Sitting of 17 January 1990

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  GREATER MANCHESTER (LIGHT RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEM) (No. 3) BILL [Lords]
  Read a Second time, and committed.

  BROMLEY LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL (CRYSTAL PALACE) BILL
  Ordered,
  That the proceedings of 7th December 1989 on consideration of the Bromley London Borough Council (Crystal Palace) Bill be null and void.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    English Estates
    Mr. Cunliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the future of English Estates.
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): As already announced, a consultant's study is looking at a variety of aspects of English Estates' activities.
    Mr. Cunliffe: Given that his father was a founder director of the enterprise as long ago as 1936, does the Secretary of State accept that there must be some remorse and resentment because the Government may dismantle the corporation in the near future when the consultant's report is produced? Will the Secretary of State make a statement on that? About 5,000 factory units provide a large amount of employment in areas such as the north-west that are experiencing industrial decline. At 1989 prices, since the last year of the Labour Government—1979—the north-west has suffered to the tune of about £180 million through lost regional selective assistance and regional development grants.
    Mr. Ridley: I shall take the hon. Gentleman's points in the reverse order. First, 1979 was a bleak time indeed for the north-west and the regions, but the situation has greatly improved since we have had 10 years of sound Conservative Government. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's acknowledgement of that. Secondly, I have no intention of dismantling English Estates. It might be of value to use the large amount of capital that is invested in factories in more productive directions in future, but that will not affect the factories themselves. Thirdly, I am
    274
    extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the tribute that he paid to my father for responding to the needs of the time when he assisted in setting up English Estates. I, too, intend to respond to the needs of the time in the most helpful way possible.
    Mr. Trotter: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the headquarters of English Estates is on Tyneside. May I draw his attention to the considerable part that English Estates has paid in the success story of the transformation of industry and commerce in the north-east? In particular, I commend the quality of management of English Estates. We should retain that asset in future.
    Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I agree that the cradle of English Estates' birth was in the north-east, and its activities there have been immensely beneficial to that region. Needs and requirements change at all times, and it is correct that we should look at how best to help the regions, particularly through the vehicle of English Estates and, if necessary, make changes. I have not received the consultant's report, but when I do I shall report to the House on the Government's conclusions on it.
    Mr. Caborn: Hon. Members are interested in what the Secretary of State has said, but there are bleak times ahead for small and medium-sized businesses. It has already been pointed out that English Estates operates about 5,000 small and medium-sized businesses around the country, with a value in excess of £400 million. Will the Secretary of State give a clear commitment that English Estates will not be privatised and that, when he receives the consultant's report, he will consult widely with people who have been assisted and people who, in future, will look to English Estates to help small businesses with a technology base?
    Mr. Ridley: I do not believe that there are bleak times ahead for small and medium-sized businesses in this country. The future holds great prospects, provided that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are kept out of office.
    Mr. Barry Field: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the considerable success of English Estates in my constituency, the only county in the United Kingdom that is a development area under the Rural Development Commission. Might an alternative be for English Estates to divest itself of its property on the market and start all over again in areas where private enterprise is still not always providing the nursery units that are essential to the Government's policy of self-employment? The Government have achieved a tremendous record in start-up businesses and self-employment—the largest number in the history of the country.
    Mr. Ridley: The function that English Estates has performed so valuably has been to provide factory space, both large and small, managed and unmanaged, in areas where the economic situation was so unfortunate that the private sector was not prepared to do that. However, that situation has changed in many parts of the country, but not in all. We now want to see how best the large capital that is employed by English Estates can be deployed for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

    Cars (Import and Export)
    Mr. Ashton: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many cars were imported into the United Kingdom in 1988; and how many were exported.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Corporate Affairs (Mr. John Redwood): A total of 1·357 million cars were imported and 261,000 exported in the period under review.
    Mr. Ashton: Does the Minister agree that those figures are appalling and that they are 27 per cent. worse than when the Government took office? When will the Government get tough, in the same way as the Governments of France, Italy and the USA, against the Japanese imports that pour into this country? Why do we give subsidies to Nissan and allow Toyota to come here to Derby to steal the skilled labour force at Rolls-Royce—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Of course that happens, that is why Toyota came—to take the skilled labour force at Rolls-Royce. Why do the Government have a policy of selling off Austin Rover at rock bottom prices to British Aerospace and of using the car industry for the profits of their friends? Why can we not have the same sort of restrictions that we have for farming? Why will the Government invest in and protect farming, but not do the same for manufacturing industry?
    Mr. Redwood: The Labour party, in power between 1974 and 1979, presided over a massive increase in import penetration of cars into this country from 27·9 per cent. to 56·3 per cent. Under the Conservative Government, import penetration has stayed around the 56 or 57 per cent. mark. The Government's policies have seen a remarkable influx of inward investment by three leading Japanese car producers and we are on target for a major expansion of car production in this country. We may well see it expand in this decade from 1·3 million cars to around 2 million cars. That is the best answer of all to the hon. Gentleman's question. Our economic policies are working and Conservative Members welcome the new investment from Japanese companies because they have skills and jobs to offer us.
    Mr. John Townend: To what extent does my hon. Friend estimate that the decline in the British car industry was due to the actions of the trade unions, which refused to accept new industrial practices and favoured restrictive practices, go-slows and strikes? To what extent does he think that the Japanese decided to invest in this country because we have a Government who believe in private enterprise and the open market?
    Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. However, the trade unions were aided and abetted in their destructive policies in the 1970s by wrongful Government policies as well, which gave exactly the wrong signals to the car industry. The 1980s have proved much better and we now have a firm base of sounder industrial relations as a result of the new labour relations law, which has proved attractive to inward investors.
    Sir David Steel: Does not the Minister accept that the consumer faces a problem nowadays because the brand names no longer state clearly whether the cars are made in Britain? Nissan cars are made in Newcastle, Peugeot in Coventry and Ford cars are possibly made in Spain or in
    276
    West Germany. Will he encourage the manufacturers that wish to promote British goods to put the necessary stickers on their windscreens?
    Mr. Redwood: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman and his party—whatever it may be called—welcomed the integration of the European market. It has long been the case that various manufacturers that assemble in the United Kingdom also import components for their cars, and sometimes whole vehicles. It makes sense for a company such as Ford to choose where to produce in the European Community. We obviously welcome more investment from that company and expansion of the car lines that it thinks are best suited for this country.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my hon. Friend accept that over the years many of us have fought the importation of cars, especially from the Japanese, who would not allow our exports into their country? However, if we continue with what looks like happening now, when the Ford workers here are demanding a 14 per cent. increase, compared with the Ford workers in West Germany who have accepted 3 per cent. with much greater productivity, many of us who have said that we should not allow car imports must recognise that the British people have a right to buy cars and that if the Ford workers in the United Kingdom will not work, the British people should still be able to buy cars that might mean more imports and lost British jobs.
    Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend speaks from experience. He is right that it is in the hands of Ford managers and workers to set the right level of pay in relation to output and productivity. I hope that they can settle on a good level of pay, which reflects the underlying improvement in productivity. That is the way to protect and expand jobs and to give the customer a good deal.
    Mr. Henderson: How does the Minister square his previous comments on the supposed recovery of the British car industry with the trade deficit in automotive products of £6·5 billion for the first 11 months of this year? Does he accept that the principal cause is that cars such as Vauxhalls and Fords are stuffed with components made in Europe? Is he prepared to open talks with companies such as Ford and Vauxhall and to insist that they increase the sourcing of components from the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Redwood: I want companies here to make the best commercial decisions. That is the way to secure jobs and a good package for the costomer. The hon. Gentleman should note that several major investments in British components manufacturing have been announced as a result of our success in attracting assemblers and new car production. The important point about the 1980s is that import penetration did not rise, but the total market expanded. That is why we have imported more cars. People are better off under a Conservative Government and they choose to use their purchasing power to buy new cars.
    Mr. Riddick: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is extraordinary and appalling that Opposition Members do nothing but criticise and knock the car industry although there is good news on the horizon? Was not the only contribution that we ever had from that lot, the £400 million investment in Dundee being stopped by their paymasters in the Transport and General Workers Union?

    277
    Is it not the case that, as a result of inward investment by Japanese car manufacturers, there will be a massive increase in car exports from Britain in coming years? Does my hon. Friend agree that there is now a serious threat from eastern Europe and that we must ensure that the economic and industrial conditions here remain attractive to those who wish to invest in this country?
    Hon. Members: Too long.
    Mr. Speaker: That was a long question and it leads to a long answer, which is problem.
    Mr. Redwood: I agree with my hon. Friend that the trade unions have a role to play in helping, rather than hindering, inward investment in Britain. I agree that the industry should remain competitive. I am not surprised at the attitude of the Labour party. It belongs to the wining and dining school where wining is spelt with an "h". It believes that it should issue lunchtime directives to car companies. When it tried that policy in Government, it met with disaster.

    Washing Machines
    Mr. Graham: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of washing machines supplied by imports.
    Mr. Redwood: Imports of washing machines are estimated to be 38 per cent. of home market sales by value in 1988—the latest full year for which figures are available.
    Mr. Graham: During the past 10 years have not the Government presided over the decimation of the electrical manufacturing industry in Britain? Are they proud of the fact that the British public have to rely on foreign goods to clean their dirty linen? When will they take action to bring manufacturing of electrical goods back to Britain and allow the British public to do their washing in British washing machines? When the trade figures are published on Friday, will the Minister ponder that we have a massive import bill, while thousands of unemployed men and women are desperate to work to produce much-needed electrical goods, which would reduce the import bill?
    Mr. Redwood: I am pleased to say that most British people still wash their dirty washing in British machines rather than machines imported from overseas. There were high imports in the 1970s. The Government have a sound and firm economic policy that will allow companies to compete and to manufacture the things that people wish to buy. Naturally, I wish the washing machine industry and other British industries every success.
    Mr. Roger King: Does my hon. Friend agree that the only way in which British manufacturing can compete is by producing better goods than those produced by overseas competition? Does he share my delight that the consumer magazine Which? has judged a British washing machine, the Hotpoint 800 series, as joint best value and best buy? For once, it is clear that we can fight back with the right type of goods at the right price.
    Mr. Redwood: I am delighted to hear that news and I hope that my hon. Friend's message has been heard more widely, beyond the House.

    British Steel
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received about his use of the golden share in British Steel.
    Mr. Sillars: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received about his use of the golden share in British Steel.
    Mr. Ridley: The answer is none.
    Mrs. Ewing: Does the Secretary of State accept that the golden share was introduced to protect vital national interests? In the Scottish context, that means the preservation of the Scottish steel industries. Is he aware that British Steel is starving Ravenscraig and its associated works of investment and that, without that investment, any paper guarantees given are worse than useless? Therefore, will he make representations to British Steel to ensure that investment is forthcoming in the Scottish steel industry?
    Mr. Ridley: The purpose of the golden share in British Steel was to protect an industry, which had been badly damaged by a long period of public ownership, for a limited time against unwelcome takeovers when it emerged into the private sector. The circumstances where it would have been appropriate to use that golden share have not arisen. The golden share is not available for the purposes suggested by the hon. Lady. It was made clear at the time, and I make it clear again, that the Government had no intention of using that golden share for any purpose other than that for which it was first introduced.
    Mr. Sillars: Is the Secretary of State aware that we are concerned that, in a privatised British Steel, the Scottish plants might be subject to unwelcome elimination? Although British Steel lied in the first instance, it has now confessed that, along with the Davy Corporation, it is storing a second-hand Japanese plate mill at Lackenby. Although the right hon. Gentleman might say that he has no responsibility as the golden share owner, does he accept that he has responsibility as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry? Therefore, will he press upon British Steel that, should it go for a single-plate strategy, it should be at Motherwell and not at Lackenby?
    Mr. Ridley: I understand that the chairman of British Steel recently reaffirmed that the company statement of 3 December 1987 on the future of the Scottish plants still stands. There is no way in which I can intervene—it would be quite wrong of me to seek to do so—on where plate capacity is located or what happens to a particular plant.
    Mr Batiste: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the concept of the golden share is alien to the work of the stock market? It depresses the value of shareholders' investment and it could have extremely damaging effects on the pension funds that are largely invested in the companies concerned. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government have no plans to extend the use of the golden share and that, unlike the Labour party, they will never extend the golden share into the private sector?
    Mr. Ridley: I have come to agree with my hon. Friend even more strongly since the publication of the Labour party policy review, which states:

    279
    "The Golden Share already establishes the principle of separating voting rights from the other incidents of equity ownership".
    That means that the Labour party thought it had a precedent for telling companies what to do and for overriding the interests of the share owners, without compensation, in the interests of pursuing policies that have been seen to fail in eastern Europe.
    Mr. Favell: Will my right hon. Friend pass on the congratulations of my hon. Friends to the management of British Steel on making it profitable at long last? It is now one of the most profitable steel manufacturers in western Europe. Under no circumstances should it turn itself back into a charitable institution as suggested by the Scottish Nationalists, the hon. Members for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars).
    Mr. Ridley: I shall pass on the comments of my hon. Friend, who paid tribute to the management of British Steel for turning it into one of the most successful and profitable companies in the world since it was freed from the shackles of public ownership. I reaffirm that the Government have no intention of doing anything that might prevent that highly successful British company from conquering world markets.
    Mr. Shore: Now that the Government have so recklessly handed over to Brussels the right to decide—to veto or approve—transfrontier mergers and takeover bids, will not the golden share now take on added importance as our one remaining defence against unwelcome takeover bids that are against the national interest?
    Mr. Ridley: Neither of the right hon. Gentleman's propositions is true. First, the Commission has power, and has been using it under articles 85 and 86, to clear or not clear mergers without reference to the United Kingdom authorities on monopolies and mergers. The total confusion about that matter has been brought to an end. Secondly, the golden share in British Steel has only a relatively short time to run, after which it expires. British Steel will defend and protect itself by the excellence of its economic performance—a concept unheard of by the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the privatisation of British Steel made all the shares golden shares, and they have been profitable? Compared to the other steel industries throughout the European Community, British Steel's record, once the dead hand of Government was taken away, has been one of enterprise. We can congratulate it on its excellent progress.
    Mr. Ridley: I agree with my hon. Friend that the only share in British Steel that is not golden is the one held by the Government.
    Dr. Bray: Is the Secretary of State aware that the undertakings given by British Steel about the steel industry in Scotland have to be read carefully? Will he do as the Secretary of State for Scotland has recently done and ask British Steel to explain its plans in Scotland? Is he aware that the trade gap last year and the increased plans for motor car production in the United Kingdom point to a continuing need for steel in the future? It would help greatly if the Secretary of State asked British Steel to update its commitments in that sector.
    Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman has seen a policy by which British Steel was nudged, asked, interfered with, intervened in, pushed, pressed and generally mucked about by Government over 20 years with disastrous results. That policy was replaced by one through which the Government privatised it and allowed it to get on with running its own business, and it has subsequently shown itself to be one of the most successful steel companies in the world. I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman wants to return to the policies of eastern Europe, which is what he is advocating.
    Mr. Gordon Brown: Will the Secretary of State confirm that all respectable forecasts for world and European demand for steel in the 1990s confirm that there is a viable future for the steel industry in Scotland, England and Wales? Will he confirm that not only has he received representations about the golden share—he has received them from me—but that the trade Minister of the day in 1988 said that the purpose of the golden share—the Secretary of State has set up more golden shares than any other Minister—was to prevent takeovers and the rundown of British Steel capacity? Therefore, will he join me and his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland in supporting the detailed plans for new investment in Scottish steel? Will he assure the House that normal regional grants will be available to prevent another great industry from being run down?
    Mr. Ridley: The point that I want to get across to the hon. Gentleman is that British Steel is now a highly successful corporation. I wish to allow it to take decisions about where to invest and how to plan its business. I believe, with great humility, that British Steel knows the answers to those questions much better than I do and, I suspect, than even the hon. Gentleman does. That is why he should join me in encouraging British Steel to do what it believes to be right, in its commercial interests. I should not for one moment go further than that. The British Steel special share is time limited.

    Manufacturing Industry (Defence Sector)
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any plans to help the defence sector of manufacturing industry to seek alternative products in view of the military implications of developments in eastern Europe.
    The Minister for Industry (Mr. Douglas Hogg): My Department has no such plans.
    Mr. Bennett: I thank the Minister for that answer, which is a bit of an improvement on his answer last time, when he was extremely glib.
    Does the Minister accept that the major problem in Britain is that more than 500,000 people are employed in the defence industry which, in the past three years, has earned the country an average £1 billion in foreign exchange? Does he accept that if the defence talks and the changes taking place in eastern Europe continue, our defence manufacturers will have to look for alternative products? The Government should be assisting them in that and encouraging them to look for peaceful collaboration in eastern Europe.
    Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman is at least persistent: he asked precisely the same question on 1 November 1989. That suggests that he is running out of ideas and in need of early retirement.
    The motive behind the question has absolutely nothing to do with industrial strategy. The Labour party is up to its old tricks of cutting defence expenditure but trying to make it sound respectable. If anyone doubts that, he should bear in mind the fact that the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) is a long-standing unilateralist who prides himself on having voted against the Defence Estimates long before the relaxation in international tension.
    Mr. Mans: Does my hon. Friend agree that the defence industries have a good record of diversifying into other commercial products, and that that diversification is being held up only by damaging strikes of the sort from which British Aerospace is suffering at Preston near my constituency?
    Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Labour party is committed to a form of central economic planning. Page 88 of its policy review says on the subject:
    "A Labour government will therefore consult unions and employers about the establishment of an Arms Conversion Agency which, within Labour's national industrial strategy, could take on the special role of providing new industries and new jobs."
    That is the sort of central economic strategy and planning that eastern European countries are throwing away with contempt.
    Mr. Hoyle: Will the Minister return to the peaceful developments in eastern Europe and confirm that since 1979 our trade with almost every country in eastern Europe has gone into deficit? This flatfooted Government have been left at the starting line while the West Germans, the Japanese and most of our other competitors have been building up trade with eastern Europe. What will the Government do about that?
    Mr. Hogg: Let us focus on the real issue; let us not waste our time with red herrings of the sort advanced by the hon. Gentleman. The Opposition say that they are better at industry than the major companies which have been doing so well in the defence sector. That is rubbish. There may be a case for adjusting markets and seeking new products, but that is a matter for the companies concerned, not for Opposition Members.
    Mr. David Shaw: Does my hon. Friend agree that the United Kingdom defence industry has been a major success over the years and that that is one reason why democracy is breaking out all over eastern Europe? Does he agree that defence is a legitimate purpose for any country, and that British defence exports have helped to support the defence capabilities of many countries? Does he further agree that 500,000 jobs in the industry would be jeopardised if Labour came to power and implemented the proposals in the question of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett)?
    Mr. Hogg: It is much worse than that. The Labour party conference committed itself to a reduction of £5 billion in defence spending, or a 30 per cent. reduction in Britain's conventional defence capacity. That would lead to massive unemployment.
    Ms. Quin: Does the Minister recall the Prime Minister saying that Mr. Gorbachev was a man whom she could do business with? Given that, is it not very disappointing that the Department of Trade and Industry seems to have been so unsuccessful in taking advantage of the new industrial opportunities in the large market of 420 million people in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union? Is not the Government's policy one of unilateral industrial disarmament, and are they not failing to take advantage of the new market that is on offer?
    Mr. Hogg: I am sorry that the hon. Lady, who I always thought was a rather respectable character when it came to the point, should be speaking in terms of unilateral disarmament of any kind. I clearly remember what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said about Mr. Gorbachev, and I have no doubt that the relaxation in international tension is due, at least in part, to what the Prime Minister has done in that connection. I also remember what the Prime Minister said about the dangers of relaxing our defensive capacity until we see how this matter will end.
    Mr. Key: Will my hon. Friend examine the speed at which his Department issues defence export licences? Delays in issuing those licences are a brake on successful export industries, notably in my constituency. Does he agree that the best thing for our defence export industries and especially for the Property Services Agency, which is being privatised, would be to allow them to compete internationally for the excellent defence-related services that they provide?
    Mr. Hogg: I am concerned at my hon. Friend's suggestion that there is unreasonable delay in the DTI over issuing licences. If my hon. Friend has specific points, I should be pleased to hear them. I hope that he will give me or my colleagues the details of the complaints.
    Mr. Speaker: We are making slow progress today. If we had briefer supplementary questions we might get briefer answers and could make more progress.

    Northern Development Company
    Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what grant he proposes to offer to the Northern Development Company in 1990–91.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg rose—
    Hon. Members: Oh, no.
    Mr. Hogg: I know that hon. Members will enjoy this. As I told the House on 6 December in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter), I expect to announce the level of grant in March.
    Mr. Cousins: Does the Minister accept that his answer has more twists in it than the Lambton worm? We do not have a development agency in our region. We have built one ourselves using the resources of local people. We need another £2·5 million over the next three years to promote the second industrial revolution in the region. We want to do it for ourselves, but the Government will not give us the money. The Minister should spare us the lectures and put the cheque in the post.
    Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman is an engaging character, but in two respects he does himself no credit.

    283
    First, as he has not told us about the very substantial increase in DTI funding for the Northern Development Company over the past few years, I shall do so, In 1981–82 funding of the NDC was £230,000. In 1989–90, inclusive of core funding, it is £1·182 million, which is a fivefold increase.
    Secondly, unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's region has fallen by 3 percentage points during the past 12 months. The hon. Gentleman might have mentioned that.
    Mr. Trotter: Does my hon. Friend acknowledge the self-support provided by the region to the Northern Development Company and the funding provided by local firms and local authorities? May I remind him of the development corporation's success story, and ask him to support it on a longer-term basis? I point out to my hon. Friend the difficulties of budgeting for only one year at a time, and ask for his support for the suggestion that there should be a three-year finance programme.
    Finally, may I ask my right hon. Friend to recognise the excellent support—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I asked for briefer questions, and the hon. Gentleman has asked at least three.
    Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend deserves some good news, and that is what he shall get. As to the rolling programme to which he refers, he will know that on 2 October 1989, I wrote to the regional development organisations accepting the proposal for a three-year funding programme which meets precisely the point that my hon. Friend so eloquently put.

    Manufactured Goods
    Mr. Soley: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the increase in import penetration of manufactured goods from 1979 until the most recent date for which figures are available.
    Mr. Redwood: Import penetration in manufacturing industry rose from 27 per cent. in 1979 to 36 per cent. in the year ending March 1989.
    Mr. Soley: Is it not a disgraceful record for the Government of the world's first industrial power to turn the manufacturing trade surplus of £1 billion achieved under the previous Labour Government into a £20 billion deficit this year? Although the service sector is important, the Government must understand that we cannot rely on it alone. We should follow the example set by the Germans and Japanese, who plan for, support and invest in their manufacturing industries. Why have the Government failed so abysmally?
    Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman does not appreciate that although our commitment to the European Economic Community means rising import penetration, it means also an increasing proportion of exports. Both have risen because of increasing European and worldwide trading. Six Community countries have a higher import penetration than the United Kingdom, but that does not mean that those countries or Britain have weak economies. It means instead that we are benefiting from a more open and competitive market, that our customers have greater choice, and that British businesses have more discretion in whether to produce for the home or export markets. The important point is that unemployment has fallen
    284
    dramatically and is well below the EC average—it is particularly low in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. Living standards have reached new records, and consumers have unprecedented choice.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Will my hon. Friend remind the Opposition that manufacturing exports have increased by 40 per cent. since 1986, whereas manufacturing output fell under the previous Labour Government, as did our share of exports? Does my hon. Friend agree that protectionism is no way to make British industry more efficient and competitive? Will he commit himself to dismantling the pernicious gentlemen's agreement that limits car imports, and so put timely pressure on the unions at Ford?
    Mr. Redwood: My hon. Friend is right to say that the open trading system offers more prosperity than restrictions—as the events unfolding daily in eastern Europe show. Car imports are a matter for EC deliberation and not specifically for the British Government, and they will be debated within the Community's Councils.
    Mr. Matthew Taylor: The Minister will be aware that one way of overcoming high import penetration is to assist British regional development in areas where unemployment is high and incomes are low—such as my own. Will he study the example of the Bretons, who tackled the problem very successfully? They enjoy a thriving export business, but only on the basis of a regional development fund and agency.
    Mr. Redwood: Our policies have been much more successful in reducing unemployment than those of many other European countries. It is well below the EC average as a consequence of our open market and competitive policies. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we already have a regional policy. The main contributors to improved prosperity are an open trading system and sound economic policies that allow rapid growth of the sort seen in this country in recent years.
    Mr. Grylls: Will my hon. Friend give more help to smaller companies, many of which could win exports if given greater encouragement through the British Overseas Trade Board and the commercial departments of British embassies? Will he also examine the potential of eastern Europe, and ascertain whether our commercial departments there could be expanded to help British exporters, as it is difficult to export to the East at present?
    Mr. Redwood: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important subject. There are a number of initiatives to encourage exports. The DTI has an export initiative for smaller companies, which should get in touch with regional offices if they would like help.
    I and my right hon. and hon. Friends are active in taking companies and industrialists to see the opportunities in eastern Europe. Extensive briefing is available from our embassies and from the DTI in London and the regional offices. There are enormous opportunities in eastern Europe for British business, and we would welcome companies taking up our offer of advice and help here and in the embassies abroad.

    Information Technology
    Mr. Bidwell: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current balance of trade in information technology with Japan.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Eric Forth): According to the latest figures available from the business statistics office, the United Kingdom had a trade deficit with Japan in manufactured products of the electronics and information technology sector of £1·8 billion in 1987 and, provisionally, £2·2 billion in 1988.
    Mr. Bidwell: Why is a major competitor like Japan ahead in production, and why are we, who are often in the forefront in invention, lagging behind? The Government appear to be unable to resolve that major problem. Is the Minister aware that there is a major deficit with Japan, much of it in high-technology goods? Does not that require urgent action by the Government and why do they not get on with it?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman highlights the important phenomenon that all the major OECD countries, except Japan, have a trade deficit in information technology. The sad truth is that most countries are unable to compete with Japan and certain other countries in that sector, partly because the Japanese have been very successful in identifying the sector and promoting it. Our export performance, which, as my hon. Friends have pointed out, is excellent, is across a wide range of goods. I see no incompatibility between our excellent performance across the range and the Japanese specialising, for example, in information technology.
    Mr. Ian Taylor: Does my hon. Friend share my disturbance at the deficit with Japan? Will he note that in my constituency several companies in this sector are selling successfully into the Japanese market, which seems to show that what companies need most is not Government assistance but being based in Esher?
    Mr. Forth: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the fact that companies in his constituency are capable of developing and making products in this sector which can be exported everywhere, including Japan. There are many such cases throughout the United Kingdom. I see no reason why, with a liberal economic regime and liberal Government policies, a low tax base and a skilled and trained work force, companies should not be able to compete in the sector and export throughout the world, including Japan.
    Dr. Moonie: Will the Minister try to answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Bidwell)? What does his Department intend to do about the problem other than beating its breast and sitting on its hands?
    Mr. Forth: A moment ago I told the House what it is appropriate to do: we shall continue to provide an invigorating economic climate in which companies are free to make their decisions about investment, to develop their products and to seek the most effective markets for them. I hope that the Government will not propose a latter-day interventionist policy of the sort which people throughout eastern Europe have realised, belatedly but welcomely, is a total failure. We hope to continue the excellent trend of
    286
    policies that we have established over the past 10 years to liberate our industries and give them every opportunity to continue to succeed.

    House of Fraser
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received regarding publication of the report on House of Fraser.
    Mr. Ridley: I have received a number of representations, the great majority of which are in favour of my publishing the inspectors' report into the affairs of House of Fraser Holdings plc. I will do so as soon as possible.
    Mr. Taylor: It is five years since the alleged irregularities and fraud took place, and 18 months since the previous Secretary of State received the report. Nothing can be done about alleged wrongful transfers of assets because of the previous Secretary of State's decision not to refer the issue to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Does my right hon. Friend accept that it is almost an insult to open government and justice not to publish the report and not to tell people exactly what went on?
    Mr. Ridley: As I have already told my hon. Friend, I will publish the report at the earliest moment consistent with the even-handed administration of justice.
    Mr. Heffer: How early is the earliest possible moment? Is the Secretary of State aware that many of us who knew little about the matter until we saw television programmes have been shocked at what has been happening? Is it not time that not only the House but the entire population had a proper report of what happened in that case?
    Mr. Ridley: How early is as soon as possible? It is as soon as I can do so. The hon. Gentleman should reserve judgment until it is possible to publish the report, which I have already said I will do as soon as that is appropriate in the light of possible proceedings.

    North Devon Manufacturers Association
    Mr. Speller: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assistance he is giving to the North Devon Manufacturers Association.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: Through my south-west regional office, which maintains excellent relations with the North Devon Manufacturers Association, my Department has supported and will continue to support events sponsored by the association whenever possible.
    Mr. Speller: Will my hon. Friend accept my thanks and congratulations on the good work of his Department in sponsoring a genuine multinational, locally based collection of industries, which is leading the way in skills training, information technology and happy co-existence to provide a good basis for prosperity in north Devon?
    Mr. Hogg: I accept my hon. Friend's comments. Our efforts have been very successful. I recently studied the unemployment figures for the Barnstaple and Ilfracombe travel-to-work area and for Bideford, and then contrasted the figures for November 1984 with those for November 1989. In November 1984, the respective figures for Barnstaple and Ilfracombe and for Bideford were 14·7 per

    287
    cent. and 17·2 per cent. In November 1989, the figures were 6·7 per cent. and 8·1 per cent. That is a dramatic improvement.
    Mr. Madden: What representations has the Minister received from employers in Devon about the difficulties that might face their employees should they be forced into short-time working? Is the Minister aware that, as a result of changes in Government regulations, if an employee earns more than £43 a week on short-time working he is prevented from claiming unemployment benefit for the days that he is not employed?
    Will the hon. Gentleman urgently investigate the impact of the regulations in Devon and elsewhere? Will he ensure that the Secretary of State for Social Security changes the regulations soon so that they do not force short-time workers to be penalised in that way?
    Mr. Hogg: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but none of the members of the North Devon Manufacturers Association has made representations to that effect. However, they are pleased with the substantial improvements to the infrastructure in north Devon and, in particular, the large sums of money that the Government are spending on improving road links—for example, the £109 million spent on the north Devon link road.

    Exports
    Mr. Hind: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the actions he is taking to improve the levels of British exports.
    Mr. Ridley: One year ago today my noble Friend Lord Young of Graffham launched a package of measures offering a wide range of help, advice and support to firms at each stage of the exporting process. Staff in the embassies and regional offices are always available to give information and advice.
    I am encouraged to note that the volume of non-oil exports in the three months to November 1989 was 13 per cent. higher than a year earlier.
    Mr. Hind: My right hon. Friend's news is much appreciated. He will no doubt recognise the importance of the 20 per cent. increase in exports last year, and he is to be congratulated on his recent announcement on the Export Credits Guarantee Department. Is he aware of the importance of the export credits guarantee to the north-west of England? Can he give us a timetable for the implementation of his plans?
    Mr. Ridley: I am glad that my hon. Friend recognises the remarkable export performance of British industry in the past year. It represents a remarkable gain in our share of exports, to which the whole House will wish to pay tribute.
    On the ECGD, my announcement before Christmas will have the effect of giving added impetus to the credit insurance industry in the long term by making sure that credit insurance will be available to our exporters within and without the Community. It will be necessary for legislation to be introduced, but I cannot estimate when it will be introduced. Apart from that difficulty, the Government will proceed with urgently required plans for the future of the ECGD as soon as possible.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: What would be the impact on unemployment nationally if the Government's export promotion allowed the balance of payments to trade in surplus?
    Mr. Ridley: I could not be expected to answer that off the top of my head. The balance of payments includes the capital account, which produces a large amount of inward investment—about £1·5 billion from Japan alone last year—and which in turn is a major contributor to United Kingdom employment. The calculation that the hon. Gentleman seeks is somewhat wider than he would like to acknowledge.
    Mr. Burt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that exports will increase in the years to come as the significant investment in manufacturing, domestic and foreign, comes on stream? Does he further agree that this is a sign of great confidence in our economy, and that if Opposition Members truly wished to support their constituents and their jobs, they would welcome that inward investment instead of carping about it, as they often do?
    Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is right. In addition to the 13 per cent. volume increase in exports in the past 12 months, export order books have been showing a distinctly healthy trend, even in the past few months. British exports in the future will embarrass Opposition Members because they never like to hear good news.
    Mr. Gordon Brown: Will the Secretary of State confirm that we have not only the biggest trade deficit of all our European competitors but the highest interest rate and the worst inflation, and that that is hitting exporters? What will he do to prevent Britain from becoming the only country in Europe, in the run-up to 1992, according to CBI figures, in which manufacturing investment this year is falling?
    Mr. Ridley: I would not accuse the hon. Gentleman, in the words of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie), of being sufficiently clever to sit on his hands and beat his breast at the same time, but he was attempting to do something very similar in that supplementary question. Investment is keeping up extremely well and, in addition to the list of factors that he suggested, we have the lowest taxation on industrial payroll companies. Why does he wish to add a 0·5 per cent. payroll levy, which would raise a further £1 billion from British industry, thus severely debilitating it at a time when he says British industry needs help not hindrance?
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that we must increase our manufacturing exports and that, to achieve it, the Government cannot ignore the need for a strategy for manufacturing industry? Is he further aware that unless we increase our manufacturing exports, our balance of trade deficit will continue, and there will be ongoing pressure on the pound, which will contribute to inflation and the country's economic problems?
    Mr. Ridley: We have a strategy for manufacturing industry, and that is to let companies get on with the job without interfering with them. I suspect that that played a large part in the highly successful performance of British exports to which I referred.

    Regional Assistance
    Mr. Hardy: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his estimate of the value of grants paid by his Department in pursuit of regional assistance plans during 1989; and what was the level of such assistance in real terms during 1979.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: In 1989 expenditure on regional assistance in England totalled £326·6 million; in 1979 the figure was £297·6 million. Expressed in terms of 1989 prices, the expenditure in 1979 was £594 million.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the Minister deny that the combined total from regional assistance and regional development grants was £1,130 million in 1979 and £470 million last year? Given the enormous increase in economic and environmental needs, does the Minister realise that that is an example of negligence and irresponsibility?
    Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman has failed to analyse the component elements of the figures. We have discontinued regional development grant, and quite right too, because it was an automatic grant which took no account of the jobs created, or of need. We are relying on regional selective assistance, which is based on need, jobs created and economic viability. That is the way forward.

    Sawmilling Industry
    Mr. Gill: To ask the Secretary of State for Industry what representation he has received about overcapacity in the sawmilling industry.
    Mr. Douglas Hogg: Apart from the points that my hon. Friend raised in his recent correspondence with my Department, I am not aware of having received any other representations about overcapacity in sawmilling.
    Mr. Gill: In view of my hon. Friend's answers to my question and to the preceding one, what assurance can he give the House that regional selective assistance will not lead to displacement and overcapacity? Does he agree that such commercial decisions are best left to the market?
    Mr. Hogg: My hon. Friend illustrates the value of having moved away from regional development grants to regional selective assistance. When considering applications for regional selective assistance, one can take into account displacement in employment opportunities and overcapacity in existing plants. That was not the case with regional development grants.

Hong Kong
3.31 pm
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on my visit to Hong Kong from 13 to 16 January.
I went to show this country's continuing commitment to Hong Kong, to meet a representative cross-section of the community, and to discuss the issues of prime importance to Hong Kong in the period before 1997—the operation of the nationality package, which I proposed to the House on 20 December, and the pace and extent of democratisation in Hong Kong.
I also discussed the problem of the Vietnamese boat people, and visited a refugee camp and a camp at which boat people are screened for refugee status.
Hong Kong has become the world's 11th largest trading entity because of the unique combination of British administration and justice, and the talent and energy of its people. The immediate sense of fear caused by the events in China last June has lifted, but those events dealt a substantial blow to Hong Kong's self-confidence, and the exodus of the talent which is needed to keep Hong Kong prosperous has continued. We believe that it is vital that those people should stay.
Everyone to whom I spoke—in the Executive and Legislative Councils, one of the district boards, the business community, public servants and other groups—had hoped that the package that I proposed on 20 December would have made provision for more people. But they also welcomed what we had proposed as a measure that would give key people the confidence to remain in Hong Kong. They recognise that it was not an easy step to take, and they are following carefully the discussion in this country. They all hoped that it would be possible for Parliament to give its approval and for the scheme to begin to operate. I assured them that the Government were fully committed to the proposal.
The second issue that we discussed was the repatriation of Vietnamese boat people. No one in Hong Kong involved in the repatriation takes satisfaction in what had to be done, but the result achieved was necessary. Having seen the camps for myself, I am more than ever convinced that return to Vietnam, in carefully controlled conditions, is preferable to camp life, with no hope of resettlement elsewhere.
Hong Kong has paid a heavy price for its principled policy of first asylum. We cannot expect it to receive this year the same number of boat people—over 30,000—that they received last year. There is nowhere for those boat people who are not refugees to go. The policy of repatriation is therefore the right one, and I hope that this may soon be endorsed by the international community.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) and to Lord Ennals for their thorough and expert report on the first 51 who were repatriated before Christmas. I would welcome monitoring by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and other agencies, of all who are repatriated in the future.
No one in Hong Kong seriously disputes the validity of the joint declaration as a basis for Hong Kong's future after 1997, but confidence in the concept of "one country, two systems" was undermined by the events of last June.
292
Since then the Chinese Government have reaffirmed their commitment to the joint declaration, and I believe that we must make it work.
An important element in that is the extent and pace of movement towards democracy in Hong Kong before and after 1997, which as I have discovered, is the subject of intense concern and debate in Hong Kong, and we are discussing it with the Chinese Government; those discussions are continuing, and I would prefer not to go into detail today. I can say, however, that our goal is to set a system in place—beginning with elections to the Legislative Council in 1991—which will satisfy Hong Kong's aspiration for democracy and which will endure after 1997. [Interruption.] There seems to be some disarray on the Opposition Benches.
I hope to be able, after further discussion, to announce a decision within the next few weeks.
As all who know it agree, Mr. Speaker, Hong Kong is the economic success story of a region that boasts several economic miracles. As you look across the border into China you see that that economic success has spread to the neighbouring province of the mainland. China is Hong Kong's largest trading partner, and Hong Kong is also one of Britain's biggest markets in the region. All that could continue after 1997—and the plans are dramatic—or it could be lost.
The future of 5·7 million people after 1997 depends on three things. First, it depends on the talent and energy of Hong Kong's own people, and they are not in doubt. Secondly, it depends on the attitude of the Chinese Government, who need to do much more to reassure Hong Kong. But dialogue has been re-established, and we must do our best to maintain it. Thirdly, Hong Kong's future depends on Britain, as the responsible sovereign power until 1997.
After last June, the House rightly voiced its support for Hong Kong—and that, of course, must mean more than words. The people of Hong Kong are realists: for example, they accept, although reluctantly, that we cannot give passports to all. They look to us, as the sovereign power, to make the necessary decisions over the coming years, and to follow an active and understanding policy towards Hong Kong. I hope that I convinced them that we shall do so.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: We thank the Foreign Secretary for making a statement to the House so soon after his return from Hong Kong. Four questions arise from his visit, from today's statement and from the statement made in Guangzhou today by the deputy director general of the Basic Law drafting committee.
First, what are the Government's intentions with regard to the progress of democratisation in Hong Kong? Everyone now accepts the timid inadequacy of the Government's decision in February 1988 that only 10 members of the Legislative Council should be directly elected in 1991. Opposition Members took the view that the first elections should have taken place in 1988. After the Tiananmen square massacre, we urged an increase in the number of next year's directly elected members to 30, with a full 100 per cent. by 1995.
The Government recognised the need for an increase, but they have done absolutely nothing. They have therefore left the field free for decisions by the Peking Government, who, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, have proposed only 18 directly elected members by 1997

293
—the year of the handover. OMELCO—the Hong Kong representatives—asked for 20 next year as a prelude to 30 by 1997 and the full 60 by 2003. The Foreign Secretary in Hong Kong gave an elliptical off-the-record interview in which he said that there would be 20 by next year, but he did not look further than that. Today he has given the House no information whatsoever, and that is simply not good enough.
The right hon. Gentleman said today that we are the responsible power. He said in Hong Kong that it is a decision for us and for the Government of Hong Kong to make. What does that mean? Will the Government have a phased programme of democracy in Hong Kong—not just elections next year but an increased number before the handover? He must at least tell the House clearly today.
Secondly, what has happened to the Bill of Rights? The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the present Leader of the House, who is sitting beside him, said on July 13:
"The proposed Bill of Rights will ensure that there is one fundamental legal text which sets out all the rights and freedoms that the people of Hong Kong currently enjoy."—[Official Report, 13 July 1989; Vol. 156, c. 1169.]
He promised that it would form part of the existing law and continue after the transfer of sovereignty in 1997.
As we know, the draft Bill of Rights has been thrown out by the Executive Council in Hong Kong as inaccurate, and reports from Hong Kong during the right hon. Gentleman's visit stated that the Government were now playing down the Bill of Rights. Today he has said not a single word about the Bill of Rights. Will he make it clear to the House? Is the Bill of Rights now expendable, or are the Government proceeding with it? We must know.
Thirdly, what international discussions are taking place on the boat people and when will they be resumed? Have the Government of Vietnam indicated whether they are ready to receive more boat people if they are sent forcibly? What action are the Government taking to provide incentives for voluntary repatriation? What action are the Government taking to provide direct economic aid for Vietnam, which is the most sensible way of giving the Vietnamese confidence to remain in their own country as it is assisted to escape from its abject poverty?
The right hon. Gentleman said in Hong Kong that he had not yet had time to read the Amnesty International report about the treatment of the boat people. He will know that that report alleges partial strangulation, kicks and beatings of boat people by Hong Kong police and that a boat person died as a result of indiscriminate kicking and the use of batons. Those are grave charges by an organisation of international repute.
Will the right hon. Gentleman set up an independent inquiry into those allegations, and will he re-examine the screening procedures, which Amesty International says contain critical shortcomings?
Finally, has the right hon. Gentleman seen the statement today by Mr. Lu Ping, the deputy secretary general of the Basic Law drafting committee, which he made in Guangzhou in which he is reported as saying that under the Basic Law top officials in Hong Kong's post-1997 Government will not have the right to live abroad and in which he further says that Hong Kong residents with British passports will not be allowed to seek British consular protection while in the territory after it returns to Chinese rule. Is that not a torpedo right through the Government's ill-conceived plans to award United Kingdom passports to 50,000 so-called key people? Does
294
not the statement made on behalf of the Chinese Government mean that, if the British Government's plan is enacted, everyone awarded a passport will inevitably seek to come to Britain before 1997, thus making nonsense of their claim that the purpose of their plan is to anchor those people to Hong Kong?
Everyone in Britain has welcomed the magnificent moves to democracy in eastern Europe. Are the people of Hong Kong to be denied that clear progress to democracy that has been won by the Poles, Czech and Romanians? That would be a sorry epitaph to British rule in Hong Kong, and we look to the right hon. Gentleman to reassure the House and the people of Hong Kong.
Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) asked four substantial questions. First, he asked about the progress to democracy. It is certain that that will start with elections to the Legislative Council next year, and from a substantially higher base than that proposed in the White Paper in February 1988. Hong Kong will start next year on that substantial road. I gave no figures in Hong Kong, and I have given no figures to the House, because we are still seeking what is clearly the best solution, which is that that start next year, and then in the elections in 1995, should continue after 1997, and for it to be incorported in the Chinese provisions. If someone is contemplating standing for election to the Legislative Council, it is clearly desirable and makes sense to have that upward curve, if possible, to ensure that the process which will certainly start next year will assuredly be continued after 1997.
We have been discussing that in Hong Kong and with the Chinese Government, but those discussions have not yet finished. I said in Hong Kong, and in the House today, that as soon as they have finished—they must end before long—I will let the House know. It would be a great mistake to take a decision that made impossible the longer-term progress to democracy, if such progress is attainable. If it is not, as I said in Hong Kong, we and the Hong Kong Government will have to take decisions and announce them for 1991 and for 1995.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asked about the Bill of Rights. That idea was first put forward by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord President of the Council. It has been taken up in Hong Kong, and its institutions are considering its text. The drafting of the Bill of Rights is a matter for the Hong Kong Government. The Chinese have not made any representations to us, but if they want to comment on the draft Bill once it is published, they will be entitled to do so. That matter is progressing through the institutions of Hong Kong.
With regard to what will happen after 1997, the two United Nations covenants on human rights will, as the joint declaration makes clear, continue to apply to Hong Kong after 1997. There is no dispute about that, and that provision is fully reflected in the current draft of the Basic Law.
Thirdly, the right hon. Gentleman asked about the boat people. He asked for specific information about the next meeting of the steering committee in Geneva. I have been told today that it will be held on 23 and 24 January, about a week later than was originally supposed. I hope that the international community will agree at that meeting to accept in practice what is already accepted in principle—that the right place for Vietnamese who are not refugees is Vietnam. As the right hon. Gentleman said, while it is

295
absolutely right to encourage voluntary return—as the right hon. Gentleman knows, we and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees are doing that—that has not proved sufficient, and therefore repatriation is necessary.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Amnesty report. Obviously the detailed criticisms in it must be considered by us and by the Government of Hong Kong, as I said in Hong Kong yesterday. Several of the incidents in the Amnesty report have already been investigated by the Hong Kong Government, and the criticisms have not been accepted. I visited the Hai Ling Chau camp yesterday and saw something of the screening. Obviously it was not a thorough inspection, but I was impressed by the initial interview, which was relatively short, and the three hours or so that were spent actually examining the detail. I was impressed also by the way in which, in the camp, it was stated in English and in Vietnamese that there was a clear right of appeal.
The right hon. Gentleman's final point dealt with Mr. Lu Ping's statement. I imagine that I have read the same account as the right hon. Gentleman read. We have looked at that point—it came up while I was in Hong Kong. Under Chinese law, full citizens of another country are not dual citizens. It follows that, in the case of United Kingdom citizens, they are entitled to our consular protection throughout the world. Hong Kong Chinese who are not full United Kingdom citizens are in a different position.
Article 74 of the joint declaration makes it clear that the Government of the special administrative region—the SAR—of Hong Kong may employ British and other foreign nationals in the public service after 1997.
Mr. David Howell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he conducted his recent visit to Hong Kong with great skill in appallingly difficult circumstances? Frankly, those circumstances are not being helped by the attitude of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman).
My right hon. Friend spoke the other day about a through train to the future for the people of Hong Kong. Does he accept that the best through train is one marked "freedom and democracy" and that, therefore, his statement today that he will set in place a system of democracy that will satisfy Hong Kong's aspirations is extremely welcome?
Will my right hon. Friend enlighten the House on an important matter about the Opposition's policy? I realise that Opposition policy is not his responsibility, except in the sense that all policy statements in the House are part of the central problem of Hong Kong. Is it correct that the Opposition are now in favour of giving British passports to everyone in Hong Kong?
Mr. Hurd: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments. As he knows, there has been a concentration and focus on the figures for the number of democratically elected legislators in the Legislative Council in 1991, which is an important point. The point may have been somewhat obscure, but, in any case, the start to be made next year in democracy in the Legislative Council in Hong Kong will be an important event. It will start from a more substantial base than was suggested and
296
discussed even as short a time as two years ago. The best way is to proceed from that base after 1997. That is why it is sensible to discuss these matters with the People's Republic, as we are doing. If that is not possible, at the end of the day, we will need to make our own decisions.
For fear of wearying the House, I did not press the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) about Labour policies, because it takes an awfully long time to do so. I am in total confusion. No doubt there will be opportunities to explore that matter. Sometimes the right hon. Gentleman oozes sympathy, and sometimes he says that there is nothing to be done. From all his foggy phrases, I get the strong impression that the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have no interest whatever in a sensible future for Hong Kong.
Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I join the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell) in congratulating the Foreign Secretary on the personal skill and diplomacy with which he did a difficult job in Hong Kong. However, is not the outlying situation in Hong Kong unchanged? There is no change in the hard facts of Hong Kong's position, for confidence in Hong Kong still rests on a slender thread. Does the Foreign Secretary realise that maintenance of that confidence now depends on his being very tough on two matters: first, democracy, the Bill of Rights, and the Communists in Peking; and, secondly, passports and those who pander to racism in his own party? Does the Foreign Secretary accept that what Hong Kong needs is both of those—not one without the other?
On the issue of the boat people, the Foreign Secretary said that the voluntary repatriation programme was not going fast enough, but is it not the case that UNHCR's voluntary repatriation programme has already repatriated 1,100 people peaceably to Vietnam without any of the brutality of the forced repatriations? That figure is 20 times more than the Government's programme has achieved. Indeed, another 1,300 people have applied for voluntary repatriation. Surely the Foreign Secretary now realises that this is not the time to press ahead with another brutal exercise in forced repatriation, which would not only damage Britain's name and prevent a multilateral solution to the problem, but would probably impede the process of voluntary repatriation which is proving so successful.
Mr. Hurd: I came back with two main thoughts impressed on me by the people of Hong Kong. The first was, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, the enthusiasm among articulate Hong Kong Chinese for greater democracy and for a start towards democracy. The second was their wish to get away from the constant hostile statements from Peking. It will not be easy, but we have to try to reconcile the two messages that I received so clearly.
I have detected no racism on the Government Benches about this matter—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] No. What I have detected—I have tried to read the speeches and to listen to the broadcasts carefully—is a natural anxiety about the consequences of what we propose for immigration in this country. I do not find that anxiety objectionable, and it is because of that anxiety that we have made our package what it is. If we had brushed aside that anxiety as of no importance, of course, we might have gone much further in the direction that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has suggested, but we have not. We have tried to strike a balance, which, as I have said, is disappointing to almost

297
everybody in Hong Kong but which we believe is a reasonable balance, taking into account the reasonable preoccupations here and the reasonable expectations there.
As I have said about the boat people, voluntary return is the best thing and I am glad that voluntary returns are taking place. However, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdon) knows perfectly well that the disadvantage and drawback of that is that very few of those who are screened out and who it is decided are not refugees are volunteering. That is why—[Interruption.] It is true. That is why we decided before Christmas to send back 51, and that is why, as I have said several times, unless there is a more dramatic change on the horizon on the part of the international community than is clear at the moment, we shall have to continue that policy.
Mr. Roger Sims: May I join in commending my right hon. Friend for the manner in which he handled a visit in the course of which he was bound to be open to criticism from one quarter or another, whatever he said or did? Does he agree that the predominant concern in this matter is the interests of the people of Hong Kong? In those interests, will he proceed with the package of measures that he has already outlined, confident that he will have the support of the vast majority of his hon. Friends? Accepting that the reality is that the Chinese Government will be taking over Hong Kong in 1997, is it not clear that antagonising them would be counterproductive? At the same time, in his discussions with the Chinese Government, will my right hon. Friend be robust in representing the interests and aspirations of the people of Hong Kong?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On his first point, every right hon. and hon. Member must accept that we have a continuing responsibility to Hong Kong and to our own constituents. Indeed, many of our own constituents have or will have substantial interests in and connections with the continued success of Hong Kong, so I do not think that there is a contradiction when it comes to the point.
I entirely agree with the way in which my hon. Friend put his second point. Every time one goes to Hong Kong and looks at the geography, the food, the water, the history and the law there, one sees clearly that its future is connected with China. That means a dialogue, but it does not mean simply finding out what the Chinese want and then doing it. Until 1997, we and the Hong Kong Government have our own responsibilities, and we intend to discharge them.
Mr. Chris Mullin: Does the Foreign Secretary accept that in the long term—I do not pretend that it is a short-term solution—the only way to stop the flow of refugees from Vietnam is to end the trade, aid and credit embargo organised by the United States in which most countries, including Britain, participate to a greater or lesser extent? Has he noted the recommendation in the report by the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) and Lord Ennals that Britain should resume aid to Vietnam? No one would pretend that that alone would solve the problem. What steps will the Foreign Secretary take to persuade the United States to end its war against Vietnam?
Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman makes a point which, as he said, figured in the report published yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) and Lord Ennals. Vietnam may be opened up to aid. The process of voluntary return and of repatriation is already accompanied by some help to Vietnam, although on a small scale. That may continue and develop, but the hon. Gentleman knows the difficulties.
The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that it is not an immediate solution. The immediate solution lies in continuing voluntary returns, as the report said, and in making it clearer than it now is to people in Vietnam that to get on a bus or a boat to Hong Kong is not a road to resettlement in the West for those who are not refugees. The solution also lies in the international community accepting that repatriation of people who are not refugees is regrettable but necessary, that returns should be monitored, that monitoring should not be confined to those who return voluntarily and that it has implications for financial and reception arrangements in Vietnam.
Mr. Cranley Onslow: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a high proportion of so-called boat people have made their way from north Vietnam to Hong Kong either through Chinese coastal waters or overland through China? Does not that call into question the competence and integrity of the Chinese Administration, which must be the key to the future of Hong Kong?
Mr. Hurd: My right hon. Friend is perfectly right. The numbers arriving in recent months have been low because of the season. Most of those arriving recently have come, at least in part, overland. Clearly a traffic is developing and money is being made from it. People do not enter Hong Kong by land because if they did so they would be sent back immediately as illegal Chinese immigrants. I saw that happening one afternoon in Hong Kong. They make the last part of the journey by boat.
My right hon. Friend is entirely right to draw attention to the responsibility of the Chinese Government, which we have impressed upon them continually. They have given assurances, and it is up to them to carry them out.
Mr. James Molyneaux: The right hon. Gentleman said that Parliament would be invited to give approval to the scheme. When will that be? Can he assure the House that any such legislation would be regarded as constitutional and, therefore, would be taken in its entirety on the Floor of the House?
Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman asks legitimate questions, but they are not for me. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord President of the Council will have noted the right hon. Gentleman's two points.
Mr. Jim Lester: I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend has visited the camps for Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong. Does he now realise just how difficult the conditions are for those people and how unwilling they are, even in those conditions, to return to Vietnam? He also paid tribute, rightly, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) for his report calling for wider economic aid to Vietnam. Does he accept that it would be easier for many of us to accept the policy of compulsory repatriation if he took the imaginative step, perhaps in the first instance, of offering jointly to fund the non-governmental organisations which

299
already have programmes in the poverty-stricken areas of north Vietnam? Might that be one way of making compulsory repatriation more acceptable?
Mr. Hurd: As my hon. Friend knows, I am keen that the NGOs should help to monitor what happens to people who return to Vietnam. If they came forward with particular schemes along the lines that my hon. Friend describes, I should certainly consider them.
Mr. Peter Shore: When the Foreign Secretary referred to progress towards democracy, he spoke of a formula that would satisfy Hong Kong opinion and that would endure. It would be remarkable if both those criteria could be met. The heart of the matter, as I am sure the Foreign Secretary knows, is that a formula that will satisfy demands for democracy in Hong Kong is not likely to endure because it will not satisfy the Chinese. When faced with that dilemma, how will the Foreign Secretary's mind move? Above all, we want to hear from him that he will give greater priority to satisfying the demands for democracy in Hong Kong than he will to appeasing the people in Peking.
Mr. Hurd: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman used the word "appeasing" in his analysis. We have no interest in appeasing the authorities in Peking as there is no particular Sino-British interest that is greater than, or outweighs, the future interests of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the largest and heaviest component in our relations with China, and so it will stay.
We are simply concerned with what arrangements will start democracy in Hong Kong in a substantial way and which will endure. The right hon. Gentleman knows the history of this matter and he knows that democracy will start from a substantial point. The right hon. Gentleman knows that 10 directly elected seats in the Legislative Council were proposed in the joint declaration and that 10 were embodied as the starting point in last year's White Paper. I believe that everybody—I stress everybody—accepts that now the starting point will be substantially higher than that. That much has been achieved, and the right hon. Gentleman is one of those who helped to persuade us to achieve it. That much is under our belt, and it represents a big success.
I hope that we can go further and that we can reconcile the two considerations that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. I do not know whether that will be possible, but, when we know, we will tell the House.
Mr. Michael Jopling: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a most welcome part of his statement was the fact that a large number of people in Hong Kong reluctantly accept that it is not realistic to offer a right of abode in this country to all those people who hold British dependent territory passports? Does he agree with the estimate given by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs that those passport holders could amount to 5·25 million people by 1997? Is not this in stark contrast with what appears to be the official policy of the Opposition—certainly it is the policy of the leader of the Liberal party—that all those people should be given a right of abode here? That means that about 8,000 people with a right of abode would be imposed on every constituency.
Mr. Hurd: As I understand it, that is certainly the view of the leader of the SLD and, although I believe it to be a foolish policy, he has maintained it openly. Whenever anyone suggests what is the policy of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) bounces up and down and denies it. We have no idea about the policy of the Labour party; sometimes the right hon. Gentleman gives one impression, sometimes another. As the discussion continues, perhaps he will be able to come off the fence.
Dr. David Owen: An enduring future for Hong Kong depends upon agreement with China and with the Peking Government. All experience shows that that requires infinite patience, great determination and a readiness to continue to push a point long after most people would have thought that it had sunk home. In view of that, will the Foreign Secretary continue to argue that holding key workers in Hong Kong until the date of transfer offers the real prospect that they will continue to remain under the Chinese Government? Similarly, will the Foreign Secretary resist the blandishments to go further than the first tranche of democratisation in 1991, on which it looks as though there is a good chance of an agreement with China? Will he wait and hope for further agreement with China on an increased element on democratisation in the second tranche?
Mr. Hurd: We have discussed the nationality package with the Chinese Government for the reasons the right hon. Gentleman has given. They have made public their concern about the package, but we have begun to persuade them that, if they want, as the joint declaration sets out, a stable and prosperous Hong Kong in 1997, a package on those lines is essential.
On the second point, I note the advice which the right hon. Gentleman gives. We shall return to this matter as soon as the possibilities for the best way forward to democracy become clearer.
Mr. George Walden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the undertaking given by the Opposition to repeal any legislation allowing 50,000 families the right of abode in this country would precipitate a major crisis in Hong Kong if ever the Labour party came to power? Does not that show that the policy statement of the Labour party spokesmen on this matter is the most cynical, demagogic and opportunistic that we have ever heard from the Opposition—and that is saying something?
Mr. Hurd: Ninety per cent. of Labour party policy is obscure and the remainder is irresponsible.
Mr. Tony Banks: Will the Foreign Secretary end the uncertainty by making a statement about the fate of the 670 tonnes of elephant ivory currently held in Hong Kong? I understand that the Foreign Office has taken over responsibility from the Department of the Environment with regard to the possibility of entering reservations to the CITES agreement. Will he say whether that reservation will be entered by 18 January? I hope that the answer will be no, but, if it is yes, does the Foreign Secretary realise that he will be condemning to death many more hundreds of elephants?
Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman's last observation was nonsense because Hong Kong has already banned imports of ivory. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's other, reasonable question is yes. The Government, on behalf of Hong Kong, have today entered a six-month reservation to the CITES agreement which provides for listing African elephants in appendix 1 of the convention. The reservation will apply only to Hong Kong and will allow Hong Kong traders time to dispose of their legally acquired ivory in an orderly fashion and enable workers and carvers to find alternative employment. After that, Hong Kong will be part of the agreed system. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that that will be a considerable advance.
Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear to the people of Hong Kong and the Government of the People's Republic of China that they could have given no greater total commitment to the future of Hong Kong—economic, political and free—than that they were prepared to court electoral unpopularity by undertaking to let into this country as many people as they have?
Mr. Hurd: I have done so and it is clearly understood in Hong Kong. The people there follow our proceedings and discussions with great interest and—when they hear remarks which show a total lack of realism at what is happening there—anxiety.
Last summer, three major matters were pressed on my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord President when he was in Hong Kong: first, nationality; secondly, repatriation of the boat people; and, thirdly, the movement to democracy. We have taken the first crucial and difficult decisions on the first two issues. I have answered questions about the third, a decision on which will come pretty soon.
Mr. Bernie Grant: I find the Foreign Secretary's statement totally inadequate. After hearing about his expensive and well-publicised visit, I expected a bit more. Was he or his governor—who recently visited the Chinese Government—able to extract a guarantee from the Chinese Government about the security of the British citizens in Hong Kong after 1997? I say that particularly in view of statements from the Chinese Government about the peaceful demonstrations in Hong Kong which have occurred. I should like to know precisely what the Foreign Secretary's position is on that issue. Is it not a fact that the British Government are totally bankrupt of ideas on the Hong Kong issue and are merely following behind the coat tails of the Chinese Government?
Mr. Hurd: The Chinese Government are certainly concerned about some expressions of free opinion in Hong Kong. The Government and the governor of Hong Kong have made it clear to the Chinese Government in many ways that an important aspect of Hong Kong is precisely that there is free expression there. If the Chinese intend after 1997 to incorporate into China a lively, vigorous and developing Hong Kong, they must accept that there will be freedom of expression and clear and rapid movement towards democracy. These are conditions of the prize; they are set out clearly in the joint declaration.
Dame Jill Knight: Can my right hon. Friend give the House any information about representations that the Government may have made to
302
Commonwealth countries in which there is space and opportunity to prevail upon them to offer passports to Hong Kong residents who may wish to leave after 1997?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, indeed. Since my statement on 20 December we have made representations to Commonwealth Governments and to many other friendly Governments encouraging them to follow our lead and introduce schemes of the kind that we propose, which are designed to keep key personnel in Hong Kong—for example, people working for companies belonging to these countries. The French already have such a limited scheme, as does New Zealand in one respect, and we are doing what we can to persuade other countries which could introduce such schemes to do so. My hon. Friend may have seen that Congressman Solarz has proposed such a scheme in the United States Congress.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to have regard to the subsequent business. The House knows that there is an important debate and a 10-minute Bill, and that the debate must end at 7 pm before we go on to private business. I shall call three more speakers from each side and then I am afraid we must move on.
Mr. Jim Sillars: The Secretary of State said that the fear engendered by the events of 4 June has lifted somewhat in Hong Kong, but will he confirm that there remains among its population an underlying fear and apprehension of the Peking regime, which is unrepentant about the events on 4 June, and confirm that they have cause for that fear?
Recently the head of the supreme court in China stated as a matter of policy that the Communist party is above the law. Given that background to the fear and apprehension, how does the right hon. Gentleman think the House should reply to questions such as I heard in Hong Kong? I was asked how it is that in my part of western Europe tears of joy are shed at people in eastern Europe escaping from Communist tyranny, and the people of eastern Europe are invited to join the European Community, which would give them the automatic right of abode in any part of the community, including the United Kingdom, yet we are prepared to consign Hong Kong to the Peking regime with inadequate protection in terms of a democratic structure.
Mr. Hurd: It is true that there continues to be an underlying anxiety. It has lifted a little because contacts have resumed in various ways. At lunch yesterday, I sat next to a young business man who had just returned from Peking, where he had been well received by the Prime Minister.
This underlying anxiety does not lead any of the Hong Kong Chinese to whom I spoke to question the fact that the joint declaration and the system being erected under it is the only realistic way forward for Hong Kong. Hong Kong wants us to make sense of the concept of two systems in one country, and the observations that the hon. Gentleman quoted will not apply in the special administrative region of Hong Kong.
Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Does my right hon. Friend concede that, if nearly 250,000 people come here from Hong Kong with the right of abode, that will permanently and irreversibly change the

303
nature of the British people? If this step is to be taken and my right hon. Friend's Bill receives a Second Reading, does he agree that the measure should be considered by a Committee of the whole House?
Mr. Hurd: The first matter is one on which every right hon. and hon. Member must make his own judgment—first, as to the likelihood of it happening; secondly, as to the consequences for the country if it did happen, given the people involved, their backgrounds, professional experience and so on. That is not a matter on which I would seek to educate my hon. Friend.
My hon. Friend's second point is not a matter for me. It is the second time it has been made, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House is present listening.
Mr. James Lamond: It is clear that nothing that the Foreign Secretary is free to do will reassure the people of Hong Kong who are terrified about what might happen to them in 1997. His belated concentration on extending democracy to the people of Hong Kong must be looked upon by realistic people in Hong Kong as some sort of attempt by the Government to slide out of their responsibilities and to say. "Now that you have some measure of democracy, our responsibility is a little less than it used to be." Is not that the realistic situation?
Mr. Hurd: No. That suspicion was not put to me, and I do not think that it is in anyone's mind.
Sir John Stokes: is my right hon. Friend aware that in this difficult situation, which I know something about having recently visited China and Hong Kong, he has a duty to the people of England as well as to the people of Hong Kong? Is he further aware that mass immigration has been continuing for a long time to many parts of this country, including my own area? His proposal is for further mass immigration. Will that be acceptable to the mass of our people, and is it right that the Government should allow it? Is not his prime duty to maintain the social cohesion of this ancient and small island?
Mr. Hurd: I entirely accept, to quote my hon. Friend, that we have a duty to the people of England as well as to the people of Hong Kong. Given my hon. Friend's background and knowledge of both sides of that equation, I should not have thought that he would find those interests in contradiction.
Mr. Ted Rowlands: Will the Foreign Secretary clarify a matter that was raised earlier? If public servants and people in public office accept citizenship before 1997, will the Basic Law deprive them of or debar them from public office after that time?
Mr. Hurd: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would look at article 74 of the joint declaration, which covers that point.
Mr. James Couchman: My right hon. Friend said that all the people that he spoke to in Hong Kong about his package of 20 December were disappointed that the number of people to be allowed to come here was not greater. He will note that I have a motion on the Order Paper for debate on Friday. It completely supports the Government's proposed package but expresses a similar concern about the number. Has my right hon. Friend's package of 20 December had time to begin to restore confidence, or does he think that he may need to increase the number?
Mr. Hurd: I made it clear in Hong Kong that I did not see any possibility of increasing the number. Members of the business community, civil servants and many others who raised the matter with me on Monday would have liked the number to be greater, but they accepted that it was as much as we would be able to implement. They made clear that my proposal of 20 December would be of substantial value in keeping key people in Hong Kong.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: I am sorry that it has not been possible to call all the hon. Members who wished to participate. I shall carefully note the names of those hon. Members who have been rising and will give them some precedence when we debate this matter again.

Hong Kong
  BILL PRESENTED
    SECURITY INDUSTRY
    Sir John Wheeler, supported by Sir Marcus Fox, Sir Geoffrey Finsberg, Mr. Ivan Lawrence, Mr. Michael Shersby, Dame Janet Fookes, Mr. John Greenway, Sir Eldon Griffiths and Mr. Tony Worthington, presented a Bill to require the creation of an inspectorate to regulate the employment of uniformed guards and personnel in the security industries; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 26 January and to be printed. [Bill 55.]

Adoption (Amendment)
4.23 pm
Mr. David Amess: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for a statutory code of practice for adoption agencies; to amend the Adoption Act 1976; and for connected purposes.
In seeking the leave of the House to amend the Adoption Act 1976, I recognise that I am in a privileged position. I am the father of three small children and in 10 weeks' time I shall be the father of a fourth. We are lucky to be able to have children more or less to order while many couples are desperate to have children of their own and are not so blessed.
Just before Christmas, I visited Basildon hospital to play the role of Father Christmas. I was taken to the special baby care unit and shown eight babies. One of them had been born at 24 weeks and I am delighted to tell the House that that baby is doing well. In another cot was a big bruiser of a baby weighing 9 lb 15 oz. He had no name on his identification tag. The nurse told me that he had been born only that day and that a couple had been found who would give him their love. That certainly put the Christmas festivities into context for me.
The latest figures for England and Wales show that in the past year 69,249 children were in care and 7,390 children were adopted. Behind those stark figures lies in every case an individual human being who perhaps experienced the loss of both parents or a broken home, or who is simply unwanted. We tend to hear about the sensational cases of children being taken into care or of couples seeking to adopt. Those cases grab the headlines and tend to concentrate one's mind. I am concerned about the vast majority of cases—those that may be described as the ordinary cases.
I am anxious that the present system should overlook no one. It is difficult for people with their own children to imagine the heartbreak that childless couples can experience during the adopton process. It can be a traumatic time for couples who have been trying to have their own baby for a number of years, and who are ruled out of consideration as adoptive parents because of their age.
Most organisations involved in adoptions agree that the greatest demand is for babies and that there are not enough babies for those who wish to adopt them. Although there are enough children to meet the demand for them, sadly they do not always meet the requirements of prospective adoptive parents.
One would have to be very hard not to be moved by the details in the files of children waiting to be adopted. The smiling photographs are usually accompanied by personal details, and the overall message is of asking a family to give their love. There must be room for improvement in a system in which a boy of eight has been moved 38 times; in which some children spend all their time in care and are never matched to prospective adoptive parents; and in which other children are simply overlooked.
The overriding consideration in approving adoptive parents is the extent to which the adoption agency is satisfied that the applicants have the capacity for love, understanding, patience and flexibility that are required to meet not only the universal needs of a growing child but the specific needs of the child in question. Such considerations can include a child's physical or mental
306
handicap, or degree of emotional disturbance, or behavioural disorders. A child may need assistance in understanding his or her origins in an unhappy or unsavoury relationship, and may also need help in learning about his or her racial or cultural origins—which may be very different from those of the adoptive parents.
Adoption agencies, rightly, wish to satisfy themselves as to the health, vigour, imagination and other capacities of the adoptive parents during the subject's childhood. But I much regret any discrimination on the ground of age, especially when it is directed at grandparents. I pay a warm tribute to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), who has been active in representing the interests of grandparents. Age is certainly being used as an instrument of control by some adoption agencies. My parents may have been considered by some as relatively aged, but I do not believe that I suffered from it.
Adoption law is complicated. The Children Act 1975 was consolidated into the Adoption Act 1976. A requirement of the Adoption Agencies Regulations 1983, which came into force in 1984, was that an adoption panel be set up. The new structure comprised seven family placement panels, each serving two adjacent social service areas. The linking was based on geographical proximity and attempted to amalgamate areas with a high population of children in care with those with a smaller number.
The panels have several functions which include fulfilling the criteria laid down in the regulations regarding the adoption of children, approving or rejecting applications from all families and individuals offering permanent substitute family care, ensuring that the child's feelings and wishes are taken into consideration and that she or he is appropriately prepared for placement, and examining all short-term placements that are expected to exceed two months' duration.
The Bill will require adoption panels to produce regular reports to the adoption agency which will include a review of their policies, range and volume of work and, perhaps more importantly, will require that the children's cases are reviewed, ensuring that in future no child is overlooked. As the system operates now, there is no uniformity among adoption agencies. They should publish widely their policies and practices, and the range and volume of work that they have undertaken annually. Sadly, there are children, particularly in inner-city areas, who have no individual attached to their case. The code of practice that I suggest would require those with responsibility for such matters to report back regularly on progress in finding homes for the children; then appropriate action would be agreed.
The temptation for some individuals, remembering the graphic pictures of children in Romania, is to go abroad, bring the children into the country and then seek adoption orders. I am advised by adoption agencies that that practice is causing particular difficulties.
The specific purpose of the measure is to improve the efficiency of matching prospective adoptive parents to suitable children. As I believe that I am the last Member to have spent the night seeking the privilege of introducing a ten-minute Bill, I can think of no finer cause for legislation. I very much hope that the House will support the motion.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. David Amess, Mr. Tony Banks, Mrs. Rosie Barnes, Mr. Harry Cohen, Sir

307
Geoffrey Finsberg, Mr. Roger Gale, Mr. Ken Hargreaves, Mr. David Hinchliffe, Mr. Simon Hughes, Sir Charles Irving, Mr. Ray Powell and Miss Ann Widdecombe.

Adoption (Amendment)
  ADOPTION (AMENDMENT)
  Mr. David Amess accordingly presented a Bill to make provision for a statutory code of practice for adoption agencies; to amend the Adoption Act 1976; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 30 March and to be printed. [Bill 56.]

Parliamentary Pensions
[Relevant documents: The Review Body on Top Salaries' Report No. 26, Review of Aspects of the Parliamentary Pension Scheme and other Matters (Cm. 362), and the Report of the Government Actuary on the Valuation of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund as at 1st April 1987 (HC 317, Session 1988–89).]
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dorrell.]
4.33 pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Geoffrey Howe): As colleagues will know, I had hoped that it would be possible to hold this debate well before now. Indeed, on several occasions last year, we tried to arrange it, but other business meant that it had to be put back. I apologise for that. Now that we have a chance of considering these important issues, I look forward to hearing the views of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
As the House knows, parliamentary pensions are a matter of extreme technicality. I do not pretend to understand their more subtle aspects, so perhaps my speech will be longer than it should be. I apologise for that.
There are three distinct topics to consider. The first is the Top Salaries Review Body report on the parliamentary contributory pension scheme. The second is the TSRB recommendations on the pensions of certain office holders—the Prime Minister, you, Mr. Speaker, and the Lord Chancellor—and on ministerial severance pay. The third is the Government Actuary's report on the state of the parliamentary pension fund with its recommendation for a reduction in Exchequer contribution.
Before dealing with the recommendations in the TSRB report, I should like to put the matter in context by reminding the House that the parliamentary pension scheme is generally regarded, by United Kingdom standards, as a good scheme, providing a reasonably generous return for hon. Members. I do not claim that it is the best that could be found, but in most respects it is on the right side of the average. As the House is in the position to set its own terms—with a significant contribution from the taxpayer—that is the right position to adopt.
Mr. Barry Field: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not give way, but I need to make a coherent presentation and listen to colleagues thereafter.
Under our scheme, benefit accrues faster than under most other public and private schemes. It is right for us to consider the scheme from time to time, as we are doing today, and I attach considerable importance to hearing the views of hon. Members. In July 1987 my predecessor invited the TSRB to undertake a review of the parliamentary pension scheme, the pensions of certain office holders and ministerial severance pay.
The recommendations that resulted fell into two categories—first, those solely affecting the parliamentary scheme on which the trustees were consulted and which are capable of being implemented by secondary legislation; and, secondly, those relating to Ministers and office holders which we accepted in May 1988 but which require

309
primary legislation before they can come into effect. I shall also mention the consequences of the recent Government Actuary's valuation report.
When I do that I shall be honouring a commitment given in 1987 to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) that all reports by the Government Actuary on the parliamentary pension scheme will be debated. The right hon. Gentleman is the chairman of the trustees of our pension scheme. We are all grateful for the work that he and the other trustees do on our behalf. In some respects, the recommendations of the Government Actuary take automatic effect under section 5 of the Parliamentary and other Pensions Act 1972.
In 1987, hon. Members from both sides of the House raised a number of points on the scheme, which were put specifically to the TSRB. They included early retirement arrangements, resettlement grants, service as an MEP and hon. Members' contributions. The TSRB largely restricted its review to those issues. In paragraph 56 of the report, it took the view that the parliamentary pension scheme was basically a good one. However, it recommended two important improvements intended to ensure that it continued to meet the special circumstances of parliamentary life and remain consistent with good practice elsewhere.
First, the report recommended that the death-in-service gratuity should be increased to two years' salary. After consulting the trustees, I am maintaining the proposal of my predecessor that that change should come into effect from 1 May 1988. That date ensures that all deaths during the present Parliament are covered. Although that issue was not originally put to the TSRB, its recommendation brings the scheme into line with practice elsewhere. It also offers practical help where it is most needed. I know that hon. Members from both sides of the House are concerned about the position of widows. I warmly commend that change.
The second change recommended by the TSRB concerns early retirement arrangements. As the House may know, at present a pension may be paid earlier than the age of 65—the normal retirement age—providing the retiring Member is at least 50 years old. The pension paid is less than the accrued pension payable from 65, to reflect the longer period over which it is expected to be paid. If a Member retires at a general election, subject to fulfilling certain conditions, those arrangements may be modified.
Concern has been expressed about what are felt to be anomalies in these arrangements. Differences of treatment can occur in the level of pension arising from small differences in age and length of service, and that is why we asked the TSRB to examine them. The TSRB recommended revised early retirement arrangements for those retiring at a dissolution under which a full accrued pension would be payable. When the pension is brought into payment before the Member reaches pensionable age, it will be subject to an abatement to be calculated on a broadly actuarial basis, and that achieves a desirable and fair tapering.
The TSRB also suggested that the House consider whether those arrangements should apply at times other than at a dissolution. My predecessor met the trustees last year and agreed that there should be a single set of arrangements for those retiring at a dissolution and at other times. I endorse that and believe that this rationalisation represents not just a simplification of but a useful improvement to the scheme.
310
The TSRB also considered whether service as an MEP should count towards the qualifying period for early retirement. The House may recall that several Members raised that issue during the passage of the 1984 Act. The TSRB noted that although periods of service as an MP and an MEP may be aggregated for the purpose of establishing entitlement to a pension, they may not be so counted for the purposes of the qualifying period for early retirement. It took the view that the essential purpose of the early retirement arrangements for MPs should be to assist those whose parliamentary career had been exclusively in this House, and it concluded that an extension of the arrangements would not be appropriate.
Several hon. Members have made representations to me arguing against the view of the TSRB and arguing that, as service as an MEP can be counted for all purposes except early retirement and that because the nature of the MEPs' and Members' pension schemes are so similar, the current arrangements are anomalous.
That point is reinforced in the minds of those who advance the argument by the fact that the European salaries and pension arrangements for MEPs from this country are consistently kept in line with those of Members of this House, rather than with those of other Members of the European Parliament.
I have gone into the matter in detail because I shall be interested to hear the views of the House on that issue before finally deciding whether, in this respect, to accept the TSRB's recommendation.
Mr. Roland Boyes: The essential point appears to be made on page 6 of the TSRB's report, where it says:
"It can be argued that the occupation of MP and MEP are so closely allied".
That seems to accept that the two jobs are closely allied—that MPs and MEPs are doing similar jobs, are taking similar risks and are working under similar conditions.
Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will also examine appendix G relating to resettlement grants for MPs. If an MP and an MEP spend 15 years in the parliamentary process and the MEP has spent five years in the European Parliament, he will receive only half the resettlement grant. It seems ludicrous that if two people came into politics in 1979, one should get twice as much as the other.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: That may be a valid point, but the hon. Gentleman's intervention and its detailed nature confirms my initial wisdom in deciding not to give way during my remarks. I did so on this occasion only because there appeared to be a natural break in the proceedings. The hon. Gentleman's point deserves consideration, but I wish to deal at this stage with the scheme itself.
A further point, not considered by the TSRB, is the problem of excess contributions. Some Members continue to make contributions even though they have bought the maximum number of years to which they are entitled and thus cannot benefit from their extra contributions. That arises from the 1984 Act, which provides for a limit on the annual amount of pension of two-thirds of final salary. That is the limit with which all non-statutory occupational pension schemes must comply to qualify for tax relief.
When my predecessor met the trustees in June last year, he promised to consider the matter. Several possible ways to alleviate the problem suggest themselves, although I hesitate to define, let alone explain, them. I have examined

311
a number of them and none is without difficulty. Further consideration is necessary, and I propose to pursue the matter with the trustees in search of a satisfactory solution.
Apart from parliamentary pensions, the TSRB was invited to undertake a review of the pensions of certain office holders and of ministerial severance pay. The TSRB recommended the introduction of severance pay for Commons Ministers on broadly the same basis as that already provided for Ministers in the other place. That represents a simple recognition that an abrupt and significant financial adjustment may have to be made by an hon. Member on relinquishing ministerial office in whatever House and for whatever reason.
The TSRB's proposals would involve a single payment of a sum representing three months' net loss of parliamentary income on loss of office for whatever reason except death in service. In cash terms, that will be between £3,000 and about £7,000, depending on the rank of the Minister concerned. It is right to emphasise that that proposal was supported by both sides of the House when it was put to the TSRB as well as by the TSRB itself. As my predecessor made clear in May last year, the Government endorse these proposals.
Three senior office holders—the Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker and the Lord Chancellor—are not members of the parliamentary pension scheme. They have their own arrangements under the 1972 Act. For some time we have been aware that their arrangements contained anomalies. The TSRB has recommended that the pensions of all three of the great office holders should be fixed at half final salary, that the Prime Minister and Mr. Speaker should be able to participate in the parliamentary scheme and that restrictions on pension increases should be uncapped.
We have accepted that package of recommendations, which are not directly part of the parliamentary scheme. Their implementation, along with the proposals for severance pay for Commons Ministers, requires primary legislation, which we shall introduce in the near future.
The main issue in the Government Actuary's report is the recommendation that the Exchequer contribution should be reduced to 4·4 per cent. I shall try to assist the House by sketching out the background to that proposal, although I approach documents prepared by actuaries with considerable foreboding.
Under section 5 of the 1972 Act, every three years the Government Actuary must make a valuation of the assets of the parliamentary contributory pension fund specifically for the purpose of determining the residual Exchequer contribution. The current report, laid before the House on 27 April last, reports a significant improvement in the finances of the fund. On that basis, the Government Actuary has calculated that the notional standard contribution should be 20 per cent. of salary.
On that basis, the Exchequer contribution, after deducting the 9 per cent. of salary payable by Members, would be 11 per cent. That 9 per cent. plus 11 per cent. is not much different from the 22 per cent. recommended by the Government Actuary in his preceding report. It is the long-term total cost of the scheme to keep liabilities and assets in balance.
The Government Actuary is not required to make any recommendation about the level of Members' contributions. The increase to 9 per cent. in 1983 was made to take
312
account of the improved rate of accrual in the scheme and, as hon. Members on both sides will recall, the House approved a rate of 9 per cent. Collectively, we accepted that because we believed it to be a realistic level, given the estimated cost of the scheme after incorporation of the improvements suggested by the TSRB. That level of contribution was included in the 1984 Act and is generally in line with other fast accrual schemes in the public service.
The fund has now accumulated a significant surplus. There are two reasons for that: first, the performance of the fund's investments, for which the skill and care of the trustees and their agents are to be highly commended; and, secondly, the very high level of contributions made by the Exchequer in recent years, for reasons which I shall explain, to a total of 18 per cent.
In determining the Exchequer contribution required, the standard contribution of 20 per cent. can and should be adjusted to take account of the surplus. By long-standing convention—not just in this scheme but in the overwhelming majority of similar schemes—such a surplus is normally used to reduce the employer's contribution—[Interruption.] That is the position. In this case, that is the standard contribution payable by the Exchequer. The Government Actuary has recommended an Exchequer contribution for the year beginning April 1989 of 4·4 per cent. of salary, and has recommended that that rate should be maintained for the next eight years. As a result of the provisions of section 5 of the 1972 Act, the recommendation took effect automatically from that date.
There have been some misunderstandings on this question, and it may help if I explain the background more fully. Section 5 provides for the Exchequer's contribution to be calculated in accordance with the Government Actuary's evaluation. My study of the statute, about which I hesitate, confirms that. Under that section, the recalculation of the Exchequer's contribution takes effect when the Government Actuary's report is laid before the House. In the present case, the Government Actuary's report covered the three years from 1 April 1987, and recommended a lower contribution with effect from 1 April 1989.
As far as I am aware, in previous years there has been no suggestion that the recommendations of the Government Actuary should be altered or rejected. The 1972 Act does not provide for that possibility. However, I acknowledge that we have not previously been confronted with a surplus in the fund—certainly not on this scale—or with a recommendation that the Exchequer should reduce its contribution. With that in mind, my predecessor gave the commitment that the House would have an opportunity to debate the Government Actuary's report before any decisions were taken.
Mr. Joseph Ashton: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: May I just finish my point?
I regret that that may have misled the House into believing that the Government Actuary's recommendations would not take effect in the usual way. It appears that that is not the case and, although we are having a debate on the subject, the recommendations automatically took effect for the year starting April 1989.
Mr. Ashton: Will the Leader of the House give an estimate of how much the Exchequer will save over the next eight years by cutting its contribution?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I would not like to give an estimate, but I think that I am right in saying that the surplus was £7·4 million. The reduced contribution is not designed to eliminate that, but to bring it back to a level that would sustain a contribution of 11 per cent. from 1989 onwards.
Mr. Ashton: Was it over £20 million?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: No. The total surplus to be reduced over the next eight years is £7·4 million, after which a normal contribution of 11 per cent. would be introduced. An Exchequer contribution of 18 per cent. for several years generated the balance, and has resulted in the recommendation that its contribution should be lower from now on.
Mr. Stanley Orme: Does the Leader of the House agree that the anomaly is that the Government Actuary can look only at the Exchequer contribution and not at Members' contributions? If the Actuary had been able to consider both contributions, he could have come up with a more sensible proposition.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Actuary is permitted to look only at the Treasury contribution as a result of the provisions of the 1972 Act. However, I would not want him to conclude that a dramatic change would necessarily result from the scrutiny of both contributions. If the greater part of the surplus was accumulated because of the high contribution of 18 per cent. by the Exchequer, that would have to be reflected in any recommendations from the Actuary.
I readily acknowledge that we are in dangerous waters on this issue. Against the factual background, I shall offer hon. Members some insight into the considerations which I think were taken into account in the most recent redesign of the system. Whatever hon. Members may say now, under the 1972 Act the Exchequer contribution was clearly intended to be the residual. It is normal for valuation changes to reflect on the employer's contribution rate since that is normally regarded as the residual, rather than the employee contribution.
In our case, the employer is the Exchequer, and its contribution was designed by the legislation to be the variable and to take account of any changes in economic trends. The Exchequer contribution has been as high as 18 per cent.—13 per cent. plus a 5 per cent. deficiency payment—since the previous evaluation report. The proposed dip to 4·4 per cent. to keep the fund in balance can be seen—this is the argument behind the legislation—as a temporary compensating relief for the higher Exchequer contribution of earlier years. The contribution was assessed in 1984 with the same aim—to keep the fund in balance.
Mr. Frank Haynes: The Government contribution being reduced 11 per cent. to 4·4 per cent. was a twist.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: Unusually, I did not catch the hon. Gentleman's intervention, although I have no doubt that it was an intelligent one.
During contribution holidays—as they are described—the bulk of public and private schemes leave employee contributions unchanged, as it is generally agreed that fluctuations in the employee rate are undesirable because they give rise to uncertainty.
Sir Peter Hordern rose——
Sir Geoffrey Howe: Before I give way to my hon. Friend, I appreciate that the House may argue that the figure of 9 per cent., which was an advance on the originally recommended figure of 8 per cent., suggests that there may have been some over-enthusiasm of judgment on the part of the House.
Sir Peter Hordern: I accept what my right hon. and learned Friend says about the role of the Government Actuary, and about the 1972 Act. However, the Review Body on Top Salaries has a different attitude. In successive reports it has been suggested what the relationship between the Treasury contribution and the employee's contribution should be. It has recommended the level of Members' contributions, and that level has differed from time to time. Last year's TSRB report was unusual because it accepted 9 per cent. as though it had no power to recommend otherwise. If it had recommended, as I think it should, that Members' contributions should have been significantly lower, which would have been proper according to the Actuary, all would have been well. Perhaps we shall have the opportunity to debate that later.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend draws attention to an issue that I have already foreshadowed. In justice to history and to the previous legislation, I should expand the underlying rationale.
Mr. Harry Ewing: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
Sir Geoffrey Howe: If the hon. Member will forgive me, I should come to a conclusion.
In favourable economic circumstances, it is not unusual for the employer's rate to fall and to be lower than the employee's rate. That certainly happens in the private sector and the public sector. The question is whether the right balance has resulted from the original legislative provisions, and the impact of the Government Actuary's report and the TSRB recommendations.
I have given in full the arguments for following the Government Actuary's recommendations, as we have done in the past. I do not think that they are likely to be set aside, but my mind is not closed. I should be foolishly over-confident if I closed my mind on any aspect of this matter. If the House expresses a clear view or preference for any improvement in the scheme, including changes in the contributions structure, I and the Government accept that the TSRB should be invited to consider all such suggestions for improved benefits.
I emphasise that any consideration by the TSRB would have to include the central question of who is to pay and what is the fair basis for payments in the long term. I think the whole House would wish that.
I hope that the process of considering possible future recommendations in the light of today's debate will not stand in the way of implementing the outstanding recommendations of the TSRB's 26th report. I visualise, after this debate, the relatively early introduction of two pieces of legislation: first, regulations to implement the TSRB recommendations for all Members of Parliament, including the revised early retirement arrangements, the improved death-in-service grants, and any other recom?mendations that result from tonight's discussions—for example, revised arrangements for Members of the European Parliament; and secondly, a Bill to implement

315
the changes affecting the three most senior office holders and severance pay for Ministers and office holders, except for the Prime Minister and Mr. Speaker.
I wish to ensure that, after the passage of those two pieces of legislation, any further changes that might arise from the next round of TSRB considerations can themselves be implemented by secondary legislation to avoid the need for more than one Bill on the subject in the current Parliament. I am anxious that we should give ourselves the freedom to proceed through secondary legislation: it may already be in our power, but I am not confident enough to say so in terms.
We have a good scheme, and we should build on it as the TSRB report recommends. Many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House clearly hold strong views on some aspects of the scheme, and—as I said at the outset—I look forward to listening to those views with
care and attention.
5 pm
Mr. Stanley Orme: I thank the Leader of the House for his introductory speech. I remind him and the House that we are discussing a House of Commons matter, not a party-political matter. The House has overturned recommendations and decisions made by past Governments, and hon. Members on both sides of the House have often had to make difficult decisions themselves. Public reaction is often ill-informed, and it is therefore important that we examine this matter in some detail.
I consider the TSRB report disappointing and negative. It does not take account of the problems faced by Members and the staff of the House, and by their dependants. Far from improving matters, the report—coupled with the Government Actuary's report—makes them worse. When I gave evidence to the TSRB, I presented what I considered to be relevant but modest proposals on behalf of hon. Members who are asking not for benefits in excess of those given to other sectors, but to be treated on an equal basis with both the private and public sectors. There is no need for me to apologise for such a request; compared with the salaries and pensions in other European and Commonwealth Parliaments, our proposals are extremely modest.
The Leader of the House said that we had improved our position, and so we have. It was only in 1964, however, that a pension scheme for Members of Parliament was initiated, and we all know of hon. Members on both sides of the House who left after that time and experienced considerable financial difficulty. Slowly, we built on the scheme, and I hope that we shall continue to do so.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: Is not one of the most disappointing features of the report its failure to deal adequately with widows' pensions? Many hon. Members do not come to the House until they are in their 30s or 40s, but the widow of an hon. Member who was here for 15 years may be left, in her early 50s, expecting no more than £3,900. The figure should be doubled so that widows receive a realistic pension. That is what worries us most of all.
Mr. Orme: I agree, and other hon. Members will doubtless develop that point.
316
I hope that the Leader of the House will take note of the strong feelings of hon. Members on both sides of the House. Before I deal with the more contentious issues, let me say that the proposal to increase the death-in-service grant to two years' salary is a welcome improvement. I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it should be retrospective to the beginning of the Parliament.
I support the view of the House of Commons trustees that it is not necessary to have two schemes to deal with early retirement: that, in my view, would lead to confusion. A single scheme should apply, whether the retirement takes place during a Parliament or at its dissolution. Again, I feel that any scheme proposed by the TSRB should be retrospective to the beginning of the Parliament. Normally, the TSRB reports only once in each Parliament. In this instance representations were made very early in the Parliament, but only now—when, as the Leader of the House has acknowledged, we are nearly halfway through the Parliament—are we discussing the report.
The limited proposals regarding ex-Ministers, the Speaker and former Prime Ministers are indeed very limited, and should have been part of a package dealing with the central issue of Members' contributions and pensions. I shall say more about that later.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark) mentioned widows' pensions. Widows' and widowers' pensions are still extremely low—lower than the normal industrial level. I could quote cases of real hardship among hon. Members on both sides of the House, and in some instances that hardship is still being experienced. I believe that the pension should be increased from half the amount of the pension for which the former Member was eligible to a minimum of two thirds of that amount. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris)—who is chairman of the trustees—catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, he will no doubt develop that subject further.
Mr. Richard Holt: The report talks of increasing death-in-service grants and widows' pensions from one to two years' salary but refers to payment of a Member's salary for one year "or" repayment of the contributions made. Does that mean that those who receive the repayment will not receive the increase, or that someone whose spouse receives a lump sum will lose the repaid contributions?
Mr. Orme: I am afraid I cannot answer that question, but it is important and will no doubt be examined. I also noticed that passage in the report.
Mr. Frank Haynes: We all realise that the pension scheme does not give widows a fair deal. If the Lord President had said at the Dispatch Box that the Government's contributions would not be reduced from 11 per cent. but that widows would be given a bit more, he might have been rather better off. Does my right hon. Friend agree, however, that the staff of the pensions department, Mr. Jim Dobson and Mr. Tony Lewis—whom I welcome back after his illness—are doing a first-class job on our behalf?
Mr. Orme: I agree, and no doubt when the Leader of the House reviews today's debate he will take into account the points made about widows and widowers.

317
Severance pay—or resettlement grant, as it is now known—is not affected by pension proposals, although it was discussed by the TSRB. It is funded directly from the Exchequer. Many hon. Members, however, have raised with me questions about both the amount paid to Members with a short period of service and the cut-off point at 65 years of age. Payment at present is equivalent to six months salary for those with less than 10 years' service, rising on a graduated scale to a full year's salary for those aged 55 and over with 15 years' service. The simplest and most socially just solution would be to assist those Members who have completed only a short period of service by making an upward adjustment and raising the cut-off point for all Members.
The modest suggestion that MEPs' pension rights should he treated differently from those of Members of Parliament is clearly unjust and wrong. There is a direct link between the pension contributions of MEPs and Members of Parliament, and the suggestion that they should be able to aggregate their pensions should be acceded to. I note the point about resettlement grants made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington (Mr. Boyes).
Certain problems have caused great distress to the dependants and staff of a deceased Member. It is completely wrong that any payments due to staff should be linked to the estate of the deceased and that the staff are asked to leave the House on the day following a Member's death because no proper structure exists to deal with that eventuality.
When a well-known Conservative Member died fairly recently, his secretary did not receive her salary or her P45 from the executors of his estate until long after his death. She had to take out a bank loan to cover her necessary expenses pending settlement of her salary from the estate. I stress that no blame whatsoever is attached to the family of the deceased, but right hon. and hon. Members will agree that that is a ridiculous system which must be changed.
A number of hon. Members have rightly mentioned the salaries and working conditions of staff in the Palace of Westminster. Although that goes wider than the immediate issues raised by the TSRB, the House must not overlook those important matters.
On Members' pensions, the House will be aware, as the Leader of the House has made clear, that a decision to deduct 9 per cent. of salary was upheld by the review body. However, that brings no increased benefits except for minor adjustments as outlined in paragraph 40 of the TSRB report. Paragraph 32 of the Government Actuary's report makes the startling suggestion that the Treasury contribution be reduced to 4·5 per cent. That flies in the face of what is accepted in industry in the private and public sectors, where the employer normally pays two thirds and the employee pays one third.
The Government Actuary makes that proposal based on the Treasury contribution and the healthy state of the fund. The report of the Government Actuary is extremely one-sided because he is not empowered by legislation to comment on Members' contributions, only on the Treasury contribution. That proposal turns the basis of our pension scheme upside down.
The Exchequer contribution is based on a multiple of two with a 9 per cent. contribution from the Member. That means that the Treasury contribution should be 18 per cent. producing a total of 27 per cent. The Actuary
318
proposes reducing the Treasury contribution to 4·41 per cent. leaving the Member's contribution at 9 per cent., thereby reducing the total contribution to 13·41 per cent.—a dramatic reduction from 27 per cent.—all with effect from 1 April 1989.
To bring the scheme in to line with accepted practice, the Treasury contribution should be 18 per cent. making the total 27 per cent. Given the present state of the fund, nobody is suggesting that. Before the implementation of the Actuary's report, the Member will contribute 9 per cent. and the Treasury will contribute 13 per cent.—well below the usual factor of two.
If some readjustment is needed because of the high level of the fund, either the benefits should be improved or there should be a reduction of the Member's contribution as well as that of the Treasury. For instance, there could be a reduction of 2·5 per cent. in the Member's contribution, bringing it down to 6·5 per cent., and the Treasury contribution could remain at 13 per cent. Alternatively, the Member's contribution could remain at 9 per cent. and widows' and widowers' benefits should be improved accordingly.
The Leader of the House raised the matter of excess contributions. The position needs to be examined, because eventually many hon. Members will be making contributions when they can get no increased benefits because they will have reached the limit.
It is worth putting on record the fact that our salary is based on 89 per cent. of a senior principal grade. It is estimated that, when wage negotiations are taking place, civil servants' contributions are based on 6 per cent. Where is the "fair comparison"—the term used in such negotiations—for hon. Members?
A substantial increase in contribution, no increase in benefit and a dramatic reduction of the Treasury contribution, which in the short term, could have a detrimental effect on the fund cannot be right. Therefore, I hope that the debate will make the Lord President aware of the strong feelings in the House. We are asking only for natural justice which has not been obtained through the current TSRB report or by the Actuary's recommendation.
If necessary, some of the issues could and should be referred back to the TSRB. The House will certainly want to discuss the matter in more detail before any final decisions are reached.
5.17 pm
Sir William Clark: I have read the Government Actuary's reports for 1984 and for 1987. There seems to be some illogicality in our approach to Members' pensions. According to the 1984 report, the Member was paying 9 per cent. and the Exchequer was paying 18 per cent. The 1987 report suggested that the Member paid 9 per cent. and the Exchequer 4·4 per cent. In the meantime, the fund has grown from nearly £42 million to more than £84 million, so it has doubled in the past three years. The real bone of contention is what should be done with the surplus.
In a private occupational pension scheme, if the fund increases in value to more than 105 per cent.—that is a 5 per cent. increase—the scheme must get rid of that surplus. There are two ways in which that can be done. Either the employer can take it out of the pension fund or it can be used to provide a contributions holiday. If the employer

319
takes out that surplus, the company pays 40 per cent. tax—the rate is higher than corporation tax. That is Government fiscal policy which was imposed because, quite rightly, the Government thought it unfair that an employer could take money out of a pension fund—which belongs partly to the employee—without any penalty and do nothing for the employee. Consequently, companies refrain from taking any surplus out of occupational pension schemes because of the 40 per cent. immediate tax liability, which has nothing to do with the company's profits, is payable irrespective of losses and is entirely different from corporation tax.
If that is the logic of the Government—and I am sure that they have not changed their logic—in our pension fund, which in many ways is analogous to a private pension fund, why does the employer or the Exchequer effectively take the lot without any penalty? In many cases, when there is a surplus in the private sector after revaluation, the contribution holiday is invariably shared between the employer and employees. Alternatively, the pension benefits are improved. I agree with the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) that, irrespective of the Top Salaries Review Body, it would be a good idea for hon. Members to consider increasing widows' benefits. In addition, something should be done to help our ex-colleagues who are suffering hardship.
Figures up to last year show that Members contributed 9 per cent. and the Exchequer contributed 18 per cent. I cannot understand the logic of the Government's argument, because, in those circumstances, one third of the surplus belongs to hon. Members and two thirds belongs to the Exchequer.
I welcome the Leader of the House saying that he will discuss with the trustees the possibility of their contribution continuing after a Member has achieved full entitlement. I remind my right hon. and learned Friend that, under the state pension, if an employee continues working after 65 the employer continues to pay his contribution, but the employee ceases to pay his national insurance contribution. That could be the yardstick for hon. Members who have paid their contributions and reached full entitlement. The Government should follow the same system as the state retirement scheme, whereby, when an employee reaches full entitlement, he makes no contribution but the Exchequer continues to pay.
I pay tribute to the trustees of the pension fund and their advisers for achieving the excellent result of doubling the size of the fund over the past three years. I am sure that all hon. Members agree that they have done an excellent job.
There is an anomaly in how we deal with the fund's surplus. It is funny that, if there is a deficit, one tries to brush it under the carpet, but when there is a surplus, arguments ensue. I am delighted that my right hon. and learned Friend said that his mind is not closed to the possibility of bringing the system more in line with the logic of private pension schemes.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am listening carefully to what my hon. Friend is saying, but he may be under a misapprehension about the scale of the surplus above actuarial liabilities—I am not challenging the legitimacy of
320
his argument—which was £7·4 million. The fund is much larger than that, but I should not like there to be any misunderstanding about the scale of the surplus.
Sir William Clark: I agree that the surplus is immaterial. I am asking why we do not follow the example of private occupational pension schemes. What matters is not the amount of the surplus but the principle involved. If a private employer removes the surplus from a pension fund, he is heavily taxed above the rate of corporation tax. Consequently, his only alternative is a contribution holiday, during which the employers' contribution is not always reduced but is usually shared between him and his employees. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will consider that.
5.24 pm
Mr. Alfred Morris: I am most grateful to the Leader of the House for referring so kindly to my role and work and that of my fellow trustees on both sides of the House.
The House will expect me, as chairman of the managing trustees of the parliamentary contributory pension fund, to give their views on both the Top Salaries Review Body's proposals—some good, some less so—and the report from the Government Actuary on the valuation of the fund, in which he recommends a cut in the Treasury's contribution from 11 per cent. to only 4·4 per cent.
As trustees who are selected by the House to manage the fund, we try our best to improve its provisions in the interests both of Members, past and present, and their dependants. There have been many improvements over recent years in which the trustees have taken the leading role, including a faster accrual rate, the age-service conditions for early retirement at a general election and the provision for ill-health retirement pensions.
There is, however, a very strong and urgent case for further improvements which are now threatened, notably by the Government Actuary's recommendation that has cut the Treasury's contribution to only 4·4 per cent. I must therefore very strongly emphasise that it is ultimately for the House to decide, not the Actuary or the TSRB, if and when further improvements should be made. The scheme is a statutory one and Members have it within their power to improve its provisions.
The staging of this debate on a motion for the Adjournment does not permit of any amendment by which the House can make decisions today on the TSRB's proposals or the Government Actuary's recommendation. The House may think that this is curiously contrary to the spirit of an undertaking given on behalf of the Government by the right hon. Member for the City of London and Westminster, South (Mr. Brooke), who was then Minister of State, Treasury, during the passage of the Parliamentary and Other Pensions Act 1987:
"time will be made available for a debate on an amendable motion before any regulations amending the scheme are made under clause 2."—[Official Report, 13 May 1987; Vol. 116, c. 371.]
This debate may not be strictly covered by the letter of that undertaking, but I know that its spirit encouraged many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to hope that today's debate would take place on an amendable motion, preferably with an all-party amendment tabled by the managing trustees.
That has not been allowed to happen and I shall therefore set out the views of the trustees and also give the

321
House our advice on the response that it should make to the two reports where they affect our remit. I stress the word "our" remit, as some of the TSRB's recommenda?tions go beyond the trustees' responsibilities: for example, those on severance pay for Ministers and resettlement grants for Members.
Soon after they were published, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's predecessor made it clear that he proposed to accept the TSRB's proposals, and to give them legislative effect. It has to be said that he could hardly have done anything else, given the very tightly drawn terms of reference that he had dictated to the TSRB. Nevertheless, the trustees were grateful that the death-in-service benefit was soon to be raised to the level prevailing in most public-sector schemes—two years' salary. This is an improvement which we have advocated for some time and I welcome the right hon. and learned Gentleman's decision to give it retrospective effect.
We also welcomed the proposed further improvements to the early retirement provisions. They will give many right hon. and hon. Members more flexibility over retirement and will mean that more of our colleagues between the ages of 60 and 65, who have fewer than 20 years' service, will no longer face the agonising decision of whether to take an actuarially reduced pension or to defer drawing their pension until they are 65. That is something for which the trustees, with others, have long campaigned. On a personal note, I should like here to pay tribute to the late Brynmor John, who took so informed and constructive an interest in the scheme, and whose loss to the House is still felt very deeply by all his parliamentary colleagues.
The trustees are much less happy about the recommendation that the Member's contribution should remain at 9 per cent. I should explain, for the benefit of those who were not Members at the time, that the figure of 9 per cent. was not the actuarially assessed cost of the revised pension package then agreed, but rather a device to deal with a revolt over parliamentary pay among the Government's Back Benchers in July 1983. In the view of many, the figure of 9 per cent. was not only incomprehensible but reprehensible.
The latest survey of occupational pension schemes, by the National Association of Pension Funds, shows that in 1988, across the board, employees contributed 4·4 per cent. to the cost of their pensions and employers 8·8 per cent.—precisely twice as much. On that basis, in our scheme, Members would pay 6⅔ per cent. and the Exchequer 13⅓ per cent. Yet we have been paying 9 per cent. since January 1987, and to eliminate the fund's surplus—which that needlessly high level of personal contribution has helped to create—the Exchequer's stake is now reduced to less than half of the Member's contribution. That is shabby.
Under the Parliamentary and Other Pensions Act 1972, the Government Actuary is required to determine the contribution from the Exchequer that is needed to balance the scheme's assets and liabilities. This means—and it is essential for it to be very clearly understood by the House as a whole—that the scheme cannot stay in surplus, no matter how well the investments perform.
The House needs to understand, too, a little of the history of the pension arrangements for Members, which were first introduced with effect from 16 October 1964. While contributions had to be made to the fund only from that date, pension accrued in respect of up to 10 years—
322
later increased to 15 years—of service prior to that date. The cost of that concession—and the Act was quite specific—was to be met by a deficiency contribution from the Exchequer, payable over 25 years. It is important to bear in mind that the 1965 Act provided for the review, and the variation up or down as necessary, of Members' contributions and/or of benefits. Under the 1972 Act, which restructured the pensions provisions, the accrued pension rights of Members then in service were improved, at a cost to be borne by the Exchequer.
In his first report, on 27 November 1973, under section 5 of the 1972 Act, the Government Actuary indicated that the deficiency contribution to fund pensions in respect of service prior to 1 April 1972 was to be payable over 25 years from 1 January 1972. It was assessed at 7·75 per cent. in that report, had fallen to 6 per cent. at the valuation as of 1 April 1984, and has now disappeared some eight years early.
When the pension accrual rate was increased under the 1984 Act, the Government promised Members the opportunity to purchase a limited number of added years at a special price—40 per cent. of the cost—which is why the facility became known as "subsidised added years". The balance of the cost—60 per cent.—was to be borne by the Exchequer. I have to report to the House that no such contribution has been made to be fund.
All this means that the current membership is meeting the balance of a deficiency contribution which was intended to be a charge on the Exchequer. It also means that the subsidised element of the added years facility, which the Government said would be borne by the Exchequer, is effectively being paid by the current membership, some of whom did not take advantage of the facility. Others were not even Members when it was on offer. How then, with justice, can the Leader of the House possibly refuse to accept a reapportionment of contribu?tions as between Members and the Exchequer?
The House will wish to note that improvements in the scheme are now effectively vetoed, since successful investment management merely results in a reduction in the Exchequer contribution. The more the trustees succeed, the more they benefit not members of the scheme but the Exchequer.
Mr. Ray Powell: I appreciate the trustees' work in the matter, but is it true that they could have predicted a surplus accruing over the three years of the review? Would it not have been in order for the trustees to recommend extra payment of pensions, widows' benefits and so on before the three years had elapsed, so that the £7·5 million surplus could have been spent before this Government review?
Mr. Morris: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As the fund's performance improved, we made repeated representations in support of improvements. We gave evidence to the TSRB about a shopping list of improvements that we thought were necessary. I shall refer to some of them as I proceed. If I cannot give way again, it is because I want to conclude my speech as quickly as I can although I am, of course, giving the House what is in the nature of a report from the managing trustees.
I ask the House, in considering whether and when to use its own ultimate power to alter the scheme, also to take very careful note of the fact that our scheme compares

323
most unfavourably with others, in terms both of the proportion of its costs paid for by Members and of some of the benefits that it provides.
There are many precedents for sharing the benefits of the contributions holiday that the Treasury is now set to enjoy in relation to our scheme. For example, the Daily Express on 4 May last reported Reed International's proposal to distribute some of the excess funds in its pension scheme, which gave some employees a 90 per cent. rise in pensions.
More recently, it was reported by the Financial Times that, as a result of surpluses in British Rail's pension fund, employees were to pay only a 5 per cent. contribution. In addition, the report states:
"substantial improvements in benefits have been made, in respect of both lump sum payments and of benefits for past service".
The trustees of the parliamentary scheme are acutely aware of the insistence, on both sides of the House, that widows' pensions must be increased. This debate is an opportunity to make the Government aware of that insistence and to offer suggestions for giving it effect. For the trustees, I must point out that, with the present surplus and continuation of a 9 per cent. contribution, we could meet the request by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) to increase forthwith the maximum widow's pension from 50 per cent. to 66⅔ per cent.
Such an increase ought certainly to have the wholehearted support of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury who, in the debate on the Finance Bill on 12 July, said:
"The really unsatisfactory feature of pensions provision is the millions of ordinary scheme members who do not receive a pension anywhere near the maximum allowable under the tax rules".—[Official Report, 12 July 1989; Vol. 156, c. 1074.]
The widows of our former colleagues, many of whom live in straitened circumstances, can be added to those millions.
As of now, the maximum widow's pension that can be awarded is of the order of £8,000, but I must stress that very few, if any, widows of Members can expect anything like that sum. For anyone to do so, until relatively recently, her husband would have had to serve continuously in Parliament for 40 years. Given that the average parliamentary career is no more than 17 to 18 years, a widow's pension under our scheme will average no more than £3,000. At his death in 1984, the widow of a former colleague and very close friend of mine, with total service of over 20 years, was entitled to less than £50 a week. That, too, is shabby.
Referring to the pensions paid to Members' widows in a debate on 27 April 1987, Sir Anthony Kershaw, then a trustee of the fund and the Conservative Member for Stroud, said:
"It is an absolute disgrace that this should be tolerated and even to speak of it ought to give one a sense of shock.—[Official Report, 27 April 1987; Vol. 115, c. 104.]
That is but one compelling reason for resisting the reduction of the Exchequer contribution to less than half that paid by Members.
As the House knows only too well, Members do not enjoy security of tenure. The nature of the job in today's world is stressful and imposes a very heavy strain on family life. It is for these, among other reasons, that the
324
trustees want the TSRB now to be asked to look again at the basis for determining widows' pensions. The trustees are advised—and here I pay tribute to my fellow trustee, the hon. Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern), who has worked long and very painstakingly on comparisons with other schemes, and who I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, hopes to catch your eye—that current best practice in private sector schemes is to provide a widow's pension of up to two thirds of the former employee's pension.
That is what we seek and we urge the House to support a two thirds pension for widows. But it will require a re-examination of the basis upon which our scheme is funded and administered. There is evidence, as I have shown, taking occupational schemes as a whole, that costs are borne in the proportion of 2:1 as between employers and employees. On that basis, even at 11 per cent. the Exchequer is already paying far too little. The TSRB has on three occasions recommended that Members' and Exchequer contributions should be fixed in the ratio of 3:5—and the trustees see no reason why that ratio, given in response to references made to the review body by successive Leaders of the House, should not be accepted.
We must ensure that, when the fund is in surplus, the Exchequer is not the sole beneficiary. It must surely be only fair that the membership of the fund ought to see some benefit, whether by way of higher benefits or reduced contributions. I am mindful also of the claims of existing pensioners.
In a further reference to the TSRB, the trustees want the review body to be asked to consider the following changes to the fund. First, contributions to the fund should in future be shared between Members and the Exchequer in the ratio 3:5.
Secondly, the Actuary's triennial report on the fund should in future recommend what the percentage rate of the Member's contributions should be for a further period of three years, on the assumption that benefits continue unchanged.
Thirdly, it should be for the House to decide, if the triennial report shows the fund to be in surplus or to have an emerging deficit, whether there should be a variation in the benefits provided, in the rate of the Member's contribution, or both.
Fourthly, if the House decides on a variation in the benefits provided, the Actuary should recommend what the percentage rate of Members' contributions should be for a further period of three years, having regard to that decision.
Fifthly, regulations to give effect to any decision of the House as to benefits, and to the appropriate recommenda?tion of the Actuary as to contributions, should be made under the Parliamentary and Other Pensions Act 1987.
Given these changes in the scheme, Members would be much better served and their dependants much better protected. At the same time, the trustees would no longer be placed in the position of seeing all their work to improve the scheme's assets result in a lower contribution from the Exchequer alone.
The TSRB might well also be asked to compare our scheme to other parliamentary schemes across the world. To give but one example, Australia has a parliamentary scheme which is infinitely better than ours.
I am glad to have been able to indicate both the current restraints on the trustees of our scheme and the way forward if we are to achieve the improvements we seek, not least for Members' dependants. I hope not only that my

325
proposals will be given due attention by both sides of the House, but that they will soon be translated into practice. The House has the power to make that happen.
To conclude, I must place on record, on behalf of the trustees and, indeed, all Members and their dependants, our appreciation of the quiet and painstaking, but unseen administrative work of Jim Dobson, Tony Lewis, Moreen McColl and all who work and have worked with them so unstintingly to help members of the scheme, past and present, and their dependants. The House as a whole owes them its gratitude.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): The debate must conclude at 7 o'clock and as I understand that at least a dozen hon. Members will be seeking to catch my eye, I very much hope that we can have brief speeches.
5.45 pm
Sir Peter Hordern: I start by congratulating the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) on his work as chairman of the parliamentary trustees. We have met often and have thought carefully about the recommendations that we have made. We have met my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House on a number of occasions and have made proposals to strengthen and improve the existing provisions of the fund.
I begin by saying something about the nature of our fund because outside this place it may be thought that we are concerned only with improving our own conditions at taxpayers' expense. It is important to recognise the distinction between a funded scheme and a pay-as-you-go scheme. The Civil Service has a pay-as-you-go scheme and the benefits are paid according to need. It is not a funded scheme; it does not come out of the investments that have resulted from contributions made by the employer and the employee. That is an important distinction, because we are not asking for more money from the taxpayer. We are talking about how best to reduce our demand on the taxpayer—whether that should be done by reduced contributions from hon. Members or by improving and increasing the benefits available to hon. Members and their dependants. As I have said, it is an important distinction.
I welcome very much what my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House has said and his proposal to refer the debate to the TSRB. We should bear it in mind not only that the fund has done very well under the investment advisers and managers whom we are happy and fortunate to have, but that when it was last valued —the subject of the Government Actuary's report—it stood at about £87 million. However, the latest valuation is £104 million. It is a triennial valuation and as the last one was made in 1987, the next is due this year. We should ask the TSRB to look again at this whole business, because it is clear that the substantial surplus upon which the Government Actuary reported has been exceeded by recent movements in the value of the fund. That appears a good reason for an urgent review of the fund and of our benefits.
Our scheme is a funded one and hon. Members contribute 9 per cent. That is the highest rate of any funded scheme in the country. I may be wrong, but I have made extensive searches and I have not yet come across a funded
326
scheme in which the employees pay such a high contribution. I shall return to the comparisons later because some of those other provisions are more in line with what we should be doing.
It is important to view the 9 per cent. employees' contribution in relation to what the employer pays. I agree with what the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe said about how we reached the figure of 9 per cent. in the first place. It was a great mistake. It was done rather quickly, and probably rather late at night, without anyone fully realising the consequences.
Even though 9 per cent. was decided in a moment of aberration, it is curious that the TSRB did not consider the matter seriously in the context of the total contribution made. The TSRB's latest proposal was that the total contribution required was 20 per cent., not 22 per cent. On all previous occasions, the TSRB said that the relationship between the Government's contributions and Members' contributions should be three eighths—that is, three parts Members' contributions and five parts Government contributions. That was the case in 1976 and 1983.
Only on this latest occasion did the TSRB accept the 9 per cent. contribution from Members' as correct without considering its role. That is regrettable. The role of the TSRB was to decide what contributions were appropriate for employers and employees. I hope that when it considers the position again it will revert to its former responsibility for judging what contributions should be made by Members and the Treasury.
I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House that in some respects our scheme is good. We have an accrual rate of fiftieths rather than sixtieths. That is right because in general new Members of Parliament join the House in their early 40s. Sometimes they join earlier, but that is the most common age. A large number of accruals need to be made in a comparatively short period. Our scheme is not like an ordinary company-funded scheme which members can expect to join at 20 and have a long period of service. As we mostly join at 40, it is right that we should have special consideration. Fiftieths are a proper proportion.
Regrettably, there is a great deal of difference in the experiences of hon. Members. Some of us have a long period in the House and others have a short time. The turnover is significant. I asked one head of an actuarial department of a large insurance company his opinion of our starting rate of 9 per cent. He said that he could not advise any new member of any scheme that he ran to accept such a large contribution. That is a fact worth knowing.
Our scheme should reflect the nature of its membership. On the whole, we enter it late and, for some at least, there is a rapid turnover. It is important to ensure that our scheme does not provide any advantages that are not available to others in the private sector. The difference is that we pay for our contributions and we have a separate fund to which we have contributed. It is in every way our fund. The benefits that we receive come from our contributions. That is not the case with civil servants who do not have a funded scheme. However, like us, they have guaranteed index-linking. That is another advantage of our scheme.
Civil servants have some prospect of promotion. We live in a curious place which can be described only as a beehive. One spends one's early years here as a drone. Then the queen bee picks one up and one becomes a

327
worker. Then, before one knows what is happening, one ceases to be a worker and becomes a drone again. What sort of basis is that on which to evolve a properly run pension scheme? It is difficult to keep up with the whole business. That would not be acceptable in the Civil Service. It would not be allowed for one moment. Nor would the prospect of total extinction by an ungrateful electorate be acceptable in the Civil Service.
We have real problems in adjusting the scheme to what is proper and fair. It is fair to compare our contribution rate with the high contributions paid by firemen and the police. As I said, ours are the highest contributions to any funded scheme that I can find. It is true that firemen and the police make a higher contribution.
Mr. Orme: They have early retirement.
Sir Peter Hordern: As the right hon. Gentleman says, the reason is that they have early retirement. For example, the police retire at the age of 50. If people retire early, they can look forward to another career but for hon. Members who retire at 60 or over, the market for employment is strictly limited. Their case is not the same.
Mr. Ashton: Some of us may not have the chance to speak tonight. The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned severance pay, about which he is an expert. What about the peculiar circumstances of a person aged 49 with 15 years' service who receives six months' severance pay and has to look for another job? That is ludicrous. Have the trustees considered that and decided to increase the severance pay?
Sir Peter Hordern: We have indeed considered that, and we have made recommendations. I have no doubt that we shall do so again.
I now come to the proposals that are appropriate to our scheme and those on offer in comparable public sector schemes. The police pay out sixtieths. After 20 years that is reduced to thirtieths. Policemen and women gain a particular advantage from staying in the police for over 20 years. They reach a smaller proportion than we do.
The previous proposals of the TSRB were that Members' contributions should be about 7·5 per cent. and Treasury contributions 12·5 per cent. That is the range that the TSRB normally considers. I hope that it will reconsider the matter and perhaps revert to that range. If not, we could consider what improvements could be made to the benefits and retain our 9 per cent. contribution. I believe that we should adopt that course. We would still make the highest contribution of any funded scheme.
The benefits paid under our scheme should be a model for other privately funded schemes. I shall refer to other more or less comparable schemes. British Airways has a scheme which, like ours, is fully index-linked. Members contribute 5·24 per cent. The employer pays 2·5 times as much. The retirement age is 60. The death-in-service benefit is three times the salary. We propose, as the House knows, a death-in-service benefit of twice the salary of the person who dies.
In the British Airways scheme, widows will receive two thirds of the full retirement pension of the member. In the British Gas scheme, the employee pays 6 per cent. and the employer pays 6 per cent. Again, it is index-linked and the death-in-service benefit is two years' salary. There are
328
good provisions for ill health in service, too. Widows receive only half the pension but there are early retirement provisions. The same is true of British Telecom. At British Coal, the contribution by members of the staff salary scheme is 6 per cent. At present the employers are having a five-year holiday, or it would be 12 years. The House will note that the Treasury is to have an eight-year rather than a five-year holiday. Mineworkers' contributions are 5·25 per cent. of salary, and the employers pay the same. At British Telecom, the employee pays 6 per cent. and the balance of the costs paid by the employer is between one and a half and two times the employee's contributions.
It is clear that our 9 per cent. contribution is high compared with all the other schemes. I suggest that the TSRB undertakes a serious comparison with other sectors which have fully funded schemes—for example, the local government service scheme where the contributions made by the employees are substantially lower than ours and where the benefits are significantly better.
It is important that our scheme demonstrates, in relation to our contributions, that we care to provide benefits, especially for those widows and widowers who come after us. Given the nature of our careers in this place, it is wrong for those who depend upon us to be subject to the whims of the electorate and other matters; nor is it right that they should be given such a low proportion of the final pension of a Member.
I am sure that hon. Members will suggest many other benefits that should be considered. In my opinion, the sooner the TSRB meets to consider the proposals and puts our scheme on a proper basis comparable with other public schemes, the better the House will be served.
6 pm
Mr. Alan Williams: I congratulate the hon. Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) on his speech and, especially, on the research and background work he has done on our behalf. He presented his case in a reasoned manner. I hope to present a case that is as well authenticated as that presented by the hon. Gentleman, but it is a slightly more indelicate one. Frankly, hon. Members have already been taken for a ride and have been ripped off by the Treasury—hon. Members may have gathered that from the information that they have already received.
We should reject out of hand the suggestion that the Treasury contribution should be dropped to 4·4 per cent. To substantiate my claim of a rip-off, it is important to look at the background to the case, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) has done. The hon. Member for Horsham was involved in at least one meeting in the mid-1980s to which I want to refer when we were negotiating the previous arrangements. In my then role as deputy shadow Leader of the House, I attended with Lord Dormand a meeting to negotiate, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) does today, on behalf of the parliamentary Labour party. It is important to remember what was suggested at the time of the previous settlement and negotiations.
The TSRB proposed a substantial pay increase for hon. Members and an increase in our pension contribution from 6 per cent. to 8 per cent. to bring our contribution into line with the notional contribution then being taken into account in Civil Service pay. That proposal did not

329
appeal to the Government and they rejected it—it was a political decision. They said that they were unwilling to go along with the proposed pay increase. Then the negotiations began. The Government were not only against the pay increase, but they wanted our pension contribution to be increased by 50 per cent. They wanted it to increase from 6 per cent. of salary not to 8 per cent., as recommended by the TSRB, but to 9 per cent. The outcome of those negotiations was a settlement on which we lost on both scores. I am sorry to say that the then chairman of the 1922 Committee, Mr. Edward du Cann, did not play a particularly beneficial role on behalf of hon. Members in those negotiations. I am afraid that he sold out hon. Members, as we lost on both scores.
In exchange for the pay increase that had been recommended for that year by the TSRB, we were told that we could have that increase over four years. For three of the four years, we lost the pay increase that we were due to have and, in the meantime, we also did not receive the further annual increments that one would have expected on the basis of that pay increase if it had been awarded at the threshold level. Therefore, on pay, we lost out twice. So that the Government should make us the great concession of paying our pay rise over four years, Edward du Cann felt that we should pacify the Government by giving them something in return—the 9 per cent. pension contribution.
Together with Lord Dormand I went to a meeting with the then Minister of State at the Treasury and the then Leader of the House—I believe that that was the meeting at which the hon. Member for Horsham was also present. I remember well my incredulity when I demonstrated, mathematically, that the extra percentage increase from 8 per cent. to 9 per cent. was unnecessary. The Treasury Minister, of all Ministers, said to me that he did not think that we should be discussing such matters on an actuarial basis. Of course he did not, because the figures were against him. I prophesied that, if we pursued that course, the pension fund would, inevitably, make a surplus. We are now discussing the very surplus that the Treasury said would not arise. I am not suggesting that that percentage increase was the sole cause of that surplus, but it had an important effect.
Now the Treasury has said—this is where the rip-off comes—that it should have full benefit of the surplus and that its contribution to the fund should be reduced from 11 per cent. to 4·4 per cent. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in common with the rest of us, have already been taken for a ride by the Treasury. We should ignore the 18 per cent. that the Leader of the House quoted, as there are all manner of elements in that figure that have nothing to do with our on-going pension scheme. One need only consider what the Government Actuary said in paragraph 28 of his 1987 report:
"The Exchequer contributions are much lower than those recommended in my 1984 valuation report."
In other words, we were made to pay more for our pensions than the TSRB had recommended while the Treasury is already paying lower contributions than the Government Actuary suggested. Although the pension fund surplus has nothing to do with the Treasury fulfilling its commitments, it wants the full benefit from it. In the wake of such richness, the poetic unpleasantness of the du Cann settlement becomes apparent.
In paragraph 28 of his report the Government Actuary states that one reason why we have a surplus in the pension fund is we did not have a pay rise and, because of that, our
330
envisaged pension rates were lower. Therefore, when assessing the future liabilities of the fund, the Actuary noted that the liabilities were lower than they otherwise would have been. Part of the fund's surplus arises from the fact that we gave up part of our pay rise and accepted an increase in our contributions to the pension fund.
The Government will shelter behind the fact that the Actuary has made a recommendation to them. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East and other right hon. and hon. Friends have already pointed out that that recommendation provides no such shelter because the Actuary, by statute, is required to express the Treasury contribution as a balancing sum against the going rate of contributions from Members.
The Government Actuary has said that the Treasury should contribute 4·4 per cent. to the fund, but he has not said that that contribution is necessarily or morally the correct proportion. He is just doing what the statute requires. The Actuary has said that, for the fund to meet its future liabilities—as long as we presume that Members go on paying at 9 per cent.—the Treasury needs to pay a 4·4 per cent. contribution only. That recommendation is arithmetically correct, but it has nothing to do with a value judgment as to how that surplus should be distributed. The Government are trying to shelter behind that recommen?dation when presenting their case.
The surplus should be distributed among the Members; we should receive the benefit. The surplus is probably bigger than the Treasury has admitted. In paragraph 31 of his report, the Actuary says, in essence, that, because his valuations are not carried out in the way that they would be for normal private pension funds, our surplus is smaller than it would have been if he had valued it on a normal basis. Therefore, we have a surplus which the Treasury says is about £7·4 million. The Actuary agrees that it is, but says that it would be more if he applied the rules which apply to every other pension fund.
Therefore, we can afford to look seriously at some important changes which should be undertaken. First, we should look at the possibility of a lump sum on retirement, as applies under many pension schemes, instead of just a lump sum if a Member is unfortunate enough to lose his or her seat. We should consider the possibility of applying a one-fiftieth formula to serving Members in the pre-1983 period. At present, the one-fiftieth formula goes back only to 1983. Many of us have early payments which are evaluated on the one-sixtieth formula. We should look at the possibility of the accrual rate for those whose payments do not reach the ceiling by the time they are 65 continuing beyond their 65th birthday to the full statutory ceiling. That is not possible under the present system. I think, as do all hon. Members, that the 66 per cent. widows' benefit is long overdue.
I shall make one final, cynical point. The Leader of the House slipped in and glossed over an important procedural suggestion. He talked about it being for the convenience of hon. Members and the House to have just one Bill during the life of a Government, and then umbrella legislation—orders based on the Bill—for carrying out other changes during that Parliament's lifetime.
I urge hon. Members to bear in mind what my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe said. He said that we are the people with the power eventually to decide the scheme's shape. However, if we allow the Government to switch to using subsidiary legislation, we cannot amend

331
it. Therefore, the occasions on which we as Members have the opportunity to table amendments to what the Government might propose will be limited.
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I do not want there to be any misunderstanding about this. When I discharge my functions in such matters I regard myself pre-eminently as the Leader of the House rather than as a member of the Executive. As we exercise the responsibilities of the kind described by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), we are exercising the powers of the House over taxpayers' resources and therefore it is important that we carry them out fairly and honourably.
When I made my suggestion I wanted not to deploy a covert objective of an ex-Treasury Minister, but to say that if we proceed expeditiously with the matters before us which have been largely agreed—almost all of which are capable of implementation by secondary legislation—we must be sure that we do not lose the opportunity to deal with further matters of that kind because they cannot be dealt with by secondary legislation.
I seek to ensure that we have the ability to do what the House wants us to do. I think that the existing primary legislation gives us that ability, but because of the curiosity the timing of the Government Actuary's report and its impact on what is happening, I made the suggestion. I did so not as a gamekeeper lurking in a Treasury role but as the Leader of the House.
Mr. Williams: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I am sure that none of us would challenge what he has said. In view of his comments about protecting our interests, he probably will not press any further the proposal relating to a single Bill. While he quite rightly says that almost anything any of us wants could be achieved under secondary legislation, a Bill would mean that proposals for change could come from anywhere in the Chamber. However, only the Government can initiate secondary legislation and what they initiate cannot be amended. Therefore, it is vital not to allow this procedural change to slide through, because it will severely limit our ability as Back Benchers, of whatever party, to influence the shape of the future of our fund.
6.16 pm
Sir Peter Tapsell: I wish to propose two improvements to our pension scheme. First, I echo what every speaker from the Back Benches and the Opposition Front Bench has said: we clearly should have two-thirds widows' pensions. That is the standard form in all good, new commercial pension fund arrangements and it is long overdue for this House. I hope that the Leader of the House has noted the unanimity on this issue and that the Top Salary Review Body will bear this in mind when it considers the proposal.
Secondly, the scheme should be improved by the qualifying length of parliamentary service to enable a Member to receive a full pension being substantially reduced. As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) said, at present Members have to serve in the House for between 33⅓ and 40 years, according to whether they were elected before or after July 1983, to qualify for the full pension.
332
As the hon. Gentleman also said, the average term of service in the House is about 17 years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) said, some hon. Members stay here for a much shorter time. My hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and I have been here almost since the Flood and, like our beloved leader, we hope to go on and on and on. But everyone cannot hope to do that, and it is unsatisfactory that such a large proportion of hon. Members can never hope to receive anything like the full pension.
The right hon. Member for Wythenshawe also said that many other Parliaments have much better schemes, in terms of a variety of benefits, than ours. He was absolutely right to mention Australia, but it is not only the Australian Parliament which has a better scheme. In Australia, a Member of Parliament qualifies for a full pension of three quarters of his final salary after 18 years of service.
When I was preparing for this debate I asked the Library to find out the qualifying periods in the two leading Commonwealth Parliaments and the two leading EEC Parliaments. It is interesting to make a comparison with those other Parliaments, bearing in mind the fact that our qualifying period is between 33⅓ and 40 years. Canadian Members of Parliament qualify for a full pension of three quarters of their average salary in the best six years, payable after 17 years service. French Members of Parliament receive the full pension after 22½ years service at a minimum age of 55. West German Members of Parliament can receive a full pension after 16 years of parliamentary service and at the age of 55.
Those figures for the two leading Commonwealth and EEC Parliaments present an extraordinary contrast with those for our own. I suggest that the qualifying length of parliamentary service to obtain a full pension on retirement here should be reduced to 20 years. Even then, because of the average length of service of 17 years, most Members will not be able to attain it.
In the past, various arguments have been advanced against the suggestion that our pensions are insufficient. One was that it is possible for Members who are not members of the Government to hold other paid occupations at the same time and thus obtain other pension rights. I have been able to do that, but only because I have been excluded from Government service. Other Members who are active and punctilious in their attendance at morning Committees find it extremely difficult to have other paid employment.
From reading the newspapers, one sometimes gets the impression that some of the outside jobs that my colleagues take on might have been better avoided. I do not believe that the argument that other paid employment is available stands up to examination.
It has also been argued that, after Members leave this House, they can find very good jobs. One reads of special cases of particularly famous Members who find highly remunerated posts after leaving the House, but that is extremely rare and is becoming rarer. Having discussed this with former Cabinet Ministers, I can say with some insight that even they are finding it very much more difficult to obtain employment, partly because there are far more ex-Cabinet Ministers about now.
It is argued by the Treasury—its favourite and understandable argument, known as the "open-door" argument—that my proposal would open the door to similar demands in the public service for pensions after much shorter periods of service, but that is not valid.

333
Parliamentary service is unique. I speak as one whose majority in my first constituency was 164—after three recounts—so I know that survival here depends not on how good a constituency Member one is but on the geographical area that a Member happens to represent and on the whims of the Boundary Commissioners, who may appear on the scene at any moment and take away 25,000 devoted constituents and replace them with 25,000 political opponents. These are terrors that civil servants do not have to face.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham rightly said, most Members enter the House in their forties so it would be appropriate for them after 20 years to reach the full pension of two-thirds of their final year's salary.
Finally, I echo what has been said so well by many hon. Members about the actuarial position of the fund. The fund is in surplus, as we have heard and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham explained clearly, it is funded, not pay-as-you-earn. As the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe pointed out, the usual practice is that the employer contributes twice as much as the employee. The new extraordinary proposal is that this should be reversed: we should continue to contribute at 9 per cent.—one of the highest contribution rates for employees in any funded pension fund—and the Treasury contribution should be reduced to 4·41 per cent. It has already notionally been reduced to that figure as of April 1989. So, far from the Treasury paying twice what we pay, we pay twice as much as our "employer", which is wholly unjustifiable.
It must also be borne in mind that, until recently, the Treasury contributed 18 per cent., so the suggestion of a 4·41 per cent. rate means that its contribution will drop to less than a quarter of what is has recently been.
I hope that the Leader of the House will sympathetic?ally consider these points and ask the Top Salaries Review Body to look at the suggestions of a two-thirds pension for widows and widowers and a 20-year qualifying period of service, and that my right hon. and learned Friend will ask the TSRB to treat these and our other recommendations with urgency so that its report can be submitted to the House in time for legislation this Session.
6.25 pm
Mr. James Lamond: I congratulate the Leader of the House on arranging this debate, belated and twice postponed though it is. I wonder whether the press, who are so anxious to suggest that Members of Parliament put their own benefits and salaries first, would care to consider that the top salaries review report that we are discussing dates from May 1988, while the more important Government Actuary report on the valuation of the pension fund was ordered to be printed on 1 April 1987. If we had waited another nine weeks the next report would have come out, with more up-to-date figures.
It has been amply demonstrated by hon. Members who have spoken that for the considerable contribution of 9 per cent., which takes some matching anywhere in the country, we do not get value for money. Now we find that in 1987, almost three years ago, the Actuary's valuation of the assets in our fund showed that it was £5·4 million in surplus. When suggesting a reduction in the Treasury's contribution, he extrapolated figures for 1989, by when he said that the fund would be £7·4 million in surplus—after,
334
by his own admission, having undervalued the assets. If the figure that the Actuary puts on the assets is correct, the true surplus three years ago was more than £13 million.
The considerable surplus must be distributed in one way or another—our contribution is certainly too high—and I strongly object to the Treasury taking the surplus for itself by reducing its contributions. There are several proposals about what could be done with that surplus.
Setting aside any improvement in our own conditions, what about hon. Members who retired or lost their seats early and whose pension is based on a salary which, it is now admitted, was very much less than it should have been? The pensions are tied to those lower salaries and some former hon. Members are drawing totally inadequate pensions. We should look at that. I know that it is difficult because there are all sorts of legalities and regulations in our pension fund, but after all it is our money. The 9 per cent. that we pay is clearly ours and any contribution from the Treasury could reasonably be considered as deferred wages. The report talks about the 6 per cent. in addition that the Treasury has paid. That was not paid to us and has nothing to do with us, but was paid because of the inadequacy or non-existence of a previous pension fund.
I shall be brief because other hon. Members want to speak. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) mentioned the resettlement allowance. I understand that that allowance is paid to hon. Members for any reason—voluntary retirement or perhaps the loss of a seat—up to the age of 64, provided that they retire at a general election. The timing of a general election is not a matter for Back-Benchers. The decision is made elsewhere. The position that I am outlining does not apply to me, but I know several hon. Members to whom it does apply. The timing of the general election could mean the difference between £26,701 and nothing, and one day could make that difference. The rule should be that the resettlement allowance will be paid to any hon. Member who retires or loses his seat, provided that he does so not later than the first general election after his 65th birthday. That would mean that every Member would have the opportunity to decide for himself whether to retire and receive the resettlement allowance.
Mr. Ashton: Does my hon. Friend agree that one problem is that the resettlement grant is paid out of the Consolidated Fund, not out of the pension fund, and that we have no say in it? Surely it would be better to pay that from the pension fund by using some of the surplus and to let the House decide? That would be much better.
Mr. Lamond: My hon. Friend is right. I was about to make that point. If we had it in our control we could use some of the surplus for the purpose that my hon. Friend mentioned.
The calculation of the resettlement allowance is complicated. It takes account of age and length of service and those matters can vary considerably. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw drew attention to the anomalies. The calculation should be much simpler. It should be one month's salary for every year of service in the House irrespective of age, perhaps with a minimum of three months' salary or some such set amount. That would make the calculation much simpler and fairer.

335
I want to see some fairness extended to people who were in this place before us and whose pensions are inadequate. I hope that the possibility of using the surplus, which is our money, will be considered.
6.34 pm
Mr. John Marshall: I declare an interest in paragraphs 30, 31 and 32 of the TSRB report. I shall be brief so that other Members who wish to take part in the debate will have a chance to do so.
It has been accepted for a long time that we should encourage cross-fertilisation between the European Parliament and national Parliaments. That is why Members of this House draw exactly the same salary as Members of the European Parliament and pay exactly the same contributions towards their pensions. We also draw exactly the same pension as Members of the European Parliament. However, there is one anomaly—it is referred to in paragraphs 30, 31 and 32—and there is no good reason for it. It should be a perfectly natural career pattern for Members of the European Parliament to seek election to this House and for Members here to seek election to the European Parliament. One hon. Member did that at the last European election but was unsuccesful. In Northern Ireland a former Member of the House took a European seat at that election.
Cross-fertilisation, with Members of this House standing for the European Parliament and vice versa, should be the norm. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House should look again at paragraph 32 because it is a complete anomaly as the salary, pension and contributions are all the same. My right hon. and learned Friend is a reasonable man, and I am sure that he will come to the conclusion that, not for the first time, the TSRB has erred.
6.36 pm
Mr. Harry Ewing: I shall begin by outlining how we have got into such a position over the pension fund. It is important to explain to those who listen to the debate and who read about it that we are talking about money paid from the salaries of hon. Members. The Government Actuary made an assessment of the liability of the fund for the three years from the date on which the assessment was made, and that assessment was based on certain factors.
If the Actuary recommends a reduction in the Treasury contribution, the 1972 legislation requires that recommen?dation to be acted upon without the need to come to the House. We should amend the 1972 Act so that, when the Actuary makes his recommendation about the Treasury contribution, it cannot be implemented until the House has given its approval. If we do not amend the 1972 Act, there is no doubt that Members in future Parliaments will find themselves in the position that we are in now.
To be fair to the Treasury and to the Leader of the House, I should say that they had no option but to implement the recommendation of the Actuary to reduce the Treasury contribution to 4·41 per cent. The decision is a fait accompli, and that is unsatisfactory. We are dealing with the question of what to do with the surplus. I share
336
the view of the hon. Member for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) that we should not reduce Members' contributions.
The Leader of the House said that, when there is a surplus in a pension fund, it is normal practice for the holiday to be enjoyed only by the employer. I shall give two contrasting examples of recent weeks from the Post Office and British Telecom. The public sector Post Office has a surplus in its fund, and its employees had their contributions reduced from 6·7 per cent. to 6 per cent. The private sector British Telecom has a massive surplus in its fund, but the employee's contribution has not been reduced and the British Telecom board has decided to take a holiday in relation to its contributions. We can all give similar examples to justify our arguments.
What should be done with the surplus? I am not in favour of reducing the contribution from 9 per cent., high though that may be. I am prepared to make such a contribution from my salary, as I suspect are right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House, provided that one eventually enjoys the benefits that such a contribution should provide. At present, that is not so. As there is a surplus, how should it be distributed?
At present, the pensions of Members of Parliament are made up of two accrual rates—one of 60 per cent. up to 1983 and another of 50 per cent. from 1983 to date. The Leader of the House should examine the feasibility of converting the sixtieths into fiftieths, or, more radically—though it would fall into line with Civil Service pension arrangements—of converting the whole lot to fortieths. If the pension fund is so much in surplus, then conversion to fortieths, or at least to fiftieths, should be possible.
Much has been said about the need to re-examine widows' pensions. I am strongly in favour of that being done, but any increase should be linked with an improvement in the pensions of right hon. and hon. Members. All that is before the House now is a proposal to increase widows' pensions from 50 per cent. to 66·66 per cent., which is unacceptable. It would be far better to improve both pensions together.
An examination of the ages of right hon. and hon. Members of the present Parliament reveals that this is the youngest House of Commons in the history of this country's parliamentary democracy. One way of keeping Parliament young is to provide adequate pensions to ensure that, when right hon. and hon. Members feel that the time to retire is right, they can do so. I am not the judge of when any other hon. Member should retire, only of when I should do so. Nevertheless, when right hon. and hon. Members wish to retire, they should be able to do so, free in the knowledge that they will be financially supported by an adequate parliamentary pension.
The Leader of the House mentioned the TSRB's recommendation that Ministers leaving office should be paid the equivalent of three months' salary. He said that that measure had been agreed by both sides of the House. I have certain reservations about such an arrangement, which strikes me as an earnings-related benefit. This House abolished such benefits for outsiders, and if it reintroduces them only for Ministers of whatever party is in power—and I am not trying to get at the present Government, because such benefits would be passed on to a Labour Government in 18 months or two years—there would be a serious risk of bringing this House into

337
disrepute. I have not made up my mind on that aspect, and I shall want to consider the proposals that the Leader of the House is to bring before us.
Mr. Orme: I was asked specifically by Lord Plowden whether I would agree to that proposal, along with others affecting the Prime Minister and Mr. Speaker. As a good trade unionist, and in an attempt to negotiate across the board in the interests of all right hon. and hon. Members, I conceded such payments because I believed then that there would be a general improvement. Unfortunately, the TSRB proposed instead the arrangements that are now before the House. I make no apology for my earlier concession, which seemed to be in the best interests of all right hon. and hon. Members.
Mr. Ewing: I knew the position to be as my right hon. Friend has described it and that he feels somewhat let down by the TSRB. Deals and quid pro quos are arrived at in many different circles, and my right hon. Friend thought that he was making a concession in exchange for an additional benefit. As that has not proved to be the case, we want to re-examine the whole scheme.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, Central and Royton (Mr. Lamond) that severance pay or the resettlement grant—call it what one may—should be dealt with tidily and cleanly. It would be simplest to accept the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, Central and Royton that one month's salary should be paid for each year of service, with a minimum of six months' salary. There is much to be said for the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), that the financial responsibility for meeting resettlement payments should be transferred from the contingency reserve fund to the pension fund, which would help to absorb some of the surplus.
I am grateful to the Leader of the House for listening to my suggestions, and I look forward to seeing them manifest themselves in the various recommendations that will come before the House at a later date.
6.46 pm
Mr. Gwilym Jones: Much of the debate has inevitably centred on the Government Actuary's recommendation that the employer's contribution should be reduced to 4·4 per cent. I would normally go along with the comment in the report of the Top Salaries Review Body that it is not common to pass on a funding rate reduction to the employees, which is the usual arrangement where there is a balance in the relationship between the contributions made by the employer and the employee—which could be of the order of an employee contribution of one third and an employer contribution of two thirds. At worse, both sides might contribute one half each.
The Government Actuary's recommendation of a reduction to 4·4 per cent. in the employer's contribution deals with only one moment in time. The scheme's trustees should ascertain whether they have the power to commission an independent consultant actuary to examine the totality of contributions to the scheme in the long term and try to arrive at a proper balance.
I agree with much of what has been said about other improvements and about the present 9 per cent. contribution made by right hon. and hon. Members. I should very much like to see an improvement in the size of
338
widows' pensions, both pre-retirement and post-retirement. The current pension is only 50 per cent., but it is not uncommon for schemes covering comparable employees—if it is possible to find such a thing outside this House—to offer pre-retirement and post-retirement widows' pensions of as much as 66 per cent. Bearing in mind all that the job of a right hon. and hon. Member entails—with its unsociable hours, the schizophrenic existence that it imposes, and the uncertain future that it presents—we owe it to our dependants to ensure that the scheme incorporates decent widows' pensions.
There is a proposal to increase the value of the death benefit from one times salary to two times salary. I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's proposal to backdate that improvement to cover former Members of Parliament who are no longer with us. Nevertheless, death benefit outside can be as large as four times salary. Less emphasis should be placed on its being a single lump sum payment, because after all the bills have been paid—perhaps including a mortgage commitment, albeit that it makes sense to arrange alternative protection in that respect—the lump sum should be viewed as additional income replacement, to provide adequate support for retired widows.
The TSRB report makes provision for early retirement. I welcome the spirit of the recommendations, but I am worried that the proposal might create fresh anomalies. Taking the calculations and abatements used in the report, I noticed that for two Members, both aged 60, leaving on a retirement basis, one with 20 years' service would receive a pension of 20 fiftieths or 40 per cent., while his colleague, leaving after only 15 years' service would receive 15 fiftieths or 30 per cent. There would be a further abatement based on years of service. Instead of receiving 30 per cent., the latter would receive only 20·7 per cent. I cannot see why such a difference between two Members of the same age is justified.
When the question was referred to the TSRB, I think that it was asked specifically whether an early retirement pension could he provided from age 55. On the same examples of Members with 20 and 15 years' service respectively, one would get a pension of 27·6 per cent. and the other would get only 15 per cent. That is caused by the perpetuation of a double penalty which is not justified. I hope that the Leader of the House will consider further the use of years of service as a double abatement.
That might also be the answer to the question raised about Members of the European Assembly who are Members of this House. I have great sympathy for the point that has been made about them. If every Member got an early retirement pension, determined solely by the exact early retirement, the years of service, whether in this place or in the European Assembly, could be dealt with fairly and properly.
There is great scope for further progress on the parliamentary pension scheme. Other options deserve consideration. I hope that those options will be laid before all Members by the trustees, perhaps informally, before we have a longer and deeper debate.
Mr. Ray Powell rose——
6.52 pm
Sir Geoffrey Howe: I apologise to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) for intervening now, but there are only eight minutes left for a reply. I shall listen with interest to what the hon. Member may have to say to me privately afterwards.
I have listened closely to what has been said by colleagues during the debate. I will not make a debating reply, responding to each point as though they had to be knocked down like ninepins in the customary fashion. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) reproached me a little unjustly because I was not speaking in the capacity that he normally imputes to me. I appreciate very much the contributions from hon. Members on both sides.
I should also have expressed my appreciation for the work of Mr. Dobson, Mr. Lewis and Miss Moreen McColl, as well as the work of Treasury staff on these matters.
It was unfair of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) to talk about a Treasury rip-off. To a large extent I think that a number of the things about which we are complaining were a result of a self-imposed big dipper. We agreed, rightly or wrongly, to the 9 per cent. contribution. The latest valuation by the Government Actuary, bringing it down to 4·4 per cent., is also an automatic consequence of legislation passed as long ago as 1972. Of course, it is in the power of the House to make the necessary changes. That is a power which we have to exercise responsibly.
I was struck by the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Horsham (Sir P. Hordern) and East Lindsey (Sir P. Tapsell) referred to the extent to which we are also in the power of the electorate, whether we be drones, bees or intermittent occupants of each role. I was struck particularly by the insight of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lindsey into how swiftly we might be removed altogether from this place. I remember vividly coming back on polling day in 1987 from a Nato summit in Reykjavik; I arrived in time for the count in my constituency. I remember saying to the officials who travelled in the plane with me, "At least you know what you will be doing tomorrow afternoon." That shows the hazardous nature of our occupation.
We have a special responsibility. Although a large part of the money is contributed by hon. Members, a significant part is contributed by the taxpayer, and we have to consider it in that way.
There are special factors, as my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham pointed out. None of us was covered by a scheme before 1964. We have, as I think we should, a rapid accrual scheme. That is why the rate of employees' contribution is so high. We are not the same as the fireman or the policeman where the hazard of the employment allows for early retirement; in most cases, we do not retire early but we arrive late. Even antiques like my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham, who has just celebrated his silver jubilee, have been here for only 25 years.
How am I to handle the matter from now on? I hope, after further proper consultations, to implement as expeditiously as possible the matters that have been under consideration by the TSRB, such as resettlement, early retirement, death in service and matters relating to ministerial severance pay and office holders, and also excess contributions, if we can get the right answer.
340
I note the support expressed by the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) in the case that I offered, which was supported also by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall), in relation to Members of the European Parliament. With respect to the insight of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) from my native land, it is a Parliament and not an Assembly. As for the best way forward procedurally, I shall examine the suggestions made by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris). I cannot buy his procedural proposals on the nod.
I think the right hon. Member for Swansea, West misunderstood me when I talked about trying to get as much as we could into the secondary legislation framework. It is not because I want to avoid the possibility of amendment; I want to avoid being stuck unnecessarily, waiting for the much more difficult achievement of primary legislation, if we happen to need that to deal with some matters, such as the effect of the Government Actuary's report. There might be a blockage in getting another Bill because of the legislative programme.
After further consideration, I shall seek to identify the matters which should be considered by the TSRB. Not necessarily all the matters that have been raised are appropriate for consideration by the TSRB, as has been pointed out. I should like that consideration to be undertaken as quickly as possible, as my hon. Friends the Members for Horsham and for East Lindsey suggested.
If I am to identify the principal matters for such consideration, I think that the most important is that which has been described as the balance of the fund, or the right relationship between employer and employee. I am struck by the widespread support for the retention of the figure of 9 per cent. I see the right hon. Member for Salford, East shaking his head. I do not say that that figure was endorsed universally, but it was supported widely. It gives resources for the improvement of benefits. Of course, it need not be as high, but it should be a generous figure.
On a contributions holiday, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North and by my hon. Friend and neighbour, the Member for Croydon, South (Sir W. Clark), it is right to point out that, although it can be dealt with either way, a document provided for the trustees, based on the National Association of Pension Funds' survey 1988, showed at that time that in three quarters of the cases the employee contributions were not altered but substantial reductions were made in the employers' contributions. That is not decisive. At any rate, balance is one question for consideration.
The second important matter, strongly supported on all sides of the House, is the benefit that should accrue to widows or widowers of hon. Members. I subscribe to everything that was said about the miserable existence that we impose upon our spouses, which justifies sympathetic consideration.
Thirdly, my hon. Friend the Member for East Lindsey also raised the rate of build-up of entitlement to full pension. While I mention these things, I am not prejudging them, but they are matters that have been widely supported.
Fourthly, the resettlement grant—however one describes it—again may or may not be a matter entirely for consideration by the TSRB.

341
As we handle the matter in that way, I shall try to keep the House, and certainly the trustees, informed about the progress of my consideration, so that we can deal with these matters as expeditiously as the House would wish.
I hope that I have made a reasonable response to the points raised today.
It being Seven o'clock the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, pursuant to Order [12 January].

Isle of Wight Bill (By Order)
Lords amendents considered.
7 pm
Mr. Jim Sillars: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, relating to the conduct of Government business and the business of the House. I hope that the Leader of the House will listen for a few seconds.
It may be unknown to most hon. Members that there has been a scandal surrounding the private life of a member of the Court of Session in Edinburgh, one of our most senior judges, which reflected upon his public persona to the point where he could not continue to sit on the judicial bench. That was followed by a resignation. I understand that today, senior figures in the legal and political establishment gave a briefing to newspaper editors of the Scottish press during which it emerged that allegations had been made about more than the individual who was required to resign on 1 January.
What is most worrying is that Scotland is rife with the rumour that tomorrow the Government will evade the issue by the device of a planted written question on the Order Paper to which the Secretary of State can reply without Scottish Members having the opportunity to debate the matter or to question the Secretary of State—who, in the absence of the Lord Advocate, is the responsible Minister in the House.
I should like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, on our behalf, to seek an assurance from the Leader of the House that there will be no such device as a planted written question on the Order Paper tomorrow but that, instead, there will be an oral statement to the elected Members of Parliament from Scotland of the same character and frankness that apparently was the case at the briefing of national newspaper editors today. This is a matter that concerns the highest judicial body in Scotland, and it must be dealt with in this House tomorrow afternoon through a statement.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot deal with that matter during private business. However, the Leader of the House is on the Treasury Bench, and I am sure that he will have heard what the hon. Gentleman said.
Lords amendments Nos. 1 to 9 agreed to.

Isle of Wight Bill (By Order)

  HYTHE MARINA VILLAGE (SOUTHAMPTON) WAVESCREEN BILL (By Order)
  Lords amendments considered.
  Lords amendments Nos. 1 to 8 agreed to.

  HYTHE MARINA VILLAGE (SOUTHAMPTON) WAVESCREEN BILL (By Order)
    Clause 14

      FOR PROTECTION OF A.B. PORTS
      Lords amendment: No. 9, in page 5, line 5, at end insert—
      For the protection of A.B. Ports the following provisions shall, unless otherwise agreed in writing between the Company and A.B. Ports, apply and have effect:—
      (1) In this section—
      "construction" includes execution and plac?ing, extension, enlargement, alteration, replace?ment or relaying, and removal, and "constructed" shall be construed accordingly;
      "plans" includes description, drawings and specifications:
      (2)

      (a) Before commencing the construction of a tidal work the Company shall furnish to A.B.

      343
      Ports for its approval, which it shall not unreasonably withhold, plans of the work showing the general mode of construction and such work shall not be constructed otherwise than in accordance with such plans as may be approved by A.B. Ports or as may be determined by the Secretary of State as hereinafter provided and all such works shall be executed to the reasonable satisfaction of A.B. Ports:

      (b) When submitting plans to the Secretary of State pursuant to section 6 (Tidal works not to be executed without approval of Secretary of State) of this Act, the Company shall send a copy thereof to A.B. Ports and the Company shall, on receipt of approval of plans or of any conditions or restrictions imposed under that section, send a copy to A.B. Ports:

      (c) In the event of A.B. Ports failing to express its disapproval of any plans within 56 days after they shall have been delivered to A.B. Ports under this paragraph, A.B. Ports shall be deemed to have approved them:

      (d) If it appears to the Company that A.B. Ports has unreasonably withheld its approval to any plans under this paragraph, the Company may appeal to the Secretary of State whose decision shall be final:

      (e) The Company shall at all reasonable times afford to the duly authorised representative of A.B. Ports all reasonable facilities for inspecting any tidal work in the course of construction:

      (3) The Company shall give to A.B. Ports not less than 14 days' written notice of its intention to commence the construction of a tidal work and, not more than 14 days after completion of such construction, shall give to A.B. Ports written notice of such completion:
      (4) After the purpose of any temporary structure has been accomplished the Company shall with all reasonable dispatch, or after a reasonable period of notice in writing from A.B. Ports requiring them so to do, remove any such temporary structure or any materials relating thereto which may have been placed below the level of high water by or on behalf of the Company and, on its failing so to do within a reasonable period after receiving such notice, A.B. Ports may remove the same and charge the Company with the reasonable expense of so doing, which expense the Company shall repay to A.B. Ports:
      (5) The Company shall not exercise the powers conferred on it by section 5 (Dredging) of this Act except with the written consent of A.B. Ports (which it shall not unreasonably withhold) and in accordance with such conditions and restrictions as may be reasonably prescribed by A.B. Ports:
      (6) The provisions of section 8 (Abatement of works abandoned or decayed), section 9 (Survey of tidal works), and section 11 (Lights on tidal works during construction) of this Act shall extend for the protection of A.B. Ports and, for that purpose, shall have effect as if for any reference therein to the Secretary of State, there were substituted a reference to A.B. Ports:
      (7)

      (a) Without prejudice to the other provisions of this section, the Company shall be responsible for, and make good to A.B. Ports, all losses, costs, charges, damages and expenses how?ever caused (including a proper proportion of the overhead charges of A.B. Ports) which may reasonably be incurred by or occasioned to A.B. Ports—

      (i) arising from the perusal of plans and the inspection of any tidal work by A.B. Ports or its duly authorised representative;

      344

      (ii) by reason of the construction of any of the works or the exercise by the Company of the powers conferred on it by section 5 (Dredging) of this Act, the failure of any of the works or the undertaking by A.B. Ports of works or measures for the prevention of danger to navigation arising from such failure;

      (iii) by reason of any act or omission of the Company or its servants or agents whilst engaged in the construction of any of the works or the exercise of the powers conferred by the said section 5;

      and the Company shall indemnify A.B. Ports from and against all claims and demands arising out of, or in connection with, such construction, exercise, failure or act or omission as aforesaid;

      (b) A.B. Ports shall give to the Company notice of any claim or demand made against it which is a claim or demand for which the Company may be liable under this paragraph and no settlement or compromise of any such claim or demand shall be made without the consent in writing of the Company:

      (8) Nothing in this Act shall be construed as imposing upon A.B. Ports, either directly or indirectly, any form of duty or liability to which A.B. Ports would not otherwise be subject which is enforceable by proceedings before any Court:
      (9) Nothing in this Act shall affect prejudicially any statutory or other rights, powers or privileges vested in, or enjoyed by, A.B. Ports at the commencement of this Act or any title of A.B. Ports in, to or over any lands or foreshore held or acquired by it."
      Amendment proposed to the Lords amendment, in subsection (8), leave out "Nothing" and insert
      "With the exception of any duty owed by A.B. Ports to the Company expressly provided for in the foregoing provisions of this section, nothing"—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
      Question, That the amendment be made, put and agreed to.
      Lords amendment, as amended, agreed to.

  BUCKINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords] (By Order)
  As amended, considered.
  Ordered,
  That Standing Order 205 (Notice of Third Reading) be suspended and that the Bill be now read the Third time.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.
  7.7 pm
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that you will allow me to put on the record the fact that Opposition Members who want to reform the private business procedure have not delayed the House tonight by forcing a series of votes, which could have been of considerable number, on the amendments. It is a token of our good will. We hope that the private Bill procedure will be speedily reformed and there will not be any further necessity to delay private business.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I suspect that rarely does the Chair take a point of order that is so welcome. I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his comments.

Orders of the Day
  Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
  Considered in Committee.
  Pensions (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
    Clause 1

      QUALIFYING CONDITIONS
      7.8 pm
      Mr. Paul Flynn: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 17, leave out from 'men)' to the end of line 18 and insert
      'the words "is a woman who" are hereby repealed.'.
      The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean): With this we shall discuss amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 28, leave out subsection (4).
      Mr. Flynn: The main reason for clause 1 is that the public service pension schemes presently discriminate between the sexes in a way that, from January 1993, will no longer be permissible under the European directive on equal treatment in occupational schemes. The discrimina?tion is found in a rule that provides for pension increases to women under 55 with dependent children. Men in the same position do not qualify for pension increases unless they have retired because of ill health or, having retired on other grounds, are disabled by physical or mental infirmity.
      The discrimination operates only up to the age of 55. A man whose pension starts before that age will not get increases, except on health grounds, unless he is 55. When he reaches that age, his pension is increased to the level that it would have reached if the discrimination did not exist. The loss of pension to a policeman who, for example, retires—as many do—in his 40s can be considerable. At the age of 54, he could be drawing a pension worth half or less its original value.
      On Second Reading, the Minister said that if the discrimination was removed, by bringing men up to the level of entitlement that women now enjoy, about 7,000 police pensions would have to be increased and that if analogous arrangements were made for the armed forces, another 50,000 would be affected. That would be expensive, but public service pensions are not public charity: they are paid for in exactly the same way as all other occupational pensions, either by direct contributions by employees and employers or by an adjustment of salary in the case of a non-contributory scheme, such as the Civil Service scheme. Neither the employers nor the Government have a moral right to make unilateral decisions of that sort without consulting the members of the scheme and discussing the alternatives and how any additional costs might be met. No such consultations appear to have taken place.
      The Minister argued that equalising in favour of men would mean increasing the pensions paid to those who retire at comparatively young ages and who can then enjoy second careers. That is an extremely worrying argument for those who are affected, such as the police, who have good historical reasons for retiring at an early age. If it is acceptable to pay a retired policemen a pension that falls
      346
      in value every year because he can make up for the loss by taking another job, the implication must be that he does not need the pension at all.
      How long will it be before the Government decide, in the interests of efficient targeting, that no public servant should receive a pension below the age of 55? That is the logical conclusion of the Government's decision to which clause 1 inexorably leads us. Our amendment would tackle the problem of discrimination from the other end—equalising in favour of men, rather than removing the rights enjoyed by a small number of women. The Opposition do not propose to divide the Committee at this stage, but we hope to hear a statement about the Government's views on the issue, since no such statement was forthcoming on Second Reading.
      The National Union of Teachers and the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association—practically the only bodies that seem to be aware of the Bill—say that they oppose the Government's proposals. The NUT believes that there should be legislation with the opposite effect —that equality of provision should be achieved by levelling up rather than levelling down, as proposed.
      The Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association is opposed to the clause as drafted and regrets the removal of an entitlement to pensions increased to female pensioners under 55 with dependants. That organisation writes:
      "The removal of this benefit is wholly unnecessary as regards the Teachers' Superannuation Scheme as the scheme's fund is well able to bear the financial cost of treating men on equal terms."
      While comparisons can be made with the police—a profession from which traditionally people retire at an early age—few male teachers would be caught in the net. We are told that the cost to the teachers superannuation scheme would be small.
      It is worrying not to have heard a statement about the Government's thinking on the equalisation of pensions, especially as equalisation is just over the horizon, or will happen within a few years. Seven of our 12 EEC partners have already equalised their basic pensions, most of them at the age of 65, with France equalising at 60.
      Perhaps more significant is what has happened recently in occupational pension schemes in Britain. With a view to equalising pensions in that sector, many have taken action and, from May to August 1988 of those occupational funds that equalised their pensions between the sexes, only 21 per cent. had equalised at age 60, while 55 per cent., by far the majority, had equalised at 65.
      May we be told what plans the Government have? As I said, the amendment attempts to solve the problem of discrimination by ensuring that we level up rather than down. Although, as I said, we shall not divide the Committee on the issue, it is clear that much consultation with members of the schemes affected is necessary. We hope that that will take place.
      The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Richard Ryder): I thank the Opposition, and in particular the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), for enabling us to take the Committee stage on the Floor of the House.
      As the hon. Gentleman said, we discussed the important issue of levelling up and down on Second Reading, when he signposted the fact that he would be taking a further interest in the subject. He has deployed the same arguments at this stage, and the answer that I shall give the Committee is along the lines that I adduced on Second Reading.

      347
      Clause 1(2)(b) and subsection (4) provide for the phasing out of the payment of pensions increase paid to women below the age of 55 if they have dependent children, a point stressed by the hon. Member for Newport, West. The existing law—that is, section 3(2)(c) of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971—discriminates against men and must be changed to comply with the United Kingdom's obligations under European Community equal treatment law, which is EC directive 86/3/78.
      7.15 pm
      As I explained on Second Reading, the existing provisions benefit very few women; to our knowledge, only eight women fall into this category. But extending it to men would be costly. Equal treatment can, therefore, be secured only by removing that provision. The clause does that by phasing out the provision in a way which fully protects the accrued rights of female scheme members and pensioners.
      Acceptance of the amendment would mean that pensions increase would be payable from 1 January 1993 on pensions paid to men below the age of 55, provided they had dependent children, even on the parts of those pensions earned by service before that date. That, as the hon. Member for Newport, West pointed out, would be very costly indeed, and retrospective improvement to the superannuation provisions would benefit almost exclusively the younger retired members of the police, fire service and armed forces schemes at an age at which many of them can and do enjoy second careers.
      I advise the Committee to reject the amendment because, as I said on Second Reading, the total cost of it would be substantial. It would be about £80 million a year at today's pension levels, rising to over £100 million a year at today's pension levels after about 20 years.
      Those who have retired on ill health grounds or who are physically or mentally disabled already receive pensions increase when below the age of 55, and when other pensioners in the schemes reach 55—that is, still five years younger than the normal retirement age for most public service schemes and 10 years below the state pension age—their pensions are increased and the increase built up since they retired is paid up to then.
      The Committee will agree that we could not give priority to targeting extra support on a group of public service pensioners who already enjoy some of the best pension provisions of any groups of public sector employees.
      The hon. Member for Newport, West raised the issue of the equalisation of pension ages. The Government recognise the arguments for equalisation of pension age, but a great many complex issues must be considered, including demographic factors and the long-term economic and financial implications of any change for individuals, employers and the state.
      The hon. Gentleman spoke of what was happening in Europe and was right to suggest that some European countries have a common pension age. The common pension age in Denmark is 67, and in Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain it is 65. 1 do not imagine that women nearing pensionable age would be delighted were the British Government to raise the pension age to 65.
      348
      Five countries have different pension ages. They are Belgium, where men retire at 65 and women at 60; Greece, where men retire at 65 and women at 60; Italy, men at 60 and women at 55—the only country with a 55 pension age for women; Portugal, men at 65 and women at 62; and the United Kingdom, men at 65 and women at 60.
      I hope that, having heard my reasons why we cannot accept the amendment, plus the additional background information on the equalisation of pension ages, the hon. Member for Newport, West will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
      Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I support the thrust of the case that has already been made by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). However, I am puzzled by the size of the sum of money involved. I agree that if I was in the Minister's shoes I would not wish to spend £180 million in such a way, because there are other claims on the money that also come under the social security heading.
      If I understand the situation correctly, we are talking about extending pensions, after 1 January 1993, to men under 55 with dependants, and the amendment aims to give them a larger increase than that provided for in the Bill.
      Presumably we are talking about the cost over a period and not expenditure of £180 million in the year commencing 1 January 1993. Either there are more people within the category that would get the increase if the amendment were passed than I imagined, or the sums of money to be paid to them are larger than I imagined.
      What I am trying to say, in a cack-handed fashion, is that either the increases are large or a huge number of people will benefit from them.
      I know that this is a technical question and the Minister may not have the information immediately available to answer, but I think that the Committee would like to know why such substantial sums of money would be involved if the amendment were passed. Will a few men under the age of 55 get a substantial increase in the short term, or will thousands of new pensioners benefit from the amendment? That is an important question. Why do the Government estimate that the costs will be greater if this amendment is made?
      Mr. Ryder: I shall do my best to answer the understandable and legitimate question of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood).
      I shall again paint some of the backcloth. As I said earlier, only eight women in the schemes for which data are available—the Civil Service, the National Health Service in Great Britain and teachers in England and Wales—currently benefit from the provisions. The cost of the pensions increase to be paid to them is approximately £3,000. Home Office estimates for the police scheme in England and Wales show that no more than 50 or 60 retired policewomen could benefit from the provision, and the actual number is thought to be somewhat less. There are no retired female firefighters or armed forces personnel who would benefit from the provision. Paying a pension increase to men under 55 with dependent children would be very costly, as some 7,000 retired policemen and firefighters would benefit—mainly policemen, as proportionately more firemen retire early on grounds of ill health and they already qualify for an increase on those grounds.

      349
      The annual cost of such a provision would be about £6 million in 1989 to 1990, at 1989 to 1990 pension levels, rising to £14 million, at 1989 to 1990 pension levels, after 25 years.
      The cost of a pensions increase for some male pensioners under 55 could be met by an additional contribution of approximately one half of 1 per cent. of the payroll. The costs of increases on pensions payments in the future, in respect of the past service of current and retired employees, could not be met in that way for the police scheme, which is the main scheme to be affected, because the costs would have a capital value of approximately £120 million at 1989 pension levels.
      When I first saw the figures, I was as surprised as the hon. Gentleman, but they have been worked on in detail by the Treasury and by other interested parties and, to the best of my knowledge, the figures are accurate.
      The amendment moved by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) does not propose to phase in the provisions. If it did, the cost in 1993 would be small.
      I hope that I have answered the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire. If I have missed any technical matters, I shall try to answer them later.
      Armed forces personnel can draw a pension from the age of 38 and the police, I think, from the age of 48.
      Mr. Kirkwood: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman—and I am not trouble-making, honestly. Perhaps it is because I am not a specialist in this subject, but I do not understand the £120 million capitalisation figure that the Minister mentioned. I think that it means that the Treasury, however indirectly, would have to put that sum into the schemes to meet the increments over a period of some years. If that is the case, I shall go away a relatively contented man. As a lay person, it seems to me that it is possible to phase in the cost of meeting the increase if males under 55 are to benefit from the scheme.
      I remain surprised that the scheme will cost so much money. Is the simple answer that £120 million will have to come out of the Treasury's pocket to be paid into pension funds? I am still somewhat puzzled about the cost of the scheme, bearing in mind the small number of people likely to benefit from it.
      Mr Ryder: As the hon. Gentleman has conceded, we are dealing with sizeable amounts of public money. Some of that money could be better spent by looking after people who are less fortunate than many of the people who subscribe to, or gain from, the schemes that we are debating.
      To elaborate on the hon. Gentleman's last point, the schemes are not funded. Therefore, we are talking about the amount that we would have to put in if the payment were applied to pensions derived from service before the change was made.
      Mr. Flynn: I share the unhappiness of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) with the Minister's replies.
      I should like to draw hon. Members' attention to the unusual nature of the work of the police and the armed services, and the fact that it is universally accepted that people in those services need to retire early.
      I mentioned the teachers. Two teachers' unions have said that they would be happy to see the costs provided for in the amendment funded out of their superannuation fund. They believe that the cost would be tiny, protozoan
      350
      or minute, and they would be prepared to pay that for the principle that is at stake. It is an important principle: equal treatment of the sexes represents a great international reform. We should compare that reform with others in the world. At the time of the emancipation of slaves, we did not create equality by making all working people slaves; we did not spread the misery. The Government, however, seem in this instance to wish to spread not the advantages enjoyed by either sex—sometimes men, sometimes women—but the disadvantages.
      7.30 pm
      On Second Reading, the Minister used the words "the ultimate cost". Ultimate" refers to a long period, and I share the cynicism that has been expressed about the arrival of the year in question. It is with some regret that we note the resistance from this regressive, backward-looking Government to the ideal being pushed by the far-sighted, progressive Europeans. Much of the contribu?tion involved should be a matter for negotiation, as the funds are provided not by a public charity but by working people, in the same way as with other occupational pensions. Surely this is a matter for those people to decide rather than a matter for Government edict.
      Mr. Ryder: May I repeat what I said in my opening remarks and on Second Reading? If we were to accept the amendment on the levelling-up or levelling-down principle, considerable public expenditure would be involved. Therefore, we cannot accept it.
      The hon. Gentleman alluded to the equalisation of pension ages. As I said in my earlier speech, equalisation of pensions in Europe is not always equalisation downwards. The majority of countries that apply such equalisations equalise up to the age of 65, while Denmark equalises up to 67. Such an arrangement in this country would make women less happy than they are with the present arrangements, which specify an age of 60.
      I am advised that one problem of the amendment is that, perversely—I am sure that this was not the intention—it could discriminate against women. The children involved must be dependent children and, other things being equal, male pensioners are more likely to be regarded as heads of household than female pensioners, especially if the husbands of the female pensioners are still working.
      Mr. Flynn: In these days of equality and the spread of "house husbands", I do not think that that would pose a serious danger. In view of what the Minister has said, however, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave withdrawn.
      Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 2

      PERIODS OF FURTHER SERVICE
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Kirkwood: May I ask again a question that I asked on Second Reading about the legal propriety of legislation to amend Acts that have been repealed? As I said then, it strikes me as absurd in the extreme and, indeed, incompetent for clause 2(5) to be included in the Bill without some discussion and some explanation of why the Treasury solicitors consider it necessary to amend the

      351
      repealed Pensions (Increase) Act 1965. If it is competent to do so, I should like an explanation of why it is necessary. The Minister addressed the matter briefly on Second Reading and, as far as I can remember, said that he thought that it was necessary so that people could understand what was supposed to have been the position between 1965 and 1971. Following the coming into effect of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971, the appropriate increases were implemented.
      If the Treasury solicitors are going to make the amendment of repealed Acts a habit in the future, we shall all be led a merry dance. I could suggest a number of candidates for amendment among repealed Acts, but I think that those outside the House will not understand, and will think that we have nothing better to do with our time. I was not satisfied with the explanation that I was given on Second Reading, and I should be obliged if the Minister would have another stab at it tonight.
      Mr. Ryder: I will have a shot at it.
      Clause 2 amends the law on two small, technical aspects of pensions increase to align it with the actual practice followed by public service schemes. There are two separate issues. First, subsections (1), (2), (3) and (5) amend the Pensions (Increase) Acts 1965 and 1971 to make the law relating to the increase of pensions of certain re-employed scheme members what it was always thought to have been. The Acts include provisions to ensure that re-employed scheme members—that is, those who have left, and rejoined with a break in service—do not have a lower pension because of the way in which the Acts would otherwise apply on their cases.
      However, special provision then had to be made for the teachers' schemes because of provisions in those schemes that allowed teachers to qualify for a pension in certain types of employment or other absence from teaching which did not count towards their eventual pension. The relevant words have always been interpreted by the Departments concerned in a particular way which they believed that the Acts prescribed. The clause validates that interpretation and the practice that those schemes have followed since 1965. I should emphasise that the practice of scheme managements will not be changed, and in that sense no pensioners will be affected. No doubt you, Sir Paul, followed those remarks with particular attention in view of your previous responsibility for pension matters some years ago.
      Clause 2(4) corrects an unintended anomaly in the application of the same provisions to the dependants of re-employed scheme members. As it is now worded, section 4(3) of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 would apply only to dependants' pensions calculated as a proportion of the scheme member's pension. It would not appply to a dependant's pension calculated directly by reference to the scheme member's salary and years of service. The practice of scheme managements has always been to apply section 4(3) where appropriate to dependants' pensions, however calculated.
      The 1965 Act was repealed by the 1971 Act, but without prejudice to the operation of the repealed provisions in respect of the period ending 31 August 1971. The aim of the clause is to ensure that the provision has the effect that it should have had since 1965.
      352
      The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) asked why clause 2 was necessary. I think that I have explained the reason in general terms, but let me explain more specifically: if we left it out, there would be an obligation to trace all past pensioners, and to compensate any who had not benefited but should have. That would probably be impossible and certainly very costly. It would be unfair and possibly illegal not to do so.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 3

      No INCREASE FOR ADDITIONAL LUMP SUMS ARISING FROM RECALCULATION
      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill
      Mr. Flynn: Clause 3 removes the right to inflation proofing when a lump sum retirement benefit is reassessed to take account of a retrospective pay increase. That is a frequent occurrence in certain professions, particularly the teaching profession, as the normal retirement date is the end of August and not spread throughout the year as it is in other professions. I understand that each year about 16,000 applications for retirement are received to come into effect at the end of August. When that happens the lump sum payments are calculated before the annual pay settlement is concluded. In due course those pensioners receive an additional lump sum based on the increase in salary. That addition is increased, where appropriate, under the Pensions (Increase) Act. Under clause 3 that will no longer apply.
      There seems to be only one argument in favour of clause 3 and that is that interest is not paid on salary arrears resulting from a pay rise and therefore pensioners should not be treated more favourably than employees. That argument has a familiar ring because of our discussions on clause 1, under which women are to lose their entitlement to a pension increase because men do not have the same entitlement. In clause 3 pensioners are to lose entitlement to inflation proofing of arrears because employees do not have the same entitlement. In short, the Government are saying that equality is a many?splendoured thing. They have suddenly become fanatical about being egalitarian, but only when the results of equality achieve a saving in public funds. That is a questionable devotion to the principle of equality.
      Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many people would have received those increases in recent years and whether they would have been affected by clause 3. Perhaps he could give us some idea of what the average loss would have been and the total savings to be made. What consultations have taken place with the unions and other representatives of the members of the scheme? Again, clause 3 represents a small change, but a mean, penny-pinching and unnecessary one.
      Mr. Ryder: Clause 3 ends a provision that gives rise to extremely small one-off payments to pensioners but with a disproportionate administrative burden for the scheme managements concerned.
      The problem we seek to solve is this. The Pensions (Increase) Act protects the real value of preserved lump sums awarded to "early leavers" from public service

      353
      schemes. That is entirely appropriate, but, of course, it was never intended that the provisions should operate once the lump sum had been paid.
      Unfortunately, they apply to lump sums that are recalculated when a retrospective pay award is made. If a scheme member retires after a retrospective pay award comes into force but before that award has been announced, his final salary for pension purposes will be increased and his pension and lump sum recalculated. An additional amount of lump sum is paid, and the Pensions (Increase) Act also requires pensions increase to be paid on that additional lump sum. However, the amount of that increase cannot be calculated and paid until the next pensions increase order is made. So the scheme management may have to make no fewer than three payments of lump sum when a scheme member retires: on the date he retires; when a retrospective pay award is announced; and when the next pensions increase order come into force.
      The last payment will normally be very small, no more than a few pounds and perhaps even a few pence. Clause 3 relieves schemes of the requirement to make this third payment and of the associate administrative burden. I must stress that the entitlement under scheme rules to an additional lump sum and the recalculation of pension if a retrospective pay award is made is completely unaffected by the clause. The clause simplifies the administration of pensions increase at an insignificant cost to pensioners.
      7.45 pm
      It is important to establish clearly that the minor administrative simplification is made at a negligible or insignificant cost to some pensioners. It does not undermine the principle that all pension benefits are protected against inflation. Pensions increase legislation has always taken account of practical considerations and the need to avoid excessive administrative costs.
      The effect on pensioners is very small. In many cases, the amount is less than £1. A hypothetical calculation based on a civil servant retiring on a salary of £25,000 after a full 40-year career might have benefited from an award six months delayed of only £11·25, or 0.03 per cent. of the total lump sum involved.
      The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) was right to ask one particular question. The salary arrears do not attract interest. Another anomaly is that if the scheme makes a mistake no pensions increase is paid on the extra lump sum. I hope that that goes some way towards answering the hon. Gentleman's points.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 4

      EMPLOYERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS COST OF PENSIONS INCREASE FOR TEACHERS AND PERSONS ENGAGED IN THE HEALTH SERVICES ETC
      Mr. Flynn: I beg to move amendment No. 3 in page 4, line 1, leave out subsection (1)
      The amendment seeks to delete subsection (1) which gives powers to make regulations placing the cost of teachers' pension increases on their employers or
      "such other persons or classes of persons (apart from teachers) as the Secretary of State may consider appropriate".
      354
      Perhaps the Economic Secretary can explain who those other persons or classes of persons are.
      By pressing for the removal of subsection (1), the amendment does not imply that we approve of subsection (2) which applies similar powers to Health Service staff. We want to concentrate on subsection (1) for two reasons, although we have many misgivings about the Health Service. I understand that a couple of telephone calls to health authorities revealed a sublime ignorance about the existence of the Bill.
      We seek to remove subsection (1) because the teachers' unions are concerned that the Government are pre-empting the results of negotiations that have been taking place on the funding and other aspects of the teachers' superannuation scheme. Given the present state of local government finance, any threat to impose additional charges on local authorities must be a matter of deep concern. Firm assurances are needed that, if the powers are to be used, an appropriate transfer of resources will take place at the same time.
      The calculation of the teachers' superannuation fund is weird and wonderful. It works in rather a similar manner to the pools panel that used to meet when we had severe winters, when experts would get together and guess the results of football matches that had not been played. Apparently a committee of experts decides what investments which would have been made, but had not been made, by the teachers' superannuation fund would have yielded. Unfortunately, the possible investments that they consider are only Government funds. No occupational pension scheme would have a portfolio which consisted only of Government funds.
      There is much concern that for many years teachers' superannuation payments have been seriously understated, but I understand that the teachers' unions and the appropriate body are negotiating on that.
      Clause 4 has wider implications. The principle of inflation-proofing public service pensions may be threatened if it became a matter for negotiation between occupational groups and employers rather than a nationally recognised obligation. We debated that at length on Second Reading. Clause 4 could be the first stage in the dismantling of the Pensions (Increase) Act, of which the Prime Minister strongly disapproves.
      If such fundamental changes are to be made to the financing of public service pensions, it should not be done by an enabling provision such as clause 4, followed by regulations that cannot be amended. If and when the Government decide what they want to do, they should incorporate their detailed proposals in a Bill that can be properly debated and amended.
      The financial memorandum to the Bill says:
      "Regulations made under the amendments to the Superannuation Act 1972 made by this Bill may in future have some financial effect."
      What does that mean? The Minister may say that he cannot predict what will happen in the future, but the worry is the effect that the Bill is likely to have on health authorities and, in particular, local government. We are aware of the financial problems experienced by both those bodies, but it is a particular threat to local government, because the gearing effect of the poll tax means that for every extra penny of expense shouldered by local authorities they must charge many times as much to local poll tax payers. We should like the Minister at least to tell the House what would be the maximum increased burden

      355
      on employers if the total cost of pension increases were placed on local authorities and local bodies, which clearly is what the Government have in mind.
      Labour Members recognise that there is merit in that proposal and that those sums should be paid by those bodies rather than by the Treasury, but the Minister must assure us that it will be fully and appropriately funded. Will he explain how employers will find the money to pay what will be required?
      The Department of Education and Science has sent a letter to the National Union of Teachers. Last year, the NUT held a meeting on the root-and-branch reform of the teachers superannuation fund. It intends to reconvene that meeting, but it fears that legislation may pre-empt negotiations. The reply from the Department states that the Bill will not pre-empt future negotiations. We should like the Minister to confirm that that is not the purpose of the Bill.
      Mr. Ryder: The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) mentioned the pools panel. I must reveal that I have always wanted to sit on the pools panel on a Saturday morning when matches are snowed off and to deliberate over the fortunes of Newport County, Norwich City or Ipswich Town. Alas, the pools panel has had a pretty thin time over recent seasons. I hope for its own sake that it is not paid according to the number of times that it meets.
      I must reject amendment No. 3. The purpose of clause 4 is to allow the Secretaries of State responsible for the National Health Service and teachers' superannuation schemes in England, Wales and Scotland to make regulations, which would be subject to negative resolution, to permit the cost of pensions increase to be taken into account in determining employers' contributions to the schemes. At the moment, those costs are met by the Departments that administer the schemes, rather than by employing authorities.
      The teachers' and National Health Service schemes are unfunded. The Government Actuary advises the Secretaries of State on the appropriate levels of employers' contributions on the basis of quinquennial valuations of the schemes' assets and liabilities. For that purpose, he makes various actuarial assumptions and works on the basis that the schemes are funded.
      Union interests, particularly in teaching, have in the past argued strongly that some of the assumptions that the Government Actuary uses are unrealistic. They believe, for example, that different assumptions about investment returns would lead to a surplus on the notional funds, which might then permit lower contribution rates or improvements in benefits. I understand that employees' and employers' representatives in the teachers superannuation working party have just agreed on a report endorsing that. It will be impossible to take this further without clause 4.
      The Amendment No. 3 would restrict the change made in clause 4 to the National Health Service superannuation schemes and would deny a worthwhile opportunity to take similar powers for the teachers' schemes.
      Without wishing to anticipate unduly the outcome of discussions following the teachers superannuation working party report, the Government would feel able to agree to changes in such matters as the investment assumptions, which might be seen as giving greater realism in building
      356
      up the assets of the schemes, only if there were a corresponding realism in treating pensions increase as a liability of the schemes. I understand that employees' and employers' representatives in the teachers' superannuation working party recognise and accept that. Clause 4 provides the necessary power.
      I cannot say when regulations will be made under clause 4. There would need to be much careful consultation with all the interests concerned before a change could be made. Indeed, sections 9(5) and 10(4) of the Superannuation Act 1972 would require that, and the statutory instruments containing the regulations would be subject to negative resolution. The Government would also want to be sure, so far as possible, that the net effect of any changes was not likely to add unacceptably to the costs of employing authorities.
      I hope that the recognition that I have given to the need to contain the additional costs for employing authorities and the need for full consultation before any changes are made will allay any misgivings that Labour Members, or interests with which they have been in touch, may have had.
      The hon. Member for Newport, West asked whether the Government plan to compensate health and education authorities for the higher contributions that they will have to make to finance pension increase. They will not necessarily have to pay increased contributions; the clause confers a power on Ministers only to make at an appropriate time regulations under which employers' contributions can be set to cover the costs of pensions increase. The effect on health and education authorities' finances will be considered if the need arises.
      Mr. Flynn: The Minister trod on private grief when he mentioned Newport County and the pools panel. The only game that Newport County could win was when the pools panel sat, but tragically the football team no longer exists.
      We take little comfort from what the Minister said. I noticed how carefully he chose his words when talking about not adding unnecessarily to the costs of local authorities.
      In the past, Opposition Members have been cynical about Government legislation, and we remain a little apprehensive. I note the Minister's points. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Clauses 4 to 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Bill reported, without amendment.
      Order for Third Reading read.
      8 pm
      Mr. Ryder:I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      I am grateful to hon. Members, particularly the hon. Members for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), for their prompt consideration of this modest, technical and useful Bill. Public service superannuation will never be the most exciting subject that hon. Members debate, but we owe an obligation to the electorate and to approximately 4 million members of public service pension schemes to give a fair hearing to Bills of this kind.
      I recognise the strength of feeling on the subject of levelling up against levelling down, which we debated in Committee. I assure the House that the Government looked carefully at the issues and the merits and demerits

      357
      of levelling up and levelling down before concluding that it was right to phase out a benefit which, in practice, has benefited and always will benefit a small number of women pensioners. We must do what is right for public service pensioners, what meets our European Community obligations and what is fair to the taxpayer. I am confident that the Bill strikes the proper balance.
      In Committee, hon. Members noted that other measures in the Bill made small and, again, technical changes to the existing law. Opportunities to legislate on public service superannuation will always be rare events, but I am pleased that we have been able to produce a Bill to secure equal treatment in pensions increase to make such changes. I commend the Bill to the House.
      8.2 pm
      Mr. Flynn: Opposition Members do not wish unnecessarily to delay legislation, but the Bill is proceeding at breakneck pace. It was introduced at an unusual time—a few days before the Christmas recess. The Second Reading debate was shortly before Christmas, and we are now concluding the remaining stages. Further submissions from representatives of many people affected by the Bill may be made when the Bill is in another place and when it returns to the House.
      A great pensions minefield is ahead for the Government. There are many qualms about the Bill, some of which have been expressed tonight, particularly the implications for the Health Service and local government, and for equality of the sexes legislation. There will be repercussions throughout other Government pensions legislation and policies.
      The fascinating history over the centuries of providing the elderly with comfort and security in retirement is continuing. It reached a high point of hope in the 1970s. The years since then have shown the growth of complexity of pension provision, without a growth in pension quality, and a certain guarantee of much future confusion. There is great indecision about the problem of equalising pension provision for men and women in the future. I am certainly not suggesting that pensions should be equalised down, but the implications are that the Government have little hope of equalising them other than by disadvantaging
      358
      women. We will also see a continued undermining of the precious 10-year-old principle that pensioners should share in the country's growing prosperity.
      The Bill is a product of yesterday's false, extinct ideas and, sadly, is not a product of the new hope for universal access to prosperous and fulfilling vintage years of retirement for everybody.
      8.5 pm
      Mr. Kirkwood: The Bill is a useful addition to the body of statute law governing pensions. I almost stand accused of being boring about the need——
      Mr. Terry Lewis: Not just on pensions.
      Mr. Kirkwood: That may be true, but it is for others to judge.
      I am concerned about the increasing complexity of the language used in pensions legislation. Earlier debates have suffered because of it, but the Minister coped commendably well. He should use his power to make the parliamentary draftsmen to do their best. I understand that it is a complex subject, but we are getting into the realms of the absurd in the language that is used in some statutes. That comment applies to this Bill in particular.
      The Government were right on whether to level up or level down. I give the Minister clear notice that the Government must take no precedent from their judgment on the Bill. If they bring forward sex equality measures or any other legislation, they must not use this Bill as a basis on which to level down future provision. The facts and circumstances of each case must be carefully considered. On balance, the Minister was right, but he must not assume that he will have such a easy ride in the future.
      Mr. Bob Cryer: Easy Ryder.
      Mr. Kirkwood: Yes.
      The Government must introduce legislation that takes advantage of the opportunity presented by legislation from Europe to level up social provision across the broad spectrum of social policy. He will be widely opposed if he seeks to use the Bill as a precedent for arguments in the future.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  Civil Aviation Authority (Borrowing Powers) Bill [Money]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Civil Aviation (Borrowing Powers) Bill, it is expedient to authorise any increase in the sums payable out of or into the National Loans Fund or charged on and issued out of or payable into the Consolidated Fund under the Civil Aviation Act 1982 which is attributable to provisions of the new Act—

  (a) increasing the Authority's borowing limit to £500 million with power to make further increases up to £750 million by order;

  (b) enabling the Authority to borrow sums in units of account defined by reference to more than one currency.—[Mr. Chapman.]

  8.8 pm
  Mr. Bob Cryer: As hon. Members know, I like to exercise some scrutiny of money resolutions, and I am delighted that several hon. Members are intent to do the same. The Bill was dealt with by a Second Reading Committee which sat for just under an hour. No doubt the Minister will be pleased to confirm that the borrowing powers in the resolution are for only £500 million, which is a great deal of money, but that any further sums up to a total of £750 million will be subject to an affirmative order of the House—that is not a great safeguard, but it is something—and that, by virtue of this money resolution, we are not handing the Minister unfettered powers.
  The borrowing powers that are authorised by the money resolution are for money that is to be used for improving air traffic control capacity. On 20 December last year the Minister stated:
  "Perhaps I could give two examples of major projects in the investment programme, which hon. Members may find of particular interest. One project is the central control function; it has been called 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. The project will cost about £30 million."— [Official Report, Second Reading Committee, 20 December 1989, c. 3.]
  Perhaps the Minister will confirm that the borrowings for that project will not confine the benefits to the south-east and that regional airports, such as the Leeds-Bradford airport which is operated by the Leeds-Bradford airport committee, will obtain the benefits by virtue of the fact that the delays around Heathrow and Gatwick will, I hope, be curtailed.
  As the Government are currently considering the application to extend flying hours beyond 10 pm, perhaps the Minister will bear in mind the fact that the investment which is to be authorised by the money resolution might increase the existing capacity of aircraft to enter and leave air space. Therefore, the extended flying hours at Leeds-Bradford, for which some people are pressing—but not, I hasten to add, those people who live close to the flight paths—might not be necessary.
  If the money is to be used for such a project, there will be great advantages. However, there is then the question of the other priorities. As was made clear in the debate to which I have referred, there are several other more pressing priorities. I refer, for example, to Bradford and, although this is not the Minister's responsibility, I should like to place it on the record that it would be helpful if more
  360
  money could be allocated for the construction of permanent extensions to schools there, because several schools in my constituency need many millions of pounds spent on them.
  We are talking about borrowing powers. Air traffic is a growth area, and since the money that will be lent to the Civil Aviation Authority will be recouped in charges to the air traffic users, we must ask the Minister how long the borrowing period is and how soon the Government will recoup that money so that it is available for other priorities. I am not opposed to improvements in air traffic control and, of course, in safety standards. We all agree with the need and determination to maintain and improve our air safety standards. However, if the money is to be recouped, some of the other pressing priorities for expenditure can also be considered. I should like the Minister to comment on that.
  The Civil Aviation (Air Navigation Charges) Act 1989 allowed charges for landing to be made in European currency units. As a consequence, paragraph (b) of the money resolution refers to
  "enabling the Authority to borrow sums in units of account defined by reference to more than one currency."
  I take it that that wording has been chosen to embrace ecus, as they are known, which very few people on the face of our planet have ever seen or used.
  I served on the Second Reading Committee of the Civil Aviation (Air Navigation Charges) Act which, as I have said, allowed charges to be rendered in ecu. As the Minister explained in the Second Reading Committee, the extension of the use of other currencies is purely to embrace ecu. However, he could not satisfactorily explain at that stage why that would be of great advantage to the Civil Aviation Authority, except from the point of view of flexibility.
  As was pointed out to the Minister, the exchange rate in ecu, like that of any other currency, fluctuates and varies extensively. European currency units are no different. The significant difference is that the European currency unit is a medium by which the federalists inside the Common Market are devoting their attention to producing a standard European currency. The extension into ecu goes directly against the Prime Minister's vaunted wish to oppose federalism and instead merely to retain the European Economic Community as a trading organisation. Paragraph (b) of the money resolution is therefore a sign of the acceptance of and a step towards federalism, not against it.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to cite something more than "flexibility" to justify paragraph (b) because he did not provide an adequate explanation when the Bill was considered in Committee. As I have said, I hope that he can give an explanation about the money resolution because a large sum of money is involved. The total is £750 million. The borrowing limit seems to be being provided for a good and useful purpose, but the examples that the Minister gave in Committee totalled only £30 million. Perhaps he could give us a brief outline of what the other £720 million——
  The Minister for Aviation and Shipping (Mr. Patrick McLoughlin): I believe that in Committee I also gave the example of the en route centre, which will cost considerably more than £30 million. In fact, it will cost about £200 million. That £30 million covered just a few examples.
  Mr. Cryer: I am sure that the Minister would like to fill us in with some further details and to give us a sketch of the £750 million that is likely to be involved. In fact, the money resolution covers only £500 million because any increase in the borrowing limit above £500 million will be made by order. Presumably, therefore, that part of the borrowing requirement is not yet needed. Perhaps the Minister could tell us why there is a contingency figure of £250 million, because he will have to do that when he presents the order. I look forward with eager anticipation to the Minister's detailed response.
  8.16 pm
  Mr. Anthony Steen: Before commenting on the money resolution, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to ask for clarification. As I understand it, the length of any speech made by any hon. Member is recorded. I am concerned to ensure that any speech that I make tonight will not lead to my being placed on a blacklist. When I asked Mr. Speaker a little earlier about my speeches, I learned that there were two stars against my name, which showed that I had spoken for 20 minutes or longer in the past. However, neither of those speeches was a Second Reading speech. Both were made on Report or at the request of my hon. Friends who had asked me to keep the business going. I want to make quite sure that, in future, I shall not be picked out and discriminated against because of my speech tonight. I should be most grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if the Chair could give a ruling.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): These matters are clouded in mystery. However, I can advise the hon. Gentleman and the whole House that in the interests of trying to get a fair balance among those whoe are called to speak in our debates, Mr. Speaker keeps a careful note of those hon. Members who speak, of the subject on which they speak and for how long they speak.
  Mr. Steen: As that may put a somewhat different complexion on the fact that this debate can last until 10.45 pm, I hope that the length of an hon. Member's speech will not be held against him or her. Because we now have two and a half hours before the next business needs to be called, I am deliberately making the statement that, if I choose to go on until 10.45 pm or thereabouts—although I have no plans to do so at the moment—I believe that, in view of the position in the House at the moment, no hon. Member, including myself, should be compromised for choosing to speak on a money resolution which is important but which may not be the most significant matter that has come before the House.
  I declare an interest at the outset. First, I have been involved with aviation for the best part of 20 years. Before I became a Member of the House, when I practised at the Bar, I was involved in aviation law, and I have been involved in the aviation industry ever since I have been a Member of the House. I deliberately declare that interest because it has been said from the Chair that constituency interests take precedence over consultancy interests. I and many other hon. Members have both constituency and consultancy interests.
  I have a constituency interest in Plymouth airport, which is surrounded by South Hams. I also have consultancy interests in Airlines of Great Britain, of which British Midland Airways is part, and British Island Airways. As I am interested in aviation I have worked, not
  362
  necessarily in a paid capacity, for several other airlines, such as Brymon Airways, which is my local airline, Britannia and other airlines.
  The House is becoming confused about interests. Simply because one is paid to do work connected with a particular interest, one should not be discouraged by one's colleagues or by organisations outside the House from speaking on the subject. It has been said that, if an hon. Member speaks on a subject as a paid consultant, the content of the speech is dismissed.
  Mr. Spencer Batiste: Does my hon. Friend agree that that criticism usually comes from those who would prefer to speak on most subjects from ignorance? Provided that my hon. Friend or any other hon. Member declares that interest, and its extent, the additional knowledge that arises from it is of the greatest importance to industry and to the House.
  Mr. Steen: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's timely intervention. As you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I was not called in a recent debate on airport security. I could have given the House inside knowledge from five airlines about the serious problems faced by the industry. As I was deprived of the opportunity to do so, the House was deprived of information direct from operators at Heathrow, Gatwick and Plymouth about the problems of airport security and safety. One reason for not calling me was that I had interests in the aviation industry. I should have thought—this is the point that my hon. Friend made—that because I had interests in aviation I could have been useful to the House and given it the benefit of my 10 years' experience in the industry.
  I declare my interests because I believe that they are good, not bad, points. My hon. Friends would prefer to hear from an hon. Member who knows about his subject rather than from one who does not. Many of my hon. Friends believe that, provided that the hon. Member gives good value for his consultancy interests, it adds another facet to debates in the House.
  Mr. Rupert Allason: There are two and a quarter hours to go.
  Mr. Steen: As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) says, I have two and a quarter hours to go. I assure the House that I do not propose to speak for that long. It is important to get on with the money resolutions.
  The money resolution will give the Civil Aviation Authority a sizeable sum of money. Probably few hon. Members can comprehend the enormous sum of £750 million. The sum of £500 million went through on the nod, but the extra £250 million will have to be brought back to the House for another debate. It is strange that, the more money that we ask the Government for, the fewer hon. Members attend the debate in the House. For smaller sums, the House is packed. The large sum of money may be going for the best possible purposes. I should like the Minister to comment on the regulation and control of that money, which will go to a public body. It would be most helpful to the House to know what control there will be on the £500 million that will be spent.
  Urban development corporations were debated in the House several times and vast sums of money were spent on them. Those sums went through on the nod. When the Labour party was in government between 1974 and 1979, we constantly passed vast sums of money for the

  363
  nationalised industries. Now that so many of them stand on their own feet in the private sector, there is less opportunity to pass vast sums to the public sector. I am afraid to say that the civil aviation authority is still one of those bodies.
  The House will be interested to know that 90 per cent. of the Civil Aviation Authority consists of an organisation known as the National Air Traffic Scheme. The NATS service is responsible for all that happens in our skies and 90 per cent. of the staff of the CAA are in NATS. Does the Minister believe that public money could be saved if the CAA were separated from the navigational arm, which forms the majority of it, and was either made into a public utility or privatised?
  NATS controls slots at airports. The service that it performs is marketable and could be privatised. Airlines could be charged for its services. Could some of the large sums to be voted for CAA borrowing be saved if NATS became a public utility or was privatised?
  In 1983, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry referred the running of the CAA to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and it conducted an inquiry. It is strange that, six years later, the Department of Trade and Industry has again referred the CAA to the MMC. Is that because the 1983 report was no good or are the Government running out of public bodies which the MMC can investigate? As we go through the cycle of privatisation, the CAA will probably be referred to the MMC every few months as the MMC runs out of public bodies to examine.
  We have a problem about the amount of money that is being asked for and about how NATS is run. If it were run in a slightly different way, it might not cost so much. I do not know whether my hon. Friends know that NATS is run by an air marshal for three years and by civilians for the next three years. It is rather like a biblical story, in which seven years are lean and the next seven years are fat. With NATS, the air marshal takes over the running of the air navigational system every three years and civilians do it every other three years. It is like rotation of crops. Is that the best way to run air traffic control? There is a constant change of seats. It is like musical chairs. After the third year, the air marshal has his chair removed and a civilian moves in. That does not lead to continuity and cannot be the most effective use of money.
  Conservative and Opposition Members would like more money, provided that it produces more slots in the air. Is the Minister aware that the antiquated system under which NATS is run means not only that more slots will not be produced, but that the amount of money spent will not necessarily result in better working practices?
  I wonder whether my hon. Friends are aware that at Heathrow every day at 3 o'clock the runways are changed, rather like the changing of the guard. That results in about a half-hour gap in operations as the CAA changes the runway pattern. No other airport halts all aircraft wanting to take off or land so as to change the runways, and Heathrow is one of the few airports that does not have a mixed-mode runway. Perhaps a few bob from the £500 million could be saved if Heathrow's runway configuration were not changed at the same time each day.
  Money could also be saved if NATS had better working practices. I know that the Minister will tell me that various
  364
  London boroughs asked for the runways to be changed round because of noise. That request was made many years ago, but since then planes have become much quieter. It should not necessarily be advantageous to spend money on an organisation that has antiquated practices.
  The money to be loaned to the CAA will not mean that it gets NATS off its back, nor will it give NATS the opportunity to make its operations lean and more efficient. That money will compound what is going on. I accept the good work that NATS does, but I fear that the money will consolidate outdated and ineffectual working practices. When the Minister replies I hope that he will consider whether money could be saved or better value for money given were my suggestions followed.
  We are all for safety and security and we all want facilities for more capacity in terminal areas. The only snag about the money to be given to the CAA for NATS is that it may produce many more slots in the air space, but the £500 million may only keep the planes in the sky. My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason), whose interest in travel is well known, will be pleased to know that. I am sure that he will share my concern, however, that although more planes will be flying around the air, it will not follow that more planes will be taking off or landing. The money will provide slots in the sky, but it will not provide more capacity in the terminal areas.
  Mr. Allason: Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem lies not with the number of slots in the sky, but with the experts who decide how many seats will be used in a plane? The problem is not the ever-growing number of people who use air travel, but the number and type of plane. A few years ago, the so-called experts advised that smaller aircraft should be used. Those aircraft have resulted in a greater number of air movements, but there has been no commensurate increase in the ability of those aircraft to carry more passengers. Exactly the same number of passengers are carried now as in the past.
  Mr. Steen: Although my hon. Friend's point does not truly relate to the borrowing powers that we are discussing, it would be discourteous if I did not respond to him briefly. The problem with the larger aircraft is that one presumes that all passengers want to travel to the same destination at precisely the same time.
  Mr. Julian Brazier: They cannot get off halfway.
  Mr. Steen: No, indeed.
  Nowadays, the travelling public want planes that will take them, on a regular basis, to smaller airfields nearer to their eventual destinations rather than larger and larger planes that go to one place. In the 1970s there was a growth in the demand for large planes, but that trend is reversing and smaller planes are being used, which has resulted in more air movements.
  More air movements do not present a problem. The trouble is that those planes must land and take off. Extra slots in the sky do not present a problem; the problem is providing adequate and sufficient controls at each airport to allow planes to take off or land. When my hon. Friend replies, I hope that he will say something about better working practices at airports such as Heathrow which will result in more movements.
  At the terminal 4 inquiry, the inspector said that the maximum number of movements that could be allowed

  365
  out of Heathrow was 275,000 a year. Hon. Members are probably unaware that there are now 340,000 movements in and out of Heathrow, discounting night movements. New technology has enabled more planes to land and take off and the provision of more slots in the sky. As a result of the money to be given to the CAA and of planes becoming quieter, does the Minister intend 400,000 air movements at Heathrow? Is it his intention to increase the number of slots out of Gatwick? Unless my hon. Friend makes a statement about how the money will be used, he will find that the British Airports Authority will resist growth at Heathrow and Gatwick and will favour moving planes to Stansted, in which it has invested £300 million.
  I hope that my hon. Friend's reply will be robust and I hope that he will tell the House that Heathrow's efficiency will not be reduced because of a conflict between the CAA which, through new technology, will be able to produce more slots and more take-offs and landings, and the BAA, which wants to switch traffic to Stansted. The House is entitled to know whether the CAA will use its enormous loan clout to redirect air traffic in the London area.
  Although the sky is the limit for investment in airlines, there is little point in making provision for more air space if sufficient money is not used to provide the necessary infrastructure to deal with arrivals and departures. I touched on that when I mentioned the mixed-mode runway.
  Although I could speak for a long time, it would not be right to do so, as I know that other hon. Members want to participate. We should remember, however, that airports such as Heathrow can be competitive only if there are sufficient slots in the air space and opportunities for true competition. The House should be concerned about the new competitive blocks that are emerging at Heathrow—British Airways, Sabena and KLM and Air France and Lufthansa. Between them they could take up 60 per cent. of the slots at Heathrow and allow virtually no room for competition.
  It is important for the Minister to ensure that the major airline blocks do not take all the additional slots to be made available as a result of the additional money for the CAA. Those slots must be used for the smaller independent airlines so that they can compete on all fours with the big battalions. I hope that the Minister will tell us the Government's policy on this—[Interruption.] I do not know why the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) is getting so excited. I cannot believe that it is because of my speech.
  Mr. Don Dixon: I have never heard a money resolution being allowed to be debated as widely as this. The hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) has not once been brought to order or brought back to the resolution. If the Government's intention is to try to waste time tonight, we could have saved them the effort because we could have been voting from 7 o'clock on every amendment on the private Bill. We shall consider doing that the next time the Government wheel in Back-Bench Tories to waste time.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): We are discussing a money resolution, which happens to be wide. The hon. Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) obviously has expertise in the matter before us and it is therefore more important for him than for other hon. Members, to speak directly to the resolution.
  Mr. Steen: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the way in which you put that. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) for explaining his discomfort. I do not wish to detain the House because I have made many points which have been well received by Conservative Members.
  I do not wish to abuse the good will of the House. I have mentioned the points about which I am concerned. We are talking about £500 million and I want to ensure that the money will not create just more space in the sky but with no room to land. I do not want the CAA to use the words "safety and security" to obtain millions of extra pounds.
  I hope that the Minister will be circumspect in ensuring that the money is put to the best possible use in line with Government policy. The Government's policy is to encourage competition. If the Civil Aviation Authority uses the money to provide more opportunities for competition, that will fulfil the Government's commitment. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us tonight that the money will be used for the direct purpose of opening up the skies to real competition rather than giving the block cartels more opportunities, which in turn will prevent airlines from competing equally and which are against consumers' interests.
  8.42 pm
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: I wish to speak on a subject on which I have given notice to the Minister and on which I checked that I would be in order. I shall refer to the letters from Mr. Karel Van Miert to Mr. Roland Dumas—page 3 on the first letter on infrastructure facilities and page 7 of the second letter on the legal framework. I should like, I hope concisely, to raise one particular issue.
  During the Consolidated Fund debate which started at 5.52 am just before Christmas, I was fortunate enough to raise the general issue of rain forest trade in animals. The debate could have been referred to any one of 10 Government Departments because the subject straddles Whitehall Departments. During the debate I raised the matter of the International Air Transport Association and it is that on which I wish to concentrate tonight.
  I brought the debate recorded in Hansard, column 564 on 20 December, to the attention of the Department of Transport. My contribution should not be interpreted as any criticism of the Department because we are dealing with difficult matters which, to my knowledge, have not been solved by any country. Of the millions of pounds that we are discussing tonight, my plea is that more money should be given to guarantee facilities at our big airports, particularly Heathrow. That is relevant to the resolution.
  At 6 am on 20 December I said that I was
  "indebted to Tony Juniper and Christoph Imboden of the International Council for Bird Preservation, which is primarily concerned with the conservation of species."
  If my information seems to come from specialist sources, I think that the Minister would agree that there is widespread concern in this country about the conditions of the import of birds, fish, animals and reptiles.
  On 20 December I continued:
  "It is therefore of great concern that they have learnt that the number of birds dying in each consignment entering Britain continually averages between 13 and 20 per cent. In answer, I think that the Minister gave a figure of 13.7 per cent. The recent consignment of birds from Tanzania en route through Heathrow to Miami is a good example of the scale of the problem."

  367
  We are concerned not only with the importation but with the transit facilities which may be at the root of the problem. On 20 December, I said that one recent consignment
  "totalled over 8,700 birds, but over 1,200 individuals died. That is within the percentage loss that appears to be generally accepted by the authorities and importers not only in Britain but world-wide. In the United States, the figures for deaths range from 14 to 24 per cent."
  Current public feeling is considerable.
  "If it were dogs, cats or horses in trade, such figures would be totally unacceptable. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food figures"—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. As usual, the hon. Gentleman has been most courteous in giving notice to the Minister of the points which he wishes to raise. The money resolution concerns not IATA but the Civil Aviation Authority and it would be helpful to the Chair if the hon. Gentleman would show how the CAA makes the rules in this case, how they are used and how finance comes into it. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make, but it would be enormously helpful if he would speak more directly to the money resolution.
  Mr. Dalyell: I think that the Minister would agree that the Civil Aviation Authority has the closest relations with IATA. Is not the chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority, Christopher Tugendhat, a member of the IATA governing body—so there is the closest relationship between the two?
  I shall be concise. On 20 December I said:
  "While detailed figures are available on this trade in other countries, there are no comparable figures available in this country. For example, in the United States in 1985 over 18,000 grey parrots were imported and almost 2,700 died…
  Obviously a total ban on the trade in animals for commercial trade is ideal, but the present climate would never accept such a measure. However, limiting the trade to those individuals which are captive bred will certainly reduce the trade and the mortality figures. Interim measures which could be easily implemented include a stronger resolve by Governments to get to grips with this problem and to implement the CITES checklist scheme.
  The problem experienced by the International Air Transport Association is very important. It is vital that the dialogue between the CITES secretariat, through the standing committee, and the live animals board of the Intenational Air Transport Association, the Animal Air Transport Association and the International Office of Epizootics be continued; that applicants for export permits or re-export certificates should be notified that, as a condition of issuance, they are required to prepare and ship live specimens in accordance with IATA live animals regulations for the transport of live specimens by air and the CITES guidelines for transport of live specimens for marine or terrestrial shipments; that to assist enforcement officers, CITES export permits or re-export certificates should be accompanied by a crating checklist to be signed immediately prior to shipment by a person designated by a CITES management authority, the person so designated being familiar with the live animals regulations;"—[Official Report, 20 December 1989; Vol. 164, c. 564-65.]
  This will all cost money and require facilities. That is why I am particularly grateful that the Minister said that he would do his best to comment on this contribution.
  I admit that being a party to the convention and providing animal holding facilities can be extremely expensive. Facilities should be open to inspection, with the concurrence of the transport company—in this case the airlines—by CITES-designated enforcement personnel or
  368
  designated observers; and any documented information should be made available to the appropriate authorities and to the transport companies.
  This is a complex matter to which there is no easy answer; it requires money and an understanding that other countries are involved in the trade, and that it is no good exporting or re-exporting animals from this country and finding that a significant percentage of them die on the way to their final destination.
  One of the advantages of the Consolidated Fund debate is that one can quietly put a case to the House. That is what I should like to do on this, similar, occasion, in the expectation that the Department of Transport is doing its best and will tell us what it is doing about an appalling problem. It is, of course, true that humans are more important than animals, but the civilised world can do a great deal about the problem.
  8.52 pm
  Mr. Rupert Allason: I have the honour to have been selected to serve on the Standing Committee scrutinising this Bill and I am extremely worried about much of the way in which the money is to be spent.
  The key to the Bill and this resolution is the overcrowded skies of the south-east, a problem which has arisen time and again. Experts have been consistently wrong, and I should like to be reassured that the money will be spent in ways that will reduce the burden on air traffic controllers. As far as I can tell, that is not what will happen.
  Some of the money will be spent on buying a new green field site of about 30 acres in Fareham to move the air traffic centre from West Drayton. I cannot say that I am enthusiastic about that. I understand also that some of the extra borrowed money will go to a national radar network. Anyone who has studied the radar system—especially the defence system—of this country will know that it has been a shambles since the late 1940s. I hope that some of the money will be spent integrating the military and civil systems.
  Similarly, a great deal could be achieved by spending the money sensibly to remove the pressure on the south-east. When this issue reached crisis proportions last year, serious consideration was given to opening up two major international airports, not in the south-east but serving the major catchment area of the west midlands and the south-west.
  We have two huge airports that are hardly used. One is Greenham Common which was, but is no longer, a cruise missile site. It is conveniently close to the M4. Brize Norton is a major international airport used only by the military. No civilian personnel pass through it, but Customs and immigration officials are there. For my constituents in the south-west it would be extremely useful not to have to trek the whole way to the M25 and around it to Gatwick to make their connections. It would greatly help them if they could go up the M5, on to the M4 and pop into Brize Norton or Greenham Common, both of which are greatly underused. If these two sites were developed there would be no necessity to move from West Drayton and despoil a green field site in Fareham, and that is the core of my proposition.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) described the resolution as concentrating on safety and security; I cannot say that I share his view. Safety is

  369
  extremely important, but I understand from the Civil Aviation Authority that much of the money will be spent on training an additional number of air traffic controllers, which is to be welcomed if they are really needed. The irony is that study of the figures shows that the trainees are being streamlined—Civil Service jargon for saving money and reducing the time spent on training. The time from the moment someone is recruited to the time he is popped into the control centre will be 18 months. I am a little concerned about that and about the time that will be spent in on-site training in a control tower——
  Mr. Steen: I want to correct a misapprehension on the part of my hon. Friend. I said that the amount of money that could be spent on security or safety was limitless. Merely mentioning them necessitates an open cheque, so using any of the £500 million for security or safety does not necessarily mean that procedures would be any more secure or safe.
  Mr. Allason: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct as usual. His knowledge of the subject is considerable, and it is a great disappointment that he was not called in the debate on airport security. It is astonishing that the most modern airport in Europe, terminal 4 at Gatwick, is probably illegal, in the sense that it is the only airport with no segregation of incoming and outgoing passengers. That should be against the law; it is likely to be against European law in the not-too-distant future.
  This most modern of terminals was obviously built and designed by people who had never had to walk through an airport building. When the Queen went to open terminal 4 she was horrified by what she saw and remarked that she could not understand—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that he should not bring in the monarch to assist debate.
  Mr. Allason: I beg your forgiveness, Madam Deputy Speaker, for my brief lapse. All I can say is that a personage who opened terminal 4 asked how her subjects would be able to push their trolleys from the point of luggage collection at the carousel to the railway station, a journey which would necessitate no fewer than four on-and-off loadings of the trolleys, because the geniuses who invented the little shuttle train that moves between the terminal buildings designed it not to be able to carry luggage carts.
  Mr. Batiste: That annoys many of the passengers who go through most of our larger airports.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We are departing from the resolution. Airport buildings are not necessarily the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority.
  Mr. Allason: While I agree that the railways inspector is directly responsible for banning the luggage carts on the Gatwick shuttle, the CAA has overall responsibility to police such matters. The CAA plans for expenditure clearly show that little is to be spent to improve security. It is curious that in Canada, the security and intelligence service spends the majority of its vetting time dealing with applicants and candidates from airports. Every airside member of staff has to be positively vetted in Canada. In this country the Security Service is regarded as far too secret to have to dirty its hands protecting the public.
  370
  I am not convinced that this increase in the borrowing powers of the CAA from £200 million to £500 million in ecu, dollars or pounds will be sensibly spent. I look forward to the Minister giving us a detailed analysis of exactly what will be spent, and I hope that he will assure us that the site in Fareham will not be a complete white elephant.
  9 pm
  The Minister for Aviation and Shipping (Mr. Patrick McLoughlin): The Bill is essentially simple, although the debate may have raised it above that level. It is an important measure to increase the borrowing limit of the CAA. It also makes clear the existing power of the CAA to borrow in foreign currencies and also to borrow in units of account such as ecu. I shall try to cover as many as possible of the points that were raised in debate. I hope that the hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon) will accept that I shall try to cover concisely matters raised not only by my hon. Friends but by Opposition Members.
  I can tell the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) that any extension over the £500 million would require an affirmative order and would be subject to the possibility of another debate. The hon. Gentleman slightly confused me when he talked about the need for regional airports. I was not sure whether he meant that they ought to develop or whether he wanted to see some restriction on the opening hours at Leeds-Bradford airport.
  Mr. Cryer: I suggested that the Minister's explanation in Committee was an illustration of increasing air traffic capacity through investment of the money that would be subject to the money resolution. If that is the case, it would obviously increase the capacity of airports such as Leeds-Bradford which are not congested in the same way as Heathrow. That might lead to the conclusion that it would not be necessary to extend the opening hours at Leeds-Bradford airport, and that would satisfy many people who live under the flight path.
  Mr. McLoughlin: I follow the hon. Gentleman's argument. One of the great dilemmas when talking about the necessity to increase airport capacity is balancing environmental questions against the convenience of people in the Leeds-Bradford area travelling from their own airport and not having to travel long distances to other airports. 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. There are many flourishing regional airports such as Birmingham, Manchester, East Midlands and to some extent Leeds-Bradford, which I have not yet visited but hope to visit in the near future.
  The hon. Member for Bradford, South asked why the CAA should be allowed to borrow in units of account such as ecu. The CAA already has power to borrow in foreign currencies with the approval of the Secretary of State. The legislation merely extends that power, including the consent provision. The Secretary of State and the Treasury have to be satisfied that each tranche is required. As units of account are not currencies in every sense of the word,

  371
  the Bill merely explains that the term "currency other than Sterling", in section 10 of the 1982 Act, includes units of account defined by reference to more than one currency.
  It is wise to allow the CAA to borrow in units of account, because charges collected from airlines by Eurocontrol for air navigation services provided by the CAA from 1 January this year will be paid to the CAA in European currency units and not United States dollars. That provision has been introduced to provide greater flexibility. The money is required for not only the £30 million tunnel in the sky concept that I mentioned earlier but the new en route system, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) referred, and to which I shall return.
  My hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen), who has a great knowledge of aviation, made a number of serious points. I was sorry that he was unable to catch the eye of Mr. Speaker during our debates on the Aviation and Maritime Security Bill. On Monday he made an important point concerning slot allocations and the necessity—although this may go wider than the issue of the CAA's borrowing powers—to ensure that fair competition is allowed, the consumer has a right of choice, and smaller airlines are not stifled and put out of business.
  My hon. Friend asked about the possibility of splitting national air traffic control services. That interesting idea was also contained in a recommendation of the Select Committee on Transport, which we are currently considering. We shall respond in due course, and I trust that my hon. Friend will not expect me to comment further now.
  My hon. Friend asked also about a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. That is not the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport but for the Director-General of Fair Trading. Any public body must be open to detailed scrutiny of the kind that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission can undertake, and I hope that the CAA comes out of its investigation very well. However, I cannot comment on the likely outcome of the MMC's report.
  My hon. Friend gave me some of the answers to his own questions concerning mixed mode operations at Heathrow. That aspect is new to me, but it is also a question of getting the balance right between noise and maximising the capabilities of our airports, which is of fundamental importance.
  Mr. Steen: Objections to noise are too often made without being counteracted by the argument that there is virtually no unemployment in the vicinity of airports. The people who work at airports want to live near them, so complaints about noise are often a red herring.
  Mr. McLouglin: My hon. Friend is welcome to make that point, but it is not one which right hon. and hon. Members representing areas close to airports would promote. I have to take very seriously the views of local residents. I repeat that it is a matter of achieving a balance between providing the required service and the environmental impact in a particular area. That balance is not easy to achieve, but we must aim at striking it as often as we can.
  I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) for his usual courtesy in notifying my office that he would
  372
  be raising certain points. I understand that his remarks were in order because the CAA is responsible for safety matters. Most of the responsibility for regulating the carriage of livestock is primarily with Departments other than my own. Shortly before tonight's debate, the hon. Member informed me that his contribution to the Consolidated Fund Bill just before the Christmas Recess could have brought responses from 10 different Departments.
  Responsibility for livestock lies mainly with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of the Environment. For carriage by air, the air operators themselves have drawn up, through the International Air Transport Association, regulations with which all United Kingdom operators should comply. In licensing a United Kingdom operator wishing to carry cargo, including livestock, the Civil Aviation Authority will satisfy itself that an operator is competent to comply with the association's rules. The policing of such carriage lies principally with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and with local authorities in which the point of entry or departure is located. However, the CAA flight operations inspectors also run checks on air operators to ensure that they comply with the association's regulations in the holding and transit of livestock.
  The hon. Gentleman drew attention to serious incidents. I assure him that I shall draw attention to the chairman of the CAA. If I can go further, I shall write to the hon. Gentleman later. Indeed, we gave him an undertaking when he managed to get in at the end of the debate on the Aviation and Maritime Security Bill.
  Mr. Dalyell: The Department of Transport can make sure that the checks are carried out systematically. The difficulty is that MAFF says that it is the responsibility of the Department of Transport. It is not as simple as buck-passing all the way round. The difficulty in the British system is that anything that straddles more than two Government Departments, let alone 10, becomes the responsibility of someone else if it is awkward. That is why I suggested in the Adjournment debate that there should be an overall committee representing all Departments to consider an issue that concerns a great many people who are horrified, particularly at the pictures of gross cruelty to animals and often gross and needless incompetence.
  Mr. McLoughlin: We have had a warning. If there is one thing for which the hon. Gentleman is known, it is his persistence. If the problem is not sorted out, we can expect to hear more from him on it. I undertake that we shall try to produce clear guidelines to cover some of the important points that the hon. Gentleman has made.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay wondered whether the money was necessary. There is no doubt that some of the new equipment that the CAA needs is very expensive. We do not want to hold the CAA back. The argument is sometimes put that there has been under-investment. We want to make sure that adequate investment is available to the CAA. It is not a matter of trying to create more slots. Some would argue that Heathrow and Gatwick are almost at capacity. We are awaiting advice from the CAA on that. It should be published nearer the summer.
  The Bill is important and deserves the approval of the House; I hope that it will get that approval.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Civil Aviation (Borrowing Powers) Bill, it is expedient to authorise any increase in the sums payable out of or into the National Loans Fund or charged on and issued out of or payable into the Consolidated Fund under the Civil Aviation Act 1982 which is attributable to provisions of the new Act—

  (a) increasing the Authority's borrowing limit to £500 million with power to make further increases up to £750 million by order;

  (b) enabling the Authority to borrow sums in units of account defined by reference to more than one currency.

  Civil Aviation Authority (Borrowing Powers) Bill [Money]
    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

      AIR TRANSPORT
      That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 8520/89 relating to the application of the competition rules to air transport, and 8521/89 relating to the development of civil aviation in the Community; and endorses the Government's objectives in the first case of improving procedural certainty in aviation operations, and in the second of providing the fullest degree of liberalisation within the Community subject to suitable safeguards against anti-competitive behaviour.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
      Question agreed to.

  Telephone Premium Services
  Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John M. Taylor.]
  9.13 pm
  Mr. Terry Lewis: I did not think that I would be called, because of all the shenanigans on the Conservative side. However, I am on my feet and I am grateful for the opportunity to raise again the issue of telephone premium services. I fear that I am in danger of being politically typecast, so I shall have to be careful.
  Telephone premium services were introduced in January 1986. They caused immediate controversy. There were large bills and children were being corrupted. In one case, three young children in the London area were abducted through a liaison made with an older person who was keying in to the telephone services and having conversations with young people.
  Those embarrassing events led the industry to respond in what I regard to be a timid way. In August 1986, it created an organisation called the independent committee for the supervision of standards of telephone information services—ICSTIS. It was funded—and still is—by British Telecom, the main recipient of the profits from those services. Various trade organisations were set up and various codes of practice were published. Throughout 1986 and 1987, the embarrassing and controversial cases still appeared in the newspapers and on television. There was a great response, throughout the country to the interest that I took in the matter.
  The Director General of Oftel, whose remit from the House under the Telecommunications Act 1984 is to represent the consumer interest, was very much involved. I shall later discuss the various cases in greater detail.
  The Director General of Oftel, under considerable pressure and clearly within the remit given by the House, finally made a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in July 1988, and its report was published in January 1989. There then followed considerable consultations with interested parties, but the interests of the consumer and those who have fallen victim to the services during the preceding three and a half years were not sufficiently taken into account. I gave evidence to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, had several meetings with the Director General of Oftel and had considerable correspondence, but not one of my recommendations was adopted. I do not take that as a personal insult.
  I am sure that the Minister will agree that all the matters that we discussed recently in a television debate were conceived by the industry. The cornerstone of the new licence amendment is a code of practice that will be supervised by the ICSTIS. It is a new code but, in effect, it is only the old code in a new wrapping. The first code has gone by the board. There have been three codes in three years and we are told that this one will solve all the problems. It seeks to provide monitoring of the multiline chatlines, when up to a dozen people engage in what is mostly banal conversation, but which can be dangerous. It envisages age control, where young people below a certain age will be barred from using the service. It also envisages compensation for high bills.
  I shall first deal with monitoring. In 1987 there was a chatline called Talk about, which was owned by British Telecom. It was taken out of service after a great deal of

  375
  controversy and after much heartache for many families. When the controversy was at its height, the Liverpool city council trading standards office made a fetish of monitoring—almost 24 hours a day.
  British Telecom was persuaded to carry out an almost one-to-one monitoring exercise. It is nonsense to suggest that monitoring can solve the problems about which I am speaking. I shall show how many people have become involved in monitoring. It will then become clear that it is nonsense to suggest that monitoring can solve the problem.
  It is suggested that age control will help. How in goodness can a telephone monitor judge that a girl is younger than 14, 15, 16 or 17? Publicans cannot do it. Sophisticated as some youngsters are, it will be virtually impossible to do it on the telephone. In other words, age control is another nonsense which has been dreamt up by the industry to protect its profits.
  The most ludicrous proposal is the so-called compensation scheme. That idea came from the industry when families were driven into debt with telephone bills of £4,000, £5,000 and a record £7,000 because youngsters had used the telephone without consent. If a compensation scheme could overcome that, I would be the first to say that it should be given a try.
  If a product or service, before being delivered into the market place, needs a compensation scheme to underpin it or to make it legitimate, the service or goods in question cannot be worth a candle. Again, the industry creating protection for itself dreamed that idea up and it was taken on board by the Director General of Oftel.
  The market about which I am speaking is so defective that it must be addressed not by the Director General of Oftel but by Parliament. It is defective to the extent that the market can survive only if people steal calls on the telephone at home or at their workplace.
  My next remarks will interest the Minister because I have with me a cutting from a newspaper which this morning said that a business in the Minister's constituency had been landed with a telephone bill for £19,000 because of an employee's obsession with chatlines.
  About two years ago I began to appreciate, as households were being driven into debt, how small businesses could find themselves faced with huge charges as young employees, ill-supervised—particularly where it was not possible for small firms to provide call-barring equipment—ran up huge telephone bills.
  I have done a great deal of research into the whole issue. I would not care to think how much it has cost me in telephone calls to funny and seedy chatlines in recent years. Indeed, economy has had to be introduced into my parliamentary office and we have had to do less telephoning.
  So concerned was I about the possible plight of small businesses that I wrote to about 600 chambers of commerce, one of which was in the Minister's constituency, where the company to which I referred has been saddled with a telephone bill for £19,000, a reasonable irony for tonight's debate.
  Why am I so bitterly opposed to telephone message services, and why have I put so much time into the
  376
  argument, and run the risk of being typecast? It is because of the experiences that I have outlined tonight, and the research that I have carried out.
  Multiline chatlines are one of the specific problems that I have come across. I know of a case where three children aged 13, 14 and 15, tried to commit suicide when huge bills of between £3,000 and £5,000 dropped on to the doormat. I know from correspondence from people throughout Britain that families are still struggling with the debts that have been run up in such a way.
  I anticipated the possibility of fraud, and I alerted the Director General of Oftel a long time ago to the fact that unscrupulous chatline companies, once they get a line from British Telecom, are divorced from scrutiny and supervision. I thought that people might be encouraged to break into other people's homes and businesses, use the chatline, leave the phone hanging there for hours on end, and the chatline proprietor would split the difference with the perpetrator of the crime.
  I am sad to say that that has happened on a number of occasions. Several cases are now going through the courts, and two court cases have been concluded in the past three weeks. We should not clutter up the courts with a new crime—telephone chatline stealing.
  The other game that I detest and find despicable is the so-called interactive game in which the caller can be kept on the line for a long time, sent from one part of the game to another. The games are designed to keep the caller on the line and the caller is usually not the person who has to pay the bill.
  Tape messages are another problem. One usually sees offensive adverts for them. Out of respect for you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and because it would probably be an affront to the House, I shall not read out the offensive adverts that appear in The Sport today—they need to be seen to be believed, they are so bad.
  The worst problem is with one-to-one calls—usually a girl talking to a man. One finds them in the poorest parts of city centres throughout Britain, but Manchester seems to be the capital. A young woman is employed to speak, typically to a male caller, at all hours of the day or night and the conversation has to be about sex.
  I have brought to the attention of the House on a number of occasions the different problems associated with such lines. They are corruptive of women and, in my view, there is a correlation between the institution of those lines during the past four years and the number of crimes that are perpetrated against women on the streets. Some people think that they are useful and they argue that they are a safety valve. They say that sexual inadequates use the lines to blow off steam and that they are no problem to anyone else.
  Interviews that I have conducted in my office with young women who have worked on chatlines suggest that the opposite is the case: those women feel corrupted and dirty, and a number have said that they felt like "verbal prostitutes". No doubt someone will now say, "They do not have to do it."
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Eric Forth): They do not have to do it
  Mr. Lewis: The Minister is not strapped economically; like most hon. Members, he is all right, thank you very much. Outside the House, however, are one-parent

  377
  families—women who work at night when the kids have been put to bed. There are people out there who have not a hope in hell of getting a reasonable job. People in economic difficulties will do many things to earn a crust; women have been known to walk the streets because they have been dragged into economic difficulties.
  I hope that the Minister will take that aspect rather more seriously. Women are being corrupted. Let me appeal to the Minister in his capacity as a family man who, I believe, has two daughters of his own, rather than as a desiccated Minister who is far above these matters.
  During the campaign led by newspapers and television producers, we have from time to time been able to infiltrate some of the one-to-one chatline companies with women journalists. On the most recent occasion, a woman who engaged in such work for two and a half days told me—10 days after the experience—that she felt damaged by it. She could not talk about it to anyone for a long time. She confirmed what others have told me many times when I have spoken to them in my office or in their own homes. What they have to listen to, and the memories that they go away with, have no place in a civilised society.
  As has been said before in the House, typically the man who telephones must hear a female voice, and while he is talking to that voice—often in a public phone box—he is usually masturbating. Such men describe how they are going to go away and abuse their own children, and even their domestic pets. All this stems from the legalisation and legitimisation of the involvement of a great British corporation—indeed, an international corporation—in improper activities. The House of Commons should do something about it, and it is the Government's responsibility to help us to do something.
  Where do I stand? If he is consistent, the Minister will probably say that I am denying people choice, but, on the contrary, I am arguing for choice. I am saying that the subscriber should be able to choose whether his or her telephone is used for these awful services. That would kill them stone dead overnight. Consumers, most of whom have a good deal of sense, do not want to spend their money on the tripe and garbage that we are discussing.
  I want the introduction of a contracting-in system. I want subscribers to be able to sign a piece of paper telling British Telecom, Mercury or Racal that they actually want their telephone receivers to bring them such services. That would solve the problem. There should be free itemised billing. The quarterly bill should include a list of the calls that have been made so that they can be challenged and so that any calls that have not been authorised by the subscriber are immediately apparent.
  There should be a total ban on the one-to-ones and the multilines, I have heard on the multilines drug dealing, racialist comments that made my hair stand on end, and young girls making liaisons with older men. Those services have no right to survive.
  There should also be a ban on the lurid advertisements. The advertisements in certain newspapers cause deep offence to many people and need to be cleaned up. A statutory body should be set up, independent of the industry, created by Parliament and funded by Government to supervise what remains of those services.
  I take some comfort from the fact that one or two unexpected allies have rallied to my cause. Not least is the chairman of British Telecom, Iain Vallance, who described the services as a blight on the industry. I hope that the Minister will take that on board. As the chairman of
  378
  British Telecom has said that it is a blight on the industry, we should jolly well do something to assist him in removing it.
  Another ally is the Director General of Oftel. I understand that many of the complaints that he has received since 8 December resulted in his staff replying in writing and sometimes by telephone. In at least two of those telephone calls, members of the public have been told to contact their Members of Parliament as there is a need for a change in the legislation.
  But that is where I came in. I said four years ago that there needs to be a change in the legislation. I have said it in the House, outside and in every television studio in the land. It is a simple matter to look at the problems that I have outlined and the case that I have proved and that other people have proved and change the legislation.
  I said earlier that it was imposible for ICSTIS as presently constituted to monitor the volume of calls. We are talking about millions of calls per year. The supervisory committee consists of the princely number of eight staff—one secretary and seven administrative workers. It does not envisage employing more people until the end of the year when they will increase to 10. What chance has such a minuscule organisation of policing the matters that I have been talking about tonight and for a considerable time?
  I hope that the Minister has changed his mind since 6 o'clock this evening and has been convinced that something needs to be done not by the industry or by the Director General of Oftel but by the House of Commons. I am supported in that by organisations such as the Conservative Family Concern organisation and many others. Many individual members of the Conservative party have written to me.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government's policy of allowing the marketplace to dominate and providing only a weak and ineffective code of practice has been found to be completely ineffective? This evil traffic will be controlled only by legislation. The Minister should recognise that my hon. Friend has yet again brought to the fore one of the unacceptable faces of the enterprise culture.
  Mr. Lewis: I am convinced of that, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.
  Over the past four years, I have been extremely careful to argue on moral and practical grounds that the case is unanswerable. Any reasonable person, whether it be a Minister or member of any political party, must see the wisdom of the argument that these services are a facet of the free market and that the problem should be strenuously tackled. Ministers must begin to tackle the problem. There is no chance of its going away, because there is no chance of the present controls working. The industry knows that they will not work, and the greedy people who benefit from these awful services, which are harming innocent people, will flourish as long as Ministers ignore the problems that I have highlighted. I hope to hear something more positive from the Minister.
  9.41 pm
  Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) on raising the subject of telephone message services.

  379
  I endorse everything that the hon. Gentleman said. He was right to warn the House about the danger of such services. I wonder why Oftel and the independent committee for the supervision of standards allow British Telecom to make telephone numbers available to companies that pour out sexually suggestive, if not sexually arousing, tapes which anyone of any age can telephone.
  As the hon. Member for Worsley said, advertisements for those services are not restricted to pornographic magazines but regularly appear in some Sunday and daily newspapers and, as a constituent of mine recently pointed out, even in that all-purpose publication Exchange and Mart. I have some of those advertisements here if the Minister would care to see them.
  The telephone advertisements always feature some form of sexual pursuit in their titles that appeal across the range of human desires. Some call themselves "teledates" and others call themselves "contact lines." An advertisement in the Exchange and Mart says:
  "Men 4 Men. Ring and listen to other gay men looking for someone special".
  The advertisement next to that says "Data-Mate." One can ring either for a woman or a man on "Gay Lines" or on a "Lesbian Line." In other words, they pander to the lowest of human desires.
  As I said, those advertisements in Exchange and Mart were brought to my attention by a constituent who had bought that magazine, as tens of thousands of people do, for advertisements for household goods, cars, motor bikes, houses and a range of the essentials of life. To his great surprise, he found page after page of those advertisements under the title "Adult interests."
  As a result of my constituent's letter, I wrote to Sir Bryan Carsberg, who is Director General of Oftel, asking why Oftel allowed such advertisements to appear. I should like to quote his reply:
  "I do not have any formal powers that would enable me to exercise direct control over these advertisements. However, when I first became aware of the general problems associated with this kind of service, I encouraged British Telecom to take steps to establish a system of voluntary regulations. As a result of that, British Telecom appointed an independent committee, chaired by Mr. Louis Blom-Cooper and chosen to be broadly representative of public opinion, to draw up a code of practice relating to these services. British Telecom made compliance with the code of practice a condition of its contracts and the committee considered complaints.
  The code deals with both the content of messages and advertising. Some services have already been suspended as a result of breaches of the code. However, the committee has not so far taken a strong line on advertising, preferring the view that this was primarily a matter for the Advertising Standards Authority.
  Some complaints about the advertisements for these services were considered by the Authority but it declined to criticise them. As a result of recent escalation of concern with recorded message services, the committee is now determined to take a stronger line and I believe that it sees advertising, as you do, as a significant part of the problem. It proposes to issue a revised and strengthened code later this month"—
  he wrote in March 1989—
  "and it expects this to provide a basis for action in relation to advertising.
  I think that the best way forward is to try to make the committee's procedures effective and I believe that there is a good chance these procedures will now work well."
  He then advised me to write to Mr. David Wiseman, the Secretary of ICSTIS, which is what I did. In his somewhat
  380
  anodyne reply, Mr. Wiseman enclosed two copies of ICSTIS leaflets. One is headed "Premium Rate Telephone Information and Entertainment Services", and states:
  "What is ICSTIS?
  The Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services…is an independent watchdog which supervises premium rate telephone information and entertainment services.
  Premium rate services cost more than an ordinary telephone call.
  Currently, calls cost 25p per minute cheap rate and 38p per minute at all other times of the day. Of course, these rates will be higher for calls made from telephone boxes, hotels, etc.
  These services provide both information and entertainment (such as weather forecasts, financial information, sports results, games, and stories) over the telephone. Most of these services consist of recorded messages provided by private companies called Service Providers, each of whom is responsible for the content of the message or service as well as any associated promotional material.
  The independent committee, ICSTIS, has produced a Code of Practice that sets the standards which the Service Providers must observe. If they break the Code, their service can be removed from the telephone network."
  From that leaflet and from Sir Bryan Carsberg's letter, one would have thought that, 10 months later, I would not be supporting the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis), who has powerfully made out the case against these message services. He will probably agree that there has been no appreciable change and that, if anything, such services have proliferated.
  If one chooses to buy soft porn magazines one can see literally hundreds of these advertisements in a single column. That shows that these services are profitable both to the providers of the tapes and, sadly, to British Telecom. I must declare an interest, for I have a small shareholding in British Telecom. It gives me no pleasure to be a shareholder in a company that is making money out of such a grubby business.
  One must ask what can be done. Some advertisements at least trade on what can only be described as obscene titles, but, as is often the case with that sort of material, they end up as a rip-off in every sense. The actual message will probably be fairly innocuous and, I suspect, carefully produced to be just within whatever the lawyers who advise the companies believe allow them to claim that they are not obscene. If the titles are obscene, the companies will no doubt claim that the content of the tapes is not obscene. It must be on those grounds and on those alone—what other reason could there be?—that ICSTIS does not seem able to put into effect the code of practice, the details of which I have already given to the House.
  However, whether these "services" are rip-offs or not, and whether or not they are verbal prostitution—or, as I would prefer to put it, a verbal form of striptease—the fact is that they pander to the lowest tastes in human beings. They do nothing for the reputation of British Telecom and they make me wonder why neither Oftel nor ICSTIS has yet been able to produce the necessary procedures to prevent the trade from continuing.
  I recognise that when a company initially asks British Telecom for a telephone number with which to provide a service, British Telecom cannot know exactly what is involved. However, I no longer believe that British Telecom, Oftel or ICSTIS can have avoided noticing the advertisements that appear not only in pornographic magazines but, as both myself and the hon. Member for Worsley have already said, in daily and Sunday newspapers and in other publications as widely read as

  381
  Exchange and Mart. It is no good those organisations putting their heads in the sand and saying, "We had no idea that this was going on," because it is their telephone lines that are being used. They are profiting from the services. It is high time that they took their duties more responsibly.
  The advertisements and the services that they present to the public can do nothing for the reputation of British Telecom or persuade any of us that privatising British Telecom has enhanced the reputation of our national telephone service. By the same token, while the advertisements continue unabated, there must be a question mark over the effectiveness of Oftel and its Director General. Why has he not been given the formal powers, which in his letter to me he said that he did not have?
  Is my hon. Friend the Minister satisfied that we can continue without bringing forward such formal powers for the Director General and without asking ICSTIS to look again at its code of practice with a view, not to offering slaps on the wrist, but to giving the sort of teeth that will banish these advertisements from our daily and Sunday newspapers and from publications that lie about the house and can be seen by people of all ages and both sexes? That should not happen. I believe that we have it in our power to prevent it from happening.
  9.52 pm
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths: It is a sad sign of the times that we must have this debate, but it is also sad that we are seeing the true face of the Minister and his party, with a few honourable exceptions. There is no doubt in my mind that Alexander Graham Bell would turn in his grave at the knowledge that his wonderful invention was being used widely for such a perverted purpose. It is a sad sign of the times that so many people are using such services for misguided or perverted reasons, and it is also sad that once-responsible businesses are choosing to boost their profits by providing these revolting services.
  It is not that the services pander to healthy appetites—whatever that may mean—because today's newspapers carry a selection of advertisements from one company, Leeds Communications, which offers no fewer than 19 lines, including "Rubber Lust", "Wet 'n' Wild", "Ready and Willing", and "Out of Control". Another company encourages men to fantasise about girls at school with its "Gymslip" line. Another offers girl lovers.
  The Minister is well known for his support for private enterprise, but I should have thought that even he would draw the line at some of those advertisements. Apparently not. The Minister supports the independent committee for the supervision of standards of telephone information services, the regulatory body charged with vetting obscene calls on chatlines and associated premium rate lines. Each year, an estimated 45 million calls are made on sex lines. The watchdog body has one person permanently monitoring the lines with back-up from eight people who can be called in from other duties. Those were the figures that it gave to me today. There is one person to monitor every 5 million potentially obscene calls. If someone is caught making an obscene call, the penalty under section 43 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 is £400.
  The profits from porn lines are enormous. Over a dozen chat lines and phone line firms have revenues in excess of £1 million. The penalties are puny. Not one prosecution
  382
  has been brought against a company in four years. The chatline industry is laughing all the way to the bank. One paper today even flaunts that fact in an advert. It is called "Dial if you Dare". It dares people not only to take the risk of being caught, but to risk being prosecuted. Another advert calls its British Telecom number "Banned Lines".
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) said, the effect on women can be devastating. Parents cannot stop their child or a young teenager from ringing the phone lines. Firms cannot stop unscrupulous or irresponsible people from running up massive bills.
  The hon. Member for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson) concluded by putting a list of questions to the Minister. I, too, have a list of questions. Why has it taken him four years to produce a code of conduct that will control sex lines? The third code is claimed to be effective, but we know that it will not be. Why does the Minister rule out legislation when the code of practice is patently ineffective? Why does he not provide tough laws to control chatlines when the watchdog body appears to be toothless? Why does he refuse even to meet the Director General of Oftel to discuss the need to protect the public?
  Why is the Minister taking no action to prevent British Telecom from giving detailed technical advice on how to set up filth lines? Why are the people who run chatlines not vetted to screen out the paedophiles and perverts? Is he satisfied that nine staff can monitor 45 million sex line calls? Does he believe that a £400 fine for chatline obscenities deters firms which make millions of pounds?
  British Telecom claims that sex lines are a blight on the industry. The advice of the Director General of Oftel to my constituents and others is to contact their Member of Parliament to lobby on this matter.
  The Minister must know that British Telecom will not tackle the problems. The business generates multi-million pound profits for it. The Minister has a choice. He can endorse market sleaze or accept the four-point plan proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley. It is time for the Minister to stand up and protect consumers throughout Britain from this obscenity.
  9.58 pm
  Miss Ann Widdecombe: I am grateful for this opportunity to contribute to the debate and I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) on obtaining it. The interest which the subject arouses is amply demonstrated by the number of hon. Members present for this Adjournment debate.
  I am sorry that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) should have attempted to introduce party politics. It degraded what has been an entirely serious debate. If he wishes to conduct the debate on that level, however, I must say that I see little mileage in a party that opposed clause 28 of the Local Government Bill in 1988 and opposed the prevention of the promotion of perversion in schools lecturing us on morality. I would rather get back to the major substance of the debate.
  The hon. Member for Worsley said that chatlines were driving many people into debt, but they also drive people into crime. In my constituency, one young man has become so addicted to the obscene lines and the obscene services that he breaks into shops to use telephone points.
  It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
  Motion made, and Question propose, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Patnick.]
  Miss Widdecombe: I agree that the obscene services thus provided can be described as prostitution. The consequence must be that those who make profits from such services are living upon immoral earnings. I was under the impression that that was a crime. I would like the Home Office to be involved with this matter as well as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs.
  I, too, welcome profits, but the profits that are made from the innocence and irresponsibility of children are immoral. It is totally unrealistic to expect a young person, particularly a child, to understand that a telephone is not a free instrument and to understand that calls cost a great deal of money, which mounts up. In every home, agitated parents say to teenagers in the normal course of events that they spend too much time on the telephone.
  In the abnormal course of events, of which we have heard tonight, problems often occur in families in economically straitened circumstances. In those cases, the mother of the family is often economically constrained to go out to work. She is not at home to exercise control over the use of the telephone and is unaware of what is going on. She is simply unable to exercise parental responsibility, and by the time she realises what has happened it is much too late. In my constituency, telephone bills of four figures have been reported fairly regularly, so much so that a local priest, the Rev. Tony Faulkner, has taken up this issue. He has tried to inject local responsibility into this matter so that parents are more aware of what is going on.
  I second what the hon. Member for Worsley said about the effect of such services on women. All of us who have received obscene calls and who have managed to put the telephone down in 10 seconds flat, still know that one can feel extremely shaken up after the event, no matter how tough or self-reliant one may be. Therefore, the effect on women can be extremely damaging.
  I appreciate that the Minister will say that it is up to women to decide whether they participate in such calls. That is not true of young girls who ring up such lines for a bit of a giggle and who suddenly realise exactly what is on offer. Obviously, there is also the danger of liaisons being formed and young girls being lured to meet men—there is evidence that that has happened.
  I am all for wholly responsible profit-making and initiative in the sort of chatlines that are produced. I see nothing to suggest that the problem is restricted to private enterprise. British Telecom was privatised fairly recently, but the lines that we are discussing have been going for some time.
  I am all for responsible commercial enterprise, but we are talking about completely irresponsible commercial enterprise. That enterprise represents immorality and prostitution and those behind it are living off immoral earnings. Even when no obscenity is involved, such enterprises live off the irresponsible exploitation of the young. A little bit of will would stop it. We have heard various suggestions as to how it could be stopped. The hon. Member for Worsley suggested the opting-out method whereby it could be indicated that certain telephone lines were not to be used for such services. We should tackle what will become a growing social evil. It
  384
  involves the worry of parents who cannot meet their bills, the steady corruption of children, the degradation of women and the promotion of an ugly face of private enterprise which I do not like any more than the hon. Member for Worsley does.
  10.4 pm
  Mr. John P. Smith: I shall not keep the House long, but I should like to join in the congratulations of hon. Members from both sides of the House to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis), not just for winning tonight's Adjournment debate and choosing such an admirable subject, but for the campaign that he has conducted for some time.
  I feel strongly about the subject, largely due to an experience I had which sums up some of the issues involved. I held a surgery just before Christmas and a mother came to see me who was quite upset and distraught. She had discovered that her son was addicted to the disgraceful and pornographic telephone lines provided by British Telecom. Sadly, she actually believed for some time that British Telecom had confused her account with somebody else's because she was receiving such astronomical bills. She thought that they had lined her into a local company. She discovered quite by accident, through the recording mechanism on the telephone, which records the previous number called, that her adolescent son was using these services.
  I said that I would take up the case. I was not then familiar with the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley with British Telecom and Oftel. Quite frankly, I could not believe that we had no power, and the firms had no power, to do anything about this disgraceful and expanding practice.
  Sadly, I have to disagree with the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe), although I accept that many of her colleagues have supported my hon. Friend's campaign and disagreed with their Front-Bench spokes-men on the matter. I am afraid that this is a party-political problem. The solution is simple and anybody with a modicum of common sense can see what it is: with just minor legislative changes we could prevent this disgraceful activity.
  I am obliged to ask why we are not taking such steps and why the Government are not taking action. It may be a lesson to some Conservative Members to know that it is because the Government have gone so far that they do not know where to draw the line and stop. They adopt such doctrinaire attitudes towards privatisation, free markets and enterprise that they cannot see the damage that is being done. That is why I shall listen with great interest to the Minister's response.
  10.8 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Eric Forth): I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) on having secured the debate and pay tribute to him for the dedication with which he has pursued the cause over a long period. That has been mentioned during the debate and I want to pay tribute to him for having pursued the matter with great sincerity and dedication. This Adjournment debate is an important occasion in the course of his pursuit. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) referred to the amount of

  385
  support in the House this evening, it is worth recording that although there is an unusually large number of Members here for the Adjournment debate, it is not exactly an overwhelming presence.
  Many hon. Members have contributed to the debate—my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Sir M. McNair-Wilson), for Maidstone and for Pendle (Mr. Lee) and the hon. Members for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer). Also present are my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) and for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson) and the hon. Members for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) and for Hemsworth (Mr. Buckley). My hon. Friend the Member for Elmet (Mr. Batiste) is also here. It is worth recording the names of the hon. Members who have taken the trouble to be here at this relatively late hour to participate in the debate.
  I am glad that I shall have a little longer than usual to reply to the many important points that have been made during the debate. I want to reply to them reasonably fully.
  First, I want to set in their proper context the difficulties to which all hon. Members have referred. Consumers generally, and particularly consumers of telephone services, benefit enormously from the widely available and openly accessible public telecommunications systems that are provided principally, but not exclusively, by British Telecom.
  The availability and accessibility of these systems are at the heart of any public system of telecommunications and these rights are recognised in the duties placed on the Secretary of State and on the Director General of Oftel by section 3 of the Telecommunications Act 1984
  "to secure that there are provided throughout the United Kingdom, save in so far as the provision thereof is impracticable or not reasonably practicable, such telecommunications services as satisfy all reasonable demands for them".
  It may be that the burden of this debate will revolve round the interpretation of the word "reasonable". That may be the word on which we agree to differ, but in any case this is the basis of the provision of telecommunications services, and these duties are reflected in the licences granted to British Telecom and other national network operators—Mercury Communications, Racal-Vodafone and Cellnet.
  However, just as consumers have a right to telephone services, so too do premium-rate service providers. If we qualify such a right we must be sure that we do not undermine that main objective or access to the system.
  I also stress that under the terms of the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the licences issued under it the regulation of premium-rate services is the responsibility—rightly—of the Director General of Oftel, Sir Bryan Carsberg, whom hon. Members have mentioned several times in the debate. I make it absolutely clear that Sir Bryan has my fullest support, and that of the Secretary of State, in his work. We believe that he discharges his duties with great responsibility.
  The hon. Member for Worsley knows that I am obliged—I take the obligation seriously—to maintain a close interest in the issues raised tonight and I shall ensure that Sir Bryan receives a report of our debate.
  It is worth recalling that the services to which the hon. Member for Worsley refers have a common feature, in that they are all charged at premium rate directly to the
  386
  subscriber's bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury referred to that, but it is worth emphasising that these sorts of services fall into three categories: recorded message services on which the caller listens to a tape recording which could, for example, be a weather forecast or many other sorts of service; multiline or chatline services, which have caused some anxiety and on which the caller has the opportunity of talking to a group of between two and 11 other callers; and one-to-one services, those which perhaps cause the most concern, on which the caller has a conversation with an operator on a subject of his choice, or on one of the subjects in the advertisements to which hon. Members have referred.
  It is worth recalling briefly the history that has led to the present controls. In response to public concern—like that expressed by the hon. Member for Worsley—over many years about these premium-rate services and about their cost, advertising methods and contents, Sir Bryan decided that regulatory action was necessary. He first tried to persuade British Telecom to agree voluntarily to new measures that gave control over access to these services to the person paying the bill. When this failed, he referred the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Its report was published last year.
  The MMC concluded that the services operate or may be expected to operate against the public interest. It specified the effects that were adverse to the public interest by saying:
  "Due to the ease of access to the services, and the terms of contract between BT and its customers, the customer has inadequate control over the types of service which can be accessed and over the costs or charges that may be incurred for use of the services, which significantly impairs the value and quality of the telephone service to the customer".
  The MMC advised that until the modernisation of the network provided technology to remedy the main adverse effects of these services, they could be remedied or prevented by licence amendments and the MMC specified licence amendments which it believed to be appropriate. The MMC also stated that it did
  "not believe that the adverse effects of chatline services are sufficient to justify the virtual cessation of the services".
  That is an important statement because the Monopolies and Mergers Commission is independent of Government, as is Oftel. That statement is the backdrop to what I am about to say. It is clear that the MMC did not share in any full sense the points made by the hon. Member for Worsley.
  Mr. Lewis: Does the Minister agree that following the taking of evidence by the MMC, worse cases of chatline girls and of chatline services such as those we have been discussing appeared in the media? Because of that, Sir Bryan Carsberg took a stronger line than he would otherwise have taken.
  Does the Minister further agree that the Director General of Oftel could make licence amendments without strict reference to the MMC recommendations? He may take them into account, but in the light of new evidence he could have acted differently, and I do not think that he has done so. As I said in my speech, one of the great difficulties is that the Director General of Oftel seems to have taken more account of the industry's views than he has taken of consumers' views.
  Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to put that interpretation on Sir Bryan's conclusions, but I repeat—it is important to remember—that I and Sir Bryan have to

  387
  pay due regard to what the legislation specifies and what an independent body such as the MMC says. The Government also have to pay due regard to what Sir Bryan and Oftel say. That is the way that the thing works. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree that in many ways it is preferable for such matters to be dealt with by bodies that are independent of Government rather than to have a political overlay. I regard that as a virtue, not a shortcoming. In many other cases the hon. Gentleman might agree with me, and if he reflects on the matter I think that he will agree in this case, too.
  It is incorrect to suggest that to legislate in this matter would be relatively simple and straightforward. The hon. Gentleman has not faced the difficulties that Ministers have to face when legislating. First, there is the difficulty of getting a priority place in the legislative programme and secondly, there is the extent of commitment to legislative change. There are no wands to be waved in such matters even if the wish were there. I do not regard legislation as appropriate in this case and I shall explain why.
  Following the MMC report and having closed its own chatline service, British Telecom withdrew services from chatline operators. That decision is still the subject of legal action and I cannot comment further upon it.
  That brings me to the present measures. In the light of the MMC report and following the appropriate consultation, Sir Bryan has introduced new controls which give strong protection to the consumer by making amendments to the network operators' licences. They may now provide the facilities needed by premium chatline and one-to-one services only if the director general has approved a code of practice which regulates the provision of the services and, most important, sets up a fund to compensate customers with excessive bills arising from unauthorised access to the services.
  As recently as 7 December, Oftel approved two such codes of practice—one for multiline chatline services and another for one-to-one services. Both are administered by the independent committee for the supervision of standards of telephone information services. I stress the word "independent". I make it clear that a body that is chaired by as eminent an individual as Louis Blom-Cooper can hardly be regarded as in the pocket of either British Telecom or the service providers. I am sure that anyone who casts an eye over the committee's other members will be satisfied of their probity, integrity and independence. I resent the suggestion that they are in any way in the pocket of British Telecom or of the service providers. They are sturdily independent people of great reputation and probity. The House should know and understand that, and acknowledge it.
  Mr. Lewis: Public perception outside this House is as important as the Minister's regard for the members of the committee. I have no criticism of them as individuals, but the committee is funded by British Telecom and the other network providers, who appointed its members in the first place. That body includes an individual who is himself a chatline provider, albeit at the respectable end of the business. However, no consumer interest is represented on the committee. If it was broadly based and totally independent of the networkers, it would be more acceptable.
  388
  Nor is the committee wide-ranging in social or geographical terms. Its members all come from a narrow social background and work or live in London. There are other parts of this great country of ours than London.
  Mr. Forth: I do not dissent strongly from some of the hon. Gentleman's points, which will be considered when reviewing the future membership of the committee. However, given that its members include a consultant physician, a head teacher, and someone who calls himself a consumer policy adviser, I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's main criticism. I do not want to get unnecessarily bogged down in the composition of the committee, and hope that I have said enough to convince the House that its members are highly qualified and independent.
  If an operator fails to comply with one of the codes of practice approved by Oftel, ICSTIS can make a recommendation to Oftel, which can in turn authorise British Telecom to disconnect the service. As right hon. and hon. Members must be aware, one such disconnection has already taken place and another service has been withdrawn voluntarily. Evidence of failure to comply with the codes can come either from monitoring of the services by ICSTIS or from a complaint. I hope that any right hon. or hon. Member who has grounds for complaint will use the machinery available under ICSTIS to initiate the complaints procedure.
  The codes of practice, copies of which have been in the Library for some time, provide strong consumer protection. They require service providers to contribute to a fund sufficient to compensate any subscribers who face large bills as a result of unauthorised access to their services. One of the terms of the compensation fund—claims to which will be considered by an adjudicator, Sir John Bailey—is that where the adjudicator is unable to identify any firm evidence to support either acceptance or rejection of a claim, the benefit of the doubt shall normally be given to the customer, which is an important protection.
  Mr. Jimmy Hood: The Minister said that he does not believe that new legislation is necessary. I am not a great believer in censorship, but a whole village in my constituency is served by a telephone exchange having the STD prefix 08993. I am having problems because people using digital telephones just have to add another "9" and my constituents find themselves being asked for cricket scores or weather forecasts, which is not too bad, but for other services such as "Kinky dreams", "Naughty nymphette", "Rubber bust", Waiting for it" and "Wet 'n' wild".
  My constituents are harassed by these calls. People have to be protected. I am talking about a rural area with a substantially elderly community. I am pressed by people who are getting obscene calls. We are the legislators and we must do something about it. That is where democracy is. We have to protect people from harassment and perversion. I hope that the Minister will explain clearly why he will not introduce legislation to save people from harassment.
  Mr. Forth: In the five minutes that are left I shall attempt to give a clear explanation. I hope that I shall be allowed to press on. I accept absolutely the validity of the hon. Gentleman's point. If he has not done so, I hope that

  389
  he will approach British Telecom to discuss the problem. If he has any difficulty about that, I hope that he will come to me.
  Mr. Hood: I have raised the point with British Telecom, and we had a heated exchange. British Telecom more or less said, "Sorry, it is not our problem. It would cost us too much to change STD numbers." I was more or less told to go forth and multiply.
  Mr. Forth: I hope that the heated exchanges will be limited to the House and will not spread to British Telecom, where they could be disastrous. I hope to answer the points that the hon. Gentleman has made.
  Under the terms of the code of practice, ICSTIS has the right to visit the premises of operators without notice, to require that reasonable information and co-operation be provided, including written records in the case of one-to-one services and tape recordings in the case of chatlines, which must be retained for a period of six months.
  Service providers are required to do everything practicable to prevent access to the services by those under 18 years of age. In saying that, I recognise the difficulties with that provision. Even now there is an argument about the sale of cigarettes to under-16s by tobacconists. There is a continuing argument about the sale of alcohol in pubs to under-18s. I emphasise the general point that the new provisions have been in place just over a month. We have not yet had time to see how effective the codes of practice, the compensation fund, and the other provisions that ICSTIS has in its power will be.
  I hope that all hon. Members and the public will take the fullest opportunity to use the mechanisms that are available to find out whether they are adequate to cover the requirements raised in the debate. I believe that they should be. Equally, I can see that they may not be. If so, we will have to consider the matter again. Oftel will, as will others. The reason why I resist further legislation is that I believe that the mechanisms that we have provided, which are much more flexible than anything provided under legislation, should be adequate. If they are not, it is to them that we should look.
  390
  I must hurry in the two minutes remaining to me to say a word about the content and advertising of the services—another matter raised in the debate. I understand the concern of hon. Members. I looked at some of the advertisements earlier this evening to check on their nature.
  The codes of practice incorporate the British code of advertising practice and the British code of sales promotion practice, as well as other provisions requiring disclosure of the cost of the services, and details of the service provider and restrictions on aiming the services at young people. ICSTIS has written to the National Press Association and the Association of Free Newspapers informing them of the existence of the new codes of practice.
  It has begun an investigation into the advertising and promotion of adult services, examining ways to improve the standards of advertising and restrict the placement of advertisements, particularly in publications readily accessible to children. The investigation will involve service providers, network operators, the Advertising Standards Authority and relevant newspaper publishers associations and European and international authorities. ICSTIS is also taking action to make the general public more aware of its role, to look into European experience with premium rate services and to see what more can he done.
  I ask hon. Members to give the measures that we have put in place the fullest opportunity to work and to use the complaints services and the existing mechanisms. We will reconsider the matter when they have had a chance to operate to see whether they have had the effect that I expect and hope they will. If not, I will expect Oftel and the MMC to return to the matter, and I shall do so as well. I hope that over the next few weeks and months we will see a dramatic change and the improvements that all hon. Members have urged upon us. I expect that to be the case, but we will watch the position closely.
  The motion having been made 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 half-past Ten o'clock.

TRANSPORT

  Merchant Shipping
  Mr. Parry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the future of British merchant shipping capacity.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  There are encouraging signs that the worst of the decline in world shipping in recent years is over. British operators are among the most entrepreneurial and cost-effective and should be well placed to take advantage of the improved opportunities.

  Hydrography
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list the cost of hydrographic work carried out on behalf of his Department by(a) the Royal Navy and (b) the private sector;

  (2) if he will list the number of marine surveys ordered by his Department for the last five years.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  In 1989–90 the civil hydrographic survey programme is expected to cost about £6·3 million, of which about £2·1 million represents contracts let to the private sector, £2·8 million surveys undertaken by the Royal Navy survey flotilla, and £1·4 million work undertaken by the Royal Navy personnel in commercially chartered ships. The numbers of surveys undertaken in the last five years are 1985–21; 1986–18; 1987–21; 1988–20; 1989–15.

  NAVTEX
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list those countries whose NAVTEX is fully operational and those which are not, together with the implementation dates.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  NAVTEX services are fully operational in the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia.

  NAVTEX services are operational in parts of, or under trial in, the following countries: Bulgaria, Canada, China, Egypt, France, United States of America and USSR.

  NAVTEX services are planned in the following countries, with an indication of the implementation date, where known: Bahrain, Bermuda, Cameroon, German Democratic Republic, India, Israel, Italy (1990–93), Korea (August 1993), Japan, Spain (1990), Thailand and Uruguay.

  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he is taking to ensure that EEC countries implement the NAVTEX broadcast requirements.
  238
  Mr. McLoughlin
  The United Kingdom, through its participation in the worldwide navigation warning system and membership of the International Maritime Organisation NAVTEX co-ordination panel, is actively encouraging the development of NAVTEX both within the EEC area of interest and on a worldwide basis.

  Pilotage Commission
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the Pilotage Commission to be wound up.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  For reasons beyond its control the Pilotage Commission is not yet able to complete the winding up of the former pilotage authorities' affairs. It is therefore not yet possible to say when the commission itself will be wound up. The Department and the commission are considering what can be done to expedite the process.

  Horne Report
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what studies his Department has made of the effects of pot-holes and poor road standards upon cyclists; if he will reconsider his decision not to implement the Horne report; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  The Department has not undertaken specific studies of this sort. It did publish a local transport note last June entitled "Making Way for Cyclists", which gives detailed guidance to local authorities and others on a range of planning, design and legal aspects of providing for cyclists, and emphasises the importance of proper inspections and maintenance.

  King's Cross Railways Bill
  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions he has had with British Rail about how it proposes to justify to him, for investment authorisation, expenditure on the works covered by the King's Cross Railways Bill; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  British Rail's investment at King's Cross will need to be justified according to the normal criteria agreed between the Department and the board.

  Mr. Chris Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information British Rail has presented to him, for investment authorisation purposes, in relation to its anticipated revenues in connection with expenditure on the works contained in the King's Cross Railways Bill, in relation to(a) projected revenues from additional services on existing lines to King's Cross and (b) revenues from planned services on new lines for which parliamentary approval will be required and has yet to be sought; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  British Rail has not yet sought authorisation from the Secretary of State for its proposed investment at King's Cross.

  Departmental Policies
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what action he is taking to assess the environmental friendliness of his Department's policies.
  239
  Mr. Atkins
  The Department pays close attention to the environmental implications of its policies and many have a directly beneficial effect. For example, we are taking steps to control vehicle emissions; we build new roads to relieve congestion and bypass communities; and we are supporting massive investment in public transport. We shall be making an important contribution to the White Paper on the environment to be published later this year.

  A5 Bypass
  Mr. Madel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he is now able to say when he expects to announce the preferred route for the north-south A5 Dunstable bypass; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  Comments made during public consultation and the new national road traffic forecasts have made it necessary to reconsider our original proposals. Further consultation may be necessary, but we hope to announce a preferred route for the bypass by the autumn.

  Severn Estuary
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the latest timetable for the construction of a second highway crossing of the Severn estuary.

  Mr. Atkins
  We are currently considering tenders and remain on course to provide the second crossing by the mid-1990s.

THE ARTS

  Arts Funding
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Minister for the Arts if he will estimate the contribution to arts in the metropolitan area of(a) the Arts Council and (b) the London local authorities; upon what items this money is principally spent; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Luce
  I am advised that in 1987–88, the last year for which complete records are available, the Arts Council's grants to arts bodies in the London area (excluding the national companies) was £26·7 million. This sum was spread across the entire spectrum of art forms: music, drama, dance, literature, and the visual arts. Figures for local authority spending on the arts are more difficult to isolate. The Policy Studies Institute, however, has estimated that spending by local authorities on the arts in London for 1988–89 totalled some £42 million, of which £28 million went to arts premises and promotions, and £14 million in grants to arts organisations.

  Televised Performances
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what discussions he has held with national opera houses and theatres on increasing the number of televised performances.

  Mr. Luce
  It is for the companies themselves to decide on these matters. It is, however, the policy of the Arts Council to encourage the televising of performances in order to promote access to the arts. In addition, many new operatic productions are now broadcast on the radio. Between the two media, there were 15 broadcast productions in 1989; nine from the royal opera house, and six for English national opera.
  240

EDUCTION AND SCIENCE

  National Curriculum
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science pursuant to his answer of 8 January,Official Report, col, 487, what guidance he has issued to the National Curriculum Council about how much of a school's curriculum it should prescribe in its circulars to schools.

  Mrs. Angela Rumbold
  None. The Education Reform Act requires all maintained schools to provide a basic curriculum consisting of the national curriculum for all pupils of compulsory school age and religious education for all registered pupils at the school. Neither my right hon. Friend nor the National Curriculum Council has the power to prescribe what else is taught in schools, nor how the timetable is arranged.

  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received on circular No. 6 of October 1989 from the National Curriculum Council on the subject of the whole curriculum.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend has received one representation concerning the place of religious education and worship in the whole curriculum.

  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has any plans to change the remit of the National Curriculum Council.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to change the remit of the National Curriculum Council which is set out in section 14 (3), (5) and (6) of the Education Reform Act 1988.

  Teachers' Pay
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has any long-term plans to improve teacher remuneration.

  Mr. Rumbold
  The Government's policy is that teachers' pay should be such as to enable the maintained school system to recruit, retain and motivate sufficient teachers of the required quality, within what can be afforded.

  Teacher Shortages
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what are his Department's current figures for teacher shortages in England and Wales; and if he will set out his answer in tabular form giving details for individual local education authorities.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply my right hon. Friend gave on 21 December 1989 to the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) at columns 353-55. Data for Wales are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

WALES

  Earnings
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what his estimate is of the average earnings in the valley communities.
  241
  Mr. Peter Walker
  Information is not available below county level.

  Language Teachers
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many qualified teachers there are in the high schools of the local education authorities in Wales of(a) Welsh, (b) German, (c) French, (d) Spanish, (e) Italian and (f) Latin; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  Provisional estimates of the numbers of secondary school language teachers holding a post A-level main subject qualification are shown in the table:

  Subject

  Number of Teachers

  Welsh

  1,100

  German

  300

  French

  1,000

  Spanish

  100

  Italian

  100

  Classical Languages

  200

  Teachers possessing a qualification in a particular subject will not necessarily be teaching that subject. The figures are obtained from the Welsh secondary staffing survey conducted in February and March of 1989.

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will call a conference of local education authorities' parent-teacher associations and teacher unions to consider the need to increase the number of qualified foreign language teachers in Welsh high schools; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  No. The future pattern of demand for language teachers can be clearly determined in the light of the provisions of the national curriculum.

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what measures he has taken to increase the number of qualified secondary teachers of(a) Welsh, (b) German, (c) French, (d) Spanish, (e) Italian and (f) Latin; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The future demand for language teachers is being taken fully into account when setting the intakes to initial teacher training, in the revision of the criteria for initial teacher training courses and in planning the LEA in-service training grant scheme and education support grants.

  Business Rate
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the arrangements for the levying of the uniform business rate in Wales on properties open for only part of the year as a result of seasonal trade.

  Mr. Peter Walker
  Such property will be liable for non-domestic rating for the days on which it is used for non-domestic purposes and is entered on a local non-domestic rating list. Property used for non-domestic purposes can include property which is open all the year around, and also property where paying guests are not admitted out of season but where rooms are maintained in preparation for non-domestic use in the next holiday 242
  season. Where, however, the off-season use becomes domestic (for example, where the proprietor's family occupies the property for domestic purposes), the property is not rateable and should be deleted from the rating list for that period.

  Valuation of seasonally operated properties will take into account seasonal patterns of trade. The assessment of a hotel or guest house in an isolated tourist location can take into account the likelihood that winter trade may be minimal or non-existent. The pattern of trade is taken into account by the valuation officer in his valuation of a range of properties including hotels, guest houses, public houses and holiday cottages.

  Occupiers of seasonally operated properties which are liable to rates for any period will have their rate liabilities calculated in accordance with the Welsh non-domestic rating multiplier for the year. For the financial year 1990–91 that multiplier has been set at 0·368, or 36·8p in the pound.

  Mental Health Strategy
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what arrangements are under consideration for the all-Wales mental health strategy at the conclusion of the current 10-year programme.

  Mr. Grist
  We assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the all-Wales mental handicap strategy, as our all-Wales mental illness strategy was launched only last year and does not have a set 10-year programme. The Welsh chapter of the Government's White Paper "Caring for People" indicates that there will be a full review of service development and of the framework provided by the mental hanicap strategy in 1991–92. This review will help to inform consideration of future arrangements for mental handicap services.

  A465
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the timetable for making the A465, the Heads of the Valleys road, a continuous dual carriage highway throughout its entire length.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  There are no plans for dualling the Heads of the Valleys section of the A465. The position is being reviewed as part of the south Wales traffic study, which will be completed towards the end of 1990.

  A470
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the timetable for the completion of the Pentrebach bypass, and other bypass work, to take the A470 round Merthyr Tydfil.

  Mr. Wyn Roberts
  The A470 Pentrebach-Cefn Coed improvement is programmed to start in the period April 1991 to March 1994. Construction is expected to take two years.

  Agricultural Land
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what was the average price paid for the following agricultural land in Wales during 1989(a) lowland. (b) marginal and (c) hill land; what were the corresponding figures for each of the last 10 years; and if he will make a statement.
  243
  Mr. Peter Walker
  Information is available only on the basis of land grade. The average price paid for agricultural land of five or more hectares in vacant possession is shown in the table:

  Average land prices (£): Reported in 12 months ended September

  Grades 1 and 2

  Grade 3

  Grades 4 and 5

  1979

  2,593

  2,368

  1,607

  1980

  4,351

  3,240

  2,181

  1981

  4,504

  3,117

  2,027

  1982

  3,353

  3,119

  1,792

  1983

  3,002

  3,443

  2,079

  1984

  4,801

  3,816

  2,427

  1985

  5,512

  3,705

  2,070

  1986

  4,238

  3,642

  2,213

  1987

  3,292

  3,171

  2,196

  1988

  4,376

  2,906

  1,604

  1989

  5,065

  3,680

  3,627

  Note: Grades 1, 2 and 3 approximate to the lowland areas, grades 4 and 5 to the less-favoured areas of marginal and hill land. There is a lag between agreeing a sale and reporting it which means that prices reported in the 12 months ended 30 September generally related to sales agreed in the previous calendar year.

ENVIRONMENT

  Disabled People (Housing)
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the need for purpose-built bungalows for disabled people.

  Mr. Chope
  No such estimates are made. Generally the Government favour the design of housing, of whatever kind, which is accessible to the disabled and convenient for them to use. We aim to enable people with disabilities to lead, as far as possible, an independent and active life without having to move to specialised accommodation or institutional care. New grant arrangements coming into effect in April will facilitate adaptation and improvement works to help those who become disabled to remain in their existing homes.

  Chlorofluorocarbons
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has any plans to prohibit the disposal of consumer durables containing chlorofluorocarbons to landfill.

  Mr. Trippier
  The Government have at present no plans to do so, although the Department of Trade and Industry has commissioned an intensive study of the problems associated with the use of CFCs which is being carried out by Coopers and Lybrand. Further action will be considered in the light of that report. In addition, various pilot schemes are being undertaken by individual local authorities, some in conjunction with industry.

  EC Housing Ministers
  Mr. Soley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement on the meeting of EEC Housing Ministers held in Lille in December.

  Mr. Michael Spicer
  The meeting was arranged by the French Government with a view to establishing direct links between Housing Ministers from the EC member 244
  states. Almost all member states were represented, most at ministerial level, and discussions were cordial and productive. At the conclusion of the meeting it was unanimously agreed that similar meetings should be arranged annually, by the country holding the EC presidency for the second half-year, and that national Administrations should make the necessary arrangements to prepare for them.

  Pollution
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by(a) location and (b) water authority the sites that suffered from toxic pollution due to blue-green algae, caused by phosphates and nitrogen from sewage and farming entering public reservoirs; and if any successful prosecutions have been made.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  There were 53 sites in England where blooms of toxic blue-green algae were identified in 1989. The causes of the blooms have not yet been determined, but the National Rivers Authority is investigating the issue.

  Drought Orders
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by(a) water company and (b) location those areas where drought orders still remain in force in England and Wales.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The table lists, by water company area, the drought orders currently in force in England (and that part of Wales served by Severn Trent Water), the locality or water supply source affected by each order and its expiry date. Orders affecting the supply area of Welsh Water are a matter for the Secretary of State for Wales.

  Water company area and locality or water supply source affected

  Date of expiry of Order

  WATER SERVICE COMPANIES

  Anglian

  Ely-Ouse River, Essex1

  28 February 1990

  North West

  Ullswater

  31 January 1990

  Bottoms and Teggsnose

  31 March 1990

  Lamaload

  31 March 1990

  Tytherington Boreholes

  31 March 1990

  Severn Trent

  Tittesworth

  6 March 1990

  Clywedog Reservoir1

  18 March 1990

  Buxton

  21 March 1990

  Derwent Valley Reservoirs, Ambergate

  6 April 1990

  Homesford, Little Eaton, Church Wilne Derby, Notts, Leicester

  26 April 1990

  Southern

  North and West Kent and West and East Sussex

  20 January 1990

  River Medway

  31 March 1990

  Kent Groundwater (No. 2)

  31 March 1990

  West and East Sussex

  21 May 1990

  Hardham (West Sussex)

  31 March 1990

  River Rother, Robertsbridge

  31 March 1990

  Plucks Gutter

  31 March 1990

  South West

  River Torridge

  29 January 1990

  Avon Reservoir

  21 January 1990

  River Tamar

  4 February 1990

  245

  Water company area and locality or water supply source affected

  Date of expiry of Order

  River Tavy

  26 January 1990

  Venford Reservoir

  4 February 1990

  Devon and Cornwall

  2 February 1990

  River Axe, Whitford Bridge

  10 February 1990

  River Yealm

  28 February 1990

  Fernworthy Reservoir

  28 February 1990

  Colaton Raleigh Stream

  23 February 1990

  Challacombe Reservoir

  22 February 1990

  River Dart at Littlehempstead

  28 February 1990

  Upper Tamar Lake and Lower Tamar Lake

  6 March 1990

  Bude-St ra t ton Canal

  7 March 1990

  Leswidden Pool

  19 April 1990

  Yorkshire

  Harrogate area

  6 April 1990

  Hebden Valley and Withens Clough

  18 April 1990

  Pennine Reservoirs

  13 April 1990

  Bradford Reservoirs

  12 April 1990

  Underbank Reservoir

  18 April 1990

  River Wharfe

  30 April 1990

  River Hull

  22 June 1990

  Lindley Wood Reservoir

  1 June 1990

  STATUTORY WATER COMPANIES

  East bourne

  Eastbourne

  22 February 1990

  River Wallers, Haven

  24 April 1990

  Folkestone

  Folkestone

  14 March 1990

  Mid Kent

  Mid-Kent

  25 January 1990

  West Kent

  River Medway, Hartlake

  4 February 1990

  1Orders made on application of the National Rivers Authority.

  War Memorials
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what financial assistance his Department has given to the joint project being carried out by the imperial war museum and the royal commission on the historical monuments of England towards the national inventory of war memorials.

  Mr. Trippier
  The proposed joint project by the imperial war museum and the royal commission on the historical monuments of England is being supported by grants from the Leverhulme Trust, the Western Front Association and the Imperial War Museum Trust. With this support, the museum and the royal commission expect to be able to meet the full cost without the need to seek any additional funding from the Department of the Environment or any other Government source. The royal commission's day-to-day operations are, of course, largely funded through the grant-in-aid from the Department, which in 1990–91 will be £6·07 million. The grant-in-aid in 1990–91 to the imperial war museum from the Office of Arts and Libraries will be £9·6 million.

  Home Improvements
  Mr. Hayward
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment in which 10 local authority areas in the United Kingdom the Government have provided the largest sums of money for home improvement since 1979.

  Mr. Chope
  The table shows those local authorities in England which, between the financial years 1981–82 and 246
  1988–89, received the largest total amount of Exchequer contribution towards the cost of loan charges incurred by them in giving home improvement grants. Information for years prior to 1981–82 is not readily available. I refer my hon. Friend to the Secretaries of State for Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland for information relating to the rest of the United Kingdom.

  Local authority

  Total payment £ million

  Birmingham

  69,640

  Liverpool

  61,475

  Manchester

  58,713

  Bradford

  39,970

  Leicester

  35,480

  Wirral

  35,229

  Wandsworth

  34,526

  Nottingham

  31,543

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  30,957

  Sheffield

  29,952

  Public Footpaths and Bridleways
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to make regulations under sections 150 and 151 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to provide for charges to be made for anything done by a local authority in connection with public footpaths and bridleways.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  We are presently considering whether, and if so how, the enabling power in the Act might be used in respect of charging for public path orders. No regulations will be made without full consultation with interested parties.

  Environmental Assessment Directive
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment to whom his Department has let the contract for monitoring the implementation of the environmental assessment directive.

  Mr. Moynihan
  My Department is currently considering tenders which have been received from invited organisations.

  Town and Country Planning
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he plans to introduce legislation to consolidate town and country planning legislation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  It is hoped to introduce consolidating legislation prepared by the Law Commission into Parliament shortly.

  Bathing Water Survey
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library a copy of the "Bathing Water Survey" (1989 results).

  Mr. Trippier
  The results are at present being collated. I expect to place a report in the Library shortly.

  Drinking Water
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the use of ozone as a purifier of drinking water within the EEC.
  247
  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  I understand that ozone is used to some extent in most member states while it is used extensively in France.

  Houseboats
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration he has given to the desirability of introducing legislation to afford protection to those who reside on houseboats on canals and rivers; what recent representations he has received on this matter; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  The Department occasionally receives letters from hon. Members and the public about security of moorings for houseboat residents. We have no plans to introduce legislation providing statutory security of tenure for them.

  Migrant Households
  Mr. Holt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment which data source is used to determine the number of households headed by migrants from the new Commonwealth and Pakistan in determining levels of rate support grants for local authorities.

  Mr. Chope
  The data source for the number of households headed by migrants from the New Commonwealth and Pakistan is the 1981 Census.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has any proposals to deal with the causes of homelessness.

  Mr. Chope
  The review of the homelessness legislation, published in November 1989, sets out the Government's proposals for tackling homelessness. Copies are in the Library.

  Competitive Tendering, Kirklees
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made by Kirklees metropolitan council in implementing the provisions of the Local Government Act 1988 in relation to compulsory competitive tendering of(a) refuse collection, (b) cleaning of buildings, (c) other forms of cleaning, (d) catering in schools and welfare roles, other forms of catering, (f) grounds maintenance, and (g) repair and maintenance of vehicles; what are the projected annual savings as a result of competitive tendering for each of the services; and when the successful tenderers will commence operating each of the services.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The dates by which local authorities are required to expose their services to competition under the terms of part I of the Local Government Act 1988 are prescribed in the Local Government Act 1988 (Defined Activities) (Competition) (England) Regulations 1988 (SI 1988 No. 1371). The dates by which Kirklees metropolitan borough council is required to expose services to competition in this way, and the progress in implementing those requirements is as follows:

  (a) refuse collection—the date prescribed was 1 January 1990. I understand that the contract was awarded to
  248
  the authority's Direct Service Organisation (DSO) and commenced on that date. The authority estimate that net savings of approximately £½ million or 10 per cent. have been achieved;

  (b) cleaning of buildings—the date prescribed is 1 January 1991 and I understand that the authority is taking steps to ensure that competition is introduced in accordance with that timetable;

  (c) other cleaning—the date prescribed is 1 August 1990. I understand that the authority is currently considering applications from persons wishing to be included on its select tendering list and intends to commence the contract in accordance with the timetable;

  (d) catering for purposes of schools and welfare—the date prescribed is 1 January 1992. I understand that the authority is taking steps to ensure that competition is introduced in accordance with that timetable;

  (e) other catering—the date prescribed is 1 August 1991. I understand that the authority is taking steps to ensure that competition is introduced in accordance with that timetable;

  (f) grounds maintenance—the regulations require that authorities should expose a first tranche of 20 per cent. of this work to competition by 1 January 1990, and subsequent tranches of 20 per cent. at six monthly intervals thereafter. I understand that the contract comprising the first 20 per cent. tranche was awarded to the authority's DSO and commenced on 1 January and that a further contract comprising an additional 20 per cent. tranche of work was also won by the DSO and will commence on 1 April. The authority estimate that no net savings will be achieved from those contracts;

  (g) repair and maintenance of vehicles—the date prescribed in Regulations for competition was 1 August 1989. I understand that the contract was awarded to a private contractor and commenced on that date. The authority estimate that net savings of approximately £50k or 2 per cent. will be achieved.

  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the research projects commissioned by his Department in the past 10 years on rural matters, giving details of cost, publication and follow-up action on recommendations.

  Mr. Trippier
  Annual expenditure under the Department's countryside research programme and lists of publications resulting from it are given in the Department's periodic reports on research and development, published by HMSO, copies of which are in the Library. The individual research projects are listed in the annual surveys of research prepared for the countryside recreation research advisory group by the school for advanced urban studies at the university of Bristol, copies of which are obtainable from the school. It is usually left to the contractor to make the final report on a research project available to others on request. Such reports do not normally include recommendations for action.

  Water Companies
  Mr. Lee
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many employees of each of the recently privatised water companies became shareholders; and what percentages of the total work forces this represented.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  A total of 37,488 employees, representing 85·57 per cent. of the eligible work force of the 10 companies, have successfully applied for shares in the companies under free and matching offers.

  The figures for each company are as follows:
  249

  Employees

  Per cent. of workforce

  Anglian

  3,723

  82·97

  North West

  6,379

  87·09

  Northumbrian

  1,298

  89·46

  Severn Trent

  6,486

  88·53

  Southern

  2,453

  80·56

  South West

  1,496

  82·15

  Thames

  6,778

  83·17

  Welsh

  3,280

  85·73

  Wessex

  1,495

  85·38

  Yorkshire

  4,100

  88·59

  In addition, some of the small number of employees not eligible for the free and matching offers will have successfully applied for shares, but exact figures could not be provided without disproportionate cost.

  Recycled Material
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy to introduce a standard symbol to denote material which has been recycled; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  My right hon. Friend announced on 9 January that, following consultation, the Government are to set up an advisory group to develop an eco-labelling scheme to reflect the key characteristics of a product's environmental impact from design to disposal or "cradle to grave". Thus the extent to which a product includes recycled material and can itself be recycled will be taken fully into account.

  Business Rates
  Mr. Richard Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of profits and trading surpluses the unabated post-revaluation uniform business rate represents for each standard region.

  Mr. Chope
  The information from which to make such estimates is not available.

  Association of County Councils
  Sir Charles Morrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if his Department has considered an application for an exhibition relating to the centenary of the Association of County Councils to be displayed in the Upper Waiting Hall.

  Mr. David Hunt
  I understand that, under procedures agreed by the Services Committee, arrangements have been made with the authorities of the House for the exhibition to be held in the Upper Waiting Hall from Monday 5 February to Friday 9 February.

  Hazardous Waste
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he proposes to respond to the report of the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States of America in regard to the hazardous waste material which remains in Wath upon Dearne; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to him on 15 January,Official Report, column 111.
  250
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the transfrontier shipment of toxic waste within the European Community.

  Mr. Trippier
  Transfrontier shipment of hazardous waste into, out of or within the Community is subject to control under existing EC directives. Discussion is taking place in Brussels to revise these directives and to implement the Basel convention on transfrontier shipment. It is the Government's view that international waste movements should be reduced to the environmentally justified minimum and those that are necessary should be subject to effective monitoring and control.

  Nature Conservancy Council
  Mr. Boswell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) of 23 November 1989,Official Report, column 16, he will give the likely cost of creating a joint co-ordinating committee for the restyled nature conservancy bodies and the estimated annual cost of serving it; and what is the overall annual impact on public expenditure of the proposed reorganisation.

  Mr. Trippier
  Preparatory work to establish the new conservation agencies, including the joint committee, is likely to cost £1·5 million in 1990–91. Some additional costs are likely to be incurred thereafter in operating the new agencies and servicing the committee. It is too early to give an estimate of these costs, as several issues, such as the staff complement of each agency and the programme of the joint committee, are still under detailed consideration by the Government and the Nature Conservancy Council.

  Waste Disposal
  Mr. Trotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy on the siting of large toxic waste disposal plants in the middle of major conurbations.

  Mr. Trippier
  The siting of waste disposal facilities is determined by local planning authorities in dealing with relevant planning applications. Any planning appeal to my right hon. Friend would be considered in relation to the circumstances of the case.

  Mr. Franks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce a decision concerning the appeal by Thomas Brown of Whinfield farm, Pennington, against revocation of his waste disposal licence by Cumbria county council, submitted in summer 1988.

  Mr. Trippier
  Written representations have been completed on this appeal, lodged on 16 September 1988, and an official from the Department will make a site visit on 20 February. The Secretary of State hopes to be able to determine the appeal once he has received the site visit report.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has yet established the criteria he will use for community charge capping.

  Mr. Chope
  If authorities insist on budgeting excessively my right hon. Friend will not hesitate to cap
  251
  them, but it would not be right to speculate on the detailed operation of any charge-capping scheme which might be needed.

  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if the measures announced by the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities in October 1989 to limit the increase in the amount of the community charge to not more than £3 per week will apply to charge payers in the London borough of Hillingdon; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  The community charge transitional relief scheme will apply in all charging authority areas. In properties containing one or two community charge payers, relief will be paid where there is a difference of £156 a year (£3 a week) or more between the assumed rates bill and the community charges which would be set if local authority spending were in line with the Government's assumptions for this purpose. For properties with more than two charge payers relief will be based on a comparison between the assumed rates bill and two assumed community charges and distributed equally among the chargepayers. Elderly and disabled people who were not former ratepayers or the partners of former ratepayers will be entitled to relief to reduce their assumed community charge to £156. As was made clear in the announcement, however, relief will not cover any excess of the actual community charge over the assumed community charge.

  Mr. Bermingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if his Department is considering measures to ensure that his recommendation that seafarers out of the country for more than six months are eligible for exemption from community charge will be complied with; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: Guidance on the treatment of Royal Navy personnel was contained in the community charge practice note No. 9 "UK Service Personnel". This advised that married seagoers might be regarded as having their residence with their family except for continuous absences in excess of six months, that single seagoers who are householders might be treated in the same way, and that single seagoers with no permanent home address need not be registered for the personal community charge except during periods of shore leave in excess of 61 days. My Department issued further guidance which suggested that merchant seamen might be treated in broadly the same way as their service counterparts. It is for community charges registration officers to determine liability taking into account all the circumstances of any individual case. Anyone dissatisfied with a determination may appeal to a valuation and community charge tribunal.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest estimate of the poll tax for Nottingham.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: If each authority seeks to raise from its residents an amount consistent with its behaviour in 1989–90 and with total standard spending of £32·8 billion for 1990–91, its community charge will be that shown in table 2 of the revised exemplifications which my right hon. Friend laid in the Library on 11 January. In the case of Nottingham that would be £254.
  252
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish an up-to-date list of all the regulations in respect of the community charge setting out the area each regulation covers, the primary legislation giving rise to each regulation, the date each came into force, details of amendments to the regulations and the number of pages of each regulation.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer15 January 1990]: The information is as follows:

  Date of coming into force

  Regulations made under the Local Government Finance Act 1988

  1. The Personal Community Charge (Exemptions) Order 1989–2 pages

  7 April 1989

  —These cover persons in detention, the severely mentally impaired and patients in homes

  2. Valuation and Community Charge Tribunals Regulations 1989–15 pages

  Regulations 4 to 8 and 11

  7 April 1989

  All others

  1 May 1989

  —These establish new appeal procedures

  3. Community Charges (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1989–51 pages

  All except Regulations 4 and 5

  7 April 1989

  Regulations 4 and 5

  22 May 1989

  —These define the detailed powers of authorities for registration, billing and collection of the charge

  4 Valuation and Community Charge Tribunals (Transfer of Jurisdiction) Regulations 1989–10 pages

  1 May 1989

  —These transfer powers of Local Valuation Panels to the new Tribunals

  5. Community Charges (Administration and Enforcement) (Amendment) 1989–1 page

  19 May 1989

  —This inserts a line of print missing from item 3 above

  6. The Community Charge (Information Concerning Social Security) Regulations 1989–2 pages

  22 May 1989

  —These enable Social Security offices to supply CCROs with details on persons receiving income support

  7. The Community Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 1989–2 pages

  21 July 1989

  —This amends the wording of item 3 above on service of summonses and redefines co—owners

  8. The Community Charge Benefits (Transitional) Order 1989–4 pages

  30 August 1989

  —These allow for the transition from Housing Benefit to a scheme of community charge benefits

  9 The Community Charges (Cross-Border Information) Regulations 1989–1 page

  1 Sepember 1989

  —These allow for specific information to be supplied between CCROs in England and Wales and Scotland

  10. The Personal Community Charge (Students) Regulations 1989–5 pages

  1 October 1989

  —These define full-time students and the functions of certification offices

  11 The Collection Fund (England) Regulations 1989–7 pages

  13 December 1989

  253

  Date of coming into force

  —These provide for the payments to and transfers from collection funds of charging authorities

  12. The Community Charges (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Regulations 1989–7 pages

  28 December 1989

  —These provide for local authorities to offer discounts and amend regulations on billing and the standard charge

  13 The Personal Community Charge (Relief) (England) Regulations 1990–10 pages

  21 January 1990

  —These provide for a transitional relief scheme

  Regulation made under the Social Security Act 1986

  14 The Community Charge Benefits (General) Regulations 1989–61 pages

  Regulations 1, 59-63, 92, 93

  11 August 1989

  All other regulations

  1 April 1990

  —These provide the operation of the community charge benefit system

  Regulations made under the National Health Service Act 1977

  15. The National Health Service (General Medical and Pharmaceutical Services) Amendment Regulations 1989–3 pages

  25 August 1989

  —These provide a procedure to identify and exempt severely mental impaired people

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what were the sums raised by the London borough of Newham from its industrial and commercial ratepayers for the financial year 1989–90(a) in total and (b) per expected payer of the community charge; and what is the sum he expects to pay the borough in respect of the uniform business rate for the financial year 1990–91 (i) in total and (ii) per community charge payer.

  Mr. Chope
  I estimate that in 1989–90 industrial and commercial ratepayers will pay about £32·2 million in non-domestic rates to the London borough of Newham. This is £201·64 per community charge payer. Under our proposals for 1990–91 the share of the non-domestic rate pool paid to Newham will be £46·7 million. This is £292·51 per chargepayer. The two figures are not directly comparable. The relevant population calculation for Newham is 159,694.

  Dangerous Substances
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action he has taken to ensure compliance with European Community quality objectives for list I dangerous substances in water; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The Surface Waters (Dangerous Substances) (Classification) Regulations 1989 (SI 1989 No. 2286) came into force on 1 January 1990. These contain the quality standards for surface waters for each of the list I dangerous substances for which Communitywide standards have been set. My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales have now issued a notice to the National Rivers Authority under section 105 of the Water Act 1989 establishing these standards as statutory water quality objectives. They have also issued directions to the authority under section 146 of the Act requiring it, with 254
  effect from 8 January, to implement the quality standards in the regulations, to undertake the necessary monitoring and to supply the Secretaries of State with the appropriate information. Copies of the notice and direction to the National Rivers Authority have been placed in the Library.

  Land Reclamation
  Mr. Franks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce a decision concerning the Crooklands Brow, Dalton-in-Furness, derelict land reclamation scheme.

  Mr. Moynihan
  The application for derelict land grant in respect of this scheme is currently receiving consideration. It is hoped to issue a decision within four weeks.

  Council Grants
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what grant gain has resulted for the London boroughs of(a) Brent and (b) Ealing as a consequence of the reduction in the standard spending assessment of those boroughs; and on what basis the assessment was reduced.

  Mr. Chope
  The standard spending assessments (SSAs) for Brent and Ealing published on 11 January are lower overall than those published on 6 November 1989 primarily because of reductions in the highway maintenance SSA (in the case of Brent) and in the highway maintenance and capital financing SSAs (in the case of Ealing).

  The increase in the estimated revenue support grant entitlements for Brent and Ealing for 1990–91 (before safety net adjustments) flowing from the reports laid on 11 January as compared with our 6 November proposals is £1·004 million and £5·763 million respectively. This is primarily attributable to changes in our figures for estimated population and for the Metropolitan police budget.

  City of London Heliport
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he intends to make an assessment of the noise impact upon the Palace of Westminster arising from helicopter movements using the proposed City of London heliport; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Moynihan
  [holding answer 21 December 1989]: No.

  Refuse-Derived Fuel and Humus
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy in respect of grant aiding future research into refuse-derived fuel and refuse-derived humus; and what priority will be given to industry-led and funded research.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]A substantial programme funded by my Department of research into combustion of refuse derived fuel is drawing to a close. Industry has developed techniques for solid waste composting. The reclamation and recycling group set up by my Department and the Department of Trade and Industry is currently looking at barriers to the increased use of recycled compostibles.

  Water Privatisation
  Mr. John Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the outcome of the water privatisation share issue.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]Over 2·7 million applications for shares in the 10 water plcs were received. The public offers were nearly 5·7 times oversubscribed. After clawback of shares from institutional and overseas offers, almost 47 per cent. of the shares available were allocated to the public. Nearly 1·35 million registered customers applied for incentives and preference in their local company. We allocated to registered customers 57·5 per cent. of the shares available to the public.

  The response from the public represents the second-highest level of applications for any privatisation. This is a privatisation that will bring benefits for the environment, for customers and for the 10 water plcs.

  National Rivers Authority
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the record of the National Rivers Authority since it was established.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: The NRA fully assumed its responsibilities on 1 September 1989. Since then regional rivers advisory committees, regional fisheries advisory committees and regional flood defence committees have been established in the 10 NRA regions together with regional advisory boards chaired by the regional board members. Priorities for future action are currently being set by the authority and will be set out in its corporate plan. The authority has already embarked on a number of reviews of policy areas. In addition, the authority has successfully prosecuted a number of offenders under its pollution control powers against offenders.

  Pollution Inspectorate
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the number of times per year since 1979 that Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution officials have inspected each of the following waste disposal sites(a) Rechem Incinerator, Pontypool, (b) Leigh Interest, Stubbers Green, Walsall, (c) Leigh Interests, Lumshill quarry, Matlock and (d) Leigh Interests, Killamarsh, Sheffield.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution and its predecessors have inspected the Rechem incinerator at Pontypool at least 12 times in 1981 and in 1982 and between 15 and 18 times in each subsequent year. No inspections have been made of Lumshill quarry, Matlock by the inspectorate. The sites at Killamarsh and Walsall were inspected as follows:

  Killamarsh

  Walsall

  1981

  23

  —

  1982

  20

  —

  1983

  8

  1

  1984

  14

  —

  1985

  30

  —

  1986

  9

  1

  1987

  13

  —

  256

  Killamarsh

  Walsall

  1988

  39

  —

  1989

  26

  1

  Leigh Interests plc
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received regarding the plan by Leigh Interests plc to build a toxic waste incinerator at Kirk Sandall.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: Various representations have been received from hon. Members and the public about this proposal which is to be the subject of a public local inquiry in April.

  Thermally Stable Plastics
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what are the products of combustion from thermally stable plastics used in the medical industry during combustion in hospital-type incinerators;

  (2) what studies have been carried out by his Department of the problems experienced by the combustion of plastic clinical waste in hospital incinerators within the United Kingdom;

  (3) whether there is a requirement placed upon the suppliers of thermally stable plastics to provide a thermal analysis of their products to enable the combustion characteristics of such plastics to be understood.

  Mr. Trippier
  [holding answer 16 January 1990]The products will include carbon dioxide and water and may include hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide, metal oxides and halides and a range of organic materials. Some of these chemicals may be removed from the exhaust gases by scrubbing equipment. Because the quantities of plastics used in the medical industry are increasing and the compositions are changing, my Department has placed a research contract with the Warren Spring Laboratory to study combustion of them. The chemical compositions of these plastics are well known and no purpose would be served by requiring suppliers to provide thermal analyses.

  Tin Cans
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will consider prohibiting mixing of metals in tin cans where consumer safety does not require it, in order to allow recycling.

  Mr. Forth
  I have been asked to reply.

  No. The mixed composition of some cans does not inhibit their recycling. Indeed, the aluminium contained in the ends of certain steel cans is beneficial to current reprocessing operations.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Parliamentary Questions
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will list in rank order, by number of questions, the 20 right hon. and hon. Members who asked the most parliamentary questions during the 1988–89 Session.

  Sir Geoffrey Howe
  The information is as follows:
  257

  Number

  1. Mr. Ron Davies

  775

  2 Dr. Dafydd Elis Thomas

  717

  3. Mr. Graham Allen

  707

  4 Mr Martin Redmond

  699

  5. Mr Harry Cohen

  661

  6. Mr. Tony Banks

  613

  7. Mr. Paul Flynn

  519

  8. Dr. David Clark

  483

  9. Mr. Jack Ashley

  456

  10 Mr Austin Mitchell

  445

  11. Mr. Archy Kirkwood

  443

  12 Mr. Frank Dobson

  439

  13. Mr. Nicholas Bennett

  426

  14 Mr. David Flinchliffe

  398

  15. Mr. Jim Sillars

  368

  16. Mr. Henry McLeish

  347

  17 Mr. Jimmy Wray

  342

  18 Mr. Jeremy Corbyn

  337

  19. Mr. Barry Jones

  327

  20. Mr. Tam Dalyell

  326

  Note: The figures include oral, written and private notice questions but exclude supplementary questions and unreached oral questions asking the Prime Minister to list her engagements.

  Select Committees
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the the Lord President of the Council what extra seating facilities for the general public are being made available, following the admission of television cameras to Select Committee meetings; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Geoffrey Howe
  The arrangements for televising Select Committees are at an experimental stage and I understand that the two temporary camera stands can take up space for some eight seats previously available to the general public. Every effort is made to make maximum use of space for those persons wishing to attend sittings of Select Committees and I understand that, in some cases, Chairmen have agreed to make available for the public parts of the Committee Room previously available to hon. Members.

  The Select Committee on Televising of Proceedings of the House will consider the availability of seating in Committee Rooms during its review of the experimental period.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Shops Act 1950
  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will make it his policy to give a favourable response to any application by a local authority for his fiat to a relator action in pursuance of its statutory duty to enforce the Shops Act 1950.

  The Attorney-General
  The statutory duty of local authorities to enforce the Shops Act 1950 is not subject to the consent of the Attorney-General. Local authorities act independently in the exercise of the duty.

  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Attorney-General what(a) assistance or (b) guidance he is proposing to give local authorities on the taking of measures to secure compliance with the Shops Act 1950 in the light of the recent decision of the European Court of Justice on 23 November.

  The Attorney-General
  Section 71 of the Shops Act 1950 places a clear duty on local authorities to enforce the 258
  provisions of the Act. That duty has not been altered by the judgment of the European Court of Justice in case 145/88.

  Mrs. Wise
  To ask the Attorney-General what representations he has received from the chairman of the Keep Sunday Special Campaign on the enforcement of the Shops Act 1950 in the light of the European Court decision on 23 November; if he will publish his response in the Official Report; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  The chairman of the Keep Sunday Special Campaign asked to see me with a group of trade representatives from the retail trade. I found the meeting helpful. It was useful to hear at first hand the problems of the enforcement of the Shops Act 1950 as they are perceived by some members of the trade.

  It is now for the domestic courts to apply the judgment of the European Court of Justice in case 145/88. Parliament has conferred the responsibility for enforcing the legislation on local authorities and I am not persuaded that it is appropriate for me to take an initiative on either a local or a national basis at present.

  Ko Hsuan School
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will investigate the charitable status of Ko Hsuan school in north Devon; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  I have caused investigations to be made and can inform my hon. Friend that the Ko Hsuan school in north Devon is not a registered charity.

  Accident Compensation
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will list by category the United Kingdom's accident compensation payment laws; when they were last brought up to date in line with inflation; and if he intends a further update in line with the current rate of inflation.

  The Attorney-General
  With the exception of the statutory provisions relating to damages for bereavement under the Administration of Justice Act 1982, which apply in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, it is not clear to what provisions the hon. Member may be referring, and there is, therefore, no further specific information which I am able to give. As to the position in relation to bereavement damages, I refer him to the reply which I gave to a question from the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) on 12 January 1990 at column 774.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Four Winds Park (Flooding)
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he has received any complaints about flooding at the rear gardens of dwellings at Four Winds park, Castlereagh; what proposals he has to remove the cause of this flooding; what works were carried out at the location of this flooding during the month of December 1989; what assessment he has made of the dangers to young children living at Four Winds park due to this flooding; and if he will make a statement.
  259
  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  A complaint was received by the Department of Agriculture on 16 December 1989. Flooding was caused by an obstruction in a culverted section of the watercourse to the rear of the dwellings and the Department deployed pumps to alleviate the flooding and removed debris from the entrance to the culvert.

  Responsibility for the efficiency of the watercourse lies with riparian occupiers. The culvert, which in any case is inadequate to discharge storm flows, was installed without the consent of the Department and in 1986 residents were asked to have it upgraded in size: householders will again be advised of their responsibilities.

  Telecommunications
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what groups comprise the task force established in April 1989 by the Department of Economic Development to promote awareness of, and stimulate demand for, the new telecommunications services as a result of the launch of the STAR programme;

  (2) what steps have been taken by the task force established in April 1989 by the Department of Economic Development to promote awareness of and stimulate demand for the new telecommunications services as a result of the launch of the STAR programme.

  Mr. Needham
  The STAR task force comprises representatives of the Department of Economic Development, the Industrial Development Board, the Local Enterprise Development Unit, the Technology Board for Northern Ireland, Queen's university of Belfast and the university of Ulster. To date £328,360 of grant aid from the European regional development fund has been committed to 10 projects in Northern Ireland aimed at promoting awareness and use of the new telecommunications infrastructure. These cover promotional seminars, feasibility studies and demonstration projects. Additional projects are being developed.

  Cystic Fibrosis
  Mr. McGrady
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what plans the Northern Ireland Department of Health and Social Services has to establish an institute for those suffering from cystic fibrosis similar to the one in Peto in Hungary.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I understand that conductive education as practised in the Peto institute in Budapest is not appropriate for the treatment of cystic fibrosis.

  However, the Government have agreed to contribute to the funding of a new international institute to be established in Hungary. Detailed discussions with the Hungarian Government on this project are continuing and it would not be appropriate to take decisions on proposals for similar provision in Northern Ireland until those discussions are concluded.

  Parliamentary Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will announce the membership of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for Northern Ireland.
  260
  Mr. Cope
  Mr. Speaker is the chairman of the Boundary Commission. The other members are as follows:

  Members

  Appointed by

  Deputy Chairman

  The Hon. Mr. Justice Higgins

  The Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland

  Members

  Mr. P. G. Duffy

  The Secretary of State

  Mr. D. J. Clement

  The Secretary of State

  Wounded Soldiers (Compensation)
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what are the sums payable in compensation to officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers wounded on service in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Cope
  They depend in each case on the seriousness of the injuries received.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what sums are payable in compensation to the families of officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers killed on service in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Cope
  They depend in each case on the amount of pecuniary loss suffered and expenses actually and necessarily incurred by the families as a result of the victim's death.

  Action for Community Employment
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the total number of ACE placements in each district council area in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 16 January 1990]: Following is the information:

  Action for Community Employment (ACE) Placements in each District Council area in Northern Ireland as at 5 January 1990 The numbers of filled places in each District Council area are—

  District Council

  Number

  Belfast

  3,452

  North Down

  185

  Lisburn

  479

  Ards

  210

  Down

  211

  Castlereagh

  153

  Carrickfergus

  207

  Larne

  121

  Ballymena

  209

  Antrim

  202

  Moyle

  132

  Coleraine

  224

  Magherafelt

  247

  Ballymoney

  171

  Newtownabbey

  353

  Cookstown

  171

  Dungannon

  391

  Armagh

  281

  Banbridge

  127

  Craigavon

  371

  Newry and Mourne

  648

  Derry

  1,050

  Limavady

  185

  Strabane

  307

  Fermanagh

  316

  261

  District Council

  Number

  Omagh

  255

  Total

  10,658

  Youth Training
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what is the total number of youth training placements in each district council area in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Needham
  [holding answer 16 January 1990]: The information is not available in the form requested. However, the table shows that 10,184 full-time training places, broken down by job market area, were occupied at 29 December 1989. In addition, 2,415 young people were receiving employment with training under YTP work scheme across the province at the same time.

  Youth training programme full-time training

  Job market

  Occupied places at 29 December 1989

  Bangor

  404

  Lisburn

  462

  Newtownards

  157

  Belfast

  3,328

  Antrim

  165

  Carrickfergus

  148

  Larne

  137

  Magherafelt

  172

  Ballymena

  544

  Ballymoney

  135

  Coleraine

  277

  £ thousand

  Financial year

  Roads service headquarters

  Ballymena

  Belfast

  Coleraine

  Craigavon

  Downpatrick

  Omagh

  1985–86

  Major works

  612

  906

  3,154

  757

  1,434

  985

  1,568

  Minor works

  —

  1,108

  1,045

  1,237

  1,351

  1,367

  1,164

  1986–87

  Major works

  418

  1,014

  3,268

  1,505

  1,804

  1,092

  879

  Minor works

  —

  1,090

  1,706

  1,689

  1,358

  1,537

  1,061

  1987–88

  Major works

  690

  1,071

  3,169

  1,821

  1,784

  890

  793

  Minor works

  —

  1,341

  1,480

  1,271

  1,174

  1,401

  1,382

  1988–89

  Major works

  1,755

  3,063

  1,999

  986

  1,844

  1,827

  694

  Minor works

  —

  1,078

  1,399

  1,147

  1,057

  1,307

  1,306

  1989–901

  Major works

  119

  1,830

  7,839

  1,425

  1,569

  2,215

  3,107

  Minor works

  —

  1,305

  1,593

  1,416

  1,399

  1,358

  1,524

  1 To 11 January 1990.

  Note:

  The roads service headquarters expenditure was mainly in respect of specific major works handled centrally rather than divisionally.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Birmingham Pub Bombings
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he last discussed the Birmingham pub bombings case with the assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  My right hon. and learned Friend has not discussed this case with the assistant chief constable of West Yorkshire, Mr. Shaw. However, Home Office officials have maintained close contact with the Police Complaints Authority, which is supervising Mr. Shaw's
  262

  Job market

  Occupied places at 29 December 1989

  Limavady

  145

  Londonderry

  1,153

  Strabane

  191

  Armagh

  85

  Cookstown

  81

  Dungannon

  197

  Enniskillen

  227

  Omagh

  395

  Portadown

  345

  Ballynahinch

  86

  Banbridge

  102

  Downpatrick

  192

  Kilkeel

  1

  Lurgan

  243

  Newcastle

  84

  Newry

  728

  Total

  10,184

  Roads
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the total amount allocated for(a) major works and (b) minor works by the Department of the Environment's roads service to each of the district offices in each division of the Northern Ireland roads service in each year since 1985.

  Mr. Peter Bottomley
  [holding answer 16 January 1990]: Allocations for major works and minor works are primarily made on a divisional basis as follows:

  investigations into the West Midlands serious crime squad. We will consider carefully whether anything emerges from this investigation which might cast doubt on the safety of the convictions of the Birmingham Six.

  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the investigations into the Birmingham Six to be concluded; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  My right hon. and learned Friend is considering very carefully the further material which has been presented to him by a solicitor on behalf of the Birmingham Six, and will decide as soon as possible whether it justifies any intervention on his part.

  Bingo Clubs
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any plans to exclude bingo clubs from section 42 of the Gaming Act to allow them to advertise; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Licensed bingo clubs already advertise freely as social clubs, and specific games of bingo, and certain prizes in them, are already advertised on the front of club premises. The principal effect of section 42 of the Gaming Act 1968 on bingo clubs is to prohibit the wider advertising of the specific locations of the clubs as places where gaming takes place. We have informed the Bingo Association of Great Britain (BAGB) that we cannot accept its campaign for the complete removal of the controls on the advertising of bingo clubs, but that it is open to them to resume discussions with the Gaming Board for Great Britain on the scope, if any, for some relaxation of the controls.

  Boundary Commissions
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement of progress on the work of the boundary commissions on parliamentary constituencies; and when he expects the new boundaries to take effect.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The boundary commissions have a duty to keep the distribution of seats under continuous review. They are also required to present reports on the whole country 10 to 15 years after their previous report. The English commission's next such report is due between 1993 and 1998. I understand that the commission is likely to begin work in 1991. At present the commission is reviewing the Buckingham and Milton Keynes constituencies; revised draft proposals were published in November 1989, and in due course it will report. New parliamentary constituency boundaries come into effect at the general election following Parliament's approval of the commission's recommendations and the making of an Order in Council.

  Nuclear Bunkers
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, by local authority, how many nuclear bunkers have been built or provided by local authorities to date; and how many additional bunkers are being planned.

  Mr. John Patten
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to a question from the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Dr. Thomas) on 18 December 1989 at columns 18-19.

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many retail outlets in England and Wales have been prosecuted for trading on Sundays 264
  during each of the last four years; and if he will make a statement on the steps he is taking to secure widespread agreement to a reform of the existing law.

  Mr. Mellor
  Figures are not yet available for 1989. Those for the previous four years 1985–88 show that the number of prosecutions for Sunday trading offences in England and Wales were 647, 724, 646 and 536 respectively. The Government accepted the findings of the Auld committee that there was no satisfactory solution short of total deregulation. Since the defeat of the Shops Bill, the Government have made clear that they are prepared to consider reform short of total deregulation if a solution can be found which is widely accepted, enforceable, practicable and likely to command a parliamentary majority. No such solution has yet emerged.

  Bail Lodging Places
  Mr. Alexander
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will undertake a review of the number of bail lodging places since the coming into force of the Social Security Act 1988.

  Mr. John Patten
  I see no need for such a review at the moment in the light of other measures we are already taking to increase the accommodation available for bailees. The target for the bail hostel development programme has been considerably increased to 1,000 new places by April 1993. Planned expansion in bail information schemes should allow the number of courts being served to increase from the current 45 to 100 courts by April 1992. We are also examining ways of increasing accommodation in the community for bailees and how bail information schemes and accommodation networks can best be developed.

  Prostitution
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how many men were convicted of kerb crawling in each of the last five years at(a) the South Western magistrates court and (b) courts in England and Wales;

  (2) how many men were sent to prison for (a) kerb crawling and (b) living on immoral earnings in each of the last five years by the South Western magistrates court;

  (3) how many men were sent to prison for (a) living on immoral earnings and (b) kerb crawling by courts in England and Wales in each of the last five years;

  (4) how many times the maximum fine has been imposed on men convicted (a) at the South Western magistrates court and (b) courts in England and Wales of kerb crawling in each of the last five years;

  (5) how many women were convicted of soliciting (a) at the South Western magistrates court and (b) in England and Wales during each of the last five years.

  Mr. John Patten
  The information requested is given in the tables:
  265

  Persons found guilty and sentenced for kerb crawling and prostitution

  Table 1

  Males convicted of kerb crawling

  England and Wales

  South Western magistrates court

  Convictions

  Immediate custody

  Number fined maximum1

  Convictions

  Immediate custody

  Number fined maximum1

  21986

  163

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1987

  275

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1988

  517

  —

  —

  36

  —

  —

  1The maximum fine is £400.

  2The offence was introduced by the Sexual Offences Act 1985.

  Table 2

  Males found guilty of living on immoral earnings

  England and Wales

  South Western Magistrates court

  Year

  Found guilty

  Immediate custody

  Found guilty

  Immediate custody

  1984

  29

  11

  —

  —

  1985

  25

  8

  1

  —

  1986

  24

  7

  1

  —

  1987

  16

  7

  —

  —

  1988

  29

  11

  —

  —

  Table 3

  Females convicted of soliciting

  Year

  England and Wales Convicted

  South Western Magistrates court Convicted

  1984

  8,595

  402

  1985

  9,159

  579

  1986

  9,091

  288

  1987

  8,171

  399

  1988

  8,829

  226

  Planting of Evidence
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many cases of alleged planting of evidence were made last year against the police in England and Wales; and how many of these resulted in prosecutions.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Such information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will bring forward amendments to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 in order to guard against the planting of evidence on suspects by police.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  No. Such conduct, if proved, already constitutes an offence under the police discipline code, and I see no justification for amending the Act along the lines suggested.

  Police Complaints Authority
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the findings of the Hertfordshire police, acting on behalf of the Police Complaints Authority, in the series of cases relating to PC Judd, and other officers, in Notting Hill in 1984–85.
  266
  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  No. I understand that the report of the investigation carried out under the supervision of the authority is under consideration by the authority. Home Office Ministers have no role in the process.

  Message Switch Systems
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list, by region, the sites of all new message switch systems that have been installed in local authority emergency centres.

  Mr. John Patten
  As at 31 December 1989, emergency centres in the following local authorities have received the equipment:

  Region 2

  Cleveland
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees.

  Durham
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Chester-le-Street, Derwentside, Durham, Easington, Teesdale.

  Humberside
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Beverley, Cleethorpes, East Yorkshire, Glanford, Great Grimsby.

  North Yorkshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Scarborough, Selby.

  Northumberland
  County Main and the following districts: Alnwick, Tynedale.

  Tyne and Wear
  The following districts: North Tyneside, Sunderland.

  West Yorkshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees

  Region 3

  Derbyshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Chesterfield, High Peak, Derbyshire Dales

  Leicestershire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Blaby, Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, Leicester, Melton, Rutland

  Lincolnshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Lincoln, North Kesteven, South Kesteven

  Northamptonshire

  267
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Daventry, Northampton, Wellingborough

  Nottinghamshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Bassetlaw, Broxtowe, Gedling, Mansfield, Newark, Nottingham

  Region 4

  Bedfordshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Luton, Mid Bedfordshire, North Bedfordshire, South Bedfordshire

  Cambridgeshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Cambridge, East Cambridgeshire, Fenland, Huntingdonshire, South Cambridgeshire

  Essex
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Basildon, Braintree, Brentwood, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Maldon, Rochford, Southend-on-Sea, Tendring, Thurrock, Uttlesford

  Hertfordshire
  County Main and the following districts: East Hertfordshire, St. Albans

  Norfolk
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Breckland, Great Yarmouth

  Suffolk
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Babergh, Ipswich, Mid Suffolk, St. Edmundsbury

  Region 5

  London
  South West Group and the following boroughs: Barking and Dagenham, Bexley, City of London, Havering, Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames

  Region 6

  Berkshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Bracknell, Newbury, Reading, Slough, Windsor and Maidenhead, Wokingham

  Buckinghamshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Chiltern, Milton Keynes, South Bucks, Wycombe

  East Sussex
  County Main and the following districts: Brighton, Hove, Lewes, Rother, Wealden

  Hampshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Basingstoke and Deane, East Hampshire, Eastleigh, Fareham, Hart, Havant, New Forest, Portsmouth, Rushmoor, Southampton, Test Valley, Winchester

  Isle of Wight
  County Main and Standby

  Kent
  County Main and the following districts: Dover, Gillingham, Gravesham, Medway, Sevenoaks, Shepway, Swale, Thanet, Tonbridge and Malling, Tunbridge Wells

  Oxfordshire
  County Main and the following districts: Cherwell, Oxford, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, West Oxfordshire

  Surrey
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley, Woking
  268
  West Sussex
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, Mid Sussex, Worthing

  Region 7

  Cornwall
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Caradon, North Cornwall, Penwith

  Devon
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, Plymouth, Teignbridge, Torbay

  Dorest
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Bournemouth, Christchurch, East Dorset, Poole, Purbeck, West Dorset, Weymouth and Portland

  Gloucestershire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Cheltenham, Cotswold, Forest of Dean, Gloucester, Tewkesbury

  Somerset
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Mendip, Sedgemoor, South Somerset, Taunton Deane

  Wiltshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury, West Wiltshire

  Region 8

  Clwyd
  County Main and Standby and the following district: Colwyn

  Dyfed
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Carmarthen, Llanelli

  Gwent
  County Standby

  Gwynedd
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Aberconwy, Ynys MÔn

  Powys
  County Main and Standby and the following district: Brecknock

  South Glamorgan
  County Main and the following district: Cardiff

  West Glamorgan
  County Main and Standby

  Region 9

  Hereford and Worcester
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Leominster, Redditch, Worcester, Wyre Forest

  Shropshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Shrewsbury and Atcham, South Shropshire

  Staffordshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: East Staffordshire, Lichfield, South Staffordshire, Staffordshire Moorlands

  Warwickshire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Rugby, Stratford-on-Avon

  West Midlands
  County Main and the following districts: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Wolverhampton
  269
  Region 10

  Cheshire
  County Main and Standby and the following district: Vale Royal

  Cumbria
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Allerdale, Barrow in Furness, Carlisle, Copeland, Eden

  Lancashire
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Blackburn, Blackpool, Chorley, Fylde, Hyndburn, Lancaster, Preston, Ribble Valley, Rossendale, South Ribble, West Lancashire

  Greater Manchester
  County Main and Standby and the following districts: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Stockport, Trafford

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the manufacturers which have installed message switch equipment for local authority emergency centres; and what assessment has been made of their relative merits.

  Mr. John Patten
  The equipment is being supplied and installed by Chernikeeff Telecommunications Ltd. Installations are subject to technical acceptance by Home Office engineering staff.

  South Yorkshire Police
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the total number of additional posts applied for by South Yorkshire police authority since 1980; how many he has approved in this period; what was the basis on which he declined to accept the totals requested; and what assessment he has made of the effects of manpower levels on(a) morale and (b) crime prevention in South Yorkshire.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Applications have been made and approvals given in the years set out in the table.

  Year

  Posts applied for

  Posts approved

  1980–81

  278

  120

  1983–84

  154

  —

  1985–86

  9

  —

  1986–87

  213

  50

  1987–88

  52

  20

  1988–89

  50

  20

  1989–90

  50

  27

  1990–91

  50

  220

  1Letter from the Chief Constable rather than from the police authority.

  2Approved subject to the police authority confirming willingness to meet its share of the cost.

  Applications have been considered within the limits of the police growth which is affordable year on year, and with advice from Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary on the evidence of need and the ability to release police posts by recruiting civilian staff. We are not aware of any morale or crime prevention considerations which would justify different treatment of the police authority's manpower applications.

  Refugees
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what action he is taking to assist refugees arriving at Heathrow and Gatwick airports who are without(a) food and (b) money.
  270
  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  In October we agreed in principle to Home Office grant being made available to strengthen the voluntary sector assistance given to asylum seekers arriving at Heathrow and Gatwick who have no other means of support. An emergency fund to provide destitute asylum seekers with food and initial accommodation is now operated by the refugee arrivals project and the Refugee Council and the need for additional staff and strengthened reception arrangements is under consideration.

  Gallows
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if gallows are still kept at any prison in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Mellor
  One set of gallows is kept at Her Majesty's prison, Wandsworth.

  John McCarthy
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from or on behalf of the Friends of John McCarthy, with respect to their ineligibility for charitable status; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  We have received no representations. I understand that in June 1988 the Charity Commission had correspondence about the question of charitable status with solicitors acting on behalf of the Friends of John McCarthy.

  Betting Offices
  Mr. Holt
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when and how he intends to conduct the deregulation review of the opening hours of licensed betting offices; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The opening hours of licensed betting offices would be likely to be among the matters considered by an inquiry into the financing of horse and greyhound racing, since the racing and betting industries are interlinked. My right hon. and learned Friend is at present considering whether or not to establish such an inquiry. If in due course it seems right to conduct separately the review of betting office opening hours, the review will itself be conducted within the Government's policy on gambling, with no prior assumption about whether or not the hours should be varied, and in consultation with outside interests, including, for example, organisations representative of off-course and on-course bookmakers, betting office employees, horse racing and greyhound racing, the betting office licensing authorities, the police, the local authorities and those concerned with the study of gambling.

  Animal Procedures Committee
  Mr. Colin Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he intends to make further appointments to the animal procedures committee; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Waddington
  Following his appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, the chairman of the committee, Professor David Williams, has resigned from 31 December 1989. I am pleased to be able to announce that Lord Nathan has agreed to succeed him.
  271
  I am pleased to be able to announce further that Professor Barry Bridges, of Queen's university, Belfast; Dr. Fiona Broughton-Pipkin, of the Queen's medical centre, Nottingham; Dr. Susan Iversen, of Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories; and Professor Michael Spyer, of the Royal Free Hospital medical school, London, have also accepted appointments as members of the committee.

  I should like to place on record my appreciation of the excellent way in which Professor Williams has chaired the committee since its formation following the passage of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. I am grateful to Lord Nathan and the other new members for agreeing to serve on this committee.

PRIME MINISTER

  National Trust Silver
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Prime Minister how much National Trust silver she has at Downing street; and when she intends to return the 20 pieces to Belton house, near Grantham, for the benefit of the nation.

  The Prime Minister
  There are 22 pieces of National Trust silver on loan to 10 Downing street from Belton house. This will be returned as and when requested by the National Trust.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Hazardous Waste
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on what dates representations were made, and to whom, in respect of the drums of toxic waste currently in the constituency of Wentworth which are to be returned to the United States of America.

  Mr. Maude
  Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution has been in close touch on this subject with the United States Environment Protection Agency since July 1989, most recently on 3 January 1990. Similarly, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department of the Environment have been in contact with the United States embassy in London and a representative of the embassy was invited to call on the FCO for talks on 22 December.

  Hong Kong
  Mr. Kaufman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many people emigrated from Hong Kong in each of the years from 1980 to date; and how many of these were heads of households.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 16 January 1990]: According to Hong Kong Government statistics, the estimated figures for emigration were as follows:

  Number

  1980

  22,400

  1981

  18,300

  1982

  20,300

  1983

  19,800

  1984

  22,400

  1985

  22,300

  1986

  19,000

  1987

  30,000

  272

  Number

  1988

  45,800

  1989

  42,000

  It is not possible to state how many emigrants were heads of household.

EMPLOYMENT

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

  Mr. Eggar
  In 1988, the latest year for which figures have been published, 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.

ENERGY

  Non-fossil Fuel Obligation
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he has received details from area boards of how many non-nuclear projects have sought to be included within the non-fossil fuel obligation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  My Department has been informed of nearly 300 such applications. This is a very encouraging response.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what percentage of the national budget in each of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries is spent on Government-funded research into renewable energy sources.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  The table sets out the percentage of the national budget in each of the OECD countries spent on Government-funded research, development and demonstration into renewable energy sources in 1988, the latest year for which information is available. The information was derived from published OECD reports (Energy Policy and Programmes of IEA Countries: 1988: OECD Outlook, December 1989; and OECD Main Economic Indicators, December 1989).

  Renewables expenditure as a percentage of total Government expenditure

  Percentage

  Canada

  0·01

  United States

  0·01

  Japan

  0·01

  Austria

  0·01

  Belgium

  0·01

  Germany

  0·02

  Greece

  0·02

  Italy

  0·01

  Netherlands

  0·02

  Norway

  0·01

  Portugal

  0·01

  Spain

  0·01

  273

  Percentage

  Sweden

  0-02

  Switzerland

  0-03

  United Kingdom

  0-01

  Note: Data on renewables expenditure are not available for Australia. New Zealand, Denmark, France, Ireland, Finland, and Turkey.

  North Sea
  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is the extent of operations in the North sea, British section, by South African-owned or controlled companies.

  Mr. Peter Morrison
  Two South African-owned companies hold small interests in a total of four United Kingdom offshore petroleum production licences.

  Plutonium
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what is his policy towards the control of the transportation of plutonium(a) by air, and (b) by sea from Sellafield to its major customers in Japan and West Germany.

  Mr. Baldry
  The transport of plutonium is covered by stringent international regulations. Transport options for returning the plutonium arising from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at THORP are still under consideration. Before anydecision is taken, all necessary safety and security aspects will be carefully considered.

HEALTH

  Medical Instruments (Imports)
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of medical instruments supplied by imports.

  Mr. Orme
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of medical instruments supplied by imports.

  Mr. Freeman
  About 50 per cent. The United Kingdom remains a net exporter of medical equipment.

  NHS Reform
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the area health authorities where members have taken a vote to consider the proposals for opting-out by hospitals in their area; and what were the results obtained.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Department has not sought or recorded the results or deliberations by health authorities to date on self-governance and other NHS review issues. Formal applications for NHS trust status will not be invited until Parliament has given approval to the necessary legislation. At that time health authorities will have an opportunity to comment on individual applications for trust status as part of the formal consultation process.
  274

  Chickens
  Sir Richard Body
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of frozen whole chickens examined by the central public health laboratory and the percentage of them affected by salmonella in each year since 1980.

  Mr. Freeman
  The results of two surveys carried out by the food hygiene laboratory and division of enteric pathogens of the public health laboratory service on the frequency of salmonella in uncooked frozen chickens purchased by environmental health officers from supermarkets, butchers and other shops in north and west London are given in the table. There is no reason to believe that the samples were unrepresentative of the national picture.

  Year

  Number examined

  Number positive

  Percentage positive

  1979–80

  100

  79

  79

  1987

  101

  65

  64

  Illegal Abortions
  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the number of illegal abortions based on statistics for maternal deaths, admissions to hospital following septic abortion, prosecutions for procuring illegal abortion and cases known to the police for the periods from 1960 to 1967, 1968 to 1975, 1976 to 1983 and 1984 to the most recent date.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Not all the information is available in the form requested. No meaningful estimate of illegal abortions can be derived from the available statistics on maternal deaths or treatment in hospital for septic abortion.

  The available information on maternal deaths for the period requested is as follows:

  Number of deaths from criminal abortion in England and Wales

  Number

  1961–63

  77

  1964–66

  98

  1967–69

  74

  1970–72

  37

  1973–75

  10

  1976–78

  4

  1979–81

  1

  1982–84

  nil

  Source: Report on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal Deaths in England and Wales.

  Preliminary investigation shows no evidence of deaths for the period 1985–87.

  Information on prosecutions for procuring illegal abortions and cases known to the police are matters for my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. The available information is given in the table.

  Offences recorded by the police for procuring illegal abortion

  Prosecutions for procuring illegal abortion

  1960

  221

  44

  1961

  245

  59

  1962

  406

  90

  275

  Offences recorded by the police for procuring illegal abortion

  Prosecutions for procuring illegal abortion

  1963

  239

  62

  1964

  271

  80

  1965

  184

  77

  1966

  208

  65

  1967

  314

  61

  1968

  247

  75

  1969

  257

  57

  1970

  212

  52

  1971

  80

  34

  1972

  62

  26

  1973

  36

  11

  1974

  21

  8

  1975

  14

  1

  1976

  9

  3

  1977

  11

  4

  1978

  7

  3

  1979

  3

  1

  1980

  2

  3

  1981

  3

  —

  1982

  3

  —

  1983

  5

  1

  1984

  1

  3

  1985

  4

  2

  1986

  3

  1

  1987

  3

  2

  1988

  3

  6

  Self-governing Hospitals
  Mr. Flannery
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will describe the process by which a hospital decides to show an interest in becoming self-governing.

  Mrs. Bottomley
  The Government's proposals for enabling hospitals and other NHS units and services to achieve NHS trust status are set out in the NHS and Community Care Bill. The process was also described in our White Paper "Working for Patients" CM 555, and NHS review working paper 1—"Self-Governing Hospitals" published earlier last year. More details were also given in "Self-governing Hospitals: An initial guide" published last July, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Smoking-related Diseases
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the annual cost to the National Health Service of treating smoking-related diseases; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  It is not possible to estimate these costs accurately, but they may be of the order of £500 million each year. This figure relies on the proportion of mortality from different diseases attributed to smoking. These "attributability factors" are applied to the NHS expenditure on treating these diseases to derive a cost for smoking to the NHS.

  Welfare Milk
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will reconsider the changes in the welfare milk scheme due to take effect on 28 January.

  Mr. Freeman
  No. The decision to implement the revised price structure was taken after an extensive period 276
  of negotiation, consultation and consideration. It takes account of the fact that the Department is a major buyer of liquid milk and reflects our policy of securing value for money in Government purchasing. The entitlement of beneficiaries to free welfare milk is not affected by this change.

  Hospital Beds
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many of the various categories of hospital beds there are at present; and how many there were for the equivalent categories 10 years ago.

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

  Average daily number of available beds by sector NHS Hospitals, England, 1979 and 1988–89

  1979

  1988–89

  All specialties

  361,670

  282,937

  Acute

  148,725

  123,484

  Geriatric

  55,139

  51,042

  Mental illness

  89,045

  62,999

  Mental handicap

  50,122

  30,045

  Maternity (General Practice and Obstetric)

  18,640

  15,367

  Sources: 1979 SH3 return, 1988–89 KHO3 return.

  Ambulance Dispute
  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will hold further talks with National Health Service management on ways of ending the ambulance men's dispute.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Ministers meet National Health Service management regularly in order to discuss the ambulance dispute.

  Hospital Grounds (Development)
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many hospital grounds have been sold for development during 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  The information held by the Department does not differentiate between sales of hospital grounds and sales of hospital buildings nor between property sold for development or non-development.

  Total sales of NHS properties in England are as follows:

  Acres realising

  £ million

  1985–86

  1,085

  84·9

  1986–87

  861

  149·0

  1987–88

  886

  204·0

  1988–89

  1,028

  273·3

  All proceeds are retained by health authorities for reinvestment in the service.

  Consultants
  Mr. Jack
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what opportunities there will be in 1990 for district health authorities to bid for additional consultants and their associated teams.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We have no current plans for a further central initiative inviting district health authorities to bid for new consultant posts in 1990.

  Ambulance Stations (Visits)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what date he last visited an ambulance station.

  Mr. Kenneth Clarke
  I opened Hexham ambulance station on 21 October 1988.

  Generic Medicines
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what requirements exist for imports of generic medications to include an instruction leaflet in the English language.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Medicines (Leaflets) Regulations require that if a leaflet is supplied with any medicine it is to be in English. It is not mandatory under United Kingdom law to supply a leaflet, but European Community (EC) directive 89/341 introduces such a requirement effective in 1992, unless the necessary information is on the label. The content of leaflets to be supplied under directive 89/341 is to be laid down by a further directive which is expected to be discussed this year.

  Training and Staffing
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what additional resources are being made available to local authorities to assist with training and staffing for the additional duties contained in the Children Act 1989 and the National Health Service and Community Care Bill.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We will take into account local authorities' additional responsibilities arising from these legislative changes in determining their grant entitlement for future years. We will also be making available grants for training in respect of the Children Act totalling £4 million over two years. This is in addition to the other training grants we make for staff working with the elderly, with children, and managerial personnel which will total nearly £17 million in 1990–91, all of which will have a role to play in preparing staff for new responsibilities. We have also announced our intention to introduce a further grant for local authorities from 1991–92 to assist them to develop services for the mentally ill.

  NHS Maintenance
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the value of backlog maintenance for National Health Service properties in the Yorkshire regional health authority(a) in total and (b) by district health authority, for the latest available year; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) on 10 January at columns 666-69.

  Myalgic Encephalomyelitis
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research is currently taking place into myalgic encephalomyelitis.

  Mr. Jackson
  I have been asked to reply.
  278
  The Medical Research Council, which receives its grant-in aid from this Department through the science budget, is not currently funding any research specifically into myalgic encephalomyelitis. It is, however, funding a study at the Institute of Psychiatry which is to investigate chronic fatigue in general practitioner attenders. The council also supports work in immune responses to the muscle, nerve cells and related structures which may have some relevance to the understanding and treatment of this condition. The Medical Research Council is always willing to consider soundly based scientific proposals in competition with other applications.

SCOTLAND

  NHS (Savings Schemes)
  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give details of savings to the health boards from every saving scheme.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Information in the detail requested is not available centrally.

  Works of Art
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) if he will list(a) German expressionist, (b) 20th century Scottish, (c) Piccassos, (d) Dutch 17th century, (e) Italian renaissance, and (f) French impressionist works of art in Scotland, owned by the state; how much was paid by the state for each painting; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will list the works of art produced in (a) 1945 to 1964, (b) 1965 to 1977, (c) 1978 to 1987 and (d) 1988 to 1989 owned by the state; if he will indicate which of those were produced either partly or wholly by public funding; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lang
  I have no direct responsibility for any works of art in any of the categories listed. Information on items in these categories which may be held by non-departmental public bodies in Scotland, such as the National Galleries of Scotland, is not held centrally, but may be obtainable direct from them. Works of art held in the Government art collection are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts.

  Job Creation
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will place in the Library the latest notes of guidance issued on(a) the calculation of leverage ratios as per page 48 of "Public Expenditure to 1991–92: A Commentary on the Scotland Programme", (b) the calculation of cost per job created or safeguarded, gross, (c) the calculation of cost per job created or safeguarded, net, (d) the estimation of job displacement, (e) the rules about additionality when projects are aided by European Community funds and (f) the public expenditure treatment of such receipts.

  Mr. Lang
  There are no formal guidance notes on these matters. A full examination of value for money was carried out as part of the 1987 review of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, a copy of which can be found in the Library. This covered indicators(a) to (d). The report includes information on these indicators and the methods of calculation adopted. On item (e), the relevant
  279
  European Community legislation governing the new structural funds regime, including additionality, is article 9 of regulation No. 4253/88. On item (f), the principle governing the public expenditure treatment of European Community receipts is that the expected level of such receipts is taken into account by Departments when public expenditure plans are prepared. General guidance on European Community finance questions is given in chapter 4 of "Government Accounting", which is in the Library.

  Public Expenditure
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish in the Official Report an analysis of any definition or classification changes which affect comparisons between (a) the table for programme 15.2 and 15.3 on page 40 of "Public Expenditure to 1991–92: Commentary on the Scotland Programme" and (b) the table appended to the Secretary of State's statement to the House on 6 December, Official Report, columns 330-3

  Mr. Lang
  There are no such changes.

  Forestry Commission
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland under what circumstances permission is given by the Forestry Commission to allow the collection of money from the general public in respect of activities other than those provided by or promoted by the Forestry Commission.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Where, with the Forestry Commission's permission, organisations or individuals offer a service to visitors on commission land, charges for these services may be allowed under a variety of arrangements including leases and permits. Charitable bodies may also be given permission to make collections on commission property.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the policy of the Forestry Commission on the use of mountain bikes on Forestry Commission land; and whether any conditions are imposed restricting such use to(a) roads, bridleways and footpaths and (b) other land.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Forestry Commission places no restriction on the riding of mountain bikes on public rights of way, unless these are limited solely to pedestrian use. The commission also makes other routes available to cyclists, for use on a permissive basis.

  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether the Forestry Commission has any policy to impose prohibitions on the use of cameras or video cameras on Forestry Commission land.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Restrictions are not imposed on the use of cameras or video cameras on Forestry Commission land for private purposes unless they are used in such a manner as to cause annoyance to any other person. However, if the cameras are to be used for commercial purposes the commission will normally make a charge.

  Natural Heritage Agency
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland which staffing posts of the proposed Natural Heritage Agency he intends to accommodate in the Nature Conservancy Council's existing headquarters at Life terrace, Edinburgh.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  It is too early to decide on the headquarters location of the proposed agency or the distribution of its staff within Scotland.

  Radioactive Waste Disposal
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how his Department intends to use the findings of the European Commission's PAGIS assessment of the suitability of Scottish geology for high-level radioactive waste disposal;

  (2)if he will make a statement on the findings of the European Commission's PAGIS study into the suitability of Scottish geology for high-level radioactive waste disposal;

  (3)what account he will take of the European Commission's PAGIS study findings in determining Government policy on the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given to her on 16 January at column 144 by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside.

  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what contribution his Department made to the European Commission's PAGIS study into the suitability of Scottish geology for high-level radioactive waste disposal.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Scottish Development Department was not represented on the PAGIS steering committee; the United Kingdom's representatives were drawn from the Department of the Environment and the National Radiological Protection Board.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Illsley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what percentage of individuals have(a) registered for community charge in Scotland and (b) paid the charge.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  It is estimated that over 99 per cent. of people liable for registration have been registered for the community charge. Information about the number of people who have paid the community charge is not held centrally, but we estimate that in most regions 85 per cent. to 95 per cent. of those liable have made some community charge payment with a figure of 98 per cent. in one region.

  Civic Government (Scotland) Act
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether his Department has undertaken any review into the operation of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The operation of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 has been
  281
  monitored since the Act came into force and a formal review of the Act is currently under way. We intend to publish a consultation paper later this year setting out our proposals for changes to the Act.

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has as to the number of shops trading on Sundays since the removal of restrictions on Sunday trading; and if he will make a statement on the effect on the Scottish economy.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  It would not be possible to make such an estimate since, with a minor exception relating to hairdressers and barbers, statutory restrictions on Sunday trading such as those set out in the Shops Act 1950 did not and do not apply in Scotland.

  Mentally Ill People
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what plans he has to provide additional support for mentally ill patients recently discharged from institutions and now living at home;

  (2)what plans he has to provide extra community psychiatric nurses and social workers to provide for those with serious mental illness who are to live in the community;

  (3)what plans he has to supply carers to patients with serious mental illness;

  (4)what steps he proposes to take to ensure that mentally ill patients who were discharged from institutions have suitable accommodation with carers or relatives.

  Mr Lang
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: Local authorities have statutory responsibilities both for the care and support of persons in the community who suffer from mental illness and for the aftercare of persons discharged from hospital. Health boards have similar responsibilities in relation to Health Service provision for such persons and there are well-established arrangements for cooperation between health and social work services in the community.

  In such cases local authorities must decide whether help is required with accommodation needs, including supported accommodation, and what other measures of assistance may be appropriate. Where continuing care or support is deemed to be necessary for persons living on their own, the need for home care services alongside the availability of any informal carer will commonly be considered. Decisions on the nature and extent of assistance to be provided in particular cases are for authorities themselves having regard to the resources available to them.

  The recently published White Paper "Caring for People" (Cmd. 849) makes clear the intention of building on existing guidance on the discharge of patients from mental illness hospitals by requiring health boards and local authorities to prepare joint care plans for such persons on the basis of a full assessment of individual needs before discharge takes place.

  Staffing at professional and other levels will be an important element in the community care plans which local authorities and health boards will be required to produce by 1 April 1991. As the White Paper makes clear, there will he central monitoring of progress in the implementation of these plans.
  282

  "Inside Intelligence"
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is now in a position to give the total cost of all stages of the Lord Advocate v. The Scotsman and others in relation to "Inside Intelligence" by Anthony Cavendish.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: My right hon. Friend is not vet in a position to give the total cost of all stages of the legal action the Lord Advocate v. The Scotsman Publication and others relating to the book "Inside Intelligence"

  Scottish Development Agency
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what is the cost for 1989–90 and 1990–91 of the central functions of the Scottish Development Agency listed on pages 89-90 of the Scottish Development Agency's annual report for 1988;

  (2) what is the cost for 1989–90 and 1990–91 of the regional functions of the Scottish Development Agency listed on pages 90-92 of the Scottish Development Agency's annual report for 1988.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: There art, no agency functions for which expenditure decisions are taken exclusively in the regional offices and information has not therefore been collected on the basis of a central-regional demarcation. Details of the agency's planned expenditure by activity in 1990–91 will appear in the commentary on the Scottish programme which will be published in February.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Disposable Incomes
  Sir Ian Gilmour
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish figures detailing the disposable incomes of(a) single-earner married couples with two children aged under 11 years, and (b) lone mothers with two children aged under 11 years, assuming rent of £21·80 and rates of £9·00 in each case (i) when not in paid work and receiving income support, and (ii) when in full-time paid work earning (1) £80, (2) £100, (3) £120, (4) £140 and (5) £160 per week.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The information requested is set out in the table. The position of lone parents on housing benefit and community charge benefit will improve from October 1990 with a change in the earnings disregard from £15 to £25.

  Disposable incomes (net income alter housing costs) for family types at various earnings levels and on income support as at October 1989 Family type:

  Single earner married couples with two children under 11 years

  Net earnings

  Disposable incomes

  (£ per week)

  (£ per week)

  On income support

  87·56

  80

  97·35

  100

  97·82

  120

  101·23

  140

  105·19

  160

  110·33

  283

  Family type:

  Lone mothers with two children under 11 years

  Net earnings

  Disposable incomes

  (£ per week)

  (£ per week)

  On income support

  71·56

  80

  98·20

  100

  102·47

  120

  106·43

  140

  110·39

  160

  115·53

  Notes

  1. The assumptions (including average rent and rates) and methods are those used in the Tax Benefit Model Tables, copies of which are available in the Library.

  2. For earnings level £160 separate calculations have been done, but using the same assumptions and methods as in the Tax Benefit Model Tables.

  Family Credit
  Sir Ian Gilmour
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish figures showing the family credit ceilings for one and two-parent families of different sizes, with children of different ages in April 1988 and 1989, at constant and current prices and as percentages of average male and average female manual earnings, as appropriate.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The information requested is set out in the tables.

  1. Family Credit ceilings (current prices)

  April 1988

  April 1989

  Single person with one child aged 3

  105·23

  112·51

  Single person with two children aged 4 and 6

  113·88

  122·93

  Married couple with one child aged 3

  105·23

  112·51

  Married couple with one child aged 14

  112·87

  120·51

  Married couple with two children aged 4 and 6

  113·88

  122·93

  Married couple with two children aged 13 and 16

  133·87

  143·86

  Married couple with three children aged 3, 8 and 11

  130·16

  141·37

  Married couple with four children aged 3, 8, 11 and 16

  151·16

  164·73

  Source: Tax/Benefit model tables 1988 and 1989

  2. Family Credit ceilings (constant 1988 prices)

  April 1988

  April 1989

  Single person with one child aged 3

  105·23

  104·18

  Single person with two children aged 4 and 6

  113·88

  113·82

  Married couple with one child aged 3

  105·23

  104·18

  Married couple with one child aged 14

  112·87

  111·58

  Married couple with two children aged 4 and 6

  113·88

  113·82

  Married couple with two children aged 13 and 16

  133·87

  133·20

  Married couple with three children aged 3, 8 and 11

  130·16

  130·90

  Married couple with four children aged 3, 8, 11 and 16

  151·16

  152·53

  (Percentage change from April 1988 to April 1989 in RPI was 8 per cent.)
  284

  3a. Family Credit ceilings as percentages of average male manual earnings

  April 1988

  April 1989

  Single person with one child aged 3

  69·2

  68·3

  Single person with 2 children aged 4 and 6

  74·9

  74·9

  Married couple with 1 child aged 3

  69·2

  68·3

  Married couple with 1 child aged 14

  74·2

  73·1

  Married couple with 2 children aged 4 and 6

  74·9

  74·6

  Married couple with 2 children aged 13 and 16

  88·0

  87·3

  Married couple with 3 children aged 3, 8 and 11

  85·6

  85·8

  Married couple with 4 children aged 3, 8, 11 and 16

  99·4

  100·0

  3b. Family Credit ceilings as percentages of average female manual earnings

  April 1988

  April 1989

  Single person with one child aged 3

  103·9

  102·2

  Single person with 2 children aged 4 and 6

  112·5

  111·7

  Married couple with 1 child aged 3

  103·9

  102·2

  Married couple with 1 child aged 14

  111·5

  109·5

  Married couple with 2 children aged 4 and 6

  112·5

  111·7

  Married couple with 2 children aged 13 and 16

  132·2

  130·7

  Married couple with 3 children aged 3, 8 and 11

  128·5

  128·4

  Married couple with 4 children aged 3, 8, 11 and 16

  149·3

  149·7

  April 1988

  April 1989

  Average gross weekly earnings for those in manual occupations and not affected by absence:

  Males

  200·60

  217·80

  Females

  123·60

  134·90

  Tax threshold:

  78·75

  84·13

  Tax deducted at rate of 25 per cent.

  Males

  30·46

  33·42

  Females

  11·21

  12·69

  National insurance deducted at 9 per cent.

  Males

  18·05

  19·64

  Females

  11·12

  12·14

  Average net weekly earnings for those in manual occupations whose pay was not affected by absence:

  Males

  152·09

  164·78

  Females

  101·27

  120·07

  Source DE Employment gazette.

  Income Support
  Sir Ian Gilmour
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the number of working families with children and a mortgage, whose net incomes, adding in child benefit, family credit and rate rebates as appropriate, but deducting income tax, National Insurance contribution, local authority rates and mortgage payments are(a) less than they would receive after 16 weeks on income support, (b) less than 20 per cent. above what they would receive after 16 weeks on income support, and (c) less than 40 per cent. above what they would receive after 16 weeks on income support.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  This information could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.
  285

  Low-income Families
  Sir Ian Gilmour
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether low-income families who apply for community charge benefit will be assumed to be getting all the family credit to which they are entitled; and whether the families will be informed about any such assumptions.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The community charge benefit regulations will allow a source of income that would be available to a claimant if he or she were to apply for it to be taken into account as a notional source of income. If a community charge benefit claimant appears to meet all the conditions for family credit but has not yet claimed that benefit, the local authority will advise them to claim it. In assessing the claim for community charge benefit, family credit will not be taken into account for 25 working days, which will allow the family credit claim to be determined. After this period family credit will be assumed to be in payment. In cases where family credit has already been claimed it will not be taken into account until actually received.

  The notice of determination issued by the local authority will inform the claimant of any assumptions made about family credit and remind them of their duty to report all changes of circumstances, which include the receipt of family credit.

  Benefit Claims
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will introduce the necessary amendments to enable those persons in full-time employment, who are laid off temporarily, to claim benefit in the manner available prior to changes in regulations recently introduced; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  We are monitoring the effects of recent changes to unemployment benefit rules on all those who claim. We have no plans to introduce special arrangements for this particular group.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Trade Deficit
  Mr. Patchett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he intends to take to improve Britain's manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he intends to take to improve Britain's manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he intends to take to improve Britain's manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The manufacturing trade deficit will narrow as the Government's tight monetary and fiscal policies continue to slow domestic demand.

  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the trade deficit.

  Mr. Ted Garrett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on Britain's current trade deficit.
  286
  Mr. McCartney
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on Britain's current trade deficit.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The latest information on the United Kingdom deficit in visible trade was published on 29 December 1989 in table 1 of the monthly press notice on the current account of the balance of payments, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Nationalised Industries (Subsidy)
  Mr. Hanley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much total subsidy was paid to the 10 largest nationalised industries in 1979; and how much was paid in the last full financial year to as many of them as remain nationalised.

  Mr. Lilley
  The 10 largest nationalised industries received subsidies of £684 million in 1978–79. Five of these have now been privatised. The remainder received £1,013 million in subsidy in 1988–89. These figures exclude capital grants and public dividend capital which, as they are not payments for current expenditure, do not fall within the national accounts or public expenditure survey definition of subsidy.

  Manufactured Goods
  Mr. Flannery
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the balance of trade in manufactured goods; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McAvoy
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the balance of trade in manufactured goods; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The information was published on 29 December 1989 in table 12 of the monthly press notice on the current account of the balance of payments, copies of which are available in the Library.

  Interest Rates
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received from British businesses regarding the present levels of interest rates.

  Mr. Ryder
  My right hon. Friend and I have received a number of such representations.

  West Germany
  Mr. Geoffrey Robinson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current trade deficit with West Germany.

  Dr. Reid
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current trade deficit with West Germany.

  Ms. Short
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current trade deficit with West Germany.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the current trade deficit with West Germany.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Information from which crude trade balances' may be derived can be found in the
  287
  monthly review of external trade statistics, available from the Library of the House or on the Central Statistical Office databank which may be accessed through the Library.

  1Crude balances slightly overstate deficits (or understate surpluses) since the value of imports, but not that of exports, includes insurance and freight.

  Share Ownership
  Sir George Young
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the numbers of new shareholders since 1979; and whether he intends to promote measures further to encourage the growth of individual share ownership.

  Mr. Lilley
  I have been asked to reply. The joint Treasury and stock exchange survey carried out in January and February 1989 estimated that approximately 9 million people own shares—20 per cent. of the adult population; a threefold increase since 1979.

  Civil Servants (Living Costs)
  Mr. Rathbone
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to assess how living costs in Sussex and the south-east affect Civil Service recruitment in those areas.

  Mr. Ryder
  None. Long-term pay agreements already cover over 95 per cent. of the Civil Service, and provide for variations in pay by location. Pay rates are determined in the light of the need to recruit and retain staff within what can be afforded.

  Manufacturing Deficit
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what measures his Department is currently working on to decrease the manufacturing deficit.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The manufacturing trade deficit will narrow as the Government's tight monetary and fiscal policies continue to slow domestic demand.

  Whisky
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what would be the total tax and duty payable in the United Kingdom on a 1-litre, 40 per cent. proof bottle of(a) Japanese whisky or other spirit, and (b) Scotch whisky.

  Mr. Ryder
  The precise total amount of duty and tax depends on the value of the whisky. In both instances, each litre bottle bears United Kingdom excise duty of 630·8p plus value added tax at 15 per cent. of the price inclusive of all duties (equivalent to 3/23rds of the retail selling price). In the case of the Japanese products only, import duty of 12·8p per litre is charged under the common customs tariff of the European Community.

  Exchange Rates
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, further to his reply dated 4 December 1989,Official Report, column 22, concerning the effect on manufacturing industry of the increase in the value of £ sterling against the deutschmark, whether the figure of 38 per cent. refers to volume or value.
  288
  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The figure of 38 per cent. referred to the increase in the volume of manufacturing investment between the first quarter of 1987 and the third quarter of 1989.

  Taxation
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much money was spent by the Inland Revenue on legal fees in connection with cases in the High Court for the recovery of tax revenues in each of the last five years in respect of(a) successful cases, (b) unsuccessful cases and (c) in total; whether the unsuccessful cases have been reviewed in each year by the Inland Revenue with a view to promoting legislation to avoid further loss of revenue; and whether he has identified the extent of tax evasion and avoidance which is taking place through the creation of business transactions carried out solely or mainly for tax reasons by United Kingdom based trusts, companies and individuals and trusts, companies and individuals based in (a) Jersey, (b) the Isle of Man, (c) Guernsey, (d) the Netherlands Antilles, (e) the Cayman Islands and (f) Liechtenstein.

  Mr. Lilley
  The amounts spent on legal fees for High Court cases could be provided only at disproportionate cost. The outcome of each case is reviewed for its legal implications. Because of their nature it is not possible to estimate reliably the extent of tax evasion or avoidance.

  Departmental Relocation
  Mr. Hanley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress Departments have made under the Government's relocation policy.

  Mr. Ryder
  On 9 February 1989 the then Paymaster General informed the House that over 34,000 Civil Service posts had been reported in the 1988 public expenditure survey as under review for location or relocation away from the south-east in accordance with the policy which had been announced on 31 March 1988. This policy does not involve any central targets for the number of posts relocated nor propose specific locations. Departments have instituted systematic review programmes to cover the location of all their work, with a view to taking advantage of the value for money benefits and advantages for staff and management which relocation can bring, and the benefits for our regional and inner-city policies of relocating work away from the south-east. It was emphasised that many reviews were then still at the earliest stage and that not all the posts would move.

  Since early in 1988 decisions have been taken and announced to relocate well over 16,000 posts generally over the next two or three years. These include 3,700 by Inland Revenue, 2,550 by Ministry of Defence, 1,900 by Customs and Excise, 1,850 by Department of Social Security, over 1,100 each by Department of Trade and Industry, Home Office and the Department of Employment, and 1,000 by the Department of Health. About 9,000 posts have been found to be unsuitable for relocation in the short term, and Departments have extended their reviews to include some 6,000 additional posts, leaving nearly 14,750 in the review process. Nearly all the decisions announced so far involve moving work to areas which are the focus of the Government's regional or inner-city policies. Further announcements can be expected in due course.
  289
  These figures may be compared with the 12,000 posts moved or created outside London and the south-east between 1979 and 1987, and less than 5,000 moved between 1974 and 1979.

  Successful relocation requires careful planning; Departments have therefore exchanged experience and, where appropriate, co-ordinated action with other relocating Departments, found alternative posts for some staff not wishing to move, and made good use of increased flexibility in the personnel management field.

  Separate Taxation
  Sir John Stanley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he will take to ensure that charities do not suffer a loss of income from covenants from married couples where one of the spouses is not paying income tax as a result of the introduction of separate taxation as from 1 April 1990.

  Mr. Major
  [holding answer 21 December 1989]: A charity's claim to refunds of tax on payments received under covenants does not depend on whether the covenantor is, or is not, liable to pay tax on his or her own income.

  A covenantor making a covenant payment to a charity deducts basic rate tax and pays over to the charity only the net amount. The charity is entitled to claim back that tax from the Inland Revenue.

  If the covenantor is liable to tax on an equivalent amount of his income, he gets basic rate relief for the covenant payment by retaining the tax he has deducted from it. If he is not liable to tax on an equivalent amount of his income, he has to pay over to the Inland Revenue the tax he has deducted.

  The introduction of independent taxation for married couples with effect from 6 April 1990 will mean that a husband and wife will become separate taxpayers. If one of them will not be liable to tax, the effect on his or her covenants will be no different from what happens now when a covenantor is a non-taxpayer—the payements will continue to be made net of tax to the charity, but the tax withheld will have to be paid over to the Revenue.

  For the past year, Inland Revenue publicity material has drawn attention to the fact that couples who find themselves in this situation may want to review their covenant arrangements. That is a matter between covenantors and the charities that they support.

  Uniform Business Rate
  Mr. Richard Shepherd
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what estimates he has made, on the basis of latest figures of the number of companies where profits and trading surpluses are lower that the unabated uniform business rate for each standard region;

  (2) what estimates he has made, on the basis of latest figures, of the impact that the uniform business rate will have on companies' profits and trading surpluses for each standard region.

  Mr. Chope
  I have been asked to reply.

  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him earlier today.
  290

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Salmonella
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many incidents of salmonella cultured from individual, intact eggs have occurred in the past year.

  Mr. Curry
  These figures are not held centrally.

  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of domestic refrigerators in preventing the growth of salmonella-causing bacteria; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  I shall make an assessment when research currently being funded by my Department has been completed. Comprehensive advice to consumers on using domestic refrigerators has already been issued in the Government's food safety booklet, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Member.

  Cetaceans
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make it his policy to require drift nets to be equipped with miniature electronic devices to help protect cetacean populations.

  Mr. Curry
  We have no evidence that drift nets cause a threat to cetacean populations in our waters. Nevertheless the Fisheries Departments are planning a general monitoring scheme on the incidental capture of cetaceans in United Kingdom fisheries, so that we can keep the matter under closer review.

  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the occurrence of ghost nets in fishing waters around Britain and their implications for populations of cetaceans.

  Mr. Curry
  We do not keep records of the numbers of nets lost at sea. Our scientific advice is that floating nets lost soon sink and—like bottom-set nets which are lost —quickly become entangled on the sea bed. We have no evidence that such nets have any implications for the incidental capture of cetaceans or thus for their populations.

  Oil Spills
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list those vessels that carry or can be converted to carry oil spill dispersant which his Department operates.

  Mr. Curry
  Nine vessels of the Royal Navy fishery protection squadron, which carry out fishery protection duties for my Department, are equipped to spray oil dispersant. MAFF's two research vessels are not so equipped, but could transport drummed dispersant.

  Knacker Industry
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will list the proposals he has put to the EEC on the knacker industry;
  291
  (2)what is the Government's policy on the knacker industry;

  (3)what representations he has had from the United Kingdom's knackermen.

  Mr. Maclean
  Commission proposals for the disposal of animal waste including dead and casualty stock have recently been presented to Council. They could have serious implications for the means by which casualty animals are disposed of in the United Kingdom. I will be seeking a solution which adequately reflects both the needs of the industries concerned and the requirements of animal and public health. Organisations representing the industry have been consulted on the proposals and are being kept fully informed of developments.

  Country

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  France

  712

  739

  1,370

  1,787

  1,553

  Belgium/Luxembourg

  492

  474

  999

  623

  1,310

  Netherlands

  7,365

  6,944

  8,172

  7,873

  10,051

  Federal Republic of Germany

  282

  148

  123

  238

  1,047

  Italy

  1,721

  1,890

  769

  760

  773

  Ireland

  1,347

  1,649

  1,554

  1,225

  2,169

  Denmark

  38

  188

  38

  40

  102

  Greece

  —

  —

  —

  —

  105

  Switzerland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  42

  Portugal

  163

  140

  288

  547

  283

  Spain

  5,862

  7,701

  9,838

  11,393

  9,481

  Yugoslavia

  822

  1,088

  1,236

  945

  1,098

  Turkey

  158

  350

  869

  1,161

  1,289

  Poland

  2,703

  3,858

  5,087

  6,851

  5,907

  Czechoslovakia

  0

  40

  39

  105

  92

  Hungary

  188

  83

  175

  547

  682

  Romania

  0

  0

  87

  95

  157

  Bulgaria

  0

  78

  183

  73

  95

  Egypt

  0

  1

  0

  17

  15

  Kenya

  66

  107

  200

  201

  435

  Uganda

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Zambia

  49

  109

  102

  21

  7

  South Africa

  40

  84

  39

  48

  26

  United States of America

  216

  180

  324

  505

  715

  Canada

  —

  —

  —

  —

  5

  Mexico

  90

  21

  21

  65

  21

  Guatemala

  —

  —

  10

  —

  5

  Costa Rica

  —

  —

  1

  1

  27

  Colombia

  —

  —

  1

  1

  4

  Ecuador

  7

  36

  29

  0

  13

  Chile

  19

  43

  40

  52

  492

  Uruguay

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Israel

  492

  331

  147

  150

  168

  United Arab Emirates

  —

  —

  —

  —

  22

  Sri Lanka

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Australia

  4

  0

  28

  79

  34

  New Zealand

  102

  208

  72

  84

  194

  Source: Eurostat.

  Fishermen
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what schemes exist under which fishermen who have lost employment following agreements with other countries on fishing grounds may be compensated.

  Mr. Curry
  None.

  Food Irradiation
  Mr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he intends to investigate further the national consequences and toxicological effects of irradiation on food prior to its introduction; and if he will make a statement.
  292

  Soft Fruit
  Mr. Andrew Welsh
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the total tonnage of soft fruit imports by country to(a) the United Kingdom and (b) Scotland in each of the past five years.

  Mr. Curry
  The total tonnage of soft fruit imports (mainly strawberries, raspberries and blackcurrants, both fresh and semi-processed) by country, for the United Kingdom in each of the past five years for which complete figures are available is listed in the table. No separate figures are available for Scotland.

  Mr. Gummer
  No. International expert committees and our own advisory committee on irradiated and novel foods (ACINF) have advised that the irradiation of food up to an overall average dose of 10 kilograys presents no toxicological hazard and introduces no special nutritional problems. This view was reaffirmed by the ACINF in its further advice to Ministers given after considering technical representations made during consultation. However, the ACINF recommended that the consumption and nutrient content of irradiated food should be monitored. We have already made it clear that we intend to implement this recommendation.

  Meat Exports
  Mr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food which countries refuse to accept(a) imported beef or (b) imported cattle, respectively, from the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Maclean
  [holding answer 12 January 1990]: The information requested is as follows:

  (a)Japan (because of import regulations concerning foot and mouth disease) and Papua New Guinea (only fresh meat originating in Australia or New Zealand may be imported).

  (b)All EC Member States in relation to cattle born before 18 July 1988, Australia, Finland, Israel, New Zealand, Sweden and the United State of America (because of concerns about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy).

  In addition, Germany has imposed restrictive certification requirements on trade in beef from the United Kingdom which I do not believe are justified by Community rules.

  Simplesse
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why the low-calorie fat product Simplesse was not subject to clearance by either the committee on toxicity or the advisory committee on novel foods and processes.

  Mr. Freeman
  I have been asked to reply.

  Simplesse is made from traditional food ingredients (egg and milk proteins) and as such is subject to the controls of the Food Acts. It was considered by the advisory committee on novel foods and processes at its meeting on 23 September 1989. The committee concluded that the product did not constitute a novel food since neither the raw materials nor the production process are novel. It was considered that the potential use of the product may have nutritional implications and these remain under consideration.

DEFENCE

  Low Flying
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many copies of the United States Air Force in Europe document entitled "USAF Tactical Fighter Low-level Flying Training in the Federal Republic of Germany Data Book" of December 1988 his Department has obtained; what was their distribution; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Neubert
  Sufficient copies of this document are available to my Department and have been widely distributed. The contents of the document are a matter for the United States authorities.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many low-flying sorties have been carried out

  Year

  Number of cases

  Section of Air Force Act

  Charge

  Sentence

  1985

  1

  51

  Unlawful low flying

  £300 fine and severe reprimand

  52

  Flying in a manner likely to cause unnecessary annoyance

  1989

  1

  51

  Unlawful low flying

  Forfeitence of 18 months seniority and severe reprimand

  52

  Flying in a manner likely to cause unnecessary annoyance

  294
  by (a) the Royal Air Force and (b) other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air forces over the Don Valley constituency for the last year for which he has figures.

  Mr. Neubert
  Records are not kept of the number of military low-flying sorties carried out over individual constituencies.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list(a) for Royal Air Force aircrew and (b) other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation air forces' aircrew, the chances of survival factors, when flying (i) under 100 ft, (ii) between 100 ft and 200 ft and (iii) over 200 ft.

  Mr. Neubert
  While studies into the survivability of Royal Air Force aircraft in combat have been carried out by the Ministry of Defence, the results are classified. However, it is generally accepted throughout the NATO air forces that as height decreases, survivability against hostile defence forces increases; and that survivability at very low levels is a balance between the risk from hostile defence forces and the risks arising from proximity to the ground and obstacles and that the latter risks can be reduced by adequate and realistic training to the extent possible in peacetime.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by type and mark the current jet aircraft used by the Royal Air Force in low-flying sorties.

  Mr. Neubert
  The strike-attack, offensive support and reconnaissance aircraft of the Royal Air Force listed in the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1989 Cmd 675-I (page 59) have a primary low-level role. Other Royal Air Force jet aircraft may also need to carry out a proportion of their training at low level in peacetime.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by year since 1984(a) the percentage of low flying, (b) the percentage of sorties and (c) the average flying duration time, carried out by (i) Buccaneer, (ii) Jaguar, (iii) Tornado and (iv) Harrier aircraft, used by the Royal Air Force.

  Mr. Neubert
  The information requested cannot be provided without disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State For Defence if he will list by year since 1984 the number of confirmed cases of(a) unlawful low flying and (b) flying to cause annoyance by pilots of military jet aircraft; and what action was taken in each case.

  Mr. Neubert
  There have been two cases since 1984, both in the Royal Air Force, of unlawful low flying and flying to cause annoyance by pilots of military jet aircraft. Both cases were dealt with by court martial; the details are given in the following table:
  295
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the strategic requirements for Royal Air Force low-flying sorties during(a) daytime flying and (b) night-time flying; and what restrictions are imposed.

  Mr. Neubert
  I refer the hon. Member to the background information on low flying training provided in the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1988 Cmd. 675-I (page 30).

  Mr. Amos
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the number of low-flying missions over Northumberland for each of the last five years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Neubert
  Records are not kept of the number of military low-flying sorties carried out over individual counties.

  Hunting
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by locations the actual sites where his Department's land is used for hunting with hounds.

  Mr. Neubert
  I refer the hon. Member to my hon. Friend's reply to him on 27 October 1989 (column 653). Records of actual sites where Ministry of Defence land has been used for hunting with hounds are not held centrally. This information could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  RAF Display Teams
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the programmes for the(a) Red Arrows display team and (b) other Royal Air Force display teams and aircraft during 1990.

  Mr. Neubert
  My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will write to the hon. Member as soon as the finally agreed list is available.

  Skyguard
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the service branch and units which are, and which will be, operating the Skyguard monitoring equipment.

  Mr. Neubert
  When the Skyguard fire control radar system is used in the low-flying monitoring role, it is operated by 2729 Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment in conjunction with the RAF police. There are no plans to change these arrangements.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place in the Library the results of the Skyguard monitoring of low-flying military jet aircraft; what follow-up action will be taken; and how often these reports will be published.

  Mr. Neubert
  No. It is not the intention to publish detailed reports on individual Skyguard deployments, on which may depend disciplinary action. Each deployment will, however, be followed up and appropriate disciplinary or other action taken where appropriate. Three deployments of the Skyguard radar system in the 296
  low-flying monitoring role took place in 1989, all in conjunction with the Royal Air Force police. These deployments were at:

  Knaresborough—27 to 29 June 1989

  Penrith—1 to 3 August 1989

  Alnwick—3 to 5 October 1989

  While further analysis of the results is continuing, no evidence was found during those deployments of any deliberate or flagrant breaches of the United Kingdom low-flying regulations and they confirmed that aircrew have a healthy respect for the regulations. Information on further deployments will be made available to the House from time to time.

  Airfields
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will list, by location, the number of joint military/civil airfields there are in the United Kingdom;

  (2)if he will list, by location, the number of joint military/civil airfields in the United Kingdom that are proposed or under consideration during the next five years;

  (3)if he will make a statement, in the light of the 1992 European single market, on expanding the use of joint military and civil airfields in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Neubert
  The operation of joint military/civil airfields is not possible under United Kingdom aviation regulations. However, some use of civil airfields is made by military aircraft, and civil aircraft can use military airfields, in some cases on a regular basis, subject to such flights being compatible with operational considerations. A number of proposals for additional civil use of military airfields are under consideration at present, but it is unlikely that the single European market will have a significant effect upon this activity.

  Combat Body Armour
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement as to in what circumstances combat body armour will be issued to service personnel.

  Mr. Neubert
  Combat body armour will be issued to service men as an item of personal equipment as supplies become available.

  WE177 Free-fall Bombs
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the life expectancy of the United Kingdom's WE177 free-fall bombs, before they become unserviceable.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The WE177 is subject to regular inspection, maintenance and refurbishment. It will remain in service for as long as it meets requirements for safety and serviceability.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of warhead development costs it is estimated would be spent in(a) the United States of America, and (b) the United Kingdom, for (i) the Trident warhead and (ii) the warhead for a tactical air-to-surface missile to replace the WE177 free-fall bomb.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  It has been the policy of successive Governments not to reveal details of this nature. For a
  297
  broad indication on Trident, I refer the hon. Member to the fifth report of the Defence Committee (Session 1988–89, pages 38 and 39). On a replacement for the free-fall bomb, no decision has yet been taken.

  RAF Finningley
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether there are any plans to change the current restrictions on the weight of civil aircraft using RAF Finningley.

  Mr. Neubert
  There are no specific weight restrictions on civil aircraft wishing to use RAF Finningley, providing they come within the pavement load classification group of the runway and aircraft manoeuvring areas. The strength of these surfaces permits the operation of most types of modern aircraft.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether there are any plans to change the flight paths of(a) military and (b)civil aircraft (i) taking off or (ii) landing at RAF Finningley.

  Mr. Neubert
  No.

  Nuclear Warheads
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what action he is taking to assess the security of long-term supply of special nuclear materials for his nuclear warhead production programme.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  Arrangements for the supply of all special nuclear materials are kept under regular review to ensure that the requirements of defence nuclear programmes are fully met.

  Mid-air Collision (Hexham)
  Mr. Amos
  To ask t he Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will ensure that the findings of the board of inquiry into the mid-air collision near Hexham on 9 January will be made public; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if, in the light of the mid-air collision near Hexham, on 9 January, he will undertake a review of the training of air crews; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) if, in the light of the mid-air collision near Hexham, on 9 January, he will undertake a review of the effectiveness of RAF co-ordination and information of low-flying exercises over each area at any particular time; and if he will make a statement;

  (4) if, in the light of the mid-air collision near Hexham, on 9 January, he will ensure that every aircraft involved in a low-flying mission contains a device to monitor the height of the aircraft throughout the exercise, and that this is recorded for subsequent inspection; and if he will make a statement;

  (5) when he expects the board of inquiry to report its findings on the mid-air collision near Hexham on 9 January; and if he will make a statement.

  Aldermaston

  Burghfield

  Cardiff

  Foulness

  1 January 1988

  Administrative, executive and clerical

  100

  12

  5

  1

  Specialist

  54

  —

  2

  21

  Craft industrials

  29

  26

  —

  5

  Non-craft industrials

  —

  35

  —

  —

  1 January 1989

  298
  Mr. Neubert
  The board of inquiry into the mid-air collision near Hexham on 9 January 1990 will make its report as soon as it has completed its investigations. A summary of the board's findings will be published in the usual way. We shall take whatever action we consider necessary in the light of the board's report to minimise the risk of such an accident recurring.

  Birth Defects
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what information he has on the rate of birth defects among the children of(a) personnel who have served on board Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines and (b) personnel who have worked for the Atomic Weapons Establishment;

  (2) what is the total number of children of service men who have served on board Royal Navy nuclear-powered submarines.

  Mr. Neubert
  The information is not available in the form requested.

  Atomic Weapons Research Establishments
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will state what the current shortfall of staff is at the atomic weapons research establishments at Burghfield, Cardiff and Foulness among(a) administrative, executive, and clerical staff, (b) specialist staff, (c) craft industrials and (d) non-craft industrials.

  Mr. Neubert
  The current staff shortfalls at the AWE sites at Burghfield, Cardiff and Foulness broken down by category are as follows:

  Burghfield

  Cardiff

  Foulness

  Administrative, Executive and Clerical Grades

  10

  10

  1

  Specialist Staff

  —

  2

  30

  Craft Industrials

  34

  —

  14

  Non Craft Industrials

  8

  —

  13

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what financial criteria will be used to monitor the performance of the management contractors to be appointed at the atomic weapons research establishments.

  Mr. Neubert
  These details have yet to be decided.

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the shortfalls of staff were at each of the four atomic weapons research establishments at the end of each year since 1980 for(a) administrative, executive and clerical staff, (b) specialist staff, (c) craft industrials and (d) non-craft industrials.

  Mr. Neubert
  The information is as follows:
  299

  Aldermaston

  Burghfield

  Cardiff

  Foulness

  Administrative, executive and clerical

  103

  14

  6

  1

  Specialist

  155

  5

  1

  21

  Craft industrials

  53

  33

  —

  11

  Non-craft industrials

  52

  18

  —

  6

  1 January 1990

  Administrative, executive and clerical

  36

  10

  10

  I

  Specialist

  135

  —

  2

  30

  Craft industrials

  72

  34

  —

  14

  Non-craft industrials

  60

  8

  —

  13

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which firms have expressed an interest in bidding for the initial management contract at the atomic weapons research establishments.

  Mr. Neubert
  To date, expressions of interest in the initial management contract at atomic weapons establishments have been received from British Aerospace (Dynamics); British Nuclear Fuels; Brown & Root; Vickers; GEC; Hunting Engineering and Rolls-Royce.

  Trident
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the atomic weapons research establishment, Aldermaston, has the capacity to undertake production of warheads for the Trident programme and for the tactical air-to-surface missile replacement for the WE177 free-fall bomb simultaneously.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  No decisions have yet been taken on a replacement for the existing free-fall nuclear bomb. It would not be in the national interest to discuss in detail the production capacity of the atomic weapons establishment.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Confederation of British Industry
  Mr. Knox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next expects to meet the president of the Confederation of British Industry to discuss manufacturing industry.

  Mr. Ridley
  I look forward to a continuation of constructive dialogue with the president of the CBI on matters relevant to the well-being of British industry.

  Information Technology
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what training his Department offers to its staff in the applications of information technology.

  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what training his Department offers to its staff in the applications of information technology.

  Mr. Forth
  A great deal of training on and about IT is available for all departmental staff. This includes general awareness, specific application skills, specialist and technical training, all of which is reinforced and supplemented by "at the desk" tuition.

  Mr. Michael J. Martin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the United Kingdom's current balance of trade in information technology.
  300
  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  According to provisional figures published by the Central Statistical Office, the United Kingdom has a crude trade deficit (i) in electronics and information technology manufactured goods (ii) of £3·0 billion for the year to June 1989.

  Notes:

  (i) Exports (fob) less Imports (cif)

  (ii) Principal Products of Activity Headings 3301, 3302, 3441, 3442, 3443, 3444, 3453 and 3454 of the Standard Industrial Classification (Revised 1980).

  Mr. Eastham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how he proposes to support future academic research and development in information technology.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  DTI supports industrially relevant collaborative research in IT. Academic partners in projects are eligible for DTI support on the same basis as industrial partners under the terms and conditions of the research and technology initiative. However, funding for academic IT research is usually provided through the science and engineering research council and the United Kingdom funding contribution of EC programmes. DTI has no plans to change these arrangements.

  Mr. Bradley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will take steps to provide a more detailed analysis of the balance of trade in information technology.

  Mr. Allen Adams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will take steps to provide a more detailed analysis of the balance of trade in information technology.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Government already provide a considerable amount of detailed information on trade in information technology. The Central Statistical Office (CSO) publishes details of United Kingdom exports and imports of electronics and information technology manufactured goods in the Business Monitor PQ series as well as in Business Monitors MQ10 "Overseas Trade analysed in terms of industries" and MQ12 "Import penetration and export sales ratios for manufacturing industry". More detailed information is published in Business Monitor MM20 "Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom". HM Customs and Excise has appointed a number of marketing agents who can provide further detailed analyses. Export statistics for computing services, including software, are published by the CSO in Business Monitor SDQ9 "Computing Services". Information on imports of computing services is not readily available because of the inherent nature of the trade.

  Manufactured Goods
  Mr. Worthington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current balance of trade in manufactured goods with West Germany.

  Mr. Redwood
  In the first 11 months of 1989 imports of manufactures from the Federal Republic of Germany exceeded United Kingdom exports to that country by £9·0 billion.

  Mr. Randall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the increase in import penetration of manufactured goods from 1979 until the most recent date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Alan Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the increase in import penetration of manufactured goods from 1979 until the most recent date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the increase in import penetration of manufactured goods from 1979 until the most recent date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Redwood
  Import penetration in manufacturing industry rose from 27 per cent. in 1979 to 36 per cent. in the year ending March 1989.

  Mr. Win Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the growth in imports of manufactured goods from the European Community since 1979.

  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the growth in imports of manufactured goods from the EEC since 1979.

  Mr. Boateng
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the growth in imports of manufactured goods from the European Economic Community since 1979.

  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the growth in imports of manufactured goods from the EEC since 1979.

  Mr. Redwood
  Imports of manufactured goods from the European Community have risen from £16·0 billion in 1979 to £45·7 billion in 1988, an increase of £29·7 billion.

  Footwear
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of footwear supplied by imports.

  Mr. Leadbitter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of footwear supplied by imports.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of footwear supplied by imports.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  A total of 56 per cent. by value, in the first half of 1989.

  West Midlands
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what interest is being shown by foreign businesses in becoming established in the west midlands.
  302
  Mr. Forth
  Foreign businesses are showing great interest in the we investment decisions were recorded involving projects by foreign companies in the region. These were forecast to create 3,656 new jobs. This made the west midlands the most popular area in the country in terms of the number of new projects. Interest remains high and while statistics are not yet available for 1989 it is expected that the 1988 figure will be exceeded.

  Industry and Services (North-West)
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State proposals he has for industry and service trade development in the north-west of England.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Through regional selective assistance and the consultancy and export initiatives, my Department will continue to support the development of industry and service trade in the north-west of England and throughout the United Kingdom.

  Export Credits Guarantee Department
  Mr. Faulds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to visit Cardiff to inspect the work of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to visit Cardiff and inspect the work of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

  Mr. Ridley
  My right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Trade has already visited Cardiff. I intend to do so shortly.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what consideration he gave to EC requirements in reaching his decision to privatise the Export Credits Guarantee Department; if he will list them; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ridley
  In arriving at its decision on ECGD's future status and organisation, referred to in the written answer given to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) on 18 December 1989, the Government were particularly concerned by the need(a) for ECGD to be able to respond effectively to the business opportunities created by the single European market; and (b) to ensure that ECGD would be able to maintain its intra-EC business in the event that the future development of Community law made the continued provision of Government support for short-term trade credit within Europe impossible.

  If ECGD's insurance services group is to maintain and continue the improvements in performance and service for customers made over the past three years, the Government believe that it must be free to compete with all other insurers in Europe and that this can best be done by converting it into a private sector company.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will make it his policy to ensure no loss or transfer of employment at the Insurance Service Group headquarters at Export Credits Guarantee Department ensues from the Export Credits Guarantee Department's privatisation announced on 18 December.

  Mr. Ridley
  I believe that the changes that I have announced offer the best prospects of securing jobs for the
  303
  future. I do not expect any significant change in the numbers employed in ECGD Cardiff as a result of the change of status. Thereafter the number of people in the organisation will depend mainly on its success in expanding its business.

  Mr. John Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received on the future of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

  Mr. McWilliam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received on the future of the Export Credits Guarantee Department.

  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received on the future of the Export Credits Guarantee Department

  Mr. Ridley
  In relation to the Kemp review of status options for ECGD, I have received representations from United Kingdom exporters, banks, trade associations, ECGD's staff and their representatives and other interested parties.

  Petrol Retailing
  Mr. Doran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has considered the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report into the petrol retailing industry; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Ridley
  I am at present considering the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on the supply of petrol. I shall report to the House when it is published.

  Trade Deficit (EC)
  Mr. Galloway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which EC countries have either a trade surplus or a smaller trade deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product than the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Lambie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which EC countries have either a trade surplus or a smaller trade deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product than the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which EEC countries have either a trade surplus or a smaller trade deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product than the United Kingdom

  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which EEC countries have either a trade surplus or a smaller trade deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product than the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Redwood
  All except Portugal, Greece and Spain were in one or other category in 1988, the latest year for which complete figures are available.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which five industrial sectors have the most adverse balance of trade in 1989 between the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Community on the latest available figures; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  Defining industrial sectors as divisions of the Standard International Trade Classification Revision 3, information for the first 11 months of 1989 is:
  304

  Division

  Deficit

  (£ million)

  78 Road Vehicles

  5,567

  05 Vegetables and Fruit

  1,204

  65 Textile Yarn, Fabrics, Made-up Articles and Related Products

  1,067

  72 Machinery Specialised for Particular Industries

  906

  57 Plastics in Primary Forms

  777

  Mr. Watson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the EEC countries with which the United Kingdom has a manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Allan Roberts
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the EC countries with which the United Kingdom has a manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Buchan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the EEC countries with which the United Kingdom has a manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Clelland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the EEC countries with which the United Kingdom has a manufacturing trade deficit.

  Mr. Redwood
  In the first 11 months of 1989 the United Kingdom had a manufacturing trade deficit with the following countries: France, Belgium/Luxembourg, Netherlands, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Denmark and Portugal.

  Trade Deficit (OECD)
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries have either a trade surplus or a smaller trade deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product than the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry which OECD countries have either a trade surplus or a smaller trade deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product than the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Redwood
  All except Portugal, Greece and Spain were in one or other category in 1988, the latest year for which complete figures are available.

  English Estates
  Mr. Buckley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the future of English Estates.

  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the future of English Estates.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  As already announced, a consultant's study is looking at a variety of aspects of English Estates' activities.

  EC Ministers
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet his EEC counterparts; and what subjects will be discussed.
  305
  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet his EC counterparts; and what subjects will be discussed.

  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet his EEC counterparts; and what subjects will be discussed.

  Mr. Redwood
  I continue to keep in close contact with my EC counterparts on a whole range of matters.

  Single Market
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any new initiatives to assist British industry to prepare for 1992.

  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any new initiatives to assist British industry to prepare for 1992.

  Mr. Hood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any new initiatives to assist British industry to prepare for 1992.

  Mr. Barron
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any new initiatives to assist British industry to prepare for 1992.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department's "Europe Open for Business" campaign provides the most comprehensive information service available to business anywhere in the Community, including a 24-hour telephone hotline, and extensive written and audio-visual material. This is constantly updated and expanded to take account of developments in Brussels. We also encourage business to take advantage of the growing range of specialist help and advice available from private sector sources.

  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement regarding the deficit in the balance of payments and on the competitiveness of British industry for the single European market.

  Mr. Redwood
  The main reason for the balance of payments deficit has been the rapid growth in both investment and consumption in the United Kingdom. The strong growth in investment will in time produce additional capacity and enable industry to meet more of the demands placed on it. In the meantime it has been necessary to tighten monetary policy to encourage additional spending and to slow down the growth of spending. There are a number of indications that the tightening is having a significant impact.

  The improved competitiveness of the United Kingdom since the 1970s can be seen in the fact that since 1980 manufacturing productivity growth in the United Kingdom has been faster than in all other major industrialised countries and since 1983 we have maintained our share of the value of world trade in manufactures after decades of decline. Further progress in liberalising financial services in Europe should help our internationally famous financial services sector gain further access to the EEC market.

  Mr. Andrew MacKay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on merger and monopoly policy in the light of the single European market in 1992.
  306
  Mr. Redwood
  The Government believe that improvement to the rules by which the European Commission examines mergers and the reduction or elimination of barriers to takeover throughout the Community are both essential aspects of the single European market programme. At the December Internal Market Council, major breakthroughs were achieved in both areas. The Council adopted the merger control regulation, which sets out Community powers to regulate large mergers with a Community dimension. The regulation will come into force in September 1990. In addition, the Commission proposed—and the Council accepted its proposal—to bring forward an action plan to tackle barriers to takeover by March 1990, which should help level the playing field for takeovers in the Community. Both developments are beneficial to United Kingdom industry and commerce, and an important step towards the completion of the single market.

  British Steel (Golden Share)
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received about his use of the golden share in British Steel.

  Mr. Andrew Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received about his use of the golden share in British Steel.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  None.

  Car Import
  Mr. Bill Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of cars supplied by imports.

  Mr. Ingram
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of cars supplied by imports.

  Mr. Robert Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of cars supplied by imports.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  A total of 57 per cent. by number in 1989.

  Trade Deficit (Japan)
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current trade deficit with Japan; and how much of the deficit is accounted for by manufactured goods.

  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current trade deficit with Japan; and how much of the deficit is accounted for by manufactured goods.

  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current trade deficit with Japan; and how much of the deficit is accounted for by manufactured goods.

  Mr. Redwood
  In the first 11 months of 1989 the deficit in total visible trade was £4·6 billion. In the same period the deficit for manufactured goods was £4·7 billion.

  FIMBRA
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on FIMBRA.

  Mr. Norman Hogg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on FIMBRA.

  Mr. Redwood
  The Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Regulatory Association is one of five self-regulating organisations recognised by the Securities and Investments Board under the Financial Services Act 1986. It is responsible for authorising independent investment intermediaries to conduct investment business and monitoring their compliance with the rules and regulations made under the Financial Services Act. In common with other Financial Services Act regulators, FIMBRA is in the process of reviewing certain aspects of its own rulebook in the light of changes to the Financial Services Act contained in the Companies Act 1989. Questions regarding the recognition of FIMBRA are matters for the Securities and Investments Board.

  Consumer Protection
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he has plans to strengthen legislation on consumer protection.

  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he has plans to strengthen legislation on consumer protection.

  Mr. Forth
  We intend to improve the protection given to consumers in a number of ways, including the introduction of an order under the Prices Act 1974, as amended, on price indications and unit pricing, and changes to other legislation affecting consumers' interests.

  Rover Group
  39. Mr. Nellist: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a further statement about the sale of Rover to British Aerospace.
  Mr. Ridley
  I have nothing to add to my statement of 30 November 1989.

  Waste Management
  Mr. Squire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to encourage industry to reduce the volume of its waste.

  Mr. Forth
  The promotion of waste minimisation is one of the objectives of my Department's environmental programme launched in May last year. This and certain other aspects of the programme are being developed by the Department's business and the environment unit (BEU), which was formed in June. A business guide to waste minimisation, entitled "Cutting Your Losses", was published by the BEU in November. To date there have been over 4,000 inquiries for the guide. A conference on waste minimisation, organised jointly by my Department, the CBI and the Department of the Environment, was also held in November and a series of regional seminars is planned for 1990. The programme of action is being developed further and I am confident that, together with the Department's work to promote the economic recycling of industrial and domestic waste materials, it will make a significant contribution to the reduction of waste in the United Kingdom.

  Securities and Investments Board
  Mr. Eadie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet the chairman of the SIB; and what will be discussed.

  Mr. Redwood
  My right hon. Friend and I meet the chairman of the Securities and Investments Board as frequently as is necessary. I expect to meet him shortly when a range of topics concerning the regulation of financial services will be discussed.

  Mr. Foulkes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received concerning the Securities and Investments Board and its associated bodies; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  My right hon. Friend and I have received a considerable number of representations on a variety of subjects relating to the regulation of financial services.

  Building Societies
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he has any plans to limit mergers and tied insurance arrangements involving building societies.

  Mr. Redwood
  Mergers and proposed mergers involving building societies come within the scope of the normal competition legislation. Under the Fair Trading Act 1973, the Director General of Fair Trading has a duty to keep himself informed of merger activity and to advise the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on whether or not particular mergers should be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission for investigation. I have powers under the Fair Trading Act to prevent a merger only if I have referred it to the commission and the commission has concluded that the merger would operate against the public interest.

  In addition, the Director General of Fair Trading has powers under the Fair Trading Act and the Competition Act 1980 to initiate investigations into complaints about abuses of monopolies and anti-competitive practices. If the hon. Member has any evidence to suggest that tied insurance arrangements involving building societies are an abuse of a monopoly or an anti-competitive practice he should bring it to the attention of the director general.

  Post Offices
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next proposes to meet the chairman of the Post Office to discuss the Post Office network in rural areas.

  Mr. Forth
  I meet the chairman of the Post Office regularly to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual interest and concern.

  Industries (Rural Areas)
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn
  Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to assist industries in rural areas.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Government's policies are designed to assist industry in all parts of the country. Specific measures of support to industry in rural areas are the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland.

  Textiles
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the balance of trade in textiles in the last available quarter.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Imports of textiles (SITC division 65) exceeded exports by £372 million in the third quarter of 1989.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assistance he is proposing to give to support the British textile industry.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Firms in the United Kingdom textile and clothing industry are eligible for assistance 310
  under approved general aid schemes and, if located in assisted areas, regional aid schemes. A wide range of practical help is also available from my Department under the enterprise initiative. The European Commission has operated a ban on sectoral aid schemes for the industry since 1985.

  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the wool textiles industry in West Yorkshire.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The industry makes a significant contribution to the prosperity of the region. Since the early 1980s the United Kingdom wool textile industry as a whole has made a good recovery, recording significant gains in productivity and achieving an excellent exports performance. United Kingdom exports reached a record £613 million in 1988, with a new record likely in 1989; the industry also enjoys a favourable balance of trade.

  West Germany
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the level of United Kingdom trade with West Germany.

  Mr. Livingstone
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the level of United Kingdom trade with West Germany.

  Mr. Redwood
  Imports from West Germany into the United Kingdom between January to September 1989. when compared with the same period in 1988, rose from £12·9 billion to £14·8 billion, an increase of 14·7 per cent. Total United Kingdom exports to the Federal Republic increased in the same period from £7 billion to £7·9 billion, an increase of 12·9 per cent. United Kingdom non-oil exports rose from £6·3 billion to £7·2 billion, an increase of 14·3 per cent.

  93. Mr. Jack Thompson: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the current balance of trade in manufactured goods with West Germany.

  Mr. Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what Britain's manufacturing trade balance with West Germany was at the end of 1989 or at the latest date available.

  Mr. Redwood
  In the first 11 months of 1989 imports of manufactures from the Federal Republic of Germany exceeded United Kingdom exports to that country by £9·0 billion.

  Certification and Standards (EC)
  Ms. Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to ensure consumer representation on committees dealing with standards and certification in Europe.

  Mr. Bell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to ensure consumer representation on committees dealing with standards and certification in Europe.

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to ensure consumer representation on committees dealing with standards and certification in Europe.
  311
  Mr. Forth
  Such committees are made up of representatives of the national standards bodies of Europe, not interest groupings. In the case of the United Kingdom, it is therefore for the British Standards Institution (BSI) to determine the composition of the delegation, which acts in accordance with a brief previously agreed by the relevant BSI committee.

  My Department provides a measure of financial support to help consumer representatives take part in BSI committee work and in European standards work, should they be selected to form part of the delegation.

  Recycling
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what further steps he is taking to promote the recycling of plastics, metals and paper.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what further steps he is taking to promote the recycling of plastics, metals and paper.

  Mr. James Lamond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what further steps he is taking to promote the recycling of plastics, metals and paper.

  Mr. Forth
  Ministers and officials continue to encourage the economic recycling of a wide range of materials, including plastics, metals and paper, through participation in conferences, seminars and exhibitions, and by the preparation and publication of information brochures and education packs. The recycling advisory group, set up late last year, is currently deliberating upon the best means of securing significant increases in the amounts of domestic and industrial waste being recycled in the United Kingdom, and the Environmental Protection Bill now before the House also contains measures to encourage recycling.

  Retailing
  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will institute a departmental study into problems in the United Kingdom retailing sector.

  Mr. Forth
  No.

  Retail Goods (Safety)
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps his Department is taking to monitor the safety of retail goods.

  Mr. Allen McKay
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps his Department is taking to monitor the safety of retail goods.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps his Department is taking to monitor the safety of retail goods.

  Mr. Forth
  My Department works closely with the trading standards departments of local authorities, which have the statutory duty to enforce consumer safety legislation, notably in the development of modern, computer-based information systems that enable the details of hazardous products to be made available urgently throughout the country. My Department also monitors the accident statistics obtained through the home accident surveillance system (HASS).

  Barlow Clowes
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received from, or on behalf of, Barlow Clowes investors since his statement on 19 December.

  Mr. Ridley
  I have received a number of representations from, or on behalf of, Barlow Clowes investors since my statement on 19 December. The majority of investors have expressed their complete satisfaction with the decision that I announced.

  Citizens Advice Bureaux
  Mr. Snape
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met representatives of the citizens advice bureaux to discuss their future funding requirements.

  Mr. Jim Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met representatives of the citizens advice bureaux to discuss their future funding requirements.

  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met representatives of the citizens advice bureaux to discuss their future funding requirements.

  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met representatives of the citizens advice bureaux to discuss their future funding requirements.

  Mr. Forth
  The funding of individual citizens advice bureaux is a matter for local decision, and my Department is not involved in those discussions. I have, however, met representatives of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and of Citizens Advice Scotland in recent months and among the topics discussed was their funding requirements.

  Regional Policies
  Mr. Robert Hicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he has taken to ensure that the south-west is benefiting from regional policies; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  My Department has opened satellite offices in Dorset and Wiltshire, in addition to the offices in Avon, Cornwall and Devon, to ensure a greater and more local delivery of DTI services to the business community. In addition, the Department, in conjunction with others, has sought to maximise aid from the European Community to eligible areas in the south-west and continued to provide regional grants to businesses operating in or setting up in the assisted areas. Within Devon and Cornwall we have, with financial support, helped establish a South West Export Federation and in Avon, Devon and Dorset are providing funding for export development advisers. Both those initiatives are designed to increase the volume of exporting by south-west companies. My Department is the largest contributor to the Devon and Cornwall development bureau, supports the activities of English Estates in the south-west and,
  313
  through my regional office, promotes and supports numerous other initiatives aimed at improving the economic performance of businesses in the south-west.

  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received on regional policy.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I receive regular representations on regional policy issues.

  Merchant Shipbuilding
  Ms. Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the future of British merchant shipbuilding capacity.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) on 9 January,Official Report, column 598.

  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many orders for merchant vessels were placed with United Kingdom shipyards in 1989.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Complete information for 1989 is not yet available. According to departmental records, 27 new orders for merchant vessels were placed with United Kingdom shipyards in the first 10 months of 1989.

  Ireland
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what are the present trends in value of imports from, and exports to, the Republic of Ireland.

  Mr. Redwood
  Present trends indicate rising imports from Ireland and likewise rising exports to the Republic of Ireland from the United Kingdom.

  In 1988 the value of United Kingdom exports to the Republic of Ireland was £4,057 million. In the first 11 months of 1989, the figure was £4,316 million.

  The value of Irish exports to the United Kingdom in 1988 was £3,879 million. The figure for the first 11 months of 1989 was £3,941 million.

  Over the past four years exports to Ireland have risen at a slower rate than imports, therefore the balance has contracted. Figures available for 1989, however, suggest a reversal in this trend.

  Britain maintains a significant share of the Irish market—over 42 per cent. in 1988—double that of our main competitor and Ireland's second largest supplier, the United States of America. Ireland meanwhile has a 3·6 per cent. share of the United Kingdom market.

  Trade with the Republic of Ireland

  £

  Imports from Ireland to the United Kingdom

  Exports from the United Kingdom to Ireland

  Balance

  1985

  2,817

  3,631

  814

  1986

  3,054

  3,558

  504

  1987

  3,488

  3,832

  344

  1988

  3,879

  4,057

  178

  11988

  3,560

  3,697

  137

  11989

  3,941

  4,316

  375

  1January to November.

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what plans he has to ensure that businesses in the regions of England and in Scotland and Wales benefit from the increased trade expected to result from the completion of the Channel tunnel.

  Mr. Redwood
  The DTI regularly receives representations from business about the importance of adequate road and rail links to the Channel tunnel if the United Kingdom is to derive full benefit from the tunnel and the single market. These are matters on which I and my colleagues make our views known to our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

  Science and Technology Parks
  Mr. Lofthouse
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action he is taking to assist the development of science and technology parks.

  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action he is taking to assist the development of science and technology parks.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Science parks grew very rapidly in the 1980s. Regional development agencies and local authorities helped finance this growth, but increasingly private sector funding is being channelled into the continuing expansion and development of science parks, and I see no need for a central Government initiative.

  Mining Engineering Exports
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met representatives of Britain's mining engineering companies to discuss assistance with their export performance.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Since taking office I have not met representatives of Britain's mining equipment manufacturing companies.

  Supersonic Airliners
  Mr. Adley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement about research and development into the next generation of supersonic airliners.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I believe that it is widely accepted that a next generation supersonic transport (SST) would involve a major international collaborative effort because of the very substantial investment which would be needed. It is for industry to decide whether a new SST could be a sound commercial, environmental and technological project—and to initiate the necessary research in collaboration with international partners.

  My Department has limited funds available to promote collaborative civil aeronautical research projects, and consideration could be given to their use to help United Kingdom industry take advantage of opportunities in this area. Research into the environmental implications would be of particular importance.

  HOTOL
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a further statement on the future of HOTOL.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The future of HOTOL is a matter for the United Kingdom companies concerned. The Government remain ready to assist the companies to find suitable international collaborators.

  Stock Exchange
  Mr. Roy Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet the chairman of the stock exchange; and what will be discussed.

  Mr. Lewis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he next plans to meet the chairman of the stock exchange; and what will be discussed.

  Mr. Redwood
  My right hon. Friend and I meet the chairman of the international stock exchange whenever appropriate to discuss financial services topics of mutual interest.

  Washing Machines
  Mr. Boyes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of washing machines supplied by imports.

  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will estimate the percentage of the home market of washing machines supplied by imports.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  A total of 37 per cent. by value, in the first half of 1989.

  Korea
  Mr. Archer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will introduce an embargo on imports from Korea.

  Mr. Redwood
  No.

  Trade Barriers
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action he is taking to ensure that the EEC does not erect protectionist trade barriers.

  Mr. Redwood
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer which I gave him on 6 December 1989, at column 290.

  Bankruptcies
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what are the latest figures for bankruptcies among small businesses; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  Information on the size of businesses going into bankruptcy is not available.

  Industrial Investment
  Mr. Yeo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recent representations he has received regarding industrial investment.
  316
  Mr. Redwood
  I have received a number of recent representations on industrial performance and the Government's policies towards industry. Investment is one of the main subjects covered in most of these representations.

  City Task Forces
  Mr. Robert Hayward
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many inner-city task force projects were approved in 1989.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  A total of 611 projects designed to assist in the economic regeneration of the communities in inner-city task force areas were approved in 1989.

  Research Council
  Mr. Lord
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the outcome of the European Community Research Council held on 15 December 1989.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I represented Her Majesty's Government at the meeting of the Community's Council of Ministers (Research) in Brussels on 15 December.

  The council reached a unanimous agreement on a new framework programme for 1990–94. The total level of funding agreed was 5·7 becu (£4·2 billion), comprising 2·5 becu (£1·8 billion) for 1990–92 and 3·2 becu (£2·3 billion) for 1993–94. The programme will cover Community R and D activities in the following six main areas:

  1. Information and communications technologies

  2. Industrial and materials technologies

  3. Environment

  4. Life sciences and technologies

  5. Energy

  6. Human capital and mobility

  Specific proposals will now be put forward by the Commission under the 15 separate programme lines that were established by the Council.

  Her Majesty's Government regard this as a very satisfactory outcome of the negotiation on the new framework programme, both as regards the overall level of resources and the technical contents, for which there are clear priorities and objectives. We have also ensured that the decision will not prejudice the review of the current inter-institutional agreement on budgetary discipline.

  The Council agreed that it would be logical to conduct future R and D at the Community level on the basis of interlocking rolling programmes. These would have the advantage of allowing additional flexibility in the management of specific programmes in the light of full and effective evaluation carried out as part of a mid-term review.

  In addition, the Council adopted a research and technical development programme, under the current 1987–91 framework programme, in the field of management and storage of radioactive waste covering the period 1990–94. This programme has a budget of 79·6 mecu (£58 million): the objective being to develop systems for radioactive waste management which ensure the safety of the public and the protection of the environment.

  Also under the 1987–91 framework programme, the Council agreed a common position on the human genome analysis programme.
  317
  The Council agreed a statement on the possibility of research co-operation with eastern Europe and invited the Commission to come forward with specific proposals.

  Privatisation
  Mr. Neil Hamilton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many companies have been returned to the private sector by his Department since 1979.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer given to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) on 9 January [columns.517-18]. My Department had primary responsibility for returning seven companies to the private sector.

  Exporters
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures he is taking to help British exporters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office provide, through the export initiative, a wide range of help, advice and support to United Kingdom exporters at each stage of the exporting process. It is, however, for individual firms to decide whether they should export. Our role is to help them reach these decisions and to provide the services they require to help them enter export markets.

  It is encouraging to see that the volume of non-oil exports in the three months to November 1989 was 13 per cent. higher than a year earlier.

  Renovations
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any conveniently available figures for the(a) value and (b) size of his Department's property being renovated by the Property Services Agency and as to how much priority one Department of Trade and Industry property is not being renovated owing to shortage of funds.

  Mr. Forth
  |(a) Department of Trade and Industry occupies approximately 406,000m2 of the Civil Service estate, but figures are not conveniently available for the value of these occupations.

  (b) Responsibility for maintenance of the civil estate, under the Property Repayment System (PRS) arrangements, is shared between PSA and Departments. On 24 May 1989, Sir Gordon Manzie, chief executive of PSA, informed the Environment Committee that, at current funding levels, it should be possible to clear the backlog of priority maintenance work on the civil estate as a whole by 1995–96. (HC 403 (1988-89) EV.p.24). There is, however, no readily available information relating the backlog to individual Department occupations.

  Eastern Europe
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with Yugoslavia; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling;

  (2) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling;

  (3) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with Hungary; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling.

  (4) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with Poland; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling;

  (5) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with Czechoslovakia; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling;

  (6) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with Romania; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling;

  (7) how many United Kingdom firms have current commercial contracts with Bulgaria; and what is his estimate of the value of those contracts in £ sterling.

  Mr. Redwood
  The Government do not have comprehensive information about the number or value of commercial contracts with the east European countries listed by the hon. Member. Such information as my Department receives about individual contracts is commercially confidential and cannot, therefore, be revealed.

  Missile Technology Control
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list all companies in the United Kingdom producing components or information which came under the terms of the missile technology control regime.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 15 January 1990]: This information is not readily available and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. G. J. Mulcahy
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the positions currently held by Mr. G. J. Mulcahy who has served as a Government-appointed director on British Telecom plc from 19 October 1988.

  Mr. Forth
  [holding answer 16 January 1990]: Details of the current directorships of all of the directors of British Telecom plc are publicly available from the register of directors maintained by the company in accordance with section 288 of the Companies Act 1985. Details are also publicly available from the Register of Companies. Any other positions currently held by Mr. Mulcahy are a matter for him.

  Manufacturing
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing the increase in manufacturing output less food, since 1973 and 1979, respectively, and the increase in the volume of manufactured imports.
  320
  Mr. Norman Lamont
  I have been asked to reply.

  The information requested on manufacturing output, less food cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost. Volume indices of manufactured imports can be found on the CSO databank, which is accessible through the House of Commons Library.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury.

Common Land Forum Report
Baroness Nicol Baroness Nicol asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to introduce legislation for the further protection of common lands on the basis of the Common Land Forum Report.
Lord Reay: My Lords, it remains the Government's aim to introduce comprehensive legislation based broadly on the forum recommendations at a suitable opportunity when parliamentary time permits.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I thank the Minister, but is he aware that I have had a similar reply about twice a year for the last four years? Is he aware that over three-quarters of our commons, which are very precious to most of us, are at risk under the present legislation? I understand that agreement with the Moorlands Association on the last outstanding argument was reached at the end of last summer. Will the Minister say why more priority cannot now be given to this important subject?
Lord Reay: My Lords, as I said, it is still our intention to bring in legislation. But we should like to see consensus reached between the various interested parties. Unfortunately, that is not yet the case. On the question of the common lands under threat, the evidence we have available indicates that only a small number of commons have been deregistered in the past few years.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that to the best of my knowledge the Moorlands Association agrees that there should be a certain number of miles of footpath per thousand hectares of moorland and that that would be the ideal and satisfactory solution for all those, including myself, who enjoy walking?
Lord Reay: My Lords, we have received further representations from the Moorlands Association which we are now considering together with representations from other interested bodies.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, in declaring my interest as president of the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales, perhaps I may ask the Minister to confirm that agreement was reached between all bodies concerned with common land in the Common Land Forum, which was in itself a remarkable feat; that afterwards the Moorlands Association alone stood out against legislation although, as the noble Lord said, it has now come into line; and that there is therefore no reason why legislation should not be introduced to deal with an urgent matter. In order
634
to help the Government—I always like to help the Government—perhaps I may suggest that the passages concerned with the merger of the Nature Conservancy Council and the Countryside Commission should be omitted from the Environment Protection Bill and a measure for the governance of common land substituted.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord will have an opportunity to debate the question of the Nature Conservancy Council when we debate the Environment Protection Bill. On the noble Lord's first question, I understand that the Moorlands Association and the other interested bodies are not yet in agreement. We consider it desirable that there should be a great degree of agreement on this important matter. We consider that the effective operation of any future legislation will be much better assured if the legislation has the support of all interested groups.
Baroness David: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the evidence from the Countryside Commission is that large areas are being lost and are at risk, that applications are being submitted for areas as large as 1,000 acres to be deregulated, and that there might be development? Who are the other interested parties causing the hold-up?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I understand the anxiety of the noble Baroness with regard to registered common lands and her wish, and the wish of other noble Lords, that they remain so. That would be one of the aims of any legislation.
Lord Moran: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in many parts of the United Kingdom, especially Wales, the wildlife interest of common land is damaged by the use of the open hill by motorcycles, particularly motorcycle clubs, and four-wheel drive vehicles? Will he ensure that, when legislation is introduced, it covers the use of vehicles and prevents vehicles being used, except in special circumstances, off the road on common land?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I should be happy to consider the noble Lord's point. A great number of different interests must be reconciled. There are the graziers, the local authorities, those concerned with conservation, those concerned with public access and, last but not least, the owners themselves.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that demand for access is not from walkers? They want only footpaths. The demand is purely for political reasons. Is he further aware that full access by people in pressurised areas would greatly damage the wildlife and would be contrary to the rules laid down by the EC for the preservation of wildlife?
Lord Reay: My Lords, there are different views and we continue to receive representations from different interested bodies. As long as we continue to do so, we have not abandoned hope that a greater measure of agreement may be possible.
Baroness White: My Lords, does the Minister recognise that if the Government want 100 per cent. agreement when there are obvious conflicts of interest we shall never have legislation on common land? Is it not therefore the path of statesmanship to recognise that one must obtain the best agreement possible? Most of us are now of the opinion that we have obtained the best possible with the remarkable co-operation of people who recognise that their interests are not always consonant one with another but who are prepared to give way to a certain extent. The Government should show a little statesmanship for a change.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I take the point made by the noble Baroness. But we should like to see a greater measure of agreement than now exists.
Baroness David: My Lords, the noble Lord did not answer part of my question. Who are the people who are holding up this legislation by not agreeing?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I just gave the noble Baroness a list of the various bodies that we consider to be interested in this matter.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the noble Lord prepared to report this exchange to his right honourable friend to make sure that my noble friend Lady Nicol does not have to ask exactly the same Question in six months' time?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I shall be quite happy to give the assurance that I shall report this exchange to my right honourable friend.

Romania: Human Rights
2.44 p.m.
Lord St. John of Fawsley Lord St. John of Fawsley asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they have taken, or intend to take, to persuade all member states of the European Community to take a united stand against infringement of human rights in Romania.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, until the fall of the Ceausescu regime on 22nd December we took every appropriate opportunity to discuss with our partners ways of putting pressure on the then Romanian Government to end their abuses of human rights. Fortunately events since then have taken an encouraging turn. The new National Salvation Front Government have made wide-ranging commitments concerning respect for human rights. We shall, however, be watching closely to see that these commitments are implemented.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful reply to my Question, which has not so much been superseded by events as placed in a new context. Can he say what international action is being taken to provide food for Romania, particularly in the rural areas where
636
many people are near starvation? Secondly, since man does not live by bread alone, does he consider that it would be suitable for this country, which was hailed by Bright as the mother of parliaments, to take the lead in helping the Romanians in the extremely difficult task of passing from dictatorship to parliamentary government and democracy, keeping a wary eye on the National Salvation Front at the same time?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: With regard to my noble friend's first point, the EC Commission has sent a mission to Romania to look at the requirements for food aid. In fact it is there today. We expect a report back later this week.
In answer to the noble Lord's second point, my right honourable friend the Minister of State, Mr. Waldegrave, was in Romania yesterday and the day before. He met members of the new parties, including critics of the National Salvation Front. We shall continue to maintain those links. We foresee the possibility of extending the know-how fund, which now operates in Poland and Hungary, to other countries including Romania. It would include provision of technical training, organisational assistance to democratic political parties and so on.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, can my noble friend say whether as yet there is anything to suggest that food and other aid sent to Romania is being properly distributed and not hogged by the pretended government in office now?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the situation in Romania is confused at the moment to say the least, but we have no evidence that the aid consigned by Her Majesty's Government, namely medical supplies, has been misdirected.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, can the Minister say whether there is a determined EC plan to provide economic help to Romania and those other East European states that have freed themselves from the grip of totalitarian communism?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Yes, my Lords, and I have just referred to the visit of the EC Commission to look into the matter of food aid which is taking place this very day. In the longer term, in partnership with the rest of the EC, we hope to help Romania move toward democracy and a market economy. Obviously we shall be discussing those matters with our partners.
Lord Hooson: My Lords, have the Government sent any food to Romania and if so how much?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I do not think that any food has yet been sent. It is the purpose of the visit by the EC Commission to see what is needed. We have already received from the Romanian Government a kind of shopping list and that is being discussed at the moment.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, in helping the Romanians to set up a multi-party democracy (which seems an extremely good idea), will the Government be careful

637
not to steer them toward our own system of electoral law which is outdated and unjust and on the other hand take care to point out the advantages of the more up-to-date and juster systems of representation which obtain elsewhere in the EC?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I compliment the noble Lord on being able to raise the subject of proportional representation in the context of this Question. The whole object of the exercise is for the Romanians to decide for themselves the form of government and the form of elections that will take place in future.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, pursuing the subject of food, it has been reported today that in Romania there is a vast shortage of meat. There is also a report that the French in particular are sending very large quantities of food from the marshalling yards in Paris. Are we playing some role in helping them in that respect?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, we shall play a role through our membership of the European Community. So far as I understand, the aid that is being and will be sent will come from the EC. We shall be contributing our 20 per cent. share of that.
Lord St. John of Fawsley: My Lords, I apologise for pressing my noble friend on this point but can he give some guarantee that action will be taken this week? There are many people in Romania at starvation point and unless aid reaches them soon it will be too late.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I hope that the EC team which is there today will report back very quickly and we shall be able to take action as soon as possible.

The THORP Project
2.50 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby Lord Hatch of Lusby asked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their justification for proceeding with the thermal oxide reprocessing plant (THORP) project.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I understand that British Nuclear Fuels' thermal oxide reprocessing plant is now nearing completion. The fuel receipt and storage facility is already operational, and commercial reprocessing is expected to begin in late 1992. The company already has contracts valued at up to £5 billion and has covered its investment in the plant. THORP will be a major export earner for the UK.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that following the Government's decision to cancel the threee PWRs there would seem to be less necessity for THORP than previously? Yet THORP is being extended. Is this solely because British Nuclear Fuels intends to obtain foreign
638
contracts? If so, is nuclear waste to be transported from around the world and reprocessed at THORP? There would seem to be great danger in transporting such waste.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the decision to retain nuclear power in the public sector does not affect the viability of THORP. BNFL has a full order book for the first 10 years of THORP"s operation. Two-thirds of these contracts are with overseas customers. The successor companies will take over responsibility for the home bought share of THORP.
On wastes, the contracts that are being signed include the options for the return of waste. The Government have made clear our intention that those options should be exercised and the waste returned.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the existing nuclear power stations —there are more than 15 and some will be with us for at least another 10 years—continue to have a need for reprocessing their spent fuel?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, there is a reprocessing facility at Sellafield for the fuel from the Magnox reactors. However, THORP is required for the reprocessing of fuel from the thermal oxide reactors.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the two-thirds of overseas contracts to which he referred were won by British Nuclear Fuels in the face of severe competition from the French industry? Can he also confirm that further negotiations are taking place with the German industry in order to commence their contracts at the turn of the century? If the industry were to close down would not over 15,000 jobs be lost? Would we not be handing over a thriving industry with a very rosy future to the French industry and lengthening our own dole queues?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, yes. I can confirm that 4,000 million tonnes of the 6,000 million tonnes due to be reprocessed over the next 10 years are from overseas. Half of that amount comes from Japan and the other half from West European countries. In addition, discussions are taking place with a number of customers which should guarantee the plant's future well into the next century. I can confirm that it is expected to sign additional reprocessing contracts with a number of German utilities very shortly.
I should also like to confirm the last supplementary question of the noble Lord. The THORP project is currently providing 5,000 jobs directly in the United Kingdom. BNFL estimates that it will sustain a further 10,000 jobs a year in supply companies during the final phases of construction.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that what he has just told us is not regarded by all of us as a matter for rejoicing? Not all of us are content that this country should become the nuclear waste dump of the world. We would be

639
happier for France to be that. Indeed, there is a widely held view among scientific people that each country should be responsible for its own nuclear waste. Does the noble Viscount agree that that would be the ideal solution?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, no. I have sought to explain that this country will not be the waste dump for the future. The Government feel that reprocessing is a proven and safe technology that keeps open the possibility of recycling the uranium for the future. It puts waste into a better form for storage and ultimate disposal and avoids leaving spent fuel as a problem to be tackled by future generations.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that no country is an island? We have a part to play in the world pollution problem. Sellafield has a great record in reducing the menace of highly dangerous radioactive waste.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, yes. As I said in a previous answer, it has a reputation for being able to deal with waste products from the Magnox reactors. I am certain that its reputation will continue.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, has there been a change of policy on the return of waste? My understanding is that although the option to return it has been in existence on contracts for reprocessing carried out until now, that option has not been exercised. Will the noble Viscount please confirm that there is a change of policy?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I cannot confirm that there has been a change of policy. Until now the spent fuel has not been reprocessed because THORP has not been commissioned. Therefore none of the waste has been capable of being returned. I confirm that it is the intention to return the waste.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount to check his figure of 4,000 million tonnes of waste products to be reprocessed? Is he aware that that would account for the total output of British mines for 20 years? I find it very difficult to believe that THORP will be able to deal with such an amount of matter.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord. The word "million" seems to have crept in. I apologise to the House. It is such a large error that I feel that the House would forgive me on this occasion.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House is very sympathetic to noble Lords in Waiting who get their millions wrong. I am sure that we shall be very happy to accept the explanation of the noble Viscount.
Perhaps I may ask him to concentrate for a moment on the finances of THORP. THORP is now two years behind schedule. It will cost £1·8 billion. That compares with the 1978 estimate of £300
640
million. The noble Viscount rightly said that it would be much more dependent in the future on foreign contracts. Can he give the House an estimate of the return on investment that BNFL is expecting?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the increase in costs has occurred from the last estimate which was revised in 1988 by a figure of some £200 million. At the same time there was a technical estimate that another 1,000 tonnes of base load capacity would be available over the next 10 years, half of which has already been committed. I am not in a position to give the figures for which the noble Lord has asked. I shall see whether I can discover them and write to him.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, does the noble Viscount care to answer the inference in the question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, that the transport of waste and of the finished product is dangerous?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, there is an inherent danger in the transport of any radioactive waste.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, must have thought out the implications on employment should THORP close. Will the Minister write to the noble Lord asking him for his alternative proposals for the employment of those people who would be displaced if THORP were to close?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, the noble Lord has made a good point. I was glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, remained in his place and was also able to hear the comment.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, I should like to clear up a small misunderstanding. I am perfectly well aware that THORP is not yet in operation. However, my earlier question referred to BNFL, which has been reprocessing spent fuel for 30 years. Am I correct in my understanding that when it had foreign contracts it did not return the waste? I asked about a change of policy for that reason.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I do not believe that there has been a change of policy concerning THORP. All the contracts that have been signed for the operation of THORP include the return of the waste.
The Earl of Lauderdale: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that while the option for a fast reactor remains open it is important to be able to reprocess spent fuel in order to obtain plutonium from it?
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, yes, I agree that being able to take out the plutonium will provide fuel for a fast reactor. There is also a certain amount of interest in mixing the plutonium with the uranium for a mixed oxide fuel.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I look forward to receiving the letter from the Minister, but I can give him the answer now. There is a great need for labour in the field of renewable resources which could

641
certainly take up the loss at THORP. Can the Minister clarify his comments about what is called the "take-back" clause in the 1976 Act and the return of the reprocessed fuel? As I understand it, the vitrified substance —that is plutonium —is returned. Can he tell the House what will happen and what is now happening in other BNFL stations to the medium and low-range waste? Will it remain here? Will it be dumped? Will it be returned? What will happen to it.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I agree that it is difficult to identify entirely which piece of waste comes from which piece of reprocessed fuel. However, it is part of the contract that the waste will be returned. It may not be in the same mix in which it arrived; and it may be that the high-grade waste will be returned and low-grade waste will be stored ready for disposal in this country, as happens at the moment.

School Governing Bodies
3.2 p.m.
Lord Peston Lord Peston asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will amend the Education Reform Act 1988 to ensure fair representation of local opinion on school governing bodies.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, we have no plans to do so.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, albeit not one that pleases me very much. Does the Minister recall that I raised the matter in July, 1988, in connection with the Education Bill? Is he aware that noble Lords who debated the subject thought that the problem was serious but minor? Is he aware that the unattractive practice, to say the least, is now growing and may soon become widespread? Can he advise the House whether the business of local authorities appointing only governors of their own political persuasion is legal?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am aware of the noble Lord's participation in the debate when the subject was fully discussed. We remain opposed to legislation which will introduce political affiliation as an essential consideration in all local authority appointments to governing bodies.
Baroness David: My Lords, can the Minister say whether the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, which in Sections 15 to 17 and Schedule 1 provides for a political balance on local authority committees and other bodies, will apply to the governing bodies of schools?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, without notice I believe that the answer is no.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, is the Minister aware that it has been considered to apply generally and that one of the few local authorities which has behaved in a contrary fashion is the Thatcherite
642
Wandsworth Borough Council which in future proposes to appoint to educational bodies only people of its own political colour?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, LEAs appoint only a minority of governors and so cart no longer dominate governing bodies. I hope that authorities will see that their first priority must be to appoint the best governors for the good of their schools.
Viscount Hanworth: My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind the problem that we raised on Second Reading of finding people who have the time and are willing to serve as governors, and of the danger of appointing extremists and power seekers to a governing body? Does he agree that that is an ever present danger?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, yes, I agree that it is. I hope that local authorities will ensure that it does not happen.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, since the Minister has said that the Government are opposed to political bias in such appointments perhaps I may ask this question. Does it not cause him grave anxiety when he learns that some authorities are apparently exercising political bias because the only appointments they are making come from one party? If he has that anxiety, what does he propose to do about it?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I do not have that anxiety.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, the Minister has said that the Government will not amend the Education Reform Act to ensure fair representation. Assuming—and it must be a correct assumption —that the Government are anxious that there should be fair representation on governing bodies, what other action are they prepared to take to ensure that?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, we believe that there is fair representation now.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I am completely puzzled by the Minister's answers to the questions. I should like to read from Hansard of 8th July, 1988. His noble friend Lady Hooper said:
"the Government will take every opportunity to encourage local authorities in making appointments, and governing bodies themselves in making co-options, to follow the principle that governing bodies should consist of people who have the best interests of their school very much at heart". —[I Official Report, 8/7/88; col. 544.]
Does the Minister agree that the very least he ought to be doing, or advising his right honourable friend the Secretary of State to do, is to issue a public statement? I do not make a party political point because I can think of at least one Labour authority which is behaving in exactly the same way. I regret to say that I am informed that one SLD authority is proposing to behave in that way. Would it not be at least a good idea for the Government to issue a public statement saying that this is a deplorable state of affairs?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I assure the noble Lord that I shall draw his comments to the attention of my right honourable friend. Whether he will take my advice or that of the noble Lord is quite a different matter. There is a big difference between a general exhortation and effective law. For the balance to be enforceable appointees would have to be limited to those willing to declare their party political affiliations. Alternatively, all minorities on the council might be given the right to appoint governors with no control over their suitability. Neither of those approaches is acceptable. If the requirement is to be general and not enforceable there is no point in putting it into law.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, is the Minister aware that in relation to the appointment of magistrates, the instruction from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is that a political balance should be maintained? If that is true, and if it is desirable in the case of the administration of justice, is it not equally desirable in the case of children's education?
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I do not believe that the two are comparable.

Business of the House
3.8 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, after the short debate on German unification and before the short debate on private health care insurance schemes, my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on the Foreign Secretary's visit to Hong Kong.
With the leave of the House, I should like to make the customary statement about the length of speeches in the two short debates standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, and my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne. In the case of the debate tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, going on the principle that the opening speaker is allowed 15 minutes, and that my noble friend Lord Brabazon of Tara, rises to reply 20 minutes before the scheduled end of the debate, all speeches should be limited to a maximum of five minutes. In the case of my noble friend's debate, the number of speakers is such that it is not necessary to impose a standard but I know that your Lordships will confidently expect speeches to be kept within limits compatible with the spirit of these short debates.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I wish to ask the Leader of the House a question. What is the method by which a two-and-a-half-hour debate is allocated? Could it not have been anticipated that the matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, would be of great interest and therefore worthy of a five-hour debate?
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Belstead): My Lords, these debates are drawn by ballot.

Business of the House: Debates, 24th January
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debates on the Motions in the names of the Lord Tordoff and the Lord Bonham-Carter set down for 24th January shall each be limited to 2½ hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10 to 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates shall apply to each debate. —(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Business of the House: Debate, 31st January
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of the Lord Peston set down for 31st January shall be limited to 5 hours and that Standing Order 35 and paragraphs 10 to 13 of the Rules for the Conduct of Short Debates shall apply to the debate with the substitution of "5 hours" for "2½ hours" and "25 minutes" for "20 minutes". —(Lord Belstead.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Coal Industry Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Germany: Unification Prospect
3.10 p.m.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff Lord Callaghan of Cardiff rose to call attention to the prospect of German unification; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to call attention to the prospect of German unification and to move for Papers. I have chosen this subject not only because of its great significance to the German people but because the ending of any division of Germany will set off a chain reaction which will radically affect the other nations of Europe.
The extraordinary events of recent months have already overturned a political structure in Europe which has been settled for almost the past half century. I submit that 1989 will go down in history with the revolutions for 1789 and 1848 as a momentous year of hope, when men and women demanded freedom and seized democracy. Communism is discredited and the post-war Europe shaped by Potsdam and Yalta is in the process of dying. For the moment the people and not governments are making the running.
How will their revolutions go? In the short time which has elapsed we can see already that there are dangers as well as hope if nationalism, latent at the moment, runs wild and dangers too when people

645
find that a revolution by itself is not enough to fill the shops.
As to divided Germany, the cold war between East and West has, for over 40 years, enabled us to put on one side any serious discussion about the shape and size of Germany or about reunification and also to close our eyes to its consequences. German leaders themselves have consistently told us that they could see no prospect of unification within their lifetime. However, today, as with so many other of the seemingly impossible changes which took place during 1989, the distant vision has suddenly become tomorrow's reality. Indeed, in practical terms, the process of melding the two Germanys has already begun and will soon be in full swing.
Already at the recent meeting between Chancellor Kohl and Prime Minister Modrow in Dresden, the two governments agreed to establish no fewer than 11 joint commissions to co-ordinate their interest in practically every aspect of their national life; namely, economic, social, cultural, environmental, energy, transport and so on. They are to have another meeting in a fortnight's time at which I have no doubt those matters will progress further. We cannot yet see how much further they are likely to go. Chancellor Kohl has given us 10 steps to reunification. In fact he has proposed the setting up of a confederation between the two states which will lead in due course, he says or hopes, to a federation. Other ideas may emerge. However, whatever is adopted in the end, there is no doubt that the momentum for unification in some form is now irreversible and the rest of Europe as well as the Soviet Union must adjust to that fact.
It goes without saying that, if a unified Germany is to have a heathy long-term future, it can only be brought into existence by the full consent of the German people expressed through the democratic process in both parts of Germany. Free elections with proper access to all the media and the opportunity for the opposition parties in East Germany to put their case are vital necessities. However, with that as a basis, if that is a basis and if the people of both Germanys decide that they wish to come together, not only will the coming together be inevitable but Germany will be the most powerful economic and political state in Europe.
Now that Western Europe is faced with that as a practical matter, instead of merely giving approval to a distant possibility as it has done in the past, there is some hesitation and nervousness, which is not surprising. However, in my view, Western Europe cannot step back at this late stage. Our task is not to thwart or delay the process. That is a course which would, in any event, be ineffective if the German people want unification. Our task is to ensure that the new constellation which takes its place will be an element for stability and security in the new Europe —a new Europe which is emerging now from the Atlantic to the Soviet borders.
German leaders of all parties there have shown themselves to be sensitive to that concern. They understand that a united Germany would have implications far beyond the new borders. However cautious the approach may be, neither they nor the
646
rest of Europe can avoid providing answers to some overlapping questions of the highest importance.
Perhaps I may mention just two of those: the first is how to settle the eastern borders Of a united Germany and the second how to satisfy the Soviet Union and Poland that their future security will be assured. I take it for granted that we are concerned about our own. As to the first, I recently summarised the problem as it was originally seen by Konrad Adenauer in an article in The Times newspaper on 5th January and I need not repeat the arguments here today. However, I submit to your Lordships that the answer is clear. It is imperative that the two Germanys unequivocally and formally renounce any claim to recover their lost territories in the East and accept without reservation the existing border between East Germany and Poland. That must be enshrined in a treaty. Even with that essential step completed, the security implications for the Soviet Union are vast. That empire has never made any bones about regarding East Germany and Poland as buffers against attack from the West.
Recently however Mr. Gorbachev has seemed to regard the risk as so diminishing, while the economic and political pressures on him are so great, that he appears to be resigned to relinquishing his grip on the other Warsaw Pact members. We have reached a point where senior Soviet officials have declared their country's intention to withdraw all their troops from East Germany and today we learn that Czechoslovakia seeks the complete withdrawal of the 75,000 troops at present stationed on its territory. If those steps are carried out, it follows that the future military alliances of those and other Warsaw Pact countries will be of the greatest significance to the security of the Soviet Union. I would have no hesitation in insisting upon that issue as being one which should be of concern to us, if we are concerned about the future peace of our continent.
Chancellor Kohl has defined the new relationship with East Germany as a "contractual community". If that were to take the form of a federation with two separate states, two military commands and two separate armies, then the border between East and West Germany, on which NATO's front line stands, would continue to provide a buffer. On the other hand, a fully unified Germany with a single government, one military command and its border extended to the Oder/Neisse line would not.
I suppose it is just possible to believe that two states in a confederal Germany might belong and could continue perhaps to belong to two different alliances, but I believe that before very long such an arrangement would prove to be quite unrealistic and would be abandoned. Nor is it conceivable that a totally united Germany —the most powerful, military, economic and political country in Europe as it would be —could be either neutral or unallied. If it were, it would be likely at some time in the future to feel hemmed in, and Europe has already had previous experience of where that sentiment can lead.
We are uncovering awkward questions, but there are more. The next stage in what I regard as an unstoppable and inevitable "contractual

647
Community", to use Chancellor Kohl's phrase again, would set in train changes in the military doctrines of both blocs. As a leading member of NATO the West German Government have long stated their clear objective of removing battlefield and short-range nuclear weapons from the front line between East and West Germany. How much stronger that pressure will become if it comes from a confederal Germany —not a united Germany; the situation would be different —whose two countries would continue to be separated by the front lines of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
Such pressure would be irresistible, and with their removal would go much of the remaining credibility of the NATO doctrine of flexible response. Truly it would be inoperable. For the present NATO must remain a shield for the West, with the essential presence of the United States; yet logic compels the conclusion that the political and other changes just around the corner require us to seek a better and more relevant security system for Europe as a whole that will reflect the new realities. However, I repeat the old lines that until we have it, we must cling to nurse for fear of finding something worse.
For myself there is no doubt that on the political plane the European Community has a central role to play, but it must get away from so much of its fussy bureaucracy if it is to have a real role. It should be ready to open its doors to East Germany, to Poland and to others if these states become fully democratic and wish it. The Community has already, I remind your Lordships, proved its political worth as a solvent of the old enmity between France and Germany. It can play a role again in settling the relations between the states as they emerge now from what has been a cold war for too long.
I repeat once more also —I am trying to condense my remarks because I regret that everyone else has only five minutes; it is quite clear we must return to this again —that the CSCE (the Helsinki process) should be an acceptable forum in the search for a security system that will meet the needs of tomorrow's Europe. I ask the Minister, who I am grateful to see here and who will reply to this debate, to give me an assurance that there is no hesitation or reluctance on the part of Her Majesty's Government to use that forum. Having discussed the idea of a peace treaty with one or two others, I believe the time is coming for negotiation to begin between the wartime allies and the two Germanys. This I believe could best begin under the auspices of the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
There are many problems which I have not touched on but which I am sure your Lordships will pick up during the debate; but it is surely beyond question that Europe faces both a challenge and an opportunity of historic proportions as great as any in the past. It appears to me that Mr. Gorbachev wishes to conduct a serious negotiation in order to reach a new equilibrium in Europe. We must test to the utmost whether that is so. Rarely has the situation been as fluid as it is today with all the possibilities of shaping a new course. We shall need
648
to work very hard if we are to prevent the rise of narrow and destructive nationalisms or centuries old animosities from dividing and weakening us and indeed from diverting us from the very important new problems that will lie ahead of our continent in the 21st century. However, with vision and with vigour, the leaders of Europe have a rare opportunity —something that occurs only once in a lifetime —to establish a framework of understandings and agreements that could ensure for the people of Europe security and peaceful progress within a democratic society. I beg to move for Papers.
3.26 p.m.
Lord Dacre of Glanton: My Lords, we have heard a very distinguished speech, for which we are all grateful, but the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, will forgive me if I am brief on compliments in view of the brevity of the time which is allowed to all of us. I must also be brief on qualifications which might otherwise be introduced. Such brevity simply requires one to be more summary than one would like to be.
I cannot help reflecting when I think of this subject on the several ironies implicit in it. There is the irony that for 45 years we have managed our international affairs without a treaty and that this non-treaty has not only preserved the international peace in Europe but has also lasted longer than any treaty in history which has followed an international war in Europe. That is surely a very remarkable fact and suggests that treaties are perhaps not the necessary way of securing settlement in Europe, as indeed we know from the experience of the Treaty of Versailles.
Moreover, it seems ironical to me that many of those who in the past have advocated the revolt of the enslaved nations of Eastern Europe against their masters have now reversed their position and are lamenting the disappearance of the stabilising force of the Pax Sovietica in the East. Even Mr. Genscher, the German Foreign Minister, who had a reputation for being in favour of unity and neutralism, is now stating publicly that the Warsaw Pact and NATO are necessary stabilising forces to be retained.
It is said that we should seize this opportunity in order to create a formal treaty and a final settlement with Germany and that this should include a formal renunciation of the eastern frontier of the Oder/Neisse line; but I wonder whether that will really achieve the result that we seek. The Federal Republic is on record as accepting these eastern frontiers. East Germany is not. We know very little about East Germany. East Germany, the only country in which views were suppressed, is the only part of Germany in which to any significant extent we still hear echoes of Nazism.
I therefore feel that the situation in central Europe is so confused and in such a state of flux that to attempt to formalise it now in a treaty is premature. Bismarck once wrote that the clause Rebus sic stantibus (things being as they are) is implicit in every treaty. We know from the experience of Versailles how impossible it is through a mere treaty to secure the guarantees that may be written into it.

649
History is sometimes a better guarantee of preserving an existing situation than formal documents.
Anything can happen in the present circumstances. The process that has begun is by no means over. Revolutionary euphoria in Russia could end, as it has done elsewhere, in Bonapartist adventure. We are only at the beginning of a very long process and we should not try to freeze it too soon in documents. Anyway, some subjects are immune to freezing and it is best to leave them liquid. We have managed very well so far by diplomacy of detail on the basis of a provisional settlement which has lasted longer than anyone could have expected in 1945. For my part I would prefer to rely on continuing vigilance rather than to attempt at this particular moment to secure a final settlement at a time when the whole of eastern and central Europe is in convulsion and also when two of the major powers who will have to be party to the treaty are themselves in convulsion.
3.32 p.m.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I wish to join with the noble Lord, Lord Dacre, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this extremely important and topical subject today. It reflects on the flexibility of our procedures that when a man of the eminence of the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, introduces a topic of this importance and when 20 of your Lordships wish to speak to that topic it is impossible to extend the time. The only device for dealing with the situation is to limit each speaker to five minutes apiece.
I propose to be as brief as possible. I wish to put three propositions to your Lordships, all of which, broadly speaking, appear to be self-evident. The first is that German reunification is on the agenda whatever the Prime Minister may or may not say. It is on the agenda because of history and because of the will of the German people which was shown in a demonstration in Leipzig attended by over 100,000 people a couple of days ago. The proposition is also on the agenda because of what Chancellor Kohl has said. Hence it is on the agenda of your Lordships' House this afternoon.
We may not welcome that because different people take different views of the matter. Writers as distinguished as President Havel and Gunther Grass take absolutely opposite views. I wholly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, that this is a matter for the people of the two republics and there is no good reason that I can see why they, uniquely in Europe, should be deprived of the right of self-determination. As allies in NATO, as colleagues in the EC and as one of the nations that will sign the peace treaty we have the right and the duty to talk with the two German republics about how and on what terms that reunification takes place both as regards the frontiers and the timing.
But even if all our conditions are met I have a second proposition with which I believe the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, would agree. A reunified Germany will cause anxieties in both the East and the West. It is in this respect that the anxieties and the interests of France and the United Kingdom are
650
identical. The fear is of the political and economic domination of Germany. The nightmare is of a Germany which is a shifting cargo in the centre of Europe and which is a permanent source and cause of instability. That nightmare and those fears were the source of the European idea. The cargo had to be fixed firmly in western Europe, the economic power balanced by that of the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Benelux.
My third proposition is that that idea is now more than ever true and that the more united and politically intergrated the EC becomes, the better it will be able to offer a proper framework for the political reunion of the German people. For the countries of Eastern Europe to escape from the hug of the bear and to fall into the lap of German economic and political domination would indeed be an ironical fate. Their fears need to be assuaged not only by a renunciation of any change in the eastern frontiers of Germany but also by other means.
In response to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Dacre, concerning the adequacy of the renunciation of frontiers, it may well be the case that to renounce frontiers will not solve all the problems, but not to renounce them will create problems. I believe that a politically and economically integrated EC should be able to accommodate those who wish to be associated with it and in due course perhaps they may be able to join that organisation.
In the face of increasing instability in the USSR and of political incoherence in Eastern Europe it seems more than ever important that the United Kingdom plays its full part in the EC. It is necessary to have an element of stability, of growing economic and political influence at the exciting and unpredictable time in which we live. It is sad and I hope that we will abandon the position in which we have found ourselves, isolated on the EMS, monetary union, the central bank, the European social charter and the European investment bank. That isolated position is not conducive to playing a full part in the changes which will occur.
3.37 p.m.
Lord Carver: My Lords, the House must be extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, for raising this issue. I find myself in almost total agreement with all that he said.
There is one important point that tends to be lost sight of when this subject is discussed. It is that the situation that has prevailed in the centre of Europe for over 40 years was brought about by disagreement between, on the one hand, the Soviet Union and, on the other, ourselves, the Americans and the French about the future of Germany. It is because the negotiations about that broke down in 1947 and have never been resumed that the four powers are still in Berlin. It is because the Western three feared that the Soviet Union intended to impose its solution on Germany by force that the North Atlantic Alliance was founded and its military organisation, NATO, established. The Soviet Union's reaction to that was to form the Warsaw Pact.
If the four powers now agree about the future of Germany and both Germanys are in agreement with

651
them, whether that agreement is for one Germany or two, an entirely new political situation would be created. There would no longer be a justification for a four-power presence in Berlin and the existence of two opposing military alliances glaring at each other across the inner-German border would be inappropriate whether that border were abolished or turned into a recognised international frontier. Neither would it be appropriate for those two alliances to continue to station large bodies of foreign troops on German soil whether that soil were divided into two or not.
As the noble Lord has said, there will undoubtedly be a need for a security organisation. If there are two Germanys they will each need some guarantee of security in their mutual relations. If there is one Germany her neighbours on all sides will certainly need some -method of ensuring that a united Germany could not threaten their security. The countries of Eastern Europe will need assurance of security also against any threat from the Soviet Union; and they will also need some form of security to guarantee their frontiers and to counter the potential threat posed by the existence of other nationalities within them. There are many examples of that in Central and Eastern Europe, as we are being reminded every day, and we must be sure that they do not lead to the kind of instability which was the basic cause of both the First and the Second World Wars.
All this is on the assumption that Europe is going to evolve peacefully into a collection of democratic states which will then live peacefully together, however much they may compete in the economic field. It would be surprising if that happened smoothly and without setbacks. Anyone who based his assumptions about what the result of the French Revolution, 200 years ago, would be on an extrapolation from its first six months would have been very much mistaken. It would therefore be folly to do anything to undermine NATO and the stability the alliance provides until there is some other security organisation which can take its place if political events move in such a way that that becomes appropriate.
But while keeping tight hold of nurse, as nanny of course advises us, we must begin to think about what should take the place of NATO and the Warsaw Pact in that eventuality. We must start discussing its possible framework and a possible programme of how, step by step, we might move from the present situation to a radically different one. Whatever form that might take, whether or not it included the stationing of foreign forces on German or on anybody else's soil, I am sure that both superpowers should participate in any such security system. The implications for our own armed forces would be profound; and it would be folly to initiate major changes in them until we can see the future more clearly.
In what forum should such a new security system be developed? Professor Sir Michael Howard has suggested that we shall need something like the Congress of Vienna which followed the Napoleonic
652
wars. I believe that we have an organisation, however weak and fragile it may be, which would be appropriate, and that is the CSCE —the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe —which started off at Helsinki in 1975. It needs strengthening and it needs leadership. Whatever solution is agreed to the future of Germany, we need the combination of imaginary vision and down to earth realism which Ernest Bevin showed in December 1947, when he took the initiative which led to the North Atlantic Alliance and has given us 42 years of peace in Europe.
3.43 p.m.
Lord Taylor of Gryfe: My Lords, I lived in Germany in the last days of the Weimar Republic when I was an active member of the Social Democratic youth movement. I was in Vienna on the day of the Anschluss. I was in Prague when the Russian tanks came into that city. Noble Lords will therefore understand my elation and joy at the turn of events in the past few months. We are indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, not only for his introduction of this subject today but for his excellent article in The Times on the subject, from which I quote:
"There must be no foot dragging by Western powers to oppose reunification if it becomes clear that both parts of Germany want it"
David Owen as leader of the SDP has written similarly in the House Magazine and in the Sunday Times. He said:
"For the West to oppose reunification is to, in effect, pass a no confidence vote in West German democracy".
I do not subscribe to the view expressed by Gunter Grass in The Times, speaking to the SPD conference, when he said that East and West must stay apart. I prefer the statesmanship of Chancellor Kohl and his 10-point approach to what was said by Gunter Grass. I hope that the view of Gunter Grass will not become the official policy of the SPD of which he is a member.
Noble Lords will have witnessed the demonstrations in Leipzig by people who were not only demanding democracy and freedom but who were also carrying the banners and flags of West Germany. Those people were emphasising their desire for unification not on nationalist grounds but on the ground that unification with West Germany would guarantee their democratic freedom. They are rather suspicious of the transitional government which is operating at present in East Germany.
There are a variety of political reasons but probably the strongest reasons for integration are to be found in the economic field. The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, said in his article that,
"technology will be more important than territory".
If there is one thing the West Germans can contribute to the Eastern bloc it is their technology. They can break through the bureaucratic system, the lack of investment and the wasteful use of manpower which is a feature of the East Germany economy and supply the dynamism, the inventiveness and the investment capacity of West Germany. To achieve that there will need to be restructuring of the entire East German

653
economy including the convertability of the East German currency. In this situation there are strong arguments for unification. I appreciate that Russia and Poland are nervous of these developments, but a powerful, dynamic economy in Europe can also help to contribute to solving some of the problems besetting Mr. Gorbachev in his broken-down economy in the Soviet Union. It could help him rather than threaten him.
I wish to make only two final points in connection with the debate. One was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter. All these momentous changes are taking place in Europe. The map is being redrawn and new political alliances are emerging. Is it not rather a pity that Britain takes a more isolationist attitude than most towards the EC? Our influence and authority in that organisation could contribute to a statesmanlike solution of the problems we are discussing.
Secondly, I believe that in many quarters, particularly among the military, the scale of the changes that have taken place has not been grasped. It has not been realised that the cold war no longer exists. The fact that this country is committed over the next three years to spending an extra £2 billion per annum on armaments indicates that those to whom I referred have not taken on board the new opportunities for positive approaches to disarmament which should be a feature of our policy.
3.47 p.m.
Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, the question facing us is not whether German unification will happen, but when and how. The political and economic pressures for unification within East and West Germany seem likely to grow rather than diminish and to make the process inevitable. The two Germanys, not Britain or any other power, will have the decisive influence on the pace of change and the extent to which it is staged through loose confederation to tight federation and into complete unification. What Britain and the rest of Europe must avoid is taking any actions which make the process more difficult and disruptive. Instead, with the United States and the Soviet Union, they must ease the process so that it can take place as painlessly as possible. Above all, the Western powers will need to create the conditions which minimise fears in the Soviet Union and other eastern European countries, notably Poland, that a reunited Germany will pose a military threat.
In western Europe there are fears not so much about the military threat a united Germany might pose but about its economic dominance. The coming together of the two Germany's will certainly create a very powerful economic entity in the centre of Europe. However, we must not forget that West Germany already has the largest population in western Europe and is already by far the most successful economy. The Federal Republic's share of EC economic output in GDP terms is already as high as 24 per cent. Predicting by how much that figure would increase is difficult but initially at least it is unlikely to add more than 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. to its share of the Community's output if unification takes place.
654
Britain and the other countries of the EC need in any case to face up to the issues raised by the strength of the West German economy. Whether, for example we are concerned about trade imbalances between the Federal Republic and other members of the Community or about the dominance of the Bundesbank in the formation of the monetary policy, we shall need to find collective solutions.
German unification will not change the nature of these economic issues. However, it may add greater import to them. Unlike the appalling short-termism that dominates the economic thinking of the British Government, the West Germans have already outlined an approach on long-term investment to rebuilding the East German economy with great attention to its infrastructure. Rather than using East German factories as suppliers for the more advanced and sophisticated West German industry, the intention is to bring East German industry to the level of that of West Germany, with similar levels of research and development and an equally skilled workforce. The willingness to invest will of course pay off in the long term just as the failure to do so in the UK is already costing us so dear.
Whether we are able to learn from the FRG's approach to economic development in the East, it is vital that there should be no divergence between European integration and Germany unity. Whether we look forward to reaching full economic union rapidly or whether we favour a more cautious and evolutionary approach, it is vital that Germany —a Germany in whatever form the combining of East and West may take—should be a central player in the building of a community of economic interests in Europe. It would be disastrous if the West European powers, by resisting the coming together of the two Germanys, were to drive Germany into a new isolationist position.
I turn now to security matters. We must surely aim for a major reduction in weapons and in military personnel in both East and West Germany. The Soviet Union now seems likely to remove a substantial part of its army from the GDR. Should there not, therefore, be rapid agreement between Britain, France and the USA, with their NATO partners, to remove the remaining station forces from the Federal Republic? Some have suggested that the Warsaw Pact can crumble without change to NATO. That view hardly seems realistic. Moreover, the scenario creates serious problems for the Soviet Union, as would any suggestion that the GDR could leave the Warsaw Pact yet the FRG remain in NATO.
The most important goal of all for the West in these matters is to ensure that Mr. Gorbachev's domestic difficulties are not increased by new external problems. Russian fears about Germany are long-standing and deep-seated. They could be exploited within the Soviet Union by those forces which wish to discredit Mr. Gorbachev. All that suggests that the two Germanys will have to begin to cut their armies and that the Western powers may have to advance the timetable for discussions about the formation of a new system of European security, whether in the CSCE or elsewhere. It is to be hoped

655
that Mrs. Thatcher will not play her usual foot-dragging role.
As my noble friend Lord Callaghan of Cardiff said, reassurance must be provided by the German Government that there is no intention to push for a return to the 1937 frontiers in the East. The Oder-Neisse line must be reaffirmed as the frontier between Germany and Poland. I hope that the UK Government will put pressure on Chancellor Kohl to make a clear statement on the matter in the near future.
A divided Germany was bequeathed to us by the old Europe. The first steps in building the new Europe have been taken on the streets of Gdansk, of Prague, of Dresden and of Leipzig. We now need the imagination to take the next steps towards a hopeful new era in Europe which must include the coming together of the German people.
3.55 p.m.
Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, I am convinced that our first reaction to the prospects of German reunification made possible by the collapse of communism in Eastern Germany and the opening of the Berlin Wall should be one of rejoicing and celebration. Of course it is true that not all East Germans may wish to have renunification upon any terms. It is also true, as has been pointed out, that there will be many legal difficulties which will have to be resolved.
The unification of two states, even if they are in a single nation, is obviously much more difficult to achieve if they are democratic states (as we must assume them both to be by the critical time) than if it is a question of conquest. Of course there will be economic difficulties which will stretch over a period of many years. Moreover, the institutions of the past 40 years which have served us well, such as NATO, will have to adapt to new circumstances. I am sure that that will have to happen in any event if it turns out to be true, as the United States Secretary of State for Defence has said, that the Soviet threat has almost evaporated. The question of the Eastern frontier will also have to be investigated, as the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, pointed out to us very appropriately.
Nevertheless, our first reaction should surely be one of great satisfaction that a major aim of the cold war, which indeed was the unification of Germany in freedom, is now possible. Listening to some people speaking about the prospect of German unification, it seems as if it had been the aim of World War II to achieve a divided Germany. Of course that was contemplated, as some noble Lords in this House will remember. However, that idea was rejected, as was the idea of achieving a pastoral Germany by the so-called Morgenthau Plan. But the policy was the contrary.
The desires of the Western allies were that Germany would after the war be reunited in freedom. Moreover, what happened to prevent this immediately after the war was the fact that German communists—not by any means all East German communists, many being West German communists,
656
and others simply flew in from Moscow along with, it is fair to say, German communists who were released from concentration camps —imposed upon the Eastern zone of Germany, as it then was, the Soviet puppet state which basically East Germany, despite its activities in Angola and other parts of the world, has always remained until last year.
To those who nevertheless feel a real sense of anxiety about the prospects of German reunification I should like to point out two or three considerations. First, it is worth while recording that a Germany of 1990, even if reunited, will still only be a country of approximately three-quarters of the size of the Germany of 1938 and only two-thirds the size of the Germany of 1913. It is also true that the German birth rate on both sides of the dividing line between the two Germanys has been falling and is still falling. Therefore any anxiety about lebensraum, or restlessness about room to live, should surely not be a factor for the future. Secondly, I do not understand why we in Britain, with our 58 million, should be especially worried about a country which has increased in size to, say, 80 million. After all, when our population was half the size of France, as it was in the 18th century, we did not feel any particular anxiety on that score; nor, in my experience, do the Spanish, with their 40 million, feel any anxiety about us today with our 58 million.
It is also fair to say that the rational mood which exists in Germany at present, as all current visitors to Germany know, is one which is likely to have absorbed the cost of the two colossal defeats that united Germany experienced in the past. Therefore, extravagant diplomacy of the future is improbable, although we must expect, I suppose, the reassertion of some kind of positive German diplomacy in the future once the generation born after 1945 comes to power.
If all those things are not satisfying to those who fear a united Germany, I think it is fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, and other speakers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, did well to point out that the great chance at present is that a united Germany can be fitted successfully into a united Europe so ensuring therefore that the Germans are not only Europeans in the future but that they are also the Germans of Goethe rather than of Hitler.
4 p.m.
Lord Moore of Wolvercote: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, for having initiated this debate with such distinction and wisdom. I venture to speak in the debate not just because the reunification of Germany is the most important issue facing us in Europe, but because I was present when the victorious Russian armies began the process which led to the division of Germany into two parts; for, in January 1945, in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia, we watched with fascination and excitement the advance of the Russian armies, accurately recorded on our home-made maps with the help of the BBC and our secret wireless receiver.
The Russians came within 25 kilometres of our camp. The Yaks were flying overhead and we

657
thought that we were going to be freed. Then suddenly at two in the morning the Germans marched us out of camp and over to the other side of Germany.
But even in those dramatic days one had to look ahead and wonder how the countries we had gone to war to liberate—Poland and Czechoslovakia —would be able to realise their freedom. We used to discuss that endlessly with our RAF Polish and Czech friends who were prisoners with us. Little did we think that the Russian armies, whose progress we were cheering every day, would keep them in subjection for a further 44 years.
Now at last Poland and Czechoslovakia are becoming free, and Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria with them. They will have to find their own ways of fashioning and operating democracy; but ultimately their future as independent countries will depend on a modus vivendi being found between the two great powers on either side—the Soviet Union and a unified Germany; for Germany surely will become united.
Just before Christmas I was at a conference on Eastern Europe at Cumberland Lodge, which was attended by some 30 post graduate students from all over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, West and East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. I was fascinated to find among them a tacit assumption that Germany would be reunited.
The process of reunification will have to be conducted with great skill and diplomacy if it is to be achieved peacefully. The gut feeling in both Germanys is already assuming reunification; but the Soviet Union is wary. It has reason to remember the power of Germany and the devastation caused to its country. Britain, the United States and France, apart from their international treaty obligations, have a responsibility to play as constructive and helpful a role as possible. The countries of central Europe in between can only hope that they will be allowed to work out their own destinies without foreign intervention.
In many ways, as noble Lords have said, the most difficult problems will be presented by the future of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. None of the major powers will be prepared lightly to lower its defensive shield, and it will be vital for the West not to throw away the security which NATO has given it for so long.
Not just the reunification of Germany, but all those challenges will call for much wisdom and patience. No one at this stage can say whether Europe will be able to solve the many problems involved. Perhaps however, ironically, the greatest hope for the future lies in the fact that the nuclear bomb makes a major conflict unthinkable, and for the first time in its history Europe will have to work out its salvation without recourse to war.
4.4 p.m.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, I spent the Christmas Recess in Austria, which is one of the best places to listen to what is happening in Eastern Europe today. Day by day there were Czechs,
658
Hungarians, Romanians and Germans coming to Vienna. The Austrian Socialist Party has been in active touch with the opposition movements in all Eastern European countries, not just for the past few days or weeks but for many years, and has given them active and valuable support.
I found one irritation in Austria, at times bordering upon anger, which was occasioned by the boasts of certain quarters in the West that it was they who had effected the revolutions in Eastern Europe. It was not. It was the people of Romania, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany and Hungary. It was the people. It was the people's revolution.
It would be tragic if we in the West were to allow ourselves to be alienated from the new democratic forces in the East because of the false claim that socialism in Eastern Europe has been defeated. That is not what is seen in Eastern Europe. Stalinism has been defeated, and Stalinism has been defeated by the people of the Eastern European countries. It is not forgotten in Austria or Eastern Europe that in 1931 it was the Stalinists and the Nazis who crushed the centre, mainly the Social Democratic Party.
I found a fear in Austria that there will be a violent backlash to the overthrow of Stalinism; that Eastern European countries will go wildly to the right; and that fear is an echo from the history of the relationships between the authoritarians of the Right and the authoritarians of Stalin, the authoritarianism which is a natural alliance. It is feared that it may recur.
Those who have overthrown the Stalinists —we democratic Socialists have been fighting the Stalinists for 50 years —have no intention of adopting the casino-type economies of the West. They have found that, although they have been crushed politically, there are certain social and economic values which are worth preserving. In Eastern Germany they are trying to work out a new synthesis between the democratic economy of democratic Socialism and the democratic political system which is still to be invented. It would be a tragedy if we were to interfere in that process.
The future depends upon us. It depends upon the libertarian democrats in this country. It does not depend upon the Conservative Council for Eastern Europe now meeting in Prague. It is not our task to sell the private enterprise economy to the East. They have to develop their own economic and political systems. We have to help them to develop them, to root them deeply and to build them, not just against Stalinism but against all forms of authoritarianism.
4.9 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, on his choice of subject for debate, perhaps I may also congratulate him on his unquenchable optimism. I find the situation far less cheerful than do some noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, mentioned 1789, a year which was a prelude to 25 of the worst years of war that Europe had hitherto known. More relevantly and more disquietingly, he mentioned what happened in 1848. The old regimes which were challenged by the revolution of the intellectuals, as the late Sir Lewis

659
Namier called it, got back into the saddle in most countries. Where they did not —in France —there was another spell of Bonapartism.
We are only at the beginning of these movements in Eastern Europe. People who talk as though a revolution had already taken place seem to me to overlook some of the arguments. I do not accept the presentation of them by the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby. However, people overlook some of the arguments for believing that there is a long way to go before East Germany itself is ready for unification with a West Germany whose economy —one can call it a casino economy or an economy which puts things in the shops —is different from its own.
We do not know to what extent we are witnessing a regime in East Germany —and the same is true, to a limited extent, in most of the other East European countries —which is fighting to maintain, under new labels, fundamentally the same principle of single party rule and the command economy which has brought those countries to their present pass and has created the popular uprisings to which the noble Lord, Lord Hatch, referred. Is this simply an effort towards a rearguard action by what I think we can still call the ancien régime, to which, for instance, Herr Modrow belonged? Or do they represent a genuine wish on the part of these countries to have a social and economic system which would be so different not only from that of West Germany but of the EC countries that the talk of a single European system in the economic sense becomes somewhat unreal? I believe that that is one worry.
We ought to wait and see. East Germany, after all, is a totally artificial creation which corresponds to nothing except the line of demarcation between the armies. I entirely agree, as I think all noble Lords do, that, if all sections of the German people as a whole wish to form part of a confederation, federation or a single state, it would be wrong and incompatible with our own beliefs to stand in their way, whatever precautions their neighbours —particularly their eastern neighbours —might wish to take. However, we do not know that we have reached that stage yet.
Nor am I as confident as some people about the future of Germany's eastern frontiers. I think it is highly improbable —and here I agree with my noble friend Lord Thomas —that there might be a recrudescence of a German military threat. Rather, the thought of a possible reorganisation of Eastern Europe under German leadership, which I think is almost inevitable, will raise anxieties because these are also artificial countries. What is present-day Poland? It consists largely of lands from which the Red Army chased the German inhabitants so that the Poles would in future depend upon Soviet protection. Will the Germans for ever refer to the great philosopher Kant, the author of a project for universal peace, as being a professor in Kaliningrad?
These are serious problems which are bound to arise. Nations do not forget their history. We only have to look across the Irish Sea to be aware of that. We are faced with the most disquieting and dangerous situation that Europe has known for some
660
years. It will take all the resources of statesmanship in all our countries to make sure that the changes which I believe are only just beginning are in the end changes to everyone's benefit.
4.14 p.m.
Lord Gladwyn: My Lords, no one can deny that if the DDR becomes genuinely democratic and changes over to a free market system, it will be able to join up with the Federal Republic. But these are big "ifs" and in any case the process, if it takes place, will take some time. Nor is reunification invevitable. Here I venture to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, and other noble Lords. It may happen but it is not inevitable.
Is it also desirable? Many argue that it is because they say that it is obvious that the bulk of the German people want it and that if it comes about the reunified Germany will also be democratic and continue happily as a member also of the European Economic Community. However, on the other hand, it is certain that a reunified Germany, however democratic, would by the force of events and whatever the Federal Republic may say now raise the question of the eastern frontiers.
It is also quite on the cards that a larger and potentially nationalistic Germany would be an impossible member of the Community as at present organised. It is finally likely, I am afraid, that the Americans would withdraw their troops, thus ending the NATO alliance. Such are the obvious possible disadvantages and it is hard to deny that they are real.
Be that as it may, the idea that the Federal Republic should have increasingly good relations with an eastern German state conducted on rather different lines is not a stupid or reactionary idea. East Germany has always had a rather different Weltanschauung from the more liberal and catholic West. There is already a special relationship between the two countries and there is no reason why this should not be further developed. After all, the Federal Republic has perfectly good relations with another contiguous and independent German state, namely Austria.
What is important is that if we have any doubts about German reunification —and it is evident that whatever their governments may say in public, most French, Poles, Russians, Danes, Dutch, Belgians and, I would myself add, British, have such doubts —we should in no way suggest that it is the result of simple anti-German prejudice.
For centuries our country has resisted any attempt by any other country to dominate the continent or to be in a position to be able to do so. We were right in so doing. The only trouble was that when the necessary wars for that purpose were won, the ensuing settlement was not permanent. The Treaty of Vienna, the balance of power, the Versailles Settlement, including the League of Nations, all collapsed owing to competing nationalistic emotions. Appalling wars ensued. After the last holocaust we thought we had found a solution: the four major European powers would come together in a new form of union which would be so organised

661
as to make it impossible for any of them to pursue a totally independent policy.
The essential basis for such an organisation was, and is, an agreed, though limited, measure of supranationality and basic equality among its four major members. If one of them should ever become nearly twice as important as the others, it is likely, I am afraid, that the Community would collapse. If one of them —and we know which one—should decline to accept an increasing degree of supranationality, there would be much the same result. The nation state would emerge victorious and nationalism would take its inevitable course. I suggest that it is therefore from this angle that we ought to consider the immense problem posed by the possibility of a single German state or even some form of confederation.
But whatever the result, or suspected result, we for our part should press on with enthusiasm and not in a reluctant way for the accomplishment of the original European idea, which is co-operation and not contest among the major European powers and adequate democratic machinery for assuring that end. That would be the best and perhaps the only way to make sure that Germany remains in the West and pursues a common Community policy in the face of what appears to be the end of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and possibly the break-up of the Soviet Union itself.
4.20 p.m.
Lord Greenhill of Harrow: My Lords, fears of unification, privately or publicly expressed, as the French among others have already found out, produce a reaction in Germany which is the reverse of what is hoped for. My first point is that no one should be so foolish as to believe that a unified Germany can be neutralised, nor can it be anchored —that is the word used by journalists —to the Community against its will. But the movement towards unification is, I believe we all agree, irreversible. The split of the country was never intended but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, the situation is rather like the entry of the British into the ERM. It is not a question of whether, but when. However, the pace and form of unification have yet to be discerned.
Secondly, however unification comes about, as the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan said, it must be the result of an indisputably democratic process. If the East German election promised for May takes place, it must be undeniably free and fair. It is reasonable to ask whether a plebiscite rather than an election is the right way to proceed. To an outsider it seems to me that the opposition in East Germany has neither the resources nor the organisation to fight a tough election and the Communists have a tradition of manipulating results. If an election does nevertheless take place, the result may well be a compromise like the situation of the present Polish Government. But whatever happens in May and December of this year in the East German election and the West German election, the likelihood is that the beginning of 1991 will be a critical time. The move towards unification will be assured but the pace of it will not be clear. However, it will be at the centre of European affairs.
662
At that stage, that is the beginning of 1991, would it not be prudent to set aside existing Allied rights and seek a new and novel treaty? I do not mean a peace treaty in the traditional sense, such as the peace treaty that ended World War 2, and not a treaty between victors and vanquished, but a treaty involving at its centre the war-time Allies and a Germany poised for reunification. I should like to think of that as a treaty for the pacification of Europe.
The treaty should also include as many other European participants as possible. It should seek to be specific on potentially disputed frontiers, including of course the Polish/German frontier. As the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, suggested, it would draw heavily upon the Helsinki Final Act. It would remove the outdated Allied rights in Germany. Associated with the main treaty or integrated in it would be disarmament agreements including troop withdrawals and a definition of a new relationship between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries. That would be essential. Whether the two pacts should continue or be merged in some way is a question that is far too early to decide. However, in my view, preliminary consultations between those concerned in such a treaty should begin in 1991. That need not, I suggest, displace or distract from the intergovernmental conference of the Community members being planned during this current year. However, it would be appropriate for that conference to take this problem into consideration. Ultimately a new treaty of the kind I suggest would be of greater significance than the decisions of the Community.
Is it too much to ask to work for a solution like this? It would require a diplomatic effort over many months. However, we appear to have a critical chance now to make plans for what could be a decisive move towards the pacification of the European continent.
4.25 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I wish to contribute three short points to the important debate which my noble friend Lord Callaghan has brought before the House this afternoon. My first point concerns our reaction to what has happened in East Germany and elsewhere. Secondly, I wish to mention the need for a vision of the shape that a restructured Europe might take. Thirdly, I wish to mention the role this country should play to bring that vision into effect.
On the first point, what else can one say other than that we rejoice that millions of our fellow Europeans now have the chance to enjoy the same kind of freedom that we take for granted. At the same time, we recognise that for the present there is no direct action that Britain can or should take. But while recognising that we cannot interfere, we should accept that we can help. First, we can help from an economic viewpoint. If these countries are to become trading and political partners of the West, the West has a self-interested obligation to take active steps to assist in their economic regeneration.
A second way we can assist is by helping to formulate a vision of what kind of European

663
framework is needed to deal with the fundamental changes which have taken place so rapidly. We have to accept that Germany is and has been central to Europe, both geographically and economically. If one looks back as far as the early 1970s, one recollects that the economic prominence of Germany became evident then and that France needed Britain as a counterbalance to Germany's emerging power. That brought about the first enlargement of the European Community. Now we have two Germanys which may or may not wish to become reunited, but whose two peoples certainly wish to co-exist within the same system. So, once again, a wider European Community is needed to contain and provide balance either for one Germany or a loose confederation of two.
As we know so well, there are many candidates to make up this larger Community. Once again the European Community can be used as a catalyst. In 1973 the enlargement of the European Community enabled Britain and Ireland to use its framework as a catalyst to deal with their common problem in Northern Ireland. I believe that the intervening years have proved that to be the case. Now we could use an even wider framework for another purpose; namely, to assist in resolving the German question.
What is Britain's role in this matter? Here, I am convinced that we must look towards Europe in a true sense. We must genuinely think of ourselves as European instead of sometimes continuing to regard the Continent with some suspicion. Britain has always had a special relationship with the United States. However, important as our relations with America are, they should not cloud our vision of Europe. Our role now must be to co-operate fully with our neighbours to restructure Europe. It sometimes appears as if 1945 remains too important a date in our Government's calendar. However, the majority of Britons were not even born in 1945. I believe that the process of restructuring Europe must be pragmatic. However, I equally believe that in order to avoid a dangerous vacuum there must also be a constant will to move forward. There must be a dynamic sense involved here.
A more positive role for the Community was never more essential than concerning its response to the dramatic developments in Eastern Europe. There has never been a greater need for Her Majesty's Government to commit themselves unequivocally to working with their partners in this regard. There is little doubt that in recent years Britain has on many occasions been seen as an isolated and sometimes semi-detached member of the Community. If this continues to be seen to be so, I very much fear that this country may be seen as entirely irrelevant to the historic changes which lie ahead of us in Europe.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Pym: My Lords, the revolutions in Europe in 1989 show very clearly that the consequences of the two great wars of this century have far from played themselves out. The fact that those revolutions have happened much earlier than expected is due to Mr. Gorbachev. Our immediate
664
reaction is naturally one of relief and joy, but we shall be making a big mistake if we do not comprehend the scale of the problems that must now be faced.
The landscape is moving as we look at it, and we must ensure that when it stabilises again it does so in a mould that is genuinely beneficial to the millions of individuals affected, and that it is based on democratic principles and freedom.
The first result of the revolutions to attract attention is the possible unification of Germany. There are many dimensions to that. From the point of view of the German people, it would surely be extraordinary if they did not want to be united. With elections in both West and East Germany this year, we shall hear a great deal about that from all sides of the political spectrum. There will be widely differing opinions, but we must work on the assumption that unification will happen. The process has begun already, as the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, has said.
That means that the settlement —if one can call it that —reached at the end of the Second World War must be reopened, as has already been said, with the wartime allies agreeing a basis of discussion with the two Germanys so that a new settlement can be reached. But many other countries are affected too, as are millions of people, many of whose interests conflict. The surrounding circumstances are also wholly different, so the process will be controversial and complicated. The issues raised are fundamental —I will not list them because there is not time —and millions of individuals are going to feel very strongly about them, so one of the first major tasks of diplomacy will be to tackle them adequately and in the timescale that may be required.
The second dimension of the unification question is one that makes unification highly desirable, if not a necessity. That is the economic state of Eastern Europe, as well as that of the Soviet Union. The economies of all countries in Eastern Europe are in a ghastly state. The unhappy truth is that, with the best will in the world, they cannot be rectified and modernised quickly. The greatest challenge facing the whole of the West is to understand the scale of the economic need of Eastern Europe and to put in place as a minimum an updated equivalent of the Marshall Plan. We must make the maximum possible provision for their needs. That is not only an economic but political necessity, because the great hardship that those countries will face will cause some of them to question whether they were not better off under the old regime. In that situation I believe that the process of unifying the two Germanys will of itself facilitate the transition of the East German economy and make that process quicker than it could otherwise be.
Because of its geographical position and economic strength as well as the skill of its people, West Germany is a crucially important source of economic support for all Eastern Europe. This concerns not only Germany: it is essential for all Western countries immediately to organise an investment programme for Eastern Europe involving private industry and commerce as well as governments. Japan is already playing a prominent part, and so

665
will the United States, without doubt; but every other country has a responsibility.
That leads to the third dimension: the changing balances within Europe. Already the balance in Eastern Europe and in Europe as a whole has changed dramatically. In Western Europe the balance remains stable, although unification will call that into question. The way in which all this settles down in the end matters a great deal because of the changing balance in the world as a whole. The world balance is moving steadily to the Pacific Rim, and, if Europe is to have the influence and clout in the next century which it will need and ought to have, it is essential that it acts in a concerted and cohesive way.
That is why the development of the European Community is so vital. It is at a turning point now following the revolutions of 1989. No longer is it concerned only with its own development; it is the catalyst that can enable Europe as a whole to recover from the wounds of Yalta.
So far as the balance in the West is concerned, it is entirely within the power of Britain, France and Italy together to be more than an adequate counterweight to a unified Germany, if that comes about. It was not possible for that to be the case earlier in the century, but it is possible now.
We are moving into a new and different world. It is perfectly true that we shall see old rivalries and hatreds re-emerging. We are seeing that already. The next few years are going to be very difficult. We shall see many conflicts and perhaps bloodshed, but we must combine an ever-present awareness of the lessons of the past with new thinking and imagination about the future, which in many respects will be very different from anything known before.
4.35 p.m.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, in opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, spoke of the absurdity of a frontier between two halves of a German confederal state which would have short-range nuclear weapons on either side of it. That would indeed be a great absurdity. Perhaps we should also remember the project for a Lance replacement system, of longer range and greater explosive power. Would the Government not be well advised, before entering into the extremely difficult period of constructing a new Europe which is beginning now, to cut loose that ball and chain from its foot in its relations with West Germany? No politician in NATO wants that except the Prime Minister, so I am glad that it has not been mentioned today, and I hope that it will not be mentioned from now on.
The problem in the revival of a single Germany is susceptible of solution very largely in legal terms. If we get the treaty structure right there should be little danger of military expansionism. The present two Germanys are equally successor states of the Third Reich. But because of the absence of a peace treaty they have never been able to replace in international law the territorial claims and other revendications of the Third Reich. We all know that
666
they are not going to try and exert them —they never have —but a peace treaty will be required to put an end to those boundaries.
A reunited Germany is going to be a successor state both to the present two Germanys and to the Third Reich. There is a conflict there because the present East Germany has an eastern frontier which is of crucual reality and importance at the moment. But it is in conflict, as has often been pointed out, with the eastern frontier of the Third Reich. I see no way of that being settled satisfactorily without there being a peace treaty at some stage, though not necessarily immediately. I think the noble Lord, Lord Dacre, feared there might be a move for it next week, but I believe there must be one within a year or two, as part of a general movement. Unfortunately, Chancellor Kohl has been a little cloudy when pressed to state his position on the eastern frontier of a reunited Germany. Perhaps we should worry about that; perhaps not. Both East and West Germany are bound by the CSCE Treaty structure as it exists now, which states fairly and squarely that no frontier in Europe shall be changed except with the consent of both parties concerned. That binds West Germany as clearly as it binds East Germany now. To my mind, that is sufficient reason to accept the CSCE as a proper framework for laying out a new Europe in the next five or 10 years. Nowhere else do we find that. It is there and must be built upon for German as well as European reasons.
Having said that, what else should be done? We shall be lucky to get a reunited Germany in to the European Community without convulsions which might rob the European Community of some of its present value. If possible —but it will be extremely difficult and hard work —we should perhaps aim at three concentric circles: a European Community with a reunited Germany in it; EFTA, as now defined, in the closest relations with that; and, as a third circle, whatever Eastern Europe appears. I include Russia in Eastern Europe, because we must face the fact that the days of the Russian Empire are now clearly numbered. In 1914 there were 11 European empires; there is now only one. We shall face an Eastern Europe in which at least the three Baltic states will have come out from under Russian rule, and which will include Russia, which is a European country. Then there remains the problem of Greater Russia. What about Russia-in-Asia, which is part of the Russian SFSR and, presumably, not divisible?
An agenda and a half awaits us. I hope that our Government can play a constructive role in it and that they will get rid of the out-dated impediments which may prevent them from doing so.
4.41 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I too should like to thank my noble friend Lord Callaghan for introducing the debate. I rise to speak because I am probably one of the few Members of the House who was born after the last war. Most noble Lords will have experienced the last war and some will have experienced the Great War. Those experiences will therefore colour their vision of the situation today.

667
I should like to make the point that people born since the last war have a different vision. We have seen the new tasks with which a much smaller world presents us. Going back into history, we can see the inevitability of the unification of Germany. Given that both Russia and the United States are no longer prepared to use their armies to keep Germany divided —that is the reality of the situation —it is inevitable that the two halves of Germany will unite.
So how do we face that situation? How do we react to it? We can only react positively by working with the people of Germany, with their undoubted talents, to tackle the tasks that face humanity. Perhaps I may point out two of the tasks. The first is to enable all humankind to have a decent standard of living, to eat, to be clothed and to be housed. The other task is to protect our environment. How can we best help the German people to do that?
We must try to allay the fears of those European countries which, from a historical point of view, are justified in being fearful of Germany. The immense economic power of Germany may be a threat to those European countries around Germany. One of the ways in which we can attempt to alleviate those fears—not only the fears of Germany's immediate neighbours, but our fears and those of Russia and other European countries—is to include not only a united Germany in the EC, which is the easiest mechanism, but to include Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Austria and, to allay the fears of the Russian people, to include Russia and, almost inevitably thereafter, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. So the task ahead of us is immense if we think in terms of enlarging the European Community to include all those countries, as is essential.
It may be as a result of the enthusiasm of my comparative views and my feeling that we need to do something quickly that I suspect that the time-scale for those changes will be far more rapid than we have envisaged. Apart from the fears of the nation states in Europe and around Germany, we must also consider the fears of people living in Germany. One of the problems that developed with the emergence of the German state over the past 150 years was the concept of its supposed superiority with, as the corollary of that, the concept of members of the human race who were a sub-class of humanity.
We can still see the relics of that philosophy in both East and West Germany. We must do everything we can to ensure that that philosophical point of view is reduced. One of the ways in which we can do that is to consider such matters as the EC social charter. It is interesting that the first draft of the social charter included guest workers, while later drafts did not. I hope that the Government will use the social charter as a means of ensuring positive development within Germany and ensure that guest workers are included. Time prevents me from enlarging on those themes at great length.
4.47 p.m.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, I should like to apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, for not
668
being here when he spoke. I was prevented from being here for reasons which I could not wholly escape.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, I venture to speak to noble Lords on quite different ground. As a student in Germany in the mid-1920s I saw the embryology of the Nazi movement. I could not believe my eyes or the speeches that I heard. I believed that the people were going mad, and they were going mad, but I did not realise that adequately at the time.
One must remember four factors. The Germans had been defeated in war. That meant a great deal to a militant body of people such as they were. They had had inflation. The meaning of money simply disappeared in their minds; it became utterly useless. There were 6 million people unemployed. They were a proud race, but were viewed with contempt by practically all other countries. Those factors constituted the splendid background from which Hitler was able to build up his ultimate position.
I did not doubt that the two Germanys would unite. It never occurred to me that that would not happen. It was only a matter of time. Perhaps I take a less pessimistic view today than do other people. We have now got out of the tangle into which two peace treaties put us, first at Versailles and then at Yalta. Both those treaties led the country into a thorough mess. Anyone who observed it closely saw that Europe was in a mess at that time.
We therefore have a great and perhaps unique opportunity which will depend almost entirely on the quality and determination of the people who come to the top. The ambitions of people in Poland, Italy or anywhere are all the same. People are not so different. But their leaders can be different and the people can be drawn in the wrong direction. Can we exert enough influence to keep them going right?
The noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said that he hoped that East Germany would not be drawn into the Common Market. I should have thought that that would be an immense opportunity to draw together in a market in which we could compete with one another —not compete politically because I hope that such a common market would not turn into a political arena, which would not work. But it would be of great advantage and help to us all to draw the countries of Europe into competition in trade —into competition for money, if one wants to put it so bluntly. I think that we have a considerable part to play in that.
The Germans wrote their Weimar Constitution in the early 'twenties. It was an astonishing document, with every modern device. But the constitution lasted no time at all because there was not the determination nor the personnel to keep it going. There is now a massive desire for democracy. An alternative phrase for democracy might be the attainment of human ambition. We can help. We have had years of experience of democracy. We have, I think, a little falsely celebrated the 700th anniversary of Parliament. It was perhaps rather gratuitous, but we celebrated it. We have a lot of experience in these matters. We must try to get the

669
countries of Europe to understand the nature and quality of the problems involved.
Yesterday afternoon this House discussed what is called the Henry VIII clause, which most people dislike. People in government rather like it, but that is another matter altogether. However, there are problems in making a democracy work. I believe that we can contribute to help solve those difficulties. We can help and I believe that we will do so. This is a moment of unique opportunity in the whole history of Europe. We may or may not take advantage of it. I am inclined to believe that we will not do so, but the opportunity is there.
4.52 p.m.
Lord Hankey: My Lords, I start by saying that it is a pity that with such experts in this House on every hand we should limit ourselves to speaking for five minutes each on a subject of such enormous importance to this country and to Europe. It is quite ridiculous.
I agree with those noble Lords who said that we must regard the reunification of the two Germanys as inevitable. It may not come as soon as some people expect, but in my view the destruction of the Berlin Wall has raised the whole question to an emotional level which no German politician will be able to resist. I have much the same background as my noble friend who has just spoken, having studied in Germany and attended a German university. I agree with a great deal of what he said. All the same, we live in a time of political avalanches. Avalanches and landslides are horribly dangerous. We have to be very careful about where we are going. We must work out our path.
We do not want a neutral Germany. That would be a dangerous illusion. The Germans are not built to be neutrals. They are altogether too purposeful—in German, zielbewusst. Sooner or later there may be another Russo-German pact, which would be fatal. There have been two in our lifetime. it would certainly be very dangerous for Poland. Moreover, the new European Community without Germany, which is its main industrial powerhouse, would not make all that much sense.
We cannot foresee what will happen in Russia. Therefore for the foreseeable future we should make every possible effort to preserve NATO. Personally I am very impressed with Herr Woerner, the new Secretary General. He is a tremendously impressive person with very good ideas. One of them is that there may be some kind of semi-political approach between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, if indeed the Warsaw Pact continues to exist. We cannot foresee what will happen.
I thought that the idea of my noble friend Lord Callaghan of using the Stockholm CSCE arrangements as a further springboard was intensely interesting and forward-looking. I hope that that idea will be carefully examined. The noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, also produced a most interesting series of ideas about how there might be a new treaty background.
There are colossal uncertainties in Eastern Europe which bring the whole Continent into a state of flux.
670
It would be dangerous now to miss the opportunity to develop the European Community into something more real, more convincing, more solid, more effective and more potent —something around which the other states of Europe can crystallise. It would be something which the reunited German people, our own people, the French and other peoples could regard as holding out a valuable, cohesive future which offers prosperity as well as a cleaner environment to us all. It would be something that we could all work towards with enthusiasm. The Americans have been pressing it on us for two generations. This is not a new idea.
I have come to the serious conclusion that we ought to work towards a European confederation. I say "confederation" because that means that the component states allocate to the central confederal government only certain powers and retain all the others themselves. I am not at all taken with the centralising ideas of the French. I believe that they would lead to intense frustration and irritation. However, a confederation in which we contributed only certain things to the centre would be possible.
I have every realisation of how difficult that would be. There would have to be a written constitution. I hear noble Lords say, "How very un-British". Of course it would be, but without that the system would never work. There would have to be a proper European Parliament. It would have to be moved from Strasbourg to Brussels. The French have done a wonderful job at Strasbourg but they messed everything up by separating the European Parliament from the EC's administration and committees.
Remembering the OEEC, I think that we need something similar for the states of Eastern Europe so that the help that they receive is conditional upon their combining together to have more free movement of trade and slowly more convertible currencies.
I do not think that I can say more within the time-limits that have been set, but we should try to look forward to something of that nature which can offer a cohesive future for Europe as a whole. Without it, I believe that we may be in danger.
4.58 p.m.
Lord Kagan: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, is right to tell us that unification is a fact and that its formalisation is only a question of time but also that at the end of the day we may see a Napoleonic solution in the Soviet Union. Mr. Gorbachev's stated aim is a common European home. We are now seeing the development of a German-led, German-Russian alliance. That is the only way in which Russia can survive as a European power.
German organisational ability and technology combined with Russian space technology, Russian manpower and Russian resources are absolutely unbeatable. Such development has been planned ever since Bismarck's days. Hitler would have succeeded had he not indulged in his paranoia. He tried rape. West Germany is offering seduction and will succeed.

671
When East Germany joins West Germany there will be 17 million highly educated specialists, skilled people whose second language for 44 years has been Russian. We shall see an economic blitzkrieg in the East. West Germany is the only nation that can offer mass management and mass understanding of the Russian mind. It will have available 17 million people whose second language at school from seven years on is Russian. The rest of the world could not match that.
Central and Eastern Europe were always dominated culturally and industrially by Germany. In undermining Communism the price to Mr. Gorbachev is cheap because, first, he is a Russian, and, secondly, a communist —if anyone can define Communism. By abandoning Bolshevism or dismantling Communism, he is making himself acceptable to West Germany. We are now seeing a second attempt, a voluntary Ribbentrop-Molotov pact. In other words, the approach has changed from a military to an economic one.
The end result will be a superpower from the Rhine to the Japanese frontiers with the greatest amount of raw material resources, skill, labour and technology. It will be the superpower of Europe. It will not be hostile to the Economic Community. It will for the most part ignore it.
That will be the unified Germany. It restores the pride of the Germans by at last counting in world affairs as they feel they should according to their economic power, dedication and work philosophy. It is being blessed by the USA, which welcomes a strong power at the back of Japan. I believe that we shall see the statues to Stalin restored. He will be honoured like Pasteur because what Pasteur did for medicine Stalin has done for politics. He has made the world immune to Communism.
5.4 p.m.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, we all seem to agree that a new, secure system is necessary to replace the present system, which is crumbling. However, even if we were to start work on it now, the negotiations for the treaties (there will be several of them), the erection of the institutions (there will be several of them) and the arrangements for peace-keeping, perhaps involving military decisions, will take many years. Before then NATO will be faced with very difficult problems in connection with the reunification of Germany about which I should like to speak.
The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, quite rightly said that the unified Germany for which the Germans will ask will have only one armed force. Naturally that armed force will be deployed on both sides of what is now the frontier between the Warsaw Pact and the NATO forces. What then will be the position of those forces? They have no frontier to defend. They are deployed side by side with units of the same German army. Their position on defence is not only superfluous; it is ridiculous. A reunified Germany cannot co-exist with the continued presence of the forces of the Warsaw Pact and NATO.
672
Some speakers in the debate have said, "All right, but Germany must stay in NATO". The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, said that United States troops must stay in Europe. But that is surely subject to many serious objections. First, on the attitude of the Russians, it is a lot to ask of them. They have made it clear that if both sides withdrew from Germany they might consider it but they will bitterly oppose any agreement which suggests that they should withdraw while the Americans stay.
It could be argued that the Russians are in such a weak position today that such a settlement could be imposed on them, unbalanced as it is. That may well be true. But if we are looking for the new system of security dependent on superpower agreement and on East-West co-operation, to suggest that Germany should belong to NATO or that NATO troops should belong in Germany while the Russians go is a sure means of undermining the position and indeed of renewing the cold war.
I have not heard the point mentioned in the debate: it may be an esoteric view. However, I am driven to the view that in the meantime, while we wait for the new security system, there must be a disengagement both of the Warsaw Pact countries and the NATO forces from the unified Germany. I speak for myself on that. It is not a new idea. It was supported by Hugh Gaitskell and the Labour Party 30 years ago.
Five years ago, before we reconciled our policies with the SDP in order to form the Alliance, the idea was well regarded in the Liberal Party. The Liberal Assembly of 1984 resolved unanimously as follows:
"Concerned at the growing conflict between the demand for self-determination in Eastern Europe and Germany and the Soviet Union's perception of its security interests, Assembly believes that initiatives should be investigated for overcoming this problem, including the mutual and balanced disengagement of Soviet and American forces".
I believe that the logic of what has happened since Mr. Gobachev's reforms began leads inevitably in that direction.
The main objections made five years ago to the idea —namely, that the Russians would not accept it; that it would unbalance the military balance —no longer hold good. I hope very much that the idea will be seriously considered in the context of the new security system about which many noble Lords have spoken. There must be many noble Lords who feel as I do, that after over 40 years of trying to strengthen NATO, of confronting Soviet Communism, it is very hard to adjust to what is now an entirely new ball game. That is what we have to do. I hope that we have the courage to do it.
5.8 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are all very grateful to my noble friend Lord Callaghan for initiating this important debate on German reunification and for his thoughtful and stimulating speech. We have had a balanced and informed debate with important contributions from all sides and a full appreciation that the problems that arise from our discussions are difficult and complex.
The history of the last century and more has made them so and Britain has been and remains

673
inextricably involved in the events following the two great wars of this century. From 1945 onwards the cold war made an agreed peace settlement impossible and the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic emerged from that sad failure. They were born out of hostility, suspicion, fear and the sharply contrasting ideologies of the Soviet Union under Stalin on the one hand and the Western world on the other which were later reflected in NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
We remember the bitter arguments about German rearmament and other issues. West Germany joined NATO in 1955 and that led to the creation of the Warsaw Pact. The continuing hostility seemed to be symbolised permanently by the erection of the Berlin Wall in-1961. Since then most of us have lived through 25 years of suspicion and uncertainty in Europe. If we look back we must recognise that, remembering the repression of freedom in Hungary and Czechoslovakia by the Soviet army, NATO has served us well as a bulwark against potential aggression. As far as we can see at present, it must remain so into the future, although I take careful note of the proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew, for a new security system in Europe.
At this point however, it is worth recalling that the British Government expressed a basic view in 1945 after the war in Europe had ended. They said:
"it is Utopian to think of a West Germany which is not in the long term united with East Germany".
That general principle has been held to by successive governments in Britain and its allies ever since.
That view was reaffirmed last month at the European Summit, although, as noble Lords will have noted, with some qualifications. The statement referred to the democratic process and the principles of the Helsinki Final Act. I agree entirely with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Callaghan about the central importance of the CSCE. But it accepts the inevitability of reunification if the people of East and West Germany are determined to achieve it. Is that really the case? Is it inevitable? Looking at it today it seems to be so and we shall be interested to hear the Minister's reaction to that. There are of course other considerations which have been mentioned by my noble friend and other noble Lords but of primary importance is the Soviet viewpoint.
It must be conceded that Mr. Gorbachev is responsible, if not entirely then to a very large extent, for the historic revolution taking place in Eastern Europe. His speeches and his policies and their consequences both in and out of the Soviet Union make that abundantly plain. There has been a remarkable change in attitude and action.
As regards East Germany, while giving his blessing to rapid reform Mr. Gorbachev has also warned against forcing developments there. We must note what he said last month:
"We firmly declare that we will see to it that no harm comes to the GDR. It is our strategic ally and a member of the Warsaw Pact".
He went on to say:
"Departure from this threatens the destabilisation of Europe".
674
The new East German Prime Minister, Mr. Modrow, has reflected that in his talks with Chancellor Kohl, but he has also talked about further co-operation with West Germany. And so, as the scene unfolds, we hear differing views from differing sources. President Havel of Czechoslovakia —and how warmly we congratulate him and welcome him to his new office —said during his visit to both West and East Germany that Europe had nothing to fear from a united Germany. But he went on to say that:
"Democratic awareness and democratic structures in Germany are much more important than the question of German unity".
The fact remains that there are people throughout Europe who for understandable reasons are uncertain or downright afraid of a united economically powerful Germany of 80 million people. We know that among those who are uneasy about a powerful reunited Germany are the people of the Soviet Union itself. Mr. Shevardnadze made that plain in his speech in Brussels last month.
Therefore, it seems that we in his country should move patiently and realistically and seek peaceful and stable solutions in concert with our partners in the Community. Noble Lords have referred to certain essential elements. First, elections are pending in West and East Germany and in the latter there will be a political vacuum until the elections planned for May. There is little doubt that reunification will be the central theme of both elections in both Germanys.
Secondly, if the Community is to co-operate in a movement towards some form of reunification then it will need to be satisfied that a constitution which is clearly democratic is established in East Germany. Nothing less than that is acceptable. It will not happen tomorrow; it will take time. Thirdly, at this stage it is impossible to predict the kind of unification that will take place. My noble friend and other noble Lords have referred to that. Will it be federation, confederation or some other form of relationship? In its formulation account must be taken of existing national treaties and in this we are vitally concerned, as I am sure the Minister will confirm. Can he say how the Government view the function of the four-power machinery in Berlin in the context of the changing scene? Once again, I stress the importance of the reference made by my noble friend Lord Callaghan to the CSCE, which should have a central role in the development.
I believe that Germany's continuing membership of the European Community is of first importance in terms of European stability and economic wellbeing. That is especially so in the case of East Germany and the neighbouring countries. It is through the Community, assisted by the United States and Japan, that practical democracy in Eastern Europe will best be sustained. I see no other solution.
Finally, the acceptance of the present eastern borders of the GDR, as my noble friend Lord Callaghan has emphasised, is essential to permanent stability. There are other matters which time will not permit me to discuss; for example, the implications of change for the huge Soviet military presence in East Germany and for the disarmament process. Furthermore, stability —which implies

675
peace —can be achieved in East Germany and in Eastern Europe generally only if the Soviet Union accepts and abides by the final settlement and if the West's financial and economic aid is adequate and efficiently spent. The future of world peace depends on that and we urge the Government to play their full part in achieving these essential objectives.
5.17 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I join with other noble Lords in gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, for giving the House the opportunity of debating this important subject.
We have witnessed dramatic changes in eastern Europe. Even six months ago we had little inkling of what was in store. In October the GDR's communist rulers organised an extravaganza of self-congratulation to mark their 40 years of power. Economically more successful than its communist neighbours, the GDR seemed set to continue on its hard-line course. Perestroika was regarded with deep suspicion —so much so that access to some Soviet publications was restricted or denied. It was widely assumed that when Honecker finally stepped down he would be followed by a leader in the same mould. German unification seemed a virtual impossibility or at least a prospect so remote that there was little point in devoting much time to it.
As we have all seen, the reality was very different. The tyranny of the old regimes in eastern Europe had suppressed but had never eradicated the passionate desire for freedom among their peoples. They were held down by fear. However, once the fear was gone and the people dared to speak out the whole structure collapsed with extraordinary speed. The people who made these revolutions are now striving to rebuild their ravaged countries in a new, truly democratic way.
Another important factor in recent developments has been the way in which events in one East European country have dramatically affected one another. It is being said that Poland's transformation took 10 years, Hungary's 10 months, Bulgaria's and the GDR's 10 weeks and Czechoslovakia's 10 days. In Romania events have moved faster still. The domino theory has worked in reverse. Hungary's willingness, for example, to respond to the desperate human plight of those who were trying to escape the GDR to the West opened the way for thousands to vote with their feet and so exposed the hollow lie which lay at the heart of the GDR's claim to be the people's state. People in Czechoslovakia clearly took heart from the events in the GDR. And so on.
In all these countries the process of reform is now under way. Their people, and the new democratic leaderships which many will elect over the next few months, face a lengthy and demanding period of transition to, and familiarisation with, free political and economic systems. The years ahead will not be easy, as many noble Lords have said. Learning the rules of the democratic political game may be difficult for some. Economic reform will require sacrifices of the kind the Polish people are now making.
676
As my noble friend Lord Pym said, Western help and encouragement will therefore be important. As many of your Lordships have shown during this debate, you are aware how much is already being done and how important is the role emerging for the European Community. We must show ourselves ready to remain open to our Eastern neighbours in future, as we have done with our neighbours in EFTA. The European Community has consolidated in western Europe a stable order of peace, democracy, prosperity and co-operation. Our goal now must be to work to establish a similar order in the continent of Europe as a whole.
I totally reject the suggestion made by some noble Lords that this Government are in any way adopting an isolationist approach in the European Community. We are playing and shall continue to play a full part in the Community's internal developments and in its expanding relations with other countries.
Yet at the heart of this broad vision of a Europe at peace with itself and integrated as never before in mutual security, there lies a question. The German question has returned, with unexpected speed, to a place of prominence in our day-to-day discussion of European affairs.
It has never left our agenda as a matter of principle. For over 40 years the division of Germany has been a central feature of the division of Europe, and the division of Berlin had symbolised both for over a quarter of a century. Since the 1950s successive British governments have been committed to support the achievement, by peaceful means, of the aim of a reunified Germany enjoying a liberal-democratic constitution and integrated within the European community of nations. Now the opportunity for the German people to exercise self-determination in that cause may be coming closer. That can only be welcome to all of us who believe in the principle of democracy as self-determination.
The implications of German unity, in whatever form, would of course be profound for the continent as a whole. Strategically, it would be necessary to reconcile a unified Germany with the need to preserve a stable balance of security in Europe. That balance has hitherto been assured through the existence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, incorporating West and East Germany respectively, with allied forces deployed on German soil. The two alliances have not been equivalent. NATO has been a free association of equals, the Warsaw Pact little more than an extension of the Soviet politico-military establishment and an instrument of repression under the Brezhnev doctrine. NATO has served collective Western security interests, the Warsaw Pact primarily Soviet ones. But within each alliance, western European countries and Soviet Union have been able to feel secure. The Federal Republic has repeatedly stressed its commitment to NATO. The two alliances are negotiating arms control agreements but there is still considerable uncertainty about the future and NATO remains the basis for our security. While we recognise and respect the change in Soviet attitudes thanks to Gorbachev

677
and Shevardnadze, a significant Soviet capability remains.
The future of the Warsaw Pact is now less certain. It may start to reform itself; it may shed some of its members. But, as many noble Lords have said, nothing that may happen to the Warsaw Pact will alter NATO's importance as a security framework for its members on a continent which has to accommodate the geographic and military reality of the Soviet Union. And the Federal Republic of Germany is a strong, committed and highly valued ally in NATO.
Is it realistic to suppose that West Germany would wish to turn its back on this historic alliance and all it stands for to achieve unity with the GDR? I do not believe so. For its part, the GDR's membership of the Warsaw Pact remains an issue of strong concern to the Soviet Union as noble Lords and particularly the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, reminded us. Can we suppose this will not remain the case in future? So here, my Lords, is a strategic conundrum to be resolved. I am not saying it would be incapable of resolution, although I have no solutions to propose today. I merely refer to it to illustrate the complex issues which arise in the context of German unity.
Economically, too, the achievement of German unity would be significant for Europe. As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, said, West Germany is already the strongest economy in Europe. It achieved growth of up to 4 per cent. last year and is likely to continue to grow strongly through the domestic stimulus provided by inward German migration. Some estimates put East German GDP per head at less than a quarter of that of the FRG, yet it is still the highest in eastern Europe. With a skilled workforce, properly motivated, and substantial investment from West Germany, East Germany is likely to grow fast over the coming years.
A Germany which fully integrated the economies of its eastern and western halves would be a formidable economic force—competitor, but also a market and strong partner, one would expect, for the European Community and eastern Europe alike. But economic power and influence may pose challenges for a country's fellow traders too, as Europeans have often found in their dealings with the US and Japan.
Self-determination will be an important element in the process of German unification, but for that to be possible there must first be full democracy in the GDR. Political and economic reform in that country is, however, desirable in itself, irrespective of the implications for German unity. The process of reform is moving forward, albeit slowly. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill of Harrow, said, it is of course vital that free and fair elections take place as planned. Reform must be consolidated and made irreversible.
We wish the people in the GDR well. We wish them a democratic, prosperous future. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will visit the GDR next week. He plans to meet representatives of all the leading forces in the country to discuss the prospects for reform.
678
Beyond successful reform, however, one cannot ignore the fact that a question mark hangs over the future of the GDR as separate state. Already there are people in the GDR calling for unity with the Federal Republic. It is however hard to judge the scale of this support; different opinion polls give different results. Nor is it clear whether all regard unity in the same way. There are various possible models; for example, a confederation of two separate states with full freedom of movement between them and many common bodies, or a full confederation in one country with one capital and one government. It is not for the British Government to pronounce upon the course which Germans should adopt. The future of Germany must be decided, democratically, by the German people.
I have mentioned a process involving both Germans and Europeans. Events in Germany do not take place in a vacuum as the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, made clear in his speech. The Federal Government have themselves clearly acknowledged this. Chancellor Kohl and Herr Genscher have rightly emphasised the links between overcoming the division of Germany and developments in the rest of Europe, where the interests and concerns must also be recognised.
The leaders of the Federal Republic have responded to these concerns in a statesmanlike way. They have made clear repeatedly that their aim is not to press ahead in isolation. They have stressed in particular that they will not be tempted into neutrality. They recognise that their freedom and prosperity is founded on their place in the West, on their membership of NATO and the European Community within a stable Europe. They acknowledge that the future architecture of Germany will need to fit into the future architecture of Europe as a whole.
For their part, the EC and NATO have responded as friends and partners to the Germans' clear desire for support and understanding. In Strasbourg and Brussels last month EC and NATO countries made clear their support for the aim of achieving a "state of peace in Europe in which the German people will regain its unity through self-determination". With the Federal Republic, we agreed that this process "should take place peacefully and democratically in full respect of the relevant agreements and treaties and of all the principles defined by the Helsinki Final Act, in a context of dialogue and East-West co-operation". We also agreed that it has to be placed in the perspective of European integration.
I fully agree with the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, on the importance of the CSCE process. We have played a full part in it from the outset, recognising that it provides a valuable forum for discussion between East and West. We shall continue to do so.
As the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, said, it is perhaps relevant that the Helsinki Final Act provides the guarantees on Poland's borders which the noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, and others, were seeking, since the Federal Government is a signatory and so has unambiguously accepted its key principles on the inviolability of frontiers in respect of the territorial integrity of participating states. The Federal

679
Republic has also emphasised its continuing commitment to the 1970 treaty between Poland and the FRG which makes its position clear.
The noble Lord, Lord Greenhill, proposed an imaginative scheme for a treaty in 1991. I take note of this proposal, but the people of the two German states have yet to express their views on the question of possible unity. That, of course, must come first.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred to the four-power talks. We had useful discussions with the Russians at their suggestion on 11th December. These showed that the Russians are now more positive about the allies' ideas for improving conditions in Berlin and we are considering a follow-up meeting if necessary.
We cannot tell how the situation in the GDR will develop. As one of the four powers we retain certain legal responsibilities for the future of Germany; but the main determinant of events in the coming months will be the wishes of the people in the two Germanys. The people of the GDR will take the first major decision on the future of their country when they go to the polls on 6th May.
Against this background Britain's role is to work to develop our contracts at all levels with the two Germanys and to seek to ensure, with our allies and partners, that progress towards unification is achieved —if that is what the Germans want —in a way that sustains and indeed strengthens the security and stability in Europe for which we have worked so hard over the past 40 years.
5.32 p.m.
Lord Callaghan of Cardiff: My Lords, I think everyone will agree that this has been a most interesting and, I trust, useful debate. There have been many shades of difference of opinion, but if one had to point to the basic difference it has been between optimists and pessimists.
I have been accused of unquenchable optimism. I am delighted that at my extreme, advanced age I can still be an optimist about the affairs of this world. On the whole, I think the optimists had rather the better of the day and if there were to be a Division I fancy they would win. Indeed, when I heard the distinguished historians who sit behind the Bishops' Bench —they told us about the difficulties of the fluidity of the situation and how it would be impossible for us to make up our minds at such an early stage while the situation was still developing —I was reminded of Alexander Herzen's remark (I am sure they know this and probably agree with it) that,
"History is no more than a tale of improvisation without a libretto".
My aim is to secure that this time there is a libretto. It seems to me that the historic changes on which we are engaged are of such a tremendous character that we should be thinking ahead. I trust and believe that the Government will do this; not in order to make up our minds now —that would be foolish —but in order to ensure that there are various proposals and ideas that have been thought out as alternatives for the future when we see how it develops. It is along that line that I was delighted to
680
hear the Minister, whom I thank for his attendance and his speech, say that the Government were ready to make the CSCE an important part of their consideration in that matter. I was also glad to hear him say that he was ready to take up what I thought was a most constructive proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Greenhill. It was the first time that I had heard of it and I must say that I think it is worthy of a great deal of attention in the Foreign Office. I hope that it will get it.
I thank all who were good enough to take part in this debate. We shall return to this topic. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Hong Kong: Foreign Secretary's Visit
5.35 p.m.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on his visit to Hong Kong. The Statement is as follows.
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall make a statement on my visit to Hong Kong from 13th to 16th January.
"I went to show this country's continuing commitment to Hong Kong; to meet a representative cross-section of the community and to discuss the issues of prime importance to Hong Kong in the period before 1997. These are the operation of the nationality package which I proposed to the House on 20th December and the pace and extent of democratisation in Hong Kong. I also discussed the problem of the Vietnamese boat people and visited a refugee camp and a camp at which boat people are screened for refugee status.
"Hong Kong has become the world's eleventh largest trading entity because of the unique combination of British administration and justice and the talent and energy of its people. The immediate sense of fear caused by the events in China last June has lifted but these events did deal a substantial blow to Hong Kong's self-confidence and the exodus of the talent which is needed to keep Hong Kong prosperous has continued. We believe it is vital that these people should stay.
"Everyone to whom I spoke (in the Executive and Legislative Councils, one of the district boards, the business community, public servants and other groups) had hoped that the package which I proposed on 20th December would have made provision for more people. But they welcomed what we had proposed as a measure which would give key people the confidence to remain in Hong Kong. They recognise that it was not an easy step to take, and they are following carefully the discussion in this country. They all hoped that it will be possible for Parliament to give its approval and for the scheme to begin to operate. I assured them that the Government were fully committed to the proposal.

681
"The second issue which we discussed was the repatriation of Vietnamese boat people. No one in Hong Kong involved in the repatriation takes satisfaction in what had to be done, but the result achieved was necessary. Having seen the camps for myself, I am more than ever convinced that return to Vietnam in carefully controlled conditions is preferable to camp life with no hope of resettlement elsewhere. Hong Kong has paid a heavy price for its principled policy of first asylum. We cannot expect them to receive this year the same number of boat people —over 30,000 —whom they received last year. There is nowhere for these boat people who are not refugees to go. The policy of repatriation is therefore the right one, and I hope that this may soon be endorsed by the international community. I am grateful to my right honourable friend the Member for Aylesbury and the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, for their thorough and expert report on the first 51 who were repatriated before Christmas. I would welcome monitoring by the UNHCR and other agencies for all future returnees.
"No one in Hong Kong seriously disputes the validity of the joint declaration as the basis for Hong Kong's future after 1997. But confidence in the concept of one country, two systems was undermined by the events of last June. Since then, the Chinese Government have reaffirmed their commitment to the joint declaration and I believe we must make it work. An important element in that is the extent and pace of movement to democracy in Hong Kong before and after 1997. This is a subject, as I found, of intense concern and debate in Hong Kong and we are discussing it with the Chinese Government. Those discussions are continuing and I would prefer not to go into detail today. Our goal is to set in place a system, beginning with elections to the Legislative Council in 1991, which will satisfy Hong Kong's aspiration for democracy and which will endure after 1997. I hope, after further discussion, to be able to announce a decision within the next few weeks.
"Hong Kong, as everyone who knows it will agree, is the economic success story of a region which does actually boast several economic miracles. As you look across the border into China you see that the economic success has spread to the neighbouring province of the mainland. China is Hong Kong's largest trading partner and Hong Kong is also one of Britain's biggest markets in the region.
"All that could continue after 1997 —and the plans are dramatic —or it could be lost. The future of 5·7 million people after 1997 depends on three things: first, the talent and energy of Hong Kong's own people, and they are not in doubt; secondly, the attitude of the Chinese Government: there is much more which they need to do to reassure Hong Kong; but dialogue has been re-established and we must do our best to maintain it. Thirdly, Hong Kong's future success depends on Britain, the responsible sovereign power until 1997.
"After last June, this House rightly voiced its support for Hong Kong, and that of course has to
682
mean more than words. The people of Hong Kong are realists. For example, they accept (though reluctantly) that we cannot give passports to all. They look to us over the coming years to take the necessary decisions as the sovereign power and to follow an active and understanding policy towards Hong Kong. I hope I convinced them that we would do so".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
5.41 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, we are grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. Since this House is due to debate the current situation in Hong Kong next Wednesday, I should like to confine my response to three brief questions and not to enlarge on the Statement itself. Can the noble Lord indicate what proposals he intends making with regard to extending democracy in Hong Kong? Will he say what assurances, if any, he has received from the Chinese Government with respect to the long-term future of democracy in the territory?
On this side of the House we would also be grateful if the noble Lord could clarify the latest position with regard to the discussions on the Basic Law. Are these now resumed and can he say whether they are proceeding satisfactorily? Can the Minister further say whether the Foreign Secretary had discussions with the Office of the Members of the Legislative and Executive Council (OMELCO) and other organisations in Hong Kong in relation to the Government's proposal to give British passports to 50,000 Hong Kong heads of households?
We are grateful to the right honourable gentleman the Foreign Secretary for his generous tribute to my noble friend Lord Ennals and to Mr. Timothy Raison for their mission and their excellent report. Can the Minister say whether the Government intend to proceed with the repatriation of the Vietnamese boat people? What are the Government's immediate plans on that subject? Can the Minister further say whether there is any evidence that there will be more volunteers, especially in the light of the report compiled by my noble friend and Mr. Raison? As the Minister well knows, there are criticisms that serious flaws exist within the screening process used to assess which boat people qualify as refugees. Can he say what weight the Government give to these allegations? Further, are they making inquiries into them so that we and others may be quite clear as to what is taking place? Lastly, we shall return to these and other matters in the course of the debate next week.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, I wish to associate myself with the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, in thanking the Minister for repeating the Statement of his right honourable friend made in another place concerning Hong Kong and the Vietnamese refugees. I too propose to speak only very briefly on this occasion in the light of the debate that we are having next week on the situation. Then we shall have more time to discuss the subject and I hope that we shall also have more information.

683
I look forward very much to the answers which the Minister will give to the questions put to him by the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn. I wish to add one other point which I do not see referred to in the Statement. There is no reference to a Bill of Rights. What has happened to that? It is an absolutely crucial measure of reassurance for the people of Hong Kong. Can the Minister say whether it is the case, as has been reported, that during conversation in Hong Kong it was indicated that the Government had abandoned the idea of having a Bill of Rights entrenched in the Basic Law? I shall be grateful if the Minister can help me concerning that matter.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Cledwyn and Lord Bonham-Carter, for their reception of the Statement. Both noble Lords said that the House will have a greater opportunity to discuss this matter a week today. I shall try to deal briefly with the questions that they have put to me. As regards democracy, my right honourable friend will wish to consider carefully the views expressed to him in Hong Kong. It must be clear that this is a complex issue. We wish to be absolutely sure that the decision we make is in the best long-term interests of Hong Kong.
As the Statement said, we would rather not speak about specific numbers of seats at this point because we are in negotiation with the Chinese on that matter. We can do whatever we like right now, but we wish to produce a solution which is acceptable to the Chinese in so far as it is maintained in 1997 and beyond that time.
On the whole we are satisfied with the draft Basic Law. We have made representations to the Chinese authorities about various parts of it and we shall continue to do so. We have agreed that these representations should be made in private. In order to make our representations effective we must respect that confidentiality. Our aim remains to ensure as far as we can that the Basic Law fully reflects the spirit and letter of the joint declaration and that it meets the aspirations of the Hong Kong people.
Dealing with discussions on nationality to which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred, that was one of the main subjects that my right honourable friend discussed with all the people whom he met in Hong Kong including the Legislative and Executive Council. As regards the Vietnamese boat people, I wish to repeat my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and my right honourable friend Mr. Raison for their excellent report, which I have read. As the Statement said, my right honourable friend is also extremely grateful to them. We shall have to look into the situation of more returnees, but there will certainly be no more until after the next meeting in Geneva which I believe is scheduled in two or three weeks' time.
We are aware of the Amnesty International report to which the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, referred. We have received a copy and are studying it carefully. We are seeking the views of the Hong Kong Government on a number of specific points arising from the report. We are confident that the screening
684
procedure is fair and thorough and that genuine refugees will not be returned to Vietnam. I believe that the report prepared by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, and my right honourable friend Mr. Raison confirmed that no genuine refugees have been returned.
The noble Lord, Lord Bonham-Carter, referred to the Bill of Rights. Work is currently proceeding in Hong Kong on the exact form that it will take. We expect an announcement soon but at this stage I cannot prejudge the progress of that work. The drafting of that Bill is a matter for the Hong Kong Government; the Chinese have not made any representations to us about the matter. If they wish to comment on the draft Bill once it is published for public consultation we shall be willing to listen to their views through the appropriate channels. I hope that that covers the main points raised, but we can go into further detail next week.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, as regards democratisation, I am happy to tell the Government how pleased we are that they appear to be taking the advice that we have been extending to them over the past five years; namely, that it would be both possible and desirable to go further than they originally intended. The noble Lord is obviously right when he says that it is up to us to decide what to do now. During their negotiations in Beijing, will the Government bear in mind that the Chinese Government have really forfeited any right to lay down the law in the light of the events of last June? That is a question of common morality.
In terms of political prudence, is it not the case that if the situation gets worse between now and 1997, the more democracy that the Hong Kong people have, the better they will be able to defend themselves morally and politically against the worst that the Chinese can do, but if the attitude of the Chinese Government improves between now and 1997 they will not mind how much democracy they find in Hong Kong when they take over?
Secondly, on the question of Hong Kong immigration into this country, the Chinese have accused the Government of breaking a memorandum annexed to the basic agreement. I hope that the Government are being more explicit with the Chinese Government about their reasons for saying that we have not broken it than they have been with Parliament and the people of this country. The Government's defence against the Chinese charge has been a little woolly.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I covered the question of democratisation to some extent in my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn. My right honourable friend will be considering carefully the views expressed to him in Hong Kong.
On the question of nationality and the Chinese reaction to it, I make it quite clear that the package is not aimed against China and will not damage Chinese interests. We believe that our intentions are entirely consistent with the joint declaration and the associated United Kingdom memorandum, which does not preclude the grant of citizenship before 1st

685
July 1997. We remain fully committed to the joint declaration and to its full and faithful implementation. We have explained this to the Chinese authorities and I hope that the Chinese will come to recognise the package as a positive contribution to the stability and prosperity of Hong Kong.

Health Care Subscriptions for the Elderly
5.51 p.m.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne Lord Bruce-Gardyne rose to call attention to the case for extending the entitlement of those of 65 years and above to offset the cost of their subscriptions to private health care insurance schemes, created by the Finance Act 1989, to include payments direct to medical practitioners and hospitals for private health care at the customer's choice; and to move for Papers.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I feel that I should begin by apologising to the House for, as one might say, lowering the horizons of our discussions this afternoon. The noble Lord, Lord Callaghan, expatiated with great eloquence on the whole future of central Europe. Since then noble Lords have been considering the future of Hong Kong. The subject to which I want to draw the attention of the House for a few minutes is considerably more parochial. I want to call attention to the manner in which private health care schemes appear to cater, or fail to cater, for the requirements of their subscribers.
As some noble Lords may be aware, I do from time to time contribute to the popular press. I have done so for many years. But never in all my years of scribbling have I ever written anything which attracted such a mass response as an article I wrote in the Daily Telegraph in August of last year. It suggested that BUPA, the scheme of which I have experience and by far the biggest of the private health care schemes, was gravely disappointing and letting down its subscribers. The response was monstrous. For weeks and weeks I was inundated with piles of letters from retired folk who told of their woes and of the troubles they had had, particularly with BUPA but also with some of the other schemes. Time does not permit me tonight to attempt even a précis of all those letters—it is probably just as well that it does not —but I think it would be fair to say that one or two common themes emerged.
One theme is that when they reach retirement our senior citizens find themselves confronted with very rapidly escalating charges for private health care schemes and at the same time with very rapidly shrinking exclusion clauses. When they put in their claims they find that they have already exhausted the benefit on a particular line of their contract and that they are not covered for an illness, especially one with which they have already been afflicted. These are people who will have been members of BUPA or of other schemes for the whole of their adult lives and whose claims record on the whole will have been marvellous from the point of view of the schemes. Yet when they reach retirement and the time when their claims will possibly start to multiply, they find that the schemes are not very interested.
This is a dangerous situation but dangerous for a particular reason. That is frankly the only reason why I have ventured to bring the subject before the House today. In last year's Finance Act the Government in their wisdom —I would say their "unwisdom" —saw fit to give a tax break for subscriptions to private health care schemes. I am very much against tax breaks in general and this one in particular. Leaving that aside, the trouble is that the tax break functions only if one joins a scheme; therefore, retired folk are more or less herded or corralled into membership of the schemes in order to get the tax break. Unfortunately, when they have done so they are liable to find that the schemes fail to live up to expectations.
For example, BUPA says in its main publicity material:
"Once you are in the hands of your specialist BUPA will take care of your costs".
Will it indeed? As the immortal Lord Copper once said: "Up to a point". My own experience and that of the thousands of people who have written to me is that in next to no time one receives a little note saying that one's claim exhausts one's entitlement under the relevant section of the contract. For that reason the retired folk feel that they are being let down.
Secondly, they find that the contracts given them by the private health care schemes are extremely difficult to follow and to understand and that when they have queries it takes a long time to get answers. Quite often when they get answers they are subsequently revised —quite often in their favour, I do not deny that —but it is all deeply confusing for them, particularly when they are elderly and perhaps not all that fit, either physically or mentally. The result is that they feel they have been had. So long as no tax break was involved it was none of the Government's business and there would be no case for a discussion of this kind. However, once the tax break had been given it meant that the Government were committed to supervising the matter and ensuring that private health care schemes delivered the goods expected of them.
I should especially like to refer to a letter I received in August from a Mr. Rushton of Chester. I do so because in my view he had rather an interesting suggestion to make. Essentially his point was that if the Government were going to give a tax break for private health care cover, then they should go for the level of paying fees. In other words, they should say, "This tax concession will apply to any expenditure of the individual citizen's choosing" —that is, whether it be for participation in one of the health care schemes, a direct payment to a specialist, to a hospital or for a private ambulance, and so on —"made out of the individual's taxed income". He pointed out that in that way there would be no question of pushing people into health care schemes. They would be able to make an unimpeded judgment in the light of arrangements which suited them. I found that argument most convincing. Mr. Rushton also pointed out, quite fairly, that such an arrangement would be far more in conformity with the

687
Government's general philosophy than a narrow specialised concession restricted to schemes.
Therefore, in September I forwarded the above suggestion to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Peter Lilley. He was kind enough to reply to me on the matter. Basically he said that, unfortunately, to extend the concession to cover all forms of expenditure by individuals on private medicine would be expensive and that it would also involve much more additional bureacuracy in order to check claims to ensure that they qualified. He said that the department would need convincing that the proposal would not increase bureaucracy gratuitously.
Mr. Lilley's essential theme was that because there were watchdogs in the area, the way in which organisers of schemes tended to the needs of their clients would be carefully supervised. I do not honestly think that it amounts to careful supervision when we have BUPA telling potential subscribers in its "come hither" material that, "Once you are in the hands of a specialist, BUPA will take care of you". In my experience, and that of others, this has demonstrably not been the case; indeed, it is quite untrue.
Mr. Lilley also suggested that thanks to the tax concession, the market for private health care insurance would expand enormously and that that would provide greater choice. He said that retired citizens could, as he put it, "shop around". Quite honestly, I am not sure how you can shop around in the matter of private health care schemes. If you are in a scheme you cannot rush around investigating other schemes to see whether there is one which would suit you better. In my view that is a somewhat unrealistic situation.
I shall conclude on a political note. It relates to a matter about which I am most concerned. I think that by giving this concession exclusively to health care schemes and thus assuming responsibility, —tangentially, at any rate —for the performance of the schemes, the Government are taking the risk of leaving many senior citizens with the feeling that they, not the schemes, have led people up the garden path.
I hope that my noble friend when he replies will be able to offer some hope that the firm rejection which I received from my honourable friend Mr. Lilley, which was a masterpiece of Inland Revenue drafting, is not the end of the matter and that the Government will be prepared to look again into the subject. I should say that I am most grateful to my noble friend the Minister for coming to the House today in order to reply to the debate. I beg to move for Papers.
6.6 p.m.
Lord Rea: My Lords, I was only stung into putting my name down for this debate yesterday when I saw that no other health professional was speaking. I am not a health economist but I think that a view from within the National Health Sevice is appropriate.
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer allowed health insurance premiums of older people to be claimed as a tax allowance, many people felt that
688
this was the thin edge of the wedge and that soon tax exemption for all private medical expenses would be allowed. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, now invites the Government to drive the wedge in just a little further—for the over 65s only. One reason for that, as he clearly pointed out —in fact this has been the whole tenor of his argument —is that health insurance premiums for elderly people are very expensive or impossible to obtain for those having reached that age and nearly as expensive and very limited in cover even for those who were insured before reaching the age of 65 years.
In fact the great majority of medical health care, especially expensive care, is received by those over 65 years. Therefore, we are talking about a group of the population which actually consumes most of the medical care in this country, although only a small part of that group would be able to pay for private medical care or indeed contemplate paying privately for complex medical care or for surgery. However, it could be that younger members of their family might help out financially and boost the number considerably if there was a tax spin-off as suggested by the noble Lord.
It is true that the National Health service has difficulty in caring for this increasingly large age group, the members of which have increasing expectations of good health. That is inevitable in our present demographic situation. I expected the noble Lord to suggest that a shift to private medicine —which such concessions may encourage —would be a relief for the poor old hard-pressed National Health Service, freeing NHS resources to look after NHS patients on waiting lists and so on who cannot afford private care. In my view we should look at that argument, even though the noble Lord did not put it forward. I think that he would agree that the cost of most private medical care item for item is rather higher than that for the same procedures carried out in the National Health Service; that is, those that have been costed. As an aside I might mention that the costing of most NHS procedures is not available despite the fact that the NHS changes contained in the Bill that is now in Committee in another place depend upon it.
If private medicine is encouraged to expand, a greater proportion of the GNP will go into health expenditure, which would constitute a drain on the economy. That could possibly be justified if the additional expenditure on private medical care was the choice of the patient paying the bill and if it left the NHS revenue intact, as it does now. I have argued in the Chamber and elsewhere that private practice as such, even without tax allowances, can harm the NHS; but I accept that in the present state of under-funding of the NHS some people will seek more time with the doctor, better facilities and more comfort and convenience and are willing to pay for them.
However, the noble Lord's affluent pensioner, while buying his private care and receiving tax rebate, will subtract revenue from the Consolidated Fund (out of which the NHS is financed) while having, for example, his coronary artery bypass graft (or "cabbage" as the operation is known in the trade).

689
The operation, which costs about £12,000 privately, would attract a tax rebate of £3,000 with a standard rate of tax of 25 per cent. It would cost the NHS more than that to do the operation. I have been given the figure of £6,000 for a coronary artery bypass graft as the NHS cost of the operation, so one could say that there will be a net saving to the NHS. That would be a faulty way of looking at the calculation. If, for instance, a cardiothoracic unit is functioning, the main cost is in buying and maintaining the equipment and paying staff salaries. They have to be paid for whether one or 1,000 operations are carried out. To divide the total cost of running the unit, which, let us say, is £2 million, by the number of operations (say, 330) makes each operation cost £6,000, as I said; but the marginal cost of each operation when the unit is operational will be much less and probably less than £1,000.
A further squeezing of the NHS, which the noble Lord's plan would involve, would make it become less efficient. The NHS needs core funding, however many operations are carried out. Would the noble Lord's well-off pensioner arrange for a private ambulance if he has a heart attack while awaiting his coronary artery bypass operation which is meant to avert it? Of course he would not. He or his wife would dial 999 and a NHS ambulance crew would take him to the nearest accident and emergency department. (In the present situation the ambulance crew would probably be doing it without pay. That often happens when I ask for an emergency ambulance to take one of my patients to hospital.)
There is a serious shortage of units to carry out bypass operations in the United Kingdom. That was pointed out critically by the Public Accounts Committee of another place last year. The noble Lord's suggestions would make if more difficult for the NHS to bring those facilities up to the proper numbers so that we could compare, for instance, with Spain, which has a better provision for coronary artery bypass operations under its health service than we do.
I am sure that the noble Lord realises that only a small proportion of the population would be able to take advantage of the scheme that he suggests. While I am sure that there are Members of the House who have had a hip replaced privately and are pleased with it, there are others who have had treatment under the NHS completely free which would have been prohibitively expensive privately. They have been pleased with the skill and dedication of those who work in the NHS, often at present under great difficulties. The noble Lord's suggestions would make those difficulties worse.
Those remarks come from one who has spent a professional lifetime working in the NHS. I shall therefore be interested to hear (I put in my notes "the reply of the noble Baroness" but I see that as this is a matter of finance we are to hear the Paymaster General, about which I am very pleased) what the noble Earl says. I do not believe that he will go down the noble Lord's path, much as I feel that his party's free enterprise principles might direct him. I hope that his reply will allow me to feel that on this issue at least the NHS is safe in his hands.
6.15 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I do not normally regard your Lordships' House as being a place of surprises, but I must admit that I have been surprised on two counts this afternoon: first, to arrive here from Manchester and to find that so few noble Lords had put their names down to speak in a debate which raises some fairly important issues, and, secondly, the pleasant surprise of hearing the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, introduce his Motion by saying that he is opposed to tax breaks in general. I was surprised and glad to hear that stated.
I do not propose to go down the path that the noble Lord outlined for us, despite the fact that many of us will have great sympathy with the correspondents whom he described as writing to him in large numbers about the difficulties in which they find themselves. I shall outline my reasons for that by taking the discussion a little wider, although the noble Lord, Lord Rea, has already mentioned the basic principles of the NHS, which is a point at which I would start. We want to look at the place of private health care in general in a society such as ours and then ask some fundamental questions about the role of government, especially in relation to taxation.
In regard to the principles of the NHS, we need to remind ourselves (do we not?) that the service, when set up, was set up for all those living in the United Kingdom. It is not meant to be a service for those who cannot afford to go private or who do not receive private health care as a company perk. Secondly, it is a service which is free at the point of need and of use. Any charges for the NHS —for example, for prescriptions —should be seen as aimed at reducing waste rather than raising money, or perhaps for comfort and privacy and those things which are additional to basic health care. Basic health care should be free at the point of need and of use. Thirdly, it is a service which is funded by taxation from the public purse, or by universal health insurance; and, finally, it is a service upon which decisions are made within a democractic, political framework. Those seem to me to be the fundamental principles upon which the NHS was se up and which all parties have stated they are prepared to defend.
A point which has frequently been made in debates in the House is that many of us would feel that the Christian attitude to the community in our society has been something which has had a profound influence on the shaping of the NHS in years gone past.
If we turn to matters of private insurance and health care we see that the principles upon which they are set out are fundamentally different, and inevitably they can form a challenge to the principles behind the NHS. That is not to say that they are bad principles. The idea that people should be prepared to provide for their own health care, and that of their families, as best they can is not necessarily a principle to be criticised, though I regard it as morally inferior to the principles underlying the NHS.

691
Inevitably private health care will flourish where there are deficiencies and inadequacies in public provision. People who have the means to do so will take advantage of private health care where they can. The inadequacies are seen in, for example, long waiting lists and the urgent needs of people to have operations done without waiting the long time which is demanded in the public service. It is a matter of great distress and shame to us all that there are long waiting lists in the NHS for certain types of operations, which encourages people more and more to go private.
There is always the danger of the emergence of two-tier health care: those who can afford to go private and do; and those who cannot. Private health care can of course be justified also in areas of health for which the NHS is not provided and which it does not pretend to cover. I think that we appreciate that there may be a place for it there.
However, private health insurance is undertaken by what is still a minority in this country —a minority of the comparatively affluent. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, referred to a mass response which he received to an article he wrote —a great flood of letters. He mentioned the difficulties which our senior citizens face. By that I am sure that he meant a small minority, even today, of our senior citizens who face the difficulties that he outlined.
In a mixed society such as ours we value some freedom of choice. This is an important right for individuals to exercise on behalf of themselves and their families. But such freedom should never be at the expense of the community as a whole or of others. It should especially not damage the great basic principles behind the National Health Service. The argument is sometimes heard that if we increase the use of private health insurance it will relieve pressure on the NHS. I believe that that is a completely bogus and misleading argument. It ought to be thrown right out of court. Far from relieving pressure on the NHS, it tends to draw attention away from the fundamental needs of the NHS for proper resourcing and for remedying its inadequacies.
The growth of private health care which we have seen in recent years is already, I believe, damaging the NHS in many ways. It draws us away from the great principle of universal provision and of doing things together as a community. It means that those who legislate in this whole field are drawn from the minority of people who can afford private health care. I have no doubt that that affects their judgment in the field. A basic issue, particularly to many of us in the Churches, is that those who are the poorest in our society are damaged when the general provision of the NHS is affected in damaging ways.
What about the role of governments of any party, especially in relation to taxation: Their fundamental duty is to improve the NHS and not to give tax breaks and not to care for the private sector in this way. All the efforts of taxation should surely always be devoted to that purpose. We constantly hear that there are budgetary limits to the NHS. It has emerged, particularly in the present ambulance dispute, that there are cash limits which must not
692
be broached. Well and good; but if that is really so it is fundamental for government to collect all the money that they can in taxation and use it in the wisest possible way, especially in the field of health provision for our whole community. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, criticise tax breaks in general. I am glad that he made that point and I hope that it is heard in government circles.
While the private sector should be recognised as a part of the life of this country. I believe that it is not the task of government to give it encouragement. It is quite naive to suppose that private health care can flourish and increase in this country without damaging the National Health Service. If I may make a personal reference on that point, I believe that the present Secretary of State has perhaps seen this. He has made the most of the fact that he and his family use the NHS. There is a story widely circulated —I have never heard it denied —that the Prime Minister has criticised the Secretary of State for Health for saying that he is using public facilities when he can afford to go private. That is a very dangerous argument indeed because it should surely be the duty of politicians in those positions to set an example in the use of the NHS, to show that they believe in it and that all the resources we can raise should be devoted to its improvement. It is a sad fact that the Government have encouraged private health care in recent years, and undoubtedly it has increased.
The Finance Act 1989 made provision for those on pensions, giving the equivalent of tax relief at the basic rate and reimbursing people over the age of 60 who take out health insurance. I believe that that was not merely a mistake but a very dangerous move. If it increased it could blow the whole NHS apart. I do not believe that that is extravagant language because we can see the principle being steadily eroded. The more this goes on, the more people in the community will say, "If I pay for private health insurance, why should I continue to pay for the NHS?" I hope that this will be reversed by this or a future government.
As regards the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, I think he is inconsistent in, on the one hand, criticising tax breaks and, on the other, at the same time asking the Government to go still further. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, quite correctly said that this was simply pushing the wedge in a little further. It involves the Government yet more in the provision of private health care. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply he will be quite specific on the point and say that the Government are not prepared to go down the road.
6.27 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend —as in the literal sense he is —on his initiative in putting this interesting proposal before your Lordships' House so powerfully. As he reminded us, the whole idea of giving tax relief for the private medical expenses of the over-65s is controversial. We have had reminders of this several times this afternoon already. I for one certainly share those misgivings. On balance I concluded that they

693
are probably just about justified on the purely pragmatic grounds that they will take some of the pressure off the National Health Service over the next few decades during a period when the elderly, particularly the over-80s, will form a larger and larger percentage of the population.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, may well be right in claiming that it will not take as much pressure off the NHS as the optimists imagine —I have to defer to his expertise in the matter —but he will surely conclude that it must take a little pressure off it, come what may. In any case, in consequence of the Finance Act 1989 these tax breaks are a fait accompli. There is nothing that I, the right reverend Prelate or anybody else can do about it.
I was delighted to hear the right reverend Prelate suggest something that I had not realised, I must admit. It was that the reliefs are to be limited to the basic rate of tax. I hope that when he comes to wind up the noble Earl will confirm that this is so. If that is the case, what a pity that tax relief on mortgage interest cannot also be limited to the basic rate of tax. That reform is long overdue.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. As a point of information, those paying tax at the higher rate must claim relief in the same way as on mortgage repayments. So I take it that it is not completely limited to that.
Lord Monson: My Lords, my optimism in that respect has to be dashed then. I hope that there will be time for the Government to think again about it and to limit this tax rate to the basic rate of tax. To do otherwise would be quite without merit.
Given that, willy-nilly, tax relief will be granted to the over 65s, whether it be at a top rate of 25 per cent. or 40 per cent., the question is, should it extend to direct payments to medical practitioners, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, has urged? In theory at any rate I should have thought that the answer was almost certainly yes. This Government have always been philosophically committed, in theory at any rate, to what has been described as "a level playing field" and to putting more decision-making into the hands of individuals. They are right to be so committed because the undesirable consequence of fiscal policies such as tax relief for pension contributions which concentrates too much power into the hands of institutions is already widely recognised.
Personal equity plans, for example, that were initiated by the previous Chancellor have been a great disappointment: I believe that that would be generally acknowledged. Most of them have failed to beat the various indices, mainly because of the high level of charges and commission deducted from both capital and accumulated income. If individuals had been allowed to set up and manage their own personal equity plans things might have been different and PEPs might have become much more popular and successful and had a favourable effect upon this country's balance of payments as more money would have been saved and less spent on consumer goods.
694
The same principle surely applies in the matter of providing for medical treatment, although I do not pretend that this has anything to do with the balance of payments. That is why the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, deserves serious consideration. There is a further reason which has not been mentioned, which is that people who do not join a private medical insurance scheme until the age of 65 or over, either because they could not afford to until that point or because they have spent the whole of their working lives abroad, perhaps performing a valuable job in a Commonwealth country before returning to this country, find it extremely difficult to get any medical cover. As far as I know, there is only one private insurance scheme which covers entrants at the age of 65 or above.
A further reason still is that conventional medical insurance does not cover osteopathic treatment. As anyone with the slightest personal experience of the matter knows, on 80 or 90 per cent. of occasions when conventional medical treatment fails, whether combined with physiotherapy or not, osteopathy does the trick. Therefore it must be to the benefit of the nation as a whole and to the NHS in particular, as well as to the suffering individuals concerned, to permit any such scheme to cover osteopathic treatment.
The undoubted snag, which I believe was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, is the extra costs that would be involved, as instead of a single insurance premium to be paid once a year every individual hospital or nursing home bill and every individual consultant's account would have to be carefully scrutinised. A host of additional civil servants would be required to perform such a scrutiny.
However, if some way could be found to overcome this undoubtedly difficult problem —there are always ways of overcoming problems if one tries hard enough —the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, has a great deal to commend it, not least because it epitomises the individualistic "stand on your own feet" philosophy espoused by the party to which he belongs.
Lord Rea: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down I should like to ask him a question. If I heard him correctly he said that if medical treatment fails, 70 or 80 per cent. of patients can have their condition put right by an osteopath. I should like him to give me the address of his osteopath as a number of my patients would be extremely grateful for that.
Lord Monson: My Lords, perhaps I did not make myself clear enough. I obviously did not mean that all medical conditions could be cured by an osteopath. However, I must say that in my experience and in the experience of a great many of my friends and acquaintances, where injuries to the back, limbs and joints have occurred, ordinary medical treatment, usually combined with physiotherapy, has not worked on more than half of those occasions. However, whenever we have seen an osteopath he has generally within a short time cleared up the condition in question.
6.34 p.m.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, it appears to me highly desirable that as chairman of BUPA, and after listening to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, I should declare an interest in this matter. I make it clear that my position as chairman is one that I hold with pride. I view with pride the fact that among the 3·25 million people that BUPA covers, we can count the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, as a subscriber. However, I must say that we have other subscribers who occasionally bestow rather more praise upon us than the noble Lord.
In the course of the debate this afternoon it was apparently relevant —it must have been, otherwise the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, would not have said so —for the noble Lord to indulge in a series of criticisms of BUPA. As that is relevant to him, it must be relevant for me to reply briefly to those criticisms. The noble Lord said that he wrote an article in the Daily Telegraph which aroused a great response. I am not in the least surprised as that is a reputable newspaper. However, the article contained more misstatements and inaccuracies than any other article I have ever seen on the subject. It is hardly surprising that a large number of people felt themselves misled by what was contained in the article. They felt their position to be imperilled and they proceeded to write to the noble Lord.
I shall give three examples from his speech today of the kind of misstatements the noble Lord made. The noble Lord said that senior citizens faced not only escalating charges but additional exclusions. That is totally false. There are no additional exclusions of any kind applied to elderly subscribers. That is proved by the simple fact that among our millions of insured people we have a large number of elderly subscribers. Overall somewhere between 96 to 97 per cent. of the hospital and surgical claims that we receive are paid in full. Therefore any suggestion that there are exclusions and that as people get older they are not being covered in some way is quite inaccurate.
Further, the noble Lord repeated the expression which he has been touting around the countryside and which he used on Manchester radio this morning that in BUPA's brochure is a misleading statement which states that as soon as one sees a specialist BUPA will cover the costs. Out of a 20-page document the noble Lord selects one sentence. He ignores a previous observation in the document which states that,
"all the hospitals within your chosen scale will be covered in full by BUPA".
The noble Lord ignores the fact that the sentence which he has extracted is not a sentence but only part of a sentence. The sentence reads:
"For instance, you are not covered for seeing a GP privately, but as soon as you have seen a specialist, BUPA will cover your costs".
That only applies obviously if one is on the appropriate scale. The noble Lord ignores the fact that the very sentence he quotes comes from a paragraph headed:
"What BUPACare does not cover".
696
The noble Lord ignores the next sentence following the one he quotes which states:
"You'll find a full list of costs not covered on page 19".
To suggest that that statement is in some way misleading is merely to take a few words out of their context.
The noble Lord said that the document from which I have been quoting is difficult to understand. It is a complicated document as this is a complex subject. However, I claim with perhaps a little satisfaction that this very document received the plain English award from the National Consumer Council. I am happy to say that most people appear to have found very little difficulty in understanding its provisions. I shall leave that matter there because I am sure that the noble Lord and I would agree that it is not a matter of great relevance or of interest to your Lordships that we should exchange observations of this kind across the Floor of the House in a debate of this nature.
Perhaps I may come to the point which was raised —if I may say so, not entirely to my surprise —in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, questioning the value of a private sector in medicine. It may be —I do not know —that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, may also have an observation of that nature to deliver.
The function of the private sector is two-fold. There is the philosophical function. It offers the citizen freedom of choice in an area where exercising that freedom will not damage other people's freedom of choice. Secondly, and much more importantly in a way, it provides a very real contribution to the health care of the community.
The fundamental problem with having a National Health Service which the private sector entirely supports is that it is impossible to have a centrally-funded tax-based system of health care which will provide completely for everybody's needs. Whether the provision of the present Government be adequate or whether the provision that the Opposition would propose be adequate, I do not believe there is any politician in any party who could put his hand on his heart and say that there is the remotest possibility in the foreseeable future of the NHS providing first class treatment, in reasonable conditions with the latest equipment, to every member of the community as soon as he or she needs it. It is simply not possible, partly because of the vast increase in technological costs, partly because of the fact that people's expectations have risen so rapidly, and partly for the demographic reason that there are so many elderly people now in the community.
In those circumstances, where there is that position and where state resources are always going to be inadequate. I give way—
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for giving way. If one accepts his premise that it is impossible to satisfy the needs, is he really saying that the needs should be satisfied of those who possess the financial resources and not determined on other criteria?
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, all I am saying is that where the needs cannot be satisfied by the state it is in the public interest that there should be an increase in the amount of resources devoted to the health care of the community. If that volume of resources cannot be forthcoming from the National Health Service alone, it is very much in the interests not only of the NHS itself but of the community as a whole that it should be supplemented by every possible source. It seems to me self-evident that if the private sector, which is very small —it only covers some 5 million people at present —can be encouraged to grow, it is bound to reduce to some extent the number of people who are dependent on the National Health Service. That is self-evident. If that can be done it is equally self evident that the limited amount of resources necessarily available for the NHS can be applied to looking after a rather smaller number of people than would otherwise be the case. There is bound to be treatment available to them in those circumstances which is not available at present.
I venture to say that that is a simple fact which is recognised by everyone outside Westminster. It is recognised by everyone who is not a doctrinaire politician, a doctrinaire doctor or —if there is such a creature —a doctrinaire bishop. The professionals, the people who are actually engaged in delivering health care, are concerned with making sick people better. Throughout the country in hospitals, in medical centres, in industry with occupational health, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and those who are somewhat less skilled, work quite happily side by side curing sick people without bothering their heads as to whether they are in the private sector or the NHS. Not only that; there is very substantial co-operation in training, facilities, equipment, laboratory work and so forth. It is not all one way because the private sector, although small, has made a substantial contribution in many ways to the progress and prosperity of the NHS. In addition to that co-operation there is a very strong element of competition, which is good for both sectors.
That deals with the people who work in the health field. What about the patients? I have heard and seen patients coming to after an operation. They say "Am I better?". They do not say "Doctor, am I in the state sector or the private sector?" It does not worry the patient in the least where he or she is. His or her concern is simply to get the best first-class treatment.
I knew that it would be impossible to hold this debate without someone using the words "two-tier system". Those words were spoken in due course. In some ways they constitute the "in" cliché in terms of health care. No one talks about two-tier motor cars, two-tier holidays or two-tier houses, but for some reason those words are constantly used with health care. Let me make it quite clear that if a two-tier system meant that people with money would get superior medical care I would be as much against it as the right reverend Prelate. It means only that the people who go private do so because, first they may want a particular consultant; secondly, they may want an operation done at a particularly convenient
698
time; thirdly, they may want particular facilities in the hospital; fourthly, and often very importantly, they may want privacy for themselves. The day has not come, and I hope it never will, when people go private because they will get better health care. There I agree with the right reverend Prelate.
If I am broadly right, as I believe I am, in saying that the private sector therefore has a contribution to make, the problem is how the growth of the private sector can be sensibly encouraged by a government. The answer is surely to increase the number of people who are medically insured. It would be possible to try to encourage people to cover themselves privately, but the costs are enormous and present experience is that much less than 1 per cent. of the population is involved in any attempt to use the private sector without medical insurance.
How does one encourage the growth of the private sector therefore? The answer comes down to the fact that there is a particular problem with elderly people. Any insurer has to link the likely risk against the claim. That has to be balanced out. It is a fact that once people get to their sixties their medical claims are four or five times as much as they were when they were in their thirties or forties. Therefore it is inevitable unless there is going to be a degree of cross-subsidisation, which would not be very desirable, that premiums for privately insured elderly people have to be substantially higher than those for younger people.
Not only do the premiums have to be higher because treatment costs are so much greater, but the rise in premium occurs all too often at the very time when those elderly people have ceased to work, have lost their regular salary and have started to live on a pension. That is a very real problem. There is a temptation for elderly people in that situation to leave the private sector and go back—as a burden, inevitably, to some extent —to the National Health Service.
That is where the Government's proposal for tax relief is crucial —for elderly people only. Neither I nor BUPA has suggested that it should be extended beyond elderly people. It will not encourage many people who are not at the moment insured to join, but it will encourage a large number of those who have joined to remain insured when they reach the age of 60 or 65 instead of drifting from the private sector back into the NHS. Every time those elderly people, through insurance, use a private hospital, it is a direct gain to the NHS and to the users of the NHS.
Perhaps I may turn finally to a point that has attracted little attention in the debate; namely, the terms of the Motion. The proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, seeks to extend to other elderly users of the private sector, who are not insured, tax relief similar to that which is extended to the insured. That is not a fanciful proposition. The noble Lord will be aware that it has been adopted in some other countries. Ireland is one example where it is extensively used.
Nevertheless, the proposal to extend the system in that way gives rise to certain problems. The first and principal problem is that those engaged in health

699
insurance very sensibly and properly seek to moderate the charges of the hospitals and doctors in order that premiums might be kept down and that the number of subscribers might increase; thus, the more subscribers, the larger the private sector, which is ultimately to the benefit of the hospitals and doctors who find themselves under some price restraint as a result of discussions and negotiations with the medical insurers. If the same relief were extended to those who go private but who are not insured, there would be no pressure in those cases for costs to be kept down. Medical inflation, which is already serious, might well rise even more rapidly and medical costs might go sky high. That is the danger of the noble Lord's proposal. It is not wrong in principle, but it may be undesirable in practice for that reason. There are also obvious administrative complications which are not for me to outline. If I am right in suspecting such complications, it is for the Government to indicate them when the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, replies.
In conclusion, tax relief for private treatment for non-insured patients is practicable. But there are practical dangers which do not make it a very attractive alternative. As to the matter with which I began, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, for bringing forward this apposite Motion. Perhaps I may suggest to him, politely and with the utmost goodwill, that what is in danger of becoming a vendetta between him and the organisation that I represent might perhaps now come to a peaceful and happy end.
6.54 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, will forgive me if I do not enter in detail into the differences that have apparently arisen between the organisation of which he is the distinguished chief and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne. This is not the occasion to examine in detail the proposals made by the Government in the last Budget and enshrined in Sections 54 to 57 of the Finance Act by virtue of which those over 60 years of age have paid insurance premiums—that is what they are—to the various organisations concerned in BUPA. It would not be profitable to discuss the proposals now because the regulations which stipulate the details of the scheme that will come into operation on 5th April have only just been laid and will come to the House for discussion through the usual channel on the normal agenda of the House. That would be the occasion for the consideration of the proposals and the position of insurance companies and operators such as BUPA and Crusade Insurance.
Noble Lords will recall the first details of the Government's proposal to devote £40 million of the funds available to them for the purposes that they described. There was one press release on 14th March and another from the Inland Revenue on 15th July which was somewhat complex and which, I am told, BUPA and other insurance companies or providers of private health are still studying. There is also Order No. 23/89 which is itself a complex
700
document and has still to be discussed here. I do not wish to set out tonight the detailed arguments that I shall use at a later stage because it would be more appropriate to do so then.
The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, is in two parts. The first refers to the scheme which comes into operation on 5th April by virtue of which, subject to various conditions, some £40 million will be paid on behalf of those over the age of 60 who qualify. That is a quite considerable sum of money. In general, the onus lies on those who put forward the scheme to prove that it is in the best national interest so to do. We should bear in mind that, if put into the National Health Service, £40 million a year would fund the employment of 2,000 extra nurses or the undertaking of 20,000 hip operations.
The arguments put forward by my noble friend Lord Rea and by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester have some relevance here. If £40 million is available as it obviously is—otherwise it would not be given by way of relief—where should it go? What should the priority be? The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, mentioned some reasons why individuals in possession of money sought to enter the private schemes or be covered by them. He mentioned greater convenience, privacy and a number of other factors.
One point that he did not mention was that it enabled people to jump the queue. That is the one thing that he omitted to say. Undoubtedly all that the £40 million relief, which quite clearly could have been available for other purposes, does is encourage people who are already in the upper income bracket. Not all people over 60 or 65 are in the upper income bracket. It enables them to jump the queue. It enables them to pre-empt resources that would otherwise be available for the National Health Service as a whole.
Indeed, it is particularly poignant when speaking of priorities to note that that £40 million concession goes to that section of taxpayers in the United Kingdom which has already been very well dealt with by previous Chancellors of the Exchequer by way of tax reliefs. It goes to those people who do not need it at a time when half that sum—half the £40 million—would have settled the entire pay rise claimed by the ambulance personnel, who are held in high respect in the United Kingdom. That is the pity of it. It is humbug to suggest that all the over-65s are on the same level and that they all have equivalent resources.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, in the course of his earlier remarks seemed to think that this measure would benefit all those over the age of 65. As he well knows, most of them have no resources which would entitle them to any kind of tax relief at all. The proposal itself is all the more immoral because everybody, including those who are in the schemes to which the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, referred, are also in the National Health Service itself. Large numbers of those who subscribe to BUPA and the other societies at the age of 65 still get their prescriptions free from their ordinary medical practitioner. If it suits them, they attend the surgeries of their own general practitioner when they want

701
advice on a comparatively small matter or for a preliminary diagnosis. This relief simply gives encouragement to people to exercise the power of money.
Lord Wigoder: My Lords, the noble Lord will agree that those to whom he is referring, when they use the private sector are also paying their taxes for the National Health Service.
Lord Bruce of Donington: Yes, indeed, my Lords. That was the whole reason the National Health Service was set up in the form in which it was founded. It was thought by those who founded it—and I was very close to its founder—that it would be unfair to exclude from the National Health Service those who contributed by paying higher rates of tax. It was to be open to all. There was no question of excluding people of a certain income level. Indeed, as is well known, 99 per cent. of the population joined it.
As I said, we shall deal in greater detail with the BUPA position and that of the other societies when this House considers the order. Suffice it to say that there are certain areas which are still not covered by BUPA or any other society. First of all, there is a financial limitation on certain forms of treatment, which was referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Bruce-Gardyne and Lord Wigoder. One thing that BUPA and such societies do not undertake save under conditions of very high payment indeed—if at all—is cover for chronic illness that requires treatment over a protracted period of time. Care in cases of chronic illness that cannot be dealt with within two or three months or so is not covered by any of the existing schemes.
The second part of the noble Lord's Motion does not deal with the question of tax relief on premiums, which, as I said, is covered by the order to which I referred and which this House still has to discuss. It concerns tax relief on payments made by the patient direct to medical practitioners and others. My noble friend Lord Rea has already dealt with the health economics relating to direct payments. Quite clearly, if that were done it would further damage the National Health Service. It would further secure priority for people who can pay over those who unfortunately will still have to remain in the queue and cannot pay.
I do not know the extent to which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, is in agreement with the Prime Minister on this matter. In a remarkable statement made at the end of July the Prime Minister delivered herself of the following observation:
"We shall make the National Health Service so good that nobody will want to go private".
I must ask the noble Earl who will reply for the Government whether that is still official government policy. I have to ask that question because the Prime Minister used the word "we". I am not quite sure whether she was using it, as she sometimes does, in the semi-regal sense or whether she was using "we" to cover herself and her Cabinet. But if that is true, it would seem that not for the first time there is some dichotomy of thought within Her Majesty's Government. Quite clearly, if the Prime Minister
702
fulfils that intention and carries the Cabinet with her nobody will want private medical care. One can understand the reasons for that.
So the first question that I must ask—I should like the noble Earl to reply unequivocally—is whether that represents the policies of Her Majesty's Government. If it still represents the policies of Her Majesty's Government I then ask whether in the next Budget they intend to repeal Sections 54 to 57 of the Finance Act 1989 under which those privileges of tax relief were granted to that specified group of persons. On the other hand, if the noble Earl cannot confirm that such is the Government's policy, when does the Cabinet, to whose members I have referred somewhat irreverently in the past as hypnotised hamsters, intend to reproach her with the utterance that she made on its behalf?
Secondly, I should like to ask the noble Earl whether any estimate or assessment has been made of the likely cost of the extra relief proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce-Gardyne, in having tax rebates on payments made direct by ordinary individuals ouside the health service. In that connection, although the noble Lord did not read out the entire letter that he received from the Treasury Minister, I was surprised at its mild and ambiguous terms. It seems that the Government's objection to the noble Lord's scheme lay not so much in its cost—although that was mentioned marginally—but in its administration. In administrative terms it would create extra bureaucracy and organisation, therefore there was something reprehensible about it.
Although the noble Lord did not reproduce the letter in its entirety, what surprised me, in particular in the light of the Prime Minister's observation, which has now become one of the sayings of the year, is that there was not an objection in principle by the Treasury to the proposals put forward by the noble Lord.
Our position on these Benches is quite clear. We object in principle to these matters. We object not only to the amendments to the service which have been incorporated in Sections 54 to 57 of the Finance Act 1989 but also to the proposals that have been put forward by the noble Lord today.
I speak for my party. We stand firmly behind the principles enshrined in the original National Health Service which was introduced by our Government immediately following the war: that there should be a universal service in which the needs of the individual would be the paramount consideration; and that it should be free, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said, at the time of its use, to relieve any further anxiety that is the natural lot of those who find themselves ill in a variety of circumstances. We stand by those principles.
We quite understand that privately people may make other arrangements in order to secure treatments, possibly in different parts of the country, or by people to whom they have been recommended. We therefore do not object to the existence of the private sector. However, this much we insist upon. In the United Kingdom there are those who are not

703
blessed with great wealth, who are not fundamentally secure or enjoying the security that quite considerable possessions and higher salaries confer. In the fashion of the old hospices of the Middle Ages, the service should be primarily, although not exclusively, concerned with tending the sick, in particular those who are poor, cannot look after themselves and cannot afford private provision.
That is the essence of the social morality that should lie behind any health proposals and health service. Persons should not be asked—as I am afraid they are in other parts of the world after they are brought in, even after an accident—when they open their eyes, "Where is your credit card?" We do not want that kind of society here. We want a better society. The way in which we look after our health, and in particular that of the weaker and poorer members of our society, should give us the rating to which Britain ought to be entitled as a civilised society.
7.15 p.m.
The Paymaster General (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, it was typical of the nature of my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne that he introduced the debate in your Lordships' House this evening in the way that he did. If I may be allowed to say this to him, there was absolutely no need for apology. The noble Lord has raised an important matter. It has led to a most interesting debate. I am glad that so many noble Lords took part. Contrary to the right reverend Prelate, who would like quantity, I prefer quality; and often brevity leads to better quality. That is something that noble Lords are often rather good at.
I am pleased to have this opportunity to explain the provisions for tax relief on private medical insurance premiums, to be introduced this April, and to reply to the points raised. Some of those points were considered by us when the relief was introduced, and I shall deal with those general issues first.
The Government's general approach to taxation has been to cut the rate of tax and at the same time to reduce the number of tax reliefs and exemptions which influence individuals' choices and distort markets. However, our approach has been flexible, and we accept there may be certain areas where tax reliefs are justified to achieve specific objectives.
This new relief was announced as part of the Government's reform of the health service proposed in the White Paper Working for Patients, which was published on 31st January 1989. One of the themes of the White Paper was to encourage the public and private health sectors to work together, to learn from each other, support each other and provide services for each other. The intention is that, by encouraging the development of health services in the private sector, the diversity of provision and choice of health care will be increased.
The private health sector has grown significantly over the past decade, and a major factor in this growth has been the spread of private medical
704
insurance. Company schemes have played an important role in this, but we should not forget that half a million trade unionists have such insurance. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, described them in fluent words as in the category of the upper income bracket; they have great wealth.
This growth has meant that since 1980 the number of people covered by private medical insurance has increased by some 50 per cent. to around 5.5 million people at present. This represents approximately 10 per cent. of the population. But if one looks at those people over 60 the percentage of those covered is only 5 per cent—half that of the population as a whole.
Part of the reason for that was clearly enunciated by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne and the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder. It is that when people retire they often find it difficult to continue their insurance cover. Because of their age, premiums tend to rise at a time when their income falls. It is precisely to counteract this problem, to help to overcome it and to enable people to maintain their insurance cover in retirement, that we are introducing tax relief on premiums for such cover, and that cover will of course affect the trade unionists. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, supports that.
I have mentioned that our general approach to taxation has been to cut the rate of tax but at the same time to reduce the number of tax reliefs and exemptions. Thus it would not be appropriate to introduce a general relief for private medical care and the measure that we have introduced is designed to address a specific problem; namely, that people often find it difficult to continue their insurance cover when they retire.
The relief then, is a limited measure to address that difficulty and will help people to make the continuing commitment to private medical cover in retirement. In contrast, the market for direct payment for medical services is well developed and one does not in general see the same increase with age in cost of an operation that one does with insurance premiums.
The relief serves a secondary purpose: to alleviate pressure on the NHS. Thus the types of treatment that can be offered are restricted to those that are more often carried out free within the NHS than in a pay bed or privately. In this way, those who continue to have their medical treatment within the NHS will also benefit, because—contrary to the views of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester—the increasing numbers who choose to take treatment privately will help to reduce the pressure on NHS waiting lists. I know that the right reverend Prelate will forgive me for not following his thesis on the NHS. That is not because it is not interesting or important but because it is not the Motion on the Order Paper. It will not surprise him to know that I disagree with much of what he said.
Consistent with the targeted approach that we have adopted the relief will be available on premiums where the insurance contract covers an individual over the age of 60. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, was right to remind us of that;

705
it is not over the age of 65 as appears on the Order Paper. I know that my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne knows that the contract refers to the age of 60. It covers an individual over the age of 60 years, a married couple where one partner is over 60 or a group of people over 60. Relief is available even where a younger individual pays on behalf of someone over 60. Typically, this may be where a son or daughter pays the premiums for his or her parents. Relief is given at source like MIRAS for mortgages so that only a net premium will need to be paid to the insurer. It means that even where a subscriber is not liable for tax, relief will still be given. It also enables a small central unit in the Inland Revenue to administer the relief and minimise bureaucracy.
I should like to comment on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. I confirm that the relief is not limited to the basic rate but applies to those on a higher rate in line with other tax reliefs.
To introduce a more general relief, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne, for direct medical costs as against insurance premiums would not directly help the NHS. The scheme that he put forward is based on the letter that he received from Mr. Rushton and he was kind enough to provide me with a copy. The market for direct payments is, in any case, well developed.
There is a further point. It concerns the administrative difficulties of a general relief. The Inland Revenue would need to ensure that individual claims met the criteria for tax relief. Inevitably bills from hospitals, consultants and ancillary services would need to be verified. That would not be impossible but it would increase bureaucracy, By contrast, the relief that we have introduced will be administered by a small central unit dealing with medical insurers. I know that as a former Treasury Minister my noble friend may say that he has heard that revenue argument before. But that does not make it any less true.
My noble friend may not have a high opinion of medical insurers but the fact is that many people find it convenient to take out insurance in order to pay for private treatment. That is the route chosen by four out of every five people who use private hospitals. I suggest to your Lordships that that is hardly an indication that the service delivered by insurers is poor. Rather the figures indicate a successful sector and satisfied customers.
In general, contrasts of medical insurance do not provide unlimited cover for all possible ills. Similarly, they do not usually provide for long-term care but concentrate on the treatment of illnesses when they are in their acute stage. Schemes on offer vary considerably and there is now an excellent range from which to choose. I believe that that was the point being made by my honourable friend the Financial Secretary when he wrote to my noble friend. They vary from comprehensive schemes at one end of the scale to budget schemes which provide only limited cover at the other. An individual can select a scheme that best suits his or her personal needs both in relation to the level of cover required and the premium payable.
706
Private medical insurance has proved popular and the number of people covered increased by around 50 per cent. during the past decade. The measure that we have introduced will further increase its competition. The number and range of schemes on offer should also rise. This will improve the choice for the individual who should have little difficulty in finding a scheme that suits his or her particular circumstances. However, I believe that in that respect my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne has a point. It is one which we all face when we join any scheme or look at any contract: one needs to be aware of what the contract offers. I have no doubt that, as with all other contracts, those who take out private medical insurance will wish to know what their benefits will be in advance of putting their name to the scheme.
I know that what I have said in answer to the question of the alleviation of direct costs will disappoint my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne and the noble Lord, Lord Monson. But I wonder whether they can think of a scheme, cost the tax relief, assess the take-up and the benefit to the NHS, which is an integral part of our scheme, and the cost of administration. They will see how difficult it is to implement what appears to be a good idea. On top of that I know that my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne, as a former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, would also wish to assess whether the money could be better spent elsewhere.
I turn to a question put by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. It is difficult to assess the cost of the proposal put forward by my noble friend. It has not been possible to assess the precise cost without the necessary details I have suggested. However, the cost would be considerably more substantial than the £40 million for relief that we have introduced.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, I shall not follow down the path of the BUPA controversy. However, I should like to take up a point raised by my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne. It is the question of whether the relief that we have proposed will push people into the arms of insurers who do not provide a full range of cover. Broadly speaking, the independent sector mirrors the NHS in providing a very wide range of treatments and services. But no individual hospital or nursing home in either sector is likely to provide the full range. We have always recognised that the private sector cannot do everything that the NHS can do but that is no reason why it should not take pressure off the NHS in areas where it can help.
In general, contracts of medical insurance do not provide unlimited cover for all possible ills. Similarly, they do not usually provide for long-term care but concentrate on the treatment of illnesses when they are in their acute stage. That is more to do with the nature of the insurance than with the range and standards of care which the private sector can and does offer. Schemes on offer vary considerably and there is now an excellent range from which to choose. As I have said, they vary from comprehensive schemes at one end of the scale to budget schemes which provide only limited cover at

707
the other. An individual can select the scheme that best suits his or her personal needs.
There may be individuals who find that their insurance is not as extensive as they thought. Indeed, my noble friend has referred to some advertising being misleading. Any advertising placed by medical insurers is subject to the same restrictions as that placed by any company and it can be dealt with by using well-established channels. In addition, the insurers are regulated by the Department of Trade and Industry which has a duty to check that the insurers are fit and proper to offer insurance. It is also able to investigate complaints from the public and, overall, the customer has very good protection. Many people find it convenient to take out insurance to pay for private treatment and that is the route chosen by four out of every five people who use private hospitals.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said that the cost of the tax relief will divert resources away from the NHS making worse the difficulties of the NHS. That point was picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington. I reassure your Lordships that there is no question that the Government are not fully committed to the NHS. The Government have committed enormous resources to the NHS. Gross spending on the NHS for 1990–91 is bound to be some £28.8 billion. The projected cost of the tax relief in 1990–91 is only £40 million; less than 0.15 per cent. of the total NHS spending. The Government have made clear the fact that the NHS will continue to be available to all regardless of income and that it will be financed mainly from general taxation. I can certainly reassure your Lordships that the NHS is safe in the Government's hands and that we wish to maintain and improve the standards that it offers.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, stated that the NHS would benefit from a direct injection of £40 million. Who can dispute that? However, what was illogical in the noble Lord's argument was that he did not in any way try to assess the benefits to the NHS of the scheme which we propose. One of the effects of the relief will be to encourage individuals to take treatment privately rather than under the NHS. Such treatment will often be of the type where NHS provision is most under pressure. The NHS and those of us who continue to be treated by it will therefore benefit.
I thought that the noble Lord was in fine voice today. He waxed lyrical about the principles of the NHS. Those were fine words but, alas, one can look back and see that the Labour Party, whenever it was in power, organised its finances so badly that it could not give to the NHS the full resources that it needed in contrast to what this Government have been able to produce. I am sure that on reflection the noble Lord will see what a good job we have done for the NHS.
In conclusion, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bruce-Gardyne for raising this Question. I have carefully noted what he said about medical insurance but I remain convinced that to give tax relief for
708
direct medical expenditure is neither desirable nor practicable. However, I am convinced that we have a workable and worthwhile scheme which will get off to a good start in April. I look forward to discussing it in more detail with the noble Lord in due course.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, will he answer the first question which I put to him, where, as he will recall, I gave him the citation and the precise words used by the Prime Minister in July last which has become the most renowned saying of the year? I asked the Minister whether what the Prime Minister said represents government policy and whether the Government stand firmly and squarely behind the statement that she made.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, as I have indicated already, the Government are totally committed to the NHS and to increasing resources.
Lord Bruce-Gardyne: My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this debate. Needless to say, my noble friend's reply did not entirely console me, but I hope that we can look at these matters further. In the meantime, I am very grateful to all those who have taken part and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Transport Policy
7.32 p.m.
Lord Mountevans Lord Mountevans rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether present policies towards road and rail reflect each mode's potential to satisfy the nations future transport needs.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, at the outset I declare an interest and also my gratitude to other noble Lords who have put their names down to speak in this debate. I do not intend to call for more investment in rail or road. The Government's recently announced plans for some £12 billion of expenditure (possibly increased by privately funded toll roads) seem to me more than enough. In respect of rail, Sir Robert Reid's remarks to the Institute of Transport that BR's annual level of investment, running at about £1·25 billion per annum, is about the maximum that it can physically manage deserved wider publicity than they received.
I am more concerned about the conclusions reached by the European Conference of Transport Ministers during the recent period of British chairmanship when they collectively agreed that mobility is essential to economic development and that transport users should bear the costs which they impose on the infrastructure and the environment. Those are European sentiments which I think we can all share. Close at home we are all aware of industry's needs for efficient transport. They were articulated by the CBI in its recent report Trade Routes to the Future. That report was unanimously adopted as policy at the confederation's conference last autumn.
We are also aware of the transport requirements posed by our need to be competitive in a single European market and of the opportunities posed by the Channel Tunnel. At a purely personal level we are all aware of the problems of congestion and we cannot ignore the demands of the environment. It seems to me that all those matters have an influence on the financing of transport investment, which in turn has an influence on how or if users pay.
British Rail's investments are largely funded by internally generated funds. By far the largest source of funding, if I read its corporate plan correctly, comes from fares and charges. Those are expected to rise at a greater level than inflation. The user is quite rightly paying his share of investment costs and can be expected to go on doing so provided that fare increases do not reach a level which will drive him to use other transport modes. I believe that the principal choice is in fact only one mode; namely, road transport.
The second largest source of funding for BR is its highly successful property board which raises money by disposal of assets, rental income and joint ventures. Income from that source reached a peak last year, is expected to fall a little this year, recover slightly next year and then fall quite sharply through 1993–94. Therefore, I wonder whether we can really look to the property board as an ongoing and major source of finance for British Rail's investment.
Thirdly, there is the public service obligation grant which includes an element for investment, renewal and replacement. However, we must remember that that PSO grant has been falling and will fall yet further. In fact by 1993 it should be payable only in respect of the provincial network. As a source of investment funds I feel that the grant will fall in terms of importance.
The fourth major source is borrowings from the Treasury. In recent years BR has been a repayer under that heading but it will become a borrower as its share of major privately financed ventures like the London to Channel Tunnel link costs come on stream. One must not overlook the fact that in terms of the sources which I have already described the fare payer or freight customer—the user—will be funding the interest and eventual repayments of those loans.
One other major financial source of income is private capital. As I welcomed in my opening remarks the possibility of private capital for roads in joint ventures such as the Channel link and the Heathrow express, so I hope we shall make progress in finding private capital for rail.
How attractive are such opportunities for the private sector? Returns are certainly not particularly eye-catching if perceived through the short-termist City eyes with which we now seem to have to live. Meanwhile, the legislative process is quite simply discouraging and one can only repeat the hope—because that hope has been stated before in this House and, indeed, in another place—that both Houses will find a formula more appealing in terms of the private sector's potential to contribute towards our infrastructure costs. The private Bill procedure must be simplified.
There are other lesser sources of funding such as the welcome contribution to investment made by the passenger transport authorities. On the horizon there is the possibility of capital grants. They have hitherto been available under some circumstances to those building metro railways in provincial cities but have only recently been an option to British Rail.
Last month the Secretary of State published new objectives for British Rail. Hitherto in terms of investment any BR proposal for investment had to demonstrate an 8 per cent. return on the assets, but in setting out the new objectives, the Secretary of State announced that where such a rate could not be demonstrated, BR and the Department of Transport should carry out a cost-benefit analysis to see whether capital grants would be justifiable on wider social or economic grounds. That was another remark that did not receive the publicity it deserved.
I should like to ask the noble Viscount, Lord Davidson, whether it is an option for part-funding of, say, the London cross-rail proposals. It seems to me a far more rational approach to solving our congestion problems than does the recently announced but unspecified level of private funding contributing to the unquantified costs of the Jubilee Line extension. That is an instance where, for me at least, the availability of some private sector funding seems to have given us the least useful of the many rail proposals being discussed for London.
Alternatively, I ask the noble Viscount whether grant is a possibility for longer projects such as electrifying the North or South Wales railway lines. For example, the EC is keen on the electrification of the North Wales line. Our friends in Ireland are also keen on electrification. Would grant be a feasibility in funding or part-funding the Midland main line electrification? I tend to think that that and the Edinburgh-Glasgow northern electrification are probably the two most desirable electrification projects at the moment, but British Rail cannot justify either of them on the return on assets criteria. The remarks of the Secretary of State were somewhat hedged with "ifs" and "buts"; however—and this is only a possibility—is grant only a matter for urban projects such as the proposed suburban electrification in Birmingham?
Let me now turn to the sources of road investment funds. If I am briefer than I have been on rail it is because road financing is much more simple—almost entirely from public funds. I do not dismiss the contribution made towards direct costs by the road haulage industry; nor do I overlook the contributions made by private developers in local contexts. I hope, as I have already said, that the Government will be successful in attracting private funding for road development, but I wonder whether the noble Viscount can report on progress.
In the longer term, because it is mostly private funding, it seems to me that the principal source of road investment will continue to be the nation as a whole. At a lower level this means the corporate and the personal taxpayer, whether the tax be national or local. As long as that remains the case, the roads ability to deliver point to point, from A to B, at any time of day or night will always seem more attractive

711
than rail's ability to move large volumes of passengers and bulk shipments of freight.
The investment regime seems to distort the picture in terms of even-handed competition. This distortion recurs in terms of payment for use. The rail passenger pays his fare. The road user hardly ever pays a toll. The rail user pays through his fares for the policing of the railway network; he pays for litter removal. It is worth mentioning that the green Bill, given its Second Reading in another place last night, puts additional obligations on the railways in this respect. The rail user pays for the listed buildings. There are whole books on the number of listed buildings which the railways preserve. I assume that there are listed structures on the roads, but I also assume that, again, they are paid for out of the great national pot. The road user finds all these costs borne by the nation—lucky road user!
Turning to safety, the Government have published their aim to reduce road casualties by one-third before the end of the decade. That is a very laudable aim, not least when one notes that over 5,000 people were killed on the roads in 1988, whereas the rail figure was 97. The average figure for deaths on the railways over the five years to 1988—here I quote the railways inspectorate's annual report—was only 79, a rather smaller number than were killed on the roads of Dorset in the first 11 months of last year. Indeed, it is a considerably smaller number than those killed on the roads of Hampshire in the months of June, July, August and September last year.
Who pays for the Government's road safety policy? Once again it seems to me that it will largely be the nation as a whole. We know that British Rail's investment plans over the next three years include £125 million for safety and that availability of money will not stand in the way of implementing the Hidden recommendations arising out of the tragedy at Clapham Junction. Who will provide this money? The form book suggests that it will be the rail user. Rail is already treated differently from road in that British Rail bears the full costs of the consequences of its accidents, whereas the costs of road accidents are divided between insurance companies and a whole range of spending departments and local authority bodies.
Before I summarise my sentiments I should like briefly to raise two matters. The first is the so-called Section 8 grant whereby governments can contribute to the costs of railway sidings and rolling stock if this diverts freight from road to rail. In terms of a national transport policy that would seem to be a very practical and sensible proposal. However, it is a laudable concept that has rather fallen into disuse as awards are governed principally by effects measured purely in local terms and taking little or no account of the increasing number of bypasses and motorways that are being built.
I urge the Government to rethink the criterion, not least because it switches freight away from road and thus reduces congestion but also because of the potential arising out of the Channel Tunnel. I can see—I have said this before—a situation where, because of the number of private sidings, particularly
712
in France and Germany, and because of the wagonload of business that is done by the railways in France and Germany, material will be railed to the first convenient point on this side of the Channel Tunnel and then transferred to road instead of going by rail from one end to the other.
I also ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking in respect of the increasing number of instances of road vehicles hitting railway bridges. I have become aware of that in the past two years because three times in that period I have been delayed on a train because a bridge down the line was hit. I am also aware that the railways inspectorate is increasingly aware of this problem. Again, its annual report says that the number of instances where a road vehicle hit a railway bridge rose by over one-third to over 400 occurrences; that is more than one a day. The inspectorate notes that that figure includes a threefold increase of serious incidents. A serious incident is where the track is so distorted that an oncoming train might be derailed, with possibly a major accident.
We have had King's Cross and a very thorough analysis by judicial inquiry of the consequences of fire. We have had Clapham with an equally thorough analysis of the consequences of failure to look after safety. Are we now to have a third major inquiry when we have a substantial rail disaster resulting from a road vehicle hitting a railway bridge?
In exploring the relationship between rail and road I have not asked for more subsidy because I share the view of the Government that subsidy is a matter of need, not of right. Nor have I asked for more investment. What I should like to see is a more even-handed approach to investment appraisal. The 8 per cent. rule applied to railways is, I feel, discriminatory when contrasted with the cost benefit criteria applied to roads. I also ask that road users pay a greater share directly of the costs related to their use of roads. The method for so doing I leave to others, though I notice that think tanks of both political persuasions go against the Government in that the think tanks favour road pricing. That is, I believe, the equitable way to ensure the fair competition between transport modes that Her Majesty's Government seek to achieve.
7.50 p.m.
Earl Attlee: My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, upon tabling this Unstarred Question,
"To ask Her Majesty's Government whether present policies towards road and rail reflect each mode's potential to satisfy the nation's future transport needs".
I regret to say that in my opinion the answer has to be an emphatic no. In talking about road and rail I shall not be mentioning anything about London because next Wednesday the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, will initiate a short debate that covers this subject. I might mention freight on road and rail; therefore, I should declare an interest. The public relations company of which I am chairman has as one of its clients the firm of Tiphook Plc which is the largest container rental company in Europe. I must also mention the fact that I am in receipt of a British Rail pension.

713
When we discussed in this House the deregulation of buses and coaches, we said that if it went ahead passengers would get a poor deal, services would decline and costs would increase. In addition, many small villages would be without any bus service whatever. We have been proved right in that respect. There has been a dramatic drop in passenger miles and in all aspects of business to do with buses and coaches.
Turning to motorways I mention the M.25. We are now told that a fourth lane is to be introduced in each direction. I used to believe that this need was the fault of the planners and I wondered why on earth the fourth lane was not built originally. I have been reliably informed that the reason is that the developers were given so much with which to build the orbital road around London and only three lanes could be afforded. When the bridges were being built I would like to know why they were not extended slightly so that if in the future one wished to build a fourth lane there would be no need to demolish the existing bridges.
We are told that the Government are thinking of allowing overtaking on motorways on the inside. A person wrote to the Daily Mail last week and said that this idea was very similar to someone trying to give up smoking and being provided with larger ashtrays. A few days later an American gentleman wrote to the Daily Telegraph and said, "Whatever you do, do not allow overtaking on the inside. We have it in the United States and it is dangerous". I concur with that.
I normally find myself travelling on the M.25 which carries a vast volume of traffic. However, one can be in the middle lane and looking a mile or two miles' ahead see one vehicle on the nearside lane. People will not move over to the nearside lane. It is ridiculous. My fear is that if we have a fourth lane the same situation will occur. Instead of having one lane under-utilised there will be two. It seems to me that so many are not moving over that we should get the police to do something about it.
The same can be said about tailgating. We have had recently a very bad accident in fog on the motorway which people alttribute to all kinds of things. It is not so much a question of speed, but when travelling at 50 or 60 miles per hour cars are so close to each other that it would be impossible to get one car between them. Therefore, if one car brakes there is a smash. If you are a good driver and keep a decent distance from the car in front, you will eventually find yourself being overtaken and you have to pull back further. I believe the good rule is the rule of three. You watch the car in front pass a marker on the road and if you can count to three before you reach that point then you are travelling at a safe distance. If the count is under three then you are too close.
I shall not mention facilities for disabled drivers because I feel sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, will be dealing with the matter. I see that the noble Baroness shakes her head, but I shall still not mention the subject. Reliable studies indicate that if the amount of freight going by rail was doubled it would reduce the amount of freight on the road
714
by only 10 per cent. and that reduction would not be noticed.
I now turn to the subject of rail. As noble Lords know, whenever the subject of British Rail arises I defend it and not because I am in receipt of a pension from British Rail. I worked for seven years as the assistant public relations officer at Waterloo so I know of the problems. Until the other day I can honestly say that I had never criticised British Rail. I was going home the other night in the one and only first-class smoker compartment. There were six seats and there were six male passengers. They started complaining and they all had exactly the same complaint.
I joined in. They said that they had written to the director of Network SouthEast and had not even received the courtesy of an acknowledgment of their letters. I have written twice to the director and I have not received an acknowledgment. Not one of us has received an acknowledgment. It does not matter how good the service is: if you write to the boss you should at least have the courtesy of a reply.
When I worked at Waterloo the general manager acknowledged every single letter to him. I know that because one of my jobs was going through the answers to letters. As a heavy smoker I become very annoyed when, in an eight car train, there may be only one compartment for smokers. And that will always be over the bogies. It may be that smoking is bad for us. But the proportion of smoking to non-smoking seats bears no relationship to the number of smokers.
I wish to ask the noble Viscount a question but I do not expect to receive an answer tonight. It concerns subsidies. Here I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans. I wish to know what subsidy is paid at the moment per thousand passengers per passenger mile in the United Kingdom compared with that paid in France, Germany and Belgium? It is my belief that those other railways are heavily subsidised while in the United Kingdom the subsidy to the railways is going down and down.
France and Belgium are building high-speed rail links to the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, if we do not do something we shall be left out of this great improvement. The same situation applied to shipping. Rotterdam became the major port and the London ports became a wasteland. We are going to miss the boat. I do not intend a pun. There is no doubt that we need high-speed trains. This means new lines because the existing ones are not suitable.
I am dead against privatisation of the railways. Were that to happen there would be a terrible danger of trains being run by the private operators during the peak hours only with basically no services at off-peak times. That would be a very sad state of affairs for people who have to travel every day. I have spoken for nine minutes; I shall not take up any more of your Lordships' time.
8 p.m.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for asking this important Unstarred Question. Many of the present policies towards road and rail are not satisfying

715
the nation. Unless some urgent improvements and changes in policy are made, the present frustrations, which in some areas have already reached an unacceptable level, will bring the country to a grinding halt.
Many people ask why large sections of our motorways up and down the country are coned off with no work in progress. Often one sees single line traffic causing endless hold-ups while two lanes stand empty behind miles of cones. This causes great frustration and must cost industry a great amount of money in wasted time and extra wages for lorry drivers, to say nothing of the inconvenience to car drivers.
In the past year one of the worst roads has been the section of the A.1 between Doncaster and Newcastle. For years now this road should have been given motorway status. It still has intersections, which often cause lethal accidents, and, around the Wetherby area, it even has cows crossing. Over the past two years the escalating volume of traffic, the increased sizes of lorries and the traffic jams, sometimes 10 miles long, have become a nightmare. With the removal of some of the roundabouts on this stretch of the A.1 some improvements have been made but no notice has been taken of the advice of the police to build a hard shoulder. There are stretches on this very busy road with no space should the emergency services have to reach the scene of a crash. It is a very dangerous situation and it is high time the Government gave greater priority on the need for accident prevention and the safety of all road users.
Unless a high priority is put on taking pressure off the M.1 and A.1, the journey between the North and the Channel Tunnel may take as long as in the days of the stage-coach. Do the Government have plans to extend the motorway to Cambridge, with a road which could link up with the under-used Humber Bridge? It is important that the Government should realise that there is a great deal of country beyond Watford. This includes Scotland, which has always had a special friendship with France. Does the Department of Transport realise the importance of another road linking the North and the South? Without one there will be an enormous extra build-up of northern traffic in the London area. We must not be blocked off from the heart of Europe by clogged-up routes.
Recently there was a multiple pile-up of cars in fog on the M.25 motorway. This is a relatively new motorway. Would it not be money well spent to install in the black spot areas where fog often lies more yellow fog lights and flashing warning signs? More should be done in the future to guard against the dangers of fog. Drivers who persistently drive too fast in fog should have their licences removed as they are removed for drunken driving.
There is in society a worrying growth of aggressive behaviour. This seems worse when people drive cars. The most aggressive drivers—I hate to say this as I am the only woman speaking in the debate—tend to be men. They may have been drinking alcohol and they think only of themselves. Again it would be of
716
future benefit to society if research was conducted on the subject of aggression. Something might then be done for individuals to help them learn to control their habits.
The Government may well say that we do not have the worst record for road casualties. That is no reason for complacency. The death or serious injury of a single individual has the same effect on him and his family as the deaths of a thousand upon those individuals and their families. Our National Health Service is experiencing a great many problems in coping with injuries such as whiplash injuries which need treatment in physiotherapy departments. At the physiotherapy departments of Westminster, Charing Cross and St. Bartholomew's Hospitals, one can see the pressure under which these departments are working. No doubt the position is similar in hospitals across the country.
Today I heard on the news that the Government believe that the police have adequate powers to deal with drivers who have drunk too much alcohol. I hope they are right. I congratulate Peter Bottomley on the work he did on this subject when a Minister at the Department of Transport. I hope that the emphasis on the dangers of alcohol and driving will not slip down the list of priorities. Of all the numerous letters and pleas for help that I receive, the most heartrending have been from people who have had a member of their family killed by a drunken driver.
I ask the Government to look seriously at the standards of pedal cyclists. In the past few days I have taken special note of cyclists. Some ride in heavy traffic wearing no bright coloured markings and carrying no lights in bad visibility. Yesterday morning one man in a grey mackintosh shot round Hyde Park Corner in bad light, looking neither left nor right. It is sometimes difficult for car drivers to see cyclists. In the past few days a conference on head injuries has been held at the London Hospital. Would it not be wise for people riding bicycles to wear helmets for protection? A serious head injury is one of the most awful injuries a person can sustain. I suggest that it would be wise to introduce legislation requiring cyclists to wear headgear, as motorcyclists are required to do. Cyclists are a very at-risk group.
As well as driving a great deal I use British Rail. When one sees long-disused tracts of land where the railways have closed lines one cannot help but wonder whether it was wise to close some stations and railway lines. Where I live in North Yorkshire there is now virtually no public transport. As many members of families have to travel to work, each family has several cars. This is one of the developments of a prosperous society. I am a constant user of the line from King's Cross to York. I should like to pay tribute to many of the porters who help disabled people on and off the trains. Disabled people who are severely disabled have many extra expenses. I have heard that in the future only one place per train will be allocated to a disabled person. This is quite unreasonable. I would draw to the attention of the House the fact that the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby, uses a wheelchair. How many more people with disabilities may want to travel on the same train? With modern technology,

717
it cannot be impossible for the seats to be removed quickly with a press button device. As it is now possible to remove some of the seats, this facility should be improved for the future so that people have a choice to travel either first class or economy class.
I have personally experienced disrupted travel due to vandalism on British Rail. I asked two Questions for Written Answer just before the Christmas recess. I was disappointed by the Answers, which rather indicated that the Department of Transport is not very interested in curbing vandalism. Like Pontius Pilate, the department washed its hands of the responsibility, stating that the problems of vandalism were strictly matters for the British Railways Board and the British Transport Police. Surely the co-operation of the community at large is needed to help curb vandalism and crime of any sort. For example, what about the "Crime Watch" schemes which work due to the co-operation of the police and the local communities?
I am sorry that government departments such as the Department of Transport take this rather unhelpful attitude. On one train in which I was travelling between Leeds and Doncaster metal drums had been placed on the line causing great damage to the train and putting it out of action. It also caused great expense to British Rail and great difficulty to the passengers who had to change trains. Just before Christmas I travelled up to York. The train in front of ours, which was a 125, was an electric train that had broken down due to ropes being placed over the electric cables. They attached themselves to the train, bringing down all the electric cables on top of it. Our train and several others following behind were delayed for over two hours. Moreover, the guard had no way of communicating with the other trains. In this modern day I think that there should be better communication between trains.
A few days later on the same line a signal box was saturated with petrol and set alight. For days there were many hold-ups due to the signals not working. Further, a business friend of mine told me about a journey he made up to Birmingham to visit the exhibition centre. The journey should have taken over an hour but it look him four hours due to a bicycle having been thrown over the electric cables. Unless there is a concerted effort to curb this kind of vandalism it does not bode well for future travel by electric trains.
Other European countries have had electric trains. Why does this country have so many disruptive people? To ensure the safe running of trains in the future perhaps the Department of Transport should look a little more closely at the problem. If the authorities are not satisfied with the present position, perhaps they might put on extra trains at popular times of travel instead of raising the costs and frustrating more people with the difficulty of travelling. That may well help clarify the underlying reasons behind vandalism. I hope that the matter will be looked into seriously.
8.13 p.m.
Lord Dunleath: My Lords, I too should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for having
718
introduced this topic in his Unstarred Question. I should like especially to thank him for his very informative and obviously well-researched speech in introducing the debate. The matter has been discussed previously in your Lordships' House from various angles but perhaps now it is even more urgent and important. It may be even more topical now than the noble Lord realised when he first tabled the Question.
Perhaps I may be a little more, not theological but doctrinal about the subject. In my humble view we are now facing a critical situation somewhat similar to what our forebears faced 150 years ago. At that time the question was whether the railways, which had been running for only 15 years, would live up to their early promise and whether they would be given the opportunity to provide a revolution in transport in our country. In the event they did; they lived up to their promise and were given the opportunity to do so by means of massive private investment and, on the whole, helpful Parliaments which passed Acts enabling the network of transportation to be developed. What took place was revolutionary to our society, to our economy and, indeed, to our demography.
That was the situation then. We are now faced with another situation which is equally critical. It is not a question of whether the railways will be given the opportunity to open up our country; it is whether they will be given the opportunity to save our country from being closed down. That is the situation which we now face. We are at a turning point.
In the 1950's and 1960's it was not unreasonable to look on future transport policy as being in the construction of more motorways and runways and in the expansion of civil airports. However, that philosophy, whch had its merits—and perhaps its flaws—has now, in my respectful view, become irrelevant. We must look elsewhere for the future. I say that because, with our overcrowded motorways, with our cities and towns having had to endure internal surgery for the benefit of the motor vehicle, with the atmosphere having become polluted by exhaust fumes, with the density of aircraft over the major airports being such that air traffic control is now on the margin of viability and with air channels at peak periods having the semblance of refugee holding camps, it seems clear that more motorways, more vehicle parking spaces, more runways and larger air terminals are no longer the answer.
I take the case in point mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans. The Midland main rail line is only electrified as far as Bedford. Simultaneous to that, the M.1 motorway is now reaching the extent of its capacity to carry vehicles which wish to use that road. Indeed, it is becoming inadequate and I understand that there is a proposal to widen the motorway in the same way as the M.25 is possibly to be widened, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham.
Such improvements would cost an enormous amount of money; so indeed would electrification of the Midland main line. I say that because, apart from electrification, the line would also need to be re-aligned to enable average speeds of 100 mph to be achieved. That average speed would be needed

719
to make the line competitive with the motorway. In fact both improvements would involve tremendous capital investment. But as the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, pointed out, the capital for motorway and road investment tends to come from the taxpayer and from public funds.
However, in the case of the railways the policy seems to be verging towards investment having to come mainly from internal sources; for example, from the sale of property, from the revenue account and from the revenue reserve. That is an inequitable situation. If the railways are to fulfil their function and take traffic off the roads, it is necessary for public funds to provide the investment required for that purpose. To make the electrification of the Midland railway effective, it would need to proceed as far as Sheffield and Leeds and perhaps have branches serving Nottingham and Derby as well.
Substantial investment is needed in other areas of British Rail's operation. In addition to the Channel Tunnel link to London, it is necessary to extend such direct communication to the rest of the British Isles. The cross-London link between the Channel Tunnel fast line and King's Cross is essential. The proposed high speed line from Paddington to Heathrow has been mentioned. It is most desirable, but the advantage of being able to get from Paddington to Heathrow in 15 minutes will be eroded if it takes 50 minutes to travel from your Lordships' House to Paddington. That is how it will be if more and more traffic is encouraged on to the roads and is flung at the cities, which will then become congested. No amount of urban clearways or throughways or traffic management will solve that problem.
I subscribe to Her Majesty's Government's view that it is desirable that the railways should, if at all possible, be profitable, but —I throw in this caveat because we have seen it before —if the management decides that it is desirable to close down a service it goes about it by making that service less and less attractive so that fewer and fewer people use it. The seemingly indisputable argument can then be put forward, "We must close it. No one is using it. It is losing money". I suggest that that is unfortunately possibly the case with the overnight service between London and Stranraer. That was a valuable service, especially to Northern Ireland. It will be even more important in the future if it is continued —I hope that it will be continued —once the single market comes in in 1992.
Northern Ireland is on the periphery of the European Community, and maximum use of the shortest sea route (Larne to Stranraer) is essential. The rail link to Stranraer is therefore essential, so we greatly deplore the closure of that service. It is not just that it is to our economic disadvantage: it was most discourteous of British Rail not to consult ScotRail or Northern Ireland Railways before announcing the closure. I understand that in both instances senior executives first learnt about the closure in the newspapers.
With regard to the single European market, it is important that Northern Ireland's internal communications should be as good as possible. There again, it is to be deplored that a potential
720
grant of £50 million towards the upgrading of the Belfast to Dublin main line has had to be deferred because the Republic of Ireland has apparently not yet come forward with its submission. Northern Ireland Railways was promised that the proposal would be considered in May of last year; again in October; and again in December. It has now been deferred once more. I ask Her Majesty's Government, perhaps through the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which we have been told will do so much to assist co-operation between the two states, to put pressure on the Government of the Republic to expedite that matter so that the line between Belfast and Dublin can be upgraded and speeded up to one hour 35 minutes for 113 miles, thus making it competitive with the roads.
As in 1840, there must be developed the political will and financial commitment to enable the railways once again to transform our transport system. I hope that Her Majesty's Government are fully alert to the opportunities that exist and to the dangers with which we shall be confronted if those opportunities are not taken.
8.26 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, on what he said. He has covered a broad spectrum and if that is theology, well then it is theology that I greatly enjoy. I shall not follow him down the highways and byways of the Irish dimension but what he said has my sympathy, especially in relation to the Stranraer night sleeper. It is scandalous that such a useful service should be scrapped.
I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for mounting this short debate. It is always a pity that transport subjects attract so little participation and so little interest in your Lordships' House, when transport is one of the major factors of our daily lives. Like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I started my notes by saying that there is a short answer to the question and that short answer is no. The present situation is clearly totally inadequate. Our roads are congested and will be inadequate for the foreseeable future. Rail has the potential to carry infinitely more traffic, both freight and passenger, than it does at the moment, and is limited only by the level of investment and the capability of advanced technology which could and should be employed but is not yet employed, again because of lack of investment.
There are two fundamental errors in current British transport policy. The first is the general under-investment, especially in the transport infrastructure and research and planning. The second is the fallacious assumption that a transport undertaking making a profit on its own account is necessarily serving the best national interest. One sometimes wonders whether the only period of a coherent transport strategy in Britain was at the time of the Romans. At least they had a clear idea of what they wanted from their transport system and they went out and achieved it with some straight roads. In fairness, I suppose that the latter part of the 18th century was also a good time for transport stategy, when the newly engineered roads—many of them

721
toll roads, incidentally —were built to facilitate the running of the new express coaches.
The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, mentioned railways in the 1840s and so on. It is true that that was a time of a great blossoming of the railway industry, but one must remember that it led to the unrestrained competition which produced a considerable over-capitalisation of the railway system, to the great detriment of our road system, which took a long time to recover. Although I too am a supporter of expanding the railway infrastructure, I hope that we shall not go down the route our forefathers took in the middle of the previous century.
Today, however, we have the free operation of market forces and, as one would expect, the problems are worse than ever. The unfortunate result is that the less the nation's transport requirements are subject to strategic analysis, the less we have a coherent network and the more the demand is pushed onto the roads. After 50 years of piecemeal transport strategy, the demand on the roads is even greater than before. It will grow, we are told, by a minimum of 20 to 25 per cent. every 10 years. There is no limit to the demand for road transport unless we produce a strategy in which road and rail transport, both public and private, each plays a proper part in a coherent network of services.
The amounts of investment have clearly been shown tonight to be too low. They are almost all piecemeal. I know that the Government will proudly tell us at the end of the debate that vast sums are being invested by British Rail. But as has already been pointed out, a lot of that has come from the sale of assets which admittedly probably ought to have been sold, but there is a limit to how far we can go on selling assets off.
If we compare recently announced investments—higher though they may be —at 1989–90 prices, the difference between this country and France is quite startling. In terms of millions of pounds, at 1989–90 prices, starting with 1988–89, British Rail investment is expected to be £465 million; for 1989–90, £618 million, for 1990–91, £724 million; then £901 million, £961 million and £870 million. The French railways however are expected to invest £2,000 millionin each of those years. In other words, over the six years British Rail will have invested £4,500 million but the French will have invested £12,000 million, on top of an already well-funded system.
Looking at exhibit 19 of the CBI's Trade Routes to the Future, it is quite clear —to a certain extent this answers the question of the noble Earl, Lord Attlee —that we spent 0·2 per cent. of our GDP on financial support to rail in 1987, compared with twice that in the Netherlands and 3·5 times that in West Germany and France. Investment in Italy and Belgium was even higher. The idea of having to fund the railway entirely from fares —which is what we are faced with —gives wrong signals, as the CBI rightly says. The problem is that people travelling by car have in their minds only the cost of petrol for the journey. They cost each journey at the marginal cost. An accountant will tell you that that is wrong,
722
but nevertheless it is a perfectly understandable thing to do.
The figures given by the CBI in its booklet show that a journey from London to Newcastle by car will cost £18·66. The standard rail charge is £42. If there is a family in the car as well it makes a tremendous difference, in spite of all kinds of railcards. The truth is that the pressure of price all the time moves people away from rail and onto road. That cannot be good for the state of the nation as a whole, particularly for the environment not just in this country but worldwide.
There are now further reductions in funding. It was depressing to read the other day that because of those reductions British Rail has to take out of its list the park-and-ride schemes. Those schemes seem to me to be absolutely essential if we are to persuade people to get onto the railway and leave their cars outside the major city centres. I do not wish to go too much into the situation in city centres, particularly in London, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has pointed out that we shall have a debate on that next Wednesday.
We also have the problem that Underground fares are being raised by 10 per cent. in February. There will be further real annual increases. Why? In order to suppress demand, we are told. It will not suppress the demand of people trying to get into London to their jobs. All it will do is to suppress the demand to use the railway. People will bring their cars instead.
In the present situation the excess demand always goes to the roads. Here again we are at the bottom of the league. Like the noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, I do not wish to see too much money spent on roads. Schemes are needed to relieve congestion but I do not see massive new road schemes as being the answer to our problems. Apart from anything else, the very presence of roads tends to create more traffic, as the Americans have learnt in Los Angeles and other places.
There is a need for some alleviation of traffic congestion by the building of some roads. We spent only half the percentage of GDP here in the period from 1982 to 1985 compared with West Germany. The Department of Transport's projected demands show an expected increase of between 27 per cent. and 47 per cent. between 1988 and the year 2000.
Reading the Independent on Monday I noticed that Mr. Robert Atkins had written to Transport 2000. The article said:
"Robert Atkins, the Minister for Roads and Traffic, has written to Stephen Joseph, the group's director, stating that 'it is not possible or desirable to meet forecast levels of demand. They are not a target or option which the department has set itself the objectives of achieving'".
What does that mean in relation to the road schemes that were announced in May last year in the Government's publication Roads to Prosperity?They were justified on the basis of demand forecast. Have the rules changed? I think that we have the right to know whether the rules have changed and if they have, what the new rules are. On what basis are by-passes being agreed to?
Some noble Lords may remember that I asked a Question about the Ilminster by-pass on the A.303.

723
The noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, said that it was built with a single carriageway because demand did not justify a dual carriageway; it was done on the basis of projected demand. That by-pass has now been open for 18 months and already there have been six fatalities. It is a main trunk road which is now becoming dual carriageway for most of the way until we reach the by-pass at Ilminster, when it suddenly becomes single carriageway. Not unnaturally, people who have been used to banging along at 60 and 70 miles per hour find themselves restricted to 50 miles an hour. To be honest they do not obey the signs.
The Department of Transport says, "Oh well, it is all the fault of the drivers because they do not stick to the speed limit". Yes, it is their fault, but it is perfectly understandable when there are 13·5 kilometres of open road in front of them with no turnings off for people to feel somewhat inhibited on a main trunk road when they have to drive at 50 miles an hour with virtually no opportunity whatsoever to overtake.
I quote from a well-known periodical called The Star, produced in Taunton. It is pushed through my letterbox free each week, for which I am very grateful. It states that:
"Mr John Myer, a spokesman for the Department of Transport … revealed that when the proposals for the by-pass were made it was decided to build to the modern standard of a … single carriageway. 'Generally it is not common practice to build dual carriageway by-passes' he said. 'The standard design is now a single carriageway.' Mr. Myer admitted that the main reason for this was the cost".
There is nothing to do with meeting the demand in that statement and nothing to do with safety. It is a case of building to the minimum cost and then blaming the fatalities on drivers. I ask the Minister to clarify the basis on which new roads will be built in the future.
So there we have it. There is a complete lack of strategy. We have railways which fit the need only where they happen to match that need through historical convenience or historical coincidence. We have the problems of the Channel Tunnel links, which are rapidly becoming farcical. The Government having painted themselves into a corner by refusing to put any public money whatsoever into the Channel Tunnel project, which we said at the time the legislation was going through was a foolish decision, are now wondering where they can turn to produce a railway system which is capable of linking up with the one which the French have on the other side of the Channel. Sir Bob Reid has spoken out in recent days about this matter. One cannot but comment that it would have been much more helpful if he had spoken out on the same subject in the same way a few years ago.
Remarks have been made about the electrification of the North Wales and Midland lines. I certainly agree with those comments. I hope I may put in a local bid for the electrification of the line to the South West and to South Wales. Those areas will be virtually cut off from the Channel Tunnel, apart from one night train. However, one will have to get to Bristol first to be able to get on that train at all.
724
I have no doubt that the noble Viscount will tell us that all is wonderful. However, I think the debate tonight has shown him, if he is listening, as I am sure he is, that all things are not wonderful and that there is a great degree of anxiety in people's minds in this country and in this House that we do not have a relevant transport strategy for the coming century and that, if we are not careful, the country will suffer badly.
8.42 p.m.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, one of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, particularly mentioned was that there was little interest in transport debates. That fact always amazes me because there is enormous interest in specific transport problems. Everyone is interested in those, as anyone in the Department of Transport will acknowledge. The department knows that from the large number of letters it receives on the subject. Members are continually harassed by constituents on transport matters.
We should all be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for raising this debate tonight. He is better informed than most of us on these matters, as his discourse showed. However, the standard of debate, up till now at least, has been extremely high. Many informed comments have been made. The noble Lord spoke about a number of lines which he was surprised were not electrified and where he thought serious consideration should be given to electrification. He mentioned the Midland line and the Edinburgh to Glasgow line. That latter line immediately encapsulated for me some of our transport problems.
I have always taken the view that only a fool would drive from Glasgow to Edinburgh. I use the train a lot for that journey. However, recently the train has reached the point of absolute suffocation. If anyone can find a parking space in Edinburgh during off-peak periods he will be a fool not to drive if he has a car, as the train is becoming quite impossible. Electrification would give us better, bigger and more comfortable trains. We might also get better frequency, although the present half hourly interval between trains is extremely good. If electrification cannot be made to pay on such a line, I do not know where it possibly could.
Having listened to all the speakers from different parts of the country tonight, one cannot dodge the fact that we have a transport crisis in Britain. Our towns and cities suffer from serious congestion and many of our major trunk roads and motorways are a crawling mass of vehicles for at least several hours each day. The pollution which is often caused by the mass of slow moving or stationary vehicles is becoming intolerable. There is a debate going on in London about this, and it is worth mentioning again that traffic in London, at under 11 miles per hour, has now reverted to the speed of the horse and cart. The total cost nationally of road congestion according to the CBI is estimated to be in the region of f 15 billion per year.
I think everyone is more or less agreed that public transport is shabby, unsafe, expensive and

725
capricious. If one does not own or have access to a car, one faces the problem of isolation. At off-peak times women and young children feel a sense of uneasiness when travelling. Poor pay results in low staff morale, which sets off a spiral of still poorer services. That leads in turn to lower morale, and so it goes on. If we treat public transport as a Cinderella we must expect an indifferent response from the workforce. In many cases on an almost daily basis things are kept moving because of the feeling of responsibility that in the main transport staff have somehow managed to bring to their jobs, despite the fact that they have been shabbily treated.
We have all had the experience of friends returning from abroad and telling us how wonderful the public transport system is in Paris, Munich, Hong Kong or Singapore. To those of us who are particularly interested in transport that can be irritating, largely because we know it is true that systems abroad are better than ours. However, in the last analysis —this has been well illustrated tonight by almost every speaker—the answer is simple. We just do not spend as much as other countries on public transport. According to the 1986 report and accounts of the British Railways Board, Switzerland spent 50 per cent. more per train kilometre than we did. Italy spent more than five times as much as us. Capital expenditure is also treated differently in other countries. There are the great French trains and the reliable, smooth, comfortable and clean German, Swiss and Italian systems, with their different grades of train. The top Italian grade of train is extremely good.
The Select Committee on Transport in another place called on the Government to increase public spending on transport. It pointed out that in the past four years spending had fallen by 14 per cent. in real terms. In the period 1985–86 to 1988–89 real expenditure on the roads went up by only 2 per cent. but expenditure on rail fell by 45 per cent. On other forms of public transport, including London buses and the Underground, the reduction was nearly 20 per cent. Yet in the past 10 years overall demand for all forms of public transport has increased by 30 per cent. Transport has surely been the orphan of the Treasury over the past 10 years, with government spending on it at least £2 billion a year less than in the 1970s. Those figures come from the report.
Our rail and bus fares are now among the most expensive in Europe. Revenue from all forms of vehicle taxation has increased from £9 billion in 1978–79 to over £15 billion in 1988–89. In 10 years there has been an increase of £6 billion. However, the money was not used, even in part, to improve our infrastructure. It was used to help fund tax cuts. I suggest that it is not only public transport that is paying for the cheers that greeted the past two former Chancellors when they made their tax cuts. The whole of British industry, education and health is suffering because of the manipulation of the budgets in those years. I believe we must begin to plan a slow increase in revenue support, at least in the short term. This would be used not to reduce fares but to finance improvements in the quality of rail and bus services. I think people would be happy to pay the
726
fares, even increased fares, if the money were spent on the genuine improvement of the service.
I have dealt so far with public transport, but that in no way means that I and the party I represent here are anti-road. We want all investment plans to be judged on a common basis to take full account of environmental, social and economic benefits for both users and non-users.
At present, new road schemes are measured by a full economic and social cost-benefit analysis. New British Rail schemes are judged in purely financial terms. The light railway schemes are judged on cash revenue and to some extent on non-user benefits. An across-the-board assessment methodology will help to ensure that policies on public transport, roads, parking and traffic management are all by and large complementary and not wasteful of investment and of resources.
Sadly, the Department of Transport as it is presently constituted is not an effective instrument to ensure an efficient transport policy. For many years its main concern has been overwhelmingly with new roads. If one looks at the Department of Transport numbers involved in roads and the numbers involved in railways —I know there are excuses for this but they have never quite convinced me —there is no doubt that the leaning of the department is towards roads. The priority must be to change the remit of the department to achieve the proper balance, which has been widely emphasised this evening.
In our cities there is little space left to build new roads and yet we still have interest groups urging that there be more roads. In Glasgow, we have a situation where they are trying to get two new bridges across the river. Where the traffic will go to when it gets across the river is beyond me because the city centre is too small to take any more. There is no room unless we knock down some of our best buildings to cope with more roads.
We should appreciate the wisdom of the old Buchanan Report, which clearly showed 20 or more years ago that if one drives at off-peak hours bringing cars into towns is fine, but if like most commuters one must travel in the morning and evening rush hours one is being extremely anti-social. That anti-social facet is getting worse.
One of the problems, which is much less obvious in other parts of the world, is the company car. Whatever the original reason for it—and there were perhaps reasons such as the higher taxation that we had at one period; so the company car was given to offset that —to a large extent the company car has become a perk. Last year in Britain 60 per cent. of all new cars sold were registered by companies. In France and Germany such cars account for less than 10 per cent. of new cars sold, and they are probably closer to the genuine working cars that we all accept are needed in business. One cannot say that the French and German economies are lagging behind ours, so all the pleas that there must be company cars in order to keep the industry going strike me as being somewhat hollow.
I should like to quote from an article in the Observer of Sunday, 7th January by, I think, a very

727
respectable reporter, Adam Raphael. He said he was one of the minority who had a company car. The article stated:
"As one, I should hastily admit, of the few, let me explain. If I drive the 10 miles from my home in Notting Hill across central London to the Observer's offices … all I have to pay for a comfortable journey" —
he is travelling at non-peak hours —
"listening to the radio is roughly a third of a gallon of petrol —say 60p. Every other cost, including tax, insurance, depreciation and parking is paid for by my employer who in turn is heavily subsidised by the Government.
"If, on the other hand, I travel by public transport, I am involved in two uncomfortable, unpredictable, unsubsidised bus journeys and one tube journey, taking altogether twice as long and costing £3.40—five times as much.
"Is there any wonder that traffic congestion is getting worse?"
He also says it has been calculated that a parking place in central London —also provided by the firm, of course —is worth between £15 and £25 a day.
I am not using those figures to try to be a dog in the manger. I am using them because this is undoubtedly the biggest single problem of cars in the inner cities. I know from looking around where I live in London and where I live in Glasgow that dozens of cars come into the city every day and they do not turn a wheel until they leave at night. Some people come in very early in the morning in order to get a parking place and they leave their cars there all day, slipping out to feed the meters. These are the problems.
We want mobility. We want people to be able to move about. We want greater investment in the railways. We want the roads that are required. As the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said, certain roads are undoubtedly required, but we have no necessity for some of the huge road programmes that are being suggested, especially if they are valued in a totally different way from the way in which the cost benefits of our railways are assessed.
9.56 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for initiating this stimulating debate and for giving me the opportunity to set out the Government's plans for meeting the future transport needs of the nation.
The Government's policy is that both road and rail should play a full part in meeting the increasing demand for transport. The Government are seeking to ensure that transport infrastructure is improved and expanded wherever it is cost-effective to do so. Investment in both road and rail infrastructure is rising strongly and further substantial increases are planned. Last November the Government announced an unprecedented increase in transport investment in the future, showing our commitment towards a transport system with the highest safety standards, which will tackle congestion and which will be sensitive both to the environment and to the transport needs of the future. We can now afford to invest more because Britain is earning more, and the Government's economic policies have laid the foundations for growth.
That growth is naturally putting a strain on our transport systems, and we have some catching up to
728
do. In the past six years the number of passengers using British Rail has increased by around 10 per cent. The number of passengers on the London Underground has gone up by 70 per cent., and road traffic has grown by 30 per cent.
On the railways, the Channel Tunnel is being built and investment in British Rail is at the highest level for a quarter of a century. Since 1983, over £3 billion in today's money has been invested in British Rail. We have endorsed a further increase in spending over the next three years to £3·7 billion —a 75 per cent. increase in real terms over the three years ending in March. This will include huge investment in new rolling stock, especially for London commuter services, and investment of over £1·2 billion in relation to Channel Tunnel services.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, asked about inter-urban railway electrification and cost benefit analysis. The new objectives for British Rail announced by my right honourable friend last month made clear that cost benefit analysis can be used in circumstances where there are wider social and economic benefits, such as relief of road congestion. This will enable the Government to decide whether capital grants would be justified for new investment in British Rail's grant-supported sectors, Network SouthEast and Provincial. For British Rail's commercial sectors, investment will continue to be appraised on a financial basis. It seems unlikely that improvements to inter-urban services would in general lead to significant external benefits in addition to the benefits for which passengers are rightly expected to pay.
In London the major upgrading programme recommended by the Central London Rail Study and costing £1·5 billion is already under way with both London Underground and Network SouthEast planning record levels of investment. Further work is also under way on the major new lines proposed by the Central London Rail Study to decide which of the options offers the most practical and cost-effective solution for the relief of congestion in the central areas. As the noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, said, we are looking forward to his debate next week on London traffic and I shall not therefore say much on that subject tonight save that, subject to the satisfactory outcome of that work, the Government expect to authorise the introduction of a Bill for another major new line in November 1990.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, asked about the possibility of grants. The Government believe that new investment in the railways should in the first instance be funded by those who will benefit from it. The main beneficiaries are likely to be the passengers and it is right that they should contribute through the fares that they pay. Other beneficiaries might include property developers and land owners who would benefit from the improved access which a new or improved railway line would bring. It is appropriate that they should contribute as well. However, the Government do not rule out grant support where the income from such sources is not sufficient and where the grant required can be justified by the benefits which the investment would bring to non-users, such as the relief of road congestion.

729
The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, asked about international comparisons of subsidy paid to railways. Although he kindly said that he did not expect an answer tonight, I can tell him that accurate international comparisons of subsidy to the railways are virtually impossible to make. The Government continue to give substantial financial support for the railways, but British Rail's need for grant is now much reduced, reflecting greater efficiency and the increase in the number of passengers using the railways. That means that BR is generating more finance internally to pay for new investment. BR is certainly one of the least subsidised railways in Europe, but we believe that that is good news for taxpayers who accordingly get the best value for their grants.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, asked about Section 8 grants for railways freight facilities. The Government are carrying out an internal review of Section 8 grants which looks particularly at the question of environmental benefits from reduced road traffic congestion.
The noble Lord, Lord Dunleath, asked about further electrification —for example, of the Midland main line. The Government certainly welcome worthwhile electrification schemes, as our record shows. It would be for BR to put forward new proposals. In many cases diesel trains can and do offer a very good service and there would need to be significant additional benefits to justify the large capital costs of electrification.
The noble Lord expressed concern about the sleeper service to Stranraer. British Rail's intercity sector which runs the sleeper service to Stranraer has a commercial remit and must decide whether there is sufficient demand to make the service viable. BR regards that service as loss-making which no doubt reflects the competition from other modes such as airlines and coaches. I understand that BR is at present consulting those with a particular interest in that service.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, referred to the investment in Network SouthEast, including park-and-ride schemes. I understand that BR has no programme of investment cuts, but naturally, like any business, it must look at priorities for spending. That is particularly so this year when BR's financial position has been damaged by last summer's strikes. It may be that BR has to defer some small schemes, but major investment is going ahead. BR expects to invest over £300 million in Network SouthEast this year and some £1·2 billion over the next three years. Major schemes worth £450 million have been approved by the Government this year alone.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, raised the question of vandalism on the railways. As she knows, preventive measures lie with the transport operators. British Rail and London Underground are well aware of the problems and are best placed to develop appropriate counter-measures with the British Transport Police. I can assure the noble Baroness that the department is not washing its hands of the matter. I know that she is particularly concerned about the security of signalling and vandalism on trains. I am assured that even the most determined individual would find it immensely difficult to
730
tamper with signalling equipment in such a way as to cause a dangerous situation. Improved communication between train drivers and signalmen will improve passenger security, as will the phasing out as quickly as possible of non-corridor compartment carriages.
Baroness Masham of Ilion: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware of the case in which petrol was poured on to a signal box in the Doncaster area, that that delayed many trains and must have cost a great deal of money, and that the person was caught?
Viscount Davidson: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of that. Let us hope that it does not happen again.
From what I have said about rail transport it is clear that we are fully aware of its importance. But even with continued expansion it can take only a small part of the increase in demand for transport. By and large road and rail serve different markets. One cannot easily be substituted for the other. We must provide for the development of both networks and above all we must respect the public's right to choose the most convenient mode.
The way in which the public exercise their choice today is heavily weighted towards the road network. That is not the result of under-investment in rail; it is the result of greater prosperity and the greater use of roads to meet the varied transport needs that prosperity brings. Twelve times as much passenger travel and 10 times as much freight movement is by road as by rail. The consequence is that, even if rail traffic increased by 50 per cent. and all the extra journeys would otherwise have been by road, the reduction in road traffic would be only 5 per cent.
Last May the Government announced an expanded programme of inter-urban roads in England, more than doubling the previous programme to a total of £12 billion. Provision for the next three years stands at over £4 billion for new construction and over £1·3 billion for capital maintenance. That is a dramatic increase which fully recognises the serious congestion on many of our major roads. The total programme will add 2,700 miles of new or improved trunk road to the national network by the turn of the century.
Many eyebrows have been raised by the recent national road traffic forecasts which suggest that traffic demand could increase by between 83 per cent. and 142 per cent. by the year 2025. But forecasts are not and never were regarded as targets; they are estimates of total increase in demand for road travel. It may not be possible or even desirable to meet that demand in full, but it cannot be ignored. There is no change of policy over that.
Doing nothing is not an option. It would mean adding to the chaos and congestion which are all too familiar to road users today. Congestion imposes higher costs on the consumer; it leads to more accidents; it wastes fuel and it increases pollution. New roads which relieve congestion can also benefit the economy and the environment, both locally and more widely.
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham, spoke about unacceptable delays from road works. Wherever possible works are programmed when traffic is

731
lightest and measures adopted for increasing the capacity of traffic through road works.
The noble Baroness will also be pleased to note that the A.1 is well provided for in the expanded roads programme. We fully recognise its importance as a major north-south route. Substantial improvements are planned. They include widening 33 miles of existing motorway sections and conversion of a further 42 miles to motorway. Major improvements to non-motorway sections are also planned. Studies will investigate the possibility of full motorway status from London to Tyneside.
The noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, mentioned proposals for private roads. The Government will shortly make a statement on the responses received to its consultation document, New Roads by New Means. We have meanwhile been considering private finance bids for a second Severn Bridge, and for the Birmingham Northern Relief Road. Other schemes are under consideration, including a bridge to the Isle of Skye. The Government hope to introduce the legislation outlined in the consultation document at an early opportunity.
On the question of road user costs, all vehicles at least cover their share of the cost of building, maintaining and policing the road —track costs —trough fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. Cars and light vans pay over three times their track costs. Heavy goods vehicles more than cover theirs, and the heaviest pay disproportionately more to reflect their greater social and environmental impact.
I can also tell the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, that the Government have carried out a full review of the problem of over-height vehicles hitting bridges, and that they are implementing an action plan aimed at reducing the risk substantially. Measures include: improvements to the signing of low bridges; use of detector equipment at high risk bridges; and increasing the awareness of drivers of the height of their vehicles and loads.
That leads me to another aspect of the Government's important work in reducing road accidents. I was very moved, as I always am, by the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, for the safety of cyclists. It is clearly right that they should make themselves as conspicuous as possible by wearing fluorescent or reflective clothing. It is equally important that drivers should look out for them and that they should make themselves conspicuous by sensible use of lights in conditions of poor visibility. The Government recently launched a conspicuity campaign to drive these messages home.
732
Much evidence is also emerging to show that by wearing helmets cyclists can reduce the seriousness of head injuries or prevent minor injuries altogether. But we have no plans to make any of this equipment compulsory. Legislation would only work if it were generally respected. It is difficult to legislate for cyclists, many of whom are below the age of criminal responsibility. It is better to increase awareness of the benefits and let individuals decide. That is what the Government are doing.
I should mention roads in London, where the Government have developed a broad strategic approach. This includes providing through traffic with good alternative routes around London. The M.25 is being widened, and the new bridge at Dartford is being constructed with private finance. We also want to see the best possible use of existing roads, by better parking enforcement, by the introduction of more traffic responsive traffic light controls and by the boroughs investing in road schemes to eliminate bottlenecks. The Government are ensuring that London is properly linked to national and international transport networks, with major trunk road schemes, and tackling congestion black spots in inner and outer London. We shall be discussing this matter further next Wednesday.
I hope that noble Lords will welcome the Government's commitment towards increasing transport investment. The Government are determined to ensure that Britain has transport systems which will enable it to play a full part in the single European market for 1992. People want to use public transport, and we want to see that they have a safe and efficient system to use. At the same time we cannot ignore the congestion on our roads or pretend that railways can offer the whole answer. There must be increased provision of roads in the interests of both the economy and the environment. That is why the Government plan to spend more on road building and road maintenance, and to make better use of roads by improved traffic management.
Freedom of movement is central to our society and our future prosperity. Ten years ago no one would have predicted the economic growth which has placed real strains on both our road and rail systems. The Government are determined to secure the improvements which are necessary to tackle transport congestion and meet the nation's future transport needs, with road and rail playing a full part.
House adjourned at eleven minutes past nine o'clock.

  ANIMAL PROCEDURES COMMITTEE
  ANIMAL PROCEDURES COMMITTEE
  SEIZURE ABROAD OF FUGITIVES FROM US JUSTICE
  SEIZURE ABROAD OF FUGITIVES FROM US JUSTICE
  RELOCATION OF CIVIL SERVICE POSTS
  RELOCATION OF CIVIL SERVICE POSTS