very cautious about talking of the "disabled" as though they were some collective entity of misfortune. The needs of those who cannot walk, who cannot see or hear properly, who cannot grip or lift or who have difficulty in understanding must all be met in different ways.
Perhaps I may now touch upon some of what has been achieved. I begin by recalling that there is a statutory duty on transport authorities, including that in respect of the Channel Tunnel—that is, if one is ever built—to include the needs of the disabled when making their plans. Many local authorities have concessionary bus fares for, among others, the disabled. British Rail has equipped its Inter City service so that it is possible, if you know how to set about it, for a person confined to a wheelchair to travel. A bus service linking the main London stations can take passengers in wheelchairs—that is, again, if you know how to find where it starts—as can the Airbus vehicles plying between London and Heathrow. Moreover, new taxis in London, and in some other places, will not be licensed unless they can take a passenger in a wheelchair. The two British manufacturers now build no other type of taxi, to the benefit, I believe, of their export trade.
The Department of Transport has issued guidance about textured pavements which reduce the risks at pedestrian crossings for the blind and for people in wheelchairs. The British Airways fleet has been equipped to cope with passengers in wheelchairs. Four model buses are on constant show, demonstrating how design changes can help to cope with various forms of handicap. Moreover, London Regional Transport has started a programme of incorporating some of those changes in its fleet. Despite various problems, minibuses with volunteer drivers are used on a large scale to provide door-to-door services for the disabled who would otherwise be housebound.
London Regional Transport is experimenting with the design of Underground trains. It is also making plans about stations on the District and Metropolitan lines so as to make them more accessible.
However, I must confess that the possibility of the disabled coping with the new ticket barriers and the escalators which do not work on the ordinary
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Underground system is fraught with formidable obstacles. The disability unit of the Department of Transport every other year mounts a roadshow demonstrating how cars can be altered and equipped to meet various types of handicap. An information service is available to give advice about adaptations and driving ability. The department and the AA between them have managed to get the facilities at motorway service stations improved.
I should like to mention the efforts made by the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust to launch a scheme to facilitate access for the disabled to arts venues. A good deal of research is going on, as also is consultation with our Common Market friends; consultation in which this country takes a leading part.
That is not a complete list but it is not a bad list so far as it goes. The trouble is that it is only starting to touch the edges of the problem. To begin with, not enough about these various enterprises is widely known. Appreciation of the problems is, to put it kindly, somewhat limited. The thoughtless individuals who park on the pavements so that no wheelchair can get past are, I fear, only symptomatic of a general lack of understanding.
For their part, local authorities have been reluctant even to think about adjusting the priorities in their fare concession schemes. British Rail, although it has certainly done quite a lot, has not really solved the problem of letting disabled people know how they can find out what facilities are available to help them. I know from personal experience that Oxford is not the only new station where there are problems. It may be all right if one knows how to set about it, but there are few things more frustrating for the disabled than to contemplate starting on a journey without being sure what will happen when they get to the other end.
There is still quite a bit more to be done at the airports, but I suppose that the most important area of potential improvement is that of the buses. As I have said, demonstration buses are available which have been adapted or designed to meet the needs of the disabled. In view of the importance of the buses, it is perhaps worth spending a moment on what some of those needs are, especially as quite a number of accidents occur during the stopping and starting of the vehicle. The step height may be too great. The hand-rails may be difficult to grip. For lack of colour contrast, steps or rails cannot easily be seen. The bell push may be out of reach. There may be no visual guidance for the benefit of a deaf person that the bus is stopping and no spoken guidance for the benefit of a blind person.
To design a new bus with the necessary features does not add much to the cost. Adaptation may not be all that expensive either. Whatever extra expense is incurred can well be recovered in a couple of years from the additional passengers attracted to the buses when the handicapped find they can cope with them.
Although there are exceptions, sadly, operators and local authorities continue to be reluctant to use some of these ideas. As the Department of Transport itself puts it, a change in attitude and an increase in understanding are needed to demonstrate to

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transport operators in a deregulated and commercial climate that providing for the needs of people with mobility handicaps is not a matter of loss-making or charitable activities but can make good business sense.
Then there are the coaches. With the increasing numbers of elderly people these could well be used more and more, but the industry has not been quick to adapt its vehicles to attract more disabled people. As for facilities at bus stations, I can only say that the disabled suffer even more than ordinary passengers, and that is saying something.
I recognise that good things do not make for news, but I wish that the press could find more scope for drawing attention to those providers of public transport who are taking seriously the prospect of enabling at any rate some of the 6 million to enjoy a mobility which has hitherto been denied to them, and who, by persuading them that times are changing, are taking seriously the prospect of doing something to spread confidence among those who have so far been kept away from public transport.
I wish, too, that highway authorities would do more to provide dropped kerbs, to install audible and tactile signs at crossing places and to remove or resite obstructive street furniture. I wish that those concerned with buses could do more to specify vehicles with low floors and other equipment to help the disabled of the type that I have outlined. I wish that local authorities could look at their fare concessionary schemes and consider a wider use of their financial resources, including their statutory powers to make capital grants towards improving public transport vehicles. I wish that local authorities and British Rail could do more to give clear information about the facilities which are being made available on public transport. Finally, I wish that the Department of Transport could be even more vigorous in giving a lead to transport authorities and private operators in carrying out research, in familiarising themselves with the best practices in other countries and in securing more publicity for what is being done, what could be done and why it ought to be done.
I fear that in a short speech on an Unstarred Question it is possible only to dip into some aspects of a far-reaching and complicated subject. I am conscious that I have not, for example, touched on the orange badge scheme, or on facilities at petrol filling stations, or on the design of wheelchairs and other devices, or on the possible effect of the EC Handynet scheme, or on the mobility allowance. The latter topic deserves a speech of its own. I hope that one day it will receive that speech.
I am glad at any rate to have had the chance of raising a topic which is of great concern to some millions of our fellow citizens who because of handicaps of one kind or another have difficulty in leading the independent life which in our civilised society they should be able to enjoy.
9.28 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Allen of
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Abbeydale, has given us the chance to discuss this subject which is of such importance to people with disabilities. I congratulate him on his masterly and panoramic portrayal of the situation. I should say at this point that my noble friend Lady Kinloss very much wanted to take part in this debate but she is unable to be here.
I wish to home in on one specific aspect of mobility. I am afraid it is not the mobility allowance but the orange badge scheme. That latter topic will receive a speech all of its own from me tonight. It is not really a question of what to do but of when the Government will implement their proposals that were announced last year in Traffic Topics 3. On 25th April 1989 Peter Bottomley, who was then the Minister responsible for roads and traffic, set out the proposals in a Written Answer to Alf Morris. The Minister said that the rate of issue of orange badges had increased rapidly since 1986 from about 800,000 in March 1986 to about I million in March 1988. He commented:
"The scheme is losing the respect of the general public, who see apparently able-bodied people using cars bearing badges. Without changes the scheme will become unworkable".
That statement was made nearly 10 months ago but there have been no changes as yet.
The Department of Transport's proposals would go a long way towards resolving the situation. In particular, the department proposes to tighten up the criteria for eligibility in line with the recommendation of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee that eligibility for badges should be more closely related to eligiblity for mobility allowance. That would concentrate badges on the most severely disabled people who need them most. Much of the problem is caused by too loose an interpretation of the,
"unable to walk or have very considerable difficulty in walking"
criterion under which at least 73 per cent. of orange badges are issued.
Another most useful proposal from the DoT is to issue a new-style badge with a photograph of the user. I am pleased to hear that it will not be on open display. The photograph will be folded under so that identity can be checked when the user appears. That will help clamp down on abuse of the badge and the use of parking facilities when the badge holder is not in the car.
I also urge the Government to set up an appeal procedure which the Joint Committee on Mobility for the Disabled, of which I am a member, thinks will be essential to ensure that those who really need badges are issued with them once the eligibility criteria are more strictly applied. One should be able to have one's appeal heard locally. Therefore a regional appeal committee would be needed, consisting of disabled orange badge holders and an officer from the DVLC.
I also hope that the Government will consider making it an offence even to display the orange badge when the holder is not using the car as well as when parking. That would further help to combat abuse. I reiterate my perennial plea to the Government to do all that they can to encourage

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the four central London boroughs to recognise the orange badge scheme.
Mushrooming pedestrianisation has made it particularly urgent to ensure that the scheme works well and that it is directed at those who most need it. I suspect that pedestrianisation is spawned rather haphazardly, bit by bit, until one finishes up with a vast pedestrianised area with very limited parking nearby. Some local authorities have resorted to issuing their own badges to various sub-groups to cut down the number of badge holders allowed access. That is a backward step towards the old days when local authorities used to issue their own badges which were valid only for that area. The solution is to tighten the orange badge scheme and issue badges only to those with severe mobility problems, for whom the badge is the essential passport to an otherwise no-go area.
I should like to give a recent example of my own experiences in trying to shop in my local town. I hope that I shall not bore your Lordships, but I believe that my experience is typical of the problem. A second slice of the high street has been pedestrianised. There is very limited parking for orange badge holders at both ends of quite a long street which runs behind the shops parallel to the pedestrianised area. I got a parking ticket before Christmas because I became so desperate waiting for one of the parking spaces to be cleared. Admittedly, I parked with my front wheels in front of the unloading bay of the local chain store. I reckoned that that was a fair cop because although my car was not obstructing the bay it was slightly over the lines marking the bay. The reaction of the van drivers was interesting. They said, "You are not in our way. Most of the people who park in those spaces are not disabled anyway".
On the next occasion the only available space was at the other end of the street. I dutifully parked, got out of the car and into my wheelchair, pushed myself down the street, left a trolley of shopping for collection in my car, and pushed myself back up the street. I then drove back up the street only to find that I could not park near enough to the shop to attract attention. I could not park, so I could not get out of the car. In the end I was so harassed by a man trying to drive down the street behind me that I had to park on the pavement and he yelled, "Try using the car park next time".
Your Lordships may have heard the story of the man who claimed exemption from paying to cross the Severn Bridge. When his attention was drawn to the fact that the name on the orange badge on his car appeared to be that of a female and he was a lone male in the car, he pointed to the back seat on which an urn was resting. He said, "It's all right, it's my wife. She is in there". The story of Mrs. X's last journey is probably apocryphal, but I believe that we need rapid action to restore the good reputation of the scheme, whose value is beyond price to those who really need it.
The DoT's proposals are most welcome. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to say something both positive and encouraging when he comes to reply.
9.35 p.m.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I am sure that the excellent comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), on the important subject of the orange badge have set the pace for us all to follow. However, I should like to mention three areas of concern raised by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. I am delighted that he has finally obtained this debate on an Unstarred Question, although it clearly should have been a two-and-a-half hour debate. I should like to have presented my comments in a happier frame of mind. I hope that the noble Lord will not think it a criticism if I say that I found him rather gloomy with regard to a situation which is not all that gloomy.
First, I should like to draw noble Lords' attention to the progress being made to modify our ordinary buses to meet the sensible specifications proposed by the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Council which was established as a result of amendments tabled in this House to the Transport Bill 1985. The Act provides for maximum step heights, adequate handrails, easy access to bell pushes and the like. The best time to incorporate those features into a bus—I am talking only about buses—is when it is built as they cost relatively little at that stage. Some enlightened companies—for example, Northumbria Bus, formerly called United Auto, which operates in Northumbria and Tyne and Wear—are among those which buy vehicles that meet or exceed those standards. Some tendering authorities—for instance, London Regional Transport, which has recently won a prize, and Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive—make it a condition of the contract that operators provide vehicles to DPTAC standards. I hope that noble Lords will not mind me repeating those points.
It is to be regretted that some operators still buy new vehicles without those modifications. They save small sums of money but condemn those with any form of mobility handicap to a less comfortable and harder journey for the next 15 or 20 years. Why they do so I do not know. I am sure that other noble Lords do not know either. However, the remedy is in the hands of the Government or, more specifically, of the Department of Transport. The DPTAC requirements can be easily incorporated in the construction and use standards which all new vehicles must meet. No primary legislation is involved, it can be done by order. I am sure that noble Lords would like to know why the department is so slow to move on that point.
Secondly, it has been drawn to my attention that with the approach of 1992 the European Community has more and more influence over vehicle design and standards. One area to which it is turning its attention is step heights. I understand that its proposed standards would result in higher steps than we now have, let alone should have, if DPTAC standards were met. I should be interested to know the Government's views on that issue. After all, if we can have adequate standards without subsidy, I do not see why European laws should not be the same standard as ours. That is a valid point.

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Thirdly, there is the question of new investment. The light rail schemes of which we have heard a great deal recently must strive to be accessible to those with mobility handicaps. Where they run on-street, that is difficult, but I hope that other authorities will follow Manchester's lead in providing for that. Manchester has ingeniously achieved level access with street running. The department has taken that expenditure into account in giving its grant towards the cost of the project. I am sure that we are all grateful to it for that. It is to be hoped that that will be repeated on all light rail schemes.
However, there is the question of improving access to the conventional rail network which involves access to stations and from stations to trains. British Rail is making progress in providing facilities inside the trains with its new rolling stock. At main-line stations, assistance is made available to help people into the stations and on to the trains, but less is being done at local stations because there are tight restrictions on British Rail, passenger transport authorities and shire counties with regard to capital spending. When that type of expenditure must compete with other expenditure which has a financial return, there is a danger that it will be squeezed out. It is hoped that my noble friend will be able to tell the House that the department is making progress with quantifying the benefits from this important venture in making the capital available for a sustained programme of investment.
In concluding I should like to remind noble Lords that the benefits of improving access to public transport for the disabled are not confined to those with severe mobility handicaps. There are plenty of schemes in other authorities which are doing very well in that area that I should like to have mentioned. The benefits extend to those with less severe handicaps and those who are temporarily handicapped. Moreover, people in charge of young children and those with heavy shopping also benefit from more accessible public transport, especially on vehicles that have a low step. Buses should have low steps. If not, entering them can be very tiresome. Buses should be built with low steps. One might have to go up at the back axle but often able bodied people can climb up. One can get over that problem. That is a very valid point.
Our best practice is ahead of that in many other countries, particularly so far as concerns buses. I hope that by acting on the measures that we have suggested this evening the Government will play their part in keeping us ahead. To sum up, so far as public transport and the disabled are concerned, in schoolmasters' terms on a scale of 10 or whatever we are doing very well but there is probably room for improvement. We must keep ahead and indeed hope that others will catch up with us. One does not want to feel terribly nationalistic. However, we believe that the EC is lagging behind, that this country is ahead and that we must encourage others to follow our lead.
9.42 p.m.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, the final point of the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, appealed to me very much. Like all noble Lords who have spoken, I am grateful to my colleague the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for raising this issue. The subject seems to fall into two sections: infrastructure and awareness. At the end of my remarks I shall come back to the subject of awareness because I believe that that is where we can help the disabled without spending a vast amount of money on infrastructure.
With regard to infrastructure, one must conclude that if one starts now one can produce something that is user-friendly for the disabled. One has only to consider the work done by friends in Tyne and Wear who have produced a very user-friendly underground system. They have made access easy from the pavement through the station to the platform and have gone further in that they have made the platforms the same height as the entry step of the trains.
The same situation applies in the Docklands Light Railway. To get from street level to platform level and then into the train and back again to platform level and out on to the street is a viable proposition for the disabled, be they blind, handicapped in their limbs or deaf. I was particularly interested—and this point was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot—in what the Manchester Light Railway is setting out to do in two ways.
First, it has set out to produce a two-level platform, one for the walk-on passenger but with ramp access. It will be at street level so the Manchester Light Railway will be a tramway in the city centre. There will be a second height of platform with ramp access which will produce a simple push-on or walk-on situation for the disabled.
Another extremely positive move is in terms of the penalty fares legislation which some noble Lords raised in this House some five or six years ago. They have said that penalty fares legislation shall not be applicable to the disabled.
If one starts now one can produce a rail based transport system which is very user friendly. Some of our transport systems began far in the past. Your Lordships' Chamber is coming up to its 150th birthday, as is a great deal of British Rail's infrastructure. We cannot produce a decent heating or cooling system for your Lordships' Chamber. Nor can British Rail or London Underground produce a totally user-friendly system for the disabled in terms of what they have inherited. The infrastructure was built a century and a half ago. One therefore comes back to awareness.
British Rail has a unit for dealing with the disabled. I congratulate it on that. I congratulate it on its core network of about 200 stations around the country which will be utterly usable for the blind by means of symbols and for the deaf by means of induction loops so that they can hear better, with special plaform facilities and staff training. If one were to start now one could make proper provision.
When I researched the topic that the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has raised I discovered that Eurotunnel

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and the shuttles will ask the disabled—howsoever disabled—to identify themselves before they take a Eurotunnel shuttle so that they can be put close to staff who are trained to deal with whatever disability they may have. That applies not only in terms of making the system user-friendly but also in terms of safety, which must at the end of the day be paramount.
If one considers the Eurotunnel, the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, said that we are ahead of our continental partners in this matter. The trains that will run from London to Paris and Brussels will jointly be owned by British Rail, the French railway and the Belgian railway. They would not have had any provision for the disabled had it not been for British Rail fighting that particular corner. They now have such provision and that is good. The point that I and the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, are making is that we are ahead of our continental cousins in that respect.
London Regional Transport and British Rail have a training programme. If one joins British Rail today one undergoes a morning of training through videos. British Rail has almost picked up the sentiment of the BBC, "Does he take sugar?" Disabled people are not different; they simply have different requirements of which we must be aware.
I have mentioned the Eurotunnel shuttles and the London Regional Transport training programme, but at the end of the day I should like to come back to awareness. I believe that it is not for the carriers entirely to resolve the problems of giving the disabled, howsoever disabled, the freedom to move throughout this country. It is a matter for the community. As I said five years ago, we must start in the schools. Five years ago I interviewed many of my colleagues who had just left school or university. I asked, "Have you ever been taught about dealing with the disabled?" They said, "No. We might have had a deaf person, a person in a wheelchair or a blind person at school but the school never went out of its way to teach us". I come back to the point again. Surely it is not for the carriers to take on this battle single-handed. It is a much wider issue. We should be aware of the needs of the disabled.
In conclusion, let me give a small example. I live close to Great Portland Street where, as noble Lords know, the RNIB has its head office. Hardly a day goes by without my seeing two or three blind people going about their business, achieving solutions, living a life—to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, referred—with their guide dogs. I did not know this fact until I asked a blind lady why she had put the reins of her guide dog flat upon its back. She replied, "That's a symbol. It's a request for help". The guide dog may know that; a member of the staff of the Royal National Institute for the Blind may know it. But I fell upon it by accident and I am sure that most noble Lords did not know that there was such a code.
Our bus companies, rail companies, Eurotunnel, the shipping companies, the airpoirts and airlines do a tremendous job of making a journey simple for the disabled provided that they are given notice. I urge that we start at the bottom in our schools and teach pupils to be aware of the needs of the disabled.
9.50 p.m.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Holderness regrets his unavoidable absence from the debate. He is exceptionally well qualified to speak on the subject because, as a result of war wounds, he has been severely disabled for almost half a century. As chairman of the Disablement Services Authority for the past few years, he has been actively engaged in securing a better organisation to meet the short-range transport needs of disabled people in terms of the supply of artificial limbs and wheelchairs. He has been instrumental in galvanising the service throughout the country to look at the total rehabilitation of disabled people in order that they may return rapidly to as normal a life as possible.
He has asked me, as his vice-chairman, to stress a number of points. First, our emphasis has been on complete rehabilitation with the conviction that mobility is of vital importance to disabled people. It is difficult for able-bodied people to imagine just how frustrating it is to be unable to move easily from one place to another. It may interest your Lordships to know that, in order to help the understanding of that problem, we at Guy's Hospital have all the medical students spend a day in a wheelchair—although one at a time, of course. By the end of the day they have a clear idea of exactly how difficult it is to move around in a wheelchair in institutions which are supposed to be actively concerned with the whole problem of disability. I believe that Professor Verna Wright of Leeds first started medical students along that road and the practice ought to be carried out in every medical school.
In terms of short-range mobility the Disablement Services Authority is convinced that powered chairs suitable for use indoors and outdoors should be made available to those who are so severely disabled that they are unable to walk or propel themselves in ordinary wheelchairs and unable to transfer themselves from one chair to another. With that conviction in mind during the past year, we conducted two pilot studies—in Newcastle and Manchester—supplying the powered indoor-outdoor chairs to such people. Needless to say, they were delighted with them and they greatly improved their quality of life in every way. The chairs significantly increased their range of activity, enabling them to leave the house unaccompanied and go for several miles to do their shopping, and so forth.
Many disabled people have no one to wheel them around. Therefore, it is vital to give them such independence. Currently we are working out the cost of extending the supply to the whole country. The signs are that the Government are keen to help and that has been a great encouragement to all concerned with the problem.
A car is a great boon for longer journeys and the mobility allowance helps with the purchase of suitable cars. However, unfortunately the necessary adaptations to the cars can be extremely expensive. It cannot be sufficiently emphasised what an enormous increase to the dimension of a life such a car will

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bring, enabling many disabled people to return to work.
Driving assessment centres are essential to get such people on the road. There is a growing number of those throughout the country, notably the excellent one in Banstead. There is also one in Crowthorne and another in Newcastle. Clearly we need more of those and we need much more help from the manufacturers to produce a greater range of vehicles. At one centre which I visited recently there was an excellent German car and an excellent Japanese car but no British model.
All those matters require more money. However,
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of much greater importance is a need for a change in the attitude of British people in all walks of life, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, emphasised so well. In Ripon recently many of the pavements have been repaired but not one has been lowered to allow easy access to wheelchairs. That would not have cost any more money. Improving the transport system in terms of pavements and roads makes life much easier for everyone; For example, lowering of pavements also makes easier access for mothers with prams. Disabled people should not have to fit into the present transport system. The transport system should be designed to suit everyone.
9.56 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, who should have had a two-and-a-half hour debate on this matter some time ago but he moved that off the agenda. He was not exactly pressed to do so, but on the balance of the argument it was felt that because there was a similar debate in that period it would be wise to move it to another day. This has been the first opportunity for him to raise this very important matter. It is a pity that it is so late but I assure the noble Lord that, because this is a transport debate, there would have been no more speakers had it been earlier in the day.
Some time ago I came across a report from the Greater London Association for Disabled People. That is known by the short title of the GLAD report. That was a survey carried out in 1985. In terms of awareness, which I believe this debate tonight is really about, it is quite shattering when one considers the total number of people the report is talking about. For example, in London—and this report deals with London—there are something like half a million people handicapped in their use of public transport. At that stage, something like 7 per cent. of Londoners were handicapped in their use of public transport. That has now risen to something like 10 per cent. and it is expected that by the turn of the century something in the order of 14 per cent. of Londoners will be handicapped in their use of public transport.
The effect of that on the isolation of those people is that something like one-third of them—160,000 at that time—lived on their own. Almost all those people had no access to a personal car. Something like 20 per cent. of those handicapped do not go out in any one week. A quarter of them never make a shopping trip and one-third never visit relatives or friends. Therefore, we are talking about very large numbers of people who are severely handicapped by their inability to use transport available to them in their daily lives. Their own personal life is therefore downgraded as a result of that. The majority of those people are not working. Many are living on a pension and most of them cannot afford to travel by taxi.
The London Regional Transport disabled unit has achieved some success since it was founded in 1984 but there is obviously still a lot to be done. It is consulted about new vehicles; for example, buses and trains. We have talked about things that need to be done to vehicles during the course of this debate. There is a great deal of old stock. Buses last for about 15 years and Tube trains last for something like 35 years. At the moment only about 10 per cent. of buses have the kinds of new features to which the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, referred.
There are schemes like Dial-a-Ride, which is a wonderful idea. However, it only reaches a small number of people. Furthermore, it is run by 29 separate voluntary management committees and is not unreminiscent of the curate's egg. If the standards of the bottom third could be raised to the level of the top third, life would be a lot better for many more people. The taxicard system is also a very good scheme. It is funded by individual
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boroughs which, so far, have done their best to fund it properly. However, with the squeeze on local government resources one wonders how long that situation can continue.
Smaller buses are being run on routes which go closer to people's homes. Unfortunately, smaller buses tend to be harder to get into than larger buses. Mention has been made of drop-floor buses and all kinds of innovations that are being introduced in order to enable access to larger buses. The smaller buses so far do not have this drop-floor facility. One wonders whether the Government can do something in that direction to encourage drop-floor facilities in smaller buses.
I should like to ask the Government what they have in mind for the safety of wheelchair users in terms of the constraints on wheelchairs when in vehicles. I am astonished to discover from figures provided by the Department of Transport that there are 460 different models of wheelchairs and 6,500 variants on those different kinds of wheelchairs. In order for the drop-floor system to mean anything, one must have restraints for 6,500 variants of a wheelchair.
One area of disability which has not been touched upon much tonight is that of visual impairment. I use the term "visually impaired" rather than blind because the majority of people you and I see going around with white canes are not totally blind but are to a varying degree visually impaired. I am advised upon this matter by my daughter, who at the moment is doing a course in order to become a blind rehabilitation officer.
Lord Carter: My Lords, surely she is going to be a rehabilitation officer for the blind.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, that just shows how careful one has to be with the terms one uses when dealing with this subject. She is hoping to be a rehabilitation officer for the blind.
I was struck by the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich, about students being put into a wheelchair for a day. He might also consider the possibility of students being blindfolded for a day. In the course of her training my daughter has to spend time blindfolded, cooking, moving about, etc. The people one sees walking around with white sticks or long canes are not all totally blind. As an aside, I should like to say that it is not widely recognised that those canes are not available on the National Health Service. Some local authorities provide canes for the visually handicapped, but many people have to spend a significant amount of money on them because they are not cheap. Whereas one can obtain a Zimmer frame on the NHS, one cannot obtain a long cane.
When it comes to transport, visually handicapped people need reliable transport, especially buses. They need to know when buses are likely to be arriving at the stop. They have great difficulty in dealing with request stops, for instance, because the bus may have passed them before they know that it is there. They

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have to be trained to ask people what is the number of the bus and where it is going. Signs at bus stops are such that the visually impaired cannot read them. There are few tactile signs at bus stops. Although the general public are, on the whole, willing to help, they do not understand the type of help necessary, which brings us back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans; that we need to increase our awareness of the needs of handicapped people in our schools and general training.
When buses arrive at the bus stop, the doors are not in a uniform position. The steps are not the same in number. They are not of uniform width or height. If one is elderly, suffering from arthritis and visually handicapped, it is difficult if the bus stops at some distance from the bus stop and one has to step out into the road.
Those people who have guide dogs—I have watched the honourable Member in another place, Mr. Blunkett, on the Tube with a most excellent guide dog, which obviously knows which compartment he has to get into and where the steps are when he arrives at the station here—who are going somewhere unfamiliar or who are getting on to a bus which is not the standard type of bus can be in great trouble because, again, the small buses frequently do not have sufficient room to accommodate the guide dog for someone who is visually handicapped.
There is a great need for brighter and more contrasting colours to be used in the seating. There is a great need for continuous hand rails on buses and on the Underground. The types of knobs that hang down from the roofs of Underground trains are not a great deal of use to handicapped people. The continuous rails which are being introduced on the Victoria Line at the moment are much more accessible to handicapped people. There is a great need for the training of bus drivers. It is no great help to a visually handicapped person if the bus stops at the correct stop but the door opens straight into a lamp post. It is no use if the bus driver, in order to be helpful, stops several yards short of the bus stop, because that can be extremely disorienting. Ordinary passengers need to understand the problems of handicapped people.
I gather that one of the great problems is that passengers are frequently sat upon by visually handicapped people who get on to buses and do not realise that there is someone sitting on the seat that they are about to occupy. Again, we all need to understand that it is not rude to say to someone, "Hello, you are about to sit on me", before one is sat upon because that can save a great deal of embarrassment.
I gather that in Birmingham some effort has been made to improve the signs at bus stops by introducing tactile signs. This is the kind of provision which should spread throughout the length and breadth of the country. If it is a slightly political point—this is certainly not a party political discussion at all—it is that bus deregulation has not been of the greatest help in rural areas where bus
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timetables are changing quite rapidly. In those areas where bus stations are really no-go areas, nobody quite knows to whom they belong. In those areas there are increasing problems for handicapped people. I am told that in particular bus stations are very difficult for handicapped people of all kinds, particularly for the visually impaired.
Railway stations are much better. There is the start of the provision of tactile maps in railway stations. However, the problem is that on some of the more recent rolling stock where one has to press a button to open the doors of a sprinter train and also on some Tube trains, there is no standardisation as to where the button is placed. I observed this fact the other night when I was staggering my way home to Somerset through the floods when we were put on to a new sprinter train. The position of the button outside is quite well illuminated and I imagine that it would not be too difficult for someone who is partially sighted to get on. However, it is much more difficult to get out even for someone who is well sighted because the exit button is cleverly concealed. I can imagine that if you were partially sighted you could very easily get into a panic.
As the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, has said, this matter is all about educating ourselves, organisations, public utilities and local authorities. If this debate tonight has made some small addition to the general knowledge in this very important area, then I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, is to be congratulated on bringing the matter before your Lordships.
10.12 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, it is one of the nicer courtesies of this House that we thank noble Lords for bringing forward a subject for debate. I am sure that the House will be particularly grateful this evening to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for giving us the chance to discuss this very important topic, which I believe has not been discussed for some considerable time in your Lordships' House.
It is an important topic because, as has been said by a number of speakers, it is a subject which affects nearly 10 per cent. of the population, or 6 million disabled people. DPTAC, of which we have heard a great deal—the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee—has said that 10 per cent. of the population of Western Europe is without mobility. The fourth report of the OPCS survey, which deals with transport among other subjects, stated that 40 per cent. of the residents of communal establishments for the disabled never go out. This compares with less than 10 per cent. of the disabled who live at home.
This debate is principally about public transport but the fourth report from the OPCS pointed out that of disabled adults living in private households 76 per cent. use or are transported in private cars compared with 57 per cent. who use buses, 23 per cent. who use trains and 27 per cent. who use taxis. I quote these figures to underline the importance of helping with the cost of transport for disabled people

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and the importance of the mobility allowance, which was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale.
The parent of a severely mentally handicapped daughter put it in this way: "A car for Annette and me to use would be very useful, but as things are, you can either buy a car or run one, but not both". A survey conducted by MENCAP of the transport needs of people with profound retardation and multiple handicaps found that 49 per cent. of those surveyed required some financial assistance with the cost of transport. I quote from the same report from GLAD which the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, mentioned and which deals with London. It found that 80,000 people with handicaps as regards transport were of working age and not in employment. A higher than average proportion of those in employment were in part-time work. It pointed out that 200,000 transport-handicapped people rely totally on state benefits. In addition, it said that 60,000 people over pension age who cannot use buses are not eligible for mobility allowance and that a free bus pass is clearly of no value to them. It concluded:
"There is no consistency in the level of financial concessions offered between one type of transport and another".
We are dealing with the problems of public transport. The proposition is a simple one. Public transport should be available to all those members of the public who wish to use it. But that proposition is hard to achieve in practice. The principles were expressed most succinctly by Sir Peter Baldwin, the chairman of DPTAC, who is listening to the debate this evening. I am sure that we are all glad to pay tribute to the excellent work done by DPTAC. He said:
"People in positions of influence should be coming up with solutions to the following key areas: Who are the people who cannot go anywhere? How can transport be provided and organised so that they can use it? How can those currently unable to travel be given the means and confidence to go out and use facilities that are available?"
The report of DPTAC, entitled Public Transport and the Missing 6 million, sets out the requirements of policy extremely well. It states:
"The effort of establishing understanding must be directed to all those who visualize, regulate, plan, design, equip, finance and manage the system: the vehicles, the roads, the pavements, the precincts, the stopping places and the stations. It must reach all those who operate the system, or parts of it, whether they do so in commerce, in public service or in voluntary or charitable service. So the effort must be made in appropriate form in each of these directions, but consistently between them. The consistency must come from the shared vision that the transport and mobility to be provided is, as near as may be, for the whole population, not as at present for the population less 6 million souls".
As has been pointed out, DPTAC has produced an excellent specification for buses used to operate local services. The specification shows the adaptations required to improve accessibility. The report was produced in June 1988 but the specifications are still voluntary. Will the Government, through the construction and use regulations, make them mandatory? This point was made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Teviot, and has been pressed on the Government by RADAR and by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. Will the Government legislate to ensure that all new
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buses are accessible to disabled people? I include wheelchair users, those with sensory handicaps and those who are ambulant.
As the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, pointed out, the deregulation of bus services makes the use of mandatory powers extremely important. Section 106 of the Transport Act 1985 gave power to local authorities to give grants to operators and the voluntary sector for the conversion of vehicles to make them much more accessible. However, the lack of funding limits the ability of local authorities to make such grants available. The provisions which protect against the inhibition of competition do not allow local authorities to be selective in their use of the grant. This presents a major stumbling block to the ability of local authorities to make use of the provision in the Act. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that when he replies.
I think it is fair to say that, while British Rail is trying hard to accommodate the needs of disabled people, we know that there is still a long way to go. I know from experience with my own family that British Rail staff are almost invariably extremely helpful to disabled passengers, but BR's policy overall gives rise to problems, particularly as regards unmanned stations. I have been told that in some cases disabled people have been advised to start and finish their journeys at manned stations. The able-bodied public would never tolerate such advice, so why should disabled people have to?
There is a continuing problem for disabled people with the gap between the platform and the train that exists at many stations. That is perhaps understandable as regards older stations; but it is inexcusable in a brand new station such as Stansted. I believe that this also applies in some of the stations on the Thameslink line.
The announcements given on trains are a continual source of complaint, especially from those with problems of hearing and vision. In the first place the announcements are not even available. Secondly, if they are available, they are either inaudible or incomprehensible. Thirdly, if they can be heard, they announce the destination of the train after it has left the station. That is not much help if you are on the wrong train!
Lord Teviot: My Lords, I really must intervene here for just a moment. British Rail takes a tremendous amount of trouble to provide the facility of announcements on trains. The voices of actors are used for the purpose but, of course, this is not done with regional accents. British Rail has tried very hard in this respect. Nevertheless, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I think that one would prefer to hear regional accents because they are easier to understand, and we must encourage British Rail to get this right.
Lord Carter: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord. However, even if you can understand the actor's voice it is not much help if you are on the wrong train to be told the destination after you have left the station of embarkation. Surely the annoucement should be made before the train leaves the station.

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However, on a slightly lighter note, I turn to the design of British Rail trains. I am not sure whether noble Lords are aware of this, but the design of the emergency button and that of the flush button in the toilets is similar. Moreover, the buttons are situated together. Therefore, this has caused some emergency situations for people with visual handicap.
Lord Mountevans: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I should like to point out that British Rail did address itself to the problem. No doubt the noble Lord will go on to say that the disabled toilet which is currently being installed in trains is one which has actually won prizes for its user-friendliness.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the noble Lord is right; indeed, that was the point I was just about to make. Let us take a simple example of what can be done to assist the disabled. I am told that on the New York Underground the announcement is made as the train enters the station that the door will be on the left of the direction in which the train is travelling. Because the announcement is extremely clear a person with a visual handicap, or someone with a hearing handicap, will know as the train comes into the station which side to find the door. I think that that is extremely important.
When conducting the survey, the OPCS asked the people it surveyed if they had any difficulty in using public transport. I was told by a disabled person that the correct answer would be yes in London but no in New York. The noble Lord, Lord McColl, mentioned the point about students spending a day in a wheelchair. I too was about to point out that it would also be helpful to students if they spent a day blindfolded and, perhaps, a day wearing ear plugs to see how they managed with the full range of sensory impairments.
In conclusion, the answer to all these problems rests in three factors which were set out by DPTAC; namely, consultation, research and example. It means consultation with disabled people in the early design stages of new projects and continuous consultation to improve existing facilities. It means research to find the best and the most effective means of creating accessibility and, of course, linked with research must be training to educate the transport operators in the needs of people with disabilities. Finally, as regards example, it means that we must learn from and build on good experience both in this country and overseas. It is only in this way that we shall be able to ensure that public transport is available to all those who wish to use it. We shall then no longer have to debate the problems of the missing 6 million people.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am very grateful indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for providing us with an opportunity today to debate a subject which is profoundly important and yet is one which is all too often overlooked in the public arena. I am also most grateful to the noble Lords who have contributed to the short debate this evening. A great number of important points have been raised
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in a short space of time and I should like to reassure the House that our consideration of them does not end this evening. I see this debate rather as a starting point for further discussions and perhaps, more importantly, a point from which we can begin to focus attention on the size of the population who have difficulties in using transport and on the ways in which those problems can be solved.
I do not apologise for repeating some of the important points made in this debate if only to show that the Government are as much aware of them as are Members of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, focused by way of the powerful points he made in his speech on the number of people—more than 6 million—who because of disability or mobility problems associated with ageing do not have transport available to them.
I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord for having stressed this point so clearly. One of the major problems in the past in promoting a better understanding of the needs of people with disabilities in the transport industries has been, I believe, a lack of understanding about the numbers of people so affected and the implications for those people of being denied mobility.
Too many people still think that disability means people in wheelchairs. We do not see many people in wheelchairs about in the high street or at the bus stop so it is very easy to suppose that there is no problem. In fact only between 3 and 4 per cent. of people with disabilities are wheelchair users. That is not to say that their transport needs can be neglected and I shall return to this subject in a few moments. However, it is important to recognise, as many in the transport world are now doing, that there are vast numbers of people who are less severely disabled—most commonly with the mobility problems associated with ageing, arthritic joints, failing sight, loss of hearing and so on—for whom simple low cost changes in design or a little more thought on the part of an operator can make all the difference between mobility and immobility.
Added to that number—and again I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, for emphasising this point—is a much larger group of people still who would not in any sense consider themselves disabled but who have what we now describe in the transport world as a mobility handicap. This includes that very large number of public transport users who when they travel have to contend with luggage or the week's shopping or small children and all the encumbrances that go with them: the prams, the baby buggies and so on. For these people too steep steps, lack of handholds and lack of seating space are all at best inconveniences and at worst deterrents from travelling.
The difficulties to which I allude are not confined to any one form of transport. In fact it is in this area above all others that we must concern ourselves with what we sometimes describe as the transport chain. There is little purpose in one part of a transport system that takes full account of the needs of disabled people if the other systems that link with it, and indeed the means to reach those systems for a pedestrian, are not also accessible. It is important

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therefore to consider this issue on the broadest possible basis. We are concerned with every form of transport—local, national and international—and with every element of moving about between them. We are concerned not only with public transport but also with personal mobility and with the necessary links between private car and public transport.
I should like to devote a few minutes to outlining some of the areas in which progress has been made in this field. Although the noble Lord, Lord Allen, was absolutely right to emphasise the problems and shortcomings that remain, it would be quite wrong if we did not recognise the enormous amount of progress that has already been made across many areas of transport. I should also like, with your Lordships' permission, to outline some of the future developments to which the Department of Transport is committed.
The work of the Department of Transport in this field goes back some 10 years. Throughout that period the department has been working closely with providers of transport—the operators, the local authorities, the manufacturers, the designers and the engineers—to promote and encourage a better understanding of the nature of the need and a greater willingness to meet it. Perhaps most importantly the department has also worked at all times and in every project with disabled people themselves.
The department has been enormously assisted in its work since 1986 by the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee. This body, set up under the Transport Act 1985, was given the specific remit to advise my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport on the transport needs of people with disabilities. That committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has already referred, is led by a former Permanent Secretary of the Department of Transport, Sir Peter Baldwin. Under his leadership the 20 members of the committee, the majority of whom have disabilities and also collectively an unparalleled range and depth of expertise across every form of disability and every mode of transport, have worked very closely indeed with the department's disability unit to achieve some of the developments that I would now like to mention.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, has already talked about buses, the need for better provision and a better understanding of the needs of people with mobility problems in the bus industry. He has also talked about the contribution which the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee has made in that sphere. That progress has been, I believe, remarkable. The department and the committee worked closely together to draw up a document now known nationwide as the DPTAC spec. That document gives details of the wide range of simple and often low cost modifications that can be made to buses both current and new to make them easier to board and easier to use for a wide range of elderly and disabled people. There is nothing extraordinary or extravagant about the recommendations in that document. They are all simple, commonsense ideas: lower steps, better handrails, clear colour contrasts to help those with poor sight, a bell push that you can reach while still
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in your seat, a little more leg-room for those with arthritic joints or artificial limbs and a flat non-slip surface inside the vehicle. These are the kinds of features that the DPTAC spec points to.
It has already been clearly established by research sponsored by the Department of Transport that these kinds of changes could make a very significant difference in the ability of a large number of elderly and disabled people to travel. Research has shown us, for example, that the biggest single problem facing elderly and disabled people in using buses is that first step from ground or kerb onto the bus.
There is, however, a world of difference between theory and practice. Although research had proved these factors, we had still to show a commercially minded bus industry that it was not only socially necessary for vehicles to meet these needs but also economically sensible. To achieve this process of information and education the Department of Transport quite literally took the message on the road in the shape of four demonstration vehicles: two adaptations of existing vehicles and two new designs but all to the specifications outlined by the committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said, those four vehicles have toured the country for the past 18 months on free loan to operators and authorities so that they could learn at first hand how their passengers felt about the modifications and how their drivers and engineers felt about them.
The result is that within the space of two years almost every new bus being built in this country now incorporates some or all of the features in that specification. A significant and growing number of operators are not only requiring their new vehicles to meet these standards but are modifying their existing vehicles, in many cases at their own expense as a commercial venture and in other cases with the financial assistance of local authorities.
The economic benefits of providing local public transport that is usable by many who were previously condemned to isolation at home and dependence on social services can be seen in many areas. First, we can see a direct commercial return to the bus operator. There is a large market for bus travel among elderly and disabled people and, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen, has already emphasised, it is a growing market with demographic trends indicating a significant rise in the proportion of elderly and very elderly people in the country over the coming years.
For local authorities too there are clear economic as well as social benefits. The cost of immobility is high. Immobility means a loss of independence. For somebody who becomes housebound the cost to social services through the domiciliary, domestic and health care that must be provided and ultimately the cost of residential care is considerable. I have concentrated on the wide-ranging and far-reaching improvements that have already been made in bus design.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for giving way. In that cost evaluation, how far has consideration been given to

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the question of single manned buses? There is no doubt that the presence of a conductor on a bus is a great help to disabled persons. How has that been costed in the equation?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Lord. I do not have the answer to that query but I shall certainly find out whether that has been a factor in the costing. I should imagine that that is a rather difficult arithmetical factor to work out. However, if I have any information on the point I shall certainly pass it on to the noble Lord.
Let me turn now to the next stage in our priorities in this same area. So far we have stopped short of attempting to meet the needs of wheelchair users in ordinary urban bus services. That is not a question of lack of interest or lack of commitment; it is simply a matter of achieving progress by degrees in a way that can be sustained both in operational and economic terms.
The Department of Transport is now working very closely with its colleagues in Europe towards the development of a new generation of buses with low floors that will be able to incorporate access for wheelchair users, as well as being easier for everyone, without enormous extra cost or time penalties in operation. The department is following the same programme that I outlined with the demonstration buses which so successfully promoted the DPTAC spec. It hopes to have the first low-floor wheelchair-accessible demonstration bus available within the next few months.
There have been many calls for legislation to require new generations of buses to provide wheelchair access, and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, raised the point tonight. We are not by any means opposed to legislation where it will serve a useful purpose. There have, however, been too many clear lessons from the United States and elsewhere of the penalties of legislation preceding practicality. We must begin by solving the technical and operational problems. It would be foolish to believe that we can provide a public transport system fully accessible to wheelchair users unless we have sorted out those problems first. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, and other noble Lords who have raised the point tonight will be pleased to learn that we hope, with our European colleagues, to move towards legislation over the next few years that is based on sound technical, operational and economic principles.
I have spent some considerable time talking about buses and the bus industry. I make no apology for that emphasis. It is rightly providing a focus for much of our attention in this area.
There have of course been many other encouraging developments. Wheelchair-accessible taxis are becoming a common feature not just in London but in towns and cities up and down the country. Door-to-door special services such as dial-a-ride are flourishing in many areas with local authority support. In London dial-a-ride services are funded by London Regional Transport with a government grant. They are to benefit from an increase of £1 million in 1990–91, bringing total funding to £8–27
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million. That should allow the service to expand further bringing benefits for all dial-a-ride users. British Rail has made great strides in opening up InterCity services and stations and is now making useful progress in other areas as well.
The pedestrian environment is of course an essential part of every journey. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Allen, made particular reference to the importance of good design and maintenance of streets and pavements. The Department of Transport has worked closely with the Institution of Highways and Transportation to draw up a code of good practice in design and planning so that the pedestrian environment is open for everyone to use with confidence. The department has also pioneered a considerable programme of work to develop tactile surfaces to provide guidance and warning to blind pedestrians without impeding the progress of wheelchair users and others.
Personal mobility is also all important to disabled people. Technical advances in recent years mean that even the most severely disabled people can now drive. The Department of Transport, through its Mobility Advice and Vehicle Information Service, advises many thousands of elderly and disabled people on driving and car choice.
All of those developments are effective only if people with disabilities know about them and know how to use them. That brings me back to another of the important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale. Information is now very often the one missing link in enabling disabled people to travel and to travel with confidence. A great deal of work remains to be done in that area and the Department of Transport will be working closely with the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee which has adopted that subject as the focus for a public hearing which it will conduct next month. That will be the first step towards a concerted initiative to promote better information systems both to enable people to know what is available and to plan their journeys and also to ensure that the means of communication exist in an appropriate form and at the appropriate time throughout the course of the journey. Without that assurance many elderly and disabled people will still not have the confidence to travel even if the physical means are there to enable them to do so.
I shall now try to reply briefly to specific points raised by noble Lords in the debate, although I believe that I have already answered most ot them. The noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, said that the DPTAC reports were available only to Parliament and are not published. All the DPTAC reports are published and available to the general public.
The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), asked about the current situation regarding the orange badge scheme proposed by my honourable friend the Minister then responsible for roads and traffic. All I can tell her is that, following wide consultations with disability organisations about improvements to the scheme, the department will shortly consult on draft statutory regulations.

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My noble friend Lord Teviot raised the question of access to light rail systems. The department is taking steps to ensure that all new light rail systems have access for people with disability designed in at the early stages. He also mentioned the European proposals to set step height standards which are higher than DPTAC standards. There are European proposals for step heights which we consider to be unreasonably high. We are seeking agreement to reconsider that proposal and to introduce step heights in accordance with the DPTAC standards.
My noble friend Lord McColl of Dulwich reported on a visit to an assessment centre with no British cars available. The department's assessment centre, MAVIS, has a range of 20 vehicles representing the latest range of British, European and Japanese production models.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, spoke of the difficulties for blind people when using bus services. Many of the features included in the DPTAC specification are specifically designed to help blind and visually handicapped people. The noble Lord also asked about plans for access to small buses. Our proposals for low-floor buses apply to small as well as to large buses.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about effective announcement systems. BR, LRT and others are working to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of announcements. The noble Lord also raised the question of unmanned stations. BR is aware of the concern about unmanned stations and the British Rail Advisory Panel on Disability is looking into that matter.
There has been time this evening only to touch on some of the major points in such a wide-ranging subject. I hope that we may find an opportunity in your Lordships' House to return to a fuller discussion of some of those issues in the not too distant future. I am nonetheless deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Allen, for having given us an opportunity for this brief airing of some of the major points. Its importance will, I believe, extend far beyond the debate in your Lordships' House this evening. The noble Lord, Lord Allen, stressed the need for a fuller recognition of the subject in the public domain. I hope that our discussion this evening will perhaps encourage the media to look again at an issue that does not just concern a small minority but one that affects more than 6 million people in this country. Across Europe as a whole that means some 50 million people for whom conventional transport is difficult or impossible.
I hope that I have been able to indicate to noble Lords some of the enormous improvements that have already taken place and the areas in which the attention of the Department of Transport will now be focusing. I should like to leave your Lordships with a clear indication that the Department of Transport is firmly committed to continue its work of the past 10 years towards a transport system that is accessible to everyone.
House adjourned at seventeen minutes before eleven o'clock.

  LONDON/MOSCOW TELEPHONE SERVICE
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  SALMON ACT 1986: FISHING REVIEW
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  BLOOD ENZYMES IN MEAT PRODUCTS
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  "PUNISHMENT, CUSTODY AND THE COMMUNITY": COMMENTS
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  FINE DEFAULTERS: IMPRISONMENT
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  ACID RAIN: CONTROL MEASURES
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