Sitting of 16 April 1991

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

    Community Care
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many local authorities have already produced community care plans and assessment procedures for an individual's needs for community care services.
    The Minister for Health (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley): All local authorities are required to produce plans for care in the community by April next year and to establish assessment procedures for community care services by April 1993. Many authorities have already moved ahead.
    Mr. Arnold: Has my hon. Friend noted that Kent county council was ready to implement its community care arrangements on 1 April this year and has introduced a series of arrangements that will give a far better service to its customers? Can my hon. Friend comment on the considerable increase in resources being put into social services by Kent?
    Mrs. Bottomley: Kent has been one of the front runners in the development of care in the community and its care management is a model to many. I visited Kent last year to discuss its work. I can confirm the increase in resources. Its spending on personal social services has risen from £24·4 million in 1978–79 to £99·1 million in 1990–91—a real-terms increase of 61 per cent.
    Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that it is necessary to take into account the views of disabled people if community care is to be effective, yet the Government have acknowledged that they are dropping the advocacy parts of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 and sections 1, 2 and 3? That is damaging to community care and to disabled people.
    Mrs. Bottomley: The Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act predates the care in the community policies. Local authorities are already hard pressed to maintain the timetable for full implementation, but giving proper attention to the user of the service and the carer is a fundamental principle of care in the community. We have made it clear that we will review the formal implementation of those sections once care in the community is properly established.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Should not we be talking more about quality care packages than community care
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    packages? We are dealing with the most vulnerable groups in our society—the mentally ill, the mentally handicapped and the elderly. Will my hon. Friend look at the developments that are taking place in Macclesfield? I refer particularly to Hollins park, which is a progressive partnership between the health authority and community health services. That is a private organisation dealing with the provision of beds in a nursing home for the elderly mentally infirm. Could not that be translated to many other areas?
    Mrs. Bottomley: I thank my hon. Friend, who has always been a champion of, and a great expert in, these matters. There are many examples throughout Britain of innovative practical schemes offering support to the frail and vulnerable. I was in my hon. Friend's part of the world only recently to see a pioneering scheme combining district nurses and day care workers from the social services to offer a practical alternative to residential care. I shall certainly look more carefully at the details of the scheme that my hon. Friend outlined.
    Mr. Rooker: Does the Minister accept that if the plans are to serve the needs of the individual, they will have to involve the voluntary sector? Is the hon. Lady aware of a recent survey of the voluntary sector in which almost half of the respondents said that they had no involvement or an unsatisfactory level of involvement in the planning of community care services? On what date did she issue a letter or a circular to the local authorities making it clear that if those plans are to work they must involve the voluntary sector?
    Mrs. Bottomley: The voluntary sector has pioneered many excellent services that are particularly responsive to the needs of users and carers. Only two weeks ago, we announced funding of £25,000 for the National Council for Voluntary Organisations to help voluntary organisa-tions prepare for the contracting procedures. We have regular meetings with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and many others and we shall certainly be asking whether it has any further concerns at our next meeting, next month. We have made it clear throughout that we in the Conservative party believe in a mixed economy of care using the voluntary and private sectors. We are not committed to the monolithic provision of services by local authorities.

    Bradford Hospital Trust
    Mr. Cryer: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the proposed standards of service envisaged by the hospital trust for Bradford.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): The standards of service which national health service providers, including trusts, are expected to meet are defined in their contracts with purchasing health authorities.
    Mr. Cryer: Will the Minister confirm that the sad story of the Bradford trust so far includes a freeze on the recruitment of nurses, which has meant that newly qualified nurses have been sacked and that wards 5 and 6 of Bierley Hall hospital have been closed or will be closed despite a refurbishment of £100,000? That scandalous waste of resources also includes the closure of the baby unit at St. Lukes. Does the Minister recall that during the

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    Gulf war, the Secretary of State said that as much money as necessary would be made available for the casualties of that war? Why does he not provide money for the casualties of the NHS trusts and ensure that patient care is improved, rather than squandering it on antidemocratic, anti-NHS trusts such as that in Bradford?
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman asks for more money and I am pleased to confirm that the Bradford trust has been granted the largest external financing limit of any trust in the NHS. The capital allocation to the Bradford trust will provide for the completion of phase 1(a) at a cost of £23 million in 1993, the completion of phase 1(b) at a cost of £30 million in 1997 and the completion of that entire project, costing a further £11 million, before the end of the decade. In addition, a £44 million redevelopment programme for the Bradford royal infirmary has been planned. All that is equivalent to nearly £110 million capital investment in Bradford's hospitals in this decade. I should have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that.
    Mr. Dickens: Is not it a fact that, since 1 April, 57 hospitals and other units, including those in Bradford, have become NHS trusts? Quality of service and patient care is on the agenda. How can that show that we are in the wrong direction? I am grateful that Oldham and Rochdale have elected for NHS trust status.
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is right. The trusts present the opportunity for the management and the staff of units to use the resources available to them to the best possible advantage of the patient. The Labour party uses the rhetoric of the opportunity society, but it uses every occasion to deny those seeking such opportunities the means to take advantage of them.
    Mr. Madden: Why have all the Government's promises about the benefits of the NHS trust in Bradford gone so sour? The reality is that, this year, there have been cuts of £5 million and swingeing cuts have been planned for the next two years with a deterioration in the quality of patient care. Why are the Government not injecting the necessary funding now to avoid those cuts taking place? Why are they not defending the NHS in Bradford?
    Mr. Dorrell: The hon. Gentleman seems unable to welcome the investment of £108 million in the capital provision for health in his constituency in this decade, but perhaps he will find it easier to welcome the fact that waiting lists in his constituency have been cut by 8 per cent. in the latest year for which figures are available and that the total number of people who have been waiting for more than a year has been cut by 37 per cent.
    Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In veiw of the misleading nature of that answer, I reserve the right to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

    Northwick Park Hospital
    Mr. Dykes: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps are being taken to reduce waiting lists and other administrative delays at Northwick Park hospital.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: I understand that the main health authorities served by Northwick Park hospital have all placed contracts specifying that those waiting longest should receive priority for treatment.
    Mr. Dykes: Although this is obviously a matter for the hospital management and the regional health authority, will my hon. Friend's Department look into this matter and keep an eye on things, because the sombre reality is that, other than those needing acute emergency operations or planned treatment, no one was admitted in the first quarter of the year to Northwick Park hospital? That situation is extremely unsatisfactory. Will my hon. Friend discuss with the hospital and the RHA the possibility of a timed admission system such as that which has already been introduced by the South Western regional health authority?
    Mrs. Bottomley: I hope that my hon. Friend will find that the clear priority of tackling long waiting lists throughout the NHS translates into action on behalf of his constituents. Under the new contracting arrangements, it is possible to specify waiting times as one of the quality conditions. I understand that that is precisely what is happening in the hospital to which my hon. Friend referred. North West Thames health authority has made it clear that no patient should have to wait longer than two years for treatment. That will apply to patients who do not have clear clinical priority. My hon. Friend mentioned South Western regional health authority moving to timed admissions instead of waiting lists. We hope that many other local health authorities will follow that example.

    General Practitioners
    Mr. Eastham: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many fund-holding general practitioners have not yet completed their contract negotiations in order to implement the provisions of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.
    The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. William Waldegrave): Fund-holding general practitioners are free to make contracts for the hospital services covered by the fund in the way that they judge best for their patients. The indications are that most fund holders have placed contracts in advance for the greater part of the hospital services necessary for their patients and will arrange other contracts on an individual basis as their patients need them.
    Mr. Eastham: But are not some general practitioners in a state of chaos, with hundreds of contracts still not completed? That can be put down to the hospitals that are not in a position to carry out adequate pricing and do not have the necessary additional staff or computer facilities, with consequent further delays for people waiting to go into hospital.
    Mr. Waldegrave: The answer is no, Sir. In the hon. Gentleman's region, about 90 per cent. of the contracts have been placed in advance. It is sensible to have 10 per cent. to follow patients who cannot be predicted in advance.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in evidence recently given to the Public Accounts Committee, Mr. Nichol, the chief executive of the national health service management executive, stated that budget holding, research and the success of the project should not be carried out from the centre but that it should be left to each region to undertake its own analysis? Is not that an absurd way to proceed? Whatever the merits or demerits,

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    we need an assessment that is objective and will be accepted by all parties. If it is left to each region, it will be useless.
    Mr. Waldegrave: No, I think that the regional arms of the NHS are the right people to deal with that. My hon. Friends regularly, and rightly, press me to stop Whitehall's tendency to centralisation. It is those hon. Members with whom I have most sympathy.
    Mrs. Mahon: Where contracts have been completed, will the Minister comment on the case of the woman who was referred to Guy's hospital for sterilisation, but then found that her authority would not pay for it although her GP had referred her? Will that be a regular occurrence? Will the Minister say where patient choice comes in, if the GP decides where operations are carried out?
    Mr. Waldegrave: That case did not involve GP fund holders, but I am happy to comment on it. The hon. Lady has not followed the story through. It transpired that the district involved had for many years not provided sterilisation of that kind. The present system has brought and will rightly bring that into the open, which enables my hon. Friend the Minister of State to remind the district that in such matters there is a central guideline that that service should be available throughout the kingdom.
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: Are not GP fund-holding practices a successful and valuable attempt to spread choice and opportunity not only to patients, but to the doctors who administer the services? Does my right hon. Friend see any evidence of a desire to spread choice and opportunity for either patients or doctors in the rehashed Labour policy unveiled by the Labour party this morning?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. An increasing number, although I think that they are a minority, of the GPs who supported the Opposition now take my hon. Friend's view. For example, Dr. David Thomé, who used to appear in party political broadcasts on behalf of the Labour party, has now become a GP fund holder and strongly supports the scheme. In the rather weasel words of today's policy document—I am happy to say that the Opposition have watered it down a little more —we are told:
    "We would expect a progressive withdrawal".
    "Expect" is a good word. If expectations are confounded —as they will be—I hope that the Opposition will endorse the scheme as strongly as my hon. Friend does.
    Ms. Harman: The Secretary of State said that 10 per cent. should be set aside to make it possible for patients to get treatment outside contracts placed by districts or GPs. Is he aware that no district health authority has set aside 10 per cent., that most have set aside only 2 per cent. to provide for extracontractual referrals and that some have provided only 1 per cent. or even less? How does the right hon. Gentleman propose to guarantee choice for patients through a system under which so much of the money is tied up in contracts and so little set aside for extracontractual referrals?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am afraid that the hon. Lady could not have been listening to our discussions. We were talking about GP fund-holders, in respect of whom the much smaller sum involved probably makes it reasonable—in
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    the view of most GPs—for the proportion to be larger than is necessary at district level. That is the answer to the hon. Lady's question.

    Primary Health Care
    Mr. Quentin Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what future he envisages for primary health care in Britain.
    Mr. Waldegrave: Some of the most exciting develop-ments in the national health service are occurring in primary health care. On top of the achievements already being secured through the new contracts for GPs and dentists, there are new opportunities for building on the excellent examples of team-working between GPs, nurses and other health care professionals and to achieve closer working with the hospital services. The aim is to improve the range of high-quality, cost-effective services provided to patients in the primary care setting.
    Mr. Davies: Have not the Government's new contracts for GPs in the national health service brought about an unprecedented and dramatic increase in the number of child immunisations and in the amount of cervical screening, mammography and other preventive procedures being delivered in the NHS? Is not it a fact that some of the Opposition Members present in the House opposed the new contract all along and have still not had the grace to admit how wrong they were?
    Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend is perfectly right. The contract has produced, and is producing, major benefits for patients and it seems to me uncharacteristically ungracious of the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) not to acknowledge that, on this point at least, he was wrong.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the Secretary of State accept that, in that part of the national health service and in all others, the assessment of financial performance is increasingly viewed as more important than the successful treatment of patients? Does he also accept that, unless that changes, we shall see the inexorable rise of the accountant, who will be regarded as far more important to the NHS than those in the medically related professions?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I strongly refute that. It is irresponsible to say that it is not part of the duty of those of us charged with spending public funds to ensure that they are spent for the best benefit of patients or others for whose benefit the funds were designated by Parliament. In its extraordinary rehashed document, published today, the Labour party has gone a step further. It does not care for a health care market but wants a medical market, so it is coming along nicely.

    NHS Trusts
    Mr. Ground: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made with NHS trusts since 1 April.
    Mr. Waldegrave: A total of 57 hospitals and other units became fully operational NHS trusts on 1 April. A further 130 hospitals and units have expressed an interest in becoming trusts by April 1992.
    Mr. Ground: Does my right hon. Friend agree that threats to the career prospects of national health service managers who recommend trust status for their hospitals represent an unacceptable threat to the independence of those managers and should be condemned whenever they are made? Does my right hon. Friend have an example of such threats in the form of a letter written to the manager of the Walsgrave hospital in Coventry by two Labour Members?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am sorry to say that such a letter was written. I am happy to say that, when I drew it to the attention of the Leader of the Opposition, he immediately repudiated the views of the two Coventry Members concerned. The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) has, however, made similar threats himself. He owes the House an endorsement of the repudiation of the views of the hon. Members concerned and the withdrawal of his own threats, made last year, about the renewal of contracts after an election.
    Mr. Nellist: If the Secretary of State wishes to make light of the matter, let me tell him that this is just one example of how deep anger already runs in Coventry among thousands of people who are not prepared to allow the hospital to be taken, over their heads, on the first step towards privatisation and got rid of. It is a publicly funded hospital, to provide whose equipment not a single family in Coventry has not bought a raffle ticket in the past 10 years.
    If the concept of dismissal worries the Secretary of State so much, may I make him on offer? I will withdraw that word, and instead suggest to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that, after the general election, we require everyone who runs a hospital in Britain to stand for election, so that the staff, the patients and the people of Coventry can sack him instead.
    Mr. Waldegrave: The idea of elected brain surgeons is engaging.
    I do not take the matter at all lightly; nor does the Leader of the Opposition, who, on the same day that I wrote to him, replied:
    "I regard all such threats to be as meaningless as they are objectionable."
    Let me draw the attention of the hon. Member for Livingston to his own threat, when he warned managers that they should remember that their contracts would not be up for renewal until after the next general election.
    Mr. Hayes: Never mind what the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) says, although his threats are bad enough. It is a different matter when the Opposition health spokesman threatens not to renew the contracts of managers who assist the Government's proposals.
    Does my right hon. Friend agree with an editorial in the Health Service Journal, which is not exactly a hotbed of high Toryism? Let me paraphrase it—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must paraphrase it.
    Mr. Hayes: I will, Mr. Speaker. I would never quote directly. [Interruption.] I am going to paraphrase the article. Hon. Members are not listening.
    "This is outrageous interference in NHS management".
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That sounds like a quotation to me.
    Mr. Waldegrave: The bellowing from below the Gangway represents the only support that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) is receiving from his own side; he has been repudiated by his leaders. It is evidence of the weakness of Opposition Members' position. This is a serious matter. To threaten any public servants in such a way is no part of our traditions and should be repudiated by the House.
    Mr. Beggs: When a local community is entirely opposed to a health board's proposals to downgrade the status of a local hospital, will that hospital still have the right to seek trust status?
    Mr. Waldegrave: Yes. There is no reason why such a hospital should not make an application for trust status. It would be considered alongside all the other applications, according to the published criteria, but hospitals have a perfect right to seek such status.
    Mr. John Greenway: Would not it be helpful if patients in any district hospital could be asked a question about the future of that hospital, free from the political interference by the Labour party and its attempts to dissuade them by perpetrating myths about my right hon. Friend's reforms? No hospital is being asked to opt out of the NHS. What is on the agenda is the prospect of more local control and accountability in the health service for the better delivery of patient care.
    Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend is entirely right. A general practitioner was quoted in The Guardian—not usually a supporter of my party—as saying that the current anger of people in the streets was directed at those who had scared them with stories about what the reforms meant, all of which have now turned out to be false.
    Mr. Robin Cook: I fully associate myself with the repudiation by the leader of my party of the remarks made in relation to that hospital—
    Mr. Andrew Mitchell: Do not be so nasty to the Coventry Members.
    Mr. Cook: There was nothing nasty about the repudiation and I fully associate myself with it. I am also delighted to take this opportunity to reassure all national health service managers that there will be no problem over renewing the contracts of those managers who serve the next Labour Government as loyally as they have served this Government.
    However, the Secretary of State's claims about the accountability of these trusts would be more credible had he not stuffed their boards with people who know little about the national health service and who represent no one in the local community. How does he justify the fact that he has appointed a majority of business men to those trusts and that the largest business interest is property development? Although managers will be safe from action by us after the next election, does the Secretary of State accept that we shall replace those people who were appointed as members of trust boards and health authorities with people who live in the area, who use the health service and who are committed to restoring it as a public service?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I think I hear the hon. Gentleman repudiating his own words, which it is right that he should do. He threatened managers' contracts. The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he knows that he said that. It was reported at the time—[HON. MEMBERS: "What is wrong with that?"]—His hon. Friends ask what is wrong with that. That is the voice of the true Labour party. The hon. Gentleman also criticises the appointment of people with business experience to hospital management boards. This great public service can well use the experience of managers of other large organisations in order to deploy most effectively the skills of NHS professionals.

    South West RHA
    Mr. Speller: To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he has yet received any proposals from the South West regional health authority for amalgamation of any district health authorities.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: No, Sir. We do not expect regional health authorities to submit formal proposals—[Interruption.]—for amalgamation of health authorities unless extensive local consultations—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us have a stop to this pointing across the Chamber.
    Mrs. Bottomley: No, Sir. We do not expect regional health authorities to submit formal proposals for amalgamation of health authorities unless extensive local consultations have shown that the proposals command broad local support.
    Mr. Speller: When my hon. Friend considers the needs of the south-west, particularly those in the county of Devon, will she bear in mind the fact that it has four area health authorities, that by and large people in the county of Devon think of themselves as Devonians and that it may be logical to consider replacing the four authorities with one?
    Mrs. Bottomley: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. Another advantage would be to have coterminosity with social services departments. That, with the implementation of community care, might make a great deal of sense. Ministers, however, will be influenced by the extent to which such proposals command local support and by the extent to which they are seen as improving health care and services to local residents.

    "Look after your Heart" Campaign
    Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the progress of the "Look after your Heart" campaign.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: "Look after your Heart" is a major national programme launched in 1987 to reduce death and illness in England from coronary heart disease. All right hon. and hon. Members with English constituencies have received copies of the programme's strategy for 1990 to 1995.
    Mr. Coombs: Is my hon. Friend aware of the fact that in England we cut the level of circulatory disease by 24 per cent. between 1980 and 1988, compared with the World Health Organisation's target of 15 per cent. for the year 2000? Has my hon. Friend seen the new World Health
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    Organisation paper on heart disease relating to diet and nutrition and does she believe that its recommendations will be included in the strategy for the next five years?
    Mrs. Bottomley: My hon. Friend is right to cite the great reduction in coronary heart disease during the 1980s. Ministers are pleased, but are by no means satisfied. My hon. Friend knows that renewal of the "Look after your Heart" campaign envisages a further 25 per cent. reduction in heart disease by the end of the century.

    St. Paul's Eye Hospital, Liverpool
    Mr. Loyden: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received from community health councils about the closing of St. Paul's eye hospital, Liverpool.
    Mr. Dorrell: The Liverpool Central and Southern community health council has written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State objecting to the proposal.
    Mr. Loyden: Is the Minister aware that the objections made by the community health council reflect the opinion of patients, staff and the wider public in Liverpool and throughout the region about the proposals to close St. Paul's eye hospital? As a patient there for nine years suffering from glaucoma, I suggest that I know more about the hospital than does the Minister or those placed in areas such as Liverpool to carry out Tory policy in the health service. Will the Minister reflect on the Government's attitude that patient care is of prime importance and take into account as soon as possible the views of patients and community health councils on the proposed closure of St. Paul's hospital?
    Mr. Dorrell: We certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that patient care is the principal concern. The hon. Gentleman will know that the proposal is currently with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has not yet taken a decision. Of course, my right hon. Friend will take account of the views of Liverpool Central and Southern CHC. He will also take account of the views of Liverpool Eastern CHC, which has not objected to the proposal. He will also take it into account that the effect of the proposal would be to move the majority of ophthalmic provision in the city of Liverpool out of a small and very old hospital into a modern hospital that was opened in 1978. That factor must be taken into account in assessing the issue which the hon. Gentleman rightly places at the top of the agenda—the quality of patient care.
    Mr. Alton: Does the Minister accept that it is precisely because St. Paul's is a small hospital which has served the needs of the people of Liverpool for many generations that the people are so hostile to the idea of its being absorbed into a large hospital, the Royal in my constituency? Will he reconsider the reply that he gave on 12 March when he declined to see a delegation from the CHC led by the rector of Liverpool parish? Will he now see that delegation and consider especially the provision of ophthalmic beds for children in the heart of the community?
    Mr. Dorrell: Liverpool Eastern CHC took up the question of the provision of ophthalmic beds for children and was satisified by the assurances that it received from the district health authority. I have already given an

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    undertaking that we shall, of course, look at all sides of the argument before reaching a decision, but, in assessing the merits of the argument that it is a small hospital, much loved by the local community, we must also remember the clinical benefits that come from a broader base of clinical expertise within the same hospital. Those are balancing arguments and their merits still have to be assessed.
    Mr. John Marshall: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the draft Budget produced by the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) there is no provision to increase expenditure on the health service? Does not that suggest that the Opposition's concern over the closure of the hosptial is synthetic indignation which the Labour party is unable to fund?
    Mr. Dorrell: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that, as we consider the provision in Liverpool, Bradford and every other locality in the country, we must test the claims of the Opposition that they would be able to do better against their inability to extract from the dour Scotsman from Glasgow the promise to spend any more money on the health service.

    Ward Closures
    Mr. Wray: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many wards closed in England each week since 1 February.
    Mr. Waldegrave: We do not routinely collect this information centrally, since ward and bed numbers are not a good indicator of levels of service in the national health service. However, the hon. Member will be glad to know that since 1979 there has been a 25 per cent. increase in the number of patients treated by the national health service.
    Mr. Wray: Will the Minister explain why there are 50,000 people on the waiting list in Wales and 800,000 in other parts of England? Will he also explain under what legislation, since the Tory National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990, Medway health authority is trying to enter into a package deal with a centre hopitalière in France? Does the Minister agree with that package deal?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am not sure that waiting lists are the strongest line for the hon. Gentleman to pursue, as the numbers on those lists increased by 48 per cent. under Labour, whereas they have declined under the Conservatives. The Medway deal that the hon. Gentleman mentioned has been discussed in the House. If it is within the law—we shall have to check whether it is within the vires of the local health authority—and it is in the best interests of patients, I shall have no reason to interfere with it.
    Mr. Rowe: How many wards have been closed as a result of the introduction of non-invasive surgical techniques, day-care operations and the decanting of large numbers of patients into much more satisfactory care in the community? Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is in the spirit of the European Community that if Medway health authority can secure a better deal for its patients by using European facilities, it is all to its credit that it should do so?
    Mr. Waldegrave: On the latter point, I agree with my hon. Friend, subject to the point that I made earlier. My hon. Friend is perfectly right that in the past 10 years there
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    has been an enormous increase in day surgery, as knowledge of its proper use has increased. In most other advanced countries, such as France and Germany, there has been a similar increase in the number of patients treated, alongside a drop in the total number of beds.
    Mr. Battle: Is the Minister aware that in Bradford and Leeds some wards and beds are still being held for Gulf crisis casualties? What extra steps will his Department take to ensure that clearance of the backlog of operations resulting from the Gulf crisis is speeded up?
    Mr. Waldegrave: I am astonished at what the hon. Gentleman says. It certainly should not be so and I shall have the position investigated urgently. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that in practice the Gulf crisis had almost no impact—indeed, no impact at all—on the national health service. That being the case, there should be no excuses of the kind that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. As I said, I shall have the matter looked into.

    Eye Tests
    Mr. Atkinson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to complete the review of charges for eye tests.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: We commissioned NOP, an independent market research company, to carry out a survey on the proportion of adults who had a sight test in the first quarter of 1990. The results indicated that demand for sight tests was returning to normal, following an accepted initial drop after the introduction of charges in April 1989.
    Mr. Atkinson: Does my hon. Friend agree that good eyesight is a prerequisite for a proper quality of life in retirement, as well as being essential for safe driving? As there is growing evidence that a number of elderly people have not had their eyes tested since the introduction of charges two years ago, will my hon. Friend consider exempting all pensioners as a essential cost-effective preventive measure?
    Mrs. Bottomley: I endorse my hon. Friend's point about the importance of sight tests. Of course, 35 to 40 per cent. of the population—including children, people on low incomes and people with clinical needs—are entitled to free tests. It is important that people should know their welfare entitlements. That is why we recently launched a major initiative to draw attention to the fact that certain groups of people are entitled to free sight tests.
    Mr. Robin Cook: Has not the Minister seen the results of the survey carried out last week by The Economist which indicated that, in the two years since charges were introduced, 5 million fewer eye tests have been carried out than were carried out before the introduction of charges? Does not she grasp that if only I per cent. of those 5 million people go on to develop serious eye disorders, the cost to her Department will be far greater than the amount that is being saved by charging for eye tests? If she is in any real doubt about the figures, why have not she and her colleagues once approached optrometrists with a view to agreeing on how to measure the dramatic drop in the number of eye tests which is a direct result of Government policies?
    Mrs. Bottomley: Our consumer survey, like those organised by the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Consumers Association, makes it clear that the demand for sight tests has returned to the level that pertained through the 1980s which was established before the announcement of the introduction of charges. It is right that those who can do so should pay the modest charge for a sight test which is about the same as the cost of buying a packet of Polos each week.

    Plymouth DHA
    Mr. Robert Hicks: To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will outline the proposed arrangements for the funding of South East Cornwall and other overlap areas administered and funded by Plymouth district health authority; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Dorrell: All district health authorities are now funded to purchase health care for their resident population. Arrangements for the operational manage-ment of health care facilities other than NHS trusts are a local matter.
    Mr. Hicks: As it has been confirmed that Cornwall will be responsible for funding health care in the overlap area, will my hon. Friend assure me that decisions will be made quickly on the management of cottage hospitals and on the other functions that are currently provided by Plymouth and that that decision will not form part of any deal on the reorganisation of health authorities in Devon?
    Mr. Dorrell: I confirm that this matter is completely separate from a possible reorganisation of health authorities in Devon. There is benefit in proceeding reasonably quickly to a conclusion, motivated by the recognition that under the reformed NHS the key is the responsibility that rests on Cornwall health authority to secure the best health care available for the people of Cornwall from the resources spent by the NHS in the county.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Sir Anthony Durant: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 16 April.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Sir Anthony Durant: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his four-point initiative to deal with the Kurds and Shi'ites, especially the safe haven proposals, which are important? Will he work hard with the agencies to improve aid to the Shi'ites and Kurds and push the United Nations to implement resolutions 678 and 688 so that the Kurds and Shi'ites can return in confidence to their towns and villages and thereby stop this appalling situation?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Hundreds of tonnes of aid have already been delivered, of which 220 tonnes have come from the United Kingdom. In addition to the three C130s already there, nine Chinook helicopters operating from Turkey will be fully operational
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    by the end of the week. The two special representatives of the secretary-general are in Iraq and by the end of the week 150 United Nations personnel will be in Iraq to oversee the relief effort. Urgent and intensive international discussions are continuing on a safe haven plan, which I and others believe is the only way forward. Indeed, I believe that it is rapidly gaining ground. Later today, I shall chair a further meeting of Ministers to take stock of aid needs.
    Mr. Kinnock: May I strongly support the Prime Minister in the efforts being made to get aid to the wretched people who are fleeing from Saddam Hussein's forces? As the agonies of the Kurdish people continue, will the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether he shares my view that the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein against the Kurdish people mean that the Iraqi dictator has a case to answer under articles 2 and 3 of the genocide convention of 1948? Will the Prime Minister refer the issue of genocide to the United Nations Security Council as a matter of urgency?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his first words. I have asked for legal advice on the subject of genocide.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: As the strict budgetary controls of agricultural spending were effectively blow sky high last Monday when the Council of Ministers voted by 10 to two to go through the ceiling, will my right hon. Friend say what on earth we can do, or is agriculture entirely out of control? In congratulating him on Britain's being one of the two who voted against, may I ask whether he will tell the consumers and taxpayers of Britain whether we can take any action to hold on to the strict budgetary controls for which we fought so hard?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of keeping strict budgetary control on agriculture and on other items of the European Community budget. We have consistently stuck to that position and we shall continue to argue for it in the Agriculture Council and the other Councils of the Community.
    Mr. Ashdown: Notwithstanding the Prime Minister's welcome but long-term plans for Kurdish sanctuary in Iraq, does not our present air superiority provide a means and United Nations resolution 688 provide the authority for action now to prevent continuing genocide against the Kurds in Iraq? Is not the only thing lacking for action the political will and international leadership? Why does he still seem reluctant to provide either?
    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, the only comprehensive international plan before the international community is the one that I announced to the European Community on Monday this week. As I said to the House a few moments ago, urgent and intensive international discussions on the plan are continuing at this moment.
    Mr. Churchill: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his safe haven policies. Will he build on them as soon as possible with our colleagues and partners in the Security Council to ensure that, under United Nations auspices, forces are sent to both the north and south of Iraq to establish at the earliest possible opportunity safe havens into which Saddam Hussein's armies will not be permitted to go?
    The Prime Minister: I have made it clear to our colleagues in the United Nations and elsewhere that, if the relief effort is harassed or frustrated, in my judgment, under Security Council resolution 688, it is clearly the responsibility of the United Nations to protect both helpers and helped. If necessary, the United Nations would have to act on that responsibility and seek from its members whatever assistance, including military assistance, it might need.
    Mr. Wray: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 16 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Wray: The Prime Minister will be in no doubt that the question on everybody's lips is about the disgraceful "Panorama" programme which made allegations that the Prime Minister used an accommodation address in Templar street in Lambeth to gain access to the electoral register, a seat on Lambeth council and thus win a seat at Westminster. Will he give an assurance that that accusation is untrue and what action is he about to take?
    The Prime Minister: The qualification for standing for Lambeth council was to be resident within the area. "Panorama" was told on more than one occasion by the lady whose address they gave that I was living in the area, directly opposite her house, at the time and that that fully met the qualification requirements. I cannot explain to the hon. Gentleman why "Panorama" chose not to broadcast that fact.
    Mr. Bowis: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 16 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Bowis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the success of his policies in bringing down inflation, interest rates and mortgage rates shows that the better way for Britain is the Conservative way to opportunity and that it is getting better and better as the months go by? Does he agree that that is why there is such disappointment on the Opposition Benches and such desperate calls for an early election?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. It is precisely because we were prepared to take tough action on inflation that it is now coming down fast and, as I forecast, interest rates are following it down. The economy will continue to improve in the months ahead and we will continue to extend opportunities by spreading wealth, ownership and choice. No other party in the country can offer that to the British people.
    Mr. Pike: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 16 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Pike: Is not the Prime Minister concerned about the many thousands of struggling pensioners who get a pension increase and immediately lose income support and other transitional arrangements? Is not it time that he ended the practice of giving with one hand and immediately taking back with the other and started to give all pensioners a fair deal?
    The Prime Minister: If that were the policy of the Opposition, any pretence that they might have had of public expenditure control would have gone.
    Mr. John Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the next decade will be the decade of opportunity for young people, but that one opportunity that the House and the country would rather they did not take is the opportunity to commit crime? Does he agree that in national Crime Prevention Week the one major objective that we should seek is for young people to be deterred from criminal activity?
    The Prime Minister: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend. He will have noticed in particular the initiative on truancy taken this week.
    Mr. Patchett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 16 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Patchett: Does the Prime Minister feel comfortable with his policies, given the criticism from within his party, both inside and outside the House, or is he merely a victim of an enemy within?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will find that there are millions and millions of people outside the House who support our policies and who will vote for them.
    Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. Friend make an important and clear statement today that the British Government's policy in support of the safety and security of Iraqi Kurds in Iraq is not support for Kurdish insurrection against successive Governments of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran to form a separate state and that activity of that kind gives a spurious strength to the present Government of Iraq to take military action of a genocidal kind against Iraqi Kurds in Iraq?
    The Prime Minister: I have made it clear in the House on previous occasions that our concern in Iraq is to ensure that the Kurds are well treated, safe and protected from repression. That remains our policy.

    Cyprus
    Mr. Corbyn: To ask the Prime Minister, what discussions he has held with the Government of Turkey concerning their occupation of part of Cyprus.
    The Prime Minister: I met the Turkish Prime Minister yesterday and the President of Cyprus last week. My discussion yesterday with the Turkish Prime Minister concentrated on the plight of the Kurds. I urged him to help the international efforts to get the Kurds down from the mountains into areas of Turkey and Iraq where they can receive food and medicine. The Turkish Prime Minister and I spoke briefly about Cyprus later in the day.
    Mr. Corbyn: Perhaps the Prime Minister can tell us what discussions he had with the Prime Minister of Turkey. He must be aware that the British Government are a guarantor of Cypriot independence and that the 1974 invasion of Cyprus by Turkey was condemned by the United Nations. Does not he think that the aim should be the withdrawal of foreign troops from Cyprus and the reunification of the island, with guarantees from all

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    communities to end the terrible time suffered by so many people through the division of the island by military intervention?
    The Prime Minister: I made it entirely clear to the Turkish Prime Minister that we supported the efforts being made by the secretary-general and we hoped that he would make progress speedily towards a satisfactory solution.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: Will the Prime Minister confirm that Cyprus, a democratic member of the Commonwealth, is the only European country at present forcibly occupied by a foreign power? Does he agree that positive action is necessary to persuade Turkey that it is in its interest and in the interest of the regional stability of the eastern Mediterranean that the reunification of Cyprus as a stable and democratic country is implemented as soon as possible?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend and the Turkish Government are aware that that is our policy.

    Engagements
    Mr. Wareing: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 16 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Wareing: Is the Prime Minister aware that the answer that he gave to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon will have appalled the whole nation? If a Prime Minister, above anyone, has not yet taken legal advice about the genocide convention, when Kurds are being murdered and tortured every day, it is a disgrace. Indeed, it is a sin that this matter has been allowed to go as far as it has. Will the Prime Minister take action today to instruct our representatives at the United Nations to raise the matter of genocide so that action— even military action—is taken against the butcher of Baghdad?
    The Prime Minister: I note the hon. Gentleman's remarks with care. It is wise to seek and await proper legal advice on such measures. If the matter is so self-evident, why did not the Leader of the Opposition raise it until yesterday and where has the shadow Foreign Secretary been for the past fortnight?

    NEW MEMBER
    The following Member made the Affirmation required by law:
    Peter Gerald Hain Esq., for Neath.

School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Bill
3.33 pm
Mr. Jack Straw: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, of which I have given notice to you and to the Secretary of State for Education and Science. It relates to the Government's conduct regarding the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Bill.
The Second Reading of the Bill took place on 27 November. It went into Standing Committee before Christmas and came out on 5 February—two and a half months ago. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State for Education and Science told the House:
"The Bill contains the agreed policy of this Government". —[Official Report, 27 November 1990; Vol. 181, c. 743.]
He said that two of the candidates for the Conservative leadership, including the successful candidate who is now the Prime Minister, were committed to the Bill. In Committee, Ministers pressed for an early conclusion of the Committee stage, telling us repeatedly that they had to have the Bill enacted and on the statute book by Easter. Since the Committee stage, however, instead of coming to the House for its Report stage, the Bill has disappeared into the black hole of indecision that now passes for Cabinet government amidst repeated press leaks that, despite the fact that the Bill was referred to as containing the agreed position of the Government and the personal commitment of the Prime Minister, the Government's policy—
Mr. Speaker: Order. What is the point of order for me?
Mr. Straw: I shall come to it in a moment, Mr. Speaker.
I raise the point of order to complain about the conduct of Ministers in explaining away the considerable delay of the Bill. The reason is that the Government do not know whether to follow or to change the policy of the Bill. I realise that that is not a matter for you, Mr. Speaker. The matter for you is whether Ministers have been truthful in the explanations that they have offered to the House on the reasons for the delay.
It is well known that the Government are so short of business that we had an extra week's holiday at Christmas and a further week at Easter. Despite that, the Leader of the House has three times blamed a shortage of parliamentary time for the delay in bringing the Bill to the House, as has the Secretary of State in a letter to me— [Interruption.] Hon. Members may not like this, but it is clear that Ministers, including the Leader of the House, have made statements on the reasons for the Bill's delay that are palpably untrue.
Mr. Speaker: Order. That is a reflection upon Ministers and must be withdrawn.
Mr. Straw: I took advice from the Clerks—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not a Clerk. Will the hon. Gentleman please withdraw his remark?
Mr. Straw: I withdraw it.
I want to ask you, Mr. Speaker—and I also took advice on this from the Clerks—whether it is open to Ministers to
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make statements to the House that palpably do not fit with the facts. It is known to hon. Members that there is no shortage of parliamentary time, but that is the only explanation that has been offered to the House. In those circumstances, hon. Members may well feel themselves to have been heavily misled by Ministers, and so may you, Mr. Speaker. Do you, Mr. Speaker, regard that conduct by Ministers as acceptable?
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am on my feet.
I think that the whole House enjoyed an extra week's holiday. I do not know why it was given or whether or not there was business to discuss. All that the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) has said has nothing to do with me; it is a matter of dispute that he has with the Government. It is not an issue of order in the Chamber.
Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have not your predecessors and you, Mr. Speaker, consistently condemned abuse, whether by Back Benchers or Front Benchers, of the point of order procedure of the House to make purely political points that can properly be made in a censure motion or on a Supply day? Such points of order ought never to be countenanced by a Speaker, whether they come from a Front Bencher or a Back Bencher.
Mr. Speaker: Things of that sort are frequently said in the Chamber. In order to know whether a point of order is bogus or not, I have to hear it. I have already announced that I did not think that the subject was a matter for me.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor): Whether or not it was a point of order is clearly for you, Mr. Speaker, to decide, but it may be for the convenience of the House if I say that there will be a statement on the matter tomorrow.

BILLS PRESENTED
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE ACT 1988 (AMENDMENT)
  Mr. Peter Viggers presented a Bill to amend section 13 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 so as to exclude members of the armed forces from relief for students in respect of the community charge: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 3 May and to be printed. [Bill 132.]
  SMOKE DETECTORS
  Mr. Conal Gregory, supported by Mr. Stuart Bell, Mr. Alistair Burt, Mrs. Rosie Barnes, Mr. Douglas French, Dame Janet Fookes, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mr. Ian McCartney and Mr. Patrick Thompson, presented a Bill to make provision with respect to the fitting of smoke detectors in new dwellings: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 April and to be printed [Bill 131.]

  Forestry Commission
  3.37 pm
  Mr. Martin Redmond: I beg to move,
  That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the Forestry Commission from transferring any land without guaranteeing continuing public access to that land.
  The Bill will guarantee the continuation of public accessibility to the land that is sold by the Forestry Commission.
  Of the more than 2 million hectares of woodlands and forests in Britain, nearly half are owned by the Forestry Commission. It is my belief that the majority of the public wants the land owned by the nation and managed by the Forestry Commission on behalf of the nation to remain accessible so that this generation and future generations can enjoy all the environmental benefits that forests, woodlands and moorlands can offer.
  Regrettably, in 1981, the Conservative Government instructed the Forestry Commission to sell off large areas of its woodlands, forests and open lands to the private sector. That was a stupid and irresponsible policy, as the Forestry Commission land belongs to the nation and not to the private sector.
  By March 1989, a total of 140,000 hectares had been sold off—an area bigger than the whole of Berkshire or of Fife. In June 1989, the Government announced a continuation of their policy and the commission was instructed to sell off another 100,000 hectares by the year 2000. Yet it was quite clear by 1989 that the warning given by the Ramblers Association about the problems resulting from selling the land was justified and the problems had arrived.
  When the Forestry Commission sells land to the private buyer, it does nothing to ensure that the access hitherto enjoyed by the public is protected. By and large, private woodland owners are not keen to give the public the same freedom of access in their woods as the Forestry Commission. There no rational reason for that.
  At no time has the commission said that public access is incompatible with efficient management of its woods and forest and the private woodland owners' association, the Timber Growers United Kingdom, appears to agree with that as it said recently:
  "One of the principal advantages of forestry is that it is a land use where access and recreation can be combined, often with little loss of timber production."
  In one respect—fire prevention—the Commission has said that it is a positive benefit to have people walking in its forests, because when there is an outbreak of fire, it is more likely to be spotted, reported and extinguished before any really extensive damage occurs than it would be if it happened in a forest where walking is not allowed.
  Nevertheless, private woodland owners are generally not access-friendly. As a result, access to land sold by the Forestry Commission has often been lost. Examples were given in a BBC "Country File" television programme on 10 March 1991 and others were quoted in the Observer.
  In June 1989, the Secretary of State for Scotland stated that the Government were concerned and that careful
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  consideration would be given to the problem so that the public could continue to enjoy access. That careful consideration was not speedy. A further statement was not made until 17 months later, in November 1990. The Secretary of State for Scotland stated that the Forestry Commission would offer to enter into legal agreements with local authorities to provide for continuing public access to woodlands after sale. However, those legal agreements are to be subject to guidelines that have yet to be drawn up, and until they appear no agreements safeguarding access can be entered into.
  It is noteworthy and depressing that a Forestry Commission spokesman was quoted in the Observer as saying that consultation on access agreement guidelines was likely to continue for several months. Meanwhile, land continues to be sold and public access continues to be lost.
  To make matters even worse, the Forestry Commission is no longer supplying the Ornance Survey with information about its land. That decision, unannounced previously and taken without any consultation with organisations representing map users, was set out in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) from the director general of the Ornance Survey. Its effect is that members of the public will be deprived of an important source of information about where they can freely walk in the countryside.
  The Government should follow the example set by the United States of America, Denmark and other countries. However, I fear that they will not.
  There are two solutions to the problem. First, the sale of forests, woodlands and open land should stop immediately, or the Government should instruct the Forestry Commission to include a clause in the sales agreement that guarantees the right of accessibility to the general public. Secondly, the Government should support this Bill and ensure that parliamentary time is allocated for it to become part of our legislation, thereby giving the public what they desire.
  Therefore, I challenge the Government to get off their backsides and to do one or the other—to do nothing is criminal.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Martin Redmond, Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. Michael Welsh, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett. Mr. Peter Hardy, Mrs. Llin Golding, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Mr. Bob Cryer, Mr. Allen McKay, Mr. Tom Cox, Mr. Chris Smith and Mr. George J. Buckley.

  FORESTRY COMMISSION
  Mr. Martin Redmond accordingly presented a Bill to prohibit the Forestry Commission from transferring any land without guaranteeing continuing public access to that land; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26 April and to be printed. [Bill 133.]
Orders of the Day
  British Technology Group Bill
  Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
New Clause 1

  ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION
  'In preparing the Articles of Association of the successor company, the Secretary of State shall make such arrangements as he deems necessary to preserve the nature of those business activities being undertaken by the Board and Corporation immediately prior to the appointment of the successor company.'.—[Sir Gerard Vaughan.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  3.45 pm
  Sir Gerard Vaughan: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss: New clause 5—Independence of the successor company—
  'It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the successor company shall take such steps as are necessary to preserve the independence of the British Technology Group to enable it to maintain and extend its services in the field of technology transfer.'.
  Amendment No. 5, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, after 'section 2', insert 'and subsection (1A) below'.
  Amendment No. 6, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—
  '(1A) The Secretary of State shall not be empowered to vest the property, rights and liabilities as set out in subsection (1) above unless he publishes plans showing how the independence, impartiality and integrity of the successor company will be guaranteed.'.
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am disappointed to note that new clause 3 and amendment No. 4 have not been selected, given that they are the official Opposition's principal amendments to the Bill. I understand that that is because of a technicality in the drafting. May I have an assurance from you, Mr. Speaker, that in view of the reasonably wide-ranging nature of the new clauses and amendments that have been selected, we shall be able to cover in that debate the matters of principle that we had intended to cover in our new clause and amendment?
  Mr. Speaker: I went carefully into the question of the selection of the amendments. I cannot select defective amendments. Matters of principle, but not the new clause and amendment to which the hon. Gentleman has referred, may be debated with the group.
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I could not hear clearly, but am I right in thinking that matters of principle may be raised? I understand that the selection of new clauses and amendments is entirely a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, but would it be in order for me to speak to new clause 2 although it has not been selected? I wish to deal with a matter of detail, not simply a matter of principle.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman knows that I cannot give reasons for my decisions, but perhaps I could hint to him that that matter was fully debated in Committee.
  Sir Gerard Vaughan: I believe that the purpose of new clause 1 is absolutely clear. We wish to safeguard the future in this country of a very special organisation. We wish to ensure that the British Technology Group becomes an independent corporate body with the vitality and freedom to carry out an extremely important role in academic research, inventiveness and commercial activity. Despite all the Minister's excellent work on the Bill to date, we do not think that he has so far given adequate safeguards to ensure that.
  I am sure that we would all agree that the new BTG should be able to draw sufficient sums of money—at times quite large sums of money—to enable it to carry out its future role. At the same time, it must not be put at risk of being taken over by a huge industrial corporation or concern, which would almost certainly be from overseas, and which would have the sole object of taking over the 8,000 patents and future patents that BTG holds and of using them for its own commercial advantage. We must be sure that BTG could not be asset-stripped.
  We are particularly concerned to protect the intellectual property and inventiveness of the universities. We want to see inventions marketed adequately, but we want them to be safeguarded. The intellectual property of the universities belongs in the first instance, of course, to the universities themselves. I suggest to my hon. Friend the Minister that the only way to secure such safeguards is to form a consortium in which the universities have a proper stake. The universities should also play a role on the management board of any future company.
  I also suggest that the Government should hold a stake in any future organisation for at least the first few years to ensure that some undesirable organisation does not take advantage of it. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) will seek to say something about the university aspect.
  I hope that the Minister will tell us that his first priority will be, not to extract as much money as possible on behalf of the Treasury, but to ensure that the future British Technology Group operates in the way that we have suggested. I am sure that the Minister's intentions are good, but statements of good intention are not really sufficient in this matter. He should not try to keep all his options open but should tell us clearly what he has in mind.
  The wording of our new clause may not be perfect—the wording of amendments tabled by Back-Bench Members is rarely perfect—but if there are small faults in it I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept the good intentions behind it and will undertake to table an amendment with improved wording, if he thinks it necessary to do so, when the Bill goes to another place.
  We regard the Bill as extremely important for the future of our scientific and technological progress in Britain. The British Technology Group has played an important role already as a public body. We believe that it will gain enormously from being in the private sector, but it will do so only if there are proper safeguards for its future.
  Mr. Rees: I and some of my colleagues on both sides of the House tabled an amendment which refers to articles of association. You, Mr. Speaker, were right in saying that we have already dealt with one aspect of the matter in Committee, but in Committee we were referring to members of the board of directors of the new company. I declare an interest as a member of the courts of London

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  university and of the London School of Economics. Some of us felt that if we failed in the matter of individual members of the board the Government should have regard to the interests of the university in drawing up the articles of association of the successor company.
  We do not argue that directors should necessarily be appointed to the companies in the way that we suggested in Committee, but the interests of the universities should be taken into account. While I accept your decision, Mr. Speaker, and the fact that we shall not be able to vote on our amendment, I should like to deal with the interests of the universities.
  This is not simply another privatisation Bill. It is privatisation of a particular form of the British Technology Group which, from the day it was set up under a different name in 1947–48, was a concept different from other nationalisation measures of the time.
  It is important for the House to take into account the nature of articles of association which lay down the objectives of a company. I have looked at the articles of association of my college, the London School of Economics, and of others, and the objectives of the company should take into account the interests of the universities, not those of the individuals who are appointed to the company.
  All the briefing that we have had, which I shall not repeat because it was dealt with in Committee, shows that the BTG's intellectual property enanated from the universities and the research councils, as is mentioned in new clause 2, which says:
  "The Secretary of State shall … have regard to the interests of the universities and the Research Councils … and shall consult with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and the Research Councils".
  That is vital.
  The Secretary of State must take into account the fact that the universities account for the largest single source of the BTG's intellectual property—about 60 per cent. if one takes into account the teaching hospitals. The research council institutes and the research associations account for 25 per cent. and the rest comes largely from Government laboratories. The BTG depends for its success on the high quality research and inventiveness of our universities. Therefore, the interests of those institutions should be taken into account when drawing up the articles of association. That argument has been made in a different context many times, so I shall not argue the case again.
  The Minister met representatives of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals yesterday in a different context. He knows the worth of the arguments that are put forward by people in that group, the nature of the BTG, and that it is important that the intellectual property should be safeguarded so that it can be used properly in future by the successor company. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance about the nature of the articles of association and that he will safeguard the intellectual property of the universities.
  We know about the problems that have long faced universities about the nature of fundamental research and applied research and as a result of a shortage of money. Earning money through the BTG has enabled them to have more students, particularly in the natural sciences, and so on.
  Sir Gerard Vaughan: The right hon. Gentleman talks about safeguarding the interests of universities. Does he agree that they should have an active role in any future
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  body? It is not enough simply to have people who think the way that they do; the universities should play a part in the management of a future body.
  Mr. Rees: I was trying to observe Mr. Speaker's ruling and not put forward a more detailed argument. The short answer is that I agree fully. What matters is that the interests of the universities and research councils should be taken into account. It is up to the Government to determine the appropriate way of doing so.
  We argued this case twice in Committee. At the end of the day I think that all members on both sides of the Committee understood that the privatisation of the BTG is different from other privatisations and that wherever the successor company gets its capital from, whatever the problems about pensions and asset stripping, it is vital that our universities, which lead the world in so many ways, should still be able to work in the new successor company for their own ends and for those of the country. That can be done only if the articles of association are drawn up in such a way that the interests of the universities are taken into account; and there are various means by which that could be done.
  Although the new clause that I tabled has not been selected for consideration, I hope that the Minister will take it into account.
  4 pm
  Sir Trevor Skeet: I support the new clause. It is important to take into account the assets that are at risk. The BTG represents a core team of specialists in technological transfer and patent protection. Some 8,200 patents have been granted and 500 licensing agreements reached. These bring in royalties—the bulk of the BTG income—of £29·5 million.
  Although it is important to take into account the relationship between the BTG and the universities, it is also important to consider what the BTG represents. It has a staff of 188 and it employs six solicitors, 18 patent agents with trainees, 15 financial managers, plus six on the venture capital side and 60 specialists in technology transfer who work in the operating division. I would challenge anyone to say that there is any other group in the United Kingdom with such a team of experts as that in the BTG, which has operated for so many years. It would be disgraceful if those people were abandoned in the future, particularly if that were as a result of asset stripping.
  The BTG has agreements with 50 universities, 17 polytechnics and eight medical schools. The right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) has already mentioned that the universities are by far the biggest source of the BTG's intellectual property—they account for more than 50 per cent. of it, if the contribution from the teaching hospitals is included. Another 25 per cent. of that intellectual property comes from the research councils. Given that contribution, it is only right that the House should hold out for special consideration for the universities, polytechnics and medical schools. My hon. Friend the Minister has a tricky course to follow, but I hope that he will take into account that special consideration and protect it.
  I have outlined the assets that are at stake, but it is important to consider it from a different angle—the risk to which those assets will be exposed. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) has already mentioned asset stripping, but the elimination of our

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  competitive technologies would be equally disastrous. Some 70 per cent. of the licensed income of the BTG comes from abroad and it will be especially vulnerable to foreign takeover. Given that 40 per cent. of its income comes from the United States, and knowing how grasping that country is and how covetous it is of the BTG since the American equivalent is much smaller, I dare say that the United States will want to take it over at the first opportunity. We must do something to protect the BTG from that.
  We must also prevent sector domination by a limited number of shareholders. Shares can be allocated to any one shareholder, but they must be strictly limited by number.
  It is important to appreciate the earnings to BTG from its various intellectual property. Antibiotics provide £150 million for the BTG, magnetic resonance imaging £18 million and cholesterol measurement equipment another £6 million—a sizeable proportion of the total income of the BTG. One can imagine that a pharmaceutical company would say, "It is ripe for takeover and if we had it, we could strip out any of the assets that we didn't require and put them into the relevant side of the company".
  Mr. Anthony Steen: Does my hon. Friend agree that what we want is not a friendly assessment of our case from the Minister, but an undertaking that when the Bill leaves Parliament it will contain provisions to protect the company? Is not that what my hon. Friend is saying that the Minister should do today?
  Sir Trevor Skeet: I have not yet heard what the Minister has to say, but I agree with my hon. Friend's analysis. This is the Report stage and the Bill will soon be passed. I want the Bill to contain a clause to ensure that there is a reference to the articles of association, which will enable the Minister to say that there will be a ruling on anyone who sets up an independent company hereafter so that we shall have some control over it.
  I espouse my hon. Friend's arguments, but I go further. The pharmaceutical industry—Du Pont, Bayer in Germany, Smithkline Beecham, perhaps, in the United Kingdom, Glaxo and others would like to take over the company. The BTG has 8,000 patents in 1,500 different sectors of technology, and they would all be extremely useful. Therefore, we must examine the issue carefully.
  I do not want to detain the House for too long, but I wish to make one further important point about similar organisations and technology transfers. I mentioned the American Research Corporation. In the United Kingdom, we have 3i Research Exploitation Limited, which is smaller than the BTG but which is important because its parent company is a substantial size. It is possible that, in the future, that little organisation, backed up by a powerful parent company, may wish to take over the BTG. I am for competition, so I would not like to see the company taken over. Therfore, I suggest that we should be very cautious.
  The BTG's chief executive, Ian Harvey, said:
  "BTG's royalty revenues are greater than the total royalties earned by the entire US university and government research systems combined."
  The BTG is a plum to be picked unless we do something to safeguard it.
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  I know that the Minister is listening intently. He must say that he will safeguard the company once it is released from his control. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) said on Second Reading that he could give safeguards through the golden share for two or three years, but a provision should be written into the articles of association to give further coverage in future and to ensure that the technology in which the United Kingdom has secured an advanced position is safeguarded for the next decade.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I wish to speak especially to the new clause and the amendments tabled in my name, but I should like first to comment on new clause 1 and on the contributions made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) and the hon. Members for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) and for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet).
  I support the proposition that there should be as much effort, thought and consideration as possible before a decision is made on principle by the Government to include academic and university interests in the future structure, as they have requested and as they are keen to ensure. I have read the contributions made by the Minister in Committee. Although I was not a member of that Committee, I have followed the Bill with considerable interest and, so far, the Minister has kept his cards close to his chest—not a single card has been revealed.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: Perhaps he does not have any.
  Mr. Hughes: It is not for me to say whether he has any, but he will certainly have to play some cards if he wants to get the Bill through the House. He will have to open the Bill up to amendment either here or in the other place because eminent Members on both sides of both Houses will join in voicing substantial and significant concern.
  The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North described the BTG as a plum ripe for the picking. The BTG is our scientific and technological family silver, albeit recently acquired family silver—a collection built up over the past 40 years and, in particular, the past 10 years. The Minister knows that in the past six years the BTG has been pre-eminently successful. As the hon. Member of Parliament in whose constituency the BTG's headquarters are located, I feel somewhat defensive. I am concerned that we should not, as a result of our negligence, allow the assets to be pinched. There can be no excuse for that because we have all been alerted to the importance of the assets that we have in our possession.
  Dr. Keith Hampson: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, like most of us, would not mind selling an asset—even the family silver—if, in doing so, he could turn the result into an appreciating asset. I imagine that the BTG feels exactly the same.
  Mr. Hughes: There is all the difference in the world between changing the management structure of the BTG for a good management reason and protecting rightful interests, and incorporating it, without individual justification, in the Government's general privatisation programme without affording it the protection that all hon. Members seek for it. I have talked to the chief executive of the BTG and have no doubt that the management are impressive in terms of both expertise and vision. I do not share the view that we want a BTG

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  protected from any foreign interest. The chief executive confirmed what the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North said about foreign interest and revenue-earning—par-ticularly from the United States and, increasingly, from Japan and so on. I know, too, that that source of funding will be increasingly important in future. But there is all the difference in the world between accepting that and allowing the BTG to be successful in the world market, and taking up the anchor and allowing the BTG to be bought out by whoever comes along, thus ensuring that a potentially great asset for British technology is no longer available to us or in any way under our control. The Minister must come clean about that this afternoon.
  Sir Trevor Skeet: Let us forget technology for one moment. The company is attractive from another angle. Its gross profits rose from £3·5 million in 1987 to £9·5 million in 1990. Its income rose from £17 million in 1987 to £29·5 million in 1990. The company is a catch by any standards, quite apart from its technological importance.
  Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The BTG is not only important as a scientific and technological resource and because it is so valuable—as the hon. Gentleman said, its earnings last year were more than £29 million—but because it is one of the mechanisms by which Britain will succeed. It is a reserve of academic and scientific skill, expertise and cross-fertilisation between subjects which will allow us to do well in the world. It is a service mechanism for British inventions and allows us to convert those inventions into the best-developed and most saleable products while safeguarding the interests of our continuing public scientific and technological base. To get rid of the BTG or not to protect its future would be to allow all Britain's intellectual and academic experts to do their job with no guarantee that any of their work would be used in the interests of their national economy and scientific base. That would be folly indeed. I cannot think of anything more foolish, given how dependent we will be on such expertise in the future for our international economic success. If we throw away something that we do so well, we shall throw away a potential cornerstone of our achievement in the next century.
  4.15 pm
  As the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North rightly reminded us, we are discussing a thriving, successful and visionary business in which several hundred committed people representing several disciplines are working together to ensure that its future is secure. That is one of its unique aspects, as is the support that it has been given by the academic community, to which it represents a bridge between pure, "blue sky" research and the commercial world. It has been a flagship for our inventors and their inventions—and if flagships are sunk on a regular basis, not much of a navy will be left.
  The BTG has pulled itself out of the doldrums. It has done very well over recent years and it deserves support. I ask the Government to respond to our concern and to accept that they should not be given a blank cheque and told to do what they will with it. I shall press the Minister especially hard on new clause 5, which—along with new clause 1—he will probably find easier to accept than amendment No. 6.
  New clause 5 seeks to impose on the Secretary of State the duty of ensuring
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  "that the successor company shall take such steps as are necessary to preserve the independence of the British Technology Group to enable it to maintain and extend its services in the field of technology transfer."
  The wording of amendment No. 6 follows the "three i's" definition given by the chairman of BTG, which has been quoted extensively both on Second Reading and in Committee—"independence, impartiality and integrity". It calls for the Secretary of State not to be able to pass on BTG through this enabling Bill without setting out how he will guarantee those qualities in the future. Those conditions will secure BTG's safety.
  It is, I think, accepted that even BTG's current management do not consider the existing assurances and guarantees go sufficiently far. I do not believe that I am betraying any secrets in saying that new clause 1 was tabled with the support of the management. It is they who have argued over the years that BTG should change its status and have come out in favour of its transfer from what can be broadly defined as the public sector to the private sector; but they, too, want assurances. If they—the people who have been pushing hardest for the change—are not happy, others can reasonably be assumed to be even less happy.
  Sir Gerard Vaughan: It is no use our country's having inventions if they cannot then be marketed to its benefit. It would be a tragedy if inventors lost confidence in the new body and did not make their inventions available to it.
  Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Some of the company's employees—who include constituents of mine—fear that the wrong sort of sale, without guarantees, would have two effects. First, it would not protect the public interest; and, secondly, it would not gain the confidence of the universities, which at present take their ideas to the company in the hope that they will be developed confidentially and intelligently so that they can be exploited to best effect. They will not go there if they believe that BTG will be bought. I am not against the idea of an international interest in it. A 10 per cent. American, Japanese or European Community shareholding might be entirely appropriate. Let us, however, consider a Japanese takeover of BTG. It is highly unlikely that many of those who currently confide the development of their invention to BTG and who come from a British academic background would continue to want to do so. They would understand that their invention would not be used, as it is now, for development at home of things that they want to develop at home. That is a practical concern. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman was right. That concern is shared profoundly by employees who are troubled by the proposals. We need to take account of their troubles and concerns.
  Amendment No. 6 adopts the chairman's language. I ask the Minister to be much clearer than he was in Committee, where he said:
  "Anxieties about the effect of privatisation on the 3i are important. The BTG chairman, Sir Colin Barker, stressed the importance of retaining 3i and several Opposition Members expressed similar anxieties. They want the Bill to include measures to safeguard the 3i after privatisation. The Government will take those anxieties into account when deciding the form of privatisation and whether safeguards are necessary in the articles or the agreement of sale."
  That was the point made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees). The Minister continued:

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  "Other factors will be taken into account in determining the best route for privatisation."—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 7 March 1991; c. 150.]
  However, the Minister refused to say specifically that he would give any guarantees or undertakings. To take those anxieties into account does not reveal the Government's hand. Independence has not been guaranteed.
  The Minister was also asked to deal with whether it would be possible for a single purchaser to take over BTG lock, stock and barrel. However, he did not adequately do so. That question was put simply by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing):
  "I was objecting to the idea of one company buying out the BTG and using its resources solely for its own interest. The Minister said that that was a possibility."
  The Minister replied:
  "It is a possibility."—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 28 February 1991; c. 97.]
  That should not be. Those who were not members of the Committee or who have not read the reports of the debates may not be aware that the Government accept that a wholesale acquisition is a possibility. That is unacceptable not just to those who were the progenitors of BTG and brought it into being in the 1940s, or to those who kept it in being during the 1980s, but to all those who are interested in BTG. Such an unconditional possibility is unacceptable to them.
  If such a sell-out is possible, the conclusion must be that impartiality will be impossible. If a large or a monopoly shareholder decided not to accept or develop products if the new inventions threatened their market share in goods that they already produce, there would be no independence. If BTG were to be sold in an uncontrolled manner, without any limits on the size of shareholdings, or on the level of overseas shareholdings, the management's motivation would be affected. It would be much more likely to be motivated by the need to meet shareholders' demands for profits, not excellence.
  The danger is that patents will be sold off to the highest bidder. That may be in our short-term commercial interests, but it would do no good to our long-term commercial interests. Shareholders could cream off the profits instead of making sure that we develop patents.
  In conclusion, I ask the Minister the following questions. Will he tell the House unequivocally that he has no intention of selling BTG to the highest bidder? Can he assure us that that will not be possible? Will he tell us unequivocally that there will not be an overseas monopoly of shares in BTG? Will he tell us unequivocally that he intends to ensure, through the articles of association, that BTG will have a duty to consider all patents brought to it in an impartial manner, uninfluenced by the business interests of the shareholders? Will he tell us unequivocally that, in the articles of association, BTG will not have as a business objective the selling of patents for short-term profits rather than preserving the long-term interests of current and future patent holders and licensees? Lastly, will he tell us unequivocally that BTG will be required, if and when it is privatised, rigorously to defend the patents and licences that it has built up as part of its portfolio over the years of its success? We need some assurances and if they are not forthcoming we shall have to register our dissatisfaction.
  I have spoken in a non-partisan way as someone who has been aware of the benefit of BTG for all the years that
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  I have been Member of Parliament for Southwark and Bermondsey, not just because it is based in my constituency but because it is a key scientific resource. I hope that the message is clear across the House.
  If the Minister can help us today, he will get far less of a rough ride from the other place. If he does not help us today, he must not underestimate that the other place may give him a very hard time. I have no wish to make the Minister's summer difficult or unpleasant, but I do not want him to be dogmatic about the BTG. There are ways of protecting its interests. If that is achieved none of us will be dogmatic about it, but if that does not happen we will have to stand firm and say that the Government are not being honest or straightforward and that they are not looking after the nation's interests as they should.
  Dr. Hampson: It is worth recording officially that today is remarkable in one essential respect. This is the first privatisation that the Government have undertaken that the Labour party has not opposed. The amendments do not object to the privatisation. Their purpose is merely to ensure that the end product satisfies a common purpose.
  Dr. Jeremy Bray: I hate to disabuse the hon. Gentleman, but we voted against the Second Reading and, subject to what the Minister has to say, no doubt we shall vote against the Third Reading. We have steadily expressed our opposition to the Bill throughout. Certainly within the framework of Government policy we seek to improve the Bill as far as it can be improved.
  Dr. Hampson: That just goes to show what a lot of charlatans the Opposition are. Anyone who has read what BTG has stated and particularly what the chief executive wrote in the Observer in March would have no argument against the Bill. When one talks to Opposition Members, they accept its validity. I thought that the Labour party had basically accepted five or six central points.
  Dr. Moonie: Does the hon. Gentleman genuinely believe that the chief executive of the British Technology Group has only the good interests of the company at heart and not his own?
  Dr. Hampson: That is one of the great giveaways of all time. I always thought that the Labour party was advocating that management should look after the interests of the company and its work force. Here we are saying that the man who is closest to the coal face, if one can use a Labour phrase, does not know what is in the best interests of the company. Since when did the Government know what are the best interests of the company?
  One of the problems in this country has been that we have had no effective means of technology transfer between the originators in the academic world and delivery in business. We have been edging forward out of the grotesque bureaucratic apparatus which the Labour party supported and, from what we have just heard, seems still to support, into a much more flexible instrument. It is an instrument that is very successful in generating returns for the universities—£13 million a year. It is seen by the universities as one of the most effective means of promoting their inventions. As the universities themselves are not against this privatisation, it is extraordinary that the Labour party opposes it. But Labour has managed to get itself ideologically cocooned; it is simply against privatisation in principle, no matter what the context.
  Dr. Moonie: I hoped that the hon. Gentleman, who is one of the more intelligent Members on the Government Back Benches, would be able to recognise the difference between making the best of a bad job and supporting a principle.
  4.30 pm
  Dr. Hampson: Now the hon. Gentleman is changing his tune. It is significant that there are hardly more than four Labour Members in the Chamber to take part in the great defence of their principle. The Opposition recognise that the future of this operation depends on its being in the private sector. The company itself says so. If it is to remain the world's leading technology transfer company. it will, they say, have to be "given the freedom and the stimulus of the private sector". If it is to succeed, it cannot be parochial. It must not be restricted within the bounds of an island off the greater part of the continent, and isolated from the rest of the world. This must be a global operation. It is vital that it has the critical mass which will give it the investment potential that is necessary if it is to draw on innovative capacity around the world, for the benefit of this country.
  Governments will set limits on its operations, and have to approve board members and executives. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the organisation should have to exist in a critical and competitive world with one hand tied behind its back? Is he saying that it should be kept in a financial straitjacket?
  The Opposition do not seem to realise what has been happening in recent years. Today, the Treasury is more short term in its thinking than is any organisation in the City. The hon. Gentleman should take the trouble to read some of the remarks of the chief executive of BTG. Two years ago, on the orders of the Treasury, it had to pay dividends amounting to £8·6 million, despite the fact that its after-tax profit was £5·2 million. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman, instead of trying to intervene ideologic-ally, should listen. How does he justify the fact that a company that he wants to succeed had to pay dividends amounting to £8·6 million, although its after-tax profit was £5·2 million? That is a means of preventing this organisation from backing British innovation and from succeeding in technology transfer.
  Dr. Moonie: The hon. Gentleman has referred to a Treasury straitjacket. But Treasury straitjackets are not immutable; they can be changed. The hon. Gentleman says that the company has one hand tied behind its back. But this is the world's most successful technology transfer organisation. No organisation in any other country comes anywhere near it. It seems to have done rather well in the straitjacket that the Treasury has provided for it. On the question of management, surely the hon. Gentleman is aware that a survey of the views of all the employees of BTG showed that an overwhelming majority were opposed to the principle and practice of privatisation.
  Dr. Hampson: The hon. Gentleman has just given the game away totally. Only five minutes ago he was condemning the management; now he is praising it for having done a brilliant job in the straitjacket of the Treasury. He knows that the company will prosper without that straitjacket.
  This debate is really about protecting intellectual property and the people who create it—the innovators.
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  Every one of the amendments that we are debating is, in a sense, flawed. We have all fallen into the trap of talking about the articles of the successor company. The successor company will be a Government company run by civil servants, and it may last a long or short time. The amendments' aim is to probe the Government's intention for the private operation, not the successor company, which is a technical term for the interim period before the company is sold.
  I hope that we are seeking not blanket condemnation of the principle of privatisation but firm guarantees from my hon. Friend the Minister on the structure of the private company that will emerge. If he can give those guarantees, new clause 1 and new clause 5 become redundant. We shall have to wait and see whether my hon. Friend can go beyond what he said in Committee.
  Dr. Bray: New clause 1 is not as defective as the hon. Gentleman suggests because clause 15 defines the successor company as
  "the company nominated for the purposes of section 1";
  and under clause 1 the successor company is the company that
  "the Secretary of State may by order appoint all the property, rights and liabilities to".
  Only the sale of shares in the successor company constitutes the act of privatisation. The successor company, surely, continues, so new clause 5 is in order.
  Dr. Hampson: There is a nice legal dispute about what the amendment means, but I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to clarify that. We are trying to ensure that the final structure of the company meets valid objectives, the critical one being that the British Technology Group is our primary instrument for transferring bright ideas and breakthroughs to the private sector. It must therefore remain independent and in no circumstances must it fall into foreign ownership.
  I might as well jump my own gun and say that the most important point that my hon. Friend the Minister must clarify concerns the prospect of a golden share held by the Government. The model was water privatisation, where we established a five-year golden share, which must be a minimum period to prevent asset stripping, especially foreign asset stripping.
  Dr. Bray rose—
  Dr. Hampson: I shall give way again to the hon. Member for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray), but my brief intervention is becoming a summing up. I have replied to about six interventions. The Labour party is so sensitive on this issue that it cannot do other than constantly defend its position.
  Dr. Bray: The hon. Gentleman is making a useful speech. He said that he would like to see a golden share. Will he support amendment No. 2, which creates such a golden share for the precise period that he specified?
  Dr. Hampson: I shall wait to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister says. I am always hesitant to support amendments tabled by the Labour party; I am sure that its amendment is as inadequately drafted as amendments that I have tabled. I have long said that a golden share is the only sensible guarantee of avoiding asset stripping.
  Mr. Simon Hughes rose—
  Dr. Hampson: I shall give way, but it must be for the last time as this is a short debate.
  Mr. Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the logic of his general principle—that we must protect this important mechanism—will not be sustained by the mechanism that he proposes? A golden share kept for, say, five years places as much uncertainty in the mind of the prospective inventor who wants to use BTG, because after five years there may be no golden share. We need a mechanism and guarantees that the structure will be circumscribed in certain respects. It will be in the private sector, but in these respects we shall have control over it. Five years is short term, with the risk that it all gets lost in five years' time. That will not provide the confidence that is one of the prerequisites for the operation's necessary success.
  Dr. Hampson: I was coming to that point because I agree that short termism is a problem, and I have commented on that in one context already. It also applies in the sense that five years means that it will come, probably, in the political cycle. A body that earns perhaps 70 per cent. of its income abroad and has to deal with private companies and private enterprise in, say, Japan will have problems if we are not careful, with a Labour Government potentially always hovering around threatening to turn it into some nasty bureaucratic stranglehold operation. No national enterprise will ever be able to draw on the property rights of other, private companies. We have seen a couple of major examples already with BTG.
  A golden share is essential in the transitional period and as the major protection against asset stripping, which may be by a British company; and may not be foreign. But I fear that the major Japanese conglomerates, with their huge banking resources and industrial strength, would thrive on the innovative power that BTG generates. So there has to be a ceiling, and this is the third point that I want to ask my hon. Friend to clarify. I want him to go beyond what he said in Committee and to say that there will be a ceiling on the equity holding of any foreign operation.
  I endorse entirely what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) in moving the new clause. We are primarily interested in the independance of this operation. The consortium idea is a very attractive one because I believe that the universities are a critical force that has to be recognised. It is almost irrelevant whether they have one, two or more members on the board. It is the blocking stake in the operation overall that is important. I hope that they can generate the resources. We have to look quite inventively, as some operations in the United States have done, at how private industrial business capital can go through the university world to lock the universities into a major participating element of this company—a 20 per cent. stake—a blocking stake of some kind, to keep the universities as a central player in the operation.
  Above all, I hope that what will emerge from what my hon. Friend says today is the recognition that a Major society, if I can coin a phrase, if it is to be an innovative society, must ensure that this form of partnership between the academic, innovating world and the private capitalist world, which is the dynamo of the world economy, thrives and succeeds. I believe that what we are doing today is the right way forward.
  Mr. Mike Watson: It was stated on Second Reading and on a number of occasions in Committee that there is no need for the privatisation of the British Technology Group. I do not intend to go over that ground again, but one point that should be mentioned is that, if and when the BTG is privatised, the United Kingdom will be the only major industrial nation that will not provide backing for technology transfer. I believe that we should learn a lesson from some of our industrial competitors, such as the United States, France and Japan, all of which have industrial records that are considerably better than ours and all of which have state owned and controlled technology transfer companies which perform effectively.
  I find it strange that the Minister and his colleagues have found little good to say on behalf of BTG and the job it is doing. We know that it is profitable and effective and that it is regarded highly by universities, research institutions, and so forth. Yet the Government are determined to force it into the private sector irrespective, apparently, of the effect that that will have on its effectiveness.
  4.45 pm
  Some comments of the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) about BTG were rather patronising. He talked of the Opposition's approach to BTG and referred to the so-called straitjacket within which he believed it was currently operating. There is little evidence of that, despite comments which the senior staff of BTG have made and which were repeated in Committee. It seems clear that the body is effective and ought to be allowed to continue in that way. However, we must be realistic and assume that the Bill will eventually become law and that BTG will be privatised. On that assumption, the question of safeguards, which is referred to particularly in new clause 1, is important.
  The hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) raised the question of assets. He talked of the prime assets of the company as being the staff. I would not disagree, but I thought that he was a bit restrictive. He talked of senior staff and of investment, knowledge, research, expertise, and so forth. There are 188 staff at the British Technology Group, and I think it is wrong to say that we should be absolutely certain that some of those staff stay with the group when it is privatised while others are of less importance. There is a contribution of expertise from the staff on a wider scale that should be valued and recognised.
  Although staff are clearly prime assets of any organisation, I am also concerned—and this is not the first time that I have said so during the stages of this Bill— about the question of patents owned by BTG and what will happen to them subsequent to privatisation. I spoke on Second Reading on 12 February and made similar comments, which drew an intervention from the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North, who said that he saw no problem with regard to patents. I raised the question again in Committee, addressing my remarks to the Under-Secretary, and said that I had had no assurances from him in his summing up on Second Reading and hoped that I would have some assurances on that later occasion.
  The Under-Secretary said that the question of patents was one of the important points which the Government wished to draw out from the debate—I use his words. But it was never successfully drawn out from the debate in

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  Committee and there is no evidence as yet that the hon. Gentleman or any of his colleagues is likely to give it any emphasis at this stage of the Bill.
  It is very important that the question of patents is addressed and that assurances are given to universities and other research bodies. Many individuals who work within unversities need assurances about what will happen under the new ownership of the group. I hope that the Under-Secretary is listening when I ask again for such assurances. I see that he is not listening, but perhaps the message will eventually get through to him that the people responsible for inventions need assurances about patents.
  One reason why we need such assurances concerns how patents might be defended following the sale of BTG. The fact that BTG pursued the Pentagon recently in a case that lasted for a considerable time and resulted in payments of some £6 million being made to BTG and the owners of the patents concerned has rightly received a lot of publicity. That is not a typical example, but BTG has been vigorous in defending the patents within its control and we need assurances that that will continue. Legal action is, of necessity, costly, particularly lengthy cases, often against powerful predators—multinational corporations perhaps —and these may not be attractive to the new owners of BTG.
  I am particularly concerned about comments made by Dr. Ian Young, the manager of research on nuclear magnetic resonance, which has been a major earner for the British Technology Group. He said that he was concerned about overseas patent infringers. What would happen if the new owners of the group were faced with a similar situation in terms of one of the existing patents, or indeed a patent which came along subsequent to privatisation, and the estimation was made by the new owners that the cost of litigation in defending that patent could not be justified for any number of reasons, the least of which might be financial?
  Some safeguard has to be written into the Bill. There is no safeguard whatsoever, and I am particularly concerned that this matter is addressed and that the Under-Secretary gives us the Government's views about how this problem may be dealt with after privatisation.
  The last point that I want to mention was covered by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), for whom I have great respect. He is the Member who represents me through my London residence; therefore, I want to keep in his good books. I also have great respect for his knowledge of education matters and for his ability to extend his comments over a long period. On occasion that has been of benefit both in Committee and in the House. The hon. Gentleman is not here at the moment, but I should like him to know that I mean those comments kindly; no doubt his colleague the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) will pass them on.
  The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey talked about who might take over BTG when it goes up for sale. He expressed the view, which I wholeheartedly echo, that the highest bidder should not necessarily be successful. That is of great importance.
  It is also important that consideration is given to expertise. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West said towards the end of his contribution that universities might have a role to play in bidding for the British Technology Group. I hope that that possibility comes to fruition.
  Dr. Hampson: I should like to correct the hon. Gentleman. I did not say that the universities should bid for BTG because that would be a gross waste of their resources; I do not even know how they would do it. However, I think that they have a part to play in a consortium arrangement in which they would have a blocking element, if for no other reason than that I do not want the ownership of BTG to be vested in an industrial corporation which would use the intellectual property rights generated in this country to block universities from commercial activity just because they were in competition with things that the company was already doing. I think that the universities have to be built into the system to look after the interests of the innovators, but I do not want the universities to own the company.
  Mr. Watson: I value that qualification of the hon. Gentleman's remarks; I had misinterpreted what he said. The argument as to whether the universities and research councils should have representation on the board of the new company, by whomsoever it is owned, was addressed in Committee. Such suggestions came from the Opposition and were rejected by the Government. I share the concern of the Member for Leeds, North-West and hope that something will come of it.
  I was addressing my remarks to the possibility that some universities may form a consortium with research organisations and foundations, possibly involving British Technology Group managers and employees, to bid for the company. That would not mean that it would be owned by the universities, but they would have an input financially and in expertise. It would not necessarily cost the universities a great deal to divert funds which might be used for other purposes at a time when they are being squeezed, but it would mean that there would be a direct input from universities, which would be much more desirable than commercial considerations being brought to bear on BTG which has shown over the years that it can conduct technology transfer in a way which, while being profitable, is not driven by profit as the main motive. It is important to stress that profit need not and should not be the main motive.
  There is a great deal of expertise, particularly in universities and research councils, that must be used to ensure that the British Technology Group post-privatisation maintains its role of being effective in technology transfer. If it is run simply as a business proposition, it will have a short life. No hon. Member wants that. If the Government are prepared to take note of the comments of hon. Members on both sides of the House, I think that we will achieve some assurances of university and research council involvement. That is very important for the future development of the British Technology Group.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: At one point during the debate we started to descend into the political arena as to whether the British Technology Group should be privatised because privatisation is a good thing or not privatised because it is perceived to be a bad thing. That was a little caricature of a sensitive and mature debate about the nature of the business activities carried out by BTG.
  Everyone who has spoken in the debate shares the same sense of purpose that there should be at least a body, whether it is called the British Technology Group or something else, to which British invention can go with

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  confidence, knowing that it will be supported not only in the short term but in the long term, that its intellectual property will be nurtured and that it may be nurtured in the national interest, which seems to be not an unreasonable end for which to aim.
  The function of the British Technology Group includes securing, where the public interest so requires, the development or exploitation of inventions resulting from public research. That is entirely laudable. Neither on Second Reading nor in the Committee proceedings which I have studied have the Government been able to give satisfactory assurances that the strategic aims of the British Technology Group will continue. It seems possible that in a very short time the assets of the group will be sold to the highest bidder, who may not have our national interest at heart.
  Hon. Members have mentioned selling the family silver. In one respect at least there is a danger of giving away rather than selling the family silver. I put to the Minister a point which I hope he will deal with in due course. It relates to the intellectual property of research carried out by or on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It has come to my attention that in February 1987 a confidential internal paper was circulated in the Ministry. It was written by Dr. C. E. Fisher and was entitled:
  "Policy and Organisation Study of Exploitation of Intellectual Property in MAFF."
  Following the circulation of that paper and discussion on it, there was apparently an agreement that the British Technology Group would handle the exploitation and the export, where appropriate, of the intellectual property of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. That agreement was marked by a MAFF press release dated 4 January 1990. It was not one of the most howling successes of MAFF's energetic publicity machine as all that it rated was a small piece in one, albeit distinguished, farming journal.
  In the light of that, can the Minister tell us whether the British Technology Group will give up that agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food before privatisation, or will it give away in the privatisation all the intellectual property of which it has the advantage arising from the Ministry's activities? If the intellectual property of the Ministry of Agriculture is simply to be given away to whomsoever purchases the group, that will be truly giving away the family silver.
  A connected complication arises in relation to the royal botanic gardens at Kew. Since 1984 they have been funded by a grant in aid from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As I understand the position, any intellectual property that has arisen from research at Kew is part of the agreement to which I referred earlier. That means that the British Technology Group, under that agreement, owns the intellectual property—or at least holds the rights to it—arising from the world-renowned efforts of the researchers at the royal botanical gardens. For example, the gardens have the largest collection of wild plant seeds in the world, a major resource not only for third world development but for agricultural, horticultural and botanical development throughout the world.
  Will the British Technology Group give away those potentially hugely valuable intellectual assets when it is privatised? Will that important piece of public property
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  simply be handed over.. to a private purchaser? Will the Minister answer those questions when he replies to the debate?
  5 pm
  Dr. Hampson: The British Technology Group will not be giving away those assets if they are properly developed and exploited and become commercially successful. It all comes back to the nature of the company. We are not giving away public sector assets but trying to develop them. I do not mind if public sector inventions are developed by private companies. Does the hon. Gentleman mind?
  Mr. Carlile: I have divulged to the House that, as a result of its public service position, the British Technology Group was given valuable assets which it would not have acquired had it not been in such a position. That has not been revealed to the House before and is a well-concealed fact. It should be part of the consideration when the House decides how to vote on the Bill. I suspect that when the matter is debated in another place, it will be an energetic debate led by some university chancellors and others from academic backgrounds, and those considerations will be important when they decide whether the Government have come clean about what is happening.
  Is British public service inventiveness being protected? We must bear in mind what has happened in various privatisations. I do not suggest that there has been bad faith in the setting of prices for privatisation deals, although others might do so. It is clear with hindsight, at least in market terms, that the private sector has had some extremely good bargains as a result of privatisations. We must therefore have a full understanding of what is being sold. For example, when we are dealing with Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food intellectual property, which is very much part of the public service, should not the public service gain from exploiting that intellectual property? The public service and the Government are entitled to the profits of that exploitation.
  Research is still being carried out, albeit in diminished terms, on behalf of or by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. What will happen to the intellectual property in that research or research carried out by any other Department? Have the Government thought that through or will they hawk whatever intellectual property exists around the market to see who is the keenest taker? Do they really believe that companies will be prepared to take the long-term view that the British Technology Group has been prepared to take? The issue seems to be clarified by the words in the first new clause,
  "to preserve the nature of those business activities".
  Will the Minister assure us that the type of business activities to which I referred will be preserved as public assets?
  Dr. Bray: This useful group of amendments has attracted hon. Members who have a contribution to make to the subject of the Bill. Some of them spoke on Second Reading but were, unfortunately, excluded from the Committee, no doubt by the machinations of Committee selection procedure and the Whips, not to mention the Minister. Had they been members of the Committee, the Bill would have been in rather better shape now, and the future of the British Technology Group would be clearer. The Minister's mind would also be clearer. I doubt

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  whether he will be able to shed much light on the Government's plans for the future of BTG, even this evening.
  The hon. Members for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan), for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) and for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) have, for a long time, taken great interest in science and technology, research and its application to universities, and the integration of universities' output into industry. Had the Government listened more carefully to their views, not only on the Bill but on other matters over the past 10 years, the economy would be in a better shape today.
  The amendments cover a wide range of issues and tackle the problem of BTG's future from a number of different directions. New clause I uses the instrument of articles of association, which is a useful but fragile method because articles of association can be amended by a decision of a majority of shareholders and therefore constitute no permanent guarantee of what will happen to the company. The new clause leaves the arrangements to preserve the nature of those business activities to the Minister's judgment and to the action that he deems necessary. New clause 5, in the name of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), requires that
  "such steps as are necessary to preserve the independence of the British Technology Group"
  be taken. That is a somewhat stronger requirement than new clause 1 and does not leave it simply to the Minister's judgment. It is a distinct approach.
  Everyone is concerned about continuing to preserve the nature of the business activities of the British Technology Group. That nature is a strategic role in the technology transfer processes of this country.
  The Government introduced the Bill without a clear idea of what they wanted to do with BTG or even what its role is, or has been, in the economy and the processes of technology transfer. They introduced it partly out of a desire to remove it from the public sector. If anyone has been doctrinaire on that issue, it has been the Government.
  Furthermore, the manner in which the Government have behaved toward BTG in the past 10 years has been disgraceful. They stifled a great deal of management initiative, which led to frustration on the council. Although that led the council to accept the idea of privatisation, it wanted privatisation with sufficient safeguards of the independence, integrity and impartiality of the successor organisation.
  Dr. Hampson: About eight years ago, everyone was condemning BTG as being bureaucratic and unsuccessful. We transformed it and it has been more flexible and successful under the present format. The Government stopped it taking part in Alvey and Link only because it is a nationalised body. If the hon. Gentleman had his way, the organisation would be constricted and constrained for ever in that way.
  Dr. Bray: The hon. Gentleman claims too much by saying "we" transformed BTG, if he refers to Conservative Members or even the Government. The staff and management of BTG transformed its operations and tightened up consideration of the intellectual property from universities and research councils. The greater concern of pursuing and promoting applications and so on was not the result of Government initiatives but the proper response of BTG. I would not minimise the importance of
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  the removal of the monopoly in stimulating BTG. We would not seek to reverse important development. We think that universities and research councils should be free to make whatever arrangements they consider appropriate for the application of the results of their research.
  A number of influences have been at work. We certainly welcome the success that BTG has had in transforming itself into an operation that should—given reasonable luck because it remains risky—continue to be successful commercially. However, as hon. Members have repeatedly said in the debate, the Bill leaves the distinct possibility of the dismemberment, diversion or subversion of BTG. There are no safeguards for BTG's future, and the Government have given no assurances to provide adequate safeguards. BTG's assets could simply be stripped. If one were closing down the operation, the value of the office and the secure income revenue from the existing stock patents would certainly be sufficient to remunerate a substantial bid for BTG. However, the income that is in prospect and the assets in the building and bank deposits are there to facilitate the continuation of BTG in its present business. If that business were abandoned, assets would be available to an asset stripper and there is no safeguard against that under the Bill's provisions or in the sort of commitments that the Minister gave in Committee. We shall listen carefully to the Minister, but he is unlikely to give any more reassuring commitments tonight, so it may prove necessary to press a number of amendments to a Division.
  It is not simply a matter of asset stripping. The sort of price that might be bid for BTG is small beer in relation to the value of single pieces of intellectual property. Were BTG fortunate enough to have the patents on Zantac, it would increase BTG's capital value one hundredfold. If there were reason to believe that a particular drug that BTG had patented on behalf of a client would lead to a large revenue, a drug company seeking to gain control of that patent could almost write off the purchase cost of BTG in its petty cash. In the high risk business about which we are talking, bidding for a company the size of BTG would not be a major consideration. The business is high risk and any such contingency is necessarily speculative, but that is the nature of the game in which we are engaged. It is because it is so speculative that the Opposition believe that BTG would, most sensibly, continue within the public sector where it can afford to take risks of the size incurred in such a game.
  A further possibility is that, apart from the single, large, dramatic piece of intellectual property, some interests—most obviously, one or more Japanese companies—could seek to gain privileged access to a wide stream of intellectual know-how from British universities and research institutes. I was interested to find that the rate of investment by Japanese companies in new research facilities in this country was being closely followed, not only by people in this country, but by our partners in the European Community who, on a lesser scale than us, have had the same experience. I am told that there are a dozen Japanese research institutes, for example, in the Cambridge and Surrey university science parks, and near to Oxford, strategically placed to tap into the general stream of the British scientific tradition. In one sense, I say, "good luck to them", but if one adds to that factor the sort of facilities and lines of communication, and the continuing role in the transition that BTG offers, the Government's naivety is rampantly stupid. Nothing that

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  the Government have said has dismissed such a possibility. There are ways to safeguard against such a threat, and the amendments would prevent such a development, but the Government have steadily resisted such proposals.
  A further consideration is that BTG management, particularly the chairman, has rightly stressed the necessity for the continuation of BTG's business and the need to maintain its independence, impartiality and integrity. Independence is necessary in that an industrial enterprise might seek to gain control of BTG for specific purposes relating to a particular sphere of business. Impartiality is necessary in that BTG must plainly properly represent the interests of the inventor, developer, applyer and exploiter. Integrity is necessary in that, in the sort of negotiations that take place when concluding a contract on intellectual property, it is necessary to go into much detail, not only on the technical and scientific aspects, but on the economic, business, market and financial aspects of the deal. That is a matter on which, at present, parties negotiating with BTG can rely on its total integrity to safeguard the confidentiality of their interests.
  5.15 pm
  No formal undertaking has been given to the House, nor was such an assurance given by Ministers in Committee. Furthermore, no formal undertakings have been given by the Minister to BTG's council in reply to the representations that it has made in that respect. The Government have shown an extraordinarily wooden attitude. They must have some reason for failing to give comfort and reassurance, but what is it? I suspect that it has two parts. First, the Government totally fail to understand BTG's role and, secondly, they simply want to maximise BTG's selling price, perhaps under pressure from the Treasury, which plainly has a duty to urge the importance of getting a decent price.
  The Government's failure to understand BTG's strategic role was amply evidenced on Second Reading when Ministers compared the size of BTG's investment in research and development with total United Kingdom research and development and Government expenditure on research and development. However, that is not BTG's business. It is not primarily a financier of research and development, basic, applied or industrial, but primarily a technological transfer organisation operating at the stage of patenting and licensing, and when research immediately surrounding the protection of the intellectual property of new inventions is developed and applied. That is necessarily a small part of overall expenditure by Government or industry, but it is a strategic part, and it is that strategic role that the Government have failed to grasp.
  We must ask where we are in relation to that background. Hon. Members have talked about the need, indeed the possibility, of securing the participation of universities and research councils in BTG's future functioning and control. Only yesterday, the Minister met representatives of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and he has not yet replied to a letter from the British Technology Group seeking his agreement to its putting together a consortium bid. It should be remembered that, since Second Reading, we have been
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  stressing the importance of putting together an arrangement for the future management and control of the company that would secure its future.
  Yesterday, the universities, through the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, demonstrated their willingness to take part in a consortium. They have an important role to play in the future of BTG as, along with research councils, they are the principal source of the intellectual property rights whose exploitation it is BTG's business to manage. Therefore, whoever runs BTG in the future will gain substantially from the participation and goodwill not merely of the universities and research councils but of the scientific community, and the formal presence of universities in the control of BTG would bring that participation about.
  It is worth spending a little time studying the structure of the consortium that might emerge. It is my understanding that none of the parties—BTG, the Department of Trade and Industry and the universities —have started talking about numbers. Perhaps hon. Members, who are not engaged in the negotiations, can make a useful contribution by talking about numbers and the structure of control that would emerge.
  The different parties that might be involved are trusts and foundations that are interested in research and have, and will continue to play, a valuable part in financing research and its industrial applications. They include the Nuffield Foundation and the Wolfson Foundation. Another group of institutions that offered a suitable element in the structure, given the financial record of BTG, and which would certainly be willing participants in an appropriate consortium, consists of a number of financial institutions whose present investment schemes are so large that BTG would be a relatively small but important part of their overall investment strategy, as it would open up, and give them familiarity with, a wide range of high technology venture capital developments.
  I understand that the results of soundings of financial institutions have shown no lack of willingness. If the Government were ready just to consider open bids, there would be no difficulty in getting a bid that would financially exploit the assets of BTG in the ways that we were talking about earlier. Obviously, the number of financial institutions that would be prepared to participate in the continuation of BTG in its present business would be smaller, but there would be some, and they would be wise institutions at that.
  The third element would certainly be some employee participation—for example, through employee share ownership plans or management buy-outs—so that the staff of BTG would have a continuing interest in the operation and success of the company.
  The final partners will be the universities themselves. In such an arrangement, it is quite possible to ensure that no party has more than 20 per cent. of the controlling shares of BTG and that a majority of the shareholders would be parties interested in the continuation and development of BTG's present line of business. Therefore, within the financial control of BTG, one could secure the guarantee that BTG would continue as a technology transfer organisation operating in the United Kingdom to support and exploit the results of British academic and research council research.
  The question is whether that is too narrow a range and whether it would cramp too much BTG's style in relation to foreign Governments, foreign universities and foreign

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  industrial companies. I do not think that it would, but nor do I have any great objection in principle to one 20 per cent. or two 10 per cents. coming from some overseas financial institutions. However, it would be downright wrong if overseas institutions that would not have been acceptable had they been United Kingdom institutions were to invest in BTG. An example of this is an industrial bank with controlling interests over a wide range of activities in Germany or Japan, which might not be an industrial company but which has such strong industrial interests that it is interchangeable with the concept of an industrial company in this country.
  If such a partner were willing to invest in BTG, there would be no difficulty in the trusts and foundations or the financial institutions finding ready money to put up. The usual arrangements would apply in the case of employee share ownership plans or a management buy-out. However, the universities are plainly in a difficult position because they are strapped for cash—they ain't got any. The educational investments that some of the wealthier Oxbridge colleges have made, and are making, are desperately needed for the support of education, given the financial straits to which the Government have reduced the universities. Therefore, it may well be necessary to look for some arrangement whereby the universities gain a proper share in the financial control of BTG without having to put ready money up front when the deal is made. For example, there could be an arrangement whereby the university interests could be financed by a loan from the Government, which could be repaid by earnings on that slice of BTG equity over a period. The universities would gain no immediate financial benefit from their share ownership, but would have financial control. The Government would not get quite as much cash initially, but would secure a viable arrangement for the future of BTG.
  That is one of many possible formulae that could be mooted in negotiations. I would not expect the Minister either to endorse any formula in particular, or to rule out of hand the possibility of meeting the requirement, set out in some of the amendments, for the Government to make some such arrangement. These are practical arrangements and they are being considered by the separate parties. Negotiations have not yet begun on them and the Government could commit themselves, in principle, to some arrangement that would meet the misgivings that have been expressed so well by hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  If that were to happen, and if BTG were to continue in its present business, that would by no means exhaust possibilities for its future development. We have talked about the role that we would envisage BTG continuing to play in the private sector—in the future development of research and its applications and in technology transfer in the United Kingdom. I shall give two examples of that. At present, BTG provides a modest amount of project finance for individual projects, for sums up to, at most, £1 million or so. That is in the nature of launch aid for new technology development. The principle of launch aid originated and still operates in the aircraft industry, where it involves hundreds of millions of pounds. There is a huge gap between the level of launch aid that BTG and venture capital organisations can tackle and the level of such assistance for which the Government have to take responsibility in the aircraft industry. It seems fairly unlikely that private financial institutions will bridge that
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  gap, although they may hope to move up the scale. Arrangements could be introduced to encourage them to do so, and we have suggested some.
  5.30 pm
  However, it would be valuable if a public sector organisation could help to fill that gap. BTG could usefully play that role in the future. It has the management capability, the technical knowledge and the experience of the marketplace to enable it to operate on a very much bigger scale of project finance than hitherto. A developed BTG might also improve and extend the arrangements that are made between the universities, the research councils and industry in the exploitation of new areas of research, such as the Link programme. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) said that decisions on the exclusion of BTG from the Alvey programme had set it on the right path. I totally disagree because if BTG had participated in Alvey and Esprit, we might well have achieved much more effective results.
  Dr. Hampson: My point was that because BTG is a Government body or, one might say, a nationalised industry, it is thus debarred from programmes in which private sector companies participate. It has been prevented from doing deals in France and Spain because it has been seen as a Government or a public body. The world would be BTG's oyster if it were free from Government shackles which, to my surprise, the hon. Gentleman wants to maintain.
  Dr. Bray: The nationalised industries were not generally excluded from participation in, for example, the European Community research programmes. Several such organisations have taken part in those programmes, but BTG was not allowed to do so simply because of a doctrinaire act on the part of the Government—
  Dr. Hampson: There was no state involvement in Alvey.
  Dr. Bray: The programmes in which British Steel has been engaged in the European Community would have been entirely open to nationalised industries, and were, indeed, used by them. It would have been possible for BTG to do so but for its arbitrary exclusion by the Department of Trade and Industry.
  If we are looking for a more effective and balanced way to build a bridge between university research and industrial application, let us consider the work of the science and engineering research council, which spends £200 million each year on new engineering research. That must be the biggest single engineering research programme in the country. If there were appropriate partners, it would be reasonable to say to those grant applicants, "If your programme is successful, what lines of exploitation are open to you? Have you thought about this? Have you talked to potential partners about how they would take over, carry through, support and learn from your research? Do you have an industrial partner?"
  Sometimes, the reply would be, "No, our research is into an enabling technology that would serve a wide range of people but we do not have a specific partner." To that, one would say, "Fair enough." Others would say, "No, we do not have an industrial partner because no British firm is engaged in this sector. Developing and applying our research would require a new British enterprise." Others

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  would say, "No, we do not have an industrial partner because British industry is too dim to understand or apply the research on which we want to work."
  At present, there is no way in which the science and engineering research council can say, "Come off it. If you cannot establish those lines of communication, perhaps we can help you or perhaps BTG or someone else could help you." We would need to set up a number of options by which the research community could shop around to discover the most appropriate industrial partners. In the end, however, it might be appropriate for a research council to say, "If, despite all these possible channels of support, there is absolutely no possibility of industrial application of your applied research, should we really be carrying out such research in Britain, given that our comparative advantage from its exploitation is so low?"
  For all their talk about efficiency and effectiveness in the administration of research, the Government have dodged such tough decisions on science policy. If one is to be really efficient, one needs a degree and range of interventionist instruments to ensure that those bridges are built.
  We should have liked to see BTG develop in that direction in the public sector, while continuing and extending its present activities. We should have liked it to expand into the work on technology transfer and industrial research and development and their application that, at present, it cannot undertake. We have said that if BTG is privatised, we would constitute a successor company to carry out the range of functions and operations that we regard as necessary for this country's industrial development. Whether and how that is carried out will obviously depend upon the nature of the BTG that emerges not only from this Bill but from the way in which it is implemented by the Government in any time that is left to them in this Parliament.
  Our amendments are important, not only in terms of whatever negotiations follow in the next few weeks, but in terms of the spirit of the new BTG and the direction in which it moves and is allowed to move by the Government in the years to come. It is a die which, once cast, cannot be taken back. Therefore, I urge hon. Members and Ministers carefully to consider all the points that have been raised so powerfully by hon. Members of all parties in support of this group of amendments.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Edward Leigh): I am grateful to my hon Friends the Members for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan), for Bedfordshire, North (Sir T. Skeet) and for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson), to the right hon. Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), and to the hon. Members for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Watson) and for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray) for their contributions to this long and interesting debate on what is clearly the key part of the Bill. I understand the concerns that are uppermost in the minds of those hon. Members, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East, and the Government recognise that the amendments are an expression of that concern.
  We note hon. Members' anxiety that BTG's activities in technology transfer should continue after privatisation. I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would not want
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  me to become involved in a debate on the merits or demerits of privatisation, although I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West for his stout defence of privatisation and its merits. I hope that we shall have time for a Third Reading debate, which would be the appropriate point for me to outline why I think that BTG should be privatised. However, that is not the central argument of the current debate.
  Hon. Members of all parties want to ensure the continuation of BTG's activities. There is an ideological divide about whether that is best ensured in the private or the public sector, but we are united in wanting to ensure its continuation. I shall have to choose my words carefully, of course, but I hope that what I say this evening will reassure my hon. Friends.
  I recognise the deep seriousness with which my hon. Friends and Opposition Members approach this subject. Let me say to my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East that I agree with the general sentiment underlying the new clause. However, it is not necessary to enshrine it in the Bill, for reasons which I shall make clear in my speech.
  Hon. Members may wish to know that these matters were discussed at some length in Committee. I know that some of my hon. Friends were not able to be members of that Committee. In Committee I sought, during some lengthy debates, to give reassurances on the very subject dealt with in the new clause. I shall give similar reassurances today, but I hope that I shall give them in language which, while carefully chosen, reassures my hon. Friends even more than they have been reassured hitherto. [Interruption.] My hon. Friends who served on the Committee were reassured by what I said, and I hope now to reassure other hon. Friends on Report.
  I made it clear in Committee, and I repeat now, that the Government wish to see the British Technology Group privatised in a way that leaves a good prospect that BTG's current technology transfer activities will continue. That has always been part of the Government's publicly stated objective for the privatisation. We take that objective seriously. The House can rest assured that it will be uppermost in our minds in determining the exact form of the sale.
  New clauses 1 and 5 are not dissimilar in their general intention. To put it in a nutshell, new clause 1 asks us to respond to the anxieties that have been expressed by enshrining in the Bill an assurance that BTG's current business activities will continue after privatisation. New clause 5 would require the Secretary of State to take steps to preserve BTG's independence and enable it to maintain and extend its technology transfer services.
  First, I repeat what I said in Committee, although I shall not rest on it. I said:
  "The Government will take those anxieties into account when deciding the form of privatisation and whether safeguards are necessary in the articles or the agreement of sale".—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 7 March 1991; c. 150.]
  Since then matters have not stood still. We have actively considered what form of conditions of sale might be appropriate. Further to what I said in Committee, we have moved a stage further. We are actively considering the conditions of sale which will be necessary to meet the anxieties of my hon. Friends and those which will be appropriate to meet the Government's objectives which, as I have said, are good prospects that BTG's activities will continue.

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  We have now decided whom to appoint as legal advisers on the sale and shall shortly request them to consider the terms and possible conditions of, for example, the articles of association. So we have now moved to the process of appointing legal advisers. They will advise us on how we can frame the articles of association to meet the anxieties that have been expressed in the debate.
  5.45 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The Minister said that he would be careful in what he said and we have been listening carefully. First, will he make clear that there is no semantic point in the difference between "very good" and "best" prospects? There is a great difference in practice. Secondly, have the Minister's thoughts—which he says have progressed since Committee—included or ruled out the possibility of the Government enshrining in legislation some of the conditions which the House has expressed a wish to see in legislation?
  Mr. Leigh: On the second point, I shall have to disappoint the hon. Gentleman. I shall go into the matter in more detail later in my speech, but we do not think it appropriate—and it has not been done before—to enshrine in an enabling Bill such as this the type of conditions in which the hon. Gentleman is interested.
  I had to use the words "a good prospect" of the continuation of BTG's activities—
  Sir Trevor Skeet: It is nothing.
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend says that it is nothing. I do not think that it is nothing. Neither I nor any other Minister could go further than the words "a good prospect". I could not possibly give an absolute undertaking now that BTG's activities will continue in exactly the same way as at present.
  Sir Trevor Skeet: My hon. Friend will realise that 8,200 patents rest in BTG and that if there is a sale they will all be assigned to the new buyer. It will be up to the new buyer to decide what to do with them. It could be very much a breach of confidentiality that they should be assigned and, of course, it could be against the interests of the inventors. I appreciate that the inventors have passed on their rights to BTG, but does my hon. Friend realise that not to include anything in the substantive legislation could prejudice their interests in the field?
  Mr. Leigh: I realise precisely the point that my hon. Friend makes. He reiterates a point which is uppermost in my mind—the integrity, as well as the independence, of BTG when it is privatised. There are ways in which the integrity, independence and critical mass of BTG can be ensured. If my hon. Friend will give me time to develop my thoughts—
  Sir Trevor Skeet: Plenty of time.
  Mr. Leigh: Indeed, we have plenty of time. I hope that by the time that I sit down I shall have reassured my hon. Friend that, while it is not appropriate and has never been enshrined in legislation, we intend to privatise the organisation in such a way that its integrity and independence are preserved.
  Dr. Hampson: We are touching on some important matters. I have argued the need for a Government golden share. In the past such a provision has been enshrined in
  194
  legislation. Is my hon. Friend the Minister saying that the legal advice that he is commissioning and the framework of the conditions of sale will cover the possibility of golden shares without the need for legislation?
  Mr. Leigh: I shall deal with the question of a golden share later. A golden share may, indeed, be necessary and it may have to be mentioned in legislation. I cannot predict that at this stage. But in previous privatisations the issue of a golden share has arisen later in the proceedings. I do not rule it out at this stage.
  Mr. Steen: I hope that this comment will be helpful. My hon. Friend can have the best legal advice in the country. As a Minister he has access to the best lawyers that he can choose. Why does not he have that advice on Report? Why is the advice still being obtained? Why cannot it be put before the House so that we know what will happen?
  Mr. Leigh: This is a fundamental philosophical point. Should we enshrine these matters in legislation or, knowing what shape we want BTG to have and that we wish it to continue its activities, and as we want to put together a sale which will ensure that those activities continue, should we not wait until we know the nature of the buyers of the organisation? I emphasise the word "buyers", to which we might return in a moment. When we know the nature of the buyers will be the moment to frame the articles of association with the advice of our lawyers and, if necessary, to consider a golden share to ensure that our wishes are carried out.
  Dr. Bray: It depends on who "we" are. If "we" are the Government, they can decide to do that at any stage that they choose. But today "we" are the House of Commons. This is the last occasion on which the House will be able to include the requirement which Members on both sides of the House urge upon the Government.
  Mr. Leigh: I do not know whether it is in order to mention another place. Hon. Members would not want me to say that we are simply waiting until the Bill goes to another place to give more details. I am not saying that for a moment.
  If hon. Members will allow me to proceed, they will see that I have a form of words which I hope will reassure them that we intend to take their anxieties into account. It may be appropriate later to talk of articles of association and a golden share. Let me proceed to utter those words. Before I finish, I want to talk in some detail about the interesting meeting that I had yesterday with the university vice-chancellors because that meeting and what arose from it is pertinent and I have not yet had an opportunity to acquaint the House with those details.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I want to press the Minister once more about the objective and why it is not possible for him, as the Minister in charge of the Bill, to say that the Government's objective is the "best" prospect of keeping the present activities of BTG as opposed to "very good". That is an important difference.
  Mr. Leigh: Clearly we have a duty to the general public which was outlined in the words that I used repeatedly in Committee and which I repeat now with Treasury advice. We are clearly under a duty to maximise returns to the taxpayer and I would be failing in my duty to the general public if I did not mention that. But we have always said

  195
  that that must be consistent with the good prospect of the continuation of the BTG's activities. I have said that many times, and I do not think that I can add anything further.
  Let me give the sort of conditions that we are considering which I hope will be of interest to hon. Members and which I do not think I dealt with in detail in Committee. They include measures to prevent a purchaser from asset stripping, whether through selling the assets or through collecting the revenue from existing patents without further investment—the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central referred to patents—and from ceasing to carry on the technology transfer activities of the BTG. One way in which we could do so might be through articles of association or, alternatively, through the sale contract with the buyer. We are also looking carefully at whether it would be appropriate and effective for the Government to retain a special share for a limited period so as to ensure that changes are not made to the fundamental business without the Government's consent. That would be an entirely reasonable way of proceeding.
  We are also aware that some believe that the sale of BTG to a commercial or manufacturing concern might deter other customers in the same technology sectors from using the BTG. That was a point of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North. That is also a point which we will take into account in deciding the form of the sale and any other possible safeguards. As I said in Committee:
  "The detailed wording of such articles is best left until we are clearer about the form of sale and the prospective purchaser."—[Official Report, Standing Committee G, 7 March 1991; c. 153.]
  To do otherwise and decide now what restrictions to put in place could prejudice the prospect of a sale and the potential proceeds. We will first want to see who the prospective purchasers are and what their plans are for the BTG may itself be the most effective guarantee for the group's future.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: The Minister says that the identity of the purchasers will be a guarantee of the group's future, but what about those who purchase from the purchasers and those who purchase from them? He cannot guarantee the group's future if the purchasers decide, as a private organisation, to sell their business.
  Mr. Leigh: I cannot give an undertaking now about what will happen in five, 10, or 15 years' time. I cannot commit the Government or this Parliament to what might happen in future. But I can say that if the kind of sale that some people have mentioned is put together that might be extremely unlikely. If the hon. and learned Gentleman is patient, he may see some light descending on that.
  I and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have already met to discuss this and other issues with the BTG's chairman, with representatives of BTG's employees, with inventors and with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals. Contrary to what the Opposition may assert, we are listening to the views of interested parties. The House may also wish to know that I had a constructive meeting with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals at which they voiced their interest in seeing the BTG continue as a strong commercial entity. We hope to take forward in further discussions the universities' interest in the future of the privatised BTG.
  196
  That is the constructive way to take forward concerns about the role of the privatised BTG—in practical discussions on the form of the sale rather than heavy-handed amendments to the enabling Bill.
  New clause 1 suggests that it will be necessary to insert special conditions in the articles to achieve a satisfactory outcome. However, a misunderstanding over the timing of the successor company may have led to the new clause being tabled. It is the Government's intention to have a short interval between the appointment of the successor company and the date it is sold. That makes the clause unnecessary, and for that reason it would not be appropriate to include the new clause in the Bill. I had an opportunity to discuss the matter with my hon. Friends this morning and I am grateful to them for tabling the new clause because it gives me the opportunity to clarify the Government's position. The new clause may be technically flawed, but it has performed a useful purpose.
  New clause 5 takes a similar approach, but it is also based on misunderstanding. It would, in effect, put a duty on the Secretary of State to oblige the successor company and its new private sector owners to take steps to preserve its independence and, for good measure, tell the successor company how to go about its business. How can such a statutory imposition, which has no time limit, practically be applied to an independent private sector organisation? The Bill's fundamental purpose is to free the BTG from statutory and Government control. It will be for the new owners to decide exactly how to go about running the business and what areas to expand into.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The Minister's latter comments increase my concern. It is suggested that there would be no continuing condition upon any prospective purchaser or purchasers. As I said to the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson), it is the fact that it is a time-expired guarantee that worries some of us. There is no on-going guarantee. I hope that the Minister will think again about his answer to the new clause.
  Mr. Leigh: The hon. Gentleman probably was not listening to what I said about conditions of sale and the articles of association, and mention has been made today of the golden share.
  Mr. Rees: I am interested to hear about the role of the legal adviser. The Government will tell the legal adviser what they want, but how he translates it in practice is a different matter. At what stage in the process would the articles of association be drawn up and published?
  Mr. Leigh: If the Bill meets with the approval of the House and the other place, we will initially be talking of a vesting day. This is an enabling Bill. A successor company will be formed which will be entirely publicly owned, presumably in the hands of named civil servants. At that stage, the Secretary of State will decide how it should be privatised. Discussions have already started and will continue and it may well be appropriate to talk in terms of articles of association not now but far closer to that date, which may not be until the autumn.
  Mr. Rees: Will the articles of association come before the House at any time in some appropriate fashion?
  Mr. Leigh: No, I do not think that they will. As I have tried to explain, the appropriate time for drawing up the articles of association is when the Government have a clear

  197
  idea of who the purchasers are and what is necessary to retain the critical mass, independence and integrity of the BTG—an aim in which we are all interested.
  Sir Trevor Skeet: I am trying to follow the Minister's argument. What he seems to be saying is that we should identify the buyers and then determine what conditions are appropriate, by which time the Bill will have gone well beyond this House and the other place. We are being asked to sign a blank prospectus.
  Mr. Leigh: I do not think that it is a blank prospectus. If my hon. Friend had listened to what I said, he would know that I tried to explain in some detail the Government's intention in privatising the company. Our intention is to ensure a good prospect of continuing the BTG's activities. For the moment, he has to take my word for it. It would be unique at this stage in an enabling Bill to enshrine articles of association. Given the nature of the BTG that we want to exist in the private sector and the fact that we want its activities to continue in the future, it clearly makes sense to ensure a form of sale that guarantees that. At that stage the articles of association can be framed. I do not see how I would assist that process if I suggested to the House that we should lay down rigid articles of association now. That would not be helpful and it would not achieve what is desired by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North.
  6 pm
  Mr. Alex Carlile: All the lawyers in this House and the many hon. Members who are involved with companies will be aware that in virtually every instance the articles of association are prepared on the instructions of the promoters of the company. Can the Minister name a single instance in which the articles of association have been prepared in consultation with, or as a result of knowing the identity of, the purchasers of the company? That is an extraordinary new doctrine. Where does the Minister get it from?
  Mr. Leigh: There is nothing extraordinary about it. Nothing that I have suggested today is unusual. We are proceeding in exactly the way in which we have privatised other businesses. I have already outlined when it would be appropriate to frame the articles of association.
  Mr. Steen: I am sure that my hon. Friends understand that, although my hon. Friend is advocating a type of blank prospectus, the Government are extremely competent: they will get it right. My hon. Friend is asking us to have complete confidence in him as the Minister to put the articles of association in place once he knows who the buyer will be. I believe that my hon. Friend's message to the House is that it must have confidence in the Government. Is that correct?
  Mr. Leigh: Yes. I am not asking for a blank cheque. When my hon. Friend reads Hansard, he will be reassured by what I said. He will appreciate that I have given certain undertakings and commitments. I hope that he will be prepared to accept them and the serious manner in which I have approached them.
  It will be clear to the House why we do not wish to see a duty of the kind envisaged in amendment Nos. 5 and 6, which would require the Secretary of State to report on his plans for guaranteeing the BTG's future independence, impartiality and integrity. The Secretary of State would be
  198
  prevented from vesting the property, rights and liabilities in a successor company—which is the first step towards privatisation—until he had published those plans. Clearly such a duty to report immediately in advance of the Bill taking effect would tie our hands before we knew what was really necessary. We do not want to place unnecessary burdens on the new company. It is meant to be a private sector company, free to operate without onerous constraints.
  The Opposition have consistently tried to suggest that we have not consulted the universities on the proposed privatisation. In fact, we did consult the universities through the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals in 1988. Only a small minority of the respondents—less than 20 per cent.—favoured the Opposition's option, which is that the BTG should remain as it is. About 20 per cent. of the universities responding favoured a sale to a commercial or financial institution, while 10 per cent. favoured a sale to the BTG's existing management and 50 per cent. wanted to see the BTG established as a private foundation or trust with objectives linked to university research.
  Hon. Members may also be interested to know that I met with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals yesterday to hear its views on the privatisation of the BTG. It was a helpful, constructive, and, from the viewpoint of both parties, highly satisfactory meeting.
  The collective concern of the committee was that BTG should be a lively, commercial business in the private sector. Those are not my views but the committee's—and I hope that my hon. Friends will heed that as it is crucial. The committee wants the BTG to continue to exploit the fruits of academic research, which is entirely consistent with the Government's objective in the proposed sale.
  The committee also argued for a "small, not negligible" stake in the privatised company. The Government recognise the substantial and valuable input of universities to other progress and prosperity of BTG over the years. BTG in turn has been, and I hope will continue to be, an important outlet for universities research in technology. We wish to see this partnership continue after privatisation. That is why I gave the committee an unconditional assurance that its views and proposals will be carefully considered and will be taken on board when we finally decide how the BTG will be privatised.
  My hon. Friends may wish to know that, when the committee came to see me yesterday, far from opposing the privatisation of the BTG, it showed its interests in acquiring a "small, not negligible" stake in it. In the light of that attitude, I should be interested to know where that leaves the Opposition. We had a lengthy speech from the hon. Member for Motherwell, South, and I do not want to put words in his mouth, but he seemed to suggest that if the BTG was to be privatised the Opposition's favoured option would be for the universities to have a stake in the new organisation. That is certainly what the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) has said on a previous occasion.
  If a consortium was formed that consisted of a stake held by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, a stake held by a management buy-out and one held by financial institutions—assuming there was a limit on foreign ownership—we may well—
  Mr. Steen: That sounds good.
  Mr. Leigh: I cannot predict the final outcome, but my hon. Friends will have heard what I said. They appear to like it.
  Mr. Roy Beggs rose—
  Mr. Leigh: The hon. Gentleman has just come into the Chamber, and, if he will forgive me, I shall not give way.
  I hope that I have given the reassurances that my hon. Friends need, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East will withdraw the new clause.
  Sir Gerard Vaughan: My hon. Friends and I accept my hon. Friend's assurances and therefore I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
  Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask for a vote on new clause 5, which appears in the same group of amendments?
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): The hon. Gentleman is perfectly in order in seeking a vote if he moves the new clause formally.

New Clause 5

  INDEPENDENCE OF THE SUCCESSOR COMPANY
  'It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the successor company shall take such steps as are necessary to preserve the independence of the British Technology Group to enable it to maintain and extend its services in the field of technology transfer.'.—[Mr. Simon Hughes.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Motion made, and Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 196, Noes 260.

  Division No. 111]

  [6.07 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Cohen, Harry

  Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Allen, Graham

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Alton, David

  Corbett, Robin

  Anderson, Donald

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Cousins, Jim

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Crowther, Stan

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Cryer, Bob

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Cummings, John

  Ashton, Joe

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Barron, Kevin

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

  Battle, John

  Dixon, Don

  Beckett, Margaret

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Beggs, Roy

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Beith, A. J.

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Eadie, Alexander

  Benton, Joseph

  Eastham, Ken

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Blair, Tony

  Fatchett, Derek

  Boyes, Roland

  Fearn, Ronald

  Bradley, Keith

  Fisher, Mark

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Flannery, Martin

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Flynn, Paul

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Buckley, George J.

  Foster, Derek

  Caborn, Richard

  Fraser, John

  Callaghan, Jim

  Fyfe, Maria

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Galbraith, Sam

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Galloway, George

  Canavan, Dennis

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Clelland, David

  George, Bruce

  200

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Gordon, Mildred

  Murphy, Paul

  Gould, Bryan

  Nellist, Dave

  Graham, Thomas

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  O'Brien, William

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  O'Hara, Edward

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Grocott, Bruce

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Hain, Peter

  Parry, Robert

  Hardy, Peter

  Patchett, Terry

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Pendry, Tom

  Haynes, Frank

  Pike, Peter L.

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Radice, Giles

  Home Robertson, John

  Randall, Stuart

  Hood, Jimmy

  Redmond, Martin

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Howells, Geraint

  Reid, Dr John

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Richardson, Jo

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Robertson, George

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Rogers, Allan

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Rooker, Jeff

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Rooney, Terence

  Illsley, Eric

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Ingram, Adam

  Rowlands, Ted

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Ruddock, Joan

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Salmond, Alex

  Lambie, David

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Lamond, James

  Sheerman, Barry

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Lewis, Terry

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Livingstone, Ken

  Short, Clare

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Loyden, Eddie

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

  McAllion, John

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

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  McCartney, Ian

  Snape, Peter

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Soley, Clive

  McFall, John

  Spearing, Nigel

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  McKelvey, William

  Stott, Roger

  McLeish, Henry

  Strang, Gavin

  Maclennan, Robert

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  McMaster, Gordon

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  McWilliam, John

  Walley, Joan

  Madden, Max

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Marek, Dr John

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Maxton, John

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Meacher, Michael

  Winnick, David

  Meale, Alan

  Worthington, Tony

  Michael, Alun

  Wray, Jimmy

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'I & Bute)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Tellers for the Ayes

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Mr. Alex Carlile and

  Morley, Elliot

  Mr. Archy Kirkwood.

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Alexander, Richard

  Batiste, Spencer

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Allason, Rupert

  Bellingham, Henry

  Amess, David

  Bendall, Vivian

  Amos, Alan

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Arbuthnot, James

  Benyon, W.

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Ashby, David

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Atkins, Robert

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Atkinson, David

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Baldry, Tony

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  201

  Boswell, Tim

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Bottomley, Peter

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Hill, James

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Hind, Kenneth

  Bowis, John

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

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

  Brazier, Julian

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Bright, Graham

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

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

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Hunter, Andrew

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Irvine, Michael

  Burns, Simon

  Irving, Sir Charles

  Burt, Alistair

  Jack, Michael

  Butler, Chris

  Jackson, Robert

  Butterfill, John

  Janman, Tim

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Jessel, Toby

  Carrington, Matthew

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Carttiss, Michael

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Cash, William

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Chapman, Sydney

  Key, Robert

  Chope, Christopher

  Kilfedder, James

  Churchill, Mr

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Knapman, Roger

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Colvin, Michael

  Knox, David

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Latham, Michael

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Couchman, James

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Cran, James

  Lightbown, David

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

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

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Day, Stephen

  Lord, Michael

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  McCrindle, Sir Robert

  Dicks, Terry

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Dorrell, Stephen

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Dover, Den

  Maclean, David

  Dunn, Bob

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Madel, David

  Dykes, Hugh

  Malins, Humfrey

  Eggar, Tim

  Mans, Keith

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Maples, John

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Marland, Paul

  Evennett, David

  Marlow, Tony

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Favell, Tony

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Mills, Iain

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Franks, Cecil

  Moate, Roger

  Fry, Peter

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Gale, Roger

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Moss, Malcolm

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Mudd, David

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Neale, Sir Gerrard

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Gregory, Conal

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Grist, Ian

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Grylls, Michael

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hannam, John

  Norris, Steve

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Harris, David

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hayes, Jerry

  Page, Richard

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Patnick, Irvine

  Hayward, Robert

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  202

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Sumberg, David

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Summerson, Hugo

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Portillo, Michael

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Price, Sir David

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Thurnham, Peter

  Rathbone, Tim

  Tracey, Richard

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Tredinnick, David

  Riddick, Graham

  Trippier, David

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Rost, Peter

  Viggers, Peter

  Rowe, Andrew

  Walden, George

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Ward, John

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Watts, John

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Wells, Bowen

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Shelton, Sir William

  Whitney, Ray

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Wilkinson, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Wilshire, David

  Sims, Roger

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Wood, Timothy

  Speed, Keith

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Yeo, Tim

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Steen, Anthony

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Stern, Michael

  Stevens, Lewis

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Mr. Nicholas Baker and

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Mr. Neil Hamilton.

  Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 6

  TARGET INVESTMENT LIMIT FOR GOVERNMENT SHAREHOLDING
  Dr. Bray: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 4, line 16, at end insert:—
  `(4A) The Secretary of State shall not set a target investment limit of less than 50.01 per cent. of the total voting rights until a period of at least five years has elapsed from the appointed day.'.
  The amendment seeks to provide, by means of a golden share, a mechanism by which the assurances and words of comfort that the Minister offered could be enforced. He gave a long list of considerations that might—or might not —be embodied in the conditions for sale of BTG. Those related to matters raised on Second Reading, in Committee or earlier this afternoon, and covered most aspects of the types of safeguard that have been suggested. Nevertheless, the Minister could not give a firm assurance that he would provide a legislative guarantee so that the Government could ensure that such conditions were observed in the successor company.
  The golden share is one mechanism by which such conditions could be secured. It was advocated by some Conservative Members, and we shall press it in the amendment. The Minister's long list of conditions for sale was rather like the prayer of St. Augustine—"Lord, make me good, but not yet." We seek the Minister's salvation, so we shall press the amendment to a vote.
  We welcome yesterday's discussions between representatives of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and

  203
  Principals and the Minister, but the use that the hon. Gentleman made of the meeting was a little unfair. The representatives of the CVCP were working within the framework of Government policy and the provisions of the Bill. They were trying to secure a settlement by making within that framework a constructive proposal for securing important objectives with regard to BTG's future role in relation to technology transfer and the universities' and research councils' own research. The discussion related not only to the small but significant shareholding that the universities sought, but to the whole nature of the consortium which they advocated and which the Minister adumbrated as something that might emerge from the forthcoming discussions and consideration. We hope that those discussions will be successful, but we believe that a long-stop is needed. An amendment providing for a golden share would be a firm way of securing that end, at least in the important early years.
  I have no wish to delay our proceedings, so I shall be happy to proceed to a Division on the amendment at the convenience of the House.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 194, Noes 253.

  Division No. 112]

  [6.25 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Alton, David

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Anderson, Donald

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

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

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Dixon, Don

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Ashton, Joe

  Eadie, Alexander

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Fatchett, Derek

  Barron, Kevin

  Fearn, Ronald

  Battle, John

  Fisher, Mark

  Beckett, Margaret

  Flannery, Martin

  Beggs, Roy

  Flynn, Paul

  Beith, A. J.

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Foster, Derek

  Benton, Joseph

  Fraser, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fyfe, Maria

  Blair, Tony

  Galbraith, Sam

  Boateng, Paul

  Galloway, George

  Boyes, Roland

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Bradley, Keith

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  George, Bruce

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Gordon, Mildred

  Buckley, George J.

  Graham, Thomas

  Caborn, Richard

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Callaghan, Jim

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Canavan, Dennis

  Hain, Peter

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Hardy, Peter

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Haynes, Frank

  Clelland, David

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Cohen, Harry

  Henderson, Doug

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Hinchliffe, David

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Corbett, Robin

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Home Robertson, John

  Cousins, Jim

  Hood, Jimmy

  Crowther, Stan

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Cryer, Bob

  Howells, Geraint

  Cummings, John

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  204

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Parry, Robert

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Patchett, Terry

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Pendry, Tom

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Illsley, Eric

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Ingram, Adam

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Janner, Greville

  Radice, Giles

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Randall, Stuart

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Redmond, Martin

  Lambie, David

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Lamond, James

  Reid, Dr John

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Richardson, Jo

  Lewis, Terry

  Robertson, George

  Livingstone, Ken

  Rogers, Allan

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Rooney, Terence

  Loyden, Eddie

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  McAllion, John

  Rowlands, Ted

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Ruddock, Joan

  McCartney, Ian

  Salmond, Alex

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Sedgemore, Brian

  McFall, John

  Sheerman, Barry

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  McKelvey, William

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  McLeish, Henry

  Short, Clare

  Maclennan, Robert

  Skinner, Dennis

  McMaster, Gordon

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  McNamara, Kevin

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

  McWilliam, John

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

  Madden, Max

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Snape, Peter

  Marek, Dr John

  Soley, Clive

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Stott, Roger

  Martlew, Eric

  Strang, Gavin

  Maxton, John

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Meacher, Michael

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Meale, Alan

  Walley, Joan

  Michael, Alun

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Morley, Elliot

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Winnick, David

  Murphy, Paul

  Worthington, Tony

  Nellist, Dave

  Wray, Jimmy

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  O'Brien, William

  O'Hara, Edward

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  O'Neill, Martin

  Mr. Jack Thompson and

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Mr. Ken Eastham.

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Alexander, Richard

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Allason, Rupert

  Boswell, Tim

  Amess, David

  Bottomley, Peter

  Amos, Alan

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bowis, John

  Ashby, David

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Brazier, Julian

  Atkins, Robert

  Bright, Graham

  Atkinson, David

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

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Baldry, Tony

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Batiste, Spencer

  Burns, Simon

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Burt, Alistair

  Bellingham, Henry

  Butler, Chris

  Bendall, Vivian

  Butterfill, John

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Benyon, W.

  Carrington, Matthew

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Carttiss, Michael

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Cash, William

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  205

  Chapman, Sydney

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Churchill, Mr

  Knox, David

  Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

  Latham, Michael

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Colvin, Michael

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Lightbown, David

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Couchman, James

  Lord, Michael

  Cran, James

  McCrindle, Sir Robert

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

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

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Day, Stephen

  Maclean, David

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Dicks, Terry

  Madel, David

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Malins, Humfrey

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Mans, Keith

  Dover, Den

  Maples, John

  Dunn, Bob

  Marland, Paul

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Marlow, Tony

  Eggar, Tim

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Evennett, David

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Mates, Michael

  Favell, Tony

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Mills, Iain

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Moate, Roger

  Franks, Cecil

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Fry, Peter

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Gale, Roger

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Moss, Malcolm

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  Neale, Sir Gerrard

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Gregory, Conal

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Grist, Ian

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Hannam, John

  Norris, Steve

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Harris, David

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Hayes, Jerry

  Page, Richard

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Patnick, Irvine

  Hayward, Robert

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Hicks. Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Hill, James

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Hind, Kenneth

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Porter, David (Waveney)

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

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Price, Sir David

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Hunter, Andrew

  Riddick, Graham

  Irvine, Michael

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Irving, Sir Charles

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Jack, Michael

  Rost, Peter

  Jackson, Robert

  Rowe, Andrew

  Janman, Tim

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Jessel, Toby

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Key, Robert

  Shelton, Sir William

  Kilfedder, James

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Shersby, Michael

  Knapman, Roger

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  206

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Walden, George

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Speed, Keith

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Ward, John

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Watts, John

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Wells, Bowen

  Steen, Anthony

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Stern, Michael

  Whitney, Ray

  Stevens, Lewis

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Wilkinson, John

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Wilshire, David

  Sumberg, David

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Summerson, Hugo

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Wolfson, Mark

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Yeo, Tim

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Tracey, Richard

  Tredinnick, David

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Mr. Timothy Wood and

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Mr. John M. Taylor.

  Viggers, Peter

  Question accordingly negatived.

Schedule 1

  PROVISIONS SUPPLEMENTARY TO S/
  Dr. Moonie: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 10, line 37, at end insert:—
  `(3A) On the appointed day the successor company shall provide for each of the employees of the Board or the Corporation and any body representing those employees a statement providing for the continuation of their employment and pension rights as previously enjoyed.'.
  Most of the debate, both in Committee and on the Floor of the House, has concentrated—rightly—on the principle of how the company will operate in the private sector and, indeed, on the principle of whether it should be privatised at all. We have touched briefly on the rights of employees in the company.
  Although it is not a large company, BTG is a reasonably prosperous one. It has a substantial pension fund whose value is actuarily in excess of the pension requirements of its current employees. In view of the lack of safeguards from Ministers about the future, and the vagueness of the promises that have been made, we are not satisfied that employees' interests will be protected properly under the Bill in its present form. We know of instances in the private sector of pension funds being raided, by means of one subterfuge or another, to dilute their value and to use the surplus for other purposes, and we consider that unacceptable.
  In Committee, the Minister said that he was not prepared to allow such raids in any form. He may now wish to say something about the company's articles of association, or to throw further light on the position to reassure us about the principle. In view of the relatively light discussion that took place in Committee, however, we thought that it would be worth while to table the amendment on Report, so that the Minister could confirm the impression that we had been given that employees' rights and guarantees would be enshrined in the Bill during the sale of the company.
  Mr. Paul Flynn: I support the amendment, but, like many hon. Members, I am disturbed by the actions of other privatised companies. Assurances were given during the passage of other Bills, but

  207
  unfortunately the results often damaged the interests of pensioners and future pensioners of those privatised companies.
  The pensions business has gone through a period of great turbulence. In the 1980s, pension funds in Britain rose in value from about £50 billion to £220 billion. During the first year of this decade they dropped in value by nearly 10 per cent.—a greater drop in value than occurred after the stock exchange crash of 1987.
  What has happened to the vast surpluses that have been amassed by the pension companies? A survey by the National Association of Pension Funds showed that in 48 per cent. of schemes surpluses were applied to provide contribution holidays for the companies and that in only 22 per cent. of schemes did employees enjoy a reduction in their contributions. To a large extent, those surpluses have been used to help shareholders rather than pensioners.
  In Committee the Minister gave a number of assurances that sounded very convincing. He referred to the fact that surplus pension scheme funds are now regulated by regulations made by the Secretary of State for Social Security under the Occupational Pension Schemes (Modification) Regulations 1990, which formed part of the Social Security Act 1990. He also said that under the 1988 Act a surplus was permitted to be dealt with in four ways: by making payments to the employer; by suspending or reducing for up to five years the contributions of the employer or employees; by improving existing benefits or providing new benefits; or in such other ways as prescribed by the Inland Revenue.
  The legislation is in place. Sadly, however, the experience of similar privatised companies shows that a mockery has been made of the legal framework. The worst example is British Telecom. An early-day motion was tabled deploring what was said to be the unlawful action of British Telecom in reducing its contribution to the British Telecommunications staff superannuation scheme from the August 1989 payment without any actuarial certificate of disposable surplus. It had a contribution holiday without that certificate having been provided. A worse allegation is that British Telecom had no serious talks with its staff before that was done. The early-day motion asked for meaningful improvements to the benefits of members of the scheme, if any real surplus accrues.
  A scandal involving a much larger group of people than those employed by BTG is the British Steel scheme, which covers 100,000 pensioners and deferred pensioners. It may be said that only 188 employees are involved in the BTG scheme. However, the actuarial surplus amounts to at least £3·8 million and may be as large as £13 million. I do not intend to repeat the Committee discussion. However, that is a very large sum when one takes into account the small number of BTG employees.
  After the British Steel Bill was passed, the corporation discovered that it had a surplus of £600 million. British Steel disposed of that surplus in a way that greatly angered its 100,000 existing and deferred pensioners. British Steel has set aside half this surplus for the benefit of future pensioners—their present employees—and widows. As for the remainder, I have a letter from the director of British Steel who says that half of the original surplus has gone towards reducing the ongoing costs to the company. That money is not being applied for the benefit of future
  208
  pensioners; instead, it is being used in the same way as British Telecom used its surplus—to reduce its part of the cost of the pension scheme. That is wholly against the spirit of the legislation that privatised those companies.
  If the amendment is not accepted, a similar mistake will be made. This surplus of £3·8 million, or possibly £13 million, may be regarded as an inducement to a future owner to take over BTG and use it in a way that damages the financial interests of the employees.
  6.45 pm
  Mr. Leigh: Although I understand and share the Opposition's concern for BTG's employees, I assure them that amendment No. 3 is unnecessary, as these matters are already provided for by the Bill as drafted. Paragraphs 2 and 4 of schedule 1 to the Bill, notably paragraph 4(1)(b), make it palpably clear that vesting under clause 1 will not affect any of the corporation's or the board's existing agreements, transactions or anything else, and this includes employment contracts, pensions and redundancy arrangements, whether or not they are in writing. The only effect of the Bill in this respect will be to substitute the successor company as the employer.
  Dr. Moonie: In view of the Minister's clarification of the point, for which I am grateful, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.—[Mr. Leigh.]
  6.46 pm
  Dr. Moonie: We have had several long and interesting debates on the Bill, starting with Second Reading, then in Committee and earlier today. I pay tribute to all right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who have expressed their concern about the future security of the British Technology Group in the marketplace and its future independence, integrity and impartiality.
  In an intervention during the speech of the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) I referred to the attitude of the BTG management to privatisation and their support for it. Having considered what I said then, I should not like it to be thought for a moment that I intended to impugn the integrity of the BTG management, or its chief executive. I was attempting to demonstrate that no one who is involved in an organisation can be completely impartial when a decision is being taken over its future.
  When we wound up the debate on the new clauses the Under-Secretary of State appeared to shift his ground. He said that he was not prepared to give the best assurances over BTG's future, but initially he was prepared to give very good assurances. I was a little concerned when the very good assurances became only good assurances later in his speech. I listened with growing apprehension in case the good assurances became only reasonable assurances and then, perhaps, fair assurances, since he gradually wriggled out of his original fairly generous commitment. I am sure that that was just the form of words that the Minister was using and that he is genuinely concerned about the future of BTG after privatisation.
  In Committee we made much play of the length of time it took for messages to get from the Government's brain to any of their effector organs. Clearly, the long Easter recess

  209
  has allowed that message slowly to percolate through and now we have at least some assurance from the Minister that the Government will be looking carefully at the articles of association.
  I must look back at our debates in Committee as I am sure that at one stage the Under-Secretary of State was scathing about writing safeguards into the articles of association for the company since future managements could change those articles of association without our having any say. Therefore, I shall look with interest at the proposals that the Minister brings forward after vesting date to see what safeguards he intends to institute to ensure that the articles of association are so constructed as to give BTG maximum protection, consistent with operating in the climate that the Government intend for it, particularly when that climate involves the British market which is dogged by short-term concerns about profit instead of being strengthened by long-term visions of growth.
  Our fears about the future of the privatised BTG are shared by many individuals outside the House. The chief executive of BTG, Ian Harvey, in an article in the Observer on 10 March 1991 on the future of the British Technology Group, argued—1 respect his view, although I disagree with it—that
  "the privatisation of BTG is welcome, but a trade sale could destroy the business".
  He wrote:
  "We, the council and management of BTG, welcome privatisation. But that support is contingent upon preserving the independence and critical mass on which our business depends, and on preventing 'asset-stripping' by a future owner.
  BTG's business is finding global markets for clever ideas and protecting researchers when the rights to their inventions are infringed. We do that through patenting and licensing."
  Of course that is well known. He mentioned that eight years ago BTG had been criticised by the Government and universities for being a slow and bureaucratic organisation. There is no doubt that the organisation now operates much more effectively under its present management. That is not necessarily due to any action or inaction by the Government. I suspect that it has happened quite independently. If any Conservative Member wishes to challenge what I am saying he is welcome to do so, but he might be unpopular with his colleagues in the Whips' Office.
  The chief executive of BTG makes much of the fact that the Government have had a negative effect. We should not forget that we are talking about an organisation which everyone in the world recognises as the best in its field. What would it be like if it were not restrained by the dead hand of the Government, be it through a dismal succession of Secretaries of State at the Department of Trade and Industry or through an even more dismal procession of Chancellors and the malign effect on a successful organisation of the attitude taken by the Treasury? What could BTG have managed in the public sector over the past 10 years had it not suffered under those constraints? It is small wonder that the BTG management now feels that it is better to risk the most short-term and blinkered market in the western world rather than to continue to operate under the guiding hand of such as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and his colleagues in the Bruges group—the last bastion of Brugesism in the
  210
  Government, fighting a desperate rearguard action to preserve the true faith and keep the candle burning for the leader over the water.
  I hope that you will agree that this is germane to the Third Reading, Madam Deputy Speaker, as we are discussing the principles dividing the views of the Opposition from those of the Government and the reasons why we shall divide the House on Third Reading.
  Let me continue outlining our objections. Ian Harvey wrote that his
  "position is clear—the private sector offers BTG the best chance for future expansion and success, and the best opportunity for Britain to retain its leadership position in world-wide technology flow."
  I take issue with him on that, because we believe passionately that BTG's mission is to promote technology transfer from the universities and institutions in Britain and that that role is paramount and much more important than a successful role in trading worldwide. I would not attempt for a moment to say that its successful role in trading worldwide is not essential, but it must be subservient to BTG's other role in promoting research and development from British organisations. Anyone entering the debate with an open mind would agree with that.
  Concerns have also been voiced by other external observers. I would not say that they were dispassionate observers because, like most of us, they have an interest in the Government's proposals. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has made its position clear. The Minister made much of the fact that it appeared to support privatisation. That is not necessarily the case. He has inferred that from the questions that the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals was asked, and he is entitled to do so. Anyone listening to his first speech this afternoon would be clear that, when quoting, he stressed those syllables that he wished to emphasise and destressed those to which he wished to pay less attention. That is a natural thing for a Minister to do. He is seeking any port in a storm and welcomes any support for the privatisation of BTG outside the dwindling ranks of his own right-wing colleagues in the Conservative party. If he can suggest to gullible minds that the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals supports him, so much the better for him.
  In the briefing dated today, Tuesday 16 April 1991, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals said that it
  "continues to be concerned about the form which the privatisation of BTG might take and how the intellectual property entrusted to the new company will be safeguarded and effectively exploited to the continuing benefit of the originators of the intellectual property."
  It continues:
  "The universities are by far the biggest single source of BTG's intellectual property—well over 50 per cent. if the contribution from teaching hospitals is included. Another 25 per cent. comes from Research Council Institutes and Research Associations. The rest comes largely from Government Laboratories."
  In other words, the biggest source of BTG's intellectual property—almost the only source—is provided from public money. The briefing continues:
  "The total income from the academic sector from the BTG for development projects and from sharing of royalties from licensing of patents is at present some £30 million per annum."
  That is a very welcome income which is much larger than that which accrues to American universities from the organisations acting on their behalf, and demonstrates just how successful BTG has been while acting in the public

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  sector in comparison with similar organisations in the private sector. Such organisations are united merely in their lack of success in the commercial markets.
  The vice-chancellors and principals go on to say:
  "Universities are being exhorted by the Government to maximise the commercial exploitation of their inventions, discoveries and other intellectual property and to raise more money from sources other than Government. They are also meeting demand from increasing numbers of students at lower cost."
  The vice-chancellors and principals make the point that the £13 million that the universities make from BTG is very worth while and should not be put at risk.
  It being Seven o'clock, and there being private business set down by direction of The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, under Standing Order No. 16 (Time for taking private business), further proceedings stood postponed.

  Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill [Lords]
  7 pm
  Mr. Rhodri Morgan: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to refer to a letter which, contrary to all the conventions of the House, was sent by the Secretary of State for Wales to his Cabinet colleagues on 31 March. The third paragraph of that letter, which is relevant, says:
  "Because of the conventions on private Bills, LG Committee has concluded that it would be inappropriate formally to Whip the payroll on this occasion. But given the importance of this Bill"—
  the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill—
  "to the South Wales area, and the Government's consistent support for it hitherto, I am extremely anxious to prevent the spoiling tactics succeeding. I therefore very much hope that you, your junior Ministers and all your PPSs will do your best to be available to support the Bill, through the night if necessary. "
  That letter is signed "Yours ever, David".
  I take that to be an admission that whipping of the payroll on private business is contrary to "Erskine May", to the conventions of the House and to the rights of people objecting to private Bills. Having admitted that it is a thoroughly wrong thing to do, the letter from which I have just quoted actually whips the payroll. On behalf of my constituents and of other objectors, I must ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to rule that the letter be referred to the Committee of Privileges. It is clearly in breach of the conventions of the House.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: Further to the point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I should like to draw to your attention a letter of which I have been given a copy. It is addressed to all members of the Cabinet and is headed "Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill".
  Mr. Morgan: The date?
  Mr. Jones: I understand that the letter was sent in February 1991. It says:
  "Do you really want to spend £150 million of taxpayers' money to obliterate this view for ever?"
  It is signed "Rhodri Morgan, MP for Cardiff, West".
  Mr. Ron Davies: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend, Madam Deputy Speaker. This House has a procedure for dealing with private Bills. An essential part of that procedure allows individual Members of Parliament to come to their own considered judgment on whether legislation should be supported or opposed. There is a tradition, in pursuance of that objective, that neither the Government nor the Opposition take an official view, and that the Whips are not brought into play. The Select Committee that dealt with this Bill decided that, in view of the conflicting nature of the evidence, it would not be appropriate to come to a firm decision. Instead, it required the promoters to carry out a further investigation and to report to the Secretary of State for Wales 12 months after the Committee had finished. It then charged the Secretary of State to act in a quasi-judicial capacity—to weigh the evidence before him and come to a decision.
  Clearly, the Secretary of State for Wales has prejudged the matter. He has decided, regardless of the evidence, to support the Bill and the building of the barrage. The Committee, which sat for a very long time and deliberated very closely4put its faith in the objectivity of the Secretary

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  of State. Now that its decision has been abrogated by the unilateral action of the Secretary of State, should not the Committee, before we proceed further, be offered an opportunity to review its decision?
  Mr. Ray Powell: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before ruling, perhaps you will conside the fact that most hon. Members—in particular, Welsh Members—have received from nume-rous sources, especially on the Opposition side of the House, circular letters expressing strong objection to the proposed legislation. As Chairman of the New Building Sub-Committee, I should like to point out that recently a private Bill concerning the London Underground was debated at some length. The Committee contacted all Members with a view to making them aware of what was happening. Letters urging all Members to participate in the debates on private Bills have become more common.
  I have received from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) a letter requesting my presence at the debate on this Bill. In all probability, my Friend sent a similar request to other Members. The Secretary of State for Wales is a member of the Government, but, as a Member of Parliament, he should have the opportunity—one is afforded to every other Member—to ask others to support or object to certain measures. I am not speaking as a Whip, and I am not here to whip my colleagues in respect of the Bill. I speak in my private capacity as a Member from the valleys, who supports the Bill. Every hon. Member must be at liberty to make observations in support of or against the Bill. I have no doubt that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the basis of what has been said, will be able to come to a considered judgment.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I must listen to points of order that are genuine, and I shall do so. Indeed, these are serious matters. However, the House has already agreed that the Bill should come before us for further consideration on Report. In fact, the Bill is not yet before the House, and I intend to ask the Clerk to read—
  Mr. Ron Davies: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am on my feet, and I am trying to be helpful. I know that, among some hon. Members, this is a contentious issue. Let us get the Bill before the House, and then I shall take points of order relating to it.
  As amended, further considered.
  Mr. Allan Rogers: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In view of the comments made a moment ago by my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), may I point out that there is only one difference between the letter circulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and the one circulated by the Member for an English constituency who happens to be the Secretary of State for Wales: my hon. Friend sent out his letter on paper that carried his private address, whereas the Secretary of State sent his out on
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  official Welsh Office notepaper. In other words, the Secretary of State was sending an official communication to his Cabinet colleagues. That communication states:
  "Because of the conventions on private Bills"—
  so the Secretary of State accepts that there is a convention, but why has he been breaking it?—
  "it would be inappropriate formally to Whip the payroll on this occasion. But … I am extremely anxious to prevent the spoiling tactics succeeding. I therefore very much hope that you, your junior Ministers and all your PPSs will do your best to be available to support the Bill, through the night if necessary."
  If my hon. Friend does not recognise that as an official communication from the Secretary of State for Wales, I am very sorry. There is a world of difference between what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has done legitimately on behalf of his constituents and the action of the Secretary of State, who, seemingly, has followed the actions of his predecessor in supporting Associated British Ports for the purpose of developing the Cardiff bay area.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Fortunately, I have a copy of the letter from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, from which it is clear that the LG Committee considered the Bill. That means that it was considered by Ministers. Page 896 of "Erskine May", headed "Ministerial reports", says:
  "All reports made by a Minister of the Crown on a private Bill stand referred to the committee on the bill … The Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure 1954–55 recommended that Ministers' reports should as a rule be made available to all interested parties not less than fourteen days before the committee of the first House sits on the bill. When by agreement of the parties the committee sits less than 14 days after the second reading of a bill, the report should be issued as soon as possible after second reading. This recommenda-tion was accepted by the Government."
  Ministers have ignored the Bill publicly and have not produced a report—or if they have, not at the appropriate stage—but have further considered the Bill and ignored the rules that require those reports to be considered by a Committee of the House. The only way in which this underhand, shabby business can be properly scrutinised is for proceedings to be delayed so that the Committee that considered the Bill can be reconvened to consider the Minister's report.
  The letter makes it clear that Ministers have been considering the Bill behind closed doors in Whitehall. The Secretary of State for Wales is answerable to the House and should have provided the Committee's report to the Private Bill Committee, but he has failed to fulfil his duties. We have had 10 years of the Government trampling over the rights of Parliament, but it would be helpful if we could have an adjournment so that this matter could be examined carefully and the Minister's report submitted to the reconvened Committee.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: The House has ordered that the Bill be considered. Many important amendments must be debated. I must hear points of order, but I hope that they are pertinent and that they can be dealt with by the Chair.
  Mr. Ted Rowlands: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have raised a serious issue on the function and role of the Secretary of State for Wales. The report of the Private Bill Committee says:

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  "The Committee requires an undertaking on behalf of the promoters that they will proceed with the Bill only after the consent of the Secretary of State has been given, and the Secretary of State should give his consent only when he has before him the Hydro technical report, the promoters' conclusion and all other representations made to him during the three-month consultation period to which the Committee had referred. The Secretary of State should be satisfied that all the relevant economic, technical and safety criteria can be met by the Bill. If he is not satisfied, no public funds should be put towards the construction of the barrage."
  The Committee charged the Secretary of State with a specific objective role—to judge and assess—but he has written letters to Cabinet colleagues supporting the Bill and asking them to vote for it. He was asked to fulfil an important—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The points that are being made are arguments for Third Reading. As I said, the House has determined that the Bill be now considered. Hon. Members should proceed to consider the amendments that have been selected.
  Mr. Morgan: Further to the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), who referred to my circulating in February a photograph of Cardiff bay at low tide to members of the Cabinet asking them to consider whether they could not think of better ways of spending £150 million than destroying—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. With respect, that is not a point of order for the Chair. There is nothing untoward in hon. Members encouraging other hon. Members to attend a debate. I shall listen to points of order, but I ask that they be genuine points with which the Chair can deal rather than matters for debate.
  7.15 pm
  Mr. Ron Davies: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I understand your difficulties and I am sure that all Labour Members appreciate the kindness and courtesy with which you are trying to deal with these difficult points of order. We do not wish to make your life difficult or embarrassing. However, these important matters must be dealt with. I listened carefully to your ruling that the House has resolved to consider the Bill. We do not dispute that, but the matter in issue is that when the House decided to consider the Bill it was not aware that the Secretary of State for Wales was about to involve himself, in a direct ministerial capacity, in trying to influence the passage of the Bill. [Interruption.] I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) was trying to intervene, but he was not.
  Mr. Alun Michael: I cannot intervene on a point of order.
  Mr. Davies: I would not put it past my hon. Friend, not that I would oblige him by giving way.
  The Opposed Private Bill Committee gave the Secretary of State precise responsibility, in a quasi-judicial capacity, to reach a judgment on behalf of the House. It can no longer have confidence in the Secretary of State making that judgment. I appreciate that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, cannot give a ruling on that, but will you draw it to the attention of Mr. Speaker and your colleagues to see whether the Select Committee on Procedure should consider it and decide whether, in the light of the decision
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  of the Opposed Private Bill Committee, further guidelines should be issued to Committees that consider private legislation so that they can decide whether they should repeat the confidence that the Opposed Private Bill Committee showed?
  In his letter, the Secretary of State makes it clear that he regards any further debate on the Bill as spoiling tactics. I resent that because my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and I and other hon. Friends have spent much time preparing amendments which we believe will improve the Bill. For example, we have sought to—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is abusing my good will. The first new clause appears in his name and I hope that he will allow the House to get on with it.
  Mr. Davies: The amendments that we have tabled would improve the Bill. The Secretary of State regards any further attempt to amend the Bill as a spoiling tactic. Would not it be appropriate for the right hon. Gentleman to say from the Dispatch Box whether he is prepared to accept one of the 300 amendments? That would offer the House further guidance—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We shall hear what the Secretary of State has to say when we proceed with the amendments.
  Mr. Elliot Morley: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the procedures for private Bills. The letter from the Secretary of State shows that he has breached the principle of neutrality on a private Bill. As you will be aware, this is not the first time that concern has been expressed about the way in which the private Bill procedure works. This seems to be another sham in terms of genuine neutrality when the Government are organising behind the scenes. In those circumstances, should not this Bill be regarded as a hybrid Government Bill? Should not the Secretary of State come to the Dispatch Box and make it clear what the position is, rather than go behind the scenes with private letters whipping up clandestine support?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. These are matters which the hon. Gentleman can rightly bring out in debate. This is the last point of order.
  Mr. Rogers: On a point of order—a quite separate point—Madam Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, business that comes before the House should be judged by Members without fear or favour. While I was walking over here from Norman Shaw building I was talking to a Conservative Member. He asked how long the business would go on and I said that it would probably be at least two days. I asked him what he was doing about it and he said that he was rather committed because last August or September he had an invitation to Cardiff and stayed overnight as a guest of the promoters—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Rogers: This is a very pertinent point of order.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I should be glad if the hon. Gentleman would come to a point with which I might be able to deal with.
  Mr. Rogers: He said that last August or September he had stayed in Cardiff overnight as a guest of the promoters of the Bill. We know—it is in parliamentary records and we also have copies of the correspondence—that there was an invitation, a corrupt invitation in my view, from the promoters of the Bill to influence Members by offering them and their wives free accommodation and meals in Cardiff, as a measure for promoting the Bill. I would not have raised this except that a Conservative Member told me that he was influenced by this. I would not betray a private conversation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Name him!"] I would not betray a private conversation by naming the hon. Member, who at least is honest about his views, but I would certainly provide his name in confidence to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you so desired. In view of the action of the promoters of the Bill in corruptly trying to influence Members of the House, will you ask our hon. Clerk to investigate the matter urgently so that you can rule on it before tonight's business is proceeded with?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: It is not a matter for the Chair at this stage.
  Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I draw your attention in connection with private business to Standing Order No. 144? I have referred to and quoted from "Erskine May", which pointed out that reports from the Minister had to be made at the Committee stage. The reason is that the Committee has the duty and obligation to examine, and to allow the Government Department to examine and make representations on, any report which the Minister makes. I am suggesting to you that the letter from the Secretary of State, which falls absolutely within the terms of Standing Order No. 144, as it is from a Minister of the Crown, which means the holder of an office in Her Majesty's Government, and includes the Treasury, should be treated as a report by a Minister for the purpose of Standing Order No. 144. If that is the position, we are in a mess over this Bill, because the report cannot be considered by the Committee, the Committee stage having been completed.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: The Standing Order refers only to reports submitted to the House; it does not relate in any way to letters that might be sent by a Minister to any of his colleagues.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Is it a genuine point of order?
  Mr. Hughes: It is, and I will be very brief. I was not aware that there would be this preliminary argument and I want to ask about something on which I have not heard you rule and which is of general interest. Is it or is it not in order for Government Members to whip Back-Benchers on private business?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: A Whip encourages Members to be present during a debate and to divide and vote at the end of a debate on a private Bill as they wish. But any individual Member, including a Minister, can encourage his colleagues to be present for a debate and then determine for himself how he votes at the end of that debate. There can be no further point of order on that one.
  Mr. Hughes: I understand that. I do not have a copy of the letter that colleagues clearly have, but, as I understand
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  from what was read out, it did not just advise them to attend; it advised them to attend and made a very clear recommendation as to which way they should vote. That appears to offend against what I always understood was the convention and is the rule governing the conduct of private business. If that is the case, even if it is by a Secretary of State, surely it is out of order.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I have not seen the letter, but, as I understand it, it does not instruct Members to divide or to vote one way or the other; it invites them to support the Bill.
  I think that we should get on with the Bill now. There have been sufficient points of order.

New Clause 1

  SAVING FOR TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING
  `.—(1) The works authorised by this Act shall not he treated for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning General Development Order 1988 (or any general order superseding that order made under section 59 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, or any corresponding provision of an act repealing that section), to be—

  (a) development authorised by an Act which designates specifically both the nature of the development and the land upon which it may be carried out; or

  (b) development by dock, pier, harbour, water transport, canal or inland navigation undertakings.

  (2) For the avoidance of doubt the works described in sections 17, 19 and 20 of this Act are development within the meaning of section 55 of the Act of 1990 (which defines "development").
  (3) Nothing in this Act shall constitute an approval, in outline, in principle or otherwise, for the purposes of the Act of 1990, and any application for planning permission for the carrying out of the works shall be determined entirely on its own merits.
  (4) For the purposes of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 any works authorised by this Act which lie seaward of the mean low water level of spring tides shall he within the county and the city of the borough (as the case may be) from the date of the passing of this Act until the relevant date.
  (5) In this section—
  "the relevant date" means in the case of works authorised under—

  (a) sections 17 (power to execute works) and 19 (subsidiary works) of this Act, the tenth anniversary of the passing of this Act; or

  (b) section 20 (works for accommodation of vessels) of this Act, the date when the barrage is removed;

  "the Act of 1990" means the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.'.—[Mr. Hood.]
  Brought up, and read the First time
  Mr. Jimmy Hood: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 45, in page 10, line 6, at end insert—
  `(9) If any of the works authorised by this section have not been commenced before the expiry of seven years from the passing of this Act, then on expiration of that period the powers of this section in relation to that work shall cease.'.
  No. 79, in page 74, line 31, leave out clause 97.
  No. 80, in page 74, line 37, leave out from 'within' to the end of line 44 and insert—
  `7 years after the passing of this Act.
  (2) The works authorised by this Act shall not be treated as development permitted by Article 3 of and Class B in Part 17 of Schedule 2 the said order of 1988 (which permit development by dock, pier, harbour, water transport, canal or inland navigation undertakings).'.
  Mr. Hood: The purpose of the new clause and the amendments is to apply all the provisions of the town and country planning legislation to all the developments enabled by the Bill, including the barrage itself, associated works and harbour works in the inland bay.
  I sat on the Select Committee that considered this Bill and I do not believe that the Bill should proceed from the Committee stage. It is flawed. The powers that it would introduce are totally unacceptable in the democratic process.
  Mr. Ron Davies: Will my hon. Friend tell us clearly why he feels that the Bill was fundamentally flawed?
  Mr. Hood: I will certainly try to do that. The main flaws, those concerning the Secretary of State, were set out in the earlier points of order, and there are a number of others.
  By giving the Secretary of State the power to enact a Bill, the Select Committee took powers away from Parliament itself. It is the duty of Parliament, not the Secretary of State, to enact Bills. I can say with hindsight that, had we known—I do not see my three colleagues on the Committee in their places—that what has happened since would happen, I genuinely doubt whether the three-to-one majority would have favoured the Bill.
  There were other points. The ground water model that was accepted by all the members of the Committee was wrong, as was the assessed impact of ground water. This will cause serious trouble.
  Mr. Rogers: It is important that, initially, my hon. Friend set out the fact that the new clause relates to the general planning considerations that ought to apply within the area. Will he also accept that one of the reasons why people promote private Bills is that they want to circumvent planning restrictions? They do not pursue the matter at the local level because they know there will be opposition to it. I am sure that my hon. Friend, who I know is a sponsored member of the National Union of Mineworkers, will remember the passage of the Felixstowe Dock and Railway (No. 2) Bill. The company that wanted to develop a private dock in that area was quite happy to provide meals and even, during an all-night sitting—
  Mr. Ron Davies: Champagne.
  Mr. Hood: Champagne suppers, as I remember it.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We are dealing with new clause 1 and some amendments. This bears no relationship to them. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would deal with the new clause.
  Mr. Hood: I am aware of the example that my hon. Friend gives. I was invited to the champagne fiasco, as we called it then. There is a democratic deficit when such conduct is permitted. We go all over the world telling people proudly about the Mother of Parliaments. I hope that the new democracies that are springing up all over Europe will not emulate some of the antics involved in our private Bill procedure.
  Mr. Michael: I agree with my hon. Friend about the unsatisfactory nature of the private Bill procedure, but may I suggest that it has stood in the way of those of us who wish the Bill to proceed? Will he accept that there is the greatest possible contrast between the practices that were pursued in the case mentioned by my hon. Friend the
  220
  member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) in his intervention and the clear and clean way in which matters have proceeded on this Bill?
  7.30 pm
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I would be much obliged if the hon. Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), rather than going down that road, dealt with the amendments which are before the House.
  Mr. Hood: I shall respect your judgment, as usual, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  I have often sat in the House, as we all have, including your good self, Madam Deputy Speaker, and listened to objection after objection to the private Bill procedure. I am persuaded by my experience in the House and on private Bill Committees that all private Bills should not be given the benefit of the doubt, as is stated in "Erskine May". I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) has "Erskine May" beside him, as he always does. No doubt he could tell me which part advises Parliament that, when judging private Bills, the benefit of the doubt must always be given to objectors and petitioners against the Bill. That means, of course, that the promoters must prove their case beyond all reasonable doubt. It was the unanimous view of the Select Committee that the promoters of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill have not proved their case beyond all reasonable doubt. Because of that and that alone, the Bill should have fallen. Unfortunately it did not, and we are now discussing it further.
  It is incumbent on me to mention that, in not supporting the Bill, I wrote a minority report. I should give an account of my reasons—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Interesting as his reasons may be, the hon. Gentleman is moving a new clause that deals with town and country planning. Perhaps he would relate his comments to that.
  Mr. Hood: I shall do my best, but I thought that a preamble about how I had reached my conclusions would be helpful to the House. As has been pointed out, many hon. Members who will have to decide on the Bill and the amendments have not heard much of the evidence.
  In my experience, there is usually acrimony and dissent in Committees dealing with private Bills. No one denies that the Bill under consideration is controversial, but fortunately there was no acrimony or resentment among Committee members. We were considering the Bill for so long that we got to know each other better and we understood each other's points of view. There are strong feelings for and against the Bill among my hon. Friends, but I have been treated with courtesy, as one would expect, by my Welsh and Celtic comrades.
  Mr. Rogers: I assure my hon. Friend that there is no acrimony on the Bill. I have always said that I would be happy to change my mind about how I voted if it could be demonstrated to me that the industrial development of the dockland area of Cardiff relied entirely upon the development of a barrage. Manifestly, over the last year or so, the industrial development has proceeded without the barrage, so there is no need for huge expenditure of public money. Indeed, it might well have a detrimental effect upon the people of Cardiff in that it will drive up land and house prices and make it more difficult for people on

  221
  ordinary incomes to live in the dockland area. I accept that initially they would have subsidised housing but when the houses are sold, there will be a free market. That is why my hon. Friend's new clause about planning might he helpful. Any benefits of housing subsidy would apply only to the first cycle of ownership. Immediately afterwards, there would be a substantial effect on housing prices, to the disadvantage of people on low incomes in the Cardiff area.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. These matters are totally irrelevant. They relate not at all to the group of amendments under discussion. The hon. Member for Clydesdale will oblige me and the House by speaking pertinently to the new clause and the related amendments.
  Mr. Hood: I almost pre-empted you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was about to advise my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) that the points he was raising would come up later, when we will be able to exchange experiences and views.
  My grandmother used to say that confession was good for the soul. Why should we not confess among friends and colleagues? When the Committee proceedings began, I thought that any project involving such massive public expenditure must be good. I put myself in the position of an hon. Member whose constituency was being offered public expenditure of £150 million to £200 million and thought that I would not like a colleague telling me that my constituency could not have the benefit of that public expenditure. Therefore, I started from the position that I would have to be convinced very strongly not to support the Bill. I may have been wrong not to be more objective, but that was human nature. After listening to the evidence and visiting Cardiff, I was persuaded to change my mind for various reasons, which I will deal with on many other amendments during the night or, indeed, tomorrow morning.
  Clause 97 modifies the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 by omitting the development involved in the construction of the barrage from the normal planning process. There is an EEC directive on the planning and development of such projects, which I understand that the Government intend to implement next year. It may not be the present Government who implement it, but its effect will be that all such projects should go through the planning process. There should be no disagreement that that is right and proper, and I look forward to the implementation of that directive.
  Clause 97 would prevent that process and supersede existing law. It would be a dangerous precedent to allow the enactment of such an enabling clause, which would deny local people who are threatened by such huge developments the right to be included in the detailed planning consideration, as would be the case under the planning law.
  I referred to "Erskine May" giving the benefit of the doubt to objectors. If anybody should be given the benefit of the doubt under the Bill, it should be the 11,000-plus people who are threatened by ground water. That was one of the issues that persuaded me not to support the Bill. It is wrong to tell local people affected by it that they have no right to be consulted, to have their views considered under the planning process and to object as they are entitled to under normal planning law.
  Why do the promoters want to supersede the planning legislation?
  Mr. Rogers: May I help my hon. Friend by giving him the answer? I have with me an extract from the Investors' Chronicle which says that Associated British Ports, one of the major landowners in the area, wants to enhance the value of its properties. I can give my hon. Friend a copy of the extract. It implies that by getting round the planning laws, Associated British Ports will make huge sums of money. Of course, it is significant that one of the directors of Associated British Ports is the former Secretary of State for Wales, Lord Crickhowell, who gave permission for the development.
  Mr. Hood: I understand my hon. Friend's point. Why do the promoters of the Bill want clause 97, which will take away the rights of the community and of individuals living in it? That is democratic deficit and the House should not allow it to happen.
  Mr. Ron Davies: My hon. Friend thought that, as a Committee member, he had discharged his duty to the residents of Cardiff who are threatened by flooding by agreeing to the Secretary of State's proposition and, after further investigation into ground water, making a quasi-judicial judgment. As a member of that Committee, how does my hon. Friend feel about debating amendments when, having arranged to subvert the proceedings tonight, Welsh Office Ministers do not even have the courtesy to be present? Does my hon. Friend feel betrayed by that Committee decision?
  Mr. Hood: I am not surprised that Ministers betray me and others. However, I shall give the Minister the benefit of the doubt and hope that he has scuttled off to bring the Secretary of State for Wales into the Chamber to listen to the debate. If he does not return within a reasonable time, I shall feel betrayed.
  Mr. Morgan: I assure my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State must be in the precincts of the House because, five minutes ago, I received a letter from him apologising that a letter was sent to me urgently yesterday and affixed to the notice board, addressed to Rhodri Jones, MP. Let us hope that he returns from being a presence in the precincts to being a presence in the Chamber.
  Mr. Hood: I am sure that the Secretary of State will pop in to say hello. He will have to come because he is lobbying quite a few of his colleagues to come along. He cannot do that and not turn up himself. Whether he will take part in the debate is another matter.
  I shall compare like with like regarding the enabling part of the Bill. It is important to take account of the explanatory memorandum of the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill, which states:
  "The Bill contains powers to enable BP Petroleum Development Limited to construct an artificial island in the Hook Sands area of Poole Bay, for the purpose of winning and getting petroleum which lies beneath the waters of the Bay.
  Because the Island would be in navigable waters it is necessary for the construction of the Island and works connected with it to have the authority of Parliament." That is relevant because the promoters of this Bill respected and wanted that. The explanatory memorandum continues:
  "However the Bill provides that the works will be subject to Local Authority Planning Controls."
  The promoters of that Bill have taken account of the community and local people who wish to be consulted and taken into consideration.
  Mr. Morgan: Does my hon. Friend agree that what is good enough for BP should be good enough for ABP?
  Mr. Hood: I was trying to make that point. The preamble to that Bill states:
  "It is expedient that, subject to planning permission being granted …
  It is expedient to apply the Town and Country Planning Act 1990:
  It is expedient that the Company should be empowered, subject to planning permission."
  That Bill would not circumvent Parliament's rights.
  If Parliament passes the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill tonight—it could be early or even late tomorrow morning —we shall forfeit Parliament's right to enact legislation.
  Mr. Peter L. Pike: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Is he not trying to say that, whether we are in favour of, or against, the Cardiff bay barrage, we should not favour a Bill that supersedes the normal law of the land—the town and country planning legislation? Therefore, everyone should support the amendment, regardless of whether they support the principle of the Bill.
  7.45 pm
  Mr. Hood: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government often talk about individuals' rights and looking after individuals' affairs, but the Bill does not consider individuals' rights. The Government do not give two hoots for individuals but are more concerned with big business, big bucks and big profits—to hell with the 11,000 people whose homes could be flooded. They are concerned only with money, money, money. What the Bill would do in the name of Parliament falls foul of the rhetoric of Ministers, and their hon. Friends, about the rights of individuals.
  The new clause and supporting amendments will retain the rights of individuals under the town and country planning legislation. If Parliament decides to give away its powers, that is up to it. I hope that it will not give away individuals' rights to object to the Government or to big business, in whoever's name it stands.
  Mr. Morgan: If my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) will return my notes, I shall begin my speech which will amplify some of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood).
  It is obvious from private Bills that have been introduced more recently that most people in the private Bill business, even including the promoters' agents whose names will be well known to the House, when they have promoted subsequent Bills, such as the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill on behalf of BP, will appreciate the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale about the traditional exemption from the town and country planning legislation. That first happened in the Penzance Albert Pier Extension Bill a couple of years ago and is now happening on the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill, which was introduced about a month ago and which was drafted by the promoters of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. It includes exemptions from the sweeping powers that Parliament has traditionally given to promoters of private Bills if they are successful in getting them through the House. It has the same sweeping powers as public legislation: it sweeps everything else aside—and there is no local control over what happens. It is very old fashioned and Stalinist—one sweeping blow of the bear's fist in the
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  House of Commons and nobody else gets a look in. That may have been all right in the 19th century when private Bill legislation was at its peak, it was acceptable in the railway age, but is it acceptable now? Some promoters have recognised that and have used the same agents as those who are presenting the Bill or are acting for the promoters of the Bill tonight to draft the same new clause as we are presenting to the House tonight.
  If it is good enough for the residents of Penzance and Poole, and the promoters' agents on the Bill, it is good enough for us in Cardiff. There is absolutely no reason why the promoters could not now take advice from those self-same agents who drafted exactly the same sort of clause as we lifted wholesale from the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill and put it into the Bill at this late stage.
  I do not know whether there is any way of seeing what the promoters plan to say to us before we complete the debate on the new clause so that we may see whether they downgrade the citizens of Cardiff, believing that they are not as politically mature as the citizens of Poole and Penzance. As a representative of part of the capital of Wales, obviously I do not take that view. I believe that if it is good enough for the denizens of Poole and Penzance, it should apply to the citizens of Cardiff as well. Although the Bill was originally introduced a couple of years ago, it does not mean that it remains as a fixed factor that cannot be amended or represents some dreadful, embarrassing climbdown. There is nothing difficult about accepting an amendment that we are completely confident will become standard before long. The old Stalinist, private Bill procedure is going to die—we are sure of that.
  Mr. Rogers: Before my hon. Friend becomes too depressed—I do not want him to feel too solemn at this stage of the proceedings—may I say that the general downgrading of the issues often seems to be the case in relation to Associated British Ports. Its annual report last year spoke of 160 acres in the Cardiff bay district where there was to be massive development that would circumvent the planning considerations included in new clause 1. Later reports do not mention Cardiff at all, although there is reference to developments in Florida, America, and other parts of the United Kingdom. It seems as though Cardiff has been written out, possibly because it is a political hot potato or it is felt that ABP already has it, so why should it worry?
  Mr. Morgan: That is right. There is some evidence for what my hon. Friend has said, which he will no doubt develop further in his speech. The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation and Associated British Ports, through the umbilical cord of Lord Crickhowell's role—I put it no higher than that—work in concert. One might be said to be a front organisation for the other. It would concern everyone if ABP thought that Cardiff was a back number and it was far more exciting to develop further abroad.
  However, one could well understand how such a state might arise because almost everyone in the Cardiff district who has been connected with the legislation has been on a trip to Baltimore. I do not think that that is true of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). If one lives in Cardiff, is involved in politics and has not been on a trip to Baltimore, one has not lived. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South

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  and Penarth can resist such blandishments, but everyone else has been to Baltimore, so such an opinion is understandable.
  Mr. Rogers: Whether or not people go to Baltimore is entirely up to them. I went to Aberaeron for my holidays and there is, supposedly, to be a new marina development at Cei Bach. I do not think that those developments are to receive £150 million or will circumvent the planning laws —the basis of the new clause. The developers at Cei Bach are going about the matter in the proper way.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I am sure that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) will not be tempted to go on a Cook's tour but will address the new clause and the associated amendments.
  Mr. Morgan: I shall merely respond to the correct invervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), which, I am sure, was in order, otherwise you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would have ruled it out of order.
  I go to Baltimore every year, but I go to the original one, the tiny fishing harbour in county Kerry, where there has been no development of any kind—long may it remain so and long may the price of Guinness remain reasonable.
  I shall return to the exemption or non-exemption of developments from town and country planning legislation in the Bill, and our attempt to modernise the Bill by introducing a clause that subjects the Bill to town and country planning legislation in a way that more recent private Bills—even those on which advice has been taken from the same promoters' parliamentary agents as those for the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill—did not. We drafted the clause that we want the promoters of this Bill to accept.
  We believe that the new clause would have the beneficial effect of subjecting the Bill to the normal planning controls to overcome the democratic deficit problem to which my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale has referred. The new clause reserves the normal powers of the city council as the local planning authority and maintains some strategic duties that still pertain to county councils, although their role in town and country planning is much reduced. They still have a residual role relating to transportation planning. The local authority would then be able to stand up to the steamroller. There is a danger of steamroller powers being introduced in private Bills. There always has been, and it is now generally recognised that it is dangerous and out of kilter with the 1990s. We shall be trying to find out whether that fact is recognised by the Bill's promoters. The development corporation should have nothing to be ashamed of. It should be confident of its powers to apply for planning permission in the same way that normal, large development companies would do, and not have to play to an olympian set of rules whereby it takes its own decisions.
  The same factors apply to the process of modernising planning regulations to bring them into line with the general spirit of the 1990s and the need for environmental assessment. If the city council still had planning powers, it would easily be able to insistron such assessments.
  Mr. Ron Davies: My hon. Friend was talking about the county councils' functions in terms of strategic planning. Many of us are Members of Parliament from Mid Glamorgan, which adjoins South Glamorgan—the promoting authority—and if the Bill is passed in it
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  spresent form it will have a considerable impact on the economy and, therefore, the planning of Mid Glamorgan. One of the advantages of amendment No. 45, particularly the aspect of subjecting the Bill to the democratic, local planning process, is that it would require South Glamorgan at least to consult with Mid Glamorgan and make some assessment of the Bill's impact on our communities in Mid Glamorgan. That seems to be one of the compelling advantages of amendment No. 45.
  Mr. Morgan: That is right. The amendment pertains to the strategic planning duties that county councils still have, even though their role has been much reduced.
  There has been a broad drift in the priorities of this country's planning legislation. We are trying to empower people and local authorities to take planning decisions in a responsible way. It is totally contrary to that broad drift to allow unelected development corporations to overcome planning decisions, subject to Parliament's views—which as we know from the Secretary of State's letter really means "subject to the views of the payroll vote". We should stand up for the rights of the ordinary Back Bencher tonight by bringing to the attention of the House and the nation the way in which the Secretary of State abuses the payroll Whip. That follows on from the leaked letter from the Government Chief Whip, who took the same action when the Bill was last considered in February.
  There is a danger of a steamroller procedure by which the payroll Whip whips the Bill through Parliament, which then empowers the local unelected development corporation and its members, chosen by the Secretary of State, to ride roughshod over local objections to not only the Bill's principle but the actual works and detailed plans, and the minor aspects that would undoubtedly unfold over the 20 years of the development corporation's envisaged existence. That is a form of power that is totally outdated and anachronistic in 1991.
  8 pm
  Mr. Rogers: I am afraid that new clause 1 rather loses me because of its legalistic form. As the new clause is tabled in his name, perhaps before he sits down my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) can explain to us what it will mean as regards the environmental impact assessment. My hon. Friend was the European Commission representative for Wales for many years and he may know that environmental impact assessments will be mandatory for planning authorities when granting planning permission.
  If the planning authorities are circumvented by this Bill, will the new clause bring us in line with proposed European legislation? Will my hon. Friend answer that specific question before he sits down because one of the problems that might develop is the control of waste management in the area—the costs and problems of recycling, pollution control and so forth and how waste will be disposed of. Will Cardiff be filled with lorries travelling through it to dispose of waste? Will there be a waste disposal facility within the dockland area? Will the waste be driven through Cardiff to areas outside? Normally those matters would be subject to planning control. The new clause would bring this matter back into the ambit of local people, who would like to control their own waste.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: In responding to that intervention, I am sure that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) will recollect that the next group of new clauses deals specifically with pollution control. We would have a tidy debate if we were to concentrate upon the town and country planning aspects during discussion on this new clause and dealt with pollution when we debate the next group of amendments.
  Mr. Morgan: I think that your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, was mainly intended to apply to the second part of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda. I think that you would accept that the first part of his remarks—regarding the compulsory environmental impact assessment procedure to comply with an EC directive on such assessments—is relevant to this debate. I want to expand my remarks upon that aspect because I happen to have here a copy of the document relating environmental assessment to private Bills. This Bill does not have to comply with that directive because the procedure applying such assessments to private Bills has not yet been introduced.
  I have a letter dated 26 February 1991, called "Environmental Assessment and Private Bill Procedures", from a member of the planning and development control division of the Department of the Environment. It sets out the proposed provisions which will require environmental assessments for all private Bills. We have to introduce that procedure to make our private Bills comply with the European Community directive on environmental impact assessments.
  If the promoters of the Bill were to accept new clause 1, there would be no problem because then it would be up to Cardiff city council to decide that a proper environmental impact assessment ought to be carried out. The council would have that power and it would retrospectively modernise the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, which has been proceeding through this House and the other place for four years and has therefore missed out on the EC directive.
  By exercising our democratic rights tonight we will be able to bring the Bill, restrospectively, within the ambit of the directive by empowering Cardiff city council to decide that an independent validation of the environmental impact of the proposed works is required. Such an assessment would be necessary if the Bill were being introduced for the first time in the next Session of Parliament rather than in 1987 when it commenced its laborious procedure through the two Houses.
  The letter from the Department of the Environment invites comment on details of the consultation paper. As all hon. Members are aware, the Department of the Environment is fond of consultation papers at the moment. It is part of the Government's new style of management not to blitz and blast its way through the nation and its various opinions but to assume that that variation is there and to ask people what they think. Perhaps that is what the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for the Environment want to do. I know that there are other interpretations—they are dithering or being Mr. Nice Guy. However, as regards the new clause, if we believe that the introduction of compulsory environmental assessments is a good thing—we have thought so because we are incorporating assessments into all new private Bills
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  introduced in the 1991–92 Session, after November—it is simply a matter of deciding how to do it. That is why this consultation paper is being sent out.
  Mr. Rogers: I would not want my hon. Friend to be unfair to the Cardiff Bay development corporation. Before he sits down, he ought to say that he is in agreement with the corporation's overall objectives, in that it wants to reunite Cardiff city centre with its waterfront and to promote development which will provide a "superb environment" in which people will want to "live, work and play", and so forth—matters that we will be discussing later.
  For many of us, the only objection is the construction of the barrage, which will provide no extra building land for Cardiff. When my hon. Friend talks about Cardiff Bay development corporation getting in ahead of enlightened European legislation that we will now be the beneficiaries of, he ought to recognise that we support the vast majority of its aims. We object only to the construction of the barrage and blocking up the river mouth.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: It seems to me that the new clause is tied, fairly specifically, to the Town and Country Planning General Development Order 1988. I am sure that the hon. Member for Cardiff, West will relate his remarks to that and to the new clause.
  Mr. Morgan: The reason that I have touched upon the question whether environmental impact assessments would be compulsory and its relationship to new clause 1 is that Cardiff city council would be empowered to order an environmental impact assessment retrospectively on the Cardiff Bay barrage if we reserve the powers under the town and country planning legislation to do so. At the moment we cannot do so within the private Bill procedure that we have inherited.
  The EC directive on environmental assessments came into being in July 1988 and we are incorporating that for the first time next November so that it will apply to all private Bills. The only way that we can apply that directive now is to incorporate new clause 1 and the two amendments in the Bill. That would enable Cardiff city council to order an assessment.
  We are not saying that there has not been an environmental impact assessment, as there has, but it was not independent. Cardiff Bay development corporation were conscious of the problem and commissioned the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Liverpool university to carry out an impact assessment but it was an in-house assessment.
  Mr. Ron Davies: That is precisely the matter that I wanted to ask my hon. Friend to clarify. I understood that the corporation requested that the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology carry out such a study. The problem is that when it got the results of that study it chose to ignore the findings. Surely that is the problem.
  Mr. Morgan: Without new clause 1 there is nothing to stop promoters saying that they have met all the environmental objectives set out by the EC, that they have hired consultants to do a report. But if they do not like the report they ignore it. What is more likely, because of customer-client relationships—and I do not blame the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Liverpool because it has to live in the commercial world—is that if there are aspects of the draft reports that the client does not like it can say

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  that it wants that paragraph left out or a word amended because it is far too strong and would be misused when the report was published. What starts off as a strong report becomes extremely sanitised by the time that the fourth and final draft is packaged ready to be sent through the post. That is due to the customer-contractor relationship and because it was not an independent, validated environmental impact assessment of the sort that we would be empowering Cardiff city council to carry out and to insist upon as an independent body. One needs that independence. If it all takes place within the development corporation, and if the corporation's money is paying for the consultant's services, the project will be tailor-made to meet the political requirements of the development corporation as it seeks to satisfy what it believes are the requirements of this House. This House should respond to that by saying that we shall empower an independent body, such as Cardiff city council, to exercise conventional planning powers in an attempt to avoid money talking in that way. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune.
  What I have described is what usually happens when consultants are working directly for a client and not for a body which is one step removed from the client and which can exercise monitoring powers. The Government are trying to introduce that principle in legislation by stating that the monitoring body should not be the operating body. That is happening in waste regulation at the moment. City councils will be able only to monitor waste disposal arrangements, not to operate them, because, according to the Government, it is naughty for the same body to operate the procedures and to monitor itself. The Government are saying that if an organisation has regulatory powers, it cannot also be the operator.
  We are intending to apply exactly such principles in new clause 1 by restoring town and country planning powers to Cardiff city council and, to a lesser extent, to the county council. The new clause and the amendments seek to separate the regulatory body, which is properly the local authority, from the proprietors of the land, the owners of the money, who can bring in the bulldozers, knock things down or build them up or do exactly what they want with their money. Those people should not be the masters of their house because, if they are, there will be no control over the development.
  That is why we have sought to strengthen the democratic powers that have been normal throughout the country since the enactment of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. Private Bills should not exempt development corporations from having to submit to some form of independent control. We often hear the phrase "the democratic deficit" in relation to development corporations, control over them, and the appointment of their staff by Secretaries of State without any control being exercised by an elected body. We are not happy that the corporations can then call on Government money, on the payroll vote, and can whip their legislation through the House, with the result that their powers are sweeping. That is not acceptable in 1991. Indeed, that opinion is increasingly being accepted by promoters and agents, and by the Officers of the House who are concerned with the private Bill procedure.
  The Bill, however, was introduced before that concern was recognised in the legislation that is currently coming into force. It should, therefore, be fairly simple for the promoters to accept new clause 1. Accepting it cannot be too cumbersome, onerous or obstructive a duty or the
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  same parliamentary agents would not have included such provisions in two Bills, one of which has completed half its passage through Parliament and the other, the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill, has only just started on its way. Obviously, BP is not a soft organisation that believes in handing over goodies to the local authorities. If it could get away with what is happening here, I am sure that BP would think about doing it. However, it accepts that one cannot get away with such things in 1991. Such sweeping powers are no longer acceptable, so even companies such as BP, with the fiduciary duty to their shareholders to maximise profits, are willing to accept such limitations in the Bills that they promote, using the same parliamentary agents. Such provisions should now be retrospectively incorporated into this Bill. That should not be difficult.
  We hope to receive some sign tonight that the promoters are willing to accept new clause 1. After all, we have uprooted its provisions directly from the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill and seek only to incorporate them in this Bill.
  Mr. Michael: It might help the House if I explain that new clause 1 is based on a number of misapprehensions. When I have explained the situation, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) will recognise that some of his colourful language was not appropriate.
  I shall comment first, however, on the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), who expressed respect for opponents of the Bill. It is right that the Bill's opponents should be respected, but I hope that he will agree that it is also right that the Bill's supporters should be respected. I refer especially to members of both local authorities, people living in the affected areas, and the leaders of the local councils, especially the late Councillor John Reynolds, whose passion for and vision of our city of Cardiff is unsurpassed, and who was a great supporter of the project.
  Mr. Rogers: We all wish to pay tribute to the late Councillor John Reynolds, who was greatly admired by many of us who knew him for many years, dating back to the old days of Glamorgan county council and Cardiff city council. I should like to join the tribute to him.
  8.15 pm
  Mr. Michael: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and know that those sentiments are shared by all hon. Members from south Wales, irrespective of whether they support or oppose the Bill. It is right that mutual respect should exist even where we disagree strongly, as is the case over the Bill.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale also said that the Bill is fatally flawed, but that is an erroneous and extravagant claim, especially on the planning matters relating to the new clause. There is no disagreement between us about the fact that our procedures should be improved. The present system needs to be radically and speedily changed so that we can get rid of the present private Bill procedures. As I have said on a number of occasions, the current system is unfair both to the promoters and supporters of the Bill, and to those who oppose it. I am sure that we can all agree that, to put it at its mildest, there are some unsatisfactory elements in the current system.
  Mr. Hood: I have said this before, but it is worth repeating now. The Clerks advised the Committee not to

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  support the Bill, which was the Committee's decision, because it gives powers to the Secretary of State, but takes them away from Parliament. The Committee chose not to take the Clerks' advice. My hon. Friend may say that what I have said is erroneous, but we were advised against the Bill.
  Mr. Michael: I shall not be drawn into discussing that matter because it is not relevant to the new clause. However, although I respect his view, I disagree with my hon. Friend.
  The Bill gives planning permission only for those matters that are specifically covered in the Bill and that have been dealt with through the processes of the House. It does not remove power from local authorities. In effect, the provisions relate only to decisions on the actual works.
  The planning permission that is, in effect, given in the Bill is a matter on which people have had plenty of opportunity to petition. Many people, groups and other bodies exercised that right. The three local authorities involved also had an opportunity to comment and to petition.
  The simple point is that the Bill does not remove planning powers from Cardiff city council, Vale of Glamorgan council or South Glamorgan county council. Hon. Members have referred to the Hook Island (Poole Bay) Bill. As I understand it, the island in Poole harbour is currently outside planning jurisdiction because it is below the low water mark. That Bill therefore contains a clause to bring the area within the planning legislation. The situation is very different from that relating to the Cardiff bay barrage. The clause is not necessary here, whereas it is necessary in the other Bill. That is the difference.
  The planning powers of local authorities have been mentioned during this discussion. Planning powers are not affected or reduced by the Bill. I have a special interest in the planning powers of local authorities and of Cardiff city council in particular. I was chairman of its planning and development committee and a member of the committee for many years. I have taken an interest in planning matters in the city of Cardiff for over 25 years. For that reason, hon. Members will understand that I was one of the first to regret the changes in law and practice which have occurred under this Government. However, those changes have nothing to do with the Bill or the new clause and amendments.
  As the entire area of the development corporation is in my constituency, I assure the House that I should be the first to object to any weakening of the planning powers of the local authorities in the Cardiff bay area. Here I come to the nub of why the new clause is wrong. The Bill has been promoted on the basis that it would confer the specific planning permission to which I referred. Many of the matters referred to in Committee were planning issues. To subject the undertakers now to a requirement to seek planning permission would require them to argue issues already thoroughly examined three or four times in earlier debates on the principle of the Bill and in detail in Committees of both Houses of Parliament.
  Mr. Morgan: Like me, my hon. Friend has been involved in planning matters in Cardiff for many years. He has been involved more directly than I have, but my
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  involvement goes back longer than his. I was an officer of the old Cardiff county borough planning department back in 1965 and 1966. I have a long-standing interest going back over 26 years.
  I ask for my hon. Friend's comments on the following point. I am sure that he will be aware that since the Cardiff Bay development corporation was set up it has had to apply for planning permission for matters other than the works involved in the Bill, such as alteration of footpaths and other matters. Every time that the corporation has applied for planning permission, it has threatened that if permission was not given it would appeal to the Secretary of State, who would give permission.
  There has been an entirely unorthodox new world of town and country planning in the area covered by the Bill in the past three to four years. The threat was dangled before the Cardiff city planning department and its planning committee on every single occasion that the development corporation sought powers. Everything has been done by direct negotiation. The planning committee could not sit back and consider whether to refuse or agree to the application, as planning committees normally do. The old steamroller was used every time. The development corporation said, "If you do not agree, we shall go to see the Secretary of State for Wales, so you had better meet us at least 80 per cent. of the way and go to sleep for the rest of the time." In my view, the planning process in Cardiff has been corrupted in that way ever since the Cardiff Bay development corporation was set up.
  Mr. Michael: I understand that that is my hon. Friend's view, but he is completely wrong. Councillor Sue Essex, the chair of the planning and development committee, and the members of that committee would have every right to feel grossly insulted by my hon. Friend's remarks. It is, of course, the members of planning committees who take decisions, not the employees of planning departments. I underline once more to my hon. Friend that no change in the planning arrangements is being made other than the effective granting of permission on the matters specifically covered by the Bill, which have been dealt with in Committee and during the procedures of the House.
  Whatever the merits of the proposals of the Select Committee on Private Bill Procedure for reform, the promoters of the Bill must use the present procedure. They have devoted considerable effort and resources to providing the planning case for the scheme. They have done so to the satisfaction of the House of Lords and the Bill has passed through the procedures of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
  It is significant that neither of the local planning authorities in the development corporation area—Cardiff city council and Vale of Glamorgan borough council— petitioned against the Bill or raised the matter dealt with by new clause I with the promoters. That is for one good and simple reason. Cardiff Bay development corporation is not an appointed body that can ride roughshod through the planning system, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West seems to believe. Hon. Members appear to be unaware that the corporation, uniquely among the urban development corporations, does not control planning powers. Its only planning power is to require that a planning application be referred to the Secretary of State if it disagrees with the way in which the local authority proposes to deal with the application. It has a right of

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  appeal if a planning application is turned down, as does any other applicant. Hon. Members do not seem to have understood that.
  Not once in the four years during which the Cardiff Bay development corporation has existed has it had recourse to the appeal procedure. That is because the role of the local authorities must be understood and respected by the development corporation.
  There are three specific amendments. Amendment No. 45 is an unnecessary further restriction and amendments Nos. 79 and 80 are both equally unacceptable in their effect. They are also contradictory because amendment No. 79 deletes clause 97 and amendment No. 80 amends the clause. The core of my argument is that the new clause and amendments are not needed. We have a system that is satisfactory to the local authorities and everyone else involved in these processes.
  Mr. Rowlands: I support the new clause. We should be pushing at an open door here. I am surprised at the negative view taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) on new clause 1. What we seek is encapsulated in subsection (3) of the new clause, which says:
  "Nothing in this Act shall constitute an approval, in outline, in principle or otherwise, for the purposes of the Act of 1990, and any application for planning permission for the carrying out of the works shall be determined entirely on its own merits."
  For some considerable time hon. Members on both sides of the House and Ministers have been worried about the balance between the use of the private Bill procedure and of statutory planning procedures, which are subject to local public inquiries. The careful balance struck between the two procedures has taxed and interested the House, its Committees and, indeed, the Government.
  I draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) to the report of the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure of July 1988. He made no mention of it, but that is fair enough. The report described vividly and at some length the interesting balance that needs to be struck between using the private Bill procedure and allowing statutory planning procedures to operate. I draw the attention of my hon. Friend and every other hon. Member present to the anxieties expressed by the Committee in July 1988.
  I understand my hon. Friend when he says that there has been agreement between the local authorities and the Cardiff Bay development corporation. However, they are not the people whom we should consider. We should consider the genuine individual objectors and petitioners such as citizens who are opposed to an authority, whether a development corporation or a democratically elected county or city council. The wishes, feelings and rights of individual householders, groups of residents and others affected by proposals should be taken into account through proper procedures. That is what should concern us most and what is at the heart of our new clause.
  Mr. Pike: Is not it important to recognise that many ordinary members of the public, such as those to whom my hon. Friend refers, consider it far more difficult to petition against a private Bill than to object to a normal planning application?
  Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. That was the very point that I was about to make and which the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure
  234
  came across when it took evidence. Paragraph 37 of that report is relevant to our new clause and makes the point which my hon. Friend has just made. It says:
  "The advocates of non-parliamentary procedures was mostly petitioners, who said that they were better treated in local public inquiries. They complained that in private bill procedure the initiative, and control of the timetable, lie with the promoter. In their opinion, public inquiries generally involve better prior consultation and seem to give a better chance of stopping the development altogether."
  My hon. Friend rightly says that the planning authorities and the Cardiff Bay development corporation would prefer to proceed by private Bill procedure rather than through statutory planning inquiries. If is often the petitioners who feel that this is a strange world far removed from their usual experience. Turning up at a local planning inquiry is part and parcel of the community's experience. That is the first and most important point. New clause 1 simply seeks to offer individual citizens, householders and residents the right to have their case properly heard before an independent inspector at a local planning inquiry. Irrespective of where one stands on the merits of the proposal, we should be concerned about the rights of individuals to object.
  Dr. John Marek: I am interested to hear what my hon. Friend says, but am I right that, although the local authority might have agreed with the development company, the planning committee of a local authority acts in a quasi-judicial capacity and must not be confused with the local authority? I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that that is essentially the difference.
  8.30 pm
  Mr. Rowlands: I agree with my hon. Friend. That is the second intervention that I have accepted. It again illustrates vividly the case for new clause 1—that the planning process familiar to so many people in our community should be available to them.
  Mr. Michael: For the record, does my hon. Friend accept that the consideration of the Bill and its implications for planning and other processes have been through the local authorities, including consideration by the planning committees which, as my hon. Friend rightly says, have semi-judicial responsibilities?
  Mr. Rowlands: Yes, I am sure that a number of consultations of one kind or another have taken place. What we are saying is that the most important and familiar procedure which allows householders and groups of householders to exercise their rights at a local public inquiry and to raise their objections before an independent inspector has not been available to large numbers of residents in the communities concerned and that the private Bill procedure prevents them from exercising that right—unless my hon. Friend is willing to waive his opposition and hostility to the new clause and accept that some sort of planning inquiry procedure should prevail.
  Mr. Rogers: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) for having been absent during part of his speech. He might have dealt with this point, but, if not, can my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) deal with it now? If, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, there is no real change in planning procedures as a result of the Bill, why is it necessary to have clause 97 relating to the

  235
  modification of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971? If we are simply seeking to delete it, as in amendment No. 79, or to replace it with a new clause, why cannot that be accepted? If everybody wants planning procedures to carry on as normal, why have a derogation within the Bill?
  Mr. Rowlands: I do not have the mental agility to leap to clause 97 and I am sure that my hon. Friend will make his point if he manages to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I appreciate what my hon. Friend is saying. The point is that the people in the community will not have the right to a local planning inquiry unless new clause 1 is accepted.
  Those are not my views; those are views culled by the Joint Committee which, when it investigated the private Bill procedure in 1988, came to the conclusion which I started to read and which I will now complete. It went on to say:
  "They"—
  the petitioners—
  "see public inquiries as less intimidating, more local and less adversarial, running to a more reliable timetable, with less arbitrary proceedings, more facilities for objectors and more generous rules of locus."
  That is a pretty powerful case to make—that a process of such profound concern as developments of the kind incorporated in the Bill should be subjected to that type of planning inquiry alongside whatever action we wish to take in the House. That makes the case.
  Incidentally, I do not agree with the rest of the paragraph. The Joint Committee also argues that planning inspectors are more expert and more dedicated than are Members of Parliament. As we have demonstrated this evening, we are a dedicated group of Members. We are concerned and we will be extremely thorough. My hon. Friend has been one of the most thorough of all in serving on the Committee. Nevertheless, it is interesting that that is the perception of the private Bill procedure in the House concerning issues which will profoundly affect individuals and the rights, livelihoods, homes, immediate locality and environment of so many people.
  The case was made, not by me or the objectors to the Bill, but by the Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament. In paragraph 40 the Committee concluded
  "that the process of decision-making by Government based upon the holding of a public local inquiry has many advantages in principle over private bill procedure … it offers a more familiar forum both for promoters and petitioners, an opportunity for local participation in decision-making, and detailed scrutiny of the proposal by full-time professional inspectors who are required to produce reasoned reports. In particular, it allows the planning and evironmental issues to be thoroughly reviewed. The Government has apparently used its influence in one or two exceptional cases over the years to persuade promoters of private bills to follow ordinary planning procedures so as to secure consideration of the planning aspects of their schemes at a public inquiry, and is prepared to do so again."
  Sadly, the Government are heavily committed, as we found out from the letter of the Secretary of State for Wales, to a one-sided view of the Bill. Unless the Under-Secretary of State rises to his feet sooner or later and says that he supports the procedure that we are trying to introduce in new clause 1—the Committee found that Governments encourage promoters of private Bills to include in those Bills provision for local public inquiries
  236
  —we have seen no evidence in relation to this Bill that the Government are willing to allow local people to have such rights.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend is portraying the Secretary of State as a Stalinist in this matter. We on the Opposition Benches are attempting to de-Stalinise the private Bill procedure by introducing some form of democratic control. I think that my hon. Friend will agree that there are three possible ways of de-Stalinising the Bill. One would be to submit it to a public inquiry. The second would be to submit it to a referendum. The third is that it should incorporate, voluntarily and happily, new clause 1 and the other amendments that have been grouped with it. That would give the local authority some reserve powers to say that as it will be the legatee of the development in 20 years time it wants to play a part now.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said that at no time during the past four years has Cardiff city council planning committee decided to use the procedure to refer matters to the Secretary of State on appeal. It is obvious why that is so. It knows that the Welsh Office will side with the Cardiff Bay development corporation because the parent of the Cardiff Bay development corporation is the Welsh Office and it can always use that threat. That democratic deficit is there at all times. I know that I am a poor substitute for the Under-Secretary of State on this matter, if on no other, in giving assent to new clause 1, but my hon. Friend must be able to tell the House firmly that in some way we should de-Stalinise the Bill and make it a more democratic procedure.
  Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend uses colourful language, but I should like to put the case more modestly to the Under-Secretary. I have a simple question for him to which I seek a response. When the Joint Committee investigated the interesting balance between the use of the private Bill procedure and local planning inquiries it found that, on previous occasions, the Government were willing to persuade the promoters of a private Bill to use ordinary planning procedures. The Government repeated their willingness to pursue that practice when they gave evidence to the Joint Committee. The Committee recorded that the Government were willing to use their influence.
  "to persuade promoters of private bills to follow ordinary planning procedures"
  to secure the consideration of the planning aspects of any scheme at a public inquiry. Is the Minister willing to give us that assurance again? Are the Government willing to exercise their due influence with the promoters of the Bill to establish a procedure to allow a local planning inquiry on the planning aspects of the Bill? In evidence to the Joint Committee the Government said that they were willing to continue to exercise that influence. I should happily give way to the Minister to hear his response. I hope that the Minister will make a contribution to explain why the Government are not willing to use their influence on this occasion, as they have in the past, to secure a local planning inquiry. The Minister owes us an explanation of the Government's stand on the Bill.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend's request to the Minister is legitimate given the evidence that has been submitted by the Government to the Joint Committee. Does my hon. Friend consider the silence of the Under-Secretary and the

  237
  absence of the Secretary of State as evidence of their part in the web of conspiracy, deceit and corruption that seems to surround the Bill?
  Mr. Rowlands: That is part and parcel of the one-sided view of the Government towards the Bill.
  When I was Minister at the Welsh Office I was warned constantly, and properly, that on issues that might be subject to planning inquiries of one kind or another one had to stay neutral because of one's quasi-judicial role. [NON. MEMBERS: "Queasy?"] Queasy and quasi. As a Minister one had to retain a genuine quasi-judicial role and one had to have no strong feelings for or against any development. One had to retain one's objectivity when things landed on one's desk as a result of a planning inspector's report.
  The Joint Committee found that the Government had exercised their influence in previous private Bills, but perhaps this time they are wholeheartedly on one side of the argument. Perhaps they do not want to exercise a quasi-judicial role in relation to certain key planning issues.
  8.45 pm
  Dr. Marek: I believe that my hon. Friend should repeat his request for the Minister to intervene. I noted earlier that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) had a note passed to him. Perhaps he is in two minds as to whether he should concede on this issue and allow the public in the Cardiff area to have some say and to have their voice heard. If the Minister stood up now and said that he believed in public participation and that the public voice should be heard, it might tip the balance for my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) should persist in seeking to persuade the Minister to come to the Dispatch Box to make the Government's position clear.
  Mr. Rowlands: I should happily give way to the Minister to explain whether the Government are willing to continue to exercise their influence—as they told the Joint Committee and as they have done in the past—to ensure that a planning inquiry is held so that the local community can lodge their objections in the most familiar way to them. We all know that the Minister will not get on his feet because he is a naturally shy type. He is self-effacing and always seeks to disappear into the greenness of the background in the new grey image of the Government.
  What is even more curious about the Government's position and the Minister's silence is the fact that the Government provided a formal response to the report published in July 1988 by the Joint Committee—perhaps the Minister has not read it. That response was entitled "Private Bills and New Procedures—A Consultation Document". It seems that consultation was in even before the disappearance of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher). That consultation document was issued in June 1990 in response to the Joint Committee report.
  Mr. Morgan: No dithering there.
  Mr. Rowlands: It is extremely dithery when one reads it. That document gave the Government's considered response to the Joint Committee's interesting report on the balance between the private Bill procedure and a local planning inquiry. The Government's response came down
  238
  in favour of legislation in order to support the process for local planning inquiries as opposed to following the private Bill procedure. The Government referred to special orders that would be issued to enable such inquiries to take place. Therefore, the Government endorsed the fun-damental drift of the Joint Committee report.
  What is even more interesting are the examples that the Government cited that could be subject to the new type of procedure recommended by the Joint Committee and endorsed by the Government in their response.
  In paragraph 49 the consultation document states:
  "In most years there are also a small number of other works bills promoted. Some of these are introduced where the proposed works would interfere with navigation; current examples are the River Tees Barrage and Crossing, the Cardiff Bay Barrage".
  So, in the Government's positive response to the Joint Committee report, which recommended some form of local planning inquiry, they referred to the Bill and the works connected with the Cardiff bay barrage. Therefore I can think of no reason why the Minister would not agree to such a planning inquiry now. The Government have already said that they intend to introduce primary legislation to enable such planning inquiries to be established. Our new clause therefore merely proposes what is already Government policy.
  I know that the Under-Secretary was not a Minister in June 1990, but there is such a thing as collective responsibility, which is retrospective. In 1990 the Minister was a right-winger; goodness knows on what wing he is now—in fact, he has no wing as he is sedentary.
  We have a right to know whether the Government's response in June 1990 to the recommendations of the Joint Committee for planning procedures and inquiries to be part and parcel of the investigation of petitioners' rights means that the Government will support the new clause tonight. After all, the Government cited the Bill as an illustration of why they believed that the Joint Committee's recommendations had force. Will the Government support the new clause, at least in principle? Will they say that they will exercise influence with the promoters so that a planning inquiry is included in the progress of the Bill, or will they insist upon such an inquiry as a condition of their continuing support for the Bill because such practice is in accordance with established Government policy?
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend has made an excellent case for this issue at least to be decided by the people in the area. Unfortunately, he was so engrossed in building his case that he was unable to see exactly what the Under-Secretary was doing. He was wandering up to the Box to consult the civil servants and he is now writing a private note. Therefore, the critical part of my hon. Friend's arguments about the Cardiff bay barrage being subject to consultation has, I fear, not been heard by the Minister. He should hear it and we deserve an answer from him on whether he will back what has been put into the consultation paper.
  Mr. Rowlands: A double silence is certainly not golden. I have one other question to ask the Minister. Has he seen the Government document called "Private Bills and New Procedures—A Consultation Document"? As I understand it, in the Welsh Office he deals with planning inquiries and planning issues. Has he seen a document? If so, is he dissociating himself from the Government's

  239
  conclusions? Even if he is unwilling to exercise the influence that we hear the Government have been willing to exercise for private Bill promoters to encourage planning inquiries, is he at least willing to say that the Government—either this one or the next—will introduce legislation to ensure that planning inquiries are part and parcel of the process? There would be a consensus in support of such legislation.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are not debating the report on private Bill procedure and that his remarks must be directly related to the new clause and the amendments.
  Mr. Rowlands: I got carried away, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I think that it was very much in order to say that new clause I would ensure that planning procedure provisions were incorporated into the Bill. It was the conclusion of the report of a Joint Committee of the House that such procedure should be part of the process—or, indeed, a substitute for private Bills themselves. I was also drawing attention to the fact that the Government were endorsing—or appeared to endorse—much of the principle behind that conclusion.
  New clause 1(3) accords with the general drift of Government policy. Therefore, why are not the Government backing, if not the new clause, the principle that we are trying to establish of a local planning inquiry to go alongside the private Bill procedure?
  Mr. Morgan: There is one possible explanation for the Minister's silence. We all know that he is a member of the No Turning Back group—perhaps he is also a Member of the "No Getting Up group".
  There is another point to which I wish to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands)—the need for the weight of opinion to be reflected in a democratic mechanism. That is the purpose of new clause 1. There were a record number of objectors to the Bill, many of them resident in my constituency. They were able to exercise a limited right because the Committee chose—we are grateful for it—to hold one week's proceedings in Cardiff. However, that hardly answers the need for a formal democratic expression of opinion. Although it is possible to petition Parliament, if Parliament wishes to sweep objectors aside by the use of the payroll vote, it will do so. People may have had a moment of glory in appearing before the Committee in Cardiff and will have read the minority report of my hon. Friend the Member for Clydesdale (Mr. Hood), but that is not the same as being able to have the powers that we seek to incorporate into the Bill in new clause 1.
  Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
  I wish to underline the Government's conclusion. I have some doubts about whether we should hand the whole procedure over to a local planning inquiry. That and a private Bill must go together. If not, there would be no opportunity, as would be granted under new clause 18, to debate the financial consequences. In that case, local planning inquiries would not be the right vehicle—this place is the correct vehicle in which to deal with public
  240
  expenditure consequences. For hearing petitioners' objections, the local planning inquiry procedure is the apposite method with which to deal with these issues.
  In their response to the Joint Committee's report, even the Government said that they considered it preferable
  "to draft the legislation establishing the order-making procedures covering rail and light rapid transit proposals in such a way that it can be extended by subordinate legislation for use to authorise other works projects … such as barrages".
  We come back to the Bill. The report mentions barrages
  "and canal works … which would otherwise require approval by a private Act of Parliament."
  The Government concluded that barrage developments of this kind should be subject to a planning procedure as opposed to the private Bill procedure. I doubt whether it should be subject to one or the other—I believe that a mixture of both is essential in such instances.
  Why is the Minister so coy? Will he at least say that, in principle, he supports the new clause or the principle behind it? It merely supports what is likely to happen, whichever Government are in power—primary legislation to create such an order-making power, a genuine right to planning procedure and the right of citizens to have local planning inquiries so that their wishes and views can be heard in an environment which is more suitable for the average citizen than that of a private Bill hearing.
  We should not have to argue—the door should be open. The Minister should be with us, not against us.
  Mr. Rogers: I am not sure whether to support the new clause. Hon. Members will see from the Amendment Paper that I have not subscribed to it. I say that to explain to my hon. Friends who join me in opposing part of the Bill that I oppose only part of the Bill. If it is necessary to hold the Bill up on a point of principle concerning the barrage, I shall willingly go along with that. I realise that in the Cardiff bay area—the docks area—development is necessary. We need a plan for an area that is badly run down and needs support and investment for regeneration, but at some stage the purpose got lost, and somebody got hooked on the idea of a marina. Wherever the land meets the sea people say, "Let's build a marina. Let's throw a circle round to enclose the water." I understand why that is done. Yacht owners and boating fanatics want somewhere to park their boats.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman is on his preamble, but he is making a Second Reading speech at the moment.
  9 pm
  Mr. Rogers: I accept your admonition, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wanted to illustrate my support for the general principle of the Bill, because we may need accelerated planning procedures to resolve difficult problems. That is why my remarks were pertinent to the new clause, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The discussion is political as well as purely semantic. I was saying that the promoters of the Bill lost their way because they got hooked up with the concept of a marine development. Everyone must have a marina, it seems. A rash of them has spread throughout south Wales, and now it is suggested that we take away from local authorities the full responsibility for planning supervision.
  Were such marine developments to spring up all around our coasts, no natural coastline would be left. Later, I may use my prerogative as a geologist to explore the intricacies

  241
  of alluvial deposition, distortion of estuarine areas, and other fluvial problems that can result from development, but you would rule me out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I did so now.
  With the exception of the plans for building the bridge —the barrage—across the mouth of the river, there is an urgent need for speeded-up planning procedures for the docklands area. We are not talking about a normal state of affairs, and, in principle, I should like such procedures to be extended to other areas of industrial dereliction.
  Why should the promoters of the Bill want to throw away the Bill, as they will surely do, just over the principle of overcoming planning regulations? They will not accept the new clause at this stage of the game because of the money involved.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) challenged the Minister to say whether he supported Government policy as laid clown in "Private Bills and New Procedures—A Consultation Document". The Minister must respond to that at some stage. I realise that his ability to respond quickly to questions thrown at him is limited, but he always presents himself as a man of principle, and I thought that his principles were loyalty and support for the Government. There could have been a knee-jerk reaction. Perhaps, without our noticing, he stood up and said that he supported the proposals in the document.
  Mr. Rowlands: I would remind my hon. Friend—with some poignancy—that one of the most prominent members of the Joint Committee was Sir John Stradling Thomas. The Minister should respect his memory and his support for the proposals.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not stray into a discussion of the Joint Committee. His remarks must be directly related to the new clause and the amendments grouped with it.
  Mr. Rogers: My remarks are pertinent, Mr. Deputy Speaker, simply because it is suggested that, under the new procedures, a similar clause should be included in every private Bill. The new clause says that one should appear in the Bill. We ask whether the Minister supports the proposal which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said, was supported by the late hon. Member for Monmouth.
  I cannot understand why the promoters will not accept the new clause. Some people seem to feel that they have discovered the holy grail, and that only one body can redevelop the area—the Cardiff Bay development corporation. The corporation has a role, but the local authority and—even more so—the people of the area have a role too. Their views can be expressed through Members of Parliament, but can be expressed just as legitimately in other ways. We have no particular skills. Like other local representatives, we are elected. The planning requirements of Cardiff and the docklands area will evolve, because the community will evolve. Within the 10 years derogation laid down in the Bill, any works started will be exempt from planning considerations, so there may come a time when reconsideration is required. What would be wrong with going through the normal planning procedure then?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) said that everything would remain
  242
  the same—that there would be planning applications and inquiries, and that local people would be able to involve themselves. If that is the case, why is clause 97 necessary?
  It is fairly obvious that the Minister is, as it were, the Bill's second promoter. He responds to that with a cynical turn of his eyes and lips—
  Mr. Morgan: That is his normal expression.
  Mr. Rogers: It may be his normal expression, or it may be wind; I do not know. In any event, the expression was there.
  The Minister may say, "We are putting in hundreds of millions of pounds, and we therefore have a vested interest, as do the taxpayers of Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. It is their money, not that of the promoters, that is paying for the Bill." As a custodian of our money, perhaps the Minister can tell us why clause 97 is required. As we cannot obtain an answer from the promoters, let us have one from him.
  We merely want to replace clause 97 with amendment No. 79—an entirely coincidental numerical palindrome. We want to ensure that the people of Cardiff are given a chance to participate. What is wrong with that? Why should participation be limited to the development corporation—people who have come in from outside, and who have substantial links with the Conservative party? We know that many of them have a cross-relationship with the Wales land authority. There is a nexus of sinister activity in south Wales, epitomised by the fact that the proposal was promoted originally by the then Secretary of State for Wales, Nicholas Edwards, formerly Member of Parliament for Pembroke and now Lord Crickhowell. He is a non-executive member of Associated British Ports, which owns 160 acres of valuable land right in the middle of this development.
  Especially worrying is the conspiracy of silence with which we are met. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney asked the Minister to respond. Does the Minister really believe that behaving like a dummy will prevent people from seeing through the web of corruption?
  Mr. Ron Davies: I was intrigued by my hon. Friend's reference to Lord Crickhowell. He rightly drew our attention to Lord Crickhowell's heavy involvement in the promotion of the Cardiff bay barrage. Has my hon. Friend read the report of the debate in the House of Lords that took place shortly before the Easter recess? That concerned another Bill proposing the construction of a barrage, across the River Usk at Newport.
  I am sure that there is no connection between Lord Crickhowell's considerable interests in the Usk valley and his opposition to the barrage. Will my hon. Friend confirm that there are no such sinister thoughts in his own mind?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that, in responding to that question, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) will stay on the straight and narrow, and refer to the new clause and amendments.
  Mr. Rogers: Absolutely, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would not go down that particular valley for all the tea in China. Well, that is not strictly true. The Usk valley is wonderful.
  We shall, of course, have the same problem in the next Parliament, when another private Bill, proposing the closure of the mouth of the Usk, will arrive.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Let us deal with this Parliament. I shall not be here in the next Parliament.
  Mr. Rogers: For that reason, the House will be very much worse off after the next election.
  Mr. Morgan: In the light of your ruling, Mr Deputy Speaker, it may not be in order for my hon. Friend to deal fully with the Usk barrage, but it is relevant for the House to consider how odd it is that people of influence, such as Members of Parliament and ex-Members of Parliament, change their minds when other Bills of a similar nature are considered. Apart from Lord Crickhowell's change of view vis-a-vis the Cardiff bay barrage, which he practically fathered and funded before he left this House to become the director of company closely linked with it, the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) opposed a mini-barrage that was proposed by a Labour-controlled county council but did not object to a much larger barrage that was proposed by a Conservative Government.
  Mr. Rogers: I do not intend to comment on the motives of Conservative Members of Parliament and ex-Ministers. However, it is significant that the ex-Secretary of State for Wales, Lord Crickhowell, is chairman of the National Rivers Authority. The problem is that the person who is entrusted by the nation with the well-being of our rivers is intimately involved, with a resulting substantial conflict of interest, in the rivers Ely and Rhondda.
  Dr. Kim Howells: And the Taff.
  Mr. Rogers: Yes, and the Taff. God forbid that I should forget the Taff. The use of the word "Taffy" for Welshmen is thought to come from the river Taff, but I understand that it comes from a little further west—from a river in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams), the river Teifi.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: No, the Taff.
  Mr. Rogers: I apologise.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I realise that the hon. Gentleman has to some extent been corrupted by his hon. Friends. I am sure that he intends to return to the new clause.
  Mr. Rogers: Yes. I see that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) is here. Unfortunately, his Front Bench responsibilities chain him completely. I know that he would like to speak out on the matter. I do not know what he would say, but how nice it is to see him.
  Mr. Michael rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  The House proceeded to a Division:—
  Mr. Ron Davies (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am the co-sponsor of the new clause. I have been waiting for two hours to speak.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that it is not in order to question the judgment of the Chair on these matters.
  Mr. Davies: That may well be the case, but—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman has another point of order that does not reflect upon the judgment of the Chair, I shall take it after the Division.
  Mr. Ian Grist(seated and covered): May I draw your attention, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to the fact that this Division is taking an untoward length of time? I ask that some investigation be made.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I am keeping an eye on the time.
  The House having divided: Ayes, 163, Noes 29.

  Division No. 113]

  [9.13 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Grist, Ian

  Alton, David

  Hague, William

  Amos, Alan

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Anderson, Donald

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Arbuthnot, James

  Harris, David

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  Hayes, Jerry

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Haynes, Frank

  Atkinson, David

  Hind, Kenneth

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Holt, Richard

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

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

  Beggs, Roy

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Beith, A. J.

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Irvine, Michael

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Jack, Michael

  Boswell, Tim

  Jackson, Robert

  Bottomley, Peter

  Janman, Tim

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Jessel, Toby

  Bowis, John

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Boyes, Roland

  Key, Robert

  Brazier, Julian

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Bright, Graham

  Kirkhope, Timothy

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

  Knapman, Roger

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Burt, Alistair

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Callaghan, Jim

  Lord, Michael

  Cash, William

  Maclean, David

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  McWilliam, John

  Chapman, Sydney

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Mills, Iain

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Cormack, Patrick

  Moss, Malcolm

  Couchman, James

  Murphy, Paul

  Cran, James

  Neale, Sir Gerrard

  Crowther, Stan

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Nicholls, Patrick

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

  Page, Richard

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Parry, Robert

  Day, Stephen

  Patnick, Irvine

  Dixon, Don

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Riddick, Graham

  Eastham, Ken

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Eggar, Tim

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Favell, Tony

  Robertson, George

  Fearn, Ronald

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Rowe, Andrew

  Flynn, Paul

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Foster, Derek

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Franks, Cecil

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Freeman, Roger

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Fry, Peter

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Gale, Roger

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Shersby, Michael

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Snape, Peter

  245

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Stern, Michael

  Watts, John

  Stevens, Lewis

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Stott, Roger

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Strang, Gavin

  Wood, Timothy

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Thurnham, Peter

  Mr. Gwilym Jones and

  Tredinnick, David

  Mr. Alun Michael.

  Trippier, David

  NOES

  Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

  McMaster, Gordon

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Buckley, George J.

  Marek, Dr John

  Cryer, Bob

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Cummings, John

  Morley, Elliot

  Dalyell, Tam

  Pike, Peter L.

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

  Redmond, Martin

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Rogers, Allan

  Gordon, Mildred

  Skinner, Dennis

  Home Robertson, John

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

  Hood, Jimmy

  Spearing, Nigel

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Illsley, Eric

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Lamond, James

  Mr. Ted Rowlands and

  Loyden, Eddie

  Mr. Ron Davies.

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am now required to put—
  Dr. Marek: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I will take the point of order afterwards. I am now required to put the Question on new clause 1.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 25, Noes 149.

  Division No. 114]

  [9.29 pm

  AYES

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Murphy, Paul

  Cryer, Bob

  Nellist, Dave

  Dalyell, Tam

  Pike, Peter L.

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Redmond, Martin

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

  Rogers, Allan

  Gordon, Mildred

  Rowlands, Ted

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Hood, Jimmy

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

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Illsley, Eric

  Loyden, Eddie

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Mr. Rhodri Morgan and

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Dr. John Marek.

  Morley, Elliot

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Alton, David

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Amos, Alan

  Boswell, Tim

  Anderson, Donald

  Bottomley, Peter

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bowis, John

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  Boyes, Roland

  Atkinson, David

  Brazier, Julian

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Bright, Graham

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

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

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Beggs, Roy

  Buckley, George J.

  246

  Budgen, Nicholas

  McWilliam, John

  Burt, Alistair

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Callaghan, Jim

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Cash, William

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Michael, Alun

  Chapman, Sydney

  Mills, Iain

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Moss, Malcolm

  Cormack, Patrick

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Couchman, James

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Cran, James

  Page, Richard

  Crowther, Stan

  Parry, Robert

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Patnick, Irvine

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

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Day, Stephen

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Dixon, Don

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Riddick, Graham

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Robertson, George

  Eastham, Ken

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Eggar, Tim

  Rowe, Andrew

  Favell, Tony

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Fearn, Ronald

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Foster, Derek

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Franks, Cecil

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Freeman, Roger

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Fry, Peter

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Gale, Roger

  Shersby, Michael

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Stern, Michael

  Grist, Ian

  Stevens, Lewis

  Hague, William

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Harris, David

  Strang, Gavin

  Hayes, Jerry

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Haynes, Frank

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Hind, Kenneth

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Home Robertson, John

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Thurnham, Peter

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

  Tredinnick, David

  Hughes, Robert (Harrow W)

  Trippier, David

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Irvine, Michael

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Jack, Michael

  Watts, John

  Jackson, Robert

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Jessel, Toby

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Key, Robert

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Wood, Timothy

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Knapman, Roger

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Mr. Gwilym Jones and

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  'Mr. Paul Flynn.

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Mr. Ron Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand the difficulties that we had prior to the last Division. If you felt that I was challenging your authority in any way, I wish to make it clear that I was seeking advice rather than questioning your judgment. I am sure that you will understand the point that concerns me. I am one of the co-signatories of the last group of amendments that we were discussing. You will note that new clause 1 is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and myself. The

  247
  amendments grouped with it are also in our names. The debate lasted for just under two hours. I was present throughout and showed my interest in that debate on a number of occasions. I had deliberately not made a large number of interventions, as other hon. Members had done, although I intervened when I felt that I had a contribution to make.
  I was surprised, first, that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) moved the closure motion, although I understand that it was perfectly proper for him to do so. Secondly, I was surprised that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, decided to accept that motion when you knew that I was waiting to catch your eye and at least four or five of my hon. Friends had sat patiently throughout the debate, had not intervened and wanted to make contributions of their own. It might assist the conduct of the business that we are about to debate if we had some idea from you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether your judgment—which we would not wish to question—would be exercised in the light of the length of time that has been taken up or the number of speakers still waiting to speak. I do not in any way wish to intrude on your prerogative which is properly yours, but it would assist the many Opposition Members who wish to speak during the coming hours if they had some idea of the factors in your mind in deciding whether to accept the closure.
  9.45 pm
  Mr. Morgan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Much of the debate, particularly the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), was concerned with whether the Minister would make a statement about whether the Government intended to apply the document to which he had referred. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), I do not question your judgment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but as the closure motion came when it did and you accepted it, was there a communication from the Minister to you before that to show that the Minister would not respond to the various challenges that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney had made to him? Was there a sign as to whether the Government agreed with their consultative paper and the position described by the Minister? Did the Minister inform you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that he did not wish to respond, make a speech or intervene during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, or did you decide that, regardless of whether the Minister intended to speak, you would not allow him to do so and would accept the closure motion?
  Dr. Marek: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I and about four or five other hon. Members sought to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not complain that I did not do so and you called the closure, but as I had a number of new points to make and some serious concerns about the new clause, I am worried whether the Minister will have time in any debate tonight to give the Department's view. Do you have any power, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to ascertain in advance whether the Department and the Minister wish to contribute?
  248
  After the previous debate, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, must know that the Department is concerned with getting the Bill through the House. I feel that it is only right that it should be given every chance to put its case.
  Mr. Martin Redmond: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is it on the same point? I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was here during the debate.
  Mr. Redmond: I accept your comments, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I always accept the ruling from the Chair. While it is perfectly true that I was not in the Chamber for the closure motion, I am deeply concerned. I am aware that you, as Deputy Speaker, seek at all times to uphold Back Bench opinions in relation to democracy in the Chamber. I am obviously concerned that a number of hon. Members wish to express an opinion on this important Bill. I have no wish to challenge your ruling on this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but the fact that a Division was called on the closure is a serious worry to Back Benchers.
  In view of the representations that have been made in points of order, will you rule that in future in this important debate on the Bill any Back-Bencher wishing to speak will be allowed to do so without tactics from the Government, who obviously support the Bill? You will be aware of the previous arguments, in points of order before the debate started this evening, about the Secretary of State's letter that the Government are strongly supporting the Bill but decline to answer Back Benchers' questions. Will you rule that you will refuse to accept closure motions while there are hon. Members wishing to speak in the debate?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to hon. Members for the courteous way in which they have raised their points of order. I recognise that some hon. Members were hoping to speak in the debate and were not able to do so when I accepted the closure motion. The House well knows that the Chair has the power to accept a closure motion when it judges it appropriate, and the Chair never gives its reasons for so doing.
  In answer to the other question, every debate to come will be judged on its merits by whomever is in the Chair. These are hypothetical questions. We listen carefully to the debate, and anything that may have occurred during debate on the first group of amendments in no way creates a precedent for the amendments that are to come.
  Mr. Rogers rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is it further to the same point of order?
  Mr. Rogers: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was on my feet when I was interrupted by the closure motion. It would have been far more appropriate if the motion had been put between speeches. I had not been speaking for very long. If that is to be the case, and if people who want to offer legitimate arguments are to be excluded from doing so, I do not feel that we are receiving our proper rights as Parliamentarians. We were elected to speak here, and so long as we conform to the Standing Orders and procedures of the House, as laid down, we have a right to speak.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: There is nothing that I can add. I have to exercise my judgment in the Chair and I have done that to the best of my ability.

New Clause 5

  SOURCES OF LEACHATE
  'Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to sources of leachate in contact with the waters of the inland bay or of the groundwater in hydraulic contact with the waters of the inland bay and its proposals for removal, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate.'.—[Dr. Kim Howells.]
  Brought up, and read the First time.
  Dr. Kim Howells: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take the following:
  New Clause 6—Phosphate and nitrate stripping—
  'Before constructing the Barrage, the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate-stripping of the waters of the rivers entering the inland bay and their tributaries in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay.'.
  New Clause 8—Sewer outfalls—
  'Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to the sewer outfalls discharging directly into the inland bay or into the waters of the rivers discharging into the Bay or the tributaries thereof, showing the proposed means of removal, relocation or improvement thereof and the agreement of the owner of each outfall to such removal, relocation or improvement.'.
  New Clause 17—Elimination of risks of pollution—
  'Before commencement of impounding by means of the barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish proposals for the sealing of the Ferry Road tip to the satisfaction of the rivers authority and the Environmental Health Officer of the city council that no material risk of infiltration of the inland bay or of groundwater by leachate from the tip will occur.'.
  New Clause 19—Maintenance of ground water standards—
  'Before the commencement of impounding the under-takers shall commission and publish proposals for the proper disposal of algal scum arising in the inland bay that are consistent with the preservation and maintenance of good water quality standards at the site of disposal and in adjoining waters.'.—
  Dr. Howells: Two rivers are to be dammed—the Taff and the Ely. They constantly carry effluent and litter down to the Bristol channel from what is probably the most densely populated area in Wales.
  Mr. Rogers: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend so early in his speech, but I cannot allow him to proceed by closing the number at two river valleys. One of the most substantial contributions to the River Taff is from the two Rhondda rivers which meet at Porth and enter the Taff within 100 yards of my hon. Friend's—
  Dr. Howells: House.
  Mr. Rogers: No. My hon. Friend lives not in a house but in a home, and the river comes very close to it. I know that he is diligent in ensuring that that river is properly cleaned and is not polluted in any way. Does he not think it rather odd that—
  Mr. Paul Flynn: Resign.
  Mr. Rogers: It is a resigning matter.
  When he is talking about the pollution of our rivers, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr.
  250
  Howells) will, at some stage, refer to the chairman of the National Rivers Authority, who has the prime responsibil-ity of ensuring clean rivers, not only in south Wales, but throughout the United Kingdom. I refer to Lord Crickhowell, who is a well-paid non-executive director of Associated British Ports, which has a strong interest in the Cardiff bay development. Lord Crickhowell was the Secretary of State for Wales when it was decided to put public money into the land owned by the company of which he is now a substantial director.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend for his learned intervention.
  I was about to mention the extensive involvement of Rhondda—I have been told that I am not supposed to call it "the Rhondda". To amplify my original point, the rivers that I have mentioned flow through some of the most densely populated areas of Wales. Almost 77,000 people reside within Rhondda's administrative boundaries; almost 64,000 people live in Cynon Valley; 58,000 people live in Merthyr; and almost 95,000 people live in Taff-Ely.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend is referring yet again to my constituency. Perhaps he will tell the House that, of the 77,000 people who reside in Rhondda, 35,000 voted for me.
  Dr. Howells: I am again astounded at my hon. Friend's knowledge and will learn from it.
  At least 295,000 people live close to the rivers that drain into the Taff and the Ely, the rivers that are to be dammed, and that does not include the people who live in Cardiff or its environs. Probably nearly half a million people live close to those rivers. I make that point because it is important that people who do not know the area realise the implications of the provisions for the quality of water in those rivers.
  We in the industrial areas of Wales have long neglected our rivers and the quality of their water. I have said on other occasions that I would dearly love the rivers of the industrial valleys of south Wales to resemble those in the area represented by the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells), which are some of the most marvellous rivers in Wales. I do not see why the rivers of industrial south Wales cannot resemble those rivers.
  This is of direct bearing to the new clauses that we are discussing because if Cardiff—[Interruption.] I am afraid that the Minister does not seem very interested, but I understand that he has responsibility for these matters.
  Mr. Ron Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is ironic that during the previous debate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) spent at least five minutes trying to encourage the Minister to rise to give the House the benefit of his wisdom—if he has any? Does he also agree that it is a sign of absolute arrogance and an offence to the House that, while he is making a speech of critical importance to his constituency and to the outcome of this debate, the Minister has nothing better to do than to sit on the Front Bench like a grinning martinet, chatting to his hon. Friends behind him? The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) would be better advised to listen to my hon. Friend's speech.
  Dr. Howells: I hope that the Minister will take note of what I am saying because an intelligent response from him at the end of the debate would help him to salvage at least some votes in the coming general election.
  Mr. Brian Sedgemore: I must advise my hon. Friend that I visit the Minister's constituency of Pembroke once, sometimes twice, a year without fail. The people in the pubs in which I drink in Meinclochog are appalled by the Minister's behaviour, and therefore—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. That is not relevant to the new clauses.
  Mr. Sedgemore rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's comments are not relevant to the new clauses.
  Mr. Sedgemore: If you will allow me to develop the point, Madam Deputy Speaker—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I will not allow the hon. Gentleman to develop the point. He must be more specific and deal with the new clauses. That would be welcome.
  Mr. Sedgemore: If I could be more specific and deal with the new clauses, the question often asked about the Minister is now being asked in the House on this Bill. Unlike most English hon. Members, I have visited the area of the Cardiff bay barrage. I have come down on the side of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). The question often asked is, why does not the Minister know what he is talking about?
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend makes his point very well—
  It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill stood adjourned.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Motion made, and Question put,
  That at this day's sitting, the British Technology Group Bill and the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.
  The House divided: Ayes 160, Noes 20.

  Division No. 115]

  [10.00 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

  Amess, David

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Amos, Alan

  Burt, Alistair

  Anderson, Donald

  Butler, Chris

  Arbuthnot, James

  Carrington, Matthew

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Cash, William

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Atkinson, David

  Chapman, Sydney

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Beggs, Roy

  Colvin, Michael

  Beith, A. J.

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Cran, James

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

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

  Boswell, Tim

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Day, Stephen

  Bowis, John

  Devlin, Tim

  Brazier, Julian

  Dorrell, Stephen

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

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  252

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Eggar, Tim

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Favell, Tony

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Norris, Steve

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Page, Richard

  Flynn, Paul

  Parry, Robert

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Patnick, Irvine

  Forman, Nigel

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Fry, Peter

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Gale, Roger

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Price, Sir David

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Riddick, Graham

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Gregory, Conal

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Grist, Ian

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hague, William

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Harris, David

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Hayes, Jerry

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Haynes, Frank

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Hind, Kenneth

  Shersby, Michael

  Holt, Richard

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Home Robertson, John

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Stern, Michael

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

  Stevens, Lewis

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Howells, Geraint

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Strang, Gavin

  Hunter, Andrew

  Summerson, Hugo

  Irvine, Michael

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Jack, Michael

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Jackson, Robert

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Janman, Tim

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Jessel, Toby

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Thome, Neil

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Thurnham, Peter

  Key, Robert

  Tracey, Richard

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Tredinnick, David

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Trippier, David

  Knapman, Roger

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Latham, Michael

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Watts, John

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Maclean, David

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Mans, Keith

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Wood, Timothy

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Yeo, Tim

  Mates, Michael

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Michael, Alun

  Mills, Iain

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Mr. David Lightbown and

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Mr. Nicholas Baker.

  Monro, Sir Hector

  NOES

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Cryer, Bob

  Morley, Elliot

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Nellist, Dave

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Pike, Peter L.

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

  Redmond, Martin

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Rowlands, Ted

  Hood, Jimmy

  Skinner, Dennis

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Illsley, Eric

  Loyden, Eddie

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Mr. Allan Rodgers and

  Marek, Dr John

  Mr. Alan Williams.

  Question accordingly agreed to.

  Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill [Lords]
  As amended, again further considered.
  Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
  10.15 pm
  Dr. Kim Howells: May I continue what I started by reading out new clause 5. It is important that everyone knows exactly what it stands for. The language is somewhat technical, but perhaps by explaining it I may be able to make my point more clearly. New clause 5 states:
  "Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to sources of leachate in contact with the waters of the inland bay or of the groundwater in hydraulic contact with the waters of the inland bay and its proposals for removal, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate."
  That is central to the future of the project. I shall be interested to know what the defence for continuing the project could possibly be until the problems are solved. I give notice that there are many tips in south Wales which issue leachate into water courses and water tables which drain into the tributaries of the Taff and the Ely which will be affected by the barrage.
  The Institution of Civil Engineers defined leachate in a recent publication. I shall read it for the benefit of hon. Members. It states:
  "Leachate consists of water which must not be allowed to flow from the sites carrying with it, in solution or suspension, chemicals, metal contaminants and organic matter. Care is needed to ensure that this leachate is not discharged into watercourses but some, or all, may percolate through the ground to underground aquifers. The main problem is generally caused by the continuing decomposition of the suspended organic matter which absorbs oxygen in this process. This oxygen requirement, known as the Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) is one measure of the 'strength' of the leachate.
  If any leachate is discharged into a watercourse, it will absorb oxygen from the water to satisfy this demand and complete its decomposition, and unless the dilution is such that the watercourse can cope with this demand, the level of oxygen in the water can fall below that necessary to support fish and animal life and these will suffocate. In extreme circumstances, the levels can drop below that necessary to support plant life with disastrous results. A further problem which can occur is the production of ammonia which can also adversely affect fish and plant life."
  I have quoted that report on pollution and its containment because it is important that we understand just how serious it will be if proper measures are not taken to prevent leachate from tips—whether in the immediate environs of the barrage or further upstream—feeding into the tributaries of those rivers. This is not a whimsical objection, but one that is recognised throughout the scientific and engineering world as absolutely central to any project of this type, especially one in such close proximity to so many people.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend mentioned the substantial danger of the accumulation of salts and other mineral materials in enclosed waters.
  As he said, it is not a whimsical proposition. In a natural situation, substantial salt marshes develop, for example, where there has been development of spits such as those in the mouth of the river Dyfi and the Mawddach estuary in Cardigan bay. Wherever there is a shifting of alluvial material at the entrance to estuaries, there will be
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  significant problems. My hon. Friend is right to point out the significant danger of completely enclosed areas such as estuaries.
  I should like to make a point to which I am sure that my hon. Friend will return. If the barrage created one acre of extra land for industrial development, it could be argued that the barrage was a good thing. On the other hand, the barrage will do nothing for the industrial development of Cardiff.
  Dr. Howells: That is a good point. I have heard many detrimental remarks from the sponsors of the Bill about the grounds upon which the Bill is being opposed. I have heard it said—very stupidly—that a development such as this should not founder on concern for waders or other bird wildlife in the area. I would argue that unless the problem is solved, the impounding of water containing leachate presents an enormous health risk not just to the wildlife which may inhabit the lagoon but to the people living around it.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend is right that these are serious matters. In fairness, however, we are considering the amendments that he proposes. He referred specifically to leachate in the immediate area, although I know he also referred to other matters. I would point out to him that leachate removal is dealt with in clause 69(7)(a), which requires the Ferry road, Ferry road tip, Cowslip, Cogan and Penarth dock outfalls to be removed, relocated or diverted to the satisfaction of the river authority. I say that in recognition of the importance of the issue to which my hon. Friend refers and to emphasise that under the Bill it will be dealt with to the satisfaction of the authority.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I am sure that he means his remarks to be constructive. I would point out, however, that new clause 5 does not limit itself to the Ferry road tip, to which a later amendment refers. I propose to deal with that question because it is not dealt with properly in the Bill.
  I will read new clause 5 to my hon. Friend. It says:
  "the undertakers shall produce"—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has already read the new clause to the House, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) can read it for himself.
  Dr. Howells: I fear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the sponsor of the Bill has not read or understood new clause 5, which refers to
  "sources of leachate in contact with the waters of the inland bay or of the groundwater in hydraulic contact with the waters of the inland bay".
  In layman's language, that means the water that feeds into the lagoon. I have tried to show that it is not simply a question of water that may originate in Cardiff and the surrounding areas. We are talking about the rivers that are to be dammed, which are considerable bodies of water draining large areas which, because of our industrial heritage, include some of the most poisonous tips anywhere in Britain.
  Mr. Ron Davies: I will give my hon. Friend a graphic example of the problem to which he refers. He and I represent neighbouring constituencies, and my hon. Friend's area, like mine, contains many mineworkings. In the past couple of months, the National Rivers Authority has been having great difficulty dealing with iron-rich

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  water in the Rhymney valley, which comes from the old Britannia colliery. Now that the colliery has closed and the pumping has stopped, the workings are flooded. The leachate is rich in iron and other salts and is polluting what had previously been a clean river. Exactly the same circumstances could arise with the Taff, in which case precisely the problem to which my hon. Friend has referred would arise.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend. I am sure that if we chose, we could be here all night giving instances of colleries, iron works and so on that feed into rivers. I do not want to do that. There is no point, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) will understand my point full well.
  Mr. Michael: I appreciate the seriousness of the issues to which my hon. Friend is referring. I am merely trying to emphasise the fact that that seriousness is appreciated by everybody. Discussions have been held with the water and rivers authorities on the environmental management of the impoundment and neither authority considers that the proposals that are the subject of the new clauses need to be included in the Bill to protect their statutory function with regard to the environment.
  It is not a question of disregarding the issues; the new clauses are not needed to ensure that the topics that my hon. Friend rightly highlights are dealt with. They can be considered seriously without any amendments to the Bill.
  Dr. Howells: I tabled the new clauses and amendments precisely because I do not share my hon. Friend's faith in the development corporation. I am not so confident that its long-term objective is to do something about the pollution that flows into the Taff and Ely; nor do I see in the Bill any explanation of how the modifications will be paid for. I believe—this is at the heart of my argument —that we are putting the cart before the horse if we build a barrage before we have cleaned up the rivers.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has said, it is generally appreciated —not just in this country but around the world—that leachate is a major problem. To be fair to the Government—I am not often fair to them—I think that they have taken that on board and a good deal of work has already been done to try to discover how leachate can best be contained. The imminence of the barrage, however, increases the urgency. Although long-term plans to improve the quality of the water in the rivers may well be afoot, I fear that the barrage will arrive before the improvements. I require more concrete assurances to the contrary.
  As I said earlier, the EEC has shown great concern about the matter, as has the European Council. In 1988, in Hanover, the Council invited the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to intensify their efforts to prevent water pollution; the Environment Council, in its turn, invited the Commission to submit proposals for measures required at Community level for the treatment of municipal sewage. Most of the proposals address the environmentally detrimental effect of effluents that are not sufficiently treated.
  Such effluents are frequently put into the Taff and the Ely and their tributaries simply because—through no fault of the development corporation—not enough has been invested in the sewage treatment works in the past. I am
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  sure that many hon. Members are well aware that at times of high rainfall, for example, raw sewage is released into most of the rivers that either flow or drain into the Taff and the Ely.
  The assurances that we have received from Welsh Water plc are far from satisfactory. Derogations have been granted, which I have criticised in the past and will criticise again. I am not at all confident that the treatment works will be improved in time for the construction of the barrage. I fear that a good deal of contaminated water will flow into it.
  Mr. Ron Davies: My hon. Friend has not yet touched on the microbiological contamination of the valleys rivers—
  Mr. Flynn: That is a serious problem.
  Mr. Davies: I welcome my hon. Friend's support. I share a boundary with him as well, and we have discussed the specific problem that has arisen along the River Rhymney at Michaelston-y-Vedw, and, indeed, affects all the south Wales rivers.
  The Welsh water authority, as it used to be, constructed an outfall giving directly on to the river to deal with the surcharge in the sewers at the times of heavy rainfall. At such times, much of the surface run-off goes into the foul sewer and surcharges it; the sewer then discharges directly into the river. In the case of the Taff and the Ely, microbiological contamination is a very good guide to water quality. At the moment, that contamination is flushed out to sea, but after the construction of the barrage it will go straight into the lagoon.
  10.30 pm
  Dr. Howells: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me about that. I had not intended to refer to it; I thought the case was already strong enough. However, it is a good point.
  I spoke recently to a friend of mine who is a practising pharmacist. He told me of his outrage when he discovered at a meeting of pharmacists that assistants in chemist shops, as well as the owners, flush out-of-date medicines down lavatories. Some of them are extremely toxic. They flow directly into the sewers. These toxic substances are also poured down common drains and flow into the rivers. That toxic concoction will eventually end up in the barrage.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend is dealing with an extremely important and serious issue that is not resolved by the provisions in the Bill. He referred to raw sewage being discharged into rivers. Many of the south Wales valleys have new trunk foul sewers, but I take no pride in saying that the trunk sewer in my constituency has not been renewed. I hear complaints from constituents at my surgeries about the discharge of raw sewage into the Rhondda Fach and the Rhondda Fawr, both of which discharge into the Taff. Only last week I had a leter from one of the borough engineers in which he said that approval had been given for capital expenditure in order to control the discharge of foul sewage into the Rhondda Fach between Ferndale and Mardy. That scheme, however, will not be realised for many years. It is only one of many instances of breaks in the trunk foul sewer system in the Rhondda valley because of its peculair geography and narrow confines.
  Dr. Howells: I am sure that my hon. Friend's point applies to many locations within this water catchment area. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) faces exactly the same problems in his constituency as I do. I know, too, that my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) faces grave problems over sewage disposal in her constituency.
  The detrimental effects of municipal waste water are self-evident in our rivers, particularly in the Taff and the Ely. At the most superficial level, the discharge of untreated municipal waste water can cause noxious conditions and thus reduce the amenity value of rivers, lakes, estuaries and coasts. That point needs to be emphasised because the raison d'étre for the barrage scheme is that it should be an amenity. Given the state of the water flowing into it, it will not be much of an amenity. Indeed, it will be a health risk more than anything else. However, we may be able to deal with that matter in more detail at a later stage.
  In fresh water, the reduction of dissolved oxygen and the introduction of ammonia and suspended solids can seriously reduce ecological quality, thus affecting a wide range of flora and fauna, including fish. We have suffered particularly badly from that. I have seen a beautiful painting—one that I am sure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, would like to have on your wall—depicting Cardiff as it was before it was redeveloped by the Marquis of Bute. Coracles were shown being carried out of the waters of the Taff, which was one of the most famous salmon rivers in Wales. I understand that there is a chance that salmon will return. There has been something of an improvement in the water. The salmon now get as far as Pontypridd before finally succumbing.
  Mr. Flynn: They could take only so much.
  Dr. Howells: To make it that far, they had to be tough.
  If the lagoon is to be an amenity, the water will have to be cleaned. But it will not be an amenity—it is as simple as that.
  Mr. Michael: I should like to draw attention to the quality of water currently in Bute East dock. That is exactly the same water as will be held in the general bay area. I can assure my hon. Friend that the people who walk around it, and those who boat on it, regard it as a considerable amenity. One sees dragon boats on it at the weekend. It is much appreciated.
  Dr. Howells: The point is well taken. However, I have to say that if my hon. Friend is prepared to take his children for walks around a polluted dock, that is up to him. I do not consider it to be much of an amenity.
  The reduction of water quality can also affect water intended for abstraction and human consumption. In that context, one thinks of someone who happens to fall into an area of impounded water. People will inevitably fall into this one. Indeed, some may jump in—especially after the next election. Municipal waste water is discharged into the sea, making conditions unsuitable for bathing and for shell fish cultivation. But if the barrage is built, that will become an irrelevance, because the waters simply will not reach the sea in their present condition.
  It is important that we take into account the fact that, despite the trends of the past decade, south Wales still contains many working factories, including chemical
  258
  plants. There are several very contentious chemical plants in my constituency. They are contentious because people have become much more environmentally aware. As a result of this awareness, the plants are subject to constant monitoring. That monitoring shows that the effluent from the factories is by no means satisfactory in all respects and at all times. It is very important that people should understand that the need for continued employment, balanced against the need to clean up the environment, will ensure that these factories remain in operation for a long time.
  The current inadequacy of Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution—a subject that cannot be dealt with at length tonight—makes it obvious that improvements will not come over the next decade. I fear that discharges from waste water treatment plants are not always satisfactory because of the particularly noxious materials that are discharged by some factories and chemical plants. Certainly the water is not of a quality suitable for recycling.
  It should be noted that over the past decade eutrophication has become a major problem in Community waters—certainly more so in our waters than anywhere else in the European Community. I am thinking especially of certain rivers and lakes. The proposal for a directive relating to municipal waste water treatment plants, together with the proposed directive concerning the protection of fresh coastal and marine waters against pollution caused by nitrates from diffuse sources, provides, inter alia, an opportunity for the European Community to take action to control the discharge of the two major nutrients—nitrogen and phosphorous—that are responsible for eutrophication. The barrage will not take advantage of that opportunity. On the contrary, its enormous cost will drain funds from projects that could control the discharge of such nutrients.
  The EC directive lays down minimum requirements for the treatment of municipal waste and for the disposal of sludge, but because of the assimilative capacity of the waters into which treated waste waters are discharged it is proposed that the receiving waters should be classified into three types. It is important that we try to understand the quality of the water that will flow into the Taff and Ely, which will be dammed. It is proposed that, in general, a secondary or biological treatment will be required as a minimum. In more sensitive areas, additional treatment will be required to meet specific environmental needs such as the reduction of nutrients.
  The Commission believes that, in principle, all municipal waste water discharged into marine waters should be heavily treated. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth will agree wholeheartedly and endorse that proper and right aim. I do not intend to talk about the effect of the barrage on water tables, but we must consider whether it is possible to carry out these improvements and modifications before the barrage is built. I should be interested to hear my hon. Friend's response to that, because it is critical to the viability of the project and its public acceptability.
  The EC directive seeks to control the discharge of industrial waste waters that are of a similar nature to municpal waste water and that do not enter municipal waste water treatment plants before discharge into the environment. It is important to understand that the Commission felt that it was inappropriate to require member states to introduce what might be costly measures

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  to control municipal waste waters while ignoring discharges of comparable waste waters from industrial sources, especially where those discharges occur near one another. That is particularly important in south Wales because of the close proximity of the sources.
  Mr. Rowlands: I am following my hon. Friend's argument with much interest. His remarks and observa-tions remind me that in my constituency, despite all the directives, planning powers and vigilance, a company suddenly dumped 6,000 barrels of toxic waste on the edge of a river. The National Rivers Authority and the Secretary of State for Wales—I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman, who upheld the decision of Rhymney Valley district council—rightly said that Euromet should not have dumped on the edge of the river bank. Despite those powers and vigilance, such disastrous problems still occur. It behoves us not to pass the Bill without checking and being vigilant. We are being far too careless with our environment in south Wales.
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Such incidents have occurred many times in south Wales, and will continue to happen. We can never be infallible and such incidents will occur again and again.
  My hon. Friend's point is relevant to the new clauses, because the Bill does not provide for an audit of possible contaminants, even those held at factory sites, in case such an incident occurs again. The problem is that there is insularity in the Bill which attempts to build almost a fortress around the Cardiff bay development. Although the promoters are pleased to tell us that the champagne will dribble out to our communities when the wealth starts coming in, they seem to ignore the fact that Cardiff has probably the most organic link of any city to its hinterland; Cardiff owes its development to the coal industry. Ecologically it is indivisible from its hinterland. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney for making the point so well.
  10.45 pm
  There are many industrial sites within that drainage area. There are already high pollution levels in the waters of the Taff and the Ely. The EEC directive to which I have already referred lays down criteria for the identification of sensitive and less sensitive areas.
  Mr. Ron Davies: My hon. Friend rightly took an example from my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), who shares the representation of Rhymney valley with me. May I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) to an incident which happened on the Rhymney river last year. It is a good example of the unforeseen things which can happen. There was a fire at the Klockner-Pentapac factory which manufactures cosmetics. The fire authority came along promptly, doused the factory with water and eventually gained control of the fire. Of course, in the process the firemen swept out all the tanks which stored cosmetics. In no circumstances could anybody have foreseen that. The consequence was a direct wash straight into the River Rhymney of all the cosmetics. Almost the whole of the river from Aberbargoed to below Machen was devastated. The fish life was destroyed. Is not that precisely the sort of eventuality which could occur? At the
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  moment the sea acts as a natural method of disposal of pollutants. If there was a barrage there, they would be held in the lagoon. No one could foresee such an occurrence.
  Dr. Howells: The point has been well made by my hon. Friend. I am sure that many other hon. Members could relate similar instances of large numbers of fish stock being killed as a result of chemicals escaping into rivers. That will always occur.
  Mr. Flynn: We need to create something called a National Rivers Authority.
  Dr. Howells: That is exactly the point that I am coming to. The problem is that there is a distinct lack of trust in the policing powers of an organisation which is run by precisely the same person as is involved so deeply in the Cardiff Bay development corporation.
  I know many people who work in the National Rivers Authority and I have discussed these matters with them on many occasions. They are fine people with tremendous records. They are concerned about and have made great strides in cleaning our rivers. I hope that the new clauses show the concern of myself and other hon. Members. The problem is that Cardiff Bay development corporation sees itself quite properly as a pioneering enterprise which will transform an area which has long needed transformation. But that organic link with the hinterland shows up the limitations of the scope of the Cardiff Bay development corporation. If we cannot have an organisation that sees Cardiff's hinterland as being part and parcel of that environmental, ecological and economic entity, it seems that the Welsh Office should take on that role. There should be proper audits of what chemicals are held along the banks. Proper safeguards should be written into such a major project so that Euromet does not happen again; and if there is a fire in a cosmetics factory such as that my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) described, there are proper containment structures and systems to ensure that, if the barrage is built, the pollution will not go into the lagoon. The link demands an overview and, in doing so, shows up the Bill's limitations.
  Mr. Ron Davies: The Water Act 1989 contains substantial powers. The Secretary of State has many of the powers to which my hon. Friend refers, but the problem is that he will not use them. After all the incidents which occurred, and which we have discussed in tonight's brief debate, I pressed the Secretary of State to use the powers available to him under the Water Act. Unfortunately, he says every time that it is not appropriate to do so and that he does not wish to use the powers. The existence of the difficulties has been recognised. What is lacking is the political will to use the instruments that the House has put in place.
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend has put the argument very well.
  I shall turn to the problem which I mentioned earlier and which is central to the new clauses—eutrophication. It is not easy to say that word at this time of night, but I have managed to say it so far about eight times. New clause 6 deals with that issue, and states:
  "Before constructing the Barrage, the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate stripping of the waters of the rivers

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  entering the inland bay and their tributaries in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay.".
  The new clause has been drafted precisely in line with the EC directive which, in its criteria for the identification of sensitive and less sensitive areas, states:
  "Lakes and streams reaching lakes reservoirs closed bays which are found to have a poor water exchange, whereby accumulation may take place. In these areas the removal of phosphorous should be included unless it can be demonstrated that the removal will have no effect on the level of eutrophication. Where discharges from large municipalities are made, the removal of nitrogen may also be considered."
  There was agreement among my hon. Friends on the issue of the bacteriological pollution of rivers. The directive also mentions other areas of water which are found to have a poor water exchange or which receive large quantities of nutrients. It states:
  "The discharges from small municipalities are usually of minor importance in those areas, but for large municipalities"—
  I have already said that we are probably dealing with perhaps half a million people, a large municipality by any standards—
  "the removal of phosphorous and nitrogen should be included unless it can be demonstrated that the removal will have no effect on the level of eutrophication."
  Mr. Michael: Paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 69(13) cover that issue. My hon. Friend raises important matters, but the Bill already deals with them. They state that when works are required upsteam of the inland bay, the undertakers are required to pay the costs of any works required to meet water quality standards over a period of 20 years. That provision could include phosphate-stripping if the water quality standards required it. The point is that the responsible authorities do not consider that that is necessary at present. The matter, which is serious, has been covered.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and I take his point. I have read the Bill carefully and I know that that is included, but it does not say how to ensure that eutrophication does not occur. I remember that at one time there was talk of a magic barge, which was going to go back and forth across the lagoon and do something to it which would stop algae from growing on and under the surface of the water. I pointed out at that time that I wondered how it could clear other forms of pollution, such as abandoned house doors and kitchen sinks, which daily go past my front window down the River Taff. That was the magic barge, but I have not heard a great deal about it since.
  A clear recognition should have been included in the Bill by those who drafted it that the problem of nitrogen and phosphates occurs further upstream and that it is too late—and rather stupid—to deal with the problem once it has been impounded within a barrage. The obvious thing to do is to clean up the rivers first and then talk about how the problem might be dealt with. Even after rivers have been cleaned there will still be natural pollution, as anyone who has studied the problems in the third world knows. For example, in completely remote and uninhabited areas methane becomes a problem in impounded waters. I would be interested to know why the Bill does not contain any detailed accounts of how that problem will be solved.
  Mr. Michael: If I may assist my hon. Friend, he referred again to algae growth. The management regime is there to control it. I referred to Bute East dock, and algae growth
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  as a result of nutrients in the water has not been a problem there, so we already have practical evidence. These matters have been discussed with the statutory authorities, which have powers to deal with the issue if necessary. My hon. Friend and I would obviously want to develop and strengthen powers over such environmental matters and I am sure that we would find ourselves in agreement on those matters in general legislation. They are covered, either in the Bill or in the powers of the statutory bodies.
  Dr. Howells: If they are covered, I cannot find them. I have to disagree with my hon. Friend about that matter. He draws comparisons with the still water of a dock. That is a fair comparison, because the water comes from a feeder from the River Taff. However, he will have observed, I am sure—as I observe every day that I am in my constituency—that there is an enormous difference between a river which rises and falls by 15 ft or 20 ft according to the amount of rainfall, and a feeder that goes off it into a dock in a tame and controlled way.
  In 1989 there were serious problems of algae in—
  Mr. Morgan: Perhaps it would assist the House if I mentioned that lorry loads of algal scum had to be removed from Bute East dock and the feeder in the summer of 1989, which was a longish and hottish summer, after about 1 August. Until then the algal growth had been providing rather a good feed for the mullet in the dock and, up to a point, algal growth is beneficial to the environment, as it provides foodstuff for that type of fish. However, after it starts to bloom it becomes an absolute menace and deprives the whole area of oxygen. Lorry loads of the material had to be removed at the insistence of the house dwellers on the new Tarmac housing development at Bute East dock.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend for that information.
  Mr. Rogers: I am listening to this discussion, which is vital to the people who live in the area. Does my hon. Friend accept that the argument used by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is very like saying, "Let's have coal pits or pollution everywhere. Don't worry—we'll put in some money to clear it up afterwards"? One should do things logically and resolve the problem of pollution first instead of having to spend huge sums clearing up the environment afterwards. If the barrage created another inch of land for industrial development, there might be some value in it, but it does nothing except create a water vista.
  The other point that I shall seek to cover later is the problem of the interface of fresh groundwater, coming from the rivers or the aquifer areas to the north of Cardiff, and the saline intrusion from the sea. The increased salinity of the area will be a substantial problem. In many parts of the country, increased salinity has been the subject of substantial surveys and monitoring by many bodies. I make this criticism of the technical people involved—not only were they late producing their reports, but many of those reports are not well done or even properly finished.
  Dr. Howells: I shall listen with interest to my hon. Friend's account of the shortcomings of that part of the Bill, and I agree with the point of his earlier intervention.
  I am sure that the Bill's supporters will agree—we cannot disagree on this—that the barrage development is a major project, probably the largest single project ever

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  undertaken in Wales. As I have already said, I welcome the development of the bay of which we are discussing one particular aspect tonight.
  Mr. Flynn: All south Wales Members have an interest in cleaning up the rivers, some of which have been dead for a century. Is my hon. Friend aware that when I asked the National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water about their programme to clean the rivers to EEC standards, I was informed that there is no programme. The only rivers with a chance of being cleaned in the foreseeable future are those for which barrages are planned.
  Dr. Howells: If
  Mr. Flynn: It is true.
  Dr. Howells: I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) has made that important statement. If what he has said is the case, it is a disgrace. I represent a constituency that does not have an area to be barraged—unless we try to write off all the problems of some of our valleys by sticking dams across their mouths, which I understand was a proposition advanced in the 1930s. Like my hon. Friends, I shall seek some clarification to ensure that those of us whose constituencies may contain a river that does not stand a chance of being barraged at some stage can nevertheless expect it to be cleaned up.
  Mr. Flynn: May I offer my hon. Friend some clarification? In the attempt to be brief, I perhaps misled him. My point is that the only schemes for cleaning up rivers are the barrage schemes. Apart from that, I have no hope of and see no programme for—although I am pressing for one for my constituency—cleaning up the rivers regardless of whether barrages are constructed. My hon. Friend seems to be blaming the promoters for the sins of omission of Welsh Water and the National Rivers Authority.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend again for his intervention. He completely misunderstood what I said, which was that one should not draw up such a Bill while the deplorable state of affairs means that the rivers flowing into the barrage will not be properly cleaned.
  I have had no indication that early work will be undertaken on either the Taff or the Ely, or on their tributaries, to overcome the problem of raw sewage being pumped into those rivers. That information, therefore, comes as a surprise to me. If it is true, it is extraordinary that the only rivers that will be cleaned up are those which are to barraged because it means that we should all be pressing for barrages—in other words, for the sealing up of rivers which for millions of years have formed our environments and flowed into the seas with an exchange of water that is absolutely vital for our weather systems. We are being asked to agree to something that we find iniquitous simply because we might obtain a promise from the authorities that they might clean up their act on the disposal of sewage. It is an absolute disgrace.
  Mr. Rogers: I agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) may be misleading the House inadvertently. I have substantially criticised Lord Crickhowell, who is wearing two hats in this matter. One
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  of them is that of chairman of the National Rivers Authority. In fairness to him, sums of money have been allocated, for example, to clean up the Rhondda rivers. That is nothing to do with the Cardiff barrage. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West is preparing his arguments for the Usk barrage and laying the groundwork so that he can convince his constituents that they should support such a barrage proposal in order to have the River Usk cleaned up, but that is not a case for a barrage. The case needs to be far more substantial than that. The National Rivers Authority is providing some money for cleaning up rivers—it is certainly not enough, but it is being provided and it has nothing to do with the Cardiff bay barrage.
  Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend. Perhaps I may return to the point that I was making about 10 minutes ago.
  Mr. Flynn: I regret intervening so often on this, but as the subject has been raised, I should inform my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) that there was a plan to clean up the Usk river by taking the sewage out of it. That was way back in the 1970s when Newport had its own water authority. The plan was ditched when the Newport water authority became part of Welsh Water. Subsequently, the charges for water increased by 2,500 per cent. within a decade and the scheme for cleaning up the river was never implemented. The campaign to implement the scheme has been going on for 20 years and it has nothing to do with the barrages.
  We should like to clean up the rivers with or without the barrage, but in south Wales there is no programme or plan to clean up our rivers. Nevertheless, the issue is separate from the barrage. It is a coincidence that the rivers on which a barrage might well be built may be cleaned up. The point made by the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) is artificial. He is off target. He ought to complain and campaign for the National Rivers Authority to clean up the rivers. As a by-product of the two planned barrages, the rivers may be cleaned up. That is a different proposition. They will probably be cleaned up before other rivers which are more in need of it.
  Dr. Howells: It is rare that I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West but his case is an extraordinary inversion of a simple argument. One should not proceed with a major project such as this, which will suck in large amounts of public money, before first tackling the problem, which my hon. Friend has eloquently described, of the reluctance of what was a public body and a body which is central to cleaning up the rivers of Wales and everywhere else to get on with the job.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: Is not the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) rather like saying that the constituency of Pembroke has high unemployment which could be solved by putting a nuclear power station there? That would be to justify the nuclear power station by the high unemployment rather than to tackle the high unemployment head on. Is not that similar to the perverse argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West?
  Dr. Howells: It is perverse.
  Mr. Flynn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Dr. Howells: I shall not give way for the moment. I should like to get on.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) is filibustering.
  Dr. Howells: Yes, he is doing a good job of filibustering. If may continue—
  Mr. Flynn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Dr. Howells: No, I shall not give way.
  Mr. Flynn: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. To respond to the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams), I have been chairman or vice-chairman of the Welsh anti-nuclear authority for the past 12 years. His suggestion is entirely absurd.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: That has nothing whatever to do with the Chair.
  Dr. Howells: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for injecting that note of reality back into the proceedings.
  About 15 minutes ago I spoke about the size of the development in financial and physical terms. It is a large development which is addressed by the EEC directive in terms of the kind of information it requested from member states about such developments.
  The directive asks member states to provide information on the costs of the programme, giving capital investments and operating costs for the collection, treatment and disposal of municipal waste water. It asks for the identification in sensitive areas as well as less sensitive areas, including short explanations and notes. It asks for a short overview of the actual loads of municipal waste water discharged to fresh water, estuaries, coastal waters and land, and where insufficient data exists estimates should be made using available information.
  It is extraordinary that the Bill for the biggest development in Wales, and one which is about impounding water of the type defined precisely in the EEC directive, gives no notion of the cost of cleaning up that water. Never mind about sending the figures to the EEC, they are not even sent as far as Pontypridd. At least. I have not received them and I would like to know why. Why are the costs not contained in the Bill? Why is there no information on the systems that will be used for cleaning up the nitrates, the phosphates, and so on? Is some kind of panacea for all this to be presented suddenly when the last breeze block is put in place on the face of the dam? Will it all fall into place?
  To return to the question of nuclear facilities raised by two of my hon. Friends, I am reminded of the false optimism that led people to press on with developments in the belief that somehow the technology to deal with any problems that might arise would suddenly appear from nowhere. It is the result of a faith in the inevitability that science will somehow come up with the answers to whatever iniquity is perpetrated upon the planet.
  Anyone who takes a sensible view of this will ask how such problems are to be addressed. I have not got far tonight in listing those problems. I have a couple more to list, including the one that I mentioned earlier about leachates. There are no firm proposals or costings, nor even an idea of a programme, for the works needed upstream on the Taff and Ely rivers to improve permanently the quality of the waters and the treatment of the sewage effluent which currently finds its way into both
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  those rivers. There was talk at one time about the magic barge which would solve everything. I do not know what has happened to it. Perhaps, metaphorically, it has sunk —and good riddance to it, as I have rarely heard a more absurd suggestion.
  Nor have I heard any suggestion about what will happen about something that is central to the Cardiff bay development. I refer to the fate of the Ferry road tip, a large landfill site which has long been a source of worry for many people, not only because of the leachates which may at the moment be finding their way into the mud flats which, if the Bill is enacted, will become the bottom of the lagoon. I have already listed some of the problems with leachates and some of the materials which may find their way into our water tables and bodies of water as a result of leachates. However, I understand that the future of the Ferry road tip is still far from clear. The Touche Ross consultancy report, commissioned by Cardiff city council last October in compliance with the Welsh Office request, recommends:
  "The future of the Ferry Road site be established as quickly as possible in discussion with Welsh Office and that Committee's previous decision regarding continued tipping be reaffirmed."
  There have been discussions in Cardiff city council about constructing some other form of waste disposal in conjunction with the Cardiff bay development corporation that will take some of the waste already in the landfill site. There has been talk about an anaerobic digestion plant. The very title is revolting, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I know that it is late, so I shall not upset your sleep by outlining what happens in anaerobic digestion.
  11.15 pm
  All the relevant technology is still being pioneered, but there is much talk about how to get bacteria to eat the contents of the Ferry road tip. An anaerobic plant somewhere on the foreshore in Cardiff has been suggested, but little has been said about the possible costs. I note, however, that the Touche Ross report has said that the cost would be about £4·5 million. Who will pay? Will it be the city council or the Cardiff bay development corporation, or will the cost be met by a joint venture? Where will the plant be cited? The people of Grangetown and Butetown should be told.
  What will happen to the present tip? Will it be moved? My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is aware that a waste site at Pyle has been mentioned and he is right to be concerned about that.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: The Stormy Down site has been mentioned, but when that proposal was discussed at the Ogwr borough council some councillors said that they would lie down on the road to prevent any lorry from getting anywhere near the site with waste from the Ferry road tip in Cardiff. There is total opposition to the disposal of that waste in the Ogwr borough.
  Dr. Howells: I can understand that opposition. At the best of times landfill sites are not welcome. If one authority attempts to shift a landfill site into another constituency for cosmetic reasons, that is asking for trouble. My hon. Friend's intervention is another example of the difficulties caused by the way in which the Bill has been drawn up. No solutions have been proposed for the central problems. I am not opposed to development, but I am opposed to any development that does not take into account likely problems.
  Mr. Rogers: The short-sightedness of the corporation and the local authority was revealed when they held an exhibition in London when the Bill was first presented. At that time they had not even consulted adjacent local authorities. When they were criticised for that by people such as myself, consultation commenced.
  My hon. Friend's background is the mining industry and he lives in the valleys. He will remember the traumatic experience to which the valleys of south Wales were subject to aid the developments in Newport at the Llanwern steel site. Our villages were hell holes because of the huge lorries that went through, but we suffered all that because we knew that our tips were being removed. We knew that the blots on the landscape were finally going. We suffered for a good cause—the new steel works at Llanwern.
  We shall not have a similar experience with the removal of the Ferry road tip. When the huge lorries start travelling through the Vale of Glamorgan villages to reach Bridgend to dump the waste, there will be civil insurrection in south Wales. It just goes to show that the Bill has been badly conceived.
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend draws a good analogy. There is an enormous difference between the case of Llanwern, in which a village was blighted for many years to lay the foundations for an excellent new steelworks, and the fate envisaged for the Ferry road tip in Cardiff.
  The Touche Ross report requested by Cardiff city council and drawn up on the recommendation of the Welsh Office says:
  "The intentions of Cardiff Bay Development Corporation have affected the waste management planning in Cardiff adversely. Accepting the political reality, the intentions of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation with respect to Ferry Road should be finalised. They feel however that CBDC has grossly underestimated the logistic, environmental, health and safety problems associated with exhuming 2 million cubic metres of waste.
  The Consultants have in fact, following informal discussions with the Welsh Office, intimated that the removal of the tip may not now proceed in full."
  I can well imagine that not many authorities would relish the prospect of moving 2 million cubic metres of waste —not to mention the feelings of those in the communities through which the waste will be driven. But if the waste is not moved, what will happen to it? If it stays where it is, who will pay for the defences that will have to be constructed to contain the leachate and prevent it from going into the lagoon following the building of a barrage across the river?
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend is citing a substantial criticism of the development corporation by the local authority. During the passage of the Bill, a certain image has been projected—that everything is working perfectly and that the local authority wants the development to take place. Is my hon. Friend now saying that the local authority is criticising the corporation?
  Dr. Howells: I am merely saying that page 7 of the Touche Ross report drawn up for Cardiff city council says:
  "The intentions of Cardiff Bay Development Corporation have affected the waste management planning in Cardiff adversely."
  That is clear enough and that assertion is certainly a blot on the venture's otherwise perfect public copybook.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: Are we not in a terrible fix with regard to the Ferry road tip? We dare not leave it there because there is no way of sealing it and there will be
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  leachate problems in the lagoon. On the other hand, we cannot move it because no other local authority will be willing to receive it.
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Both bodies are clear about it. That is why a special report was drawn up by Touche Ross and it is presumably why the report has received no publicity until now. The problem is central to the future of the project but it is one about which we do not hear. The promoters have managed the news well. We hear only the good news and never the bad news —even if we often disagree about what constitutes good news and what constitutes bad.
  Dr. Marek: Will my hon. Friend consider asking the Minister his views on this important matter? No doubt the Welsh Office, having received the Bill some time ago, will have considered the matter, and Ministers may be able to set our minds at rest on it. The House would be interested if the Minister would intervene, however briefly, to clear up the matter.
  Dr. Howells: I shall certainly invite the Minister to intervene, although knowing his reputation—about which I have written elsewhere—for riding out such storms I shall not be surprised if he does not. My hon. Friend has asked an important question; his remarks were certainly not flippant. We should like to know the thinking of the Welsh Office on that and on £500 million or £100 million of public money—the sum seems to vary from week to week.
  The consultants also make the following recommenda-tions:
  "The status of Cardiff Bay Development Corporation's intentions with respect to Ferry Road should be determined in the near future. Accepting the political realities, if Ferry Road is acquired by CBDC, it should be ensured that adequate compensation for replacement of an equivalent amount of operational waste management capacity is provided."
  In other words, the corporation must find another tip.
  Anyone who has been following recent events in Taff-Ely will know that the proposal for a landfill site at Penrhos is no easy matter. It is also an enormously expensive matter. It is no longer possible simply to find a hole in the ground and chuck stuff into it, as has been done so often in the past, but there is nothing in the Bill to suggest that the problem even exists.
  What are the chances that Cardiff city council will be able to operate a local authority waste-disposal company capable of dealing with the Ferry road tip leachate problem? I do not think that they are very good. I fear that environmental and ecological problems will be forced on us when the tip is removed. For, if it is not removed, I cannot see how the lagoon can possibly go ahead, unless huge modifications are made. Civil engineering works will be needed to ensure that the material in the existing site is contained, and considerable expenditure will be required if an alternative site is to be found. It will no longer be possible to use the Ferry road tip; it is no use damming a river to provide a beautiful stretch of water around which to construct wonderful flats and a marina if behind the flats seagulls are picking over botulism organisms on a rubbish tip.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: Did not the development corporation more or less admit the existence of a massive problem by considering the removal of the tip so seriously? If it were possible to seal it to prevent the leachate

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  problem, the corporation would not have thought of spending millions of pounds to remove it. The barrage can go ahead only if the tip is removed.
  Dr. Howells: Indeed. That is the point that I have been trying to make.
  I shall end my speech here—I know that everyone will be massively relieved—[HON. MEMBERS: "No, no.'']
  Mr. Flynn: We have listened fascinated to my hon. Friend's account of all the pollutants that can enter the Taff, but it is difficult for us to judge the worth of his speech. When will he come to the point and tell us the amount of leachate, the amount of eutrophication and the number of organophosphates? Organophosphates, which are minute, have not been mentioned yet.
  We know that there is pollution, but if we are to make a judgment we must know whether there is a minute or a massive amount. I have yet to hear any attempt to quantify it in what has, in terms of its length, been a very thorough speech.
  Dr. Howells: I have hardly heard a more absurd point in my life. My hon. Friend knows as well as I do—he mentioned it earlier in connection with his constituency —why it is impossible to quantify the pollution. He has made a very cheap point.
  As my hon. Friend knows, the funds simply are not available. This applies to my constituency as well as to his. I hope that he will tell his constituents when they find themselves living next to old landfill sites that we have no idea how much leachate is coming out of them, or how much methane is being generated. My hon. Friend is very unwise to make such criticism. If he is a scientist, as he says he is, he will know that any landfill site produces methane and leachate. The work has not been carried out because the money has not been made available. I am extremely surprised at my hon. Friend.
  11.30 pm
  Dr. Marek: I rather feared that I might not get into this debate either. The amount of leaching is central to the clause. If the Welsh Office and the Minister say nothing, I hope that the Bill's sponser, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael), who has, of course, looked at the matter in detail, will be able to help us. Perhaps he will tell us how much leaching there will be, whether it will be dangerous and what damage it will cause. How much will have to be spent to clean up, and what will be the recurrent costs? So far no one has been able to give precise answers to those questions.
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend makes his point well.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) made an absurd point. Surely it is the responsibility of the promoters to say that there will be no pollution. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport. West should pay attention to the answer to his question. It is the responsibility of the undertakers to provide the information that he seeks. In fairness to the undertakers, I should say that they have carried out surveys in relation to coliform bacteria concentrations, potential demand, leaching and sewer outfalls. They are trying to identify the problem, but they have not come to any firm conclusion. Because of the problems and figures in some areas, the
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  undertakers have had to draw up theoretical projections. It is fairly significant that all their suggestions seem to be on the safe side.
  Dr. Howells: My hon. Friend answers the point very well. The Touche Ross report concludes that the Welsh Office must call an urgent meeting to establish the intentions of the Cardiff Bay development corporation about the future use of the Ferry road landfill site. That is crucial to enable Cardiff city council to decide whether a waste authority will be viable. What has the Minister to say about the matter? Will the Welsh Office demand a meeting with Cardiff city council and Cardiff Bay development corporation to hear exactly what will happen to the Ferry road tip?
  Many hon. Members have spoken about the Ferry road tip. I have spoken at some length, and I began by saying that it is not the only tip that leaches into the rivers that eventually become the Taff and the Ely. There are many such tips. A survey in the past year shows that limited fines apply to the many tips that we already know about. The Bill's promoters should take that on board and should tell us exactly what they intend to do about it. Will the Cardiff Bay development corporation contribute to the cost of putting right those tips? Will it be subject to a levy to make sure that spillages, such as that which occurred in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, do not reach the rivers? That is a perfectly fair burden to place on the corporation because the scheme is about property development and property prices; it is not concerned with the environment. The Bill does not answer these questions, and it is a crying shame and to the detriment of south Wales.
  Mr. Ron Davies: I am sure that the entire House will join me in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) on his speech. We owe him a debt of gratitude. He has presented a first-class analysis of the problems that will be created and illustrated vividly the difficulties faced by those who represent valley communities. My hon. Friend is a well-respected member of the Select Committee on the Environment, and I am sure that we shall all give full recognition to that fact when we come to weigh his contribution to the debate.
  It is worth noting that the amendments are constructive. I hope that that will become clear as the debate unfolds. I hope, too, that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) will recognise that the amendments will not defeat the Bill or reduce its effectiveness. All the amendments will strengthen the Bill and make it more acceptable to those who will be directly affected by it.
  Dr. Marek: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Davies: I shall, but first I wish briefly to make two points. Having done that, I shall be more than happy to give way to my hon. Friend.
  Two features have characterised the debate. First—this is the point on which my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd concluded—we have not received any answers from the promoters. I accept, of course, that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) asked how leaching can be quantified and how the degree of pollution can be assessed, and what can be done to remedy it. He must understand that it is not the responsibility of my hon. Friends and I to produce a scientific analysis. As

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  my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) rightly said, that is the direct responsibility of the promoters. They must satisfy the House, and they have failed to do so in that respect.
  The second feature that has characterised the debate has been the absence of the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett), for a great part of it. The hon. Gentleman has strolled back into the Chamber, I accept, but the Minister of State has been present throughout and has listened attentively. Many of the questions that have been raised can be answered only by the Under-Secretary. The solution of the problem of water pollution in the valleys—that is directly relevant to the new clause because it is the cause of the problem in the bay—rests directly with the Minister. There are powers available to him under the Water Act 1989, if he wants to use them, to take action to lay the necessary orders to prevent the recurrence of the pollution that has emanated from industrial concerns, for example, thus far.
  The Minister has every reason to be present in the Chamber. He has even more reason to outline the position of the Welsh Office. It is not good enough for Ministers to sit on the Government Front Bench and do nothing while covertly using the machinery of government to ensure that when the Bill is debated Members come out from under stones or crawl out from the woodwork obediently to vote at the whim of the Government, without hearing one minute of our debates. If the Government are to take the responsibility of bringing Members into their Lobby, they have a responsibility to the House to set out their views on these important issues.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend has made the point extremely well. I was seeking to make the same point in my own way. As my hon. Friend said, the purpose of the amendments is not in any way destructive. Indeed, I believe that their acceptance would prove to be helpful to the Bill. When my hon. Friend said that they would not be destructive, the Under-Secretary of State guffawed in disbelief. He seems to be expressing disbelief even now.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Bennett): Absolutely.
  Dr. Marek: If he is doing that, he owes it to the House, if he is a man of integrity, to explain why he thinks that the amendments are destructive or otiose. If they are unnecessary in any way and he explains why that is so, I shall not seek to delay the House one moment longer in its consideration of the new clause. The Minister will help the House if he intervenes, after my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) has completed his speech, to explain the Government's view.
  Mr. Davies: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) for that helpful and constructive intervention.
  It is particularly worth placing on the record the wording of new clause 6 about phosphate and nitrate stripping. It states:
  "'Before constructing the Barrage, the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate-stripping of the waters of the rivers
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  entering the inland bay and their tributaries in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay.'."
  No one could accuse new clause 6 of being a wrecking amendment. It is simply a deliberate attempt to safeguard water quality in the part of south Wales about which we are all so concerned.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd recounted some telling and graphic examples of the problems facing the valleys in south Wales and the rivers that drain into the bay. Reference has already been made to the major occurences of pollution and there are some spectacular incidents. However, there is also regular, insidious pollution which drips and washes into the rivers on a daily basis. That is inevitable if we consider the geography, economy and social structure of the valley communities.
  Mr. Flynn: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The news that British troops have been sent into northern Iraq is a matter of such importance that a statement should be made to the House. As it appears that we will be continuing our deliberations into the early hours, can it be arranged for the House to consider that important development?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Obviously those on the Treasury Bench will have heard the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). At the moment, no request for a statement has been made to Mr. Speaker's office.
  Mr. Davies: Because of the geography of our valley communities there is a conjunction of relatively densely populated settlements with a mix of fairly new industry while at the same time we have the legacy of the 19th century with abandoned mine and coal workings. That mix in an area of high rainfall and steep valley sides will inevitably result in a high level of pollution in our rivers. In addition, we face the problem of the inadequacy of our storm and farm sewers.
  Several hon. Members who have spoken tonight have direct experience of living beside rivers. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd made it clear that from where he lives he can see what is coming down the river. I have a similar experience. I live beside the River Rhymney and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West shares my concern about this. I do not want to embarrass you, Madam Deputy Speaker, by describing some of the stuff that comes down the river. However, not all of it is natural material; some of it is man made. Inevitably at times of high rainfall, the river rises and leaves its flood debris in trees on the river bank. When the river subsides., we can see the souvenirs of the night's heavy rain scattered along the river.
  If and when the barrage is built, that which is carried down the river at times of high rainfall will be deposited in the bay. That will cause major problems. Our rivers are grossly polluted. They obviously contain high levels of nitrates and phosphates and a great deal of organic material from sewers or in the form of sheep that fall into the rivers, dogs that are killed and thrown in or horses that are washed down river. Those are by no means rare occurrences in our valley communities. All that matter will end up in the bay—[Interruption.] It is not unusual to see a horse's leg or head going down the river. Horses fall in or die and are thrown in. Unfortunately, such things

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  happen regularly. That, together with the microbiological contamination, will reach the lagoon and create a major problem.
  In fairness to the promoters, I should point out that they have gone on record as saying that the water quality in the lagoon will be sub-standard. They maintain, however, that the problem can be dealt with. I have read carefully all the documents and the report of the Committee proceedings. I have also listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. Moreover, I have read the reports that have been prepared by and on behalf of the promoters. I am not convinced that they have found a solution to the problem. They say that there will have to be regular patrols round the lagoon to pick up waste matter—the dead dogs and horses, and all the other rubbish.
  11.45 pm
  I do not mean to be unkind to the city of Cardiff, but I have to say that it is one of the dirtiest cities that I have ever visited. The streets of Cardiff are unclean. However, the suggestion is that after the lagoon is constructed an efficient cleaning system will miraculously appear that will pick up all the detritus. Rather than Cardiff city employees doing the scavenging, it is far more likely that rats and gulls will do it. [Interruption.] I am more than happy to give way to the hon. Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) if he wishes to speak. Doubtless the hon. Gentleman has had a pleasant night out. I do not blame him for that; he is probably very well fed and he has probably had a drink or two. Now he seems to want to take part in the debate. Perhaps he has been sufficiently beguiled by the Government to come along and vote, even though he has not heard the debate. That is up to him. If, however, he wants to participate in it, he should not be provocative. Let me now put on record that the hon. Gentleman is leaving the Chamber with a gracious gesture, which will doubtless be recorded for posterity.
  I hope to speak later about birds. My hon. Friends know that I am anxious to secure both a good environment for them and their protection. However, I do not want the gulls to proliferate. They will not be an amenity; they will drive away birds that are attracted to the lagoon and they will not improve living conditions in the vicinity.
  The most telling condemnation of the proposal is that the promoters say that no contact sports will be allowed in the bay. We are told that the lagoon will be a powerful incentive to economic development and that it will make a magnificent contribution to Cardiff's environment. No contact with it, however, will be allowed. People will be unable to swim or fish in it, or to windsurf on it. The fear is that if they come into contact with the water it will become so grossly polluted that their health will be endangered.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend has made an important point about the amenities of the lake and of the two fingers that point north out of it. I am not sure that he is right about the fishing. Fishermen tend to undo knots with their teeth, which would be dangerous, but fishing is not a dangerous practice. It is not a contact sport, unless one falls into the water.
  There are differences of opinion between the city of Cardiff environmental health officer, who advises against the practice of dragon boat racing, and the county and, I
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  think, Tarmac plc, which owns the Bute East dock. Dragon boat racing is a form of Maori giant canoe racing, the vessels being not large enough to overturn. Unlike swimming, this is not a true contact sport, but it does involve splashing. Vigorous effort and passing can result in water coming into contact with lips. People making maximum physical effort tend to lick their lips, and even that is sufficient to result in a warning from the Cardiff city environmental health officer that people taking part in such sport in this location do so at serious health risk.
  Mr. Davies: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's useful and interesting intervention.
  The implications for fishing are unclear. I have in fron tof me a copy of a Sunday Times report on the algae pollution incident at Rutland Water last year. Although I want to return to that matter, I shall allow myself to be distracted for a moment from the main thrust of my argument in order to refer to this report, which deals with the studies that were carried out after the incident. Apparently, a sales engineer from Great Glen, Leicestershire, spent two weeks in bed because of symptoms that included nausea, headaches and aching and swollen limbs. Those symptoms developed after the man had come into contact with algae while fishing at the reservoir in August. I have no doubt that, if my worst fears are realised, problems will arise because of the practice of biting on shot—of course, fishermen cannot now use lead shot—and contamination in the course of eating, drinking and touching the face.
  If the amendments are not accepted, we shall be faced with four particularly unacceptable phenomena in the bay. First, the lake itself will be unsightly, and, because of the high level of microbiological contamination and decom-posing organic material, unpleasant odours will come from it. Secondly, the decomposing organic matter and the high incidence of rats and gulls will constitute a direct health hazard. Rats, of course, carry leptospirosis, and gulls are invariably heavily contaminated with salmonella. Several hon. Members are laughing. Let them understand that this is a major problem. Thirdly, there will be the problem of midges. No doubt this, too, will be a subject of great amusement to some hon. Members, but the promoters of the Bill recognise that it will be a major difficulty.
  Let me put on the record a report in the South Wales Echo, which is a regular and enthusiastic advocate of this Bill. It carries this story:
  "Swarms of midges could be a problem if the Cardiff Bay barrage goes ahead and a huge lake is formed, members of the House of Lords were told. For the first few years of the lake's existence the midges could coat washing on clothes lines and windows in the area near the lake, a scientist told a Select Committee. Some people could also develop allergies to the midges, even if they were dead, said Mr. Morlais Owen, the chief scientist of Welsh Water. He was giving evidence of water quality and other factors relating to the rivers Taff and Ely, which will be held back by the barrage. Mr. Owen said that the condition of the Taff had improved considerably during recent years, and Welsh Water were insisting on stringent conditions to safeguard the fish which had returned to the river."
  He supported the barrage and advocated the highest standards, but he recognised that there will be a considerable problem. There will be not a health hazard but an annoyance.
  We are being asked to authorise expenditure of more than £100 million to create the lake because it will be attractive to property developers. However, we are told

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  that for three months of the year people will not be able to go near it because of midges. It will not be a great attraction to anybody.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: Global warming could become a worse problem. Malarial mosquitos were found on the Isle of Sheppey for quite a long time after servicemen had disembarked there at the end of the second world war. It is conceivable that, with global warming and international air travel, this large lagoon could attract the malarial mosquito to south Wales—perhaps not in this decade but in decades to come.
  Mr. Davies: That is an appropriate intervention, but I do not want to be led too far into the future. My hon. Friend suggests that an atmospheric change in the bay could affect its insect life.
  I was going to mention global warming in connection with blue-green algae. The rate of growth of algae, causing the problem of toxic poisoning, is directly controlled by, among other things, air temperature. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is right: if temperatures change by even a half a degree or a degree, we shall have no way of quantifying its impact on the growth of blue-green algae.
  Mr. Rowlands: My hon. Friend referred to the evidence given by Mr. Morlais Owen, which was not expected to be hostile. In cross-examination, it was put to him:
  "With two rivers discharging into the lake with pollutants in them—probably low oxygen levels—probably full of phosphates, algae, extensive rubbish tips nearby, storm water flows as sewage heavy metal pollution, midges and problems with micro-biological quality … 'are you familiar with a case like that anywhere?' Answer, No. Obviously I would have to say I know of no other lake which has been created in such circumstances."
  Mr. Davies: That graphically shows what a leap in the dark we are being asked to take.
  Mr. Morgan: A pig in a poke.
  Mr. Davies: No, the pig comes down the river with the horses.
  I was tempted earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) to refer to the dangers to fishermen. I referred to the problem that occurred in 1989. I refer briefly to an article in The Sunday Times which is relevant. It mentions a report by Anglia Water, which revealed that
  "water had been piped to customers in parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire containing a substance suspected of being microsistine",
  which is a toxin. That toxin results from the decomposition of blue-green algae. Such water will be used in the lake, around which people will walk with their children or dogs or in which they will fish.
  Anglia Water's conclusion that there was nevertheless no threat to health was challenged this weekend by the scientists on whose research the report was based.
  "Professor Ian Falconer of the university of New England in Australia found that the doses of the toxin in highly concentrated forms promoted the growth of tumours in mice. He said, 'The general flavour of the Anglia report is playing the incident down.' Dozens of people complained of nausea, stomach ache, diarrhoea and skin rashes after the blue-green algae infested reservoirs at Grafham in Cambrigeshire and Rutland Water in Leicestershire in October and November."
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  Those are precisely the blue-green algae which it is recognised by everybody, including the promoters, will contaminate the waters of the bay.
  12 midnight
  The article continued:
  "Similarly dangerous levels of the algae have been found already this year in at least nine lakes and reservoirs in the midlands and southern England. The toxin in blue-green algae can sometimes cause liver damage in humans and kill birds, animals and fish. The National Rivers Authority, Britain's water pollution watchdog, yesterday warned that the algae posed a risk to anglers, water sports enthusiasts and other people using affected water for recreation."
  That was the official warning given by the National Rivers Authority to the public about the dangers of being adjacent to or coming into contact with water contaminated by blue-green algae—precisely the con-ditions which, on the promoters' own admission, will apply in the Cardiff bay lagoon. It makes one wonder what the logic is behind the proposal.
  The article continued:
  "Dozens of other stretches of water have also been found to contain smaller amounts of the algae which is fed by sewage, farm pollution and natural chemicals reacting with sunlight. Anglia argued that its report's conclusions were based on the advice of Government scientists and John Howell, a toxicologist at the water research centre, an independent company funded by the industry. He had decided that there was no risk to human health because research by Falconer had shown no effect on mice given 1,000 times the doses that might have ended up in drinking water. In fact, Falconer found that doses that concentrated had killed many of the experimental animals and the lowest dose he has ever used, still 200 times higher than in the drinking water, caused an increase in general illness in the mice."
  That was the incident which led to all the problems of illness and to the deaths of domestic and farm animals when they came into contact with water. They did not necessarily drink large amounts of water, but only came into contact with it. It was the incident which led to the angler to whom I referred earlier being struck down with various ailments.
  It is not as though the NRA is not aware of the problem. I refer briefly to another report, again in the South Wales Echo, last November:
  "Action to fight the growth of poisonous algae which infected eight lakes in South Wales this year has been announced by river watchdogs."
  The final sentence was:
  "In their first report on blue-green algal blooms which are thought to have killed 20 sheep, 15 dogs and put two soldiers in hospital in Wales in 1989 the National Rivers Authority makes a series of recommendations."
  None of the recommendations is capable of being implemented in the circumstances of Cardiff bay. Even if they could be implemented, they would be an enormous continuing burden on the ratepayers of Cardiff and South Glamorgan. Provision is made by the promoters for the interim period, but what will happen then? Who will pick up the tab of ensuring that the lake in the middle of Cardiff, which will be useless, will be monitored, treated and controlled in such a way as not to make it fit for people to drink or fish in but merely to walk alongside and exercise their pets? It is a frightening prospect.
  An interesting specialist report from the National Rivers Authority, dealing with toxic blue-green algae, was published last September. It contains issues that are relevant to the new clauses.
  Mr. Rowlands: In the evidence given about the need to monitor, the same witness, Mr. Owen, was asked:

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  "the lake will have to rely, will it not, on extensive control measures for many years if not in perpetuity, to ensure that there is adequate quality of water and the environment".
  He answered:
  "that is correct, yes".
  Mr. Davies: The more we consider the issue of water quality, the more we realise how wrong the Cardiff Bay development corporation has been in its assessment.
  It is worth reflecting for a moment on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, who is not here at present, raised. We are not talking about the construction of a barrage that will generate power, assist communica-tion across the bay, create a water reservoir or a body of water that will he of general use to the population for recreation, sporting or relaxed leisure purposes. We are told that the barrage is necessary to pond back the waters to enhance Cardiff's environment so that it will be attractive to property developers who will build high-tech industry or yuppie housing.
  The promoters have made a monumental mistake. If they think that a reservoir—to disguise it for a moment —which will not he drinkable, and in which one will not be able to play or fish because it will be riddled with pollution, fly ridden, attractive to vermin, will give off odours, be covered in the summer by blue-green algae and contain deadly toxins, will attract people to invest in high-tech industries or build yuppie houses, it makes me wonder what sort of people they think will come. The industrialists whom I try to talk into coming to my constituency would not be attracted by that prospect.
  I shall return to the report of the National Rivers Authority on toxic blue-green algae, published in September 1990. I want to develop that subject because, if the other matters are inconvenient, blue-green algae and the toxins that they produce are matters of life and death, and positive hazards to human health.
  The report's introduction contains a brief summary, which is worth putting on record because I know that my hon. Friends will appreciate the definitions that it contains. It starts:
  "Blue-green algae are organisms with some properties characteristic of both bacteria and algae. They are capable of photosynthesis and the pigment required for this process often gives them a blue-green colour. Many species of blue-green algae have the ability to fix gaseous nitrogen and, under suitable physical and chemical conditions"—
  the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) when he referred to global warming—
  "particularly in still waters"—
  which is precisely what we shall have in the barrage—
  "populations may grow to extremely high densities and, under certain circumstances, a scum if algae will form on the surface which can accumulate. These algae are also known to produce chemicals which can be toxic to mammals, including man."
  This will be the attractive lake that will be created by the expenditure of £150 million of public money.
  The report continues by referring to the problems of Rutland Water, and I do not want to develop that theme because I have already mentioned it. However, I shall briefly consider the factors that affect the incidence of blooms. You will be fascinated to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the blooms occur in the late summer when the temperature conditions are such that the algae break down, giving rise to the toxins. They grow
  " relatively slowly; but a long period of stable weather, giving a constant physical (hydraulic) environment, is therefore required for large populations to develop. Within this
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  constraint, the temperature and the nutrients available will determine the population size which may be achieved if good growth conditions persist. In most places in southern and eastern England"—
  this report was referring to England but for our purposes it applies equally to Wales as the conditions are exactly the same there—
  "nutrient availability is more than adequate and grazing by zooplankton is usually minimal, thus blue-green algae normally become dominant in the algal community in mid to late summer."
  Those are precisely the conditions that would be created within the barrage as a result of the drainage factors that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West said that those problems had already been experienced.
  Mr. Morgan: I have not spoken about that yet.
  Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West said in an earlier intervention that those were precisely the problems that had given rise to numerous complaints by residents of Cardiff in the big dock development.
  You will be pleased to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall now skip a few pages of this report to come to the matters that are directly relevant to new clause 5. It says:
  "About 25 species of blue-green algae have been implicated in poisoning incidents. Confirmation that algae can produce toxins is a difficult and lengthy process … The potential toxicity of a bloom or scum cannot be determined by its appearance odour, texture or any other simple feature."
  We are creating a time bomb, the toxicity of which cannot be determined by anyone without recourse to detailed physical or scientific examination. Blooms capable of producing toxins have been reported from all over the world, including many European countries, and up to 75 per cent. of all such algae tested have been found to produce toxins.
  The important and damning point is that:
  "The toxicity of a single bloom, however, may fluctuate rapidly both in time and in space."
  The conclusion that can be drawn from that is that, whatever the algae—we will not know which species it is —it may well be producing highly toxic material. No one will be able to tell because there will be no physical manifestation of the quality of the algae. It will not smell or look a particular colour and it may vary in terms of time and space.
  We are told that this development will be attractive to all the yuppies who are going to move into Cardiff bay —pull the other one.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend makes a very good case, but I wonder if there is perhaps a large sluice gate in the barrage which could be opened at low tide to let out everything into the Severn. That would get rid of the algae, the dead horses and all the sewage.
  Mr. Davies: That is a serious matter and my hon. Friend does the development corporation a disservice in mocking it because it recognises the problem and has studied ways to combat it. I know of two ways that it has considered, and I understand that one is still on the cards. The first was to allow an ingress of salt water. The belief was that, when the salt water mixed with the fresh water, the biological conditions would change, and that would kill the blooms.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: The salt does one's throat good when one gargles.
  Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
  However, the flaw in that solution is that the salt water is heavier than the fresh water in the lagoon—
  Mr. Griffiths: Algae do not gargle.
  12.15 am
  Mr. Davies: As my hon. Friend says, algae do not gargle. Furthermore, as the necessary mixing of the waters would not occur, that idea was put to one side.
  I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is desperately anxious to find a solution to the problem and may confirm that the current solution to the problem of algae growth is thought to be something like a giant jacuzzi, in the belief that if the oxygen content of the waters in the bay can be altered, that will create conditions in which the algae cannot survive. The current idea seems to be to have a giant oxygenating plant which would have to be turned on at regular intervals, and which could reinvigorate the whole lagoon. You can therefore understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker, why people will not be allowed to swim in it.
  Mr. Morgan: Perhaps it would help the House to know that page 36 of the Bill refers to the necessity of removing algal scum. It is not my hon. Friends and I who have introduced this algae fixation; it is the promoters, who have signed an agreement with the National Rivers Authority involving a wide variety of procedures, including the oxygenating equipment that my hon. Friend has mentioned and a giant algae hoover plant which will suck blooms of algae out of—
  Mr. Win Griffiths: I thought that the hoover plant was in Merthyr.
  Mr. Morgan: Well, it may involve an order for converting a hoover—I do not know. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has absented himself from the Chamber for that reason.
  However, there is no mention of what will be done with the algae once it has been sucked out of the lake. It would fall under the definition of "sewage sludge" and there is nothing in the reference on page 36 to the removal of algal scum to tell us what will be done with that algal scum. Following the municipal waste water directive that has been mentioned, that scum cannot be dumped at sea or piped out to sea. Does my hon. Friend agree that we want more clarification on this point?
  Mr. Davies: Yes; and, more importantly, so does the National Rivers Authority.
  You will be delighted to know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that that brings me almost to my concluding point—
  Mr. Michael rose—
  Mr. Davies: I shall happily give way to my hon. Friend as I know that he does not want to end the debate too soon, but perhaps I can finish my sentence first.
  The NRA recognises that there is a problem and has suggested ways in which blue-green algae can be controlled in the longer term. Before I develop that argument, which is directly relevant to the new clause, I happily give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth on the assurance that he will not seek to move the closure if I sit down.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend can be satisfied that I am merely rising to try to help him. The point that I made earlier applies equally to his current argument about these serious and important matters. The maintenance of water quality standards at the disposal site is dealt with by the NRA which, under its statutory procedures, must satisfy itself that these matters are dealt with satisfactorily. Those requirements are included in the Bill, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, West said. Interesting though these technical matters are, the Bill is satisfactory as it stands at the moment.
  Mr. Davies. I understand that that is the promoters' response, but if we pass the Bill, we are allowing through legislation which has enormous environmental consequences that are worthy of more detailed debate, and which will allow expenditure of £150 million or £200 million of public money—or more—in pursuance of the idea that Cardiff can be regenerated by the lake. That is what this is about. We are now told that the main flaw in the technical arguments and the main problem of pollution will be dealt with at some unspecified time in the future and by some unspecified means.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: We must take it on trust.
  Mr. Davies: Exactly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) says, we are expected to take it on trust. I am not prepared to take it on trust. I might be satisfied on this point if the National Rivers Authority said that it would implement A, B and C, how much it would cost and that that would bring about a solution to the problem. If that was on offer, I would be prepared to withdraw the new clause, as I am sure all my hon. Friends would be. But that is not on offer, so I am not prepared to accept the proposal.
  Mr. Rogers rose—
  Mr. Pike rose—
  Mr. Davies: I give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike). I know that you will be impressed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I know that it is my hon. Friend from Burnley when I am not even looking at him. However, I know that he is there. I can sense his presence. I know that he has a valuable contribution to make to the debate and I shall happily give way to him. As I am sure that he recognises, this is essentially a matter involving us in Wales, so I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend may be asking for the impossible when he says that he wants firm undertakings from the National Rivers Authority. The NRA may think of itself as god-like, but it is not a god. It cannot control the enormous problems that exist in estuarial areas. There is a mixing of water in such areas as a result of the interchange of sea water and fresh water, which vary substantially in their organic and inorganic content and relative salinity. There is almost a natural jacuzzi effect which gives rise to an enormous concentration of organic life at river mouths. That would be denied by the construction of a barrage. As a result of the accumulation of materials when it passes over and through the ground eventually to reach an estuary, fresh water probably has 10 times more organic material in it than sea water. That shows the continually compounding and evolving

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  problems that would occur behind an enclosed area. The hon. Members for Newport, West and for Cardiff, South and Penarth may snigger at that, but, as my hon. Friends have said, the barrage could be a time bomb for the people living in the area.
  Mr. Davies: That is a telling point. However, I want to refer directly to new clauses 6 and 8 so I shall not be led down the path that my hon. Friend signals.
  Mr. Pike: My hon. Friend will know that I was on the Environment Select Committee until six months ago and that I have always been a strong supporter of the National Rivers Authority. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) referred to the powers that the NRA had to deal with the specific points that have been made. I wonder whether he is aware that on more than one occasion the NRA has said that it does not have all the powers that it should have to carry out its functions and sometimes has to use persuasion. On other matters, it does not necessarily have all the resources that it needs to carry out the duties laid upon it by the Water Act 1989.
  Mr. Davies: I have to confess that I did not know that. To use a term which I understand is now acceptable in the better political circles in this country, I am absolutely gobsmacked to hear that. No doubt that point will be developed.
  Mr. Michael: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Davies: I am desperately trying to bring my speech to a conclusion, but I know that my hon. Friend wants to develop this point. As he is in charge of the Bill, of course I have to give way to him.
  Mr. Michael: I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) was not present when I intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd to say that there were matters on which we agreed that we should seek improvements in general legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd put his finger on one such matter, but it is not one for the Bill.
  Mr. Davies: Clearly, we are all united on that matter. I look forward to the day, in the not-too-distant future, when my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, together with myself and my hon. Friends the Members for Pontypridd and for Burnley, will be members of a Standing Committee pushing through legislation introduced by a Labour Government. In the meantime, let me return to the NRA report of last year.
  Hon. Members will be pleased to know that there are methods of dealing with blue-green algae in the longer term. The report says:
  "Blue-green algae in reservoirs and lakes may be controlled by direct and mostly non-selective algicidal techniques or by the artificial enhancement of natural selection through physical, chemical and biological methods. However, the use of algicidal techniques is not considered advisable because toxins may be released into the water during cell breakdown. Enhanced natural controls may be effective, but only under certain conditions."
  "Enhanced natural controls" means some form of bio-engineering, which opens up the prospect of the Cardiff Bay development corporation setting up a system for genetically manipulating the blue-green algae, injecting them artifically into the lake and, by a process of natural
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  selection, bringing about a clearance of the blue-green algae. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West is looking a little bemused at that suggestion. When the Cardiff Bay development corporation suggests that the manipulation of the genetic structure of the blue-green algae will be the solution to the problems of the bay, I will be satisfied that it has finally given up.
  Mr. Morgan: Further to my hon. Friend's gob being figuratively smacked by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike), and mine in turn by the idea that, in order to provide the water quality that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Panarth (Mr. Michael) and I want, both of us having a riparian constituency interest in the lake, algae can be genetically engineered to self-destruct at the right moment, is that the algal equivalent of pigs flying?
  Mr. Davies: I think that that is a rhetorical question.
  Before you remind me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am dealing with new clause 6 which refers to phosphate and nitrate stripping. I am referring particularly to phospate stripping because the report goes on to say:
  "Reducing phosphorous availability would be effective but even total control of point sources is likely to leave diffuse sources which may be adequate for blue-green algal bloom production."
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said earlier, that means that although it may well be possible to pinpoint, and deal with, particularly concentrated areas of pollution—there is no suggestion that the Bill will deal with them—there would still be the regular routine leaching or seeping into water courses and into the bay of waters containing phosphates.
  Mr. Patrick Nicholls: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Do you have any information about reports that the French and the Americans have now accepted the Prime Minister's proposals to bring immediate help to the Kurds? If those reports are true—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): No, I have not heard anything about that at all.
  Mr. Nicholls: Would it be possible, through the usual channels, for the Foreign Secretary to come along and give that information to the House because it would be the most welcome news?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Doubtless that will be passed on.
  Mr. Davies: The report says:
  "The control of diffuse sources is much more difficult and would still leave the previously introduced phosphorous within lake and reservoir muds being available for several years."
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) about the immediate need for action, but even if that were to happen and phosphate pollution ceased now, residual phosphate pollution of the muds will continue for five years or more.
  12.30 am
  The report states:
  "Permanent destratification methods are likely to depress the growth of blue-green algae in reservoirs indefinitely, but only if the mixed depth considerably exceeds the depth which sustains algal growth."
  That will not be feasible in terms of the barrage. The report continues:

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  "Intermittent destratification would be subject to similar conditions and whilst it could depress the growth of all major algae it is a technique untried on the full reservoir scale."
  So much for that.
  The report then goes on to detail research and development, and certainly that is the only way in which a solution will be found. It states:
  "Research and development in relation to blue-green algae blooms and their toxins fall into three broad areas: those relating to the formation and control of blue-green algal blooms, research specifically related to the toxins that they produce and research into the effect of the toxins. A number of possible methods for controlling algal populations have been suggested in the report, all of which require improvements or basic research before they could be described as being effective."
  That is the essence of the problem. The NRA, after studying the most recent research, has concluded emphatically that more research needs to be done before an effective solution to the problem is found.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: I have listened with interest to the discussion about the way in which the problem must be tackled. The need for more research has been outlined in the NRA report. Does the NRA venture to suggest a time scale in which the problem might be dealt with? If the barrage went ahead before a solution to the problem of the algae had been found, how many years would people have to suffer the possibility of toxin poisoning and goodness knows what else?
  Mr. Davies: No time scale was offered in the NRA report, but it discussed not only improving existing techniques for control but basic research. We are talking not about a scheme that already exists but needs fine-tuning, but about basic research.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend is right that we are still talking about research rather than any practical prospect of being able to choke the sources of nutrients through sewage that can lead to highly eutrophic water and the right conditions for blooms. If there was any evidence in the Bill or in protective clauses signed by Welsh Water and the NRA that they had a solution to excess nutrients arising from sewage flowing into the waters of the bay, that would be fine; we could do without some of the airy-fairy ideas about genetically engineered algae. However, no whit of an approach has been made to solve the problem of storm sewer overflows that bring additional sewage into the rivers that feed into the lake.
  Phosphate and nitrate stripping is specifically covered by another of our new clauses because the two Cilfynydd sewerage works that drain the Cynon valley and the upper Taff—Aberdare, Merthyr and so on—will continue to provide treated sewage in the future. It does not contain any solids and it is suitably clean for a flowing river, but that treated sewage will come down the river. We know that, in the summer, half the flow in the river Ely and one third of that in the river Taff is treated sewage. That is what gives the rivers the peculiarly pungent smell that one experiences in July and August when walking along their banks. No solution to the problem has so far been provided.
  Mr. Davies: It is clear from my hon. Friend's intervention that we all agree that the problem has three dimensions—or, at least, three areas that require action. First, there is the problem of the existing sewer outfalls and the need to ensure that the controlled effluent is properly treated. Secondly, we need to recognise that, even if we
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  achieved that now, there would still be a problem in the lagoon and a need to find some way of treating not only the blue-green algae but the toxins. I fear that the third matter—the leaching into the river of pollutants from the domestic areas of our valleys—has not received adequate attention. I refer, for example, to leaching from Berw road in Pontypridd and from the settlements right across the Taff and Ely river valleys. There is an enormous amount of casual spillage and pollution of all sorts goes into the rivers. Even if we tackle the problem of the existing sewer outfalls, that problem will remain. Action is needed on all three fronts.
  The section of the report dealing with research and development concludes:
  "Little is known about the environmental behaviour and fate of the toxins produced by blue-green algae."
  In other words, even if we could deal with the problem of blue-green algae, we would still know little about the toxins themselves. The report says:
  "Better analytical techniques, toxicity testing methods and reference collection material are needed, as is research to determine the mechanism used by the algae for, and the effect of environmental controls on, toxin production."
  In its latest updated report, the National Rivers Authority, which has specific responsibility for the problem, concludes that not enough is known about the toxins produced by the algae. What we do know, however, is that if one comes into casual contact with them, one is likely to suffer sickness and diarrhoea and all the other ailments that we have described and that if one's dog or stock go near the water, they will die. We may not know the precise mechanisms involved but we certainly know that the toxins can create the most difficult problems.
  The debate that we have just had—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] I am not suggesting for one moment that we are concluding the debate. The debate thus far has shown—
  Mr. Flynn: More.
  Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend is encouraging us to say more, but I know that some of my hon. Friends wish to make brief speeches of their own and that is why I am anxious to bring my brief contribution to a close.
  It is clear that there is enormous doubt about the wisdom of building the barrage purely on the grounds of the quality of the water that will be impounded in the lagoon. We have made it clear beyond any doubt that people will not be able to swim or fish in it. They will not be able to touch it or surf on it. It is doubtful whether the dragon races will be able to be held. For much of the year, rather than being an attraction or a benefit to the city of Cardiff, the lagoon will be a disbenefit. If anything is guaranteed to convince us that the Bill deserves to fail, it is the certain knowledge that if it proceeds we shall be creating a monster that will be very difficult to control.
  Mr. Brian Sedgemore: I rise to speak succinctly and in an impassioned fashion. I say that because I am sure that, at this time in the morning, the House is more likely to be moved by the crisp logic of Russell, Wittgenstein and Professor Ayer than by the beautiful language of the romantic poets which I normally use.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), who moved the Second Reading of the new clause, spoke lucidly, quietly and in devastating and impressive fashion. At one stage he paused and invited the

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  Minister to intervene: he wanted to know whether the Minister, given his specialist knowledge and advice, was prepared to say how much or how little pollution would end up in the lagoon that would be protected by the barrage. The Minister—who, for the purposes of the Bill, is clearly trying to turn silence into an art form—said nothing. I am not sure whether he has been struck dumb, or whether he has been converted to the old German proverb "Schweigen ist geld." I have always believed less that silence is golden than that, all too often, it is a mask for ignorance: certainly that is what Welsh people believe about the Minister, from Cardiff to Tenby and from Haverfordwest to Meinclochog.
  At another point, one of the Bill's supporters asked my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd whether he could quantify the pollution that would end up in the lagoon. That is taking things a bit too far; with respect to my hon. Friend, it is a bit cheeky. He is relatively new to the House and may not know much about our procedures, but I am sure that he knows—no doubt he had his tongue in his cheek—that when hon. Members sponsor and speak in support of a Bill with such enormous implications, the burden of proof must be placed on them. It is their responsibility to reveal the damage, or the limits of the damage, that the Bill will cause. It is rather sad that, in this instance, the sponsors have not done their homework and given us that information.
  I fear that, if we pass the Bill without the new clause and those grouped with it, rather than champagne dribbling into the valleys because of its economic advantages, poison will dribble into the sea and will then be washed back towards the valleys. I fear that environmental damage will prevent the natural toxic disintegration of nitrates and phosphates that might occur if the barrage were not built.
  The sponsors say that the Secretary of State and the National Rivers Authority have all the powers that they need to get rid of the pollution. I must ask them not to allow their enthusiasm to be overrun by their naivety. They must know that, when there are conflicts between commerce and the environment, insidious, unspoken forces often prevent both the NRA and the Secretary of State from doing what they should do—and that is assuming, which I do not, that in this case they have the powers to make effective what they want to do.
  Some 20 years ago I worked in what was then the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, where I dealt with planning appeals. Sometimes I passed them on to the Minister, but sometimes I was the last port of call and the writ of Sedgemore would run: I would make the decision. When I see a new clause like this—I do not want to discuss private Bill procedure; we are using it in any event—I ask myself what I would have done had I been faced with a planning application and one of the objectors had come up with this proposal and wanted to attach it to the application as a condition. I would have said to those who were appealing, "There is no chance on earth that I will grant your application unless the new clauses are included." The sooner that the sponsors say that they are prepared to accept them, the sooner we can move on.
  Mr. Alan Williams: I wish to make two comments about the proposed new clauses. I congratulate hon. Members on their lengthy, detailed and expert contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) spoke about all the new clauses in the group and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies)
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  concentrated on the one in which he is especially interested, which is new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping.
  12.45 am
  My first detailed knowledge of the Cardiff barrage came from a film about the proposal made in 1988 or 1989 by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The two main arguments advanced in that film dealt with the proposal's effect on wildlife, the wading birds, and the danger of eutrophication in the new bay from nitrates and phosphates.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd estimated that about 500,000 people live in the Taff and Ely valleys, the valleys of the rivers that feed the Ely and the Rhondda valley. It is the most densely populated area in Wales and, apart from London, one of the most densely populated areas in Great Britain. It is a fact of life that all those people produce sewage which, even when it is properly treated, leaves nitrates and phosphates, and those chemicals are found in the Taff and the Ely. Nitrates and phosphates would be trapped behind the proposed barrage, creating an ideal environment for eutrophication.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) asked for figures and was told that it is up to the Bill's sponsors to produce them. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd spoke about 3 million cu m of rubbish in the Ferry road tip. [Interruption.] I have seen quoted a figure of 3 million tonnes of phosphates. About 1,000 tonnes of phosphates from sewage come down the Taff and Ely every year. There is another 1,000 tonnes from the use of fertilisers and about 500 tonnes from detergents. There is a danger that the bay will have a eutrophied environment, certainly in the summer.
  Nitrates and phosphates are fertilisers and, in warm weather, they cause plants to multiply. There is no nitrate or phosphate in the open ocean and there is therefore little plant life there because it has to depend on the availability of other nutrients. In an ideal environment there is always a danger of eutrophication. New clause 6 asks the undertakers to publish a plan showing how they will carry out phosphate and nitrate stripping should that prove necessary. Perhaps in the first three to five years there will be no serious problem, but it is probable rather than possible that in future there will be a serious problem of phosphates and nitrates. What will the undertakers do to remove those chemicals? Their removal calls for expensive technologies, the cost of which I shall deal with later.
  It has been known for 10 or 20 years, for example, that eutrophication is a serious problem in the Norfolk Broads. The Observer reported last year that the Nature Conservancy Council has found that the Broads had lost their rare plant life because of pollution and that they contained little more than algae and bacteria. When there is an algal bloom, the dead algae use up a great deal of oxygen. That means that the oxygen concentration goes through peaks and troughs in a 24-hour cycle. During the middle of the day there may be plenty of oxygen, but in the middle of the night the dead algae will consume a lot of oxygen. That has a knock-on effect on all animal life and fish in the water. Serious problems that are the result of high phosphate concentrations in Lake Erie have been well documented for the past 20 or 30 years.
  It has been suggested on several occasions during the debate that there are solutions to the algae part of the giant hoover effect, as described by my hon. Friend the Member

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  for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). It has been said that there may be a technological fix to the problem, but in so many technologies we are a bit too clever by half. For example, the River Colorado is an environmental disaster in many ways. An episode of "Horizon" about 10 or 15 years ago was entitled, "Where did the Colorado go?" I am sure that the House knows that the River Colorado no longer reaches the sea; it ends in a desert in Mexico. That is because along its length there over 100 reservoirs, the waters of which are used by farmers for irrigation. There is massive evaporation. The spreading of water over large areas of land greatly accelerates natural evaporation, and as the river flows from America into Mexico there is much less water than that which nature intended. It does not reach the—
  Mr. Michael rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 97, Noes 15.

  Division No. 116]

  [12.52 am

  AYES

  Amess, David

  Jack, Michael

  Arbuthnot, James

  Jackson, Robert

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Jessel, Toby

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Knapman, Roger

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Boswell, Tim

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Bowis, John

  Lightbown, David

  Boyes, Roland

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Brazier, Julian

  Mans, Keith

  Bright, Graham

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

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

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Burt, Alistair

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Carrington, Matthew

  Murphy, Paul

  Cash, William

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Chapman, Sydney

  Norris, Steve

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

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

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Rowe, Andrew

  Dixon, Don

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Stern, Michael

  Flynn, Paul

  Stevens, Lewis

  Foster, Derek

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Gale, Roger

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Thorne, Neil

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Thurnham, Peter

  Grist, Ian

  Tredinnick, David

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Trippier, David

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Harris, David

  Wallace, James

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Watts, John

  Hayes, Jerry

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Hind, Kenneth

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Home Robertson, John

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Wood, Timothy

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Howells, Geraint

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Mr. Alun Michael and

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Mr. Gwilym Jones.

  Irvine, Michael

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  NOES

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Pike, Peter L.

  Cryer, Bob

  Rogers, Allan

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Salmond, Alex

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

  Skinner, Dennis

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Marek, Dr John

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Dr. Kim Howells and

  Morley, Elliot

  Mr. Ted Rowlands.

  Nellist, Dave

  Whereupon MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 36 ( Majority for Closure).
  Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Rogers: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Government have lost this vote very heavily—and I use the words "the Government" advisedly. At the beginning of the debate we heard a point of order concerning the Rt. Hon. David Hunt, the Secretary of State for Wales.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Right hon. and hon. Members are not referred to by name; they are referred to by constituency.
  Mr. Rogers: The Secretary of State for Wales wrote to all his Government colleagues, saying:
  "Because of the conventions on private Bills"—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I was in the House when this matter was raised some hours ago. I doubt very much whether I can add to what was said by the Chair on that occasion.
  Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you have received from any member of the Government a request for permission to make a statement to explain the mess. It appears that the Government have collapsed in chaos. As you, Sir, have said, the question of the letter from the Secretary of State for Wales was raised earlier today. In effect, that letter imposed a semi-official Whip. The Government cannot sustain a closure motion, and are clearly in disarray.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have received no such request.
  Mr. Morgan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that we find ourselves in an unprecedented situation. At least half the payroll vote is unavailable, despite—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not in an unprecedented situation at all. We have had a Division, the result of the Division has been announced, and we shall now resume the debate.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is just conceivable that, earlier this evening, you saw the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) explain on television that the Government are in a state of collapse. The right hon. Gentleman has been on the box about three times, pointing out that there are saboteurs in the Tory party. He has taken the rebels home, and has left the Government without the necessary 100 supporters. He has turned them into a rabble.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That has nothing to do with me.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: Earlier I was speaking in support of new clause 6 and phosphate and nitrate stripping. Eutrophication may occur a few years after construction of the barrage. If so, the waters that feed it will have to be stripped of nitrates and phosphates.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) spoke impressively about toxic algae, with which we have had considerable problems in the past two years. There was an incident two years ago at Rutland water, where dogs and sheep died simply from drinking the water. Last year, there were appalling problems along the north-east coast.
  Mr. Ron Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise to my hon. Friend for intervening, but some of us have been in the Chamber for—
  Mr. Jeremy Hanley: Too long.
  Mr. Davies: That illustrates the point that I want to make. Some hon. Members have been present since the start of this business. The Bill is of much concern to our constituents. We wish to debate it and listen to other points of view. Will you look at the rabble on the Conservative Benches? They are engaged in a deliberate campaign against my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) of barracking or trying to disrupt his speech. [Interruption.] They are at it again. Will you ensure the same order and good manners that we had before that crowd came into the Chamber.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that hon. Members heard what the hon. Gentleman said and will respond to it.
  Mr. Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As people are coming in here half-sozzled, would not it be a good idea for you to order the bars to be closed?
  Mr. Morgan: Further to that point of order. Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I seek your guidance? I have the distinct impression that this debate is becoming impossible because of the noise that is emanating from the Conservative Benches—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It seems that the noise is coming equally from both sides of the House, and it is unacceptable from either side. I very much hope that the normal courtesies that are extended to any hon. Member will be observed.
  Mr. Williams: I am finding it quite difficult to continue with so many interruptions. The vote was one thing, but the continual chatter makes it difficult to discuss expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds of public money.
  Dr. Marek: The vote showed that the House believes that this important Bill should not be hurried and that the new clauses are important. I am not sure that I shall be able to contribute to the debate before the second closure, so will my hon. Friend appeal to the Under-Secretary of State to give us the view of the Welsh Office? The Under-Secretary is shaking his head.
  Mr. Morley: Disgraceful.
  Dr. Marek: It is disgraceful. We have heard of the letter saying that the Welsh Office is behind the Bill. It has instructed all its Ministers to be here, yet those Ministers are not prepared to stand up and say even one sentence
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  about whether the clause is right or wrong. Does not my hon. Friend think that that is disgraceful? Will he appeal to the Minister to speak?
  1.15 am
  Mr. Williams: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his worthy contribution. If the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett), the junior Minister, wishes to intervene, I will be willing to give way at any time. We need the view of the Welsh Office and of the Government on the Bill. Since 7 o'clock 90 per cent. of what has been said has been critical of the Bill. We have had two powerful contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells). I am pleased that as a result of the Division we have been given more time to elaborate the arguments about pollution.
  In relation to the problems of phosphates and nitrates that will be trapped, I said a few moments ago that the toxic algae problem appeared in 1989. Last year we had severe problems along the north-east coast from algal blooms. Indeed, the sale of shellfish had to be stopped for several weeks. The livelihood of 3,000 fishermen who collect mussels, prawns, crab and so on was jeopardised when toxins in shellfish were found to be up to 50 times the permitted concentrations.
  Inland waters were also affected by algal blooms last year; 501 reservoirs and inland lakes were affected, including one in my constituency, by problems caused by nitrates and phosphates. What if similar problems emerge in the Cardiff bay barrage? What will be done about nitrate and phosphate stripping? Is the technology available? Will money be available?
  In new clause 6 we call on the undertakers to publish a plan for phosphate and nitrate stripping of the waters entering the inland bay if that becomes necessary, and to demonstrate to us that that can be done. We want the undertakers to tell us whether it is technically possible and to explain how it will be done.
  It is difficult to remove nitrates and phosphates from water. Water can be denitrified by the use of bacteria, but that cannot be done on a large scale. Ion exchange methods can be used to replace the nitrates by chlorides. Precipitation methods using ferric sulphate can deal with phosphates, but it is very expensive. I have a quote which shows how expensive it is. It was from the former Secretary of State for the Environment—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. There is still an excess of sedentary conversation.
  Mr. Williams: The former Secretary of State for the Environment, now the chairman of the Conservative party, estimated last year—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I ask members of the Government Front Bench to respect the conventions of the House and allow the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) to make his speech without interruption.
  Mr. Williams: The cost of removing phosphates and nitrates from Britain's sewage before it is dumped at sea would involve building secondary sewerage plant at a cost of up to £7 billion. That could become necessary if algal blooms became a recurrent problem in the North sea. For the Taff and Ely, pro rata, the figure would work out at up to £100 million. That is in addition to the costs of building

  291
  the barrage. If we find in a year or two or whenever that there is a serious problem of the eutrophication of toxic algae, it could cost anything up to £100 million to clear.
  New clause 6 asks simply that the promoters produce a plan of how they would tackle the problem, to show that it can be done and that there will be a commitment that the money will be made available.
  Mr. Flynn: In the babble, I think that we have lost some of the subtleties of my hon. Friend's argument. I know that there have been cases of eutrophication in the Yns Y Fro reservoir in my constituency and serious eutrophica-tion of blue-green algae on Rutland water. Those problems have been cleared up and, as far as I know, those and hundreds of other stretches of water are operational again. But is my hon. Friend saying that they have been cleared up at the cost he said, or something similar?
  Mr. Williams: No, eutrophication is seasonal—it comes and goes. It comes in warm weather. If the hon. Gentleman had listened intently to the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly he would have realised that eutrophication is temperature dependent. It does not occur in winter, but when there are long days and warm weather algae multiplies rapidly, and then goes away. But let us suppose that it becomes a recurrent problem, and there is every possibility that that could happen, especially in the Rivers Taff and Ely because there is a terrific population of half a million people there, and the sewage effluent is continually fed into the rivers. Therefore, the waters are naturally high in nitrogen phosphate. If there is a regular, recurrent problem, and there are not to be fish deaths year after year—one of the side-effects of algae blooms—one must tackle the problem at source. If one does that, one is talking of costs running up to about £100 million to clear the problem.
  Mr. Rogers: The argument of my hon. Friends the Members for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) and for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) is that the construction of the barrage will cause pollution in the lagoon area behind it. There is no doubt about that.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly stressed the possible effect on the health of the people living around the district. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen is now stressing the enormous cost that it might pose to taxpayers in general in order to alleviate problems that could arise. Surely it would be much better if the Bill's promoters accepted that, in order to have development in the Cardiff bay district, there is absolutely no need to have a barrage that does not add a single square foot to the amount of land available for industrial and housing development. The only reason why the barrage is being constructed, which will then create all the pollution problems, is—as the report states—to create a water vista and enhance the prices of houses around it. From the arguments put forward on that issue alone, that seems an enormous price to pay for a water vista.
  Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend's contribution sum-marises very well the strong feeling of the Opposition Members who have contributed most to the debate—the barrage is for purely visual effect and will not create or pull in any jobs. Of course, we want the districts of Cardiff to be developed and maximum industry and jobs pulled into
  292
  them. None of us is against that. We are in the Labour party because we believe that Government and public funds should be used in that way. But, in terms of trapping the water, flooding the mud flats, which are important for wild life and wading birds, and creating a potential environmental disaster, the barrage is an appalling waste of public money. That money could be far better used in the health service, in infrastructure or in a number of other ways.
  Mr. Rogers: Since I posed those questions I think that I have found the answer in the evidence of Chesterton Professional Services, which were employed by Cardiff Bay development corporation. In its report it says that the full barrage would have a betterment effect on the land in the area, increasing its value from £114 million to £347 million. That is the reason why the barrage is being constructed. It is designed not to add to the economic development of Cardiff but to make money for these people.
  Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend makes an excellent case. I cannot understand why, when the economy is in the crisis that it is, we are wasting our money in this way.
  New clause 17 concerns eliminating the risks of pollution from leachates, especialy from the Ferry road tip. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd dealt at length with the problems associated with the Ferry road tip, which contains 3 million cu m of rubbish, which is not toxic waste but mainly domestic. Nevertheless, it is an enormous quantity. The onus should be on the undertakers to show that the tip can be sealed off and that there will be no leachate from it. I think that the hon. Member for Pontypridd demonstrated the logical trap that the undertakers are in as regards this tip. First, they have been thinking of moving the whole tip and trying to relocate it, perhaps in Stormy Down—I do not know.
  I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is looking at me furiously. I was not suggesting that. I think that the tip should stay exactly where it is.
  I read another story, although I do not know whether it is a possibility, saying that all the contents of the tip could be put in trains and carried to Bedfordshire at a cost of £40 million. That was a serious proposal, but I do not know whether it is a runner. Is not it the height of absurdity to be carrying the domestic rubbish of 10, 20 or 30 years ago in trains 200 miles across the country to bury it in Bedfordshire? I wonder what the people of Bedfordshire think about that? The trains would be incredibly smelly because the waste has half-decayed anaerobically. The putrefaction and the smell would be incredible.
  Mr. Skinner: Is it going to go by rail?
  Mr. Williams: I am not sure whether it will. Given this Government, perhaps it will be taken in lorries along the M4. Imagine being stuck behind one of those lorries on the Severn bridge for half an hour in a traffic jam.
  Can the Ferry road tip be sealed? What are the alternatives? Is there a way to seal that sort of tip so that no leachates would reach the barrage? Frankly, I do not think that we can seal tips that effectively, especially as the water table may be raised and that such tips give off methane the whole time. The problem of the tip defeats this proposal.

  293
  I ask hon. Members to support this set of new clauses. In opposing the construction of the barrage, I think that there are strong environmental reasons why the project should not go ahead.
  Mr. Morgan: While the Government Whips, the promoters and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) are absent from the Chamber, having a confab about what they should do in the circumstances, I wish to raise some additional points, some of which would be better raised in the presence of my hon. Friend. Indeed, I wished to pay him a compliment and to say that, as far as I am concerned, he is a prominent environmentalist in the Cardiff context. I am sure that he will be willing to concede that I am the same, and that we are both doing the Lord's work—he is doing it in his way, and I am doing it in the Lord's way, but we are nevertheless both doing the Lord's work. I very much admire my hon. Friend's approach, although I believe that our approach, as incorporated in these five new clauses, following the attempt to terminate the debate which, fortunately, fell rather flat because of the Government's disarray—
  1.30 am
  Mr. Win Griffiths: It would never have happened under the former Prime Minister.
  Mr. Morgan: Yes, Tory schism is at work here, as well as dither. One tactic that the Government may adopt—
  Mr. Griffiths: They are taking legal advice.
  Mr. Morgan: Not only that—they are also trying to gather the duvet vote, but if they look for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I hope that they go to his present residence at No. 11 Downing street and not to his former residence, or they may get a lesson in what goes on at night in London. That tactic should be approached carefully.
  During the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth made many strong pleas to my hon. Friends, saying that we should not be promoting new clause 5 on leachate; new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping; new clause 8 on sewage removal; new clause 17 on the future of the Ferry road tip; and new clause 19 on algal scum disposal—
  Mr. Skinner: What is that?
  Mr. Morgan: I can draw it for my hon. Friend, although I am not sure that one can adequately describe it. However, if my hon. Friend were to come down on one of the free trips that the Cardiff Bay development corporation may offer him, I could show him—
  Mr. Skinner: No.
  Mr. Morgan: Well, it is a case of whatever turns you on, is it not, Mr. Deputy Speaker? If my hon. Friend will not come down to Cardiff, I shall have to do my best later to explain what algal scum is.
  I am pleased that I shall now have the chance to discuss the five new clauses as I wrote every single word of them myself. It is a sign of the good sense of the House that, being aware that I had not had the chance to speak to provisions that I had drafted late at night in the Library, pity was taken on me. Much as they would like to make
  294
  further progress, hon. Members thought that it was not fair to close the debate until I had had a chance to say a word or two about the new clauses.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth takes a different approach to the new clauses. He accepts that these five subjects are critical to the acceptability of the Bill. I know that they are critical and my hon. Friend the Member for Pontrypridd, who made his maiden speech on the Bill, also accepted that they are critical. This is one of the most important of our many important debates on the acceptability of the barrage, its side effects and direct and indirect consequences. We must consider whether an amenity lake of the quality about which we are talking will actually be an amenity lake, and if it is not an amenity lake in the normal accepted definition of the phrase in 1995, when it might open for business, or in 2005, when standards will have risen further, there is no point in having it. We should be terribly derelict in our duty if we did not consider whether the barrage will be worth the candle unless by 2005 it can provide the amenities that people will expect at a level appropriate to that year and not to the lower 1985 standards.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, "All those things are mentioned in the Bill. Phosphate and nitrate stripping, algal scum and the Ferry road tip are all mentioned." We have not invented the subject matter of the new clauses; we have merely taken it from the existing Bill and incorporated it differently to give greater assurances. We ask that the House does not approve the Bill until the promoters show how they will solve the well-known environmental problems. If my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth were here, he would accept that his position is that the National Rivers Authority, Welsh Water or other appropriate bodies have suitable undertakings and that we should take it on trust that those undertakings will be put into effect in accordance with the standards laid down by those bodies. However, the problem is that the NRA, for example, did not exist on the previous occasion when objections could be made to the Bill, when it came from the other place to this House.
  On this Bill, the NRA did not have the chance to formulate the bargaining position that it has on the River Usk Barrage Bill, which has entered the other place. The NRA is objecting strongly to that Bill. According to a conversation that I had with it this morning, there is more than a 50–50 chance that it will be able to maintain that objection throughout the negotiations with the promoters.
  The NRA came into existence on 1 September 1988. The last day for objecting to this Bill was some six weeks before that, on 26 July. Until 1 September, the Welsh division of the NRA was merely a subsidiary of Welsh Water. If Welsh Water did not want to object to the Bill —and it did not—there was nothing that the people who five weeks later formed the NRA could do. We were told that they did want to object, but we shall never really know the answer to that.
  By 1 September, when the NRA came into existence, it could not object because the closing date for objections was 26 July. The NRA's bargaining position is therefore extremely weak. It must obtain the best bargain that it can. That is all that it can do. It can say that it wants a fish pass which will use the latest available and best technology. On the Usk barrage it can say that if the promoters do not provide a fish pass that the NRA likes, it will stop the Bill.

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  On the Cardiff bay barrage it can try to bargain for an adequate fish pass, but in the end the promoters can say, "This is the best fish pass that we can come up with, but we are going ahead with the Bill because you did not exist as a separate body with a specific duty of conservation of aquatic flora and fauna until it was too late to object." The NRA will not be able to insist on a fish pass, for example.
  We are not discussing fisheries yet. We are discussing algal scum, phosphates, leachates and water quality in general.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: Those matters still have an effect on the fish.
  Mr. Morgan: They certainly do. The same principle undoubtedly applies to phosphate and nitrate stripping, the matter dealt with in new clause 6.
  I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has come back into the Chamber. I have been speaking about him in glowing and complimentary terms as an environmentalist who approaches the problem from a slightly different angle from me. I am asking how things are to be done before the barrage is built. I am not prepared to take it on trust that the appropriate authorities are happy with the undertakings that they have received. Such authorities are in the weak bargaining position that I have described. They could not object to the Bill because they did not exist when the opportunity was available to do so. I paraphrase briefly for my hon. Friend what I have said in the past few minutes.
  Tonight we are trying to decide whether the approach of the new clauses is more relevant for achieving the standards that everyone will seek in the year 2005, or whether the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is more appropriate. His approach is that the National Rivers Authority says that it has an undertaking which is long and detailed and refers to algal scum, water quality, future water quality standards and what it will have to do to enforce them. But in its present bargaining position, if we do not retrospectively include the provisions for which the NRA would have asked if it had existed on 26 July—the last day for submitting objections to the Bill—
  Mr. Cryer: Another aspect on which my hon. Friend may wish to comment is the letter from the Secretary of State for Wales demonstrating strong support for the Bill. I remind my hon. Friend that the current chairman of the National Rivers Authority is Lord Crickhowell, a former Secretary of State for Wales. Therefore, unless something is included in the Bill, people might suspect that the standards of environmental protection that my hon. Friend regards as desirable—I am sure that that view is shared by the whole House—might go by the board. Whether or not their suspicions are accurate, people may believe that there is a conspiracy between successive Secretaries of State for Wales to get through the House what is referred to in the letter as a "very exciting project". It is important for ensuring decent standards of conduct in public life that the safeguards that my hon. Friend seeks are included in the Bill.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend enables me to refer to the new Tory tendency of trying to be all things to all men, one
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  of the descriptions of our new and much-loved Prime Minister, particularly among Opposition Members but not so much among Tory Members. That was the criticism of the Prime Minister made, I think, by Sir Alan Walters, in this rash of criticism that has broken out.
  The Secretary of State for Wales has been doing the same thing. The letter to which my hon. Friend referred has been sent to all members of the Cabinet to tell their Parliamentary Private Secretaries to be here tonight—some were obviously lost in the post, or there would have been 115 here. Perhaps the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries has been reduced dramatically since last weekend—we are not quite sure which.
  The same subject was covered by another letter which the Secretary of State wrote on 16 April, faxed to Ian Prestt, the director general of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, an extremely distinguished former senior civil servant in the Department of the Environment. It said:
  "I cannot accept your allegation that my letter of 31 March is 'tantamount to an official whip'. The Government has consistently made clear its substantial interest in the objectives of the Bill."
  So far so good. That is the same as the letter sent to members of the Cabinet. Then the Secretary of State for Wales went on:
  "Subject only to the additional work and consultation on ground water, I remain committed to the barrage as the best way of assisting the regeneration of Cardiff Bay."
  There is no mention of that in his letter to the Cabinet; nothing about the duties that he will have to discharge subject to the enactment of the Bill in saying whether there should be a final go or no-go decision on the barrage depending on the decisions on ground water and the public consultation exercise at the end of the year. Why should he be sending a different message to his Cabinet colleagues and hiding from them the fact that he has this quasi-judicial role in the early months of next year when, trying to be all things to all men, he tells the RSPB that of course he is aware of all his additional duties arising from the Bill? Why did he not send the same message to his fellow Cabinet members when he wrote telling them to be here as though this was the last word on the Bill?
  How far should promoters have to go? Should they have to explain to the House how they propose to solve the giant problems of the project? Take, for example, the Ferry road tip dealt with in new clause 17. That new clause says that before the barrage is constructed the promoters must produce and publish their proposals for the future of the Ferry road tip. We all realise that what happens to that tip is vital to the viability of the barrage, the cleanliness of the water in the barrage and the availability of land for development in the barrage. The protective clauses mention that but they do not say what is to be done and it is important that we should try to establish that at this stage through the publication of a proposal for the Ferry road tip. The Cardiff Bay development corporation has been operating in secrecy and speaking with forked tongue on the subject.
  Mr. Skinner: One reason why the promoters are not terribly worried about including the safeguards that my hon. Friend is outlining is that the Government have a majority of 150 and they know that they can shove private Bills through in the middle of the night. They need only keep a few Members here—they have not made it tonight, that is true—and the safeguards can go by the board. The

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  Government will put on an official or semi-official Whip in order to get the Bill through. That has been the feature of such legislation since 1979. The Government's majority has enabled the promoters to get away with blue murder. They have used the Government's built-in majority rather than allowing such matters to be dealt with on a non-party basis.
  Mr. Morgan: I could not agree more.
  The Secretary of State has spoken with forked tongue through his front organisation, the Cardiff' Bay development corporation, on the precise subject of new clause 17, which states:
  'Before commencement of impounding by means of the barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish proposals for the sealing of the Ferry Road tip to the satisfaction of the rivers authority and the Environmental Health Officer of the city council that no material risk of infiltration of the inland bay or of groundwater by leachate from the tip will occur.'.
  1.45 am
  Consider what we have learnt from the Touche Ross report. That report was undertaken at the insistence of the Welsh Office for the Cardiff city council to aid its execution of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. That report states:
  "The intentions of Cardiff Bay Development Corporation have affected the waste management planning in Cardiff adversely. Accepting the political reality, the intentions of the Cardiff Bay Development Corporation with respect to Ferry Road should be finalised."
  That is exactly what we are saying. We believe that they should be produced and published. The report states that the consultants
  "feel however that CBDC has grossly underestimated the logistic, environmental, health and safety problems associated with exhuming 2 million cubic metres of waste"—
  let alone with transporting that to Bedford. Now we come to the interesting part of the report, which the Welsh Office will know all about as it is mentioned. It says:
  "The Consultants have, in fact, following informal discussions with the Welsh Office, intimated that the removal of the tip may not now proceed in full."
  What will be done? We do not know. In public it is said that the tip will be removed, probably to Bedfordshire, or possibly to some other site in south Wales.
  Dr. Marek: It would help the House if my hon. Friend could give the reasons for the existence of the Cardiff Bay development corporation. Does it have any social objectives, or is it in it just for the money? What are its terms of reference? What were the terms of reference for Touche Ross? Only when we know precisely those terms of reference can we interpret the information that my hon. Friend has provided objectively.
  Mr. Morgan: It would detain the House unduly if I went over the purposes of the corporation—I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, with your eagle eye and ear would prevent me. It had something to do with creating a superlative maritme city in Cardiff and reuniting the old docks area with the city centre.
  The commission given by Cardiff city council to Touche Ross was designed to enable it to comply with the Environmental Protection Act 1990. That Act stated that by last Friday all local authorities in Wales had to produce proposals on how they intended to manage waste disposal in their areas. The new scheme introduced LAWDACS —local authority waste disposal authorities and companies—while the local authority monitoring role in
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  connection with waste disposal had to separate from the actual collection and from disposal of that waste. Local authorities had to produce their relevant proposals by Friday.
  In October 1990, the Cardiff city council hired Touche Ross to produce those proposals. The consultants referred to the "informal discussions" that had gone on behind closed doors with the Welsh Office. The public in Cardiff know nothing about those discussions, and, contrary to all the published evidence in the press and the general impression that the Ferry road tip would be removed, the consultants employed by the council have been told informally by the Welsh Office that no such thing will happen. They have been told that the tip will not be moved, or that not all of it will be moved, or that it will simply be moved from one half of the site to another.
  A form of waste disposal alps may be created, with a low-level site in one part of the Ferry road tip and a high-level site in another. It beats me how that can be done with decomposing refuse, but I understand that that is the sort of proposal that the Welsh Office is now discussing with consultants. The general public do not know that, Parliament does not know it, the Select Committee was not told it. We were all told, "There are other options, but the favoured solution is the removal of the Ferry road tip to Bedford." To dispense with such confusion, we must be clear, before the corporation starts impounding the water, what it proposes to do with the tip. It cannot say one thing to the public in Cardiff and another behindhand to the Welsh Office, which may then, it seems, talk to consultants here and there without the knowledge of Parliament or of voters in Cardiff.
  Mr. Cryer: I am tempted by my hon. Friend's comments and by the comments made earlier in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) to ask for confirmation that there is no guarantee that, if the tip is moved in whole or in part, it will be moved by environmentally friendly railway and not by environment-ally hostile heavy juggernauts thundering through Cardiff and down many highways and by-ways before reaching Bedfordshire or wherever else it is dumped. The Government have an anti-rail policy, and it is clear that, with no guarantees laid down, thousands of lorry movements may be required to get rid of such a huge tip. Does my hon. Friend agree that if it had definitely been stated that there would be—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is this an intervention?
  Mr. Cryer: I am enabling my hon. Friend to have a drink of water, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and so killing two birds with one stone. Does my hon. Friend agree that, if that had been clearly stated, Cardiff citizens would be lining the streets in protest at the proposal?
  Mr. Morgan: Having a drink of London tap water reminds one of what an important subject water quality is —for all of us, both now and in future. My hon. Friend is entirely right, and it is very much an open question. Let us suppose that the tip removal went ahead in part or in whole, which is what most members of the public in Cardiff think will happen given all the official public statements about the preferred option. The waste would probably go by road if it went to the site in Mid Glamorgan that the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) mentioned, causing the hon. Member for

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  Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) to jump 3 ft off the ground. If the waste were taken to Bedfordshire, however, I am reasonably assured that the move would be feasible only by long-distrance rail haulage. Contrary to the impression given in Cardiff, secret negotiations are taking place with a view to leaving the tip in place or shovelling it around —landscaping it or making it a golf course, a playing field or whatever. To be honest, we do not know what will happen. I do not think that the proposals have gone that far. It looks as though the promoters have been speaking with forked tongue and the public in Cardiff and Parliament have been grossly misled.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend was asked a straight and simple question about the possibility or likelihood of the tip removal involving large numbers of lorry movements through the streets of Cardiff. Perhaps he knows something that I do not know. As I understand it, the removal would—or will—involve train movements and not lorry movements. Does my hon. Friend agree with me on that simple point? If not, can he give me the authority for any doubts that he has on the matter?
  Mr. Morgan: Yes, I shall be happy to clarify the matter as far as I can. Suppose that the tip is wholly or partly removed. If it is taken to the site in Mid Glamorgan that was referred to, I do not know of a railhead that could be used. That was my point. The waste would therefore have to go by road. I understand, however, that if the waste went to Bedfordshire, it would go by rail. My hon. Friend is right, however, that if the waste went to the site in Mid Glamorgan, it would not travel through residential streets, although it would travel quite close to some streets of new estate houses in my constituency, along a main haulage dual carriageway.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend has clarified the position. I understand that, when disposal to sites outside south Wales is considered, rail transport proves to be the only option. However, my hon. Friend keeps referring to other options relating to, for instance, sites in Mid Glamorgan. Has he any authority for that, or is it another of the red herrings that featured in an earlier stage of discussion about the tip? I know of no such suggestion.
  Mr. Morgan: If my hon. Friend is in a position to say that former quarry sites in Mid Glamorgan owned by Wimpey Waste Management are definitely off limits through some process of debarring, he had better intervene again. I have the impression from the development corporation's statements that if it removes the site—which is still its public and official line—it will be up to waste management contractors to put in the best offer: outfits such as Wimpey Waste Management, which owns the enormous quarry in the southern part of Mid Glamorgan, and Shanks McEwan in Bedford. If Wimpey Waste Management won the contract, perhaps the development corporation would deal with it, feeling obliged to accept the best offer. Neither company would be debarred.
  Mr. Win Griffiths (Ogwr): When the possibility of the Ferry road tip being taken by the lorryload and put into the old quarries at Stormy Down was raised, Ogur borough council, as the planning authority, resolved in principle that it would not be suitable to move the tip to the large hole in Stormy Down, which is in my
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  constituency. Many of the councillors were very upset about the possibility of such action. The councillor in the ward where I live—Cefn Cribwr, known by its old parish name of Tythegston Higher—said that he would be prepared to lie in the road and prevent any of the lorries coming anywhere near Stormy Down. That was Councillor Viv Thomas.
  Mr. Morgan: I am happy to answer that question, while my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth finds out whether he is able to reassure the House as I asked him to.
  We have been upsetting ourselves over the environmen-tal consequences of large-scale waste removal—exhumation, as it is described in the consultants' report, stray paragraphs of which have come to our notice and have enabled us to conduct a proper, well-informed debate. The report contradicts the official line—which is believed by the public in Cardiff—and removes most of the possibility of large-scale waste removal to either Mid-Glamorgan or Bedfordshire. It appears that the Welsh Office knows something that Parliament does not. I should be happy to give way to the Minister, if he wants to say more about the negotiations between Touche Ross and the Welsh Office. I have read out Touche Ross's version—that, following its informal discussions with the Welsh Office, the removal of the tip may not proceed in full. If that is true, I am very happy to hear it.
  Mr. Michael: I appreciate that we are dealing with widely ranging issues, but I do not think that we should create worry where none should exist. I am told that Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire are the only options being considered by the development corporation and that rail is the only option being considered for transport to those locations. That eliminates Mid Glamorgan and road transport. Does my hon. Friend have information that contradicts that? I am sure that he agrees that on serious matters such as this we should not operate on gossip or innuendo. I have checked my memory of those matters with the promoters and what I have said knocks other suggestions on the head.
  2 am
  Mr. Morgan: I would be glad to be knocked on the head if it would remove from my memory a conversation with the promoters in which they said that the issue would depend on the offers from waste management contractors. I would be happy to accept the withdrawal of that statement. We have had information about secret negotiations in the Welsh Office about the tip not being moved. New clause 7 deals with the sealing of that tip if it is not moved. We are becoming bogged down in the lesser of two probabilities about the future of the Ferry road tip. There have been negotiations between Touche Ross on behalf of Cardiff city council and the Welsh Office, whose representatives remain sedentary and silent. They are probably still shell shocked by their failure on the closure motion, despite a circular letter to the Parliamentary Private Secretaries who are now safely tucked under their duvets.
  Mr. Michael: I appreciate that my hon. Friend wishes to explore people's minds. I am sure that at all times he wants to explore people's approach to matters to make sure that they are right, and to look at other options. My hon. Friend, of all people, would not want anyone to close

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  his mind to other options. As I have said in relation to the tip's removal, the option that I mentioned is the only one that is being or has been considered. Leaching is consequent upon the issues that we are debating, and those issues are dealt with by the Bill as it stands.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend is right to say that these issues are mentioned in the Bill. They are also mentioned in our new clauses. We are both pointing to the need for a solution to problems of leaching, phosphate and nitrate in the waters feeding the barrage, removal of the existing sewer outfalls and algae. Our new clauses strengthen the safeguards that my hon. Friend says are already in the Bill. The approach that my hon. Friend commends to the House does not require the promoters to show the House before it passes the Bill, or before its contents satisfy somebody else, how they intend to solve those problems.
  We do not know what the promoters intend to do about the Ferry road tip. Our latest understanding, following bits of news about negotiations between Touche Ross and the Welsh Office, is that the tip is not to be removed. In that case, we need to know how it will be sealed. How do we deal with the problems covered by new clause 5 on leaching and new clause 17 on the sealing of the tip? There are two approaches to the problem, on the Welsh Office assumption that the Ferry road tip is to stay. We would like a definitive statement from the promoters or from the Welsh Office as to whether the tip is to stay or to go. I think that it will remain, but the official line is that it is to be removed. It would be useful to be able to determine the matter tonight, but if we are not told, that is 10 times more reason than we thought we had for insisting on new clauses 5 and 17 about the future of the Ferry road tip.
  What will happen to the tip? If it is to stay, how are we to seal off such a large tip—in size, it is in the top 20—that is at the height of its powers of decomposition? It is a major producer of methane. It adjoins the old gasworks tip, with all the phenolics, cyanide and cyanates that are to be found in the ground deep underneath the gasworks, which produced gas by coke. The ground water surges round the old coke, which contains cyanates and phenolics. There is the decomposing tip, with all the methane and organics. It will be in contact with a much higher level of ground water following the closing off at the permanent high water level of the barrage.
  We need to know before the impoundment starts how the promoters intend to solve the problem. To paraphrase the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth as reasonably as I can, he says that we should be satisfied with the undertakings that have been secured by the National Rivers Authority, Cardiff city council or Welsh Water, or by the words that appear in the Bill, even though they are far from specific about the solutions that are proposed.
  Phosphate and nitrate removal could have a colossal effect on my constituents. If it is necessary to introduce phosphate and nitrate removal plants on the Taff and the Ely of the sort that are on the Rhine, where are they to be situated? Such plants are large. They could be situated at the double sewage works at Cilfynydd, one of which deals with the sewage from the Cynon and the other with the sewage from the Taff north of Pontypridd up to Merthyr. It would be possible to bolt on to the sewage works a removal plant. That would be handy, but the trouble is
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  that a lot of sewage comes out into the Taff through the storm sewer disposal works that are below the sewage works.
  I apologise for turning my back on you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I turned 180 deg while explaining these matters to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. The hour is late, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I ask you to excuse me.
  The Ely might just be in the vale of Glamorgan. The Miskin sewage works are the main works that cover the Taff-Ely borough, an area in which the population has exploded during the past 20 years. The works are brand new and they do a great job. Large quantities of treated sewage are discharged back into the River Ely, which passes through my constituency. During a dry summer, 50 per cent. of the water in the river comes from the sewage works, and it contains a colossal amount of nitrate and phosphate.
  As I have said, it is possible to bolt on removal works to remove phosphates and nitrates that are in the sewage, but they will not deal with storm overflows, and I am told that there are about 250 in the catchment areas. Given the rainfall in south Wales, the overflows work summer and winter, which means that a great deal of sewage does not pass via the sewerage works. There is also dog excrement that is washed into the rain water sewers, which ends up in the river. That is a major source of phosphates and, to a lesser extent, nitrates. None of that will be covered by the waters of the bay unless there is a phosphate and nitrate treatment works in operation just before the water enters the lake. That is where my constituency comes on the scene.
  The Rhine is taken almost completely off its production line, as it were. It is taken from its normal flow. That means carving out a new river channel, and the river, in its entirety, is passed through decomposition tanks of iron for phosphates and aluminium for nitrates, or it might be the other way round. Either way, there is a need for an iron decomposition tank and an aluminium tank to react against the phosphates and nitrates and neutralise them.
  Where is that to be done in my constituency? Will part of the playing fields in the castle grounds be taken? Where are we to take the Taff from its normal stream and pass it through two tanks and then return it to its formal flow? Is there any other solution? Do we know what the solution is? Have we heard anything that amounts to a solution to the problem of phosphate and nitrate removal? Even the promoters accept that the removal may become necessary if we are to comply with the municipal waste water directives of which my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd spoke so eloquently. Those concerns must be met before we can buy this pig in a poke. I do not know whether the necessary land is available, but if no solution can be found there should be no barrage. There should be no impounding until we can see how the problems that the barrage will create can be solved. If we cannot see how the problems can be solved, there should be no barrage.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth believes that the NRA is aware of the problems and will set the standards. There are many committed, hard-working staff in the NRA and they will do their job. However, it is far too late for them to do their job fully in the sense of being able to bargain as equal partners with the Cardiff Bay development corporation because the NRA did not exist when objections were to be heard. The

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  NRA was unable to bargain and say that, unless certain solutions to problems were forthcoming, the permissions would not be granted.
  Lord Crickhowell's position is also a problem. Regardless of his persuasive qualities and personal commitment to his job as chairman of the NRA, he must be conscious that he cannot be unbiased in relation to the Cardiff bay barrage. His commitment is, if possible, even greater than that of the present Secretary of State for Wales as a result of his sense of parental responsibility for the project.
  Dr. Marek: Reference has been made to the land holdings of companies associated with Lord Crickhowell. Does my hon. Friend have any further information about that? That point is important and pertinent with regard to the NRA and the way in which its policies are prosecuted and whether there may be a conflict of interest between Lord Crickhowell in his capacity as the member of a company with an interest in land in the Cardiff bay barrage area and his position as chairman of the NRA.
  Mr. Morgan: I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) has the permission of Mr. Deputy Speaker to take us down that road to investigate those inter-locking interests. The post-Cabinet, post-parliamentary appointments secured by the former Secretary of State for Wales have left him in an extremely difficult position with regard to the Cardiff bay barrage.
  Dr. Marek: I am sure that Mr. Deputy Speaker would rule my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West out of order if he were to stray out of order. However, I hope that he will be in order because we are discussing new clauses that are principally concerned with the cleanliness of water, and that is an essential function of the NRA. Subject to the view of Mr. Deputy Speaker, I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West would be in order—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have had enough discussion about how I might hypothetically rule in certain hypothetical circumstances. If the debate relates to new clause 5, it will be in order.
  Mr. Morgan: I am grateful for your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I understand the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham. His point is pertinent because it relates to the former Secretary of State for Wales who is now the chairman of the NRA, director of Associated British Ports Holdings and of HTV and several other companies. The former Secretary of State for Wales is Captain Clean-up. He is supposed to be like Caesar's wife —or was it Lot's wife?—and be above suspicion when it comes to pollution.
  Captain Clean-up must be in the van of leading the fight to eradicate water pollution. However, in the other place, Lord Crickhowell adopted a position that I could not follow. As chairman of the NRA and as an interested member of the other place, he knocked six bells out of the Usk barrage, saying that the NRA takes a strong view about such barriers because it is not satisfied about the fish bars or about the conservation of the aquatic flora and
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  fauna, and he said that there was no way in which he could sleep tight in bed if he allowed the proposal to go through when it seems so thoroughly dangerous and pernicious.
  The position in this case is completely different. The National Rivers Authority did not exist at that time. Its chairman is known to be the progenitor of the scheme. Standing on Penarth head one day with a local architect, he thought to himself, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a barrage between Penarth head and Queen Alexandra dock gate? What a wonderful lake it would make." When politicians near the end of their careers, they like to leave behind a memorial to their period in office. The Secretary of State for Wales did not want his eight years in that job simply to appear as a footnote in the history books. He wanted to create something big so that people would say, "That was Lord Crickhowell's—Captain Clean-up's—idea."
  2.15 am
  That creates a credibility problem when the person who favours the Cardiff Bay barrage knocks six bells out of the Usk barrage. That was not his idea. However, Lord Crickhowell is now chairman of the NRA; that is his primary responsibility. The NRA has the power, given by legislation, formally to object. It is a separate body, but that was not the case at the last date when objections could be lodged against the Bill.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: My hon. Friend is pursuing an interesting line of inquiry concerning the attitude of the NRA's chairman to the inland lake that the barrage would create in Cardiff, compared with his attitude to the proposal for a barrage across the River Usk. He suggests that part of the problem is that the NRA did not exist when objections to the Cardiff Bay barrage had to be lodged. That may be the most important point. Might it not be that the former Secretary of State for Wales took the title Lord Crickhowell because Crickhowell is on the banks of the River Usk?
  Mr. Morgan: I understand that he did not take the title Lord Pembroke because he wanted to leave that title to the present Member of Parliament for Pembroke after he loses his seat at the next election. However, I shudder to think what quango may be found for him to chair if the widely forecast change of Government takes place, involving the loss of his seat. Lord Crickhowell is associated with the Usk valley where he had a house. However, it is a speculative point, and I intend to confine myself to the facts.
  Welsh Water was in effect the predecessor of the National Rivers Authority, which came into being six weeks too late to object to the Bill. Welsh Water had no duty to conserve aquatic flora and fauna, but its successor body, the National Rivers Authority, has. Before 1 September 1988, the only body that had a duty to conserve aquatic flora and fauna was the Nature Conservancy Council. As might have been expected, it objected to the Bill. Had the NRA been in existence on 26 July 1988, it, too, would have objected. The view of the NRA's council for Wales staff is that it would have felt obliged to object on the ground that it had a duty to conserve aquatic flora and fauna, a duty that its predecessor body did not have. It is one of those accidents, but the House could remedy it by accepting some of these amendments.
  Mr. Rogers: If my hon. Friend had not been in order, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would have stopped him. He attributed motives to Lord Crickhowell, a former Secretary of State—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I was about to reproach the hon. Gentleman when he moved away from that point. I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) will not now tempt me to make the reproach that I was about to make then. Perhaps we should get back to the speech of the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan).
  Mr. Rogers rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have left the question of Lord Crickhowell.
  Mr. Rogers: I accept your admonition, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I want to refer directly to new clause 6, which says:
  "the undertakers and water company shall produce and publish a plan".
  When the previous Secretary of State for Wales granted permission, that requirement did not exist. The then Secretary of State is now a very substantial director of Associated British Ports, which owns 160 acres in the Cardiff bay area. One could not attribute to him a desire to have a statue erected, but he seems to have taken advantage of the revolving door—moving out of Government and into one of the companies that he helped. This kind of thing happens all the time. All Opposition Members criticise Conservative Members for it. We have seen it in the case of British Aerospace. I do not think that the previous Secretary of State for Wales is any better than the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit).
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Rogers: I have finished.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend has raised a point that tangentially—
  Mr. Win Griffiths: "Tangenitally".
  Mr. Morgan: I do not think that that version is at all suitable.
  Nothing that I have said should have given my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), or any other hon. Member, the impression that I approve of the arrangement by which Lord Crickhowell, immediately on ceasing to be a member of the Cabinet, became chairman of the National Rivers Authority and a director of Associated British Ports. From the point of view of the unbiased treatment of this Bill, that is regrettable. It is bound to lead to a problem of perception, even if there is no conflict of interests. We have to accept that there is a problem and that Parliament must try to satisfy people who are worried about water-pollution-related issues. At the time in question, the NRA did not exist, and since then the person widely regarded as the father of the barrage has become chairman of that authority and a director of Associated British Ports.
  Some of the amendments that were not selected dealt with this matter. We tried to clean up the act in relation to the barrage and ex-Ministers. We tried to do likewise in the case of British Telecom, but our amendments were not called. A former Secretary of State is a director of British Gas, but again our amendments were not selected. And the
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  same applies to Associated British Ports. No doubt the very judicious decision of the authorities of the House to ensure that such amendments were not called has been proved right by the fact that, today, we have not needed to devote very much time to the activities of former members of the Cabinet.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman please return to the new clauses that are before the House?
  Mr. Morgan: Mention has been made of the fact that, when a barrage is built, the inter-tidal movement is broken up. There is fresh water on one side and salt water on the other, but there is no partially saline water between. That partially saline water may seem of little importance to hon. Members, but it is incredibly important as a flushing mechanism. It is called the kidneys of the system because it moves in and out vigorously in areas with high tidal ranges such as the upper Bristol channel. It acts extremely effectively, although not in accord with modern practice, as the kidneys of urban industrial south Wales and Bristol.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: I agree that the tidal range in the Severn estuary helps to flush out many of the harmful pollutants, but we must remember that there is much pollution to be treated and that that flushing process does not make those waters safe.
  Mr. Morgan: I am glad that my hon. Friend has made that point. It was almost a Pavlovian reaction, which I expected as I am aware of his passionate commitment to clean beaches and a clean marine environment. That is a further responsibility of the National Rivers Authority. He took some unjustified and fearful hammerings from Welsh Water but has been proved right. Welsh Water said that EC directives would be unnecessary for the treatment of sewage discharges near public bathing beaches. It said that they did no harm, that it had the right means of dealing with long sea outfalls and that other pollutants would be dealt with by the vigorous action of the Bristol channel.
  No hon. Member has mentioned new clause 8—unless I missed it while I was having a cup of tea.
  Mr. Ron Davies: What was in the tea?
  Mr. Morgan: I have mentioned the problems with London drinking water, which passes through three kidneys before it reaches the taps.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: Seven.
  Mr. Morgan: I did not realise that an expert on kidneys was present.
  New clause 8, which has received less attention than the other four new clauses, relates to sewage outfalls. In the same spirit of the other four new clauses, it says:
  "Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to the sewer outfalls discharging directly into the inland bay"—
  that is partly dealt with by the Bill—
  "or into the waters of the rivers discharging into the Bay"—
  that is not dealt with by the Bill, but it was dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd—
  "or the tributaries thereof, showing the proposed means of removal, relocation or improvement"—
  that phrase recurs time and again in the promoters' version of the Bill, which we have improved—
  "and the agreement of the owner of each outfall to such removal, relocation or improvement"—

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  another phrase borrowed from a standard clause that recurs in the handiwork of the promoters and their parliamentary agents.
  The importance of our additions are twofold. First, we tried not only to make specific the obligations on the National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water for water treatment, sewage removal or treatment but to say to the promoters, "Before you impound the barrage you must be able to show how you will do the job." We insisted on that because they have not dealt with storm sewer overflows or with what will happen when the 14 direct sewers are diverted so that they do not discharge into the lake. Where will they discharge into? The Bristol channel. Is that an improvement? It is a bit of an improvement. Obviously they could not discharge into the lake and we do not want them discharging, as now, into very enclosed tidal waters where, because of increasing population pressures, they discharge more and more on the incoming tide, washing raw sewage up the rivers Taff and Ely into the town centre, and then back down again on the outgoing tide. That did not happen in the old days when the population pressure was right. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth would agree that they should be got rid of, but diverting them round the corner into the Bristol channel is not the right solution. That is why we have proposed an improvement.
  2.30 am
  Mr. Michael: I am sure that my hon. Friend does not want to mislead the House. I am glad that he has welcomed the diversion of those sewers from Cardiff bay. It is only the introduction of the barrage under the Bill that gives that promise. He suggested that the sewers are merely to be diverted round the corner into the Bristol channel. Will he acknowledge that, due to considerable pressure exerted by my hon. Friend the Member for the Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) and myself, we are to have treatment at the Lavernock works, to which the sewers will be diverted, to meet European standards—an issue on which my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths), along with other hon. Members, have fought over a considerable period? I take the point about the fear that he was expressing, but that has been dealt with by assurances given by the Secretary of State for the Environment.
  Does my hon. Friend also accept that the diversion of sewer outfalls upstream must be a matter for the water authority and the National Rivers Authority to resolve? I agree with him that there should be an onus on the Government to improve water quality in the rivers. We would all unite on that, but it is too onerous a responsibility to cover in the Bill. It is a matter for more general legislation because such a clean-up is required not as a consequence of the Bill but as part of the improvement of water quality of rivers generally.
  Mr. Morgan: I am happy to give my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) maximum credit. They worked together to get assurances about the Lavernock outfall and got an improvement on the original intention when we discussed the matter on Second Reading.
  I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth would be happy to concede that the key
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  point is the interpretation of the relevant EEC municipal waste water directives. We are all aware that while legislation may be encouraging, the actual experience of walking along our river banks shows that conditions do not always improve according to the legislation. The National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water will say that they have done their best and have spent a lot of money, but that consumers would not pay for more improve-ments. Unless there is compulsion, the authorities do not always do what is required.
  Ten years ago, when one walked along the banks of the River Ely in my constituency there was no smell of sewage because there was no discharge of sewage from the Cowslip and Cogan outfalls on the rising tide and the sewage was not carried inland. As more houses were built in the area, sewage had to be discharged at all times when the outfall was covered by water. Then the sewage was carried upstream first and downstream later. As soon as the tide goes down, the banks are hideously ill-smelling. Those are the sort of practical problems. Does the public believe that the job will be done as it is supposed to be in this optimistic legislation? The public want us to try to enforce that lesson by introducing greater compulsion.
  Mr. Michael: I do not want to take up the time of the House by correcting the odd description that my hon. Friend gave of the results of the Cowslip estate. There are certainly problems there, but they will be helped by the measures resulting from the barrage. My hon. Friend said that it was not enough to have things in legislation or regulation. The fact that EC directives have contained rules has not necessarily brought about the results that we would require—that is certainly true.
  The diverted sewers from the Cardiff bay area will feed into Lavernock and, as a result of the statement made by the Secretary of State for the Environment at the last year's North sea conference, a firm undertaking was given with regard to treatment at future outfalls around the coast of Britain. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan and I exerted pressure to try to ensure that that undertaking should apply to the Lavernock outfall and should not be regarded, as the Government then appeared to intend, as something for which permission had already been given. We received an absolute promise from the Secretary of State for the Environment that it would be a treated outfall and would fall within the terms of the undertaking given at the North sea conference.
  Mr. Morgan: I accept everything that my hon. Friend has said. The only difference between us relates to the form of treatment that would need to be given. My interpretation of the EC directive on municipal waste water is that it could very well compel Welsh Water and the National Rivers Authority to come to an arrangement whereby third-stage treatment—phosphate and nitrate removal—would have to be carried out at Lavernock or any other sea outfall taking municipal waste water.
  The undertaking that my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Vale of Glamorgan got from the Secretary of State was that secondary treatment, which does not include phosphate and nitrate removal, would be carried out. That involves biological reaction, oxygenation and the usual treatments that take place in most British sewage works. But my reading of the EC directive is that the Lavernock sea outfall would be regarded as discharging into a sensitive district because

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  there are so many bathing beaches there—it is almost one continuous bathing beach from Lavernock point to Barry island. It is not one of the great resorts of Great Britain, but is a popular resort, which would make it a sensitive water. In addition, the outfall discharges from a population of more than 10,000 people, in terms of coastal discharges, and 2,000 people, in terms of inland population—for which Cardiff, Penarth, Dinas Powys and Barry certainly qualify.
  If the outfall requires third-stage treatment, we need an undertaking from the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales that goes beyond the undertaking that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has received. That is the only difference between us. I am happy with the undertaking that he has received so far as it goes, but the very fact that there is a difference of opinion between our interpretation of the EC directive reinforces the reason for the new clauses.
  If, as we state in new clause 8, those sewers must be diverted and treated up to the EC standards that will exist in 1995 when the barrage will open for business, and third-stage treatment is required, there is still no undertaking to cover that. That is my understanding of the Secretaries of State's undertaking to my hon. Friends for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Vale of Glamorgan. The undertaking covers only secondary treatment, but I think that the EC directive means that there will have to be full tertiary River Rhine-type treatment, including phosphate and nitrate removal. That is why we argue that the Bill must be specific—the matter cannot be left to the interpretation of the National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water. Those organisations may say, "Who really needs it, you only need that sort of thing on the Rhine. We do not want to mess around with that—it is much too expensive."
  Mr. Win Griffiths: I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene at last, although I realise that he was pursuing an important argument regarding the intervention by our hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Micheal). During his discourse, before the original intervention when we both tried to intervene, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) was making a case about the cost to consumers of all the remedial works which were necessary to deal with this pollution. I merely want to confirm that the chairman of the former Welsh water authority and the current chairman of its successor, the privatised Welsh Water company, Mr. John Jones, is a constituent of mine. Whenever we meet he never fails to remind me that the cleaning up of our act as regards water quality is an expensive business. I therefore stress what my hon. Friend is saying, as that argument needs to be emphasised and to be considered in relation to the incredible extra costs that will be involved in keeping the water in the lagoon behind the barrage to a reasonable standard, if that can be successfully achieved over a long period of time.
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend used the phrase "cleaning up our act" and that is a good description of the set of clauses that we are debating because it is precisely what we are trying to do. I use the word "our" as though we were among the sponsors, which we are not. We are mainly Members of Parliament representing south Wales, who are especially interested in the Bill. I include my hon. Friend the Member for
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  Wrexham as an honorary south Walian, which I am sure he will be pleased about, although I do not know whether his constituents would.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend mentioned the attitude of people such as the chairman of Welsh Water, who say that the consumer will never pay for that sort of treatment. They say that if there can be a conspiracy between consumers worried about the size of their water and sewerage bills, and the Government, who do not want the retail prices index to shoot up again to 8·9 per cent. or whatever and therefore say, "Keep water charges down", a conspiracy to keep the EC out of our water affairs, then so much the better. Our standards will be lower than those of the Germans and the Dutch, but what the hell. We British are a pretty dirty nation, especially we people in south Wales—we live among tips and so forth. People like the chairman of Welsh Water will say that if we can possibly get away with a minimalist approach, let us get away with it, as we have done for years.
  I can remember meetings that I attended, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend, with the old Welsh Water—when it included the Welsh responsibilities of the present National Rivers Authority—where the question was asked, "Who needs any kind of treatment in coastal waters?" Five or six years ago there were long sea outfalls and it was said that the vigour of the British channel, the world's greatest natural flush lavatory, with 5 cu km of salt water roaring up the channel and back down again, dispersed the waste. The fact that it undispersed it and brought it back on the next tide did not seem to occur to Welsh Water, but eventually it had to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend. However, one can see from his description that that same minimalist attitude still remains, and that is why new clause 8 is necessary to ensure that the promoters are firmly pinned down before impoundment takes place to decide whether these are sensitive waters. If they are, how do the promoters propose to comply with the municipal waste water treatment requirements for tertiary—that is full—treatment? That means that one is able to drink the water when it comes out of the sewage treatment works; it does not contain eutrophicating surplus nutrients for algae, have biological consequences for our beaches, or contain the alleged super-germs, which have driven tourists away from all the beaches in the upper Bristol channel once it became known that they were there.
  Dr. Marek: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, will he say a little more about the River Rhine and consider whether what happens there would be effective in the Cardiff bay area? Where are the settlement tanks on the Rhine? How much do they cost? How effective are they? Could such treatment be used on the Taff?
  2.45 am
  Mr. Morgan: That intervention is pertinent to new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping. People were panic stricken about the state of the Rhine. Since the introduction of the Bill and the inception of the NRA, I know that the NRA has sent people to the Rhine to see the phosphate treatment works. I do not think that there is one in this country yet. Nobody has yet attempted to apply the higher standards in this country. As the only place where such works can be seen in action is on the Rhine, the NRA went over to see it. It has made a ballpark estimate

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  of how much one would cost, as per the terms of new clause 6. The NRA is not unconscious of the EEC's possible requirement and of the duties that would then fall on the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office to comply with any directives because national authorities have to comply with EEC directives and are fined by the European Commission and Court of Justice if they do not.
  The NRA popped over to have a look at the many phosphate-stripping works on the Rhine, all of which have been built in the past 10 years, totally transforming the Rhine—except when there is a nasty big chemical spill in Switzerland. The NRA has tried to apply that to the phosphate and nitrate problem on the Taff from the Cilfynydd sewage works and to the problem on the Ely at Miskin, the Taff and Ely being the two rivers that discharge into the bay that we are talking about converting into a lake. It was thought that it would cost about £50 million to apply phosphate stripping at the points where the Taff and the Ely enter the lake. Although one cannot cover money in such a Bill, that is the money side.
  Much more important, however—as is evident from the way in which we have worded new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping—is the location of the settlement tanks, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham mentioned in the earlier part of his intervention. That issue raises the question whether one has the necessary land or the compulsory purchase powers to acquire the land that would be required to take the Taff and Ely out of their courses, through iron and aluminium deposition tanks, and bring them back on to their natural courses so that they can discharge into the lake. There are no powers under the Bill for the compulsory acquisition of the land needed to bring the Taff and the Ely off-line and back on-line via the iron and aluminium tanks which are the only effective method of phosphate stripping. The treatment could take place at the sewage works, but that would miss out all the storm sewer overflows, or SSOs, which are a colossal localised problem in south Wales where there are hundreds of such overflows.
  If hon. Members do not know what an SSO is, there is a superb example on Lambeth bridge. Those of us who live in Kennington can see it when we walk home at night. There is not a big SSO problem in London, which does not get the variations in rainfall encountered in south Wales, where the valley formation and large numbers of people living in enclosed valley communities mean that when the river rises—after rain, it might rise as much as 6 inches in a few hours—after a heavy rainstorm in south Wales, the rivers Rhondda, Cynon, upper Taff and Ely all rise rapidly and the SSOs discharge sewage because that is preferable to sewage being discharged upwards through people's toilets, flooding their kitchens and bathrooms. That problem is local to south Wales, which is why it is important to put it on the record now. It is relevant to the question of how to remove phosphates and nitrates, and to the issue of acquiring the land to take the Taff and the Ely off-course so that the water can be put through the tanks. Without the necessary powers, one is leaving oneself open to the classic Welsh Water and NRA response in Wales —that people in Wales do not really want that sort of thing, that they cannot afford it and would not pay for it, so why should our standards be as high as Germany's? We
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  should be in the lead on public standards, not always having to catch up with what the Germans were doing on the Rhine five years ago.
  The intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham is relevant because I am extremely concerned about the nitrate and phosphate stripping of the rivers and I do not know where the nitrate and phosphate-stripping works would be located. I have asked several times whether they would be located in Sophia Gardens, next to Glamorgan county cricket club. Is that where they envisage putting the giant third-stage treatment works? If it does not go there, where else could it go? It must go into public playing fields somewhere, which are covered by covenants. If new clause 6 is not accepted, the promoters will not be under any compulsion to show where they would put the works. The same applies to new clause 8 on the sewer diversions. If the sewer diversion powers were applied, the sewage was taken out to Lavernock and secondary treatment was provided, that would be fair enough. We know that that could be done. It would not involve a lot of land.
  I interpret the EEC municipal waste water directive as requiring third-stage treatment. That puts the promoters in serious trouble. Where in the Lavernock area could it be sited? Would it involve reviving the old plants for the Cog Moors sewage works near Dinas Powys where my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend and I used to live? It is a fine village. In the geography textbooks it is called the largest village in Wales. Between there and the north-eastern suburbs of Barry there was to be a large sewage treatment works. That was about 20 years ago. There was a big campaign against the works in Dinas Powys. People did not want a sewage treatment works, but they accepted it in the end. However, Welsh Water decided not to build it. It said that it did not need it and that long sea outfalls would do the trick.
  Now Welsh Water is seeking to build sewage treatment works again. It always tries to get away with a minimalist approach by saying that people in Wales do not want to afford sewage treatment, do not really need it and that the channel is always there. The easy way out is to bung the sewage in the sea. Now everyone has had to wake up to the fact that bunging sewage in the sea drives away tourists and leaves one open to legal challenge from the EEC. Under pressure from Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, local Members of Parliament and members of the public who are anxious about their environment, Ministers have had to give undertakings.
  Parents will not take young children to swim at St. Mary's Well bay, Penarth or other places where I took my children to swim in the belief that the salt killed all the germs. People no longer take that attitude. They want to know whether a beach has the EEC blue flag award. That can be achieved only if promoters of measures such as this are tied down to proving that they can meet the standards. The new clause would tie them down and if they could not show to the satisfaction of the authorities how they intended to meet the standards of waste water treatment that will apply when the barrage opens for business through to 2005 or 2015—that is as far as legislators can reasonably look ahead, to our retirement—they could not build the barrage. It would be a dereliction of our duty to allow them to do so. Unless we do that, we cannot bring about the improvements that are required.

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  We must be able to show that we are giving sewage treatment the priority that it deserves, that the south Wales tourist industry deserves and that the local public who want to teach their children to swim deserve.
  We cannot always foresee exactly how an environmen-tal problem will turn out. One of the latest problems that has emerged is generation of methane by tips, which was not foreseen. That is referred to in the new clause that deals with the Ferry road tip. That tip is a major generator of methane. The Ferry road tip is the direct subject matter of new clause 17 and the indirect subject matter of new clause 5. It is the biggest tip in Wales and one of the biggest in Britain. It contains 2 million cu m of waste. We were told by the promoters last year, when they proposed to acquire the tip for the purposes of removing it to Bedford, that it contained 3 million cu m, but we are now told that a more accurate measurement is 2 million cu m. We are happy to accept that downgrading, but it is still a very big tip.
  The tip is at the peak of its methane-generating capabilities. It is at the height of its decomposition now because the average life of the black bags buried under the top soil is about 10 years. The tip has been open for business since 1972 and is still going strong. It has another seven or eight years of life, if use of it does not stop by Cardiff Bay development corporation acquiring it
  The interesting point about the methane is that no one realised until two or three years ago how serious a problem methane generation from tips was. We now know that it is a serious problem. Methane can migrate several hundred metres underground before it suddenly shoots up to the surface where it can he lit by a spark. It can get inside a house. That happened in Derbyshire last year or two years ago. Bells were set off everywhere. There was a major report.
  Methane from tips such as that at Ferry road is a major problem which has just crept up on legislators such as ourselves and the regulatory authorities to which we vote money every year. We never realised how important it was. Giant tips generate a lot of methane and Ferry road tip will presumably be a major source of methane.
  Cardiff city council is a forward-looking authority which has bought its own gas-testing rig. One result of Cardiff's being good at its job is that when the Department of the Environment collected statistics on the generation of methane from sites—they were published in the newspapers about two weeks ago—Cardiff was shown to have more notifiable sites generating methane above a certain level than any other city. I cannot remember whether Cardiff had 17 and London 19, or the other way round. That does not mean that the sites in Cardiff generate as much methane as those in London. It merely means that the authorities in Cardiff have been doing their job properly and have actively tried to discover where the methane is being generated at old tips, at today's tips and at places which are not even tips but where there is organic material under the soil, and they have found that there are 17 or 19 notifiable sites. That puts it roughly on a par with London, which is 20 times as big. If London had a gas-detection rig, I am sure that it would have 20 times as many methane-generating sites as Cardiff.
  Ferry road tip is easily Cardiff's biggest waste disposal site and new clause 17 proposes that it should have major treatment. On the assumption that it is not moved but left in situ, we want to know how it is to be treated.
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  But there is an even bigger problem about the Ferry road tip. New clause 17 specifies that a measure of sealing must be carried out there before impoundment. We have emphasised that because the Ferry road tip is crucial to the Ferry road side of the barrage—in other words, the western edge of the barrage.
  As we have heard dozens of times during the passage of the Bill through both Houses of Parliament, the purpose of the barrage is to create a lake which will assist in regenerating the area by producing land for development worth many millions of pounds per acre rather than £500,000 per acre, because it will be a classier environment. That is a lovely theory, but the problem is the geography of the lake.
  Development on the east side of the lake near the docks is proceeding anyway. Running from the Queen Alexander dock entrance to the pierhead building, the property development subsidiary of Associated British Ports has said that it is proceeding with the first phase of its £160 million development on its 160 acres regardless of the barrage. It hopes to start in October.
  It is only the area near the Ferry road tip on the west side of the barrage that the barrage can possibly make any difference to. That is why, after Second Reading 18 months ago, it was said that the Ferry road tip would be moved to Bedfordshire and fresh top soil brought in so that the land could be used for houses, business parks, offices and so on. There were lovely models of that. That would be the pay-off from the barrage. The barrage makes no difference to the east side near the docks, but it does make a difference to the area near the Ferry road tip.
  We are now confronted with the revelations from the Touche Ross report and the discussions between its consultants and the Welsh Office. I note that the junior Minister is writing furiously—no doubt he is evaluating his response to my speech. It is now clear that the Ferry road tip will not be removed, so how does one develop the west side of the barrage?
  3 am
  Is a high-class property development envisaged near a tip that will be generating methane? That tip must be sealed and the methane extracted from it. We have set out in new clause 17 what should happen to the Ferry road tip. It should be treated, sealed and then converted for the most appropriate low-density land use as a former municipal tip. As in the past, it could be developed as a playing field and, eventually, after 50 years, when the tip is inert and no more methane is being generated, it could be converted for a more high-class use.
  At present it is impossible to envisage the exhumation of that tip, its wholesale excavation or the outlandish transportation of it in cross-country trains full of stinking, half-decomposed refuse. The tip should be treated to make it more environmentally acceptable. That means that one must accept that the site can no longer form the centrepiece of a high-class, yuppie development of office blocks. One will not get mega-valuable property development on the land around the Ferry road tip.
  If the tip remains, it must be converted for playing field use and similar low-density development, with industrial development around it. That would be acceptable, sensible and safe so long as the tip is made safe as a result of methane extraction and sealing. If one accepts that, one must accept that there is no economic case for the barrage.

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  The sole purpose of the barrage has been to generate high-class property development around the Ferry road tip. If the tip remains, however, sensible, safe development will occur if we accept the strictures of new clause 17. One should not imagine that it is possible to remove the problem from Cardiff to Bedford.
  Sludge dumping at sea is covered by the sewage diversion proposal in new clause 8 and by new clause 19. We have had a lengthy, scientific, erudite deposition on algae scum from my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and I shall not repeat what he said. He is right to suggest that algae represent a great problem. They are recognised as such on page 36 of the Bill which already specifies the removal of algae growths as a duty to be laid on the undertakers.
  Algae growths are a problem in dry summers such as those that we had in 1976, 1981, 1989 and 1990. In general, however, we have an exceptionally dry summer every five years. In those years the entire country is subject to drought and that causes huge algae blooms. When that happens, the oxygen levels crash. Algae require oxygen at the breeding stage; without it they die and decay anaerobically at the bottom of the water. A major fish kill will then result. At one time, it was envisaged that there would be a large coarse fishery in the bay. We are still not absolutely clear whether the promoters still envisage a coarse fishery. One new clause that I tabled, but which has not been selected, stipulated that they must include a coarse fishery. It would be a crying shame if the requisite water quality standards could not be achieved. I am sure that the promoters will want to inform the general public in Cardiff what they are to expect and whether there will be a coarse fishery. After all—and we shall return to this subject on the midges amendment—without a coarse fishery, how will one control the midges? Coarse fish eat colossal quantities of midges and we are informed that there will be 11 billion midges—not in the middle of the lake but above the shallows and around the edges, nearer to where people will be walking.
  The problem with algae is that they may crash and cause a major fish kill—if we have any fish—every five years when there is a summer drought. To prevent that from happening, one has to step in and hoover them out. A harvesting machine must be developed to pull the algae out of the water before they reach the blooming stage and cause a crash. In a drought, just the right conditions may be created. The sunlight, the temperature of the water, the nutrients coming in from sewage disposal and so on may all be ideal.
  The promoters must tell us what they intend to do to avert the problem of algae. If they accept what most scientists accept—that every five years, when there is a drought, there will be an uncontrollable problem—they must accept, too, that that will mean a major stink in the lake. The lake may have to be drained. All the fish in it will have died and will have to be fished out. We may be talking about millions of coarse fish—which will then have to be taken out and burnt—in addition to the algal scum, which will also have to be disposed of. It cannot be dumped at sea. There is no question of sewage sludge including algal scum being shoved out by way of diverted sewer pipes via the Lavernock outfall. In 1995, that will not be allowed. There will be no method of handling huge quantities of algal scum, and that will result in major fish kills and major problems in the drought summers that we must expect every five years.
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  We want to tie the promoters down now. We want them to make proposals regarding the treatment of the algal blooms and scum mentioned on page 36 of the Bill. We have not invented the subject. We want to see the colour of the promoters' money before we give them permission to impound. How do they propose to solve the problem? At the moment, the only solution that we are offered is a load of waffle—a promise that the National Rivers Authority will extract from the promoters an assurance that they will solve the problem. But the distinguished specialist scientists are saying that they do not yet have a solution. We say, "If the scientists say that there is not a solution to the problem, we must leave an obligation on the promoters to find a solution or accept that they cannot build a barrage." We cannot allow them to build a barrage on trust, knowing of the kind of problems that they themselves admit will arise. The highly eutrophic waters will give rise in drought summers not just to the early-season cladophera-type algae that we see every year in Cardiff but to the later microcystis and to the other nasties that caused the deaths on Rutland Water. Every five years, in drought conditions, we would have a proliferation of blue-greens and therefore oxygen crashes and consequent fish kills. We should then have to face the problem of draining the lake and scraping out and burning dead fish bodies.
  The current ministerial sales line, and the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, who has moved to the Front Bench, is, "Trust the authorities to extract the right undertakings and to establish the correct and acceptable modus operandi with the promoters." We say that if the promoters cannot show us what that modus operandi will be, we do not think that the barrage should be built. We therefore urge that a permission to impound shall be dependent on the achievement of a specific modus operandi acceptable to the scientists working in the regulatory bodies. We want that informaion to be produced and published with no hole-in-corner negotiations going on between the Welsh Office and consultants behind the backs of the people of Cardiff and their democratic representatives and about which we know nothing—unless, that is, we are lucky enough to acquire odd parts of the consultants' reports. That is not good enough. We want to be specific. We want the promoters to produce and publish a plan that shows exactly how they propose to solve the problem of leachates seeping out of the Ferry road tip and of the sealing off of that tip.
  We have not heard yet, but it is obvious that the promoters are worried about the sealing, or they would never have suggested removing the tip wholesale as a sine qua non of any subsequent property development. We think that they are probably coming round to the view that it cannot be moved—in which case they should accept new clause 17, and recognise that it should be treated and sealed. That would be a step towards an acceptable compromise between the promoters and those who feel that the problems have not been solved in relation to the five big issues—leachate, phosphate and nitrate stripping, sewage removal, the sealing of the Ferry road tip and the disposal of algal growth arising from surplus nutrients, which itself arises from the insoluble problems posed by the 250 or so storm sewer overflows in the rivers feeding the man-made lake and their tributaries.
  Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said that it was putting the cart before the horse for the

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  sponsors to seek permission for the building of the barrage before solving the problems. I think that I have found the solution. The only time that the cart is put before the horse is when the horse is suffering from galloping gastric dysentery. In those circumstances, in front of the horse is the only place for the cart to be.
  The south Wales river system is not yet in a position to avoid galloping gastric dysentery—and with the 250 storm sewer overflows it may never be. The barrage should not be built until a solution is proposed. It has been suggested—my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) heard it, and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth also mentioned it —that, given its considerable Government backing, if we accept the package the Government will feel obliged to put their hands in their pockets and give a lot of money to Welsh Water, the National Rivers Authority or the barrage. The barrage must have first-class conditions. Never mind what happens to investment programmes elsewhere in Wales; the Treasury must cough up for the barrage—although it may not cough up for many other purposes, such as hospitals.
  The Government's sales pitch is "Have a barrage—you may not want it, but we are telling you that it is good for you." We ask, "What will you give us with the barrage? Will you improve the sewerage system?" They say, "Sure —if you are willing to accept the barrage, we will certainly give you money for your sewage disposal system." In the first place, that could not be called honest dealing with the public in south Wales. If our sewerage needs improvement, it should have it.
  No improvement of the storm sewer overflows is being offered. People say, "Surely there is a technique. If there are 250 such overflows in the valleys—in the tributaries of the Taff and Ely, and in the rivers themselves, which feed the lake—there must be a solution." I have not heard of one. In the 1970s, a huge investment was devoted to solving the storm sewer overflow problem on the Tyne, the Wear and the Mersey. Those areas were in a way similar they housed the first wave of the industrial revolution, and contain the old sewerage systems. Anyone who walked along the banks of the Tyne in the 1960s and 1970s will remember that in the middle of Newcastle the river stank, due to storm sewer overflows.
  I believe that £100 million was invested. That was heavy bread back in 1971, when the Secretary of State for Wales of 1987–89 was Secretary of State for the Environment in the Government led by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). He authorised the Mersey and the Tyne to have complete new sewerage systems, which included new rainwater sewers about 10 ft wide running alongside the Mersey, the Tyne and Wear. The purpose was to catch all the surplus rainwater to prevent the rivers from always being full of sewage after heavy rain.
  As far as I know it is impossible to do that in south Wales. A new rainwater sewer parallel to the Taff and comparable to the system alongside the Tyne and the Mersey to solve storm sewer overflow problems would leave no room for the houses in the valleys. It would be above the road and the houses would dominate the environment. That is because the Mersey, Tyne and. Wear do not have catchment areas with rainfall similar to that in south Wales. Rain in south Wales discharges immediately into the rivers in the 19 valleys.
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  3.15 am
  I am sure that the Minister of State, Welsh Office is aware of the level of rainfall on the plateau of the south Wales coalfield from which rivers would discharge into this lake. There are 90 to 100 inches of rain a year there, which is greatly in excess of the rainfall in the catchment areas of the Mersey, Tyne and Wear. The problem is made worse by deforestation because wood was needed for pit props or battle ships. That led to the loss of soil on the valley sides and there are bare sandstone faces on many of the valleys which feed the tributaries. Rainwater on the plateau gushes down the bare sandstone faces. There is no soil to absorb it and it is not taken up by the roots of trees because there are no trees. The water reaches the rivers within an hour. The river rises fast and the pressure on the rainwater sewers is such that if sewage was not discharged into them, it would enter the houses.
  A rainwater gutter system similar to that on the Mersey, Tyne and Wear to take surplus water after heavy rain would need to be 10 to 20 ft high and would obliterate the landscape. It is physically out of the question. Municipal engineers who are experts in that field say that such a solution would totally obliterate the living environment of the valleys.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: My hon. Friend is in full flood on this issue. He is discussing the possible adoption of the scheme that was introduced on the Tyne and the Mersey in the early 1970s. Is there any solution to the storm drain problem? If there is not, what will happen in the valleys?
  Mr. Morgan: Modest improvements could be made to the storm sewer overflows. The filters could be cleaned and more modern valves could be fitted. There is no proposal to do that, but civil engineers are looking at the problem in south Wales and they say that we could have better storm sewer overflows. There are 250 of them and it is said that we do not know where some of them are. Many of them are private and do not belong to the National Rivers Authority or Welsh Water. Some of them are owned by small private sewerage works, and not all of them are authorised. Some have been built at isolated dwellings.
  Storm sewer overflows could all be classified and equipped with modern filters and valves. That solves one problem and might catch some of the solid material, but it will not solve the problem of nutrients because small non-solid bits of material would still be washed into the rivers.
  The problem occurs only during spate flows, and some people contend that that solves the problem. Such a suggestion is sometimes made about Rutland Water, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly spoke so eloquently. Everybody panicked after 10 sheep and 20 dogs—or perhaps it was 20 sheep and 10 dogs—died after lapping the water in the summer of 1989. Everyone said, "My God, what are we going to do about this?" The promoters and the regulatory authorities were asked what they intended to do to avoid a repetition of the Rutland Water incident, bearing in mind that it is admitted in the Bill that the waters are highly eutrophicated. They have not tried to deny that. They know that it means that in warm weather there is the potential for massive algae growth. They said that there was no need to worry about the Cardiff bay barrage lake because the water exchange will be so much more rapid than that which prevailed in the Rutland Water incident, where the same water had

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  been present for 18 months. The average exchange in Cardiff bay would take place over about five days. It was said that the storm sewer overflows would work after heavy rain, and retention in the lake would be only one or two days.
  Although retention time in a man-made lake will be far less than that in a river system—it might be only five days —any enriching material that is in the water, whether solids or ground-down bits of solids that have passed through the filters, will not be discharged through the sluices, which primarily will be top sluices to suit the fish. Any material that is below the top two or three feet of water in a 30 ft barrage will not be discharged. It will be blocked when it hits the wall. It will drop to the bottom at the speed that the water drops when it hits the concrete wall. It will then be distributed at the bottom of the lake. That, basically, is what the following year's algae will eat. That is what the following year's midges will feed on. They regard enriched mud as a favourable environment. That is the sort of environment that we shall see for the foreseeable future because of the SSOs.
  It is true that SSOs do not open unless there has been a heavy shower, but many of them operate frequently in the summer. There might be a thunderstorm in July or August and a massive flow of water. There may be the discharge of 50 or 100 SSOs. The day after the storm might be warm and dry. Indeed, the following week might be dry. The sewage will enter the lake and be distributed on the bottom. If there is a dry spell of about a week thereafter, conditions will be perfect for an algae bloom. It looks as though there is one in the glass of water that I have been handed, for which I am otherwise grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend. I think that it is known as Passing Cloud—my original American Indian name, but that was in a previous life.
  Mr. Neil Hamilton: I wish that it had been Sitting Bull.
  Mr. Morgan: I hope that the Hansard reporter caught that interjection. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman prefers that name because Sitting Bull opposed the advance of the railway. The private Bill procedure of the United States Congress was used to advance capitalism and the eradication of the hunting grounds of the Sioux. I remember that when I was a boy I used to pronounce the name of that tribe as Siowax, not realising that French explorers had reached the lands of the Sioux before the Welsh.
  Storm sewer overflows represent a real problem, and one which should not be dodged. To avoid that happening, we must incorporate in the Bill the reinforced concrete mechanism set out in new clause 8 dealing with sewer diversion, and the mechanisms that are set out in the other new clauses providing for phosphate and nitrate stripping. We say that in the absence of a reinforced concrete mechanism and without the finding of a solution, there will be no barrage and impounding will not start. As it stands, the Bill is wishy-washy. It states, in effect, "All right, use the best available technology and you should be able to obtain permission to go ahead with the project. If there are problems, people will accept that you did not know as much as should have been known at the time. We hope
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  that a lower standard will be accepted. After all, what could Parliament have been expected to do about this in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991 when it considered the Bill?"
  Mr. Win Griffiths: I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West for the past hour and 55 minutes, but he has not yet referred to the fact that once the barrage is built, it will be there to stay. Given what my hon. Friend has said about unavoidable, catastrophic pollution problems, what about the cost implications and the dis-cost benefits of the barrage in view of the pollution problems?
  Mr. Morgan: I am not quite sure what dis-cost benefits are. However, as I have already said, we must move on from the present position. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and I agree about that. We do not accept that we can continue to use the sea and, in particular, the Bristol channel as the world's greatest flush lavatory for much longer. We accept that the sea does a great job because of the vigour of the tidal action and that it acts as the kidneys of the system in intertidal areas by its saline flushing action and its sweeping out to sea—and the sweeping in of whatever is out at sea, including pollutants. The sea acts as a good, basic "nature knows best" mechanism for correcting the worst aspects of virology, bacteriology and solids and other visually offensive sewage material.
  The sea does a job, but we must adopt second and third stage treatment. If we have treatment coupled with the marine flushing action of the sea moving in and out, that is a respectable environment for the standards that we anticipate for the 21st century.
  Development would then progress very much along the lines envisaged by Sam Pickstock, the chairman of Tarmac Homes, in his epic interview in Country Living. He said that he thought that the future of Cardiff did not lie with trying to make it a mediterranean playground as portrayed in those wonderful artists' impressions. Those artists were hired by the promoters to draw brilliant iridescent blue lakes with little white boats bobbing up and down on them manned by people wearing green tee-shirts, black sunglasses and red shorts. That is all very pretty, but as Sam Pickstock said, what has that got to do with south Wales or Cardiff? Cardiff is not the mediterranean. Why can we not accept the environment in which we operate? If it is a little misty, grey, brown, or whatever the appropriate pastel shade might be for the south Wales environment, why try to compare it with the mediterranean or with Baltimore?
  Mr. Morley: My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has made a pertinent point about the image and the reality in terms of the technical problems that he so ably described to the House. With regard to the overflows from the storm sewers, I assume that there would be a build-up of organic material on the bottom of the lagoon. In the summer, the water will heat up. As it is accepted that there will be periods when the oxygen level in the lagoon would be extremely low, would not hydrogen sulphide gas be produced? Everyone knows that the smell of that gas does not fit in with the colourful mediterranean picture presented by the promoters. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?
  Mr. Morgan: I had intended to make that important point. The promoters say that they thought of it and that

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  they have provided a solution, but they do not know whether it works because it has never been tried anywhere else. One of the few good features of the Bill is that it includes a specific commitment to provide 5 cu litres of dissolved oxygen per gallon of water. I do not remember the precise standard, but it is to be found in the NRA protective clauses.
  During a summer drought, river flows would drop. The proportion of river flows represented by treated sewage would therefore increase, in which case eutrophication would become not just a problem but an acute problem. Highly enriched water would enter a warm, shallow lake and provide perfect conditions for the multiplication of algae. The regulatory authorities would pursue the undertakings that they had obtained from the promoters when the oxygen level looked as though it would drop below the required standard. At that point the oxygenation machines would be introduced—standard machines that one sees in all sewage works. Cardiff bay lake would then become one of the world's largest sewage works. Artificially injected oxygen would be introduced to neutralise the highly enriched treated sewage water.
  3.30 am
  Mr. Win Griffiths: My hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) referred to the deposition of the pollutants on the bed of the lake. Might not the oxygenation process be similar to what happens in a jacuzzi? Apart from the unpleasant smell of hydrogen sulphide, would not an unpleasant scum form on top of the lake?
  Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend raises an important point. He anticipates what could easily happen but what is not intended to happen. The promoters intend to get in first. When they realised, having consulted their monitoring equipment, that the oxygen level was dropping to the point where anaerobic fermentation takes place they would introduce oxygenation equipment to increase the oxygen level. Healthy bacteria, rather than anaerobic bacteria, would form the metabolic process in that enriched environment.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: Is not that the counsel of desperation? Large amounts of oxygen would be pumped into the lagoon. We face the same problem in the River Towy in Carmarthen. Poorly treated sewage enters the river upstream, which leads downstream to low oxygen levels in the summer and to the pumping of oxygen into the river. We have the equipment to pump oxygen into the river. Is not it similar to artificial respiration? A lagoon would be created where there could be low oxygen levels. Having created a problem, we should then have to devise a technical "fix." Would not it be much wiser not to create the problem in the first place?
  Mr. Morgan: I was about to make that point. Oxygen would not be introduced for a known amenity purpose. We should have to cope with the deleterious side effects on the environment.
  This is being done on the basis of the sales pitch that it is good for the environment. How are we to turn the environmental promise into reality when we know that the proposed solution to the problem of detritus is a kind of mobile boom that is supposed to collect floating bits of log and the doors that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd sees passing as he looks down on the River
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  Taff? What might be described as a lorry without wheels will be one of the intrusions into the lake. This machine will grab at bits of detritus. Then there will be the algae-harvesting equipment, whose purpose will be to prevent the algal blooms from getting out of hand. Those machines, too, will have to be able to get into the shallows as the algae will grow in a big way around the fringes. In terms of raised water temperature, sunlight has a much more drastic effect at the edges than in the middle, where the water may be 20 ft deep. Major algal blooms will not occur in the middle, but at the edges—in the correct conditions of nutrients and sunlight—a couple of algae could become a billion in about an hour.
  In addition, there will be the oxygenation equipment. I still have a very deep scepticism about the nature of this equipment. It is reckoned that there will be fixed oxygenation points, as well as mobile points whose purpose will be to do a "fire brigade" job. Obviously, the lake will have a very variable bed. If patches of water look as though they are about to have an algal bloom, the oxygenation equipment will be rushed in on a "fire brigade" basis.
  So, in the middle of a drought, in a hot August, there will be three things rushing around the lake at the same time. That, of course, is the very time at which the lake, as an amenity, should be at its most attractive. When do most people go out walking? On a fine summer evening. When do most tourists go round the world? In August. Whether what is proposed might produce an acceptable environment on a freezing February day, shortly after a furious rain storm, is hardly relevant. The question is whether it will be an amenity when most people will want such an amenity. The early artists' impressions on the basis of which this scheme was sold depicted a shimmering, blue lake with lots of little dinghies bobbing about, and the occasional person water-skiing. A fleet of mobile oxygenating machines and an algae harvesting boat sucking up algae, or cutting it away from stones, and then discharging it on to some beach or jetty provide a very different picture. People will think, "This is a pretty rum lake. What was it made for? Is that big concrete wall for the pupose of generating electricity? It certainly prevents us from seeing the winking lights of Weston-super-Mare." They will come to the conclusion that the people of Cardiff have been sold a bum deal, and that the people who thought the scheme up should have been told, after about six months of study, that while it looked nice on paper —especially when depicted by an artist in the most favourable possible light, with lots of bright colours and pretty scenes—the environmental problems would not be manageable.
  From time to time, including tonight, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has referred to the Bute East dock. He has said that the water coming into this lake will be the same as that in the Bute East dock. He has made the point that if that dock constitutes an amenity, the man-made lake resulting from this barrage will surely be an amenity. It is important to put on record the fact that there are many problems in respect of the Bute East dock. The water is drawn in from the feeder at Black Weir and flows down through the town centre. That comes from the same source—the River Taff—but there are some differences, the biggest of which is that Bute East dock is a 10 ft deep square box whereas the Cardiff bay lake would be a sloping shallow-edged lake. Most of it would be shallows, but there are no shallows in the Bute East dock,

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  so there is no potential for warming in sunlight. Water 1 ft or 2 ft deep provides ideal conditions for algal blooms; water 10 ft deep does not. Algae are still in Bute East dock, but not huge blooms.
  In August 1989, algal blooms were worse in the feeder than in Bute East dock. Complaints to the city environmental health officer resulted in his having to warn the owners of Bute East dock—South Glamorgan county council, Tarmac plc and Cardiff city council—that they must get rid of the algae because they were clogging the feeder, which is about 4 ft deep. The algae were apparent in the dock. Employees at the county council's new headquarters, which adjoin the dock, could see that something strange was happening, but it was not a bloom; the real bloom occurred in the feeders.
  Bute East dock is not as shallow as the proposed man-made lake will be, but lorryloads of algae were removed on the instructions of the city environmental health officer in order to comply with the complaints of residents of the new Tarmac housing estate, which was built with the assistance of the Welsh Office through the highest urban development grant ever given in Britain of £8 million. It is a good development, but occasionally it causes problems with eutrophication and algal blooms, of which August 1989 was a prime example.
  The second difference between Bute East dock and the new man-made lake is that the dock was directly locked with the sea. As a result, it is not all fresh water but has a salt water cell at the bottom. Approximately 1 ft of pure salt water has deposited itself on the bottom of the dock because salt water is heavier than fresh water. To some extent, that would control some of the problems that would arise with the man-made lake. The promoters accept that salt water will occasionally enter the lake by accident, which is why there will be a bottom sluice to get rid of it. That has the beneficial effect of being a modest form of biological control on the worst biological problems of salt water flowing from the Taff via the feeder.
  The third difference between Bute East dock and the lake is that the input can be controlled. Water from the Taff and Ely cannot be controlled, but what flows into the Bute East dock can be controlled. Flows can be cut off or increased because the feeder acts as a control. There is no control over what comes down the Taff and Ely, so Bute East dock has fewer management problems. The few problems that have been experienced act as a warning, which is why we have emphasised the need to ensure that the barrage cannot be impounded until the promoters find solutions to the problems that we have raised. The city environmental health officer has expressed great concern about the use already of Bute East dock for rowing purposes even though it is not conventional rowing where one might capsize. It is dragon racing in large galleys which are unlikely to capsize. Nevertheless, there is still potential danger from Weil's disease; although it is a rare disease, it is fatal. Therefore, the environmental health officer has asked for strict controls, but he does not have power to ban the use of the dock. He can warn the public, but he cannot ban them from using the dock.
  3.45 am
  The same problem occurs with salmon in the River Taff. Salmon have returned to the Taff since the sewage works at Cilfynydd were opened and they have also
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  returned to the River Ely since the Miskin sewage works were opened because the oxygen levels in the rivers in the summer have improved. But the National Rivers Authority warns people who catch the salmon not to eat them. I remind hon. Members that there are no trout in the Taff or in the Ely because trout are non-migratory fish which eat while they are in a river. Salmon and sea trout migrate; they are in a spawning mode when they are coming up the river and in a migrating mode when going down, and they are not interested in eating. They breathe oxygen in through the water. That can taint the flesh and pose certain problems, but they can survive because they are not eating.
  I was shocked when Lord Crickhowell, on Second Reading in the other place, did not mention that. He said that the fact that salmon had returned to the Taff showed that the answer had been found to our prayers and that we now had a clean river. He forgot that we had a re-oxygenated river because of the building of the sewage works at Cilfynydd. However, that did not allow salmon to eat in the river; it meant that salmon could make a spawning run when they were already well stoked up with food from their transatlantic migration. Official advice to the public was not to eat those salmon. The River Taff and its tributaries meet the standard for salmonic fisheries because it considers only oxygen levels, but they do not reach the standard of allowing people to consume their products because of the tainting of the flesh and the carrying of virological diseases. Rivers which pass through urban areas such as Cardiff and Pontypridd are bound to have rats, and, if there are rats, there will be virological side effects.
  Those are some of the environmental problems of water quality involved in the five new clauses which have been grouped together. We must nail the promoters down on them because the Bill was represented before the establishment of the National Rivers Authority. Now that it has come into being we are trying to put into the Bill what we think it would have been negotiating for had it been in existence. We see the evidence of that in what it is asking for in the Usk Barrage Bill. It is too late for the NRA to do the job on this Bill so we are trying to do it. We hope that there will be some movement later today when we complete the debate.
  Dr. Marek: I listened with great interest to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) had to say. He said it succinctly, but used such a lot of material that his speech took some time in total. He demonstrated very well the purpose of the five new clauses, which are grouped together and are all important. It is a pity that we have not yet had any comment, either from the Bill's sponsor—who has just walked back into the Chamber—or the Minister.
  Reference has been made to the leaked letter from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Home Secretary. I shall not read it all out, but at the end of the first paragraph the Secretary of State for Wales talks about the Cardiff bay barrage. He states:
  "I see it as a vital component of one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects in Europe, whose completion will bring enormous economic benefits to the whole of South Wales."
  One might have thought that we would have at least one word uttered from those on the Treasury Bench this evening, but we have not heard anything. In the leaked document, the Secretary of State for Wales describes the

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  barrage as one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects. I should have thought that a Minister would have come to the Dispatch Box to say so.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: Would not my hon. Friend go even further and say that, although the Treasury Bench has been graced by the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary of State, given the release of the letter, the Secretary of State should have been here to defend the letter and comment on the fundamentally important debate that we have been having on the conditions under which we can consider the building of the barrage?
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I thought that I saw the Secretary of State for Wales drifting in through the door into one of the Lobbies. At present, government is done by fiat because the Government majority is huge. There are other people to do the Government's work and sit there on the Front Bench. I mean no disrespect to the Minister, but he has no doubt been told that his job is to sit there and say nothing. It is a great pity because we are debating a private Bill that will affect the lives of many tens of thousands of Welsh citizens in the Cardiff district. At this consideration stage, we should be fashioning the Bill into a better piece of legislation.
  We had a Division on the closure motion on the clauses and the House decided not to close the debate. I always believe that there is a purpose in what the House does and if it decided not to close the debate, why did it do so? Its purpose must have been either that there is some sense in the clauses and they merit further debate or that the Government have lost control of the House. The Whip has clearly been put on because of the leaked letter from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Home Secretary. The Government have lost control of the House and are no longer able to summon 100 of their Back-Benchers or payroll vote to force the Bill through.
  What are the Government doing? It is a Government Bill as I see it; the Secretary of State for Wales said that he regards it as one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects. It is not difficult to discern from that what the Government should be doing, and have been doing secretly—giving the Bill their vigorous support.
  Mr. Alan Williams: Is not this a curious debate? Hon. Members decided a couple of hours ago that we needed
  more debate on these clauses, yet no one from the
  Government has said a word about the pollution consequences of the barrage and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, who is the sponsor of the Bill, has not been in the Chamber. It is a very one-sided debate. We could keep putting forward the arguments, but no one is here to try to reply.
  Dr. Marek: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We are not here merely because we want to block the Bill. Let me make my position absolutely clear; I should like to see the right form of development in that part of Cardiff, and that probably goes for many of my hon. Friends who sit on these Benches. However, we are worried about the way in which it is done.
  It is treating the House with disrespect to a certain extent when the sponsor of the Bill is not here to listen to our arguments and seek to put us right or to make helpful observations, or for the Minister and other members on the Treasury Bench merely to sit there—no doubt on
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  instructions. They are not going to say anything publicly in the House because they have a large majority and prefer to govern in secret by writing confidential letters from one Secretary of State to another. That is not the way in which we should legislate.
  Mr. Alan Williams: It is disgraceful.
  Dr. Marek: I think that it is disgraceful and if the Government had any integrity they would at least talk to the sponsor of the Bill, take it away and come back with it another day, having thought about it afresh. If they will not do that, all that we can do is to continue to press our reasonable arguments to find out whether concessions can be made, the arguments find favour or are right or until the sponsor of the Bill or the Minister stands up and tells us where we are going wrong in our arguments.
  There are five new clauses in this group and they are governed by the Cardiff Bay development corporation. Although I raised the question earlier with one of my hon. Friends, it would help me if the sponsor of the Bill, or the Minister, could give me the present terms of reference for the Cardiff Bay development corporation and say exactly how it approached the Bill. Did it table the Bill because it wanted to make a lot of money out of it? Was it because certain landowners in the area would become extremely wealthy? That is unlikely to be the case on its own. If there was a term of reference relating to the benefit of the people of Cardiff, how strongly has that been put in the articles of association or in the setting up of the development corporation? Only after finding that out can we place some trust in what is in the Bill, and can we believe what we are told, where the Bill does not spell out the details.
  All the new clauses are similar and they have rightly been grouped together. The first clause states:
  "Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to sources of leachate in contact with the waters of the inland bay or of the groundwater in hydraulic contact with the waters of the inland bay and its proposals for removal, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate.".
  My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) spoke at length on that clause and made many pertinent points that I do not want to repeat. However, I do not think that he has been answered succinctly or effectively by the Minister, by other Members on the Treasury Bench, who have said nothing all evening, or by the sponsor of the Bill.
  What is wrong with the undertakers producing and publishing a plan
  "pertaining to sources of leachate in contact with the waters of the inland bay or of the groundwater in hydraulic contact with the waters of the inland bay and its proposals for removal, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate."?
  The new clause does not state that all leachate must be removed, simply that proposals for the removal, relocation and improvement of such sources must be drawn up and published. It does not mean complete removal, relocation or improvement. It is a straightforward, simple and helpful new clause which, if agreed to by the sponsor or on the Government's recommendation to the sponsor that it is a helpful clause, would enable us to finish our debate on this group much earlier. New clause 5 is thus eminently sensible.

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  4 am
  New clause 6, which is grouped with new clause 5, states:
  "Before constructing the Barrage, the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate-stripping of the waters of the rivers entering the inland bay and their tributaries in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay."
  Again, it is a helpful new clause. Although it refers to
  "compliance with future water quality objectives",
  there is no commitment to action apart from producing and publishing a plan. The new clause relates purely to the provision of information and the undertaking of research.
  We have not received a sensible reply to our request for new clause 6 to be passed and added to the Bill. The Minister could have told my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) that he thought that sensible. The public—the people of Cardiff and of Wales—should know. The Minister has simply sat on the Front Bench and remained quite. Indeed, my hon. Friend is not in his place to tell me why those provisions cannot be accepted.
  Dr. Kim Howells: Does my hon. Friend agree that the main reason why the promoters do not agree with new clause 6 is that it exposes the inadequacies of the preparation for the barrage in the Bill, which refuses to acknowledge that there are problems which, at the moment, appear difficult to solve but which, if admitted to in the Bill as drafted, would mean that the promoters would have to call a halt to these proceedings. As hon. Members have already said, it is a bit like praying that a solution to a major problem will somehow come along, provided that one keeps the momentum of the development going, and that the technical problems will be solved when it is convenient to do so. The basis of our objections, as expressed in new clause 6 and the new clauses grouped with it, is that we believe that the solutions should be clear before the development proceeds any further.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend makes a helpful point.
  What am I to think? I can only think and surmise along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend. In the absence of any counter-argument, there can only be the supposition that there are serious problems over what happens to the water. Indeed, I go further and say that the development corporation is probably in this for the money. People working for the corporation are probably earning good money. The chances are that they will make their money selling the houses before the lake is full, and that when it is full, they will be away and the people who bought the houses will have to put up with all the problems. By then the employees of the corporation will have left the job or retired. They would no longer have any responsibility. That is probably too cynical a view. Certainly at this stage, I do not wish to ascribe that view to people working for the corporation. But surely it is up to the Minister—it is now the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, as Ministers seem to be taking it in shifts and to be under strict instructions not to say a word.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: The Minister is writing something.
  Dr. Marek: I hope that he is writing a reply to set our minds at ease. It is up to the Minister or my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth to prove to the House that what I have asserted is not the case.
  New clause 6 is entirely sensible. It asks for nothing other than the production and publication of a plan.
  One might think that new clause 8 caused a problem and would involve the expenditure of millions of pounds. But it says:
  "Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to the sewer outfalls discharging directly into the inland bay or into the waters of the rivers discharging into the Bay or the tributaries thereof, showing the proposed means of removal, relocation or improvement thereof and the agreement of the owner of each outfall to such removal, relocation or improvement."
  A certain amount of action is required by the new clause. It asks first for a plan to be produced and published. No action is required in that part of the new clause. It is simply a question of doing some research, finding out the position and producing and publishing a plan pertaining to the sewer outfalls. No one in the House would object to that. There cannot be anything wrong with knowing the location of the sewer outfalls which discharge into the river. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West brought out that point forcefully in his speech. He said that there are serious problems with storm sewer overflows and that they should be mapped and charted so that we know where they are. I am sure that every citizen in Cardiff would say, "Hear, hear" to that.
  The first part of new clause 8 asks for a plan to be produced. The second part of new clause 8 asks the undertakers to show the proposed means of removal, relocation or improvement of each outfall. Some of the SSOs or sewer outfalls may be entirely innocuous. Of course, many of them are not innocuous, so something would have to be done about them. But if a fresh water lake is to be dammed up, every citizen would think it absolutely right for the Cardiff Bay development corporation to examine each of the sewer outfalls and either remove or relocate them. At the very least, it should improve them. There is nothing whatever wrong with new clause 8. Yet we have heard nothing from the Minister. Nor, indeed, have we had a comprehensive reply from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth.
  Dr. Kim Howells: I do not know whether my hon. Friend has enjoyed a tour of the docks with the Cardiff Bay development corporation. The undertakers of the Bill make great use of the fact that there are some particularly noisome, vile sewage outfalls at present. They take one to Pier Head and point down and show a vermin run and an outfall that flows out through the old dock. They say, "How long do you want that to continue?" Then they cast their hands up across the mud flats that stretch out towards the channel and denounce all the mud flats as though they were an extension of the sewer.
  As one of those who visited the docks and was shown around, although not as part of the great freebie which I understand took place at a different time, I drew a different conclusion. My conclusion was that those sewage outfalls must certainly be eradicated, but as part of the general eradication of outfalls to which the Government are now pledged. There is an indefinite time limit, but they are pledged to that. The lesson to be drawn from it is that the mud flats should be cleaned up and that they are not

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  something to be abhorred. I have found them quite attractive at times. If the course line and river were cleaned up they have the potential to be very attractive.
  In pushing this, we are making our overall argument that the clean-up of the estuary can be achieved without the construction of a barrage and we just have answers about what exactly will happen to the sewage outfalls.
  Mr. Ron Davies rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I want to be absolutely clear that the House knows what we are doing. I will put the Question again on the closure.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 52, Noes 8.

  Division No. 117]

  [4.11 am

  AYES

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Boswell, Tim

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Bowls, John

  Lightbown, David

  Brazier, Julian

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Bright, Graham

  Mans, Keith

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

  Michael, Alun

  Burt, Alistair

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Moss, Malcolm

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Flynn, Paul

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Foster, Derek

  Shepherd, Cohn (Hereford)

  Gale, Roger

  Stern, Michael

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Stevens, Lewis

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Grist, Ian

  Thurnham, Peter

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Tredinnick, David

  Harris, David

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Wood, Timothy

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Irvine, Michael

  Mr. Allan Rogers and

  Jackson, Robert

  Mr. Elliot Morley.

  NOES

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Nellist, Dave

  Dr. John Marek and

  Rowlands, Ted

  Dr. Kim Howells.

  Whereupon MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER declared that the Question was not decided in the affirmative, because it was not supported by the majority prescribed by Standing Order No. 36 (Majority for Closure).
  Dr. Marek: I have never before had the privilege of being cut off in full flow by Members on my own side, but it has been an instructive exercise. The Government have now abandoned the Bill.
  Mr. Flynn: My hon. Friend will regret that.
  Dr. Marek: Let us see some evidence. I shall be happy to regret it, if it happens.
  Only 52 Members wanted to close the debate. I shall be happy to sit down immediately if the Minister, or a sponsor of the Bill, attempts to answer some of the questions that have arisen under the new clauses, but so far
  330
  nothing has happened. The Minister remains silent, perhaps because his troops are not behind him: only 52 are here. I wish that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth were present to answer some of my questions.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: Before the Division, my hon. Friend was talking about new clauses 6 and 8. All that we are doing in those two new clauses is called for a plan. No work or expenditure would be needed; it is a precautionary principle. The building of the barrage will pose a danger of serious pollution problems. Our request is very modest. How can hon. Members claim any "green" credentials while refusing to adopt a precautionary plan?
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am glad to see that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has returned: I beseech him to answer some of our questions. It is a great pity that he was not here for most of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West.
  Anxiety has been expressed about the cleanliness of the lake and the health aspects. The Minister refuses to open his mouth. He has been given strict instructions by somebody not to speak.
  Mr. Michael: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for expressing pleasure at seeing me and I am pleased to be here for his speech. I was present for large chunks of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and found them enjoyable and enlighten-ing. Some hours ago I answered the questions that are raised by the amendments. My answers were contained in brief and modest interventions and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) heard some, if not all, of them. They were brief and to the point. I hope that I have dealt sufficiently with the points that were made.
  4.30 am
  Dr. Marek: I am grateful for that explanation, which is better than what we have had from the Minister, who has not said anything.
  Mr. Michael: The Minister must account for himself. He does not represent a Cardiff constituency. I do, and my constituency includes the whole of the Cardiff bay development area, although that development has serious implications for other Cardiff constituencies, especially those of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West and of the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist). That is why we take such a positive interest in the matter.
  Dr. Marek: I appreciate that, and not for a moment do I think that it could be otherwise. However, the Welsh Office has a central role because it is responsible for almost every facet of administration in Wales. The leaked letter from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Home Secretary states that he sees
  "the Cardiff Bay development as a vital component in one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects in Europe."
  In view of the serious problems raised by some Opposition Members about pollution that could be caused by the barrage, Treasury spokesmen should have given their view. That is done for most other private Bills and I do not understand why the Welsh Office should write

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  secret letters to other Ministers and not be prepared to account for its secret action in the full glare of television and the other media.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend is quite wrong to describe these letters as secret. They are extremely public and everybody seems to be repeating like a mantra references to them. My hon. Friends obviously intend to be helpful, but they are giving the Secretary of State publicity for supporting the Bill. The matter is important and I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the fact that the co-promoter of the Bill is Labour-controlled South Glamorgan county council. That positive support comes from the members and leaders of that authority, and those people live in the area of the proposed development. I accept that it may be difficult to perceive that from the long-distance perspective of Wrexham, but I assure my hon. Friend of that positive support. I hope that that will encourage him to support that Bill, even if my earlier comments did not.
  Dr. Marek: I am extremely glad to have that reassurance. I hope that my hon. Friend will remain in the Chamber, because I intend to direct my speech principally at him. He cannot pretend that the Government have nothing to do with the Bill. The letter contains the names of many Parliamentary Private Secretaries, but I will not detain the House by reading out all of them.
  Mr. Michael: I have written to hon. Members asking them to support the Bill. Why does not my hon. Friend give me some credit for what I have tried to do? Why is he so concerned to give publicity to the Secretary of State for Wales? My hon. Friend's attitude is most unfriendly.
  Dr. Marek: I have not brought my hon. Friend's letter with me into the Chamber.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend put it straight into the bin.
  Dr. Marek: No, I did not. It is in the House. I could produce it in a few minutes.
  Mr. Rogers: Talk of the letter is obviously disturbing some of my hon. Friends because they find themselves in the same camp as the Tories. It is clear that the Government have a strong locus in these matters and that is why the Under-Secretary of State should answer some of the questions that have been asked during the debate. The Government have put hundreds of millions of pounds of public money into the venture and much of that money will be spent on works that are included in the Bill. Surely the Minister should justify that expenditure. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) will understand that Back-Bench Members, for whatever reasons, may or may not support the Bill, but if the Government spend hundreds of millions of pounds of public money they should answer to Parliament for that expenditure.
  Dr. Marek: I agree with my hon. Friend.
  Two of my hon. Friends have proposed closures of the debate and those motions have not been carried. I would expect my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth to admit that there is some substance in the arguments that have been advanced or at least to recognise some of the fears that are reflected in the new clauses and
  332
  to promise to consider the new clauses carefully, or even perhaps to accept some of them. If it is not possible for that to be done on the spur of the moment, he could at least get together with the Government and say, "The Bill has not passed through the House as we thought it would when we embarked on our consideration of it at 7 pm. We had better adjourn the debate so that we can consider what must be done. Perhaps we should meet my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) to discuss the best way of proceeding with the Bill."
  Mr. Michael: I made it clear earlier that serious issues were being raised by hon. Members, not least by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) in opening the debate. As I said to him, however, the issues are covered by the wording of the Bill as far as they should be, and that other more general items should be covered in more general legislation. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) that we shall have the opportunity to deal with the more general items when, in the near future, we have a Labour Government.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda said in his intervention, the Bill involves a massive public investment in my constituency. If the money is not spent in that way, it will not be spent elsewhere in Wales. Instead, it will remain in the coffers of the Treasury. I wish that my hon. Friends would allow the investment to take place in my constituency. It will do so much for the housing, the environment, the jobs and the well-being of my constituents. Surely that is the basis of our debate. I remind my hon. Friends, as they seek to debate important issues, that the benefits to which I have referred will be at stake at the conclusion of our debates.
  Dr. Marek: In principle, I do not dissent from that, although I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda is shaking his head. if we can get the Bill right, I would not be against the redevelopment of this part of Cardiff. I have been round the area, although not on an official tour. I have carried out research and I believe that the Bill contains much that could be put right.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth will believe that I approach this debate constructively. I am not speaking just for the sake of it. I should like answers to my questions and in the absence of satisfactory answers, there will have to be a vote. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth needs 100 hon. Members to force the closure and he and the Government cannot achieve that. I believe that I have raised serious points and if they can be answered I will willingly finish my remarks.
  Mr. Rogers: My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham is asking my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth to answer his points and those answers are not forthcoming from my hon. Friend or from the Government Front Bench. Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham and give him one of the answers that he seeks.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said that huge sums of public money had been invested in his constituency. That is true. However, one would have thought that he would have asked for a return on that money. The returns do not arise from extra building land or land for houses. If we consider the matter

  333
  carefully, we see that the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth would be adversely affected.
  The direction of the profits on the public money is revealed in a report of a consultant employed by the Cardiff bay development corporation. The report states that the projected land value in the area with no barrage, simply with regard to business space, is £130 million. Fjowever, with the barrage, the consultant expects the same building space to be worth more than £1 billion. It is worth £900 million in land values alone. With respect to the total of business space, industrial space, retail space, residential and leisure space, the land value in the area as a result of the massive investment of public money to the company will rise from £211 million to £1,300 million. That is where the profit on the public money is going. That is one of the answers that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham was seeking and he was unlikely to receive such an answer from the Dispatch Box. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is more interested in his constituents than in the money-grabbing people involved in the venture—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) will confine himself to the new clauses.
  Dr. Marek: I am sure that we shall be able to discuss the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda later. I will not dwell on the point now, but the point is significant and it should be considered. If large profits are to be made, they should go to the people of Cardiff and not be siphoned off somewhere else. That point should be answered, preferably by the Minister.
  Mr. Alan W. Williams: My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) appears to have described a strange new Government strategy. It seems that public money is being used to generate inflation. Is not that a strange departure? I know that there has been a change of leadership in the Conservative party and the Conservatives do not know which way they are going, but this is a strange philosphy.
  Dr. Marek: It might generate inflation, although I do not suppose that it would generate inflation if it went to Majorca.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda was led away because he looked at the returns. My point is that the returns on public investment should relate to housing, jobs, the environment and the economy. The environmental issues that we are debating in this group of amendments are very important, but they are satisfied by the provisions in the existing clauses. Therefore, the amendments are unnecessary.
  4.45 am
  Job creation is not just in the interests of the city of Cardiff; it is also in the interests of the rest of south Wales, including the constituents of many hon. Members who object to the Bill. Their constituents come now and in future will come in larger numbers to work in the city. I do not begrudge such a benefit to local communities and economies.
  Dr. Marek: I do not intend to deal with the economy, which is the subject of a later group of amendments. My
  334
  hon. Friend maintains that the new clauses are otiose because these matters are already included in the Bill. New clause 8 states, as do the other new clauses:
  "Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to the sewer outfalls discharging directly into the inland bay or into the waters of the rivers discharging into the Bay or the tributaries thereof".
  Does the Bill contain a provision that states that before any work starts a plan shall be produced showing the sewer outfalls discharging into the area? If the Bill contains such a provision, I can dispense immediately with that part of my speech. If, however, it contains no such provision, it cannot be wrong to include a clause that would give to the people of Cardiff the right to know exactly how many sewers are pumping sewage into the rivers and surrounding areas. They ought to have that information.
  The second half of new clause 8 says that a plan shall be published
  "showing the proposed means of removal, relocation or improvement thereof and the agreement of the owner of each outfall to such removal, relocation or improvement."
  If the Bill already provides for that, I hope that someone will point to the page and line of the Bill that says so. If it does not say that, what is wrong with adding the new clause to the Bill? It is a simple question and it demands an answer. I am sorry to say that at this stage the Minister, hiding behind his secret letters, intends to say nothing. If my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth can say something about it, I shall be grateful.
  Mr. Michael: The point is that diversion of sewer outfalls upstream of the barrage must be a matter for Welsh Water and the National Rivers Authority. It does not arise directly from the creation of the barrage. We have already undertaken to divert the sewers that feed into Cardiff bay. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham was here when we debated that matter at an earlier stage. Had he been here he would have heard that that is not a matter of dispute between local Members of Parliament. The new clause goes way beyond
  what is appropriate for inclusion in the Bill. It deals with matters that we should all like to see resolved, but they ought not to be loaded on to the back of this Bill.
  Dr. Marek: I am reassured to some extent. At least something will be done in the area of the bay. As I am not an expert in water treatment, and as there seems to be no objection from any of my hon. Friends, I am quite happy to take my hon. Friend's word in respect of that amendment.
  New Clause 6 says:
  "Before constructing the Barrage, the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate-stripping of the waters of the rivers entering the inland bay and their tributaries in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay."
  The second part of the provision is simply an explanation of the need for the first part; it does not demand any action. Let me repeat the words from the first part:
  "the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate-stripping".
  Can my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth tell me why there should not be published a plan indicating what provision has been made for these activities?
  Mr. Michael: Mr. Deputy Speaker, I do not want to stretch your patience by repeating points that I made earlier, but my hon. Friend almost demands that I do so. Currently, Welsh Water and NRA do not consider that phosphate stripping and nitrate stripping are required from the outset to achieve the necessary water quality. However, as I said earlier, paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 69(13) cover that situation where works are required upstream of the inland bay. The undertakers are required to meet the cost of any works that are necessary, over a period of 20 years, to satisfy water quality standards. This provision could include phosphate stripping if the water quality standards so required. The point, which has been well made by my hon. Friend, is covered in the Bill. I hope that my hon. Friend will be reassured by that, too.
  Dr. Marek: It is a reassurance to a certain extent. However, there is no absolute guarantee of phosphate stripping and nitrate stripping in any of the waters coming in from the head waters.
  Mr. Morgan: If phosphate stripping and nitrate stripping become necessary within the first 20 years, the development corporation, as co-promoters, will have to pay Welsh Water and the NRA to do the job. A great fear is that if that responsibility can be dodged for the first 20 years, it will be dodged. There may be arguments about variations in climate conditions, the appropriate technol-ogy, the compulsory acquisition of land, and the location of phosphate stripping and nitrate stripping plants. Are the plants to be located at the sewage works as add-on components or will the people concerned do the much more ambitious, but possibly necessary, job of locating them where the waters actually enter the bay so that all possible sources are covered?
  Nineteen years could easily elapse before a plan is agreed. With a little delay, the 20 years could be gone. In that event, who would pick up the tab? It seems that that is left completely in the air. Will the Cardiff city council, as the legatee body, pick up the bill or will the NRA, as the monitoring body, be responsible? The NRA will not have the necessary capital funds for a scheme costing £50 million. Or will Welsh Water—a private business—have to meet the cost? If so, its shareholders will not be very pleased. This fear has been expressed to me by very senior people in the NRA in Wales.
  Dr. Marek: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. I shall read carefully what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said. He mentioned complying with standards. Will he say that those standards will be complied with on time and not 20 years later, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West suggests?
  Mr. Michael: I assure my hon. Friend that I intend to be around for more than 20 years, during which time I shall ensure that compliance is not dodged. It is in the interests of my constituents that I ensure that it is not. I hope that the NRA will pursue vigorously the requirements of the Bill and that future environmental legislation will make the requirements more stringent and will insist on timeous compliance with them. The Bill offers a series of tight and testing requirements—they have been described as draconian—and I and others who have supported the Bill will ensure that they are enforced.
  Dr. Marek: I shall weigh those remarks carefully when deciding how to vote on the new clause.
  New clause 5 provides:
  "Before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to sources of leachate in contact with the waters … and its proposals for removing, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate."
  There may be no proposals for the removal, relocation or improvement of such sources, but what is wrong with producing and publishing a plan pertaining to the sources of leachate? I am sure that the citizens of Cardiff would like such information at their fingertips. Has my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth any helpful comments to make on that?
  Mr. Michael: I hope that all my comments are helpful —they are certainly intended to be. My hon. Friend has misread the Bill. The Bill requires outfalls from Ferry road tip, Cowslip, Cogan and Penarth dock to be removed, relocated or diverted, to the satisfaction of the National Rivers Authority. There is a requirement on the developers to satisfy, by one or other of those means, the requirements of the NRA.
  I do not want to go into detail on the drafting of new clause 5, but there are deficiencies as it asks for a report. It is not clear what is meant by sources of
  "groundwater in hydraulic contact … and proposals for removal, relocation or improvement."
  The Bill is quite clear.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West could perhaps enlighten us on the meaning of that phrase. Before I invite him to do so, may I say that if my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is right and there are only three sources of leachate, we already have half the answer to the question raised in the new clause. If the NRA were to publish its proposals for the removal, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate, the new clause would be otiose. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West seek to intervene?
  5 am
  Mr. Morgan: Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) said that he did not understand the wording that I had drafted in the new clause about hydraulic contact with the barrage. It is simple. The structure on which low-lying Cardiff is built used to be drained by artificial drainage ditches, rather like the Dutch polders which I am sure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have seen on your trips to the tulip fields. Those have been built over and cannot be seen, but there is water flowing under the ground from the rivers when the tide is in.
  If we retained a high water level, water would flow back and forth permanently along the old drainage ditches and under people's houses. Therefore, all the time there would be washing out of any pollutants from a tip or any other chemicals which might drain down from the clinker which was used as a standard building material to provide foundations over the 100 years or so when there was massive use of coal. Clinker, of course, contains all manner of polluting trace elements which will drain down into the ground water in the old drainage ditches with the impounded water in the lake.
  Dr. Marek: I am grateful for that explanation. I will bear carefully in mind the statements of my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, West and for Cardiff, South and Penarth.
  The conditions of new clause 17 may well be satisfied. In any case, I do not see any reason why the new clause should not be added to the Bill. It is similar to new clause 5. It says:
  "Before commencement of impounding by means of the barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish proposals for the sealing of the Ferry Road tip to the satisfaction of the rivers authority and the Environmental Health Officer of the city council that no material risk of infiltration of the inland bay or of groundwater by leachate from the tip will occur."
  I should have thought that that was an important new clause and that every citizen of Cardiff would wish to be satisfied that that would happen. If it is anywhere in the Bill, I hope that the Minister will tell me where it is, and I will be delighted to say no more about it. It is a sensible provision. I am sure that citizens of Cardiff will want to be satisfied that there is no material risk of infiltration. The new clause does not ask for the impossible. There could be immaterial risks of infiltration because there is no such thing as 100 per cent. success in such matters. I commend the new clause to the House and hope that it will be passed in due course.
  New clause 19, which deals with algal scum, says:
  "Before the commencement of impounding, the undertakers shall commission and publish proposals for the proper disposal of algal scum arising in the inland bay that are consistent with the preservation and maintenance of good water quality standards at the site of disposal and in adjoining waters."
  That is probably the most difficult of the new clauses. It certainly asks for no more than that the commission should publish proposals for proper disposal—but exactly what does "proper disposal" mean? It can mean different things to different people.
  When the clause says that the proposals must be
  "consistent with the preservation and maintenance of good water quality standards at the site of disposal",
  that is also open to interpretation. That new clause is perhaps a little too loose and I would have made it tighter. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) hopes to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I shall listen carefully to see whether he can illuminate the matter for me.
  I wish to bring to the attention of the House the book first referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) entitled "Toxic Blue-Green Algae". It is a report by the National Rivers Authority published in September 1990. On page 79 it states:
  "Knowledge of the environmental effects of the toxins"—
  produced by the algae—
  "is largely based on circumstantial evidence."
  If the document is to be believed—and I think that it should be because it is a scientific paper:
  "Toxic blue-green algae have been recorded from UK lakes for many years, although no major ecological perturbations have been attributed directly to the effects of the toxins. Their potential for causing problems is well documented. Toxicity data obtained by intra-peritanial injection indicate that toxins produced by blue-green algae rank amongst the most toxic compounds of biological origin."
  The next statement is important;
  "The main uses of water which are most affected are those of general amenity, recreation and livestock watering."
  I am concerned that a scientific paper states, first, that evidence about the environmental effects is based largely
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  on circumstantial evidence and, secondly, that the main uses of water most affected are those of general amenity and recreation. That is precisely what water in the barrage will be used for. I think it right—and I hope that you, Mr.Deputy Speaker, will also think it right—that those matters should be raised. It would be, not a terrible calamity, but very sad if the Cardiff barrage were built merely to increase the capital value of the land by £900 million—as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) said—and it was then discovered, with hindsight, that nobody would have built it because of the environmental and toxic effects of the algae that could develop in the lake.
  It is difficult to prove the case. All that we can do is listen to the arguments—I have done so—and make up our minds at the end of the debate about which way we should vote.
  Paragraph 12.16 on page 81 states:
  "The clear message, however, is that there are no easy options and many of the control methods currently available are not likely to be effective in the short term. The possible exceptions to this are whether there is sufficient depth for destratification to be effective."
  I do not expect my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth to be able to give us the answers all the time, but I should like to hear that there is sufficient depth for destratification to be effective. However, listening to my hon. Friends' speeches, there seemed to be much concern about whether the control options that are being proposed—certainly as described by them—will be effective. It would be wrong to build the barrage and then have to say with hindsight, "Sorry, we did the wrong thing. We shouldn't have built it." That is the crunch question.
  Of course that area of Cardiff has to be developed. Let me pay tribute to the Government. On occasions they have recognised that there is problem there and that the area needs developing. I do not think that that is at issue in the House this morning. What is at issue is, have we got it right, are we going about it the right way? There are serious questions about the barrage and the problems of controlling algae and they have not so far been dispelled to my satisfaction.
  One issue that pertains to the new clause regards the management of the lagoon, which is important. We are talking about pollution in the lagoon and ensuring that it is clean, healthy and contains good water. I should like to compare two Bills, as there have been more than one. I have here what I hope is a copy of the latest Bill. The trouble is that it does not say which one it is—it would be a lot easier if it had a date on it so that we knew which copy was which. I also have a copy of a previous Bill. The only way that I can identify it is that on the new copy, on the second page, underneath the heading "Cardiff Bay Barrage [H.L.] Arrangements of Sections", "50/3" is printed and "50/2" on the old Bill. Therefore the "50/2" Bill must be an earlier version than the "50/3" Bill, but I am sorry that I have not been able to find out precisely how early.
  Clause 54 of the old Bill—
  Mr. Michael: I am trying to follow what my hon. Friend is saying, but he has thrown me a little with his references to the lagoon, which is not dealt with in the new clauses before us at present. If I am wrong, perhaps my hon. Friend would draw my attention to the part of the new clauses that he is referring to. I have a feeling that I am missing an important point.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I was getting slightly worried when the hon. Gentleman seemed to be dealing in some detail with the lagoon. I think that it would be more appropriate to discuss that when we come to amendment No. 115 and those grouped with it, which specifically deal with the lagoon.
  Dr. Marek: We shall certainly come to that consideration, and I understand that it is different. I shall explain this in detail later as there is a significant change in the management of the lagoon in the old Bill when compared to what is stated in the new Bill.
  Mr. Michael: There may be some mistake. Would my hon. Friend tell us what he means by "the lagoon"?
  Dr. Marek: I mean precisely what it says in the Bill —not the lake and the waters coming from the Taff. I do not want to dwell on it at this stage, because, as Mr. Deputy Speaker says, it would be more appropriate to discuss it later. The lagoon affects cleanliness and the environment, which is why I have raised the matter at this stage.
  There are significant differences between the old and new Bills. Although I shall not do so now, I had intended to seek to develop an argument in relation to the new clauses on the waters and leachates from the Taff and the Ely, to see whether the development corporation has made any other changes in its philosophy towards fulfilling its functions under this Bill, compared with what it was seeking to do under the older Bill. I suspect that there is plenty of time left in the debate and that we can return to that matter, which I shall certainly do at the appropriate time.
  5.15 am
  My next point was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, who talked about money and about who would benefit from the development. I should like the people of Cardiff to benefit from it—but I must be careful not to stray from the scope of the new clauses. I hope—I am sure—that there will be an opportunity later to discuss this matter when we take a quick look at the clauses on land acquisition. If my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda is correct, a large sum will flow from the building of the barrage, so money should be put back into the scheme to make it absolutely clear to everybody that there will be no leachates and no build-up of nitrates and phosphates, that all the SSOs will be dealt with and, especially, that algae will be dealt with effectively. That is a difficult issue. I know that the Bill contains proposals on dealing with algae, and that that is a matter for conjecture, but other aspects of the Bill are not the subject of conjecture.
  If money is to be available because of an increase in land values, I should like to know where the money will go. Will it be siphoned off, perhaps by a few wealthy people who probably do not or will not live in the Cardiff area? Will there be any return to the Welsh Office? If so, we should know. If the Welsh Office is to have some return, perhaps it should spend some money to make absolutely sure of these points and to satisfy the people of Cardiff on them.
  If the return is to go to the development corporation —I do not know its term of reference although I have asked—who will have the money? Where will it be distributed? Is the local authority to have any money? Will
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  South Glamorgan county council get any money out of the development? It should, if £900 million is to result from the development. Whoever gets the return, a decent amount of money should be spent to make absolutely sure that the people of Cardiff are satisfied that they will have a top-class environment.
  Mr. Michael: I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would leave the satisfaction of the people of Cardiff to those who represent them. I am sure that he will agree that principles are important, not just sums of money, so may I ask him for the assurance that he will ask the list of questions that he has just asked about any public investment in his constituency and that he will look forward with interest to all of us asking such questions with equal stringency before any money from the public purse is spent in his constituency in the future?
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend misunderstands me. I am not criticising the spending of money. I do not criticise anything. I am asking a question. Some £900 million is to be created by this development. I repeat for the third time that whether there should be development in the area is not at issue. I give my full backing to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and I want development to go ahead in the area.
  Mr. Michael: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Dr. Marek: May I finish this point?
  I do not criticise the spending of money. I welcome any advice that my hon. Friend has to give me at any time. There is no problem about that. But if a lot of money is to be made, who will make it and will the people of Cardiff benefit?
  Mr. Michael: I understand my hon. Friend's difficulty in answering a straight question. If a road is built in his or any other constituency which creates access to land or if infrastructure works are undertaken, value is created. My hon. Friend asks stringent questions about this proposal, but will he apply the same stringency to each item of public expenditure in his area? Did he apply such stringency to the building of roads in his constituency in the past? Consistency would certainly require it. I have always sought to ensure that public money is used to good advantage and bring development to the area. My hon. Friend asks a series of specific and demanding questions, it seems with greater stringency in relation to my constituency than I suspect that he would do in his own.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend does me a disservice. Few matters, certainly under local government administration should be secret and confidential. Of course, personal information and certain commercial information has to be confidential, but nothing on the strategic scale of who is going to make money out of a development, how much and where it is to go should be kept confidential.
  In Wrexham I have difficulty obtaining answers for many of my constituents about what local government undertakes there. I do not say that in any pejorative way. Unfortunately, it is a habit of administrators from John o'Groats to Lands End to keep matters confidential to avoid unnecessary questions and trouble.
  Mr. Michael: We are not talking about confidentiality. In the past I have had responsibilities on Cardiff city council as chairman of finance, chairman of economic development, chairman of planning and deputy chairman

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  of the central area development committee, which dealt with a project of major importance, indeed the most important project in the city. If one is to boost an economy and create success in the area, an element of opening up possibilities is required. Infrastructure has to be built. Roads that open up sites, create access and allow things to happen have to be built. Sometimes it is necessary to invest in the future without seeing exactly the shape of that future.
  For example, in Wentloog not far from the areas that we are discussing, originally it was hoped to bring in a single major employer. Clearly, such large investment does not arrive very easily. So now the same area, with some infrastructure works completed, is being considered for development in a more piecemeal manner. I assure my hon. Friend that one cannot say that this person or that person will benefit from a development. But we can ensure that the result has a pretty good likelihood of bringing a return to the whole community in jobs and improvements to the economy of the area.
  By moving forward over time one can see the development of an economy. That is what we have succeeded in doing in Cardiff to build the economy of the city to the point at which it can sustain the tremendous development that is now taking place in south Cardiff where the city has been brought back into its heartland. I ask my hon. Friend to understand that those issues are basic to the development proposed in the Bill. They are not matters to which we come lightly. That is why I feel that some of the questions that my hon. Friend is asking are a trifle naive and that he might not ask them when he seeks to promote development in his own area.
  Dr. Marek: I shall not enter into an argument about our respective experiences. I have simply been asking one question. If my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda is right that the barrage will result in added value of £900 million, it is not naive to ask where that sum is going, who will get it and will the people of Cardiff benefit. The people of Cardiff will want answers to those questions. Of course they will see benefits from the development in many of its facets. It will provide more housing, jobs and infrastructure. It will give a general impetus to Cardiff. I must not bore the House by repeating myself for a fourth time, but there is no issue between us on that. We all see that. I hope that my hon. Friend will not doubt me any more on that. But it is right and proper in a legislature performing a scrutiny role for us to be able to see exactly what is going on. Such things should not be confidential, nor should they be brushed aside. People should not be told that the NRA knows best and that they need not worry. I have always fought for the public to have the right to know.
  Mr. Michael: Who has said any of those things?
  Dr. Marek: That is the interpretation that I put on some of the discussions that we have had on the new clauses. For example, my hon. Friend said that the requirements of one of the new clauses would be met since any conditions would have to satisfy the NRA. Leaving something to the requirements of the NRA at some time in the future might be acceptable, but it is not as good as spelling it out straight away.
  Mr. Michael: I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that his remarks were a pretty comprehensive misrepresentation of what I have said at various stages in the debate. At present, the NRA has statutory responsibility in these matters and the Bill places power in the hands of the NRA to require certain standards to be met. That has certain consequences for the undertakers.
  As I agreed earlier with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), there might be a number of improvements in the way in which environmental matters are dealt with and enforced in Britain and the way in which water quality is dealt with, and which we look forward to enacting in due course. But the arrangements in the Bill are appropriate to the present circumstances and it is a trifle unfair for my hon. Friend to ask for something which goes way beyond the general requirements of the law and becomes a burden on Cardiff and the developments that the people of Cardiff see in prospect. Many of the arrangements in the Bill go ahead of what is currently in legislation and that is certainly the case in many of the agreements that underpin the Bill. Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend to be a trifle more generous to the care with which we have pursued these matters in reaching this point in the legislative process.
  Dr. Marek: I am sure that in the course of time I have misrepresented my hon. Friend because my memory is not word perfect, but I have not done so wilfully. Any misrepresentation has been simply because of my inability to remember precisely what he said.
  We have reached the crux of the argument between us. I am sure that the Cardiff Bay development corporation and my hon. Friend have considered the matter carefully, but how far do we go? My hon. Friend believes that it is sufficient to accept the Bill, and that that should satisfy the people of Cardiff and hon. Members. I believe that we should go further by accepting the new clauses, which make it clear that the people of Cardiff have nothing to fear because the environment will not be harmed as a result of any works undertaken should the Bill be enacted.
  5.30 am
  New clause 17 referred to sealing the Ferry road tip to the satisfaction of the NRA and the environmental health officer. I should prefer that obligation to be spelt out in the Bill, but I understand the other view.
  We should know how much money will be involved and where it will come from. We should know how much money will be created and what will be spent and where. Every person in Cardiff has a legitimate interest in those answers, as does every hon. Member, as we have the important function of scrutinising public finance. Those questions are not naive and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda can enlighten the House about them later.
  We have had an interesting debate, but there are still a few more speakers to come. There is much agreement between the two sides about the development of the city of Cardiff. There is also much agreement on the new clauses. Hon. Members may place a different emphasis on different items. The Secretary of State spoke about undertaking
  "one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects in Europe".
  I should be pleased if every storm sewer overflow were considered in a similar spirit and either removed, relocated

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  or improved. If the proposed barrage is the most exciting in Europe, that should be spelt out so that every storm sewer overflow is attended to.
  The people of Wales have put up for years with the pollution of their rivers; it is time that it stopped. It could stop because of the biggest and best project of urban regeneration in Europe. Can we have a statement from the Minister or the promoters of the Bill to say that there is enough money to clean all the rivers? A commitment to that effect would receive three cheers from everyone in Cardiff, Wales and the rest of the country. If a start were made in Cardiff, it would not be long before other areas demanded similar improvements.
  Mr. Michael: The cleaning of the sewage outfalls into the Cardiff bay will happen as a result of the development of that bay, which is a positive improvement. I should not have been a whit surprised to hear hon. Members such as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd say that the knock-on from that development should be the clean-up of the sewage outfalls in his area. I am sure that my hon. Friend would press the Government for that. Then there would be no difference between us.
  The difference between us in the present debate arises from the fact that those who support the new clauses seem to wish to place excessively onerous requirements on those undertaking the project. They seem to take a beggar-myneighbour approach and to say, "You cannot have improvements in Cardiff unless we have improvements in our area"—even though that has nothing to do with the barrage. My hon. Friend asks that positive developments in Cardiff should have a knock-on effect elsewhere. I think that that is already happening.
  Dr. Marek: Then let us see it happening. Let us have a cast-iron promise that every SSO will be attended to.
  There is a difference between Cardiff and places further up the valleys and in north Wales. In Cardiff, there is the possibility of regeneration and the ability to create wealth and income through the construction of shops. The money created could be spent on environmental benefits. That will not be possible in Pontypridd. It is a pity that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd has gone out to get a cup of tea. I am sure that he seeks for his area the benefits that I seek for Wrexham, but we shall not get those benefits because there is never enough money to go round to allow one to do immediately everything that one would wish. The Cardiff scheme is unique because it will release money to achieve such aims. I am concerned that a decent proportion of the money thus released should go towards environmental benefits and improving the quality of life for the people of Cardiff and the surrounding area. One does not get the impression from the Bill that all the money —or anything like all of it—will be spent for the benefit of the people of Cardiff.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend must look further than the requirements of this one Bill, to the developments worked up in co-operation between the local authorities and the development corporation and with the statutory undertakings. He must look at requirements in the Bill that have developed, following agreement, as the process has evolved, in an attempt to ensure that positive environmental and other benefits ensue in the area. My hon. Friend is a little unkind not only to the development corporation but to the local authorities and other bodies that have sought ways to achieve positive improvements,
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  and incremental as well as direct benefits, from the changes. Many of us have taken part in that process, which is happening around the Bill. The results of the process are contained in the Bill and I have already referred to some of them.
  Dr. Marek: I thank my hon. Friend.
  The problem is that the development is taking place at a time when we have a Tory Administration. My hon. Friend is right that councils wish to serve their areas. They are always on the look-out for ways to find jobs for their people, for ways to develop and for ways to build houses. Under the present Administration, that has been very difficult. We started with a recession in 1980–81; we are in a recession now, in 1990–91. We have learnt nothing in 10 years. Meanwhile, local authorities do not have any money and cannot build houses, and that brings us back to the Bill, because I am told—certainly my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda voiced this supposition some hours ago—that the barrage is required if houses are to be built and sold at a good enough price, to people from I know not where, to make money for the scheme to go ahead —and, presumably, for the £900 million to be realised. There may be sense in that, if the Bill is held up for a few months; perhaps only until June, when there may well be a Labour Government. There must be a general election by July 1992.
  Mr. Michael: If my hon. Friend has read the documentation that I sent him and other hon. Members some time ago, he will have noted that the economic benefits will become that much greater with the barrage. He is, of course, right to hope for the return of a Labour Government, but we want the barrage to be built so that Cardiff can benefit as quickly as possible from the improvement in the economy that will accompany that Government. I am surprised that my hon. Friend is not willing to support us on that basis, if on no other.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend must not say that I am not willing to support him. As I have said, I support the regeneration of Cardiff. It is really a question of getting it right. I do not know the time scale; it could well take a year for it to get out of the House of Commons and progress towards the statute book.
  Life would be much easier under a Labour Government. No doubt, the Minister has pricked up his ears at that. I do not want to be misrepresented. No Labour Government would suddenly rush off to the Minister at Llantrisant and say, "Print us another £100 million; we want to help Cardiff and the barrage." However, local authorities would have more freedom to spend their capital housing receipts and would therefore have a greater input on the type of housing that would be available. I am not an expert and I have not examined the details, but I hope that by and large the housing provided would benefit the people of Wales in general and those of Cardiff in particular.
  Mr. Michael: The resale price of properties in the bay area shows that that is happening. Furthermore having spoken last weekend to people living in a development in the area, I note that there are many local people there. It is not a yuppie paradise, as some of my hon. Friends have regrettably suggested.
  The support of the local authorities, and the leading role of South Glamorgan county council, resulted from

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  their appreciation of the benefits, such as economic development and the regeneration of the area, that will result. The environment will not be disregarded, however, as the new clauses make clear.
  I remind my hon. Friend that those matters have been dealt with and negotiated. Interesting, constructive and complimentary though some of his remarks may be, and much as both of us may look forward to the advent of a Labour Government, they basically have nothing to do with the new clauses or, indeed, with the Bill.
  Dr. Marek: I beg to differ with my hon. Friend on that. The new clauses critically concern the barrage. The questions are: has the development corporation got it right, so that the barrage can be built without all the problems caused by algae, phosphates or nitrates, or by flooding? Will the people of Cardiff be happy with it, and not regret it? Is there a case for waiting before going ahead with the whole development? My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West raised many concerns in his long speech.
  The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts): The hon. Gentleman mentions a long speech. He ha. s been speaking for well over an hour and it is now 16 minutes to 6 o'clock. He challenged me to comment on the Bill. He said that he was trying to improve the Bill. Is not he trying to block it? I have listened to him on and off during the night and I am sure that he is participating in a blocking exercise.
  5.45 am
  Dr. Marek: No. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth for excelling himself in answering my questions. He has reassured me on many issues, although not on all.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend spoke about the clearance of algae. Such matters should be kept in perspective. We all know that algae can cause problems and that research and management are required. Can my hon. Friend give an example of public demand for a stretch of water on which the problem has arisen to be drained?
  Dr. Marek: The Rutland Water incident springs to mind, but the simple answer is that I do not know of an example. I am reluctant to say that algae bloom is common, but it has certainly become more common in the past 20 years. I do not have expert advice or evidence before me, but I think that it is likely that the problem will increase unless we are able to diagnose exactly how to control it. The National Rivers Authority document deals with control options and states on page 81 that the clear message is that there are no easy options.
  Mr. Michael: My hon. Friend seems to accept that algae occur in nature, and that they need to be investigated, tackled and managed. I agree with my hon. Friend on that reasonable approach. The Bill places responsibility for management and its financing on those who will manage the stretch of water. That is entirely reasonable and I am sure that my hon. Friend and I can agree to dispose of that little point and of the others that we have explored successfully in the last hour.
  Dr. Marek: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I shall finish soon because my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is itching to speak. As I have said, the occurrence of algae is increasing.
  Mr. Morgan: It is.
  Dr. Marek: My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West agrees. That increase means that we have to be extremely careful. Should we go ahead with the development? Is there any profit in accepting the suggestion by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) that properly cleaned mud banks are attractive? Perhaps they would be more attractive than the barrage. It is up to hon. Members to decide.
  Mr. Morgan: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Dr. Marek: I shall do so for the last time because I want to finish my speech.
  Mr. Morgan: It was precisely for that reason that in February I circulated to members of the Cabinet a photograph of, and a letter about, the exposed mud banks. We could clean up about 99 per cent. of the sewage and leave the mud banks as a feature. They would be covered twice a day and then uncovered for 15 to 20 hours, depending on where they are. The purpose of my sending the photograph and letter—they were referred to much earlier in the debate by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones), was to draw attention to what would be covered for ever. In effect, I was saying, "You may have heard that the mud banks are awful. Here is a photograph of them at low tide when they are supposed to look awful. The photograph shows what would be covered up permanently."
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, North implied that my letter and photograph had a status equal to that of the letter of the Secretary of State. There was a Pavlovian reaction from the Under-Secretary of State, who produced that wonderful laugh of his. He seemed to forget that my letter does not carry authority and was not able to bring the payroll vote into the Chamber. The Secretary of State for Wales thought that he had that authority, but in the middle of the night it became clear that he did not. The sole purpose of my circulating the photograph and the letter was to produce evidence to members of the Cabinet. I took the view that they probably did not visit Cardiff bay at low tide and that they did not know what it looked like, it being a characteristic of the camera that it does not lie.
  Dr. Marek: I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Michael: I know that my hon. Friend has an eye for these things. Does he agree that many photographs show beauty in industrial dereliction and other aspects of misery? A photograph can be a form of misrepresentation in the same way as any other form of documentation, unless one takes the context as a whole, including the environment in which the photograph was taken, and has regard to the appropriate filters and other devices that are used to ensure that the result is as attractive as possible.
  Dr. Marek: I take that as a riposte to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan). There is a subjective element. We must reach decisions as individuals. If we are allowed to divide the House on some of the new clauses that are before us, I shall vote for them. I should make it clear, however, that I would vote against some other new clauses.
  The crucial decision is whether we can go ahead with the barrage. Are we sure that we would not be making a mistake by so doing? I ask the question on the basis that the decision would not be made on the ground of being

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  able to sell houses around the foreshore. Alternatively, should we say that, because of the uncertainties that have arisen during the debate, we should hold back from building the barrage but go ahead with the rest of the development? There may be other ways to improve the river and make it desirable, so that it becomes a magnet and a centre for a regenerated part of urban Cardiff that we all wish to see.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: The debate on the new clauses has continued for eight hours. I have been in the Chamber for more than seven of those hours, waiting patiently to be called to contribute. In the past 40 minutes I began to wonder more and more whether I would be able to slip out of the Chamber to have a shave and avoid appearing on television with rather more than a 7 o'clock shadow at almost 6 o'clock in the morning. I was reminded of another valiant, stimulating and informative effort that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) during my days in the European Parliament and its Committees.
  I recall that speeches in the European Parliament had specific time limits and I am sure that some hon. Members would have liked such limits on speeches in our debates today. However, in Committees in the European Parliament Members could speak virtually for as long as they liked. I recall our Italian friends saying—in various ways—that they were concluding their speeches at least half a dozen times over a period of 40 minutes or more.
  Having sat through our eight hours of debate, I have found the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams), for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) and for Wrexham most stimulating and informative.
  I need not dwell too long on the new clauses. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West has done a signal service to the House in the way in which he has prepared the brief, concise and effective new clauses which, if accepted, would considerably strengthen the environment of the area being redeveloped in Cardiff.
  The new clauses highlight important and specific problems about the sources of leaching. They also refer to phosphate and nitrate stripping, the difficulties relating to sewer outflows, the way in which the Ferry road tip will have to be dealt with and the proper disposal of algal scum.
  New clause 19 states:
  "'Before the commencement of impounding the under-takers shall commission and publish proposals for the proper disposal of algal scum arising in the inland bay that are consistent with the preservation and maintenance of good water quality standards at the site of disposal and in adjoining waters.'."
  Several hon. Members have referred to the fact that the developers have raised that issue and have properly identified it as a problem. In fairness to the Bill's proponents, there has been an effort to deal with the serious environmental problems arising from the proposal to build a barrage.
  We believe that the proposals are not adequate and that they need to be tightened up and sharpened to make them truly effective. However, the Bill contains a reference to algal scum about which no mention has been made so far. That part of the Bill highlights a serious problem.
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  Clause 70(9) states:
  "If it reasonably appears to the City Council that amounts of algal scum are present in the waters of the inland bay, or there is infestation by vermin or pests in or about the inland bay then, upon the City Council giving notice in writing on any such occasion to the undertakers, the undertakers shall on each such occasion with all reasonable despatch take such steps as are reasonably required at their own expense to remove and properly to dispose of the same."
  6 am
  It may be said that that would deal with the problem, but we should look at it again. The subsection seems to imply that such events will occur regularly—that frequently during the summer algal scum will be present in the water and that there will be infestation by vermin or pests with almost monotonous regularity. Our amend-ments would ensure that the spectre raised in clause 70(9) was dealt with much more effectively.
  New clause 17 provides that
  "before commencement of impounding by means of the barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish proposals for the sealing of the Ferry Road tip to the satisfaction of the rivers authority and the Environmental Health Officer of the city council that no material risk of infiltration of the inland bay or of groundwater by leachate from the tip will occur."
  That is related to new clause 5, which provides that
  "before the commencement of impounding by means of the Barrage the undertakers shall produce and publish a plan pertaining to sources of leachate in contact with the waters of the inland bay or of the groundwater in hydraulic contact with the waters of the inland bay and its proposals for removal, relocation or improvement of such sources of leachate."
  Standards are changing and improving all the time. That is well illustrated by the guidance issued by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution during the past few years on landfill gas. Guidance was issued at the beginning of 1989. In January 1991, about two years later, HMIP found it necessary to issue revised guidelines for dealing with landfill gas.
  Last October, in Eastbourne, there was an important conference on issues relating to refuse tips and landfill gas. At that conference, Mr. John Nicholson, principal inspector of pollution, pointed out that environmental protection legislation will prevent landfill operators from surrendering their site licence at any time, by requiring them first to obtain a certificate of completion from a waste regulation authority after demonstrating that their landfills have stabilised and no longer pose a hazard to the environment or to human health. Mr. Nicholson suggested that landfill site operators are likely to have a continuing commitment to their sites for 15 to 50 years after closure. The Ferry road tip is still in use. It has seven years of life left. At this stage in the legislative process we are still not certain what will happen to it.
  Mr. Morgan: This matter has a close connection with something which, at one time, I thought of including in my contribution. In the end I did not include it, but, with my hon. Friend's permission, I should like to expand on the point that he has made.
  Obviously, Cardiff city council is extremely anxious to get the development corporation to decide whether to acquire the Ferry road tip. If the tip is acquired by the corporation, will it be leased back to the council for landfill use, or will it be removed, or treated and sealed? If the city council retains it, up to £12 million will have to be spent to seal it and remove the methane permanently. All the methane will have to be captured, and the by-products of

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  organic decomposition will have to be prevented from causing damage elsewhere. If the bay authorities buy the tip, the city council will not have a landfill tipping site. In that case, the bay authorities will be obliged to make good, and the city council will have the monitoring role. That is precisely the decision that the city council wants. Indeed,
  it has been waiting for more than 12 months to find out what the co-promoters will do about Ferry road. There has been no decision yet.
  Mr. Griffiths: I thank my hon. Friend for his invaluable background information, which underlines my observa-tions about the management of landfill sites. In the case of Ferry road, will tipping be carried on for another seven years? We heard that 2 million cu m of decaying wreckage could be transported.
  Just before my hon. Friend's invaluable intervention, I referred to Mr. Nicholson's comment that landfill sites will require 15 to 50 years of after-care to ensure that the gases being emitted are safe and that the leachate problem and all the other problems associated with a completed site are dealt with successfully. He pointed out that those requirements will have significant implications for the design and maintenance of gas controls and for post-closure site management.
  On the period between site closure and the issuing of a certificate of completion, Mr. Nicholson said:
  "Access to the control system will be essential for monitoring, adjustment of valves and maintenance, the gas wells, pipelines and the necessary enclosure for the pump and flare stack will therefore restrict land usage. Around the site, access will be necessary to all monitoring bore holes and any monitoring points within services or buildings for most of the time that the site is actively gassing. However, it will be impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy how long the monitoring outside the wastes will be necessary, and one should therefore be pessimistic in quantifying any time scale."
  He also said that control systems may need replacement every 10 to 15 years. Indeed, some controls have failed and have had to be replaced within five to 10 years.
  The revised guidance includes advice on maintenance of control systems and on landfill settlement, which has proved to be a major cause of problems in maintaining the efficiency of the control measures.
  The revised paper, which has now been issued, will encourage landfill operators and waste regulation authorities to adopt standard gas monitoring regimes so that comparable results are obtained. A minimum temperature of 600 deg C for gas flares was suggested in the 1989 paper, but a higher temperature has been recommended. More detailed advice will be given on gas monitoring in buildings and on sampling from bore holes and wells.
  The advice deals with the properties of landfill gas, gas protection and measurement and monitoring techniques. When a landfill site has reached the end of its useful life, quality standards for its management are likely to rise, but the Ferry road site could be under post-completion management for up to 50 years. The monitoring procedures will mean not only that the site will be sterilised but that tests will have to be carried out on land around the site to ensure that it is safe.
  Research has recently been carried out on landfill gas sites to extend our knowledge of health and odour nuisance risks. Those studies were sponsored by the Department of the Environment. The information I have comes from ENDS report No. 180 of January 1990. The findings are such that all hon. Members should be aware
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  of them. We are told that measurements of trace gas emissions from landfill sites by Harwell laboratory suggest that workers may be exposed to concentrations of toxic substances which exceed occupational exposure limits.
  6.15 am
  Mr. Michael: I do not want to disturb the flow of my hon. Friend's contribution, but I have been following his argument with interest, and I am not sure to which new clause he is referring or which one addresses the specific point that he is making.
  Mr. Griffiths: Obviously, my hon. Friend was not listening to me earlier, when I said specifically that my comments relate to the publishing of proposals under new clause 17 for the sealing of the Ferry road tip to the satisfaction of the rivers authority and the environmental health officer of the city council, and also to new clause 5, which deals with the publication of a plan about sources of leachate in inland water. I will speak about the leachate problem later.
  My comments relate to the safety of the management of the Ferry road tip or any tip while in operation and following closure. The study to which I was referring was sponsored by the Department of the Environment and was carried out by the prestigious Harwell laboratory. It showed that there was a danger to workers on site. The study also revealed that the dilution of landfill gases may be several orders of magnitude too small to prevent odour nuisance beyond landfill site boundaries. Of course, that has important implications—
  Mr. Michael: I have been listening to my hon. Friend. He has referred to new clause 17 and to new clause 5. They deal with leachates in ground water. He is talking about research on the gas emissions risk resulting from tipping. I agree that it is an important issue which has wide and general application, as shown by the research to which he referred, but how do the two new clauses deal with it?
  Mr. Griffiths: There are two aspects to new clause 17. First, it contains a proposal to seal the Ferry road tip, which leads to the question of the proper management of the tip when its working life is completed; secondly, it addresses the issue of the risk of infiltration of the inland bay or of ground water by leachate from the tip.
  The study is concerned with a tip not only during its operation but when it closed, because the odours from the gases which are released are shown to be of such power that they would constitute a serious nuisance beyond the boundary of the tip.
  Mr. Flynn: I am sure that my hon. Friend is not deliberately misleading the House, but new clause 17 refers to
  "the sealing of the Ferry Road tip to the satisfaction of the rivers authority".
  That does not suggest that it can be wrapped up in a cellophane bag in order to stop emissions of methane gas. The only way to control methane gas is to vent it. That has nothing to do with the rivers authority, whose sole interest is leachate.
  Mr. Griffiths: My hon. Friend has failed to read the rest of the new clause because the sealing is done not merely to the satisfaction of the National Rivers Authority, but of the environmental health officer of the city council who, under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, has a wide

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  range of duties relating to landfill sites and their management while they are being worked and after they are closed. It is not just a matter of venting the methane gas when the tip is closed, because other gases can be emitted from such a site.
  Mr. Michael: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Griffiths: No, I shall not, because I think that the point has been sufficiently explored in interventions. I now feel that an attempt is being made to filibuster, so I shall continue with the serious findings of the study sponsored by the Department of the Environment.
  The findings were presented at a conference in London in January last year by Dr. Philip Scott. We are told that they have significant implications for landfill operators. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 impose a duty to demonstrate that gases evolved from decaying refuse do not pose a significant health risk to site workers. That will apply to workers managing the site after it has been filled when post-site management work is being done.
  Harwell identified a total of 136 trace gases present immediately below the surface of the landfills, of which 109 were common on all three sites where the investigations were carried out. The relative abundance of different groups of gases varies markedly between the sites and, following changes in operating regimes, at individual sites. I can only lament the fact that the Ferry road tip was not one of those at which the Harwell laboratory conducted its studies. Harwell also followed a procedure recommended by the Health and Safety Executive—
  Mr. Michael: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Griffiths: Not now, but when I have completed this point I shall certainly do so.
  The procedure assessed the impact of mixtures of toxic substances that exist when the site is operated and when it is closed and there are post-management problems. That showed that workers would be exposed to health risks for up to 1,000 days following the deposit of refuse, when trace gas emissions are at their most hazardous.
  The Ferry road tip could be hazardous and in the immediate future—the three years after its closure—it may be a distinctly hazardous place for those workers managing the site on its completion. I can only say "may", because the Ferry road tip was not one of those investigated—I only wish that it had been.
  Mr. Michael: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend has referred to the wide powers of environmental health officers, the dangers to employees and gases below landfill tips, but the new clauses to which he is speaking are specifically limited to the requirement that
  "no material risk of infiltration of the inland bay or of groundwater by leachate from the tip will occur."
  In order to understand his point, I have asked my hon. Friend to show how his remarks relate to the new clauses, but I cannot see how they do.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): The hon. Gentleman is not challenging his hon. Friend but is,
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  in a way, attempting to challenge the Chair. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) is in order. However, I understand that he is bringing his comments to a close.
  Mr. Griffiths: I was a little surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth was trying to gag me on this important matter. [Laughter.] It is nothing to laugh about. It is an important matter and concerns a health risk to workers on the site when it is in operation and in the three years after its closure. Also, there is the less dangerous but unpleasant nuisance of odour detected in these studies for people living in the vicinity of the site both during its operation and after its closure.
  Mr. Flynn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Griffiths: I shall not give way on this issue any more. I want to deal with it and move on to the proposed European Community directive on the management of landfill sites when they have finished their useful life.
  The report continues to say that at the three sites studied, a dilution of the order of 435 times sufficed to reduce gas concentrations below the hazard threshold and that such dilution generally appears within one metre of the surface. Sampling to measure the exposure of site operators is nevertheless required under the 1988 regulations and Harwell is now working with a leading landfill operator and a toxicologist to develop suitable monitoring techniques.
  At two of the study sites, between 39 and 64 per cent. of the compounds detected were present at levels exceeding odour thresholds. The most prominent of these were methanethiol and ethyl butanoate. I am sure that everyone is familiar with those two gases.
  According to Dr. Scott, a dilution factor of 100 million would be needed at the periphery of the study sites to reduce the concentration of these compounds below the odour threshold. In practice, that was never attained. Dilutions of I million were often observed, but 100 million is needed. In several instances, the dilution factor was as small as 60,000, so the odour was really bad.
  Those figures demonstrate a substantial potential to cause odour nuisance—a conclusion confirmed by a recent Harwell analysis of public complaints about landfill sites in Essex, which show that complaints about odours are by far the most common. I have received many complaints from constituents about the odours from one of the landfill sites at Stormy Down. These complaints come from villages up to two miles as the crow flies away from the site, which shows how unpleasant the smell can be. Those dilutions were never obtained, and so the smell was bad, and that has been confirmed by further research in Essex.
  Associated research by Harwell has shown that certain cover materials, notably pulverised fuel ash, can remove a large proportion of odorous compounds from the landfill gas. Absorption and microbiodegradation are thought to be responsible, but Harwell is hoping that Department of the Environment funding will be forthcoming to advance our understanding of the processes involved.
  Mr. Flynn: I understand the case that my hon. Friend is trying to make, but he has quoted a report from Harwell, and, stripping away the gobbledegook and the language in which it is presented, the report reaches the devastating conclusion that rubbish tips smell. Could he relate that in some way to Ferry road? Rubbish tips smell when they are

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  new and when they are a few years old. They smell when they are covered and they hardly smell at all if they are ancient tips in an exposed area where there are strong winds. Could he tell us how the Ferry road tip matches the ones described in the Harlow report?
  Mr. Griffiths: I am surprised that my hon. Friend has not managed to grasp the seriousness of the situation that was revealed in the Harwell studies. For his elucidation, I repeat that they show that for three years—1,000 days— after a site has been closed, there is a danger of the gases being toxic to the workers and managers on the site. If my hon. Friend feels that that is inconsequential, I am sorry that that is his interpretation. In addition, terrible smells emanate from the sites—but not for as long as three years, as far as I can gather, although the studies do not go into details about the longevity of the lingering smells. The point is that the smells constitute a nuisance to the people living in the neighbourhood. From my own experience, those smells can result in complaints from people living up to two miles away, which I should have thought sufficient—
  6.30 am
  Mr. Rogers: I have great sympathy with the way in which my hon. Friend is trying to present his argument on a difficult report, with technical terms. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) has adopted a cheap way to participate in the debate, which is to pick on specific sentences in my hon. Friend's speech. He has now interrupted him at least half a dozen times. Will my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) now proceed with the report? I am sure that if my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West rises, he will catch the eye of the Chair and be able to present his counter-argument. Some of us would welcome my hon. Friend's positive contribution to the debate. Some of us are also interested in the exposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend and are trying to follow his argument closely. I wish that he would now proceed with it.
  Mr. Griffiths: I shall not be diverted again from the issues that I am raising. I shall now deal with the issues relating to the management of a landfill site, especially when it has been completed and sealed, which gives rise to problems that can last from 15 to 50 years.
  As I said at the outset, standards are changing all the time. Let us consider the European Community proposal for a landfill directive, which is a most instructive example. I have the fifth and sixth drafts of the proposal with me. If I were seriously interested in holding up our proceedings, I could discuss at length the way in which the two directives have been developed to deal with landfill sites when they have been completed and sealed off and the leachate problem is being tackled. However, I shall not do so, because I wish to concentrate on the sixth draft, on what we know about it and on the way in which it might affect the management of the Ferry road tip when its useful life has ended.
  The sixth draft directive proposes a ban on the landfilling of liquid waste, and lays down extremely stringent permeability standards, which are important when dealing with the issue of leachates and penetration through the substrata into the underground water, and uniform limits on the hazards of waste components that are permitted within landfill sites.
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  The draft could also require that charges on landfill waste sites be paid into a special environmental clean-up fund. I am not sure how the fund would work, but money from such a fund might become available to the Cardiff Bay development corporation to buy the land at the site and manage it in the last few years of the life of the site, or, if it decided to close it, to take the necessary management steps to make the site safe and deal with the leachate problem in particular.
  The proposal for a special environmental clean-up fund might be of some benefit to the corporation, but if it continued to operate the site for a few years, there would be a special levy on the refuse taken to the site. In effect, the corporation might find that the people using the site, such as Cardiff city council and others wishing to dispose of refuse, had to pay much more to enable the valuable and essential work of cleaning up the environment of the completed Ferry road site to be completed when that stage is reached.
  It is still possible that the European Community landfill directive will be amended. Of course, the Government may have their own ideas about what needs to be done. It would be interesting to hear from Ministers the Government's view of the draft directive and how they feel that it might impact on the Ferry road site when it is completed. Obviously, that has some bearing on the way in which the site and the general area will be developed.
  At this stage, the draft directive is couched in general terms but key selections of it will have a major impact on current landfill engineering standards in the United Kingdom and significantly restrict the range of wastes accepted into United Kingdom landfills. That may well be useful in coping with the leachate problem referred to in both new clause 17 and new clause 5. By introducing restrictions, the proposal could take out those substances which cause most difficulties when attempting to seal a site to ensure that the leachate problem does not occur and that potentially hazardous substances and gases do not mix with the groundwater and cause who knows what environmental damage. We hardly want to dwell on the possible consequences of such substances leaking into the Rivers Taff and Ely.
  The general intention of the proposal is to harmonise technical standards for landfilling in anticipation of opening the Community's internal frontiers in 1992. The Commission even envisages cross-border movement of waste, although we do not need to dwell on that.
  We have not had a statement from the Government in the House on this matter. The press seems to be their favourite way to communicate policy. They do not like to bring it to the House. We had a prime example this evening. The Secretary of State could have been here backing and explaining the Bill and responding to our amendments because he considers the barrage such an exciting prospect for both Cardiff and the whole of Wales. Instead, he was speaking in the Lobby to the Western Mail Lobby correspondent. It is only a pity that the Secretary of State could not have come in and shared his thoughts with us here, either yesterday evening or this morning.
  From what I can gather, the United Kingdom Government and the waste disposal industry is likely to argue that the Commission is taking its proposals too far in many respects, although it can be expected to insist that the Commission should not concern itself so closely with what goes into landfill sites and to leave room for the variable technical standards which take account of the

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  different hydro-geological and environmental circumstan-ces within and between member states. To a certain extent, that is self-evident, because each site has its own particular hydro-geological properties, and the management en-gineering in sealing the sites will need to be adapted to each place depending on the permeability of the rocks and soil in the area.
  That line of argument would clash with certain aspects of the Commission's approach. Therefore, there must be some doubt whether the United Kingdom will succeed in having the basic thrust of the proposal amended. Those closely involved in the environmental issues seem to feel that the United Kingdom's approach to the problem might not be the one to win the day. The current draft is based on article 100A of the European Community treaty and therefore would be open to adoption by a qualified majority vote of the Environmental Council. There would be no question of the Government being able to use a veto in that case. They would have to bow to the majority.
  The draft text would therefore lay down certain basic engineering and operational standards for all types of landfill. Therefore, the general requirements for sealing the tips relating to the fencing of the site, nuisance prevention, important water ingress in the light of the leachate problem and the presence on site of a suitably qualified person responsible for the operation of the site, would be laid down.
  On some issues, the draft is more specific. There are measures to control landfill gas and leachates. The draft directive on landfill gas insists that it must be collected and properly treated or used. It is not clear whether that would permit gas migration control measures such as passive vents or barriers, or whether it would require an active pumping system. Similarly, water and leachate would have to be collected under the terms of the draft directive. Therefore, that has some significance to the management of the site when it is finished.
  I will not dwell on what is a suitable location because we are dealing in Ferry road with a tip which is already there. The draft directive would set up uniform numerical standards for the permeability of the non-saturated geological formations below the base and on the sides of the landfill. This is relevant to ensuring that the tip is efficiently sealed when work there has been completed.
  The values for both hazardous and municipal waste landfills are set at 10 to the power of minus nine metres per second for a sub-stratum thickness of 3 m being measured under saturated conditions. The Ferry road site is likely to have such saturated conditions because it is located in a low-lying area and given its proximity to the rivers Taff and Ely.
  The draft directive has outlined the values that would be required to manage the site and to cope with the problems of sealing it and dealing with the subsequent leachates. Those values would have to engineered on those sites where they do not occur naturally. I am sure that such standards occur naturally in the Ferry road site, but I should be interested to learn from any hon. Gentleman present whether the value of 10 to the power of minus nine metres per second for a sub-stratum thickness of 3 m measured under saturated conditions pertains to that site.
  6.45 am
  Mr. Rogers: I assure my hon. Friend that it does.
  Mr. Griffiths: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I had hoped that the sponsors of the Bill would have such information at their fingertips.
  The permeability co-efficient is 10 to the power of minus nine metres per second and it is exceedingly tight. I am no expert on such matters; I just take the advice of experts. It is so tight that it might allow landfilling only on an exceptional basis. I wonder whether any hon. Gentleman knows whether the Ferry road site meets the permeability co-efficient. If it does, it makes that much easier the task of sealing the site and dealing with the leachates once that site has completed its useful life.
  Natural lining materials, such as heavy clay, often have a permeability of 10 to the power of minus eight metres. If that was not the case at the Ferry road site, an artificial lining system would have to be introduced to meet the desired standard.
  I have already said that the draft directive will exclude waste from the landfill site, but it is important to study the annex to the directive. It contains a series of values and concentration thresholds that must be met before a particular waste can be deposited in a landfill. Two fixed parameters relate to those values. One concerns the weight loss of the waste when it is heated to 900 deg C in the dry state—that should not exceed 10 per cent. The other parameter is that the waste should not contain more than 4 per cent. by weight of lipophilic substances. That is important when dealing with the problem of sealing a site.
  Wastes would also be subject to a shake test based on the 1984 west German din method. Effluent containing concentrations of contaminants in excess of those in a table that I have before me will be subject to certain conditions. I hardly dare read that table, as it is so technical, but I may feel compelled to do so later depending on how I feel the argument is developing. There are exceptions allowed for inorganic waste. The table also refers to hazardous waste. As far as we know, the Ferry road tip does not contain a great deal of hazardous waste. I have heard—I do not know whether it is true—that part of the tip may contain asbestos. If that is so, all of it was properly contained before being put into the tip. Perhaps hon. Members will be able to tell us that there are definitely no hazardous wastes involved, in which case the problems of leachates and of sealing the tip will be made that much easier to solve.
  You, Madam Deputy Speaker, will probably be delighted to know that I do not feel bound to read out the inert waste standards for 20 or so different types of waste.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I am delighted to hear it, and I should be even more delighted if the hon. Gentleman would make a more determined effort to relate his remarks to the new clauses before us. I have been listening carefully to what he has had to say.
  Mr. Griffiths: My point, Madam Deputy Speaker, was that the European Community is to introduce a proposal relating to the management of landfill waste sites. An important part of that process involves the management of a site after it has been filled in. New clauses 5 and 17 make particular reference to the need both to seal the site to the

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  satisfaction of the National Rivers Authority and the environmental health officer of Cardiff city council and to deal specifically with the leachate problem.
  Those matters are dealt with in the European Community draft proposals on the management of landfill sites, and although those proposals are not yet law, they could become law before the Bill completes its passage through the House and are very likely to be law before the Cardiff bay barrage is built. That makes the new clauses requiring the developers to bring forward proposals to deal with sealing the site and with the problem of leachates even more important.
  The monitoring of the site after it has been completed is most important. As I said earlier, Mr. Nicholson, the principal pollution inspector of HMIP, said that the site would need management for from anything between 15 and 50 years. The EC proposals suggest that the management period should be 30 years, and we must bear that in mind.
  The monitoring proposals specified in the text include daily checks on a range of meteorological paramaters and of leachate volumes and regular measurements of leachate and surface water composition and gas emissions, when the site is in the operational phase, with less frequent measurements being required in the aftercare phase with which the new clauses are principally concerned.
  Ground water levels and composition would also have to be checked, at least every six months, using at least three boreholes on the site. That gives some idea of the scale of the work that will be necessary. For ground waters used or usable as a source of drinking water—this will probably not apply, although we can never tell how ground waters get into the system from which we ultimately take our water—the draft directive requires that concentration of substances on the so-called grey list in the 1980 EC directive on ground water protection should not exceed the maximum admissible concentrations laid down in the 1980 directive on drinking water quality. The precise implications are not yet clear, because the draft does not specify at which point in groundwater below a landfill the limits must be observed.
  The directive has important implications for the management of the site. I should dearly love a response either from the Bill's sponsors or from the Government Front Benchers who have made it clear that they back the Bill to the hilt, in words if not in terms of strength: they have dismally failed to persuade Conservative Members to stay.
  I should like at least to know—not just in the context of our new clauses, but in the context of what the sponsors propose—how they think that the European draft directive will affect issues relating to the sealing of the site after it has completed its useful life, and what they consider to be its implications for dealing with the leachate problem. Those who harried me when I was speaking about important safety aspects for workers on the site do not appear to be prepared to make any useful comments about something that I thought might have already been drawn to their attention.
  New clause 17 refers specifically to closure procedures, which are dealt with in the draft proposal. We are told that, before a closure, there must be a report on the condition of the site, together with proposals for monitoring and control of leachate and gas emissions. They would have to be submitted by the operators to the authorities. That is exactly what we are asking for in new
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  clause 17. I hope that the sponsors will say that, as this will appear in European Community law in the next couple of years, it would make a good deal of sense at least to accept new clause 17.
  That is a positive note on which to end my speech. I am anxious not to take up too much time, although I assure the House that I could talk for at least another 15 minutes about the European Community proposal, because it is so important. I will not detain the House, because I know that other hon. Members are keen to speak; I hope that the sponsors are among them.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: I have listened closely to the hon. Gentleman's speech. He has spoken for well over an hour, and I understand that he has supported new clause 6.
  Mr. Griffiths: No; I have been supporting new clause 17 in particular.
  Mr. Jones: I understood that the hon. Gentleman was also supporting new clause 6.
  Mr. Griffiths: No—new clause 5.
  Mr. Jones: May I draw the hon. Gentleman out on new clause 6?
  Mr. Griffiths: I have not supported it.
  Mr. Jones: I am seeking some information. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can help me. He seems to be distancing himself from new clause 6; let me read it to him:
  "Before constructing the Barrage, the undertakers and the water company shall produce and publish a plan indicating where and what provision they have made for phosphate-stripping and nitrate-stripping of the waters of the rivers entering the inland bay and their tributaries in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay."
  The main point appears to be the "event" referred to at the end. That is the point on which I seek information. What event might come about? What are the quality objectives and who would set them? I urge the hon. Gentleman to go further into new clause 6 to help me to understand it before we enter upon serious debate on it.
  Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) has been present for most of the debate. I do not know whether he was in the Chamber when I started my speech, when I did so I referred generally to all the new clauses. I said that I wanted to spend most of my time dealing with two issues. They were algae scum, which I dealt with briefly, and new clauses 5 and 17, on which I spoke at greater length. I did not want to speak to new clause 6 because it was dealt with at length by other hon. Members. The Official Report will contain a great deal about new clause 6.
  7 am
  Mr. Rogers: I understand the problems encountered by the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones). However, it is implicit in all that my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) has said that there is to be an EC directive on these issues. At the end of new clause 6 is the phrase:
  "in the event of such provision becoming necessary for compliance with future water quality objectives in the inland bay."
  The meaning of that is self-evident. As a result of Parliament's decisions, the future control of pollution will

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  rest with the European Community. The hon. Member for Cardiff, North should have been provided with the information that we have been able to obtain.
  The chief executive of Cardiff city council has prepared a report and, out of common courtesy, that should have been given to the hon. Gentleman to enable him to check on the problems that have been mentioned. Page 7 of the report states:
  "Current leaching and landfill gas problems at the existing site need to be remedied under the provisions of draft landfill directives being proposed by the European Economic Community.
  That is the basis of the new clause, which should be adopted by the promoters. It is a constructive amendment to the Bill.
  Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Member for Cardiff, North should recognise the growing role of the European Community in environmental matters, and that draft Commission proposals are likely to continue to have a major impact on the control and management of landfill sites, such as that at Ferry road.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the debate be now adjourned.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  Mr. Ian Grist: I deplore the fact that we are where we are in the debate. It underlines the difficulty of launching legislation such as the Bill under the private Bill procedure. Some hon. Members have sought to wreck a measure that is designed for the public good. The Bill is for the good of Cardiff, and of Wales as a whole, and, as the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) said, it is designed to shine in Europe as a whole. Some Opposition Members have deliberately sought to wreck the measure and their weasel words about the Bill carried little weight with most of us. They have also caused embarrassment to their hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) and for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn).
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth on his extraordinarily hard work over a long time in the interests of his constituents and his city. He has been tireless in his efforts—as tireless as some have been slipshod in their attacks on the work that he has represented. The amendments have been carelessly framed. They have been ignorant and destructive. At the very least they have been obstructive, and designed to be so. Everybody has known it. This public Bill—
  Mr. Rowlands: It is not a public Bill.
  Mr. Grist: All right—it is a private Bill that has been brought forward for the public good. It has Government support. It has been supported by a Labour-controlled county council, by most Labour councillors on Cardiff city council, and by the Liberal party. It is a generally accepted and widely welcomed measure. The Bill has given enormous publicity to south Wales and Cardiff in the media throughout the world. Against that background, windbaggery has threatened to damage the good name of Cardiff as well as the good name of Wales.
  Mr. Rowlands: Does the hon. Gentleman support the motion that has been proposed by the Chairman of Ways and Means?
  Mr. Grist: I am discussing the motion.
  Mr. Rowlands: Will the hon. Gentleman support it?
  Mr. Grist: Most certainly. I would not dare to do otherwise when a motion is proposed by the Chairman of Ways and Means, he being an old acquaintance and friend.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: I ask my hon. Friend, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether we are debating the motion of the Chairman of Ways and Means. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, are in the Chair, and there can be only one person in the Chair at any given moment. Surely the Chairman moved the motion merely as the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Mr. Walker), just another Member of this place.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: The motion was moved by the Chairman of Ways and Means, and it was in order for him to do so. The motion was, That the debate be now adjourned. It was a dilatory motion, and it is open for debate.
  Mr. Grist: The actions that we have witnessed have been extremely short-sighted. As the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth said, the money which has been made available by the Bill for Cardiff bay is not available elsewhere. It is not as though the envious glances from Merthyr or wherever in the Rhymney valley will lead to the money being redistributed. Instead, it will return to the Treasury. That may be thought to be a smart move by certain people in south Wales, but I cannot imagine why.
  Some Members who represent English constituencies would say, "Why is all this money going to Wales? Why is it going to Cardiff?" They would not necessarily be sorry to see us lose it. It is so short-sighted of Opposition Members to look a gift horse in the mouth. Have they not considered that the name of the proposed development has spread through the business world, through our European partners and further afield to north America and Japan? Yet they try to trip it up at this stage.
  Do they believe that the development of the bay without the barrage would be half the animal that it would be with it? Are they not aware of the economic studies that have shown that for every £1 that is put in in the absence of the barrage will generate £3 of private money, whereas £7 will be generated with the barrage? Do they not understand and accept that form of arithmetic? It would be one of the best possible returns on the investment of public money. I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) that it would be a much better investment than the urban aid moneys that we rightly direct to his constituency and the valley community generally. The valleys initiative is taking about £800 million. That is the answer to those who think that the Government have overlooked the valleys.
  Mr. Rogers: The hon. Gentleman is making extremely cheap political points. He knows—[Interruption.] Unlike his hon. Friends who are cackling, at least he has been in his place to listen to the debate. He will have heard Members say that they support all aspects of the Bill, including investment for the industrial regeneration of the Cardiff docklands area. We do not deny the fact that the money is going to that area for development—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) is making a very long intervention. He might catch my eye in due course, but will he now bring his intervention to a close?
  Mr. Rogers: The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) referred to my constituency. He knows that we object only to the construction of a barrage. Some of us have yet to he convinced of the worth of investing hundreds of millions of pounds of Government money in the construction of the barrage when the results might be dubious.
  Mr. Grist: The hon. Member for Rhondda must have overlooked or missed what I said about the difference in the financial returns with the barrage as opposed to without it. That point has been tested on several occasions with different economic possibilities, taking into account the higher interest rates and slower economic growth of the past two years. That consideration has revealed the tremendous return available from the waterside develop-ment. Indeed, it is so exciting and interesting because it is a waterside development, and one need only visit Swansea to see the value of a waterside development and what it can do to an area.
  If the support of the hon. Member for Rhondda for the proposal is as pristine as he makes out, he must have been a little naive. The amendments and new clauses would have wrecked the powers of the Cardiff bay development corporation to take steps in certain circumstances. Powers of compulsory purchase and other powers that he supported earlier would have damaged the corporation's capacity to operate. He tried to interfere with the planning process that has been working extremely well between the corporation and the two planning authorities that the corporation covers.
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) spoke for two hours and 48 minutes. His speech was intended to obstruct and damage the Bill, and that was not in the interests of the hon. Gentleman's constituents. The growth of Cardiff, in particular south Cardiff and the more deprived areas, much of which he and I represent, depends on the rebirth and growth of the derelict areas which grew up with the port in the last century and which have been looking for a role ever since.
  Hon. Members who refer to the mud flats as a centre of beauty have not lived beside them. I am sure that they would not choose to do that. We can all see beauty—
  Mr. Elliot Morley (Glandford and Scunthorpe): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Grist: The hon. Member for Glandford and Scunthope (Mr. Morley) is very interested in birds, but I doubt whether he would choose to live by the mud flats unless he was particularly wedded to the bird scene.
  Mr. Morley: I have been in the Chamber for most of the night, but I did not wish to interfere in matters that concerned Cardiff. However, there are local, national and international concerns about the ecological effects of the barrage. Does the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) accept that many local people in Cardiff appreciate the value of the mud flats and many business people are investing their money in the regeneration of Cardiff? Firms such as Tarmac Homes have argued that the mud flats
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  would not deter them from investing in the area or in the regeneration that everyone wants. The mud flats can be an integral part of that without the barrage.
  Mr. Grist: Tarmac Homes is building homes on developments that are nowhere near the mud flats. The homes are near the Bute East dock and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth explained—although no one paid any attention to him—that the water in that dock is the kind of water that would be behind the barrage. It may not be the kind of water we would want to swim in or swallow, but it is perfectly good for fish, for birds and for water sports and boating, all of which take place on the Bute East dock. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) painted a picture of the nature of the water that was a travesty of the truth. He painted it in the most lurid colours for headline purposes in order to scare people and put them off. It was neither an objective nor an honest approach.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: Through you, Mr. Speaker, may I suggest to my hon. Friend that one consequence of adjourning the debate at this stage will be that we shall be prevented from hearing more from the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), who is the most noted expert in the House on birdlife in this country. I had the privilege of visiting the Falkland Islands in his company. He made my visit much more instructive and memorable by taking me on a conducted tour of birdlife in the Falkland Islands. The House ought to hear more about the birdlife before it continues its debate on the Bill.
  7.15 am
  Mr. Grist: My hon. Friend surprises me by expressing that interest. The hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe must have been a very engaging companion. I hope that we can look forward to a slide show in the Grand Committee Room to underline the point. I think that the hon. Gentleman will accept that his hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly is also a noted supporter of both bird and other forms of wildlife. We accept him on that basis. Therefore, we should have respected him more had he sought more clearly to express his opposition to the development along those lines. At the end of the day I should still have thought his opposition wrong, since the promoters have gone out of their way to try to find an answer—a most ingenious one at that—to the problem. They have approached the effect of the scheme on both fish and birdlife with the greatest seriousness.
  Hon. Members may not be aware of the fact that the promoters have considered the amendments most carefully—in my view, with more care and seriousness than they deserve. When we continue the debate, they will find that the promoters are ready to accept many of the amendments. Had we proceeded, we might have found that that fact led to slightly faster progress through the Amendment Paper, though I accept that it is open to any hon. Member to jigger it up, if he or she wants to do so.
  The concerns expressed in the amendments need to be aired and will be aired. I hope that Opposition Members will adopt a more constructive approach and will stop obstructing the scheme, thereby damaging the good name of Wales and Cardiff. They should say plainly why they dislike the proposal. They ought to stop scaring quite unnecessarily both their own and other people's constituents.
  Mr. David Martin: Is not the most grievous lesson to be learned from all this the Labour party's divisions in Wales? As the Leader of the Opposition is a Welsh Member, does it not surprise my hon. Friend that he is not here to listen to and to contribute to the debate? Does it not show the lack of firm leadership for the good of Wales that my hon. Friend so eloquently provides?
  Mr. Grist: I was seeking not to embarrass my right honourable neighbour in Cardiff and my other neighbours in south Wales. However, his absence underlines the manifest split in the Labour party that my hon. Friend has underlined, though it underlines itself. I am sorry that the Leader of the Opposition has not given some sign of his support for the proposal. I am sure that my disappointment is shared in other quarters.
  Locally, the Labour party has supported the proposal, which is all to its credit. It understood that this is an unparalleled opportunity for a rundown area in a great city to be improved. Cardiff was one of the greatest coal ports in the world at the turn of the century. However, during the past 30 or 40 years the area has declined and rotted. At last we have been given the chance to rebuild. It will be a modern, pretty and exciting development that will provide plenty of work. It is estimated that this development will result in the creation of about 30,000 jobs and in the building of about 6,000 houses, a quarter of which will be housing association and public authority dwellings. The Cardiff Bay development corporation has tried to involve the people of Tiger bay. It has tried to promote training and to involve people in the rebuilding of their area. It has given life back to the area by all sorts of means, such as painting railway bridges and cleaning up places. Involving local people has all too often been an uphill task.
  What does the corporation get from the Opposition? It gets suspicion and a refusal to recognise that certain powers are required. It is sniffed at when it requests investment. What happens in the capital city is reflected in the valleys, and sends a beacon out to the whole of south Wales. Following a previous failed city centre develop-ment project in the 1960s, we now have a great concert hall in Cardiff. I defy Opposition Members not to be proud of St. David's hall. Performances there are broadcast frequently. It is one of the finest concert halls in the country. Music performed there is broadcast throughout Europe and is carried by the BBC World Service. The same will apply to this development if only hon. Members will take the blinkers off, stop scaring people, and contribute constructively to the debate.
  Mr. Michael: Perhaps I can be a little kinder to my hon. Friends than the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist)—my neighbour—has been. At this stage, I speak more in sadness than in anger.
  Some of my hon. Friends do not understand the danger in which they have placed the future of my constituents, the future of the city of Cardiff, and an imaginative future for south Wales. Some have shown a degree of sympathy. Some may have hoped to exercise their right of criticism to the full, but that in the end their attempts to prevent the Bill's progress would be voted down. In view of the kind way in which the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central has referred to these matters, I shall say no more about them.
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  However, in view of the numbers of Government Members who voted in this debate, Conservatives are not in a position to make remarks about divisions among Opposition Members. The absence of support for the Secretary of State for Wales is an indication of a sad lack of confidence in the very positive development that this Bill represents. I hope that all hon. Members will reflect on the dangers that will be created by the delay in the Bill's progress that is now proposed.
  I thank the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central for his kind remarks. I am grateful to all hon. Members who have supported the Bill at all its stages. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and for Ogmore (Mr. Powell). My hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West was born in Grangetown and appreciates more than most the precise effects that the barrage could have on the creation of a positive future for people in the area, including his own neighbours and friends of earlier days.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore, who represents a valley constituency, and Members from Newport and Swansea do not see this opportunity for my constituency—indeed, for the city of Cardiff—as an alternative to development in their own areas. They see it not as a price that they have to pay, but as a positive development, in which they, too, should delight.
  It is sad that we have not made more progress. The new clauses and amendments that we have considered were either unreasonable or were already covered by the Bill. I did not support the Bill without giving deep thought to its implications, and I think that my hon. Friends will accept that that has been my position. I ask other hon. Members deeply to consider their objections to the Bill and the way in which they have sought to use up much time by placing obstacles in its way, and allow it to proceed, for the benefit of my constituency and the wider area.
  Opponents of the Bill have referred to the excitement about the Cardiff bay development. The development depends on the barrage to attract investment and secure the future of the city. Many of us have considered the type of city that Cardiff will become in the future. We do not want ribbon development until the city meets Newport, West on the one hand and Bridgend and Barry on the other, or goes north until it meets Caerphilly. For years, those on local authorities looked southwards to the land that was owned by the British docks board and sought to bring Cardiff back to its old heartlands and to bring back new life and communities to the south Cardiff area. That is the purpose of the Bill.
  The development of the city has continued apace in recent years, not accidentally but because local authorities, and the people who represent the people of Cardiff on those local authorities, have sought redevelopment of the city. I am proud to have played a small part in the development of the city centure. At one time, people left south Wales to shop in Bristol and other places, but now people from the other side of the Bristol channel come to us.
  The capital city of Wales is a place of which the people not only of Cardiff but of south Wales can be proud. I still believe that the barrage will help us to ensure its future.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about this matter. I served with him on Cardiff city council for more years than we care to remember. We served on the central area committee and

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  the finance committee. Since the failure of the central area development, through the development of St. David's hall and of south Cardiff, there has been steady progress and a bipartisan approach by responsible members of the community. If the Bill were frustrated, it would be the greatest tragedy, a dire frustration and a dreadful betrayal of our city.
  Mr. Michael: I agree. We have been fortunate in our representatives on local authorities. They sought to develop Cardiff airport and attract new investment to the area from Bosch and other firms. Those local authority representatives had the vision to see that the development of Cardiff bay and of the barrage would take the future of Cardiff into a new dimension that would not be available without it, as St. David's hall gave Cardiff a new cultural dimension and the development of the city centre changed Cardiff from a rundown older city into one that has been fittingly described as the youngest capital in Europe.
  We know there that are firms waiting in the wings to see whether the barrage proposal goes through and, if so, to bring jobs and economic development to the city. That development will bring about a growing capital city in the heart of a resurgent economy in south Wales. It will bring my constituents positive developments in the environment by replacing the old and derelict heart of the city with new, living communities. It will bring housing to areas where it is desperately needed. It will bring jobs back to the deprived communities in the south of Cardiff. Having worked in those communities before election to the House, I have seen a good deal of the misery of unemployment which far too often has been concentrated in those areas of the city.
  7.30 am
  Before this and earlier debates, I circulated hon. Members with information on a number of occasions. Many right hon. and hon. Members are fed up hearing about the Cardiff bay development and are tempted to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) and myself, "A plague on both your houses."
  I do not seek division with colleagues within the city and certainly not with members of the same party, but I cannot stand back and see massive public investment for my constituency and my city being put at risk. I state again, lest any of my hon. Friends is in doubt, that if that public investment, which would bring after it private investment in the heart of the capital city of Wales, does not go ahead, that money will not go to other Welsh constituents but will go back to the Treasury and will be lost to Wales.
  I tell my hon. Friends that I will not take the same approach to developments in their constituencies when the opportunity arises. I will seek to bring investment to my constituency, but I will also seek to do what I can to bring investment to the valleys of south Wales, to the rural areas of Gwent and Gwynedd, and to the communities in every part of Wales that need investment. I do not believe that stopping development in another constituency can possibly be for the benefit of my constituency. I invite my hon. Friends who have sought to take so much time on the Bill today to reflect on that and to consider whether they really want to stop such vital development for the city of Cardiff.
  My constituents will ask why the investment and their future may be put at risk by the procedures of the House.
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  I think that on one thing at least we can all agree: that the procedures of the House in relation to private Bills need a drastic overhaul and need to be dragged into the 19th century, if not into the 20th century. That is no criticism of yourself, Mr. Speaker, or of the occupants of the Chair who have had to preside over the sitting. They have had to operate within the system, as I, as the sponsor of the Bill, and other hon. Members have had to operate within the system that currently applies. I plead with the House not to be slow in bringing about changes and more logical ways of dealing with these matters.
  However, we have to deal with the procedures of the House as they stand. The promoters of the Bill had to go through the private Bill procedure in order to make the progress that we all wanted. The opponents came prepared to debate through the night and the following day. Their dedication to opposing the Bill, which I am sure is sincere, was strong enough for them to do that. I came prepared to debate through last night and today, and tomorrow night and the following day, if necessary, to complete consideration of the the Bill. I am sad that it appears that we will not now have that opportunity on this occasion, but there will be a future occasion.
  I make a plea to all hon. Members to remember that this little Bill, which has been a great irritant to so many hon. Members, carries with it the key to the future for my constituency, my city and—as I say to other hon. Members —our city. I make that plea not just to those who represent Cardiff constituencies but to all who represent Welsh constituencies and, indeed, to English and Scottish Members who also have shown an interest in and support for the development.
  It is a sad point to reach but I hope that what we have now is a temporary setback that may give people the opportunity to reflect on their opposition to the Bill and the barrage. I hope that the Bill will go ahead, and do so with the united support of the House. I am certain that it is the right measure for the city and the future, so I leave the House with that plea for support.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate immediately after my respected colleague and neighbour, the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael).
  This is the first time that I have spoken on a dilatory motion of this sort. I am not familiar with such a motion. I was surprised when the motion came; I thought that it had been moved by the right hon. Member for Doncaster, Central (Mr. Walker), but Madam Deputy Chairman, who was in the Chair before you, Mr. Speaker, corrected me on that point and explained that it had been moved by the Chairman of Ways and Means. I was surprised at that because, earlier this morning, I had been looking through "Erskine May" and found, on page 333, that:
  urthermore, the Speaker has power under Standing Order No. 34, if he believes that any dilatory motion is an abuse of the rules of the House, to decline to propose the question on it to the House".
  It struck me as odd that the occupant of the Chair could put forward such a dilatory motion while seemingly having the power to exercise a veto over that motion. I could not immediately see how a separation of the functions could be achieved between the Chairman of Ways and Means proposing the motion, although not from the Chair but from the Treasury Bench—
  Mr. Speaker: Perhaps I may help. The Chairman of Ways and Means is in charge of private business and it is his decision. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not criticising that decision.
  Mr. Jones: Far be it from me, Sir. I would not want to criticise that and I hope that you will draw me to order immediately, if necessary. I only plead my lack of familiarity with this motion, which I have never debated before. I would have appreciated it if it had been in order —perhaps it would not have been—if the Chairman of Ways and Means could have explained why he brought the motion before the House. Perhaps he is allowed to say only as much as he did.
  Whenever I try to debate a motion, I am always concerned about why we should adjourn. I feel a great frustration now, which I think is shared by other hon. Members, not least those from the capital city of Wales. There will be frustration in that city, and throughout south Wales, if it is thought that we are unnecessarily frustrating the progress of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill. I should like to know why it is felt that we should adjourn.
  I have sat here patiently for almost the entire time since 7 pm last night, and have been wanting to speak on the Bill. However, I felt frustrated that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) so eloquently put it, we have been subjected to a filibuster since 7 pm last night. That filibuster has prevented me from speaking on the Bill, because I knew that, if I spoke needlessly, I would only contribute to that filibuster. I so wanted the Bill to progress that I resisted, almost entirely, the temptation and confined myself to one or two pertinent interventions to try to bring the debate to a much more appropriate stage.
  This most regrettable and inappropriate filibuster should never have happened. We have been debating the Bill since 7 o'clock last night—about twelve and half hours. I seem to remember that the last debate on the second group of new clauses began at 9.53 pm. There were two closure motions during that debate, moved by different sides of the House. There was a will to make progress.
  Unfortunately, the House has rules that are not always readily understood outside it. We believe that all our rules are good and try to observe them, but many people will think that there was something wrong when the first closure motion was carried by 97 votes to approximately 20, but we still could not make progress because we were a mere three votes short of the minimum required for a closure.
  Mr. Rowlands: I am following the hon. Gentleman's speech with interest. He is referring to the length of speeches. May I remind him that there are a number of interesting precedents? One was the four-hour speech made by the right hon. Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt), the present Secretary of State for Wales, in a debate on the Mersey Passenger Transport Bill, a private Bill. It is a precedent that many hon. Members have followed.
  Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend the Member for Hereford (Mr. Shepherd) has reminded me that, as this is a private Bill, there is no set rule that speeches have to be only 10 or 15 minutes. On occasion, something longer than 15 minutes can well be justified.
  Mr. Colin Shepherd: The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) will recall that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West (Mr. Hunt) spoke in the debate on a private Member's Bill, and the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill is a private Bill. The circumstances are different, and I thought it would be appropriate for my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) to set the record straight.
  Mr. Jones: I am grateful for that intervention, which sets the record straight. We can only reflect on the almost complete lack of progress that we have made, although all those hon. Members stayed up throughout the night for a twelve and a half hour debate. What have we succeeded in doing? We have disposed of one out of 25 groups of new clauses and amendments. We were only on the second group, although the debate began at seven minutes to 10 o'clock, and we still have not concluded them even though there were two closure motions.
  We have already commented on one closure motion, when there was a slight technical hitch because it was three votes short of the minimum required to achieve a closure. There was an even more remarkable closure motion in the early hours of this morning, which, if I remember rightly, was moved by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), who must have changed his mind more than once about wanting to make progress on this Bill, because he moved that motion and could get even fewer of his hon. Friends into the Lobby.
  Mr. Ron Davies: As the hon. Gentleman has referred to me directly, I think that it is appropriate that I explain to him precisely why I moved that motion in the early hours. It was our belief that the Secretary of State had failed to gather the support that he was seeking from the Government. We know that the Secretary of State wrote to every member of the Cabinet urging every Minister, junior Minister and Parliamentary Private Secretary to stay present through the night. We were aware that the Secretary of State had failed in that endeavour.
  We knew from the previous vote on the closure that the supporters of the Bill did not have 100 Members present to achieve the closure. We believed that, during the later part of the night, there were not 40 members present to achieve a quorum in the event of a Division. Therefore, I moved the motion. My hon. Friends deliberately stayed out of the Lobby to ensure that we could identify precisely those members of the Government and the few Opposition Members who were supporting the measure, and test whether the House was quorate. There were just over 40 hon. Members, not quite 50, so we were nearly successful in our endeavour.
  Mr. Jones: I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman is a candid Member of this House, and at least he has frankly explained that the closure motion was nothing more than another procedural device to try to sabotage the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill—if he could not filibuster it out, he would try to wreck it by finding out whether we were without a quorum. Again, that was not a positive contribution to the debate, despite some of the hon. Gentleman's colleagues trying to claim that they were being positive.
  Mr. Colin Shepherd: Is it not also true that that Division took up another 15 minutes and that although only 52 hon. Members took part in it, of whom my hon.

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  Friend and myself were numbers 51 and 52, that 15-minute Division was another method of stalling for time? It was purely a procedural play to spin out time.
  7.45 am
  Mr. Jones: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
  In response to what the hon. Member for Caerphilly said about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales, I advise the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend was not whipping the Bill. It is not his job to do so. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about his letter?"] Anyone can write to anyone. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) wrote to me and to many other hon. Members to encourage me to stay in the House throughout the evening to support the Bill. I know full well that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth also wrote to hon. Members, as did the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) who wrote a round robin to Cabinet members. Perhaps that was the original, because the hon. Gentleman wrote that letter in February, so my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may be guilty of copying him when trying to put the record straight.
  Mr. Ian Taylor: May I assure my hon. Friend that I have been here all night, largely because—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] The Palace of Westminster is multi-roomed, and I have been here all night because of my hon. Friend's request for support for a Bill which I believe to be of great importance. That has nothing to do with other letters. It is simply due to the admirable work of my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, Central and for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) to ensure that the Bill, which is so important to Cardiff, has a chance of going through.
  Mr. Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
  I should like to make another point about the intervention of the hon. Member for Caerphilly. I am sorry that he is no longer in his place—[nterruption.] The hon. Member for Cardiff, West will doubtless pass on what I am saying to his hon. Friend. The hon. Gentleman added confusion to confusion because, having voted against a closure motion at about I am, he then proposed a closure motion between 3 and 4 am, and proceeded to vote against it. How many times can he stand on his head amid all the procedural devices that he tries to implement?
  Dr. Marek: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene, and I shall not now seek to make a speech in my own right. However, I must draw the attention of the House to the fact that the Secretary of State for Wales is now behind Mr. Speaker's Chair. He has not entered the Chamber during our debates on the Bill, but he is alive and well and able to issue a press release to the Press Association, criticising Labour Members and telling it exactly what has been happening here. I repeat that the right hon. Gentleman has not been in the Chamber.
  Will the hon. Gentleman please go to see his right hon. Friend and the Ministers? We would have made a lot more progress if, just for once, Ministers could answer some of our questions, such as what is happening to the £900 million, and of about the environmental considerations. If they had answered a single question, we could have made some progress, and I say that in all sincerity. Can the hon. Gentleman please use his influence?
  Mr. Jones: I do not need to go to see either my right hon. Friend or my hon. Friends the Ministers in the interest of making progress on this Bill. Instead, I direct the charge back to the hon. Member for Wrexham, who made a not-short contribution during the past twelve and a half or 13 hours on the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman had been much more succinct and to the point with his words, we could certainly have made progress. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) had a 20-minute slot immediately after the first closure motion that did not succeed, just after 1 am.
  The hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) and certainly for Cardiff, West went on at some length. Naturally I would not wish to leave out the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), who also spoke. Compared to some of his hon. Friends, he was a model of brevity. At one point, he confined one of his speeches to a mere one minute. If more of his hon. Friends had emulated the hon. Member for Rhondda, we could have made progress. I am glad that he has come back into the Chamber.
  I also include in the catalogue the hon. Member for Caerphilly, who felt it necessary to speak at some length, as did several of his hon. Friends. In all fairness, I should not do as the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) suggests and see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or my hon. Friends the Ministers in the Welsh Office. Instead, I should address my remarks to Opposition Members and the hon. Gentlemen who filibustered, spoke for far longer than necessary, repeated themselves time after time and dealt with the irrelevant and extraneous and all sorts of material, as well as material that floated down the river.
  I must also include the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells), whom I see standing behind me. He made a lengthy contribution to the debate last night. All those hon. Gentlemen will find that what they have done is a great disappointment in south Wales, not only in the capital city but much further afield in their constituencies. I am sure that their constituents will ask why they frustrated—or tried to frustrate—such a positive development and the best prospect for the whole of south Wales.
  There certainly was a filibuster. On many occasions, the Chair had to try to bring Opposition Members to order and ask them to relate their remarks much more closely to the matters under debate. The last remonstrance was by Madam Deputy Speaker with the hon. Member for Bridgend towards the conclusion of his speech. She sought to bring him back to order. The Hansard record will show that, so wide of the mark were some of the speeches made, that, even with the gentle patience that the Chair traditionally displays, Madam Deputy Speaker and the other Deputy Speakers were moved to seek to bring Opposition Members to order.
  I have looked at the timings involved. The hon. Member for Pontypridd might like to know that he contributed one hour 26 minutes to our proceedings. The hon. Member for Caerphilly took one hour and four minutes. The hon. Member for Wrexham took one hour and 49 minutes, but the record holder was the hon. Member for Cardiff, West. I wondered in the early hours of this morning whether the hon. Gentleman was trying to exceed the record held by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) for the longest speech, which he made in the last Parliament in the

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  fluoride debate. That was another all-night debate through which I sat on these Benches. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West tailed off after a total contribution of two hours and 48 minutes. He has spent 168 minutes out of the past 13 hours frustrating, filibustering and stopping the progress of this excellent and important Bill.
  In the vote on the closure motion moved by the hon. Member for Caerphilly, only eight hon. Members voted against. That was the weight of the opposition. Eight hon. Members have kept the House up all night long. We have been at it for almost 13 hours. We had 25 groups of amendments to debate on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill and we have reached only the second group. We have been stuck on the second group since 9.53 pm yesterday.
  Mr. Colin Shepherd: Having gone through the catechism of the time spent on the Bill over the night, does not my hon. Friend agree that, after investing so much time it might be as well to continue the job, let the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) put his questions, listen to the answers and try again to make progress on the Bill?
  Mr. Jones: I am trying to explore my thoughts on that. I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend because I, too, have a sense of frustration about not making progress tonight. As we have made the effort to sit all the way through the night debating the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill and as I have not had the opportunity to hear why the Chairman of Ways and Means moved this dilatory motion —he may have good reasons which I do not readily understand having not debated such motions before—my inclination is to press on and reach Third Reading. That is what the capital city of Wales and the people of south Wales deserve.
  Already, as I think Opposition Members have said, the Bill has spent too long going through the House. Granted, we must give it the best proper examination. We should not be guilty of leaving stones unturned and we should examine the Bill as well as possible. But there comes a practical reasonable limit, and we have exceeded that. My desire to see progress is shared by others. Unless I am persuaded otherwise, I am inclined to believe that we should carry on debating this morning, this afternoon and this evening, and throughout the night if necessary, so important do I think the Bill for my constituency. It is not directly within the development corporation's area, but the Bill will be very much to my constituency's advantage, as it is to the rest of the capital city of Wales and to all the other constituencies of south Wales. Instead, we are at this point now because eight hon. Members have chosen to hold us up and use every delaying tactic in the book.
  I am glad to see the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth back in his place. He obviously had important business outside to attend to. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central in congratulating the hon. Gentleman on the way in which he has handled the Bill. He has worked fantastically hard in mastering the Bill. He has a complete mastery of it and he fully understands it. If only some of his hon. Friends had listened to him closely they would have understood that he was able to reassure them fully on all their points, so deeply has he studied the matter.
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  I know that that is typical of the hard work that the hon. Gentleman does, not just since he has been in this place since 1987, but all those years previously when he served on Cardiff city council. He is a dedicated Labour politician from his fingertips to his boots. He cares more passionately and more sincerely about his party than most other Opposition Members. But at the same time he has the broadest common feeling for anything that need not be treated in a party political fashion. He has been the first to extend a hand in the interests of making progress for our capital city. He is very much a credit to his party and I am sure that all his hon. Friends wish to emulate him in that.
  In conclusion, if it is not too late, I appeal to the eight Labour Members and a few others who have spent far too long delaying our proceedings by indulging in a filibuster since 7 o'clock last night, to raise their sights higher and to eschew the petty, the jealousies and the mean-minded things that can surely be the only reason for their attempt to frustrate this important Bill for the redevelopment of south Cardiff, the benefits of which will spread so far beyond. We have a tremendous opportunity in the House. Perhaps we could achieve that before the day is out. We clearly should achieve it. I appeal to Labour Members to put aside those petty things and let us join hands and go forward together.
  Mr. Rogers: I join Conservative Members in praising my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) for his diligence in pursuing the Bill. He has done remarkably well. I would not impute any motive to my hon. Friend other than his desire to achieve the best for his constituents.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has also been motivated by his constituents' interests. It would be mean and petty-minded for any hon. Member for impute unworthy motives to my hon. Friend. He does not have a large majority so he cannot relax and do things without remembering his constituents' interests. He has served those interests well in the manner in which he has approached the Bill.
  Things have gone wrong since we began discussing the motion to adjourn because of a polarisation of attitudes. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) for saying that I spoke briefly during the night. I did not make a set speech during our 12 hours of deliberation. It is important for the hon. Gentleman to know that the motives of those of us who represent the valleys are just as sincere as those who represent Cardiff. We are not saying that we want the money spent not in Cardiff but in the valleys—
  Mr. John M. Taylor (Vice-Chamberlain to Her Majesty's Household): Oh, yes you are.
  8 am
  Mr. Rogers: That is not true and the hon. Gentleman knows nothing about it. The hon. Gentleman is worthy of other things than such casual remarks. If he had listened to the debate he would have heard things to the contrary.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth knows that I would support the total expenditure of the money allocated in the Bill on the redevelopment of the docks. In common with the valleys, those docks have been desperately deprived of industrial development in the past. They are in desperate need of regeneration. We do not dispute that, but the fact is that £150 million of public

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  money will he spent on a barrage that will not add one single square foot of land available for industrial development, housing or leisure activities in the Cardiff bay area.
  The hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) made a mean speech and said that the barrage represented a multiplying factor in terms of the land development of Cardiff bay. I accept that that factor exists, but it will not benefit the local people, including the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth. The Cardiff Bay development corporation has already admitted in its report, however, that the projected land values in the area will multiply—that is the multiplying factor to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
  There will be no return on the public investment in the area. Any profit accruing from that public investment will go to private companies. The corporation has already said that, once the barrage is built, projected land values will go up from £200 million to £1·5 billion. I do not believe that those enhanced land values will benefit the people of Cardiff, or the people of south Wales.
  If the promoters came up with an amended scheme, the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central could have his Swansea waterfront development. There were proposals for a mini-barrage and the development of a water landscape on the east side of the estuary. That would enhance any development, but, for some peculiar reason, some people say that the only waterfront that can be developed is that by the lagoon behind the barrage. Many of us do not accept that. We accept the sincere motives of others on the Bill and I wish that they would accept that we have similarly sincere motives.
  The valleys communities have put a lot into development in the Cardiff area. The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth referred to the airport. I remember the history of the airport perhaps as well as the hon. Gentleman does. The reason why the airport took off —[Laughter]—was that it was situated in the old Glamorgan county council area. The main proponent of the airport was not Cardiff city council but Glamorgan county council. It cannot be claimed that the airport belongs to Cardiff alone.
  Mr. Michael rose—
  Mr. Rogers: The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has had his turn. He referred to developments in the area and he was right. I do not understand why such praise is not carried through into pride in the activities of the city council and South Glamorgan county council, which have done, and will continue to do, a good job in the interests of the area.
  We do not oppose the Bill in a nihilistic way. If the promoters came up with an amended Bill that did not require a full barrage across the estuaries of the Ely and the Taff rivers at the point at which they enter the Bristol channel, I would give it my wholehearted support. The only item in the Bill that I oppose—all my hon. Friends seem to oppose it, too—is the full-scale barrage. We are certainly not against the development of the Cardiff docklands area and anyone who suggests that we are is being less than just. We have participated in the debate from a point of view just as sincere as that of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth.
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  Finally, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West for the way in which he participated in the debate on his constituents' behalf.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I too have been here all night. I attended tonight's debates because I had listened carefully to previous debates about this imaginative proposal. We have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) and for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) the details of the proposals which are expected to bring about the rejuvenation of Cardiff and bring more jobs, housing and businesses and an improved environment in the city.
  We eventually reached only the second group of new clauses out of a long list and did not even finish that. What this whole sorry episode has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt is that windbags are not confined to Islwyn. What has happened tonight is disgraceful. We have been treated to schoolboy tactics—to a debating society approach to these important matters. We have been treated to dead horses floating about and to blue-green algae. It has even been suggested that water treatment is about nothing more than gargling. Such discourses went on for hours of the debate—if "debate" is the right word.
  I wonder whether Wales will be proud of what has happened tonight. It is clear that the Labour party does not have a clue what it wants for Wales. Were it not for a few Labour Members—notably the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael)—the Opposition would attract nothing but shame for what they have done in the face of the imaginative proposal that has been before the House.
  Mr. Morgan: I am glad to have this opportunity to speak at the conclusion of our proceedings. I wanted to be offered the chance simply to say on my constituents' behalf that there will be many smiling faces in Cardiff, West this morning. There will also be an overwhelming sense of relief. The message that hon. Members—all of us with five o'clock shadows—should take from our proceedings tonight is that Bills such as this should try to achieve their development objectives without damaging other objectives.
  I say this primarily to the other Cardiff Members who are here today. If we have derelict areas—which we do in Cardiff—we must find ways of developing them that do not damage the housing areas in my constituency and the others that lie on the plains near the Taff and the Ely. I hope that the barrage obsession that the development corporation inherited from the Secretary of State of 1979–87 will go out of the window, and another form of docklands development will be adopted that does not damage the houses in my constituency—
  Mr. Grist rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Debate adjourned.
  8.10 am
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It may be for the convenience of the House if I explain now how the Government intend

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  to react to the failure of the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill to make progress during the night, after prolonged earlier consideration.
  In view of the time spent on debating the first two new clauses, the large number of groups of amendments still to be debated and the limited remaining opportunities at this stage in the Session for the Bill to be considered as opposed private business, I wish to announce now that the Government will be introducing their own Bill to permit the construction of the Cardiff bay barrage. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will be consulting on its contents as soon as possible.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): The Leader of the House has not raised a point of order; he has made a statement.
  Mr. Morgan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to such appalling sleight of hand on the part of the Leader of the House. The truth is now out: this was always a Government Bill, masquerading under a false prospectus. The Serious Fraud Office would have intervened had it been a commercial matter.
  The Leader of the House has revealed the truth behind the Bill. It has been rigged by the private Bill procedure. An honest version would have involved the Government's using the proper public Bill procedure from the beginning, and would have avoided the waste of time over four parliamentary Sessions in two Houses. That disgraceful waste of time can now be laid firmly at the door of this incompetent and dilatory Government.
  Mr. MacGregor: As you have described what I said as a statement, Mr. Deputy Speaker, perhaps I can respond.
  Mr. Ron Davies: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If that was a statement, we now have the opportunity to ask questions of the Leader of the House. If it was a point of order—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I said that it was not a point of order for the Chair; it was a statement. I thinkit right to allow a brief period of questioning, which must be confined to that point.
  Mr. MacGregor: In view of the ruling that you have just made, Mr. Deputy Speaker, let me make it clear that that is not the case. We should have much preferred the Bill to go through as a public Bill, which would have ensured that the Cardiff bay barrage procedures came in much more quickly. It was, however, a local issue initiated and supported by local interests, and we consider it entirely right for those interests to promote it through the private Bill procedure. Many other local developments have been handled in this way.
  As I have said, there is now little opportunity for the Bill to make progress in the current Session. That is why we thought it right to make an announcement.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What my right hon. Friend has just announced will be warmly welcomed in the capital of Wales, and throughout south Wales. May I urge the Government to produce their legislation at the earliest possible opportunity so that there is as little further delay as
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  possible? The only reason the Bill has already been delayed so much is the obstructionist filibustering tactics of Labour Members.
  Mr. Michael: The Leader of the House said that the Bill was initiated and supported by local interests. An enormous amount of time was spent on consultation and discussion and, at times, people leaned over backwards to satisfy some of the objectors. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the interests of the area and those of my constituents will be carefully considered in formulating the Bill that the Government intend to introduce? In the light of the spirit of the discussions over the past couple of years with local authorities, the development corporation and the Welsh Office, will the Government seek the consensus of those who wish to see Cardiff's future guaranteed? I hope that we shall see a positive development on the lines of the conclusion that I sought in the debate.
  Mr. MacGregor: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) for their contributions. I assure the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth that all the work that has gone into the preparation of the private Bill and the debates on it will be valuable in developing the Government's Bill. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will consult and will, of course, take account of all that has gone before. He will hope to introduce his Bill as soon as possible.
  Mr. Ian Taylor: My right hon. Friend's announcement is welcome, especially by my hon. Friends who have worked so hard in the interests of the Bill, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Tredinnick) who in a former capacity was a candidate for Cardiff, South and Penarth.
  Those of us who have been in the House all night to support the measure are frustrated about the lack of leadership in the Labour party. The Leader of the Opposition represents a Welsh seat, and it is absolutely absurd that he cannot instil some sense into his Welsh colleagues. He has not been here for the debate, has shown no leadership in the matter, and has given no indication of his interest as a Welsh Member. That has caused disreputable behaviour in the House. I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to comment on that. I hope that we shall not see such behaviour when the Government introduce their Bill.
  Mr. MacGregor: All of us who have been here through the night would have liked to see the Bill make progress and be accepted in its present form. That would have been greatly in the interests of people in Cardiff and south Wales, but, as it was not possible, we have decided on the course that I have announced. That will be greatly in the interests of most hon. Members and of the area.
  Mr. Ron Davies: Will the Leader of the House remind his hon. Friends that we were debating a private Bill and that it would have been quite inappropriate for the Leader of the Opposition or any Opposition Member to try to influence or dragoon hon. Members into voting against their wishes?
  How long does the Leader of the House intend to consult about the preparation of the Bill? Will he undertake to consult such reputable bodies as the Royal

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  Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Rivers Authority and the new Countryside Council for Wales? Will he take seriously their environmental reservations?
  Mr. MacGregor: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will make it clear how he intends to consult and he will, of course, consult widely.
  Mr. Win Griffiths: Where does the announcement leave the environmental assessment procedure which can be applied to major planning developments? Will bodies such as the National Rivers Authority now get opportunities that they did not have under the private Bill procedure because they were not set up in a way that allowed them to object to or comment upon a private Bill? Will the slate be wiped completely clean in terms of participation by the House of Lords in the original Bill? Will the start be from scratch?
  Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman had better await my right hon. Friend's announcement. We recently had to take a decision on the matter. My right hon. Friend has heard the hon. Gentleman's comments about consultation.
  Mr. Rogers: Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Wales, when he is engaged in framing the new Bill, to consider the alternative mini-barrage, which was proposed and discussed as part of the original thoughts of the development corporation some time ago? Will he take on board the statement of the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist), which was made in a disgraceful speech, criticising the Opposition for tabling so-called frivolous amendments?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have a post-mortem on the debate. I have asked the House to confine itself to questions on the statement made by the Leader of the House.
  Mr. Rogers: You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker. that the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central said during an Adjournment debate—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Leader of the House does not have responsibility for that speech.
  Mr. Rogers: The hon. Gentleman said that the promoters were prepared to accept many of the constructive amendments that had been tabled by the Opposition. I ask the Leader of the House to ask the Secretary of State for Wales to take on board what the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central said, and to accept some of our constructive amendments in framing the Bill that he will bring to the House. Can the Leader of the House tell us when he will introduce the guillotine?
  Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman's final point does not arise.
  Obviously, in the consultation my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will take account of what has been said during the progress of the Bill. That will include consideration at least of some of the amendments that might have been moved. That is a matter for my right hon. Friend. We shall introduce a Government Bill to achieve the main objective of the private Bill, which a few opponents have frustrated by preventing it from making progress.
  Mr. Roger Gale: Those of us who have been voting on the Bill throughout the night and who have seen our endeavours to ensure that the Bill makes progress frustrated are gratified by my right hon. Friend's statement. Is he aware that we have noticed throughout the night the absence of the Leader of the Opposition, who is a Welsh Member, and the lack of interest that he has taken in the Bill?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is at least a gross discourtesy. It is an irrelevant and needless discourtesy.
  Mr. Gale: I think that there are some in the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, who consider it a gross discourtesy that the Leader of the Opposition, who is a Welsh Member, has not been in the Chamber for at least part of the night.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should so blatantly disregard the advice that I offered him. He will have regard to the guidance that I have given.
  Mr. Gale: If I am guilty of a grave discourtesy, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I apologise.
  The Opposition have suggested that the statement of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is a move to come out of a disguise to pick up what was a private Bill. May I say to my right hon. Friend that many of us who have heard the arguments advanced by the promoter of the Bill and by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist) have been impressed by those arguments? It is clear that the Government have been impressed by them and have taken them up. I hope that the Government's Bill, and the project, will make rapid progress.
  Mr. MacGregor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We would have much preferred the private Bill to pass through the House, and that was the process on which we embarked many hours ago.
  Mr. Morgan: We?
  Mr. MacGregor: That the House embarked on—that we in the House embarked on during the past year. Many of us have been present throughout the proceedings to demonstrate our position on the private Bill. We would have much preferred it to go the way that I have outlined, but as that was not possible we have taken the action of which I am glad my hon. Friend approves.
  Mr. Rowlands: May I seek clarification of the time scale for the introduction of the new Bill? It is already mid-April, and I should like to know whether it is intended to introduce the Bill during this Session.
  Mr. MacGregor: Yes.
  Dr. Marek: Is the Leader of the House aware that none of the Ministers on the Treasury Bench spoke throughout the debate? Is he further aware that it is the barrage part of the Bill that causes the most argument? I suspect that there is general agreement on both sides of the House about the overwhelming majority of the other measures in the Bill, which could be carried over without any problems. When the new Bill is framed, I ask the right hon. Gentleman to consult widely and meaningfully on the barrage, for that is causing the problem.
  Mr. MacGregor: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and, as I have already said, I am sure that he will be consulting.
  Mr. Morley: Conservative Members' comments have shown what a sham and how corrupt is the private Bill procedure. At least the Government are being forced to show their hand. Having done that, will the Leader of the House assure us that the Government will comply fully with EC directives on conservation of important wetlands and SBA and potential SBA sites when they consider the issue?
  Mr. MacGregor: I disagree entirely with the hon. Gentleman about the private Bill system, which provides an opportunity for opponents as part of a long-established procedure. However, it is equally right, where there is heavy public investment, for the Government to introduce their own Bill. I have already made it clear that we would much have preferred the Bill to proceed as a private measure.
  Mr. Cryer: Does the Leader of the House accept that it is perfectly proper for hon. Members to exercise scrutiny over matters like the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill when important environmental issues are involved? It would have been a dereliction of duty if no amendments had been tabled and there had been no debates on the very important issues involved.
  Now that the shabby conspiracy between the Secretary of State for Wales and the rest of the Cabinet has been revealed, it is time that the Leader of the House introduced the long-overdue changes to the private Bill procedure that the Government found convenient to delay because they have used that private Bill procedure as a way of pursuing Government policy. Today's events are the first honest developments that we have seen with regard to the private Bill procedure.
  Mr. MacGregor: I reject the hon. Gentleman's final point. I have already made it clear that we would have preferred the Bill to have proceeded as a private Bill.
  I agree with the hon. Gentleman's first point about the right of hon. Members to scrutinise private Bills. However, it is clear that the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill has received long scrutiny in both Houses, and I have the details of that scrutiny before me. We hoped that the Bill would progress with greater speed, and if it had made faster progress during the night that would have saved prolonged further consideration.
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  I reject absolutely the claim that we are delaying the introduction of reforms to the private Bill procedure. I have already made an announcement to the House about that. Mr. Deputy Speaker has introduced changes to the Standing Orders that will take effect next Session, and I have made it clear that further announcements will be made shortly. We are pursuing reforms of the private Bill procedure.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Why will not the Leader of the House admit that, throughout the night, as on previous occasions with regard to private Bills, the Government lost control? They have staggered from one crisis to another under John the ditherer. When the Leader of the House introduces the new private Bill procedure, will he bear in mind that we need not just some trimming at the edges but a system that allows private Bills to be introduced which are not tainted by the whatever party is in government, so that writs can be issued to Cabinet Ministers and PPSs and the private Bill procedure is what it says it is and does not involve Ministers shuffling into the Division Lobbies in their carpet slippers in the middle of the night to help the promoters who are making money hand over fist whenever private Bills are introduced?
  Mr. MacGregor: Ignoring entirely the hon. Gentleman's final comments, let me say that all hon. Members are entitled to participate in votes on private Bills, and to some extent that happened during the night. I reject the hon. Gentleman's charge. We have concluded that it is right to introduce a Government Bill to promote the Cardiff bay barrage. It is clear from the response and voting in the House, as well as from the response in the local area, that this decision, taken by the Government in the light of events, will be widely welcomed.
  Mr. Roger Knapman: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his announcement, but, when he prepares the Bill, will he bear in mind the remarks of the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley)? Will he ensure that the title of the Bill is printed in very large letters? The hon. Gentleman spoke at length on the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill, but only recently when we considered the North Killingholme Cargo Terminal Bill that affects his own constituency he—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are dealing not with that Bill but with the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.

  British Technology Group Bill
  Postponed proceeding on Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, resumed.
  8.30 pm
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: We return from the glorious heights of Government incompetence over private Bills to the more mundane level of Government incompetence over the privatisation of the British Technology Group. I am delighted that the Minister is still with us.
  I do not intend to prolong the debate. I have lost the enthusiasm for my speech that I had 13 hours ago. Suffice it to say that we remain implacably opposed to the privatisation of the British Technology Group, for the reasons that we outlined at great length on Second Reading and in Committee. We think that privatisation will damage an essential part of the support structure for technology transfer in this country. Therefore, I give the Minister notice that we shall oppose the Bill on Third Reading.
  8.31 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Edward Leigh): It is my pleasure to wind up the Third Reading debate that began over 13 hours ago, with some interruptions since then. Neither in our debates on Third Reading, nor in our debates on Report, nor in our long debates in Standing Committee did the Opposition succeed in sustaining their case. The fact is that the British Technology Group is a commercially viable operation, with no loans or debts outstanding to the Government. Its niche is to exploit inventions that potentially are commercially viable. We believe that its rightful and proper place is in the private sector.
  I am sorry that, after a good night's sleep, the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) has not decided to change his mind. Perhaps he has realised at the last moment that we intend to bury the old National Enterprise Board. It is abolished by the Bill. Thereby we shall prevent any putative Labour Government from implementing any plan to resurrect that disastrous creation of the Wilson and Callaghan years.
  We should now proceed to a vote on the Third Reading of this excellent Bill, which will give a bright, new commercial future to the British Technology Group.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill read the Third time, and passed.

  Legal Aid and Advice (Scotland)
  8.32 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): I beg to move,
  That the draft Civil Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 20th March, be approved.
  With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I intend to submit for consideration by the House a package of regulations to uprate the financial limits for legal aid, increase the fees paid to solicitors and advocates for legal aid work and improve the administration of legal aid in Scotland.
  The regulations will, first, uprate the limits of income below which legal aid is available free and ensure that the most vulnerable sections of our community continue to have that reassurance and protection. Secondly, the level of financial authority delegated to the profession in respect of legal aid advice and assistance is to be increased, with consequent benefits in terms of speed and efficiency for the profession, clients and the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Thirdly, legal aid fees have been substantially increased, particularly fees for civil legal aid work.
  The first two sets of regulations increase the income limits below which legal aid is available free of any contribution, so the Civil Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1991 and the Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1991 increase the lower disposable income limit for civil legal aid from £2,645 to £2,860 a year and increase the weekly disposable income above which a person is required to pay a contribution for legal advice and assistance from £64 to £70.
  The latter regulations also prescribe the scale of contributions to be paid where weekly disposable income exceeds £70 but does not exceed £135. These proposed changes represent an increase of around 8·1 per cent., which matches the uprating level of income-related social security benefits. These increases maintain consistency with the corresponding eligibility limits in England and Wales. The regulations will ensure that those members of the public who are most in need will continue automatically to qualify for free legal aid and for free advice and assistance.
  We are, not at present proposing to uprate the upper eligibility limits. The whole question of the provision of legal aid and the role of eligibility criteria is being addressed in the current review of legal aid. The first consultative paper is likely to be published shortly. We shall make certain that Scottish interests are fully consulted and that in the consideration of any proposals full account is taken of Scottish circumstances. Pending the outcome, the Government consider it appropriate to leave the upper eligibility limits unchanged. It is nevertheless important to ensure that the income threshold for free legal aid is uprated, and this is what is proposed.
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Are we to understand that there will be a separate review of Scottish legal aid, conducted in Scotland at the instigation of the Scottish Office, or is Scotland to be included in a United Kingdom consideration of these matters?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am very glad to confirm that that is indeed the case. [Interruption.] Like

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  me, the hon. and learned Gentleman is an advocate, and he knows that it is very important that I should provide correct information. As for the courts and this House, we believe in presenting nothing but the truth.
  The third set of regulations is the Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Prospective Cost) Regulations 1991 and its associate, the Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Prospective Cost) Amendment Regulations 1991. These will substantially increase the financial authority delegated to solicitors to incur expenditure on legal advice and assistance without prior reference to the Scottish Legal Aid Board. Their purpose is to increase the financial limit from £60 to £80. This will give solicitors more discretion to proceed with their important and urgent work without having to wait for the board's formal clearance, and will be of benefit to solicitors, clients and the board. It will thereby speed up their service to their customers. All the foregoing proposals are intended to come into force on 30 April 1991.
  With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall now explain the purposes of the regulations that have been prayed against. The following regulations, which came into force on 1 April 1991, increase the level of fees payable to solicitors and advocates for legal aid work: in the Advice and Assistance (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1991; the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) (Fees) Amendment Regulations 1991; the Criminal Legal Aid (Scotland) (Fees) Amendment Regulations 1991; and the Legal Aid (Scotland) (Fees in Civil Proceedings) Amendment Regulations 1991.
  In combination, these regulations increase from 1 April 1991 the level of legal aid fees by the equivalent of 9 per cent. in expenditure terms. In the case of advocates, an across-the-board increase of 9 per cent. in fees for civil and criminal work has been awarded. On the solicitors' side, the detailed civil legal aid fees have been increased by an average of about 12 per cent. By bringing the main detailed fees for civil work carried out by solicitors up to the levels available for criminal work, the regulations conclude a significant step in the rationalisation of legal aid fee structures. This work started in 1988, and has proceeded with the co-operation of the Law Society. I am particularly pleased to have achieved this objective. The work on simplification and further rationalisation will continue.
  The fees for criminal legal aid work and for legal advice and assistance have been increased by 8·5 per cent. The fee for assistance by way of representation has been increased by 16·5 per cent.—from £60 to £70. I am sure that all hon. Members will see that those increases are significant and should help in the further improvement of the Scottish legal aid service. I draw the attention of Scottish Members in particular to the fact that both the Faculty of Advocates for Scotland and the Law Society of Scotland have accepted the increases and have urged their implementa-tion as from 1 April.
  Finally, I refer to the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1991. These are subject to the negative resolution procedure and should come into operation on 22 April 1991. Their purpose is to provide clarification as to certain aspects of legal aid administration.
  I have referred to the Civil Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1991 and other
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  proposals to revise legislation on legal aid in Scotland. They represent worthwhile improvements, and show our resolve to continue to maintain an effective legal aid service in Scotland and our willingness to respond to the changing needs of the service.
  8.40 am
  Mr. John Maxton: I welcome the Secretary of State for Scotland to the Chamber. We are delighted to see him here at this time of the morning for a debate on an important but relatively minor issue. He could not find the time to attend the debate on national testing, which is such a major issue in Scotland.
  I am not surprised that the Minister received the consent of the Law Society and the Faculty of Advocates to increase fees in line with or higher than the rate of inflation. It would have been surprising had they not given their full-hearted support. Many other workers are not receiving increases in line with inflation, and certainly not above it.
  We welcome the uprating of the eligibility levels for legal aid, but the debate offers an opportunity to ask one or two questions about the failure to increase the upper levels of eligibility where a contribution must be made. The Lord Chancellor's working party is reviewing legal aid in the United Kingdom, as the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) said. Separate legal aid regulations have always applied to Scotland because of the two different jurisdictions. I served on the Standing Committee that established the Scottish Legal Aid Board, quite separately from the rest of the United Kingdom. I am concerned that the regulations are being considered on a United Kingdom rather than a Scottish basis.
  Concern is being expressed in Scotland because nobody knows who is on the Lord Chancellor's working party and because the legal profession in Scotland has not been consulted. The regulations appear to pre-empt decisions that have been taken by the working party. It is feared that there will be a major review of civil legal aid and that someone who is on a certain income, instead of having to pay a set amount, will have to pay between £2,000 or £3,000 towards the costs before applying for legal aid. That appears to be what the Lord Chancellor will do, and he is quoted in Law Society documents as saying exactly that.
  Before legislation, or even a report from the Lord Chancellor's working party, regulations are being laid which, by refusing to uprate the upper levels of eligibility, appear to pre-empt that decision. There are questions which the Minister has to answer. The regulations mean that eligibility for legal aid will he reduced in Scotland. There will be people in Scotland who will no longer be eligible. We are entitled to know whether it is Government policy to reduce the number of people in Scotland who will be eligible for civil legal aid. If so, why? Is it simply an exercise to cut costs, or is it the first step towards changing the basis of legal aid?
  What is the proportion of people in Scotland who are eligible for legal aid compared to the number in, say, 1979? The Law Society pointed out that that date was chosen not because of the general election in that year when the Government came into power, but simply because it represented a high point in regard to eligibility for legal aid.

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  I hope that the Minister can tell us exactly what Government policy is on legal aid. Will he promise that, instead of tinkering with the legal aid system he will try to find a means of making it more efficient and cheaper for ordinary members of the public to have recourse to legal assistance when they are in dispute over an issue rather than having to go through a costly and lengthy court procedure? Without that, the legal aid bills will continue to grow, and large numbers of ordinary people will not be able to go to the courts to settle genuine grievances. I hope that the Minister will make a statement on that.
  8.46 am
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: I should begin by declaring an interest in that I am still, in a limited way, a practising member of the Faculty of Advocates and at least one set of regulations which is sought to be approved would have some financial benefit for those who practise as advocates in Scotland.
  I should also declare that before being elected to the House I was a member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board and before that of the Legal Aid Central Committee, and that since resigning from the Scottish Legal Aid Board upon election to the House I have from time to time been asked to provide professional opinions to it on matters of construction of either the principal Act or regulations made under it.
  As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) pointed out, the legislation in Scotland is separate and distinct from that in England and Wales. Of course, to a large extent that springs from the separate legal tradition in Scotland in which there was established, I think as long ago as the 15th century, a system of legal assistance afforded by the legal profession to those who were impecunious.
  In my judgment, the separate Scottish system justifies separate consideration in any review. For that reason, I am extremely disappointed to hear from the Minister that the review is being conducted on a United Kingdom basis. May we know how many persons, apart from the Lord Chancellor himself, with experience in the law of Scotland have been appointed to the review? May we know from what bodies and organisations in Scotland evidence is to be taken to ensure that proper conclusions are reached? Will evidence be sought from lay bodies as well as professional bodies, and will the interests of the consumer be taken into account?
  Since the regulations are in part conditioned by the fact that the review is under way, the House should he given rather more detail about its terms, about those who are participating in it and about the extent to which the interests of those who either have recourse to legal aid or who are funded by it will be taken into account in Scotland.
  The regulations do not expand on professional eligibility—in terms of the merits of a case—or financial eligibility. Do the regulations contain anything to remedy the problem that arose in the Granger case against the United Kingdom Government, about which I have written to the Minister? That case exposed that our procedure contained a defect in the arrangements for making legal aid available in some criminal trials for accused persons. That matter ultimately went to the European Court, and although some attempt has been made to meet the Court's criticism, it has not yet been enshrined in legislation. The
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  regulations might have proved the proper opportunity for that important change in the system of eligibility for legal aid to be made.
  The failure to uprate the higher income limits means that during the period of the review and perhaps afterwards, depending on its conclusions, some people will not be eligible for legal aid who would have been if the higher income limits had been uprated in accordance with the percentage by which the lower income limits are uprated. That means that some people will be denied the opportunity of legal aid. That cannot be seen as anything other than a policy decision by the Government.
  I hope that the Minister will spend a little time, even at about 8.50 am to explain why it was thought necessary to embark upon that policy change in advance of the review. There might be an argument for saying that we will have a review and then change the policy, but to change the policy in advance of the review seems to deny the effectiveness of the review.
  I do not wish to detain the House much longer. As has been said, these are modest upratings. They do not address the continuing gap between the extent of fees for private, non-legal aid cases and legal aid cases. In Scotland, there has never been any difficulty in persuading either branch of the legal profession to accept instructions on the basis of a legal aid fee. But there is growing evidence to suggest that, for many solicitors, the cost of maintaining practices and the overheads that they face are likely to make taking on legal aid work increasingly unprofitable—to the extent that, for some of them at least, it may represent a loss. There must be a limit to the extent to which the solicitors' branch of the profession can be expected to sustain that loss. That is a matter that the review should certainly address, because the gap between legal aid fees and private fees is known to be increasing all the time.
  For those who practise the law in Scotland, the regulations will represent a modest increase in the fees that they are entitled to charge in accordance with the rate of inflation. Clearly it is no one's interests that the regulations should fail to gain the approval of the House, and I would not seek to suggest that for a moment. However, the regulations raise more questions than they answer and, in due course, the Government will have to come to the House with a comprehensive view of the future of legal aid and the extent to which they believe that it is still to be regarded as demand-led.
  There is more than a little evidence to suggest that there are some people in the Government who believe that legal aid should be the subject of financial capping. Whereas previously people who were eligible were entitled to access to legal aid, there may be cash limits so that the amount of legal aid available will inevitably be determined by the number of people who apply in any one year. That would be wholly contrary to the terms of the original legislation. It would drive a horse and cart through the right of every citizen to have recourse to the law to vindicate any legal rights which he or she may have. It would be a serious departure from what many people view as a fundamental liberty of the subject in the United Kingdom, and the Government will in due course have to address it.
  8.55 am
  Mr. James Wallace: I shall not detain the House, but I wish briefly to ask the Minister about a case involving the administration of legal aid—a

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  case in my constituency that has received considerable national prominence. It would certainly be improper to go into any question of the merits of the case of the alleged child abuse in Orkney, but the Minister is well aware that legal aid issues arise from it.
  The House may be interested to know that two solicitors from local firms have been acting for two families each. The circumstances of this case have meant that they have taken telephone calls, sent out fax messages, and intimated notices of motions on behalf of each other's clients. I can confirm, from my own observations, that the solicitors involved have been working most hours of the day to pursue the interests of their clients.
  The legal aid regulations do not neatly cover such circumstances, especially when it comes to feeing. The question that I ask the Minister to address—I have already put it to him in correspondence—is whether, with the fiat of the Secretary of State, and under the principal statute, the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986, a simplified method of feeing can be provided for in this case. The solicitors were heavily engaged in instructing counsel and in preparing for a proof before the sheriff; if they had had to follow the detailed regulations of the legal aid provisions, they would probably have spent most of their time filling in time sheets relating to every telephone call taken, every fax sent and every letter read or dictated, which would have detracted from the main purpose of what I think that every hon. Member would accept was a case of considerable concern and seriousness.
  The other matter will be partly covered by the regulations that we are debating which increase the level of fees. It is my understanding that in a case such as the one in Orkney the sheriff is entitled to allow an uplift of the fees of up to 50 per cent. I understand that that has been accepted by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. However, even if one accepted the increase proposed in the fees, and an uplift of 50 per cent. granted by the sheriff, that would still fall considerably short of what their counterparts would have got in England and Wales for undertaking similar work. Some explanation is required as to why that difference has been allowed to occur.
  I should emphasise that it is certainly no part of the solicitors' concern that these cases should be their great profit-making work for the year. They seek fair remuneration and the effort that they have shown has been in the best traditions of the legal assistance provided by the Scottish legal profession, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) said, for centuries. They have shown dedication to their clients that is consistent with that tradition.
  Finally, in correspondence, the Minister has certainly acknowledged and praised the dedication with which those solicitors have set about their work. Although they acknowledge and accept the Minister's praise for their dedication, I think that they would prefer, or would seek to have in addition, simplified procedures for dealing with the feeing of this case and slightly more generosity than would appear to be possible even under these regulations.
  8.58 am
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: This has been a good debate, and I congratulate hon. Members on raising some extremely important and relevant questions.
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  In relation to the Orkney case, as the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) suggested, the Scottish Legal Aid Board is in a position to make an increase. We believe that the existing arrangements are adequate to meet the needs of the case. The board has said that, following consideration of Sheriff David Kelbie's interlocutor, it is prepared to allow a 50 per cent. increase in the fees for work concerned with the proceedings coming before the sheriff for which a legal aid certificate has been granted. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and the solicitors involved will be advised accordingly if they have not already received that information. If they have not already done so, the lawyers involved should submit their accounts and fee notices to the Scottish Legal Aid Board for consideration so that all funds due to them can be paid as quickly as possible.
  I should like to reflect on the points that have been made about simplified procedures and the discrepancy between that case and other comparable cases in Britain, and I shall write to the hon. Gentleman who raised that matter as quickly as possible.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: I had hoped to be here for the start of the debate but was delayed. I sincerely apologise to the Minister for that and thank him for giving way. Are there any means by which a decision of the Scottish Legal Aid Board can be challenged? I ask that on behalf of a constituent, Mr. Edward Rodgers, who was seriously injured in a car accident and whose application was turned down on the grounds of probabilis—
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Probabilis causa litigandi.
  Dr. Godman: Yes; one can see that I am not a lawyer—
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Probable cause.
  Dr. Godman: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
  My constituent was seriously injured in a traffic accident and, as far as I am concerned, has every cause to seek legal and financial compensation for his injuries, but he received what I can describe only as a casually worded missive from the chairman of the board to the effect that, because of "probable cause", he cannot receive legal aid. Is there any means by which Mr. Rodgers can appeal against such an unchivalrous and uncivilised decision?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Given that the hon. Gentleman has made that appeal to me, I shall look into the case and correspond with him about it. "Probable cause" means a legal case that is capable of being proved. The criterion to be applied by the Scottish Legal Aid Board to any application is not whether the board feels that the proposed action would be successful but whether, on an assessment, the case looks on paper as though the applicant has shown that he has a case that could be proved. I give way to the hon. and learned Member for Fife. North-East (Mr. Campbell), who has been a member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board and whose questions I am anxious to answer.
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: I follow the point made by the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). When the Minister considers that matter, perhaps he would also turn his attention to the question

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  whether such a decision raises questions of an unreasonable exercise of statutory discretion and might therefore give rise to the possibility of judicial review.
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. and learned Gentleman has been a member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board and his concern on this issue carries some weight. I shall look into the points that he mentioned.
  We have considered the terms of the court's judgment on the Granger case and, following consultations with the court authorities, arrangements have been made so that when the Appeal Court considers that the circumstances of a case require it, the court will adjourn the hearing and recommend that the decision to refuse legal aid should be reviewed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. We consider that that provision will effectively ensure that cases similar to Granger do not arise in future.
  I can reassure the House that legal aid is demand-led, and has increased enormously in recent years. In 1981–82, for example, it ran to £23 million in Scotland; by 1984, that had risen to £35 million and in 1989–90 it was £59 million. We have reason to believe that it will be about £64 million for 1990–91. The figure has therefore trebled in the past 10 years, which is an indication of the Government's good will on this issue.
  We have increased the lower eligibility limit for civil legal aid and advice and assistance to ensure that those most in need will continue automatically to obtain free legal aid. We are currently reviewing the wider aspects of eligibility and a consultation paper will be issued in due course.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) asked about the upper limits. The present proposals will ensure that those most in need of legal aid will continue to get it free. The question of how legal aid should be provided in the future and the part to be played by any other form of eligibility test is being addressed by the review and will be resolved following consultation with interested bodies on the discussion paper.
  The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East asked who will be on the working group. The group consists of officials from the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Legal Aid Board with advice from the Department of Social Security and elsewhere, as appropriate. The Scottish Office and the Scottish Legal Aid Board are participating fully in the group on questions of equal application in Scotland.
  In addition, Scottish consultations will be undertaken at appropriate stages to make certain that Scottish needs and circumstances are fully catered for before any proposed changes are implemented. That is exactly what the hon. Member for Cathcart would wish.
  The first consultation paper is likely to be published soon and we shall make certain that Scottish interests are taken into account throughout. Pending the outcome of the review, the Government consider it appropriate to leave the upper income limits unchanged.
  Mr. Wallace: What the Minister has just said is important. We need some clarification. Is the Minister telling the House that Scottish Office and Legal Aid Board officials are not full working members of the group but will merely be consulted for their opinions? Are they full working members of the group and, if so, how many will
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  there be compared with the number from the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Legal Aid Board in England and Wales?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I said that they will be fully participating members of the group. There is no question about that. My exact words were that the Scottish Office and Scottish Legal Aid Board were participating fully in the group on questions of equal application to Scotland. [Interruption.] Hon. Members can be absolutely certain that anything relating to legal aid in Scotland will be fully and properly considered. I have not the slightest doubt that the Secretary of State and I will make absolutely certain of that. That would, indeed, be the wish of the hon. Gentleman.
  Ultimately, a line has to be drawn somewhere. The review is considering bringing more flexibility into the criteria for legal aid, but of course we do not seek a contribution from those on income support.
  Mr. Maxton: Will the Minister give way?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: May I just answer the hon. Gentleman's point about narrowing the criteria?
  The proportion of the population which may be eligible for legal aid at any time is not an appropriate measure of the performance of the system. We believe that the proposed uprating of the lower eligibility limits will continue for those most in need. One object of the review is to ensure that the resources that can be made available for legal aid are distributed reliably in accordance with need.
  The hon. Member for Cathcart asked what proportion of the population was eligible for legal aid. I shall have to look at the statistics as he gave particular dates. More people were assisted in 1989–90. Some 261,991 accounts for legal aid, advice and assistance were paid, which is approximately 40 per cent. more that were paid five years ago. Since 1980 annual provision of Government grant for legal aid has risen from £15 million to £55 million in 1989–90. The indications are that the totals for this year will be about £64 million, which is a huge increase.
  The hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East asked about the decline in civil legal aid—
  Mr. Maxton: I sought to intervene earlier when the Minister said that the Lord Chancellor's review was ongoing and that the working party would produce reports. But the regulations pre-empt that review by keeping down the upper levels of eligibility. Essentially, the regulations do exactly what the Lord Chancellor has made it clear in one or two public statements that the review is about. What is the point of having a review if the Lord Chancellor has already made up his mind exactly what is going to happen with legal aid and intends to implement it? What is the point of consulting anyone?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I made it clear in my original remarks that, pending the outcome, the Government considered it appropriate to leave the upper eligibility limits unchanged. But none the less, it is important to ensure that income thresholds for free legal aid are uprated. That is what is proposed.
  We consider that legal aid should go to those most in need and that will certainly continue to be the case. Legal aid will continue to be non cash-limited. I hope that the debate has been helpful in demonstrating the importance

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  we attach to the provision of legal aid in Scotland and our determination to make certain that the Scottish legal aid service is effective and is efficiently administered.
  We remain committed to funding those cases where applicants qualify. I stress once again our continuing commitment to an efficient and effective legal aid system. We appreciate the need in all this for the continuing co-operation of the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates for Scotland, as well as the Scottish Legal Aid Board.
  This has been an extremely useful debate. There is one last point that I should mention before I sit down. Hon. Members have asked for more effectiveness. One particular matter that is being considered under the current review of legal aid is whether legal aid service can be more effectively delivered through franchising whereby a number of firms in an area contract with the legal aid board to provide legal aid services. There would be full consultation on the proposals emerging from the review. If the Opposition have other suggestions, we will look at them with great care.
  I commend the regulations to the House—
  Mr. Menzies Campbell: Will the Minister give way?
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I was coming to the end of my remarks, but I shall give way.
  Mr. Campbell: I am grateful to the Minister, who shows his usual courtesy in these matters, even at this somewhat unusual hour.
  I take the Minister back to the question of the constitution of the review. If I understand him correctly, he is telling us that there is a United Kingdom review, which appears to have been established at the instigation of the Lord Chancellor. The Scottish input to that review is reflected in representatives of the Scottish Legal Aid Board and of the Scottish Home Department. But the Minister's explanation revealed that the particular contribution of those two individuals is to questions that are raised regarding Scotland. It does not appear from what he said that those two individuals are participating in the United Kingdom review of the legal aid system. If that is true, does it not point up the fact that we should have two separate reviews: one for England and Wales and one for Scotland? That way we can all be assured that the Scottish interest will be properly taken into account.
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. and learned Gentleman is not correct in his interpretation of what I
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  said. This is a United Kingdom review. The Scottish Office will be fully represented. I would not necessarily accept the figure that he gave; it may be more. Obviously, Scotland's interests will be properly and fully considered at every stage with appropriate consultations in Scotland to take fully into account the Scottish circumstances. We all appreciate that Scotland has a different legal system the needs of which need to be particularly taken into account and they will be.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Civil Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 20th March, be approved.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Advice and Assistance (Financial Conditions) (Scotland) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 20th March, be approved.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]
  Resolved,
  That the draft Advice and Assistance (Scotland) (Prospective Cost) Regulations 1991, which were laid before this House on 20th March, be approved.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102(9) (European Standing Committees),
  ANIMAL WELFARE
  That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 7214/90, relating to protection of animals during transport; and supports the Government's intention to negotiate satisfactory welfare safeguards consistent with maintaining conditions given effect by the Transit of Animals (Road and Rail) Order 1975, the Welfare of Poultry (Transport) Order 1988, section 40 of the Animal Health Act 1981 (c.22) and other related measures.

  EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES
  That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 9908/90, relating to the third action programme on equal opportunities for men and women and the proposals described in the un-numbered Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of Employment on 19th December 1990 and its Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum of 11 th March 1991 for a Council Resolution relating to the action programme; approves of the Government's support for the Programme's underlying principles; and endorses the Government's approach that any measures brought forward under the Programme must be considered on their merits taking account of their effect on national practices and policies, the extra burden likely to be placed on employers and the consequential impact on the level of employment.—[Mr. Patnick.]
  Question agreed to.

  Leasehold Reform
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Patnick]
  9.12 am
  Mr. Terry Lewis: It is interesting that the subject of this debate is leasehold reform, because I am rather fortunate in that my London flat is within five minutes' walk of the House, so I have not been up all night waiting for this debate. That is one advantage of a leasehold in this area.
  The Minister will be aware that the problem to which I wish to return is the 1,000-year lease with a low rent which is usually found in the north-west of England and nowhere else. I do not wish to bore the House again with this subject, but it will return and return until something is done to tidy up the leasehold reform legislation of 1967 and 1983.
  On 8 March, we debated in the House a range of leasehold reform. On that occasion, the Minister's contribution showed that he had begun to recognise the now accepted leasehold problems in London and elsewhere and the distinct problem of long leases. I regret that on that occasion the Minister failed to give any commitment to new reform. He suggested recourse to the Landlord and Tenant Acts of 1927 and 1987 to deal with certain aspects of the problem, and I have no quarrel with that. However, since 8 March, events have shown that those statutes are capable of tackling only some of the minor issues that surround the problem. The main difficulties continue to exist and without a vigorous response from the House I am afraid that large-scale abuses will be committed by head leaseholders—on a greater scale than those abuses that I and other hon. Members have brought to the attention of successive Ministers.
  Since 8 March, there have been a number of new developments that mainly involve the property companies that I named in my speech in March. The Minister will recall that I named 10 property companies that I believe are abusing the system. A couple of those firms have been undeterred in their activities, but I am glad to report that they have been rather panicky in their response to that March debate.
  The perpetrators of the practices that the Minister condemned on 8 March are largely unrepentant, and I have no doubt that they will continue to practise their abuses. The latest and most serious development occurred on Friday. One of the companies that I named in March and of which I have had much experience in the past six years was seized by the milch cow principle of long leases to an extent that I previously thought impossible. It took 16 owner-occupiers to the county court to repossess their homes. I shall not go into the detail of the case, as it is still sub judice since the case was adjourned. I attended together with my colleague, Councillor Hazel Blears. She is a lawyer and is constantly surprised at the turn of events I have accounted in the past. She gave valuable support on Friday to people who were extremely worried.
  Last Friday, I witnessed the worry that was caused by the actions of that sharp firm, and it came as a surprise to me. I should not have been surprised given my experience of such companies, but I understood the concern felt by those people. They bought their homes with the best will in the world. If they had bought those homes anywhere
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  south of Watford—for example, in Hemel Hempstead—they would have had no problems. However, someone has now decided that there is a way in which to make money from long leases, and because those people bought their homes in the north-west, they now face the serious threat of losing those homes.
  I hope that the Minister will take into account the experience of those people. People cannot understand why they must ask for permission to put a greenhouse in their gardens—and pay for that permission. That happens only in the north-west, and the House must address that disparity sooner or later as it is a growing problem.
  Another firm, local to me, is a newcomer to the use of long leases. I have been in correspondence with the principals of the firm since the debate in March. I refer to a property company, Valerie Hawksworth Ltd. of Farnworth.
  Suppose that a property company buys, inherits, or by some other means obtains, a head lease and then decides that there is money to be made by exploiting parts of the lease of which local solicitors have never even advised their clients over the years because of the localised nature of its provisions and because, in terms of the property's reverting, a 1,000-year lease is meaningless. Take my own house, built in 1961; 1,000 years on, I should be very surprised if anything were left standing on the site but a pile of rubble. Local solicitors may therefore feel that it is not worth their while advising owner-occupiers and purchasers of long leases of the covenants that might eventually involve them in the scam to which we are referring.
  Let us return to our friend Valerie Hawksworth. A very simple case brought the company to my attention. It involved somebody buying a house, being advised by a solicitor, signing the lease, getting a mortgage, moving in and developing the house, as we all do. Imagine the surprise of that owner-occupier when he received a notification from the property management company saying, "We have not given you permission to build the porch on the front of your house." Correspondence passed back and forth. The owner-occupier said, "It was part of the house when I bought it. I did not know anything about needing permission for a porch. My solicitor did not advise me. It has nothing to do with me. What is the problem?" Valerie Hawksworth said, "Fine; we can make this right, but it will cost you £51·75 for retrospective consent and registration administration charges." That is typical, and it is just one of the ways in which property management companies extract money from ordinary people.
  Owner-occupiers are being exploited but—more seriously, in my view—the property companies are frustrating the will of Parliament by circumventing the 1987 Act, which makes it clear that leases can be bought by the owner-occupier as of right under the right-to-buy provisions. The suggested cost is 10 times the annual rent, which is less than £200 in respect of many houses in the category to which I am referring.
  The Act says nothing about the on-costs other than ordinary legal charges. That is fine, but it is a deliberate attempt to frustrate the will of Parliament for someone to ask for £51·75 for a letter saying, "Yes. You can add the porch provided that you have planning consent and building regulations consent if that is necessary." It is for Parliament to deal with the matter. I hope that the Minister will take all these matters on board again today. I serve notice that the matter will not go away; there is

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  absolutely no chance of our allowing it to go away. Unless and until the problem is tackled vigorously by the Minister, we shall debate this matter again and again.
  9.23 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Timothy Yeo): I congratulate the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis) mot of all on his good fortune in choosing a flat located close enough to the Palace to have allowed him to get a good night's sleep but also on his good fortune in having the chance to raise this important subject once again—soon after our debate last month on leasehold reform, which arose on a private Member's motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Mr. Fishburn) and in which the hon. Gentleman took part.
  During that debate, and again this morning, the hon. Gentleman concentrated on the problems associated with leasehold ownership of houses, particularly in the north-west—although I believe that the problem also arises in south Wales—and asked us to review the relevant legislation. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South (Mr. Sumberg) is also extremely concerned about the matter. He has made his concern known to me in vigorous terms.
  Mr. David Sumberg: I am here at this early hour simply because a number of my constituents are outraged about the matter. Some two weeks ago I called a meeting, and we formed a residents' association to deal with one of the companies mentioned by the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis). I do not hesitate to name it; he has already done so. Munny Ltd. is—here I use the privilege of the House—a disgraceful and appalling landlord. My hon. Friend must deal with the problem as a matter of urgency. My constituents are entitled to quiet, peaceful enjoyment of their property, but they are not getting it, because the law is inadequate. I do not think that those whom I represent—and others throughout the north-west—should have to put up with it any longer.
  Mr. Yeo: I note what my hon. Friend has said, and hope that some of what I shall say will be of some comfort to him. I know how vigorously he champions and defends his constituents' interests.
  Before addressing the specific issue raised by the hon. Member for Worsley, let me explain that the Government are not at present engaged in a major review of the leasehold system as a way of owning property, despite speculation in the press. As I said on 8 March, in many instances the leasehold system works perfectly well, with no cause for dissatisfaction on the part of either landlord or leaseholder. It certainly works satisfactorily in the case of commercial property. I acknowledge, however, that in some instances things have gone wrong with some residential properties, and that there are particular problems with the leasehold ownership of houses. As the hon. Member for Worsley pointed out, that is a separate issue from the difficulties in relation to blocks of flats, which we hope to address in another way. I join the hon. Gentleman, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South in condemning the way in which some ground landlords choose to conduct their business.
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  As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government are engaged in developing a new way of owning property called commonhold. It is primarily intended to overcome the problems associated with flats. Today, however, I shall concentrate on the hon. Gentleman's main interest, the freehold reversion of houses.
  The freeholders of many leasehold houses in the north-west, and indeed in other parts of the country, sell their freehold reversionary interests, sometimes in packages and sometimes at auction. That may be the commonest way in which the unscrupulous landlords to whom the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend have referred become involved. There is nothing wrong with ground landlords selling their freehold interests, and I emphasise that new landlords do not require any additional rights or duties over and above those in the original lease or covenants. A lease is essentially a private contractual agreement that is freely entered into, and the respective rights and duties of both the ground landlord —or freeholder—and the leaseholder should be clearly set out in the terms of the lease. Leaseholders should be fully aware of the terms of the commitments that they are entering into when they first purchase their leases.
  I am aware that some ground landlords choose to enforce conditions or exercise rights under the terms of a lease in a way that the previous landlord did not. That is what happens when an unscrupulous landlord acquires the freehold; he will start to do things that the leaseholder does not expect because they were not done by a previous, more benign, freeholder. I stress that the new landlord cannot enforce any rights or conditions that do not exist in the lease.
  When we last debated the matter, hon. Members gave a number of examples, naming companies and individuals. They have done so again this morning. When I replied to the debate on 8 March, I deplored the examples quoted by hon. Members of some landlords seeking to enforce their obligations in an unpleasant or threatening manner. I am pleased to note that some landlords have been fined for harassing their tenants.
  Under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, most long leaseholders of houses already have the right to buy their freehold if they wish. That probably applies to all the houses in the constituencies of the hon. Member for Worsley and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South. That right exists whether or not the landlord wishes to sell, provided that the leaseholder satisfies certain conditions. In the long term, the purchase of the freehold may well offer the best solution to the kind of difficulty about which the hon. Member for Worsley spoke. The purchase of the freehold gives leaseholders a way of freeing themselves from the terms of their leases, especially where a new landlord is choosing to enforce covenants which the leaseholder no longer finds acceptable and which perhaps were not so vigorously enforced by the previous landlord. Most covenants disappear on the acquisition of the freehold.
  The Leasehold Reform Act sets out the basis for determining the value of the freehold, but the actual price payable is open to negotiation between the landlord and leaseholder. There is no set formula, such as 10 or 15 times the annual ground rent, and it would be impractical to attempt to introduce such a formula, because it would take no account of the multiplicity of particular circumstances

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  that exist for each property or of how long a lease has to run. Generally speaking, the longer the lease the lower the price of the freehold.
  If the price cannot be agreed by negotiation, either party may ask the leasehold valuation tribunal to determine the price, and there is then a right of appeal to the Lands Tribunal. Under the Leasehold Reform Act, leaseholders of houses are able to purchase the freehold of their properties at a price which is significantly less than full market value. In most cases it excludes any assessment, which would he usual under normal valuation procedures, of the leaseholder's interest in acquiring the freehold.
  In areas of the country such as those represented by the hon. Member for Worsley and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South the cost of the freehold should be no more than a few hundred pounds, a sum which I hope would be within the reach of the vast majority of leaseholders. Leaseholders must also pay the landlord's reasonable costs arising out of the tenant's notice to purchase. Here we enter the more difficult waters of the attitude of some new freeholders. Those reasonable costs include solicitors' fees for the conveyancing and valuer's fees, but they should not include a handling charge or management fee. Enfranchisement is not a service provided by the landlord and for which he can charge, but a right enjoyed by the leaseholder under the Act. Any disputes about what is or is not reasonable for a landlord to include as his costs can be referred to the leasehold valuation tribunal.
  We have no precise information about how many leaseholders have enfranchised under the Leasehold Reform Act, but all the signs are that substantial numbers of leaseholders have over the years taken advantage of its provisions. Despite what the hon. Member for Worsley and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury, South have said, we have no evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with the law as it applies to leasehold houses—certainly nothing on the scale of the complaints voiced by leaseholders of flats. I acknowledge that there is a special problem in that area, but I am glad to say that it is not universal.
  From time to time, it has been suggested that in practice leaseholders are deterred from using the statutory procedure for resolving disputes over the terms of enfranchisement because they fear the risk of having to pay costs if the landlord then appeals to the Lands Tribunal.
  Three years ago, my Department and the Welsh Office, because it is believed that the problem also exists in Wales, undertook an extensive consultation exercise to establish whether such allegations could be substantiated. The consultation yielded no hard evidence on the issue, and it was concluded that there were no grounds for amending the existing procedure. At the time, the Government promised to keep the matter under review and I reiterate that we will not hesitate to act if there is clear evidence of abuse or signs that the system is not working as it should.
  For those leaseholders who do not wish to exercise their right to purchase the freehold—
  Mr. Lewis: Will the Minister take up the problem of enhancing on-costs through retrospective provision? If someone applies for the right to revert to freehold, he or she receives a letter asking for payment of a £25 handling charge or inspection fee. Then the man with the clipboard comes and ticks off all the improvements that the occupier
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  has made to the property over, perhaps, 20 years. If those improvements build up to about £2,000 or £3,000, it may be beyond the capacity of the owner to pay such a sum. That is the frustration that ensues.
  Mr. Yeo: I acknowledge that that practice may exist. As I said on 8 March, much can be done if leaseholders are fully aware of their rights. To that end, my Department has produced a leaflet—it is freely available—that sets out the rights of leaseholders. I shall reflect on what the hon. Gentleman has said and ascertain whether there is anything specific that we can do to overcome the difficulty.
  As I was saying, leaseholders, in addition to the contractual rights already referred to, have a number of statutory safeguards available under the Landlord and Tenant Acts relating to matters such as service charges, repairs and insurance, the latter having been a matter of some concern. Before 1987, those rights applied only to the leaseholders of flats, but under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 we significantly strengthened those rights and for the first time extended them to leaseholders of houses.
  In particular, the 1987 Act extended the service charge protections of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to the tenants and leaseholders of all dwellings, and gave leaseholders of houses new rights over insurance. While a court cannot take away the landlord's right to nominate an insurer where the lease provides for this, the leaseholder can challenge the choice of insurer if the cover available is unsatisfactory or the premiums payable are unreasonable. It is probably too early to be sure whether the 1987 Act is fully effective, but I hope that it is already a useful additional weapon on the side of the leaseholders in any dealings he has with the less scrupulous landlord.
  Finally, it has also been suggested that leaseholders of houses should be freed from their obligations under the terms of a lease to seek the landlord's consent or permission to the carrying out of improvements to the property. Perhaps that is what the hon. Member for Worsley was looking for when he intervened. I think that that is more a matter of property law, which is one for my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor, but I have difficulty in seeing why leaseholders should be relieved of obligations which they have freely entered into. As I said during the debate on 8 March, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 safeguards leaseholders against excessive charges for consent to alterations and extensions. I understand that consent cannot be unreasonably withheld. I should add that the Law of Property Act 1925 gives the Lands Tribunal the power to discharge or modify restrictive covenants in certain circumstances.
  As I explained at the beginning of my speech, the Government's current initiative is in respect of common-hold and is not concerned with altering the general operation of existing leasehold law or the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. The only amendments to that Act which might arise in this context are ones which are strictly necessary for its satisfactory operation within a commonhold, and this is likely to be of limited interest in terms of the issues that we have been discussing this morning.
  I recognise, however, that there may well be a continuing need to monitor the operation of both the Landlord and Tenant Acts and the Leasehold Reform Act to ascertain whether they need to be improved or amended, especially if commonhold is introduced. I have already promised, and I promise again, to consider again,

  399
  once we have dealt with the commonhold legislation, the issues raised by the hon. Member for Worsley with a view to seeing whether there is any justification for reviewing the operation of the Leasehold Reform Act to deal with
  400
  the problem of the ruthless or threatening freeholder. We have no intention of allowing such freeholders to get off the hook.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to Ten o'clock.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Imprisonment (Remission)
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list those offences, other than relating to non-payment of the poll tax, for which there is no remission in cases of imprisonment.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  In addition to those imprisoned for non-payment of the community charge, inmates in custody in the following circumstances are not eligible for remission.

  (i) non-payment of: rates; a maintenance order; any civil debt; sums due under legal aid contribution orders; sums due on forfeiture of a recognisance; costs ordered to be paid by a magistrates' court; debts under the Debtors' Act 1869;

  (ii) non-compliance with court orders other than financial penalties;

  (iii) most civil offences.

  Full details of the terms of imprisonment that do not attract remission are set out in prison standing order 12, a copy of which is in the Library. A revised version of the standing order, to be published in a few months' time, will include reference to the community charge.

  Broadcasting
  Mr. Moss
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about ultra high frequency television coverage and the future of the relay programme in the light of the prospective privatisation of the transmission operation system previously owned and operated by the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  The announcement made on 4 July 1989 by the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd), confirmed that it was our intention to privatise the transmission networks owned and operated by the BBC and the IBA as soon as we were in a position to do so. The IBA welcomed the proposal and the Broadcasting Act provided for the IBA's replacement by two new regulatory bodies—the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the Radio Authority—and a transmission company which is to be privatised. The transmission company, National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), started trading on 1 January this year. The position of the BBC's transmission operation will be reviewed in the run-up to the expiry of its royal charter at the end of 1996.

  The existing BBC and independent television services currently reach about 99·4 per cent. of the United Kingdom population. The BBC and the IBA have shared responsibility for a rolling programme of relay station construction. The current policy on the relay programme was announced on 20 May 1980 by the then Home Secretary, Lord Whitelaw, who said that approval had been given to proposals to extend UHF coverage to groups
  132
  of fewer than 500 whenever it was reasonably practicable to do so. Because of the varied nature of these small groups, there could be no obligation on the BBC and the IBA to provide a service to them and a precise lower limit could not be specified. In practice, groups of fewer than 200 have not benefited from the programme.

  In addition, the 1980 statement announced new arrangements for self-help television schemes, generally serving groups not qualifying under the relay programme. There are now over 300 groups covered by the scheme. The BBC and the IBA have provided advice on the new schemes which are continually being established.

  It is our aim to see existing UHF television coverage of the four main terrestrial channels maintained and increased where appropriate. We have agreed that the existing programme of up to 25 relay stations a year should be maintained until 1996 when we will reconsider the position, including alternative forms of delivery. We have also agreed that the BBC and the ITC should continue to be responsible for providing advice on new self-help schemes, with assistance from NTL.

  The BBC will continue its part of the relay programme as at present. The ITC will work with the BBC to determine the order and rate at which the stations are to be constructed, co-ordinating with the ITV companies or Channel 3 licensees, Channel 4 or S4C as appropriate. Responsibility for the IBA's share of relay planning and construction will fall to NTL. Until 1993 the necessary additional coverage requirements will be implemented by means of the contracts between the ITC and the ITV companies, and the contracts between those companies, Channel 4, S4C and NTL. From 1993, the Broadcasting Act provides for the ITC to set technical standards of quality, coverage and reliability in the Channel 3 and 4 licences and for the Welsh Authority to provide S4C to high technical standards. NTL will be obliged by its own Telecommunications Act licence to provide services enabling the ITV, Channel 3 and Channel 4 companies and S4C to meet the required standards of coverage which will include the continuation of the relay programme until 1996, or as then further decided.

  Fire Service
  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what plans the Government have for the Fire Service College.

  Mr. John Patten
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has decided that the Fire Service College should become a candidate for executive agency status under the Government's "Next Steps" initiative. The projected launch date is 1 April 1992.

  The college, established under the Fire Services Act 1947, is the principal provider of training to officers in local authority fire brigades. It provides technical training in firefighting and fire safety and courses on command and management for all grades of fire officer. It also trains students from the private sector and from overseas. The recent introduction of direct charging of brigades commensurate with their use of the college's facilities enables the college to be more responsive to the individual needs of its customers. Executive agency status will provide the college with the flexibility and control necessary to deliver high-quality training more cost-effectively and responsively.
  133
  My right hon. Friend fully appreciates the close interest taken by the local authorities and the fire service in maintaining high professional standards through training at the college and there will be full discussions with the constituent members of the Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council and other interested parties over the coming months.

  Police Complaints Authority
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is making any changes in the membership of the Police Complaints Authority; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  The right hon. Roland Moyle is retiring from his post as deputy chairman of the Police Complaints Authority when his term of appointment expires on 28 April. I wish to take this opportunity to thank him for his service with the authority. His knowledge and experience have made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of the authority as a key part of the police complaints system.

  Peter Moorhouse, who has been a member of the authority since July 1988, has accepted my invitation to succeed to the vacant deputy chairman post on 29 April.

  Interception of Communications
  Mr. Allason
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what arrangements have been made following the expiry of the terms of appointment of the members of the interception of communications tribunal on 10 April; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  Sir Cecil Clothier, KCB, QC, Mr. David Calcutt, QC, Mr. Ivor Guild, CBE and Mr. Peter Scott QC have been reappointed for a further five years as members of the tribunal established under the Interception of Communications Act 1985. Their new terms of office commenced on 11 April.

TRANSPORT

  British Rail
  Mr. Ian Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the expected outturn for British Rail's external financing for the 1990–91 financial year.

  Mr. Rifkiind
  British Rail's external financing requirement for 1990–91 was £1,016 million. This represents an overshoot of £316 million on the revised limit of £700 million. British Rail will publish full details of the 1990–91 financial year in the annual report and accounts in July.

  Road and Rail Expenditure
  Ms. Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the planning totals of Department of Transport expenditure on road and rail, respectively, for each of the three decades from 1960 to 1989.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: Consistent information in terms of planning totals is not available. However, road and rail investment in Great Britain for the three decades is as follows:
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  Road and rail investment: Great Britain1

  £ million in cash prices

  Road2

  Rail3

  1960–69

  2,330

  1,190

  1970–79

  7,440

  2,190

  1980–89

  16,850

  6,220

  1 Because of definitional changes, figures can only be used to give broad comparisons.

  2 Expenditure by central and local government on new construction and improvement on all roads, and major structural maintenance on motorway and trunk roads.

  3 Investment in rolling stock and infrastructure by British Rail, London Underground Limited, Dockland Light Railway and Manchester Light Rapid Transit. British Rail channel tunnel investment is included but not investment by Eurotunnel plc.

ENERGY

  Electricity Privatisation
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what evidence he has that privatisation of electricity in Great Britain has led to a reduction in electricity prices to consumers.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  It is too early to assess the full impact of privatisation and the introduction of competition on electricity prices. However, since April last year consumers have, for the first time, been protected by price controls against unjustified increases and, under the phased arrangements for the transition to full competition, large users, outside the franchise, have been able to negotiate the keenest available terms from potential suppliers.

  Gas Turbine Power Stations
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy whether, pursuant to his answer of 11 March,Official Report, column 359, to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson), he has any proposals to change the criteria he uses in considering the granting of consent for new gas-fired combined cycle power stations under (a) section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 or (b) the Energy Act 1976; if he will consult the Director-General of Ofgas in such considerations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  There are currently no proposals to change the criteria for the Secretary of State for Energy's consent under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to construct new gas-fired generating stations. The Government are aware that the EC directive restricting the use of gas in generating stations was repealed on 18 March 1991. We therefore intend to repeal the powers relating to the use of natural gas in power generation contained in section 14 of the Energy Act 1976 at the earliest legislative opportunity. In the interim period, the Government will continue to exercise those powers in a manner consistent with previous practice.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Finsbury Park and Highgate Offices
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many staff are currently employed at Finsbury Park and Highgate DSS offices; how many were employed in March 1990; how much of the work has been transferred to other offices in the past year; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The numbers of staff employed in Finsbury Park and Highgate offices are as follows:

  Finsbury Park

  Highgate

  1 March 1990

  191·5

  202

  1 April 1991

  31·5

  33

  All work which did riot require face-to-face contact with the public has been relocated to the Euston district office and the Glasgow social security centre as was recommended in the Business of Service report, a copy of which is available in the Library.

PRIME MINISTER

  HMS Endurance
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make it his policy to continue the deployment of HMS Endurance in the south Atlantic including South Georgia and Antarctica; and if he will make a statement on the replacement of the present vessel by the mid-1990s

  The Prime Minister
  Endurance will return from her current deployment in the south Atlantic in May, which is the end of the Antarctic summer. Studies into the best way of fulfilling the role currently undertaken by Endurance are continuing.

  Iraq
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what requests Her Majesty's Government have had for air cover from anti-Saddam forces in(a) northern Iraq and (b) southern Iraq.

  The Prime Minister
  We have received a number of representations requesting the coalition forces in the Gulf to prevent the Iraqi air force from flying missions. Security Council resolution 688 demands that the Iraqi Government should end their repression of their own people. We are working urgently to create safe havens for Iraqi refugees. The United States has warned Iraqi aircraft not to fly north of the 36th parallel.

  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister what discussions he has had with the United States Government about a permanent(a) United States, (b) United States/British and (c) coalition presence in Iraq.

  The Prime Minister
  We have no intention of establishing a permanent coalition presence in Iraq. Our recent contacts with the Americans have focused on the need for urgent humanitarian aid to Iraqi refugees both in the north and south of the country. We shall continue to maintain close contacts with the United States on the way ahead.
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  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his oral answer to the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) of 14 March,Official Report, column 1095, what discussions he has had with the allies on the subject of the use of chemical weapons in Iraq.

  The Prime Minister
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: The use of chemical weapons by Iraq is a matter of great concern and has been discussed on many occasions with our allies. We have no firm evidence that such weapons were used during or after the Gulf conflict. At our instigation United Nations Security Council resolution 687, which has been accepted by the Iraqi Government, sets out the United Nations terms for the destruction of Iraq's chemical weapons capability and affirms that grave consequences would follow any use by Iraq of such weapons.

WALES

  Welsh Agricultural College
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he has any plans to finance the Welsh agricultural college, Aberystwyth, in the future; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Arrangements have been made for officials to discuss the future of the Welsh agricultural college with officers of the WAC joint education committee later this week.

  EC Wild Birds Directive
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what consultations he has had with the chairman of the Countryside Council for Wales regarding the implications of the Leybucht Bay judgment of the European Court of Justice on 28 February in Luxemburg on the proposals for development in Welsh estuaries in special protection areas or candidate special protection areas under the wild birds directive 1979.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  None.

  Science Base
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on his policies to encourage the growth of a science base in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  [holding answer 27 March 1991]: The Government's policy with regard to science is designed to operate on a United Kingdom basis. The aims of the Government's science programme are to advance knowledge and technical capability; to train scientific manpower at postgraduate level; and in these and other ways to contribute to the realisation of economic, social and cultural benefits for the United Kingdom. Financial support is channelled through the research councils and other funded bodies. Higher education institutions in Wales can and do receive support from these funds for research activity in Wales.

  In addition, many projects in Wales are funded by the Department's own research and development programme which covers the whole range of its responsibilities. The Welsh Office estimated expenditure on research and development in 1991–92 is £3·1 million.
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  The Department also specifically seeks to promote and develop the science base within the NHS in Wales. To this end the provision of training for clinical scientists is currently under review. The Department also sponsors the Welsh scheme for the development of health and social research which specifically supports the career develop-ment of research workers. In addition Welsh Office-sponsored projects account for some £1·1 million of the £22·9 million held by the Department of Health for the combined England and Wales health and personal social services research programme for 1991–92.

  Some of the Department's industrial policies also have a direct effect in strengthening the more commercially oriented aspects of our science base. For example there are the activities of WDA Technology Marketing, the WDA support for various major centres of excellence within the university of Wales, the proposed Imperial science park at Newport and our promotion of relevant Government and European schemes such as LINK, the teaching company scheme and the collaborative research and development grant support at both the United Kingdom and European level including through the pan-European EUREKA programme.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Local Management of Schools
  Sir John Farr
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science, pursuant to his answer of 22 March,Official Report, column 234, on the implications of local management of schools, what system has been established to ensure that recoupment charges payable to the providing authority are earmarked for the specific school concerned rather than absorbed in the overheads of that providing authority.

  Mr. Fallon
  As I had intended to make clear to my hon. Friend in my answer of 22 March, formula allocations to schools under an LEA's scheme of local management are calculated on the basis of the number of pupils in schools, regardless of where those pupils live. Schools will automatically receive funding for out-county pupils at the same level as for pupils who live within the authority. In this way schools receive in their budgets credit for the pupils whom they have attracted from another authority.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Sub-Post Offices
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list, by region, the number of sub-post offices which have(a) opened and (b) closed since 1979.

  Mr. Leigh
  Decisions on the provision of post office services in particular areas are an operational matter for the Post Office. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the period mentioned has seen considerable organisational change in the Post Office and I understand that the information is not available in the form requested.

  The Post Office has, however, told me that the overall number of post offices has fallen from 22,639 in 1979 to 20,401 in 1991. Within this total the number of agency
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  offices—which includes both rural and sub-post offices, community offices and restricted hours offices—has fallen from 21,056 to 19,160 over the same period.

  Chief Executives
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his policy on the employment as chief executive of a company of a person who has held a similar position in a company that has failed.

  Mr. Lilley
  In general there is no legal impediment to the appointment of the chief executive or any other officer of a failed company to a similar position in another company. However, any company considering such an appointment would wish to consider carefully the prospective appointee's performance record. Moreover, there are safeguards provided in the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 which requires every liquidator, administrative receiver or administrator to submit a report to the Secretary of State if he considers that the conduct of a director of an insolvent company has been such as to make him unfit to be concerned in the management of a company. An application may be made to the court for such a person to be disqualified from acting as a director or from being involved in the management of a company. During the year ended 31 March 1991 the Secretary of State directed that 499 such applications be made to the courts.

  Chemical Weapons
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make it his policy to obtain from his counterpart in the United States a copy of the Commerce Department's latest assessment of countries capable of producing chemical weapons and export control guidance given to industry.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  We work with other like-minded countries, including the United States, in taking harmonised international measures to prevent the proliferation of chemical weapons.

  There are regular meetings at which information is exchanged on new controls and procedures.

  The Gulf
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what estimate he has made of the potential value to British industry of contracts to reconstruct parts of Kuwait and Iraq following the Gulf war.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The Department has not sought to estimate the value of Kuwait reconstruction work to British industry. Various estimates of the total cost of reconstruction work have been made, most commonly in the region of US $50 billion.

  Company Projects
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list grant funding available to United Kingdom companies undertaking feasibility studies for projects in Europe, both inside and outside the European Community.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 27 March 1991]: The overseas projects fund operated by my Department

  139
  provides assistance to the pre-contractual expenses, including feasibility studies in certain circumstances, of British companies seeking contracts for major projects outside the European Community. Information on grant funding from other sources could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Middle East
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what communications he has had in the current year with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in regard to the middle east region.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We receive regular reports from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on its activities in the middle east region, and we are in very close touch over the current Iraq crisis.

  Honduras
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the current aid programme to Honduras and the equivalent figure for each of the last 10 years; what participation the United Kingdom takes in the EC programmes that affect Honduras; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The bilateral country programme runs at about £1 million a year; we provide disaster relief when appropriate; the Commonwealth Development Corporation invests in Honduras. Gross United Kingdom bilateral aid expenditure (including CDC) and the United Kingdom share of EC aid from 1980 to 1989 were as follows:

  Gross United Kingdom bilateral aid £,000

  United Kingdom share of EC aid £,000

  1980

  335

  510

  1981

  5,002

  780

  1982

  2,272

  1,350

  1983

  6,670

  980

  1984

  3,446

  1,880

  1985

  3,653

  480

  1986

  1,258

  520

  1987

  811

  520

  1988

  1,166

  640

  1989

  701

  1

  1 Not available.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Honduras
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what meetings have been held by Her Majesty's ambassador and staff in Tegucigalpa with human rights organisations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  Her Majesty's ambassador in Tegucigalpa meets periodically representatives of the main 140
  Honduran human rights organisation. He is also in regular contact with Ministers and officials on human rights questions.

  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations have been made to the Government of Honduras concerning their treatment of trade unionists; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  None. No issue has been brought to our notice either directly affecting British interests or giving sufficient grounds for general concern such as to merit representations.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Taxation
  Mr. Tim Smith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many letters have been received by his Department on the subject of tax simplification since 1 September last year from industrial and commercial companies; and how he proposes to respond to these representations.

  Mr. Maude
  A total of 113 letters have been received on the subject of tax simplification, following my hon. Friend's circular to finance directors of industrial and commercial companies. I have assured all those who have written that I very much share the concern that the tax system should avoid unnecessary complexity and that we shall continue to introduce simplifications wherever possible.

  European Community
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the outcome of the latest meeting of the European Community Economic and Finance Council, the meeting of the intergovernmental conference on economic and monetary union and the interinstitutional meeting with the European Parliament.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The ECOFIN Council met in Brussels on 8 April. The intergovernmental conference on economic and monetary union met that morning when there was also an interinstitutional meeting of Ministers with the European Parliament. The Minister for Corporate Affairs and I represented the United Kingdom at ECOFIN and I attended the IGC and the meeting with the European Parliament.

  A Commission initiative concerning the debt owed to the Community by the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries linked by the Lomé convention was discussed, but it was agreed that the proposal was inconsistent with the international debt strategy. A modified proposal may be discussed by a future Council.

  The Council reached agreement in principle to provide guaranteed loans to Romania equal to the amount offered by the non-EC members of the G24 up to a maximum of 375 million ecu.

  Ministers also discussed agricultural price fixing. I made clear the Government's determination not to increase the agricultural guideline calculated in accordance with the 1988 budget discipline decision; and emphasised the importance which the Government attach to respect for budgetary discipline.

  The future taxation of road transport was also discussed, but without agreement. The Commission made

  141
  a brief presentation of two company tax measures which are currently before the Council and which concern the taxation of cross-border interest payment and royalties and the treatment of tax relief for losses within groups of companies. There was no discussion of these measures.

  There was a brief discussion of the proposed takeovers directive but no significant progress towards an agreement. Several member states, including the United Kingdom, expressed major reservations about the Commission's proposals.

  On the investment services directive, the Council discussed a compromise text from the Presidency on the issue of regulated markets. The Commission proposed a further compromise for discussion at a future Council.

  The ministerial meeting of the intergovernmental conference on EMU focused on the transition from stage 1 to stage 2 of EMU. Differing views emerged on the degree of economic convergence necessary before a move to stage 2. I argued that it was necessary to determine the content of stage 2 before taking any decision on when it should start; and that economic convergence was a key element in making further progress towards economic and monetary integration. The United Kingdom proposals would establish, in stage 2, a mechanism to encourage convergence on the best inflation performance.

  I also attended the inter-institutional meeting held with the European Parliament to allow Members of the European Parliament to put their views on the EMU IGC to Finance Ministers. Members of the European Parliament expressed a range of views. The meeting was purely consultative in nature.

  Overseas Investment
  Mr. Lawson
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, further to his answer of 22 March,Official Report, column 268, on overseas investment, if he will provide a similar table for investment from outside the EC only.
  142
  Mr. Norman Lamont
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: Complete information on inward investment in the European Community from outside the EC is not available. However, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, in a recent study, made estimates of foreign direct investment in EC member states, adjusted to exclude intra-EC flows. These estimates exclude reinvested profits because a number of member states do not compile such information. The figures for the United Kingdom given in the table below are therefore on a different basis from those published by the CSO. The information is as follows:

  Inward net foreign direct investment (excluding reinvested profits) in the EC (Excluding intra-EC investments)

  million ECU

  1984

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  In EC

  6,177

  5,637

  6,840

  12,578

  14,278

  of which:

  In United Kingdom

  1,995

  623

  3,324

  4,986

  4,562

  United Kingdom as percentage of EC Total

  32

  11

  49

  40

  32

  Source: Eurostat estimates.

  Civil Servants (South Dorset)
  Mr. Ian Bruce
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many civil servants work in south Dorset now; and how many of these jobs are currently subject to active review to be either removed or relocated.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: There were around 4,900 non-industrial civil servants in south Dorset at 1 January 1991. Equivalent data for industrial staff are not available.

  No information is collected centrally about Departments' plans for the removal and relocation of posts in particular regions, so it is not possible to give figures for those posts in south Dorset under active review.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Beef Imports
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has about the use of drugs in beef imports from the Republic of Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the safety of imported beef from the Republic of Ireland.

  Mr. Maclean
  Beef from the Republic of Ireland is routinely monitored as part of the extensive programme of surveillance of veterinary drugs residues carried out by the Ministry. A total of 400 imported samples of beef muscle, liver and kidney were taken during 1990, of which about one fifth are estimated to have been from the Republic of Ireland. To date, within the hormone and beta-agonist groups, only one positive from Ireland has been found. This was for the hormone Zeranol, and did not pose a threat to human health. Full results of the Ministry's programme of veterinary drug surveillance for the years 1986–90 are to be published in a food surveillance paper which is now in preparation.

  Veterinary Medicines
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what performance targets he has set for the Veterinary Medicines Directorate in 1991–92.

  Mr. Gummer
  The chief executive of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) and I have agreed the following targets for 1991–92:full cost recovery for the three business activities of licensing, policy work and residues monitoring;
  100 per cent. of new licence applications to be issued within 120 clock days;
  an overall efficiency gain of 2 per cent.

  These are more demanding targets than those set in 1990–91 and they reflect the good progress being made by the VMD as a "Next Steps" agency.

  Microwave Ovens
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will publish his response to the Agriculture Committee's first report of 1990–91 on microwave ovens.

  Mr. Gummer
  The Government's response has been published today and copies are being placed in the Library of the House. The Government response endorses many of the conclusions reached by the Committee. In particular, it endorses the Committee's conclusions that there is nothing inherently unsafe about microwave ovens, that efforts to improve the performance of microwave ovens should be regarded as sensible precautionary measures, and that it is incumbent on oven manufacturers and retailers to ensure that consumers are furnished with the necessary instructions to enable them to cook food properly. These principles underlie what MAFF is seeking to achieve through its microwave working party.

ENVIRONMENT

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Ridley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the proportion of local authority revenue expenditure paid in rate or revenue support grant in 1979–80, 1989–90 and 1990–91 respectively; and what was the total of the grant in each of those years expressed in 1989–90 prices.

  Mr. Heseltine
  The information for the English local authorities is as follows:

  Rate/revenue support grant as a proportion of local authority expenditure

  Rate/revenue support grant expressed in 1989–90 prices

  £ million

  1979–801

  0·49

  15,792

  1989–90

  0·29

  9,577

  1990–91

  0·26

  8,807

  1 England and Wales.

  Glass Fittings
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will introduce higher mandatory standards for the quality of glass fitted in new homes, rather than an advisory code.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Department has issued a consultation paper proposing that requirements controlling the glazing used in critical locations in new houses and other buildings should be included in the Building Regulations 1985. Such requirements would have legal force, and would be supported by detailed practical guidance about ways in which they could be met including guidance on the quality of glass to be used. Responses to the consultation paper are currently being considered, and it is hoped that final decisions can be taken later this year.

  Prestwich Hospital, Salford
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he turned down the planning application from Salford health authority relating to the redevelopment of part of the Prestwich hospital, Salford, site; and when he received this application.

  Sir George Young
  Permission was refused on 23 August 1989 for the proposals called in on 2 September 1987.

  An appeal for a new scheme is currently before my right hon. Friend.

  Hazardous Waste (US Bases)
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on shipments of hazardous waste to England for disposal from United States military bases in Turkey, Greece, the Azores and Iceland during the last 10 years(a) reported under the Transfrontier Shipment of Hazardous Waste Regulations and (b) not so reported; and if he will make a statement.
  145
  Mr. Baldry
  The consignment note system under the Transfrontier Shipment of Hazardous Waste Regulations 1988 is designed to ensure that waste is disposed of safely at suitable facilities. It does not require consignees to identify the source of the hazardous waste. There have been very few shipments of waste from these countries and none of these has been consigned directly by the United States forces.

  Endangered Species
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consultations he has had with his opposite numbers in the European Community Council of Ministers concerning the further European Community directives on the protection of endangered, valuable or rare plant and animal species.

  Mr. Baldry
  The proposed Council directive on the conservation of natural habitats and wild fauna and flora has been discussed at several meetings of the European Community Council of Environment Ministers. At the meeting held on 18 March my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Environment and Countryside welcomed the significant progress achieved by the Presidency and said that the United Kingdom was fully committed to the objectives of the proposed directive.

  EC Wild Birds Directive
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consultations he has had with the Environment Commissioner of the European Community regarding the implications of the Leybucht Bay judgment of the European Court of Justice on 28 February, for the development proposals currently affecting Britain's estuarial special protection areas and candidate special protection areas designated or to be designated according to the European Community wild birds directive of 1979.

  Mr. Baldry
  None.

  Landfill Gas
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will publish the results of the survey into the incidence of landfill gas production at landfill sites undertaken by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  In December 1987 HM inspectorate of pollution asked all waste disposal authorities in England and Wales to provide details of all landfill sites producing landfill gas.

  In order to update the information obtained from the first survey, HM IP issued further requests for information in August 1988 and May 1989. The responses to these have been considered by the inspectorate and their conclusions are set out in a recently published report which has been sent to all waste disposal authorities in England and Wales. Copies have also been placed in the Library of the House.

  The Government allocated £33 million in 1990–91 to enable local authorities to carry out remedial works to such sites, and further resources are available in future years. So far take-up by authorities of these resources has been slow with less than £12 million expected to be spent
  146
  in 1990–91. I hope that the publication of this report will encourage authorities to put forward new proposals for remedial works at gassing landfill sites.

  Tarmac Plant, Derbyshire
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is now in a position to reply to the letter sent to him by Mr. J. Cooper, Clock Cottage, Spinkhill, Derbyshire, at the start of February, concerning the operation of the Tarmac plant at Renishaw, Derbyshire.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 27 February 1991]: I am now in a position to reply and Mr Cooper will receive a letter within a few days.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his latest estimate of the number of people who will benefit from the community charge reduction scheme(a) nationally and (b) in the area covered by Kirklees council.

  Mr. Key
  [pursuant to the answer, 27 March 1991, Official Report, c. 456]: Our estimate of the number of charge payers in England who will benefit from a community charge reduction in 1991–92 is about 16 million.

  Mr. Andrew Mackay
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the workings of the community charge reduction scheme in relation to properties which were not individually rated.

  Mr. Key
  [pursuant to the answer, 27 March 1991, Official Report c. 456]: The effect of the recent changes which we have made to the community charge reduction scheme is that the calculation of reductions must be based on the total number of eligible charge payers resident in a property or a group of properties which formed one hereditament. Under transitional relief the calculation was limited to two community charges where there were two or more eligible charge payers. This change will help in particular people living in larger households or houses of multiple occupancy and people living in groups of properties which shared one rateable value only.

HEALTH

  National Health Services Practices
  Mr. Campbell-Savours
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received from representatives of health authorities in the north as to practices within the national health service.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  I meet, and receive correspondence from, health authorities in the north on a wide variety of matters concerning the national health service.

  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Mr. Ronnie Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the total number of persons currently on waiting lists for hospital in-patient treatment.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  At 31 March 1990, the latest available date, there were 710,253 people waiting for
  147
  in-patient treatment in England, excluding those who had asked for their admission to be deferred. This is 6 per cent. less than in 1979. Furthermore, in the 12 months to March 1990 the number waiting over a year for in-patient treatment fell by 9 per cent. and 5 per cent. fewer people now wait over a year than in 1979.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the total number of persons currently on waiting lists for hospital in-patient treatment.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  At 30 September 1990, the latest available information, there were 705,706 people waiting for in-patient treatment, excluding those who had asked for their admission to be deferred. It is the time individual patients wait that matters, not the total number on the list. In the 12 months to March 1990 the number waiting over one year for in-patient treatment fell by 9 per cent. and by a further 2 per cent. in the following six months to September 1990.

  Psychotherapy
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many representations have been received by his Department concerning the conduct towards their clients of private psychotherapists, counsellors, hypotherapists and analysts.

  Mr. Dorrell
  One; the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) wrote to me on 28 January 1991 drawing attention to a potentially distressing case.

  NHS Administrative Costs
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the cost of administration and organisation within the national health service.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The cost of headquarters administration at regional and district health authorities in the national health service in England for 1989–90 was £730 million, which represents 4 per cent. of total revenue expenditure.

  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his latest estimate of the additional administrative costs to the national health service of the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We have provided more than £380 million to the national health service in 1991–92 to meet in full the additional costs of implementing the national health service review. This includes over £80 million for the introduction of additional consultant posts and for the development of audit for general practitioners and nurses, as well as funds for developments outside the area of direct patient care.

  Divorce (Conciliation Services)
  Mr. Sims
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what responsibilities his Department has for the provision of conciliation services for couples pending divorce.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The lead responsibility for conciliation lies with the Lord Chancellor's Department. The Department of Health has no direct responsibility.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Roger King
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what evidence he has of pressure being put on employees against participating in the formation of NHS trusts.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  My right hon. Friend has written recently to the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) about a letter issued by the hon. Members for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) and Coventry, North-East (Mr. Hughes), to the manager of a hospital which is in the process of applying for NHS trust status. The letter effectively threatened him with dismissal unless he agreed to withdraw the application. I am pleased to say that the right hon. Member for Islwyn dissociated himself from these bullying tactics and I hope that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) will do likewise.

  Mr. David Martin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his assessment of how NHS trusts will improve the local nature of the health service.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  NHS trusts will be better able to respond to patients' needs through greater freedoms and flexibility. They will also encourage greater local involvement and pride.

  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the progress towards establishment of NHS trust hospitals.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Ground) earlier today.

  Lung Cancer, Liverpool
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the percentage rate of lung cancer in Liverpool among women and men; and what the Liverpool mortality rate is in comparison with the United Kingdom rates.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The latest figures available show that in 1985 the incidence among males was 0·18 per cent. and 0·07 per cent. among females. The mortality rate in 1989 was for males 13·8 per 10,000 of the population compared with 9·8 nationally and for females 7·8 per 10,000 of the population compared with 4·2 nationally.

  Health Care (Ethnic Minorities)
  Mr. Rowe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what the Government are doing to improve access to health care for people from ethnic minorities.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Government are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for ethnic minorities in the provision of health services. This involves positive action to take account of differences in the incidence of disease, and in language and culture.

  We have launched a number of initiatives to improve the quality of health care for ethnic minorities and to promote access to information on health promotion and the health services available: Some examples are: funding a report by the National Association of Health Authorities to advise health authorities on how to improve services for ethnic minorities; funding a seminar in 1988 for NHS senior managers on delivering services for ethnic

  149
  minorities; piloting, through the Asian mother and baby campaign, the use of link workers to help overcome language and cultural barriers to communication; spending £500,000 a year to produce materials to improve access to health services; funding projects to develop good practice guidance to help improve access to services; and recently funding a compendium of good practice in family health service work.

  The NHS reforms establish each health authority's responsibility to secure appropriate health care for all its population. Each health authority will assess the health needs of its population and plan services accordingly, ensuring that the services available are both relevant, and accessible, to the whole local population including members of ethnic minorities.

  The 1991 census will include, for the first time, a question on ethnic origin and it is proposed to include equivalent information on patients in the data collected by health authorities. This will enable health authorities to plan and target services effectively. The Department is also funding the establishment of a database on ethnic minority health which will gather information on good practice, on developments in services for ethnic minorities, and epidemiological data. These sources of information taken together will help health service planners to assess the health needs of ethnic minorities, to plan appropriate services, and to monitor the effectiveness of services.

  Prescriptions
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many prescription items were dispensed free in the last year.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  In 1990 276·9 million items were dispensed free in the national health service.

  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the cost of a prescription in 1979 in current prices; and what is it now.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  In 1989–90, the latest year for which information is available, the average cost of a prescription in the family health service in England was £6·36. In 1979–80 the cost at 1989–90 prices was £4·92.

  Huddersfield Resource Management Scheme
  Mr. Riddick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the resource management scheme operated by Huddersfield health authority.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Huddersfield health authority has made excellent progress with the implementation of resource management at Huddersfield royal infirmary, since the hospital was named as a resource management pilot site in 1986. The work at Huddersfield and the other five pilot sites has provided valuable information about resource management, and is being used to support the extension of resource management to all other large acute hospitals in the country.

  Mentally Ill People
  Miss Emma Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to monitor and evaluate the continuing care of mentally ill people resident in the community.
  150
  Mr. Dorrell
  We will continue to monitor and evaluate services for mentally ill people through the established arrangements for reviewing health authorities' performance and inspection of social services provision by the social services inspectorate. Provision for the mentally ill is also subject to review by the health advisory service.

  General Practitioner Budgets
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list those general practitioners' practices in the Sunderland, Hartlepool and Durham health authorities intending to hold their own budgets as from April in the current year.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  This information is not held centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact Mr. Peter Carr, the chairman of the Northern regional health authority, for details.

  District Health Authorities
  Mr. Tim Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will arrange for a copy of the financial profile produced by the Audit Commission for each district health authority to be placed in the Library.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The health authority audit profiles are drawn up to assist the Audit Commission in its examination of the health authorities. A copy is made available to each of the authorities concerned. The Audit Commission's reports on the accounts of the health authorities, and certain other reports, are made public but there are no plans for working documents such as audit profiles to be made more widely available.

  Nicotine Chewing Gum
  Mr. Amos
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when nicotine chewing gum will be given pharmacist-only status; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  An order amending SI 1983 No. 1212, The Medicines (Products other than Veterinary Drugs) (Prescription Only) Order, was laid on 10 April and is due to come into operation on I May. This will give effect to changes in the legal status of a number of medicines, including allowing the 2mg strength of a nicotine chewing gum, licensed as an aid to smoking cessation, to be supplied from pharmacies without a precription.

  NE Thames RHA
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the projected 1991–92 central programme for the North East Thames regional health authority; and how much of it will be funded from anticipated capital receipts.

  Mr. Dorrell
  I understand that North East Thames regional health authority is planning a capital programme for 1991–92 of £ 103·4 million. The region expects to receive £8·4 milion from previous land sales and hopes to achieve further sales during the year.

  Friern Barnet Hospital
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the total number of patients in Friern Barnet hospital, what plans he has to ensure that on closure they will all be in satisfactory accommodation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  I understand that there are currently 477 patients in Friern Barnet hospital. The satisfactory transfer of these patients and the provision of associated new residential and day facilities on the hospital's closure, is a matter for North East Thames regional health authority. Since 1 April all psychiatric patients who are discharged, or are being considered for discharge, are subject to the care programme approach contained in circular HC(90)23/LASSL(90)11, a copy of which is available in the Library.

  Hospital Safety
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement about safety in hospitals in Stockport.

  Mr. Dorrell
  In any workplace the responsibility for complying with health and safety legislation rests with the employers and others in the workplace. This also applies to hospitals in Stockport. The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for enforcing health and safety legislation in hospitals.

  Joint Finance
  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the total expenditure on joint finance for each year since 1983–84, in(a) cash and (b) real terms.

  Number of registered dentists on Greater London FHSA lists at 30 September 1989, 30 September 1990 and 28 February 1991

  30 September 1989

  30 September 1990

  28 February 1991

  Barking and Havering

  114

  107

  118

  Barnet

  204

  203

  182

  Brent and Harrow

  222

  229

  222

  Bromley

  144

  140

  145

  Camden and Islington

  240

  230

  205

  City and East London

  238

  232

  212

  Croydon

  153

  151

  150

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  323

  329

  311

  Enfield and Haringey

  218

  238

  216

  Greenwich and Bexley

  166

  167

  158

  Hillingdon

  97

  101

  97

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  404

  366

  325

  Kingston and Richmond

  149

  149

  157

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  332

  328

  323

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  283

  282

  282

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  182

  167

  167

  Revised Table: Changes to the number of registered dentists on FHSA lists since 30 September 1990 (England only)

  FHSA

  Total at 30 Sep 90

  Total at 28 Feb 91

  Net change

  Cleveland

  157

  155

  -2

  Cumbria

  146

  145

  -1

  Durham

  161

  155

  -6

  Northumberland

  100

  100

  0

  Gateshead

  69

  73

  4

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  126

  115

  -11

  North Tyneside

  74

  75

  1

  South Tyneside

  44

  42

  -2

  Sunderland

  86

  85

  -1

  Humberside

  215

  220

  5

  152
  Mr. Dorrell
  [holding answer 8 March 1991]: The summarised accounts of regional and district health authorities in England record total expenditure on projects jointly financed with local authorities as:

  Expenditure (at cash)

  Expenditure (real terms—using GDP deflator)

  £ million

  £ million

  1978–79

  31·2

  31·2

  1979–80

  39·8

  34·1

  1980–81

  60·1

  43·5

  1981–82

  72·8

  48·1

  1982–83

  83·1

  51·3

  1983–84

  85·6

  50·5

  1984–85

  93·7

  52·6

  1985–86

  105·6

  56·2

  1986–87

  112·5

  57·9

  1987–88

  118·5

  57·8

  1988–89

  121·7

  55·3

  1989–90

  119·2

  50·9

  Dentists
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists were registered with each FHSA covering the Greater London area on 1 October 1989, 1 October 1990 and 28 February 1991, respectively.

  Mr. Dorrell
  [holding answer 21 March 1991]: The information requested is shown in the following table. In addition, the tables set out in my previous replies on the same subject on 14 March 1991, c. 643–44 and on 21 March 1991, c. 197–200 have been revised for purposes of ease of interpretation and consistency of response and they are also presented as follows.
  153

  FHSA

  Total at 30 Sep 90

  Total at 28 Feb 91

  Net change

  North Yorkshire

  257

  259

  2

  Bradford

  182

  187

  5

  Calderdale

  65

  67

  2

  Kirklees

  115

  119

  4

  Leeds

  290

  288

  -2

  Wakefield

  97

  96

  -1

  Derbyshire

  269

  277

  8

  Leicestershire

  245

  244

  -1

  Lincolnshire

  121

  133

  12

  Nottinghamshire

  292

  296

  4

  Barnsley

  68

  69

  1

  Doncaster

  85

  93

  8

  Rotherham

  80

  83

  3

  Sheffield

  188

  188

  0

  Cambridgeshire

  195

  193

  -2

  Norfolk

  225

  225

  0

  Suffolk

  202

  201

  -1

  Bedfordshire

  136

  141

  5

  Hertfordshire

  436

  429

  -7

  Barnet

  203

  182

  -21

  Brent and Harrow

  229

  222

  -7

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  329

  311

  -18

  Hillingdon

  101

  97

  -4

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  366

  325

  -41

  Essex

  438

  443

  5

  Barking and Havering

  107

  118

  11

  Camden and Islington

  230

  205

  -25

  City and East London

  232

  212

  -20

  Enfield and Haringey

  238

  216

  -22

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  167

  167

  0

  East Sussex

  294

  293

  -1

  Kent

  523

  513

  -10

  Greenwich and Bexley

  167

  158

  -9

  Bromley

  140

  145

  5

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  328

  323

  -5

  Surrey

  485

  496

  11

  West Sussex

  299

  300

  1

  Croydon

  151

  150

  -1

  Kingston and Richmond

  149

  157

  8

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  282

  282

  0

  Dorset

  233

  231

  -2

  Hampshire

  527

  526

  -1

  Wiltshire

  175

  169

  -6

  Isle of Wight

  50

  49

  -1

  Berkshire

  271

  274

  3

  Buckinghamshire

  242

  247

  5

  Northamptonshire

  154

  150

  -4

  Oxfordshire

  215

  213

  -2

  Avon

  367

  372

  5

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  151

  147

  -4

  Devon

  364

  367

  3

  Gloucestershire

  206

  202

  -4

  Somerset

  147

  148

  1

  Hereford and Worcester

  222

  221

  -1

  Salop

  134

  132

  -2

  Staffordshire

  268

  264

  -4

  Warwickshire

  141

  141

  0

  Birmingham

  346

  344

  -2

  Coventry

  90

  85

  -5

  Dudley

  95

  94

  -1

  Sandwell

  101

  104

  3

  Solihull

  76

  78

  2

  Walsall

  73

  76

  3

  Wolverhampton

  68

  66

  -2

  Cheshire

  350

  351

  1

  Liverpool

  172

  170

  -2

  St. Helens and Knowsley

  107

  106

  -1

  Sefton

  111

  110

  -1

  Wirral

  130

  134

  4

  Lancashire

  427

  437

  10

  Bolton

  82

  82

  0

  Bury

  75

  77

  2

  Manchester

  234

  238

  4

  Oldham

  86

  91

  5

  Rochdale

  68

  65

  -3

  Salford

  91

  91

  0

  Stockport

  125

  126

  1

  Tameside

  79

  74

  -5

  154

  155

  FHSA

  Total at 30 Sep 90

  Total at 28 Feb 91

  Net change

  TrafTord

  103

  103

  0

  Wigan

  106

  108

  2

  TOTAL

  17,246

  17,131

  -115

  Revised table Changes to the number of registered dentists on FHSA lists between 30 September 1989 and 30 September 1990 England only

  FHSA

  Total at 30 September 1989

  Total at 30 September 1990

  Net change

  Cleveland

  153

  157

  4

  Cumbria

  146

  146

  0

  Durham

  157

  161

  4

  Northumberland

  99

  100

  1

  Gateshead

  70

  69

  -1

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  119

  126

  7

  North Tyneside

  69

  74

  5

  South Tyneside

  47

  44

  -3

  Sunderland

  90

  86

  -4

  Humberside

  210

  215

  5

  North Yorkshire

  254

  257

  3

  Bradford

  172

  182

  10

  Calderdale

  60

  65

  5

  Kirklees

  115

  115

  0

  Leeds

  291

  290

  -1

  Wakefield

  96

  97

  1

  Derbyshire

  261

  269

  8

  Leicestershire

  246

  245

  -1

  Lincolnshire

  120

  121

  1

  Nottinghamshire

  278

  292

  14

  Barnsley

  67

  68

  1

  Doncaster

  86

  85

  -1

  Rotherham

  74

  80

  6

  Sheffield

  195

  188

  -7

  Cambridgeshire

  196

  195

  -1

  Norfolk

  214

  225

  11

  Suffolk

  197

  202

  5

  Bedfordshire

  148

  136

  -12

  Hertfordshire

  442

  436

  -6

  Barnet

  204

  203

  -1

  Brent and Harrow

  222

  229

  7

  Ealing, Hammersmith and Hounslow

  323

  329

  6

  Hillingdon

  97

  101

  4

  Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster

  404

  366

  -38

  Essex

  444

  438

  -6

  Barking and Havering

  114

  107

  -7

  Camden and Islington

  240

  230

  -10

  City and East London

  238

  232

  -6

  Enfield and Haringcy

  218

  238

  20

  Redbridge and Waltham Forest

  182

  167

  -15

  East Sussex

  294

  294

  0

  Kent

  498

  523

  25

  Greenwich and Bexley

  166

  167

  1

  Bromley

  144

  140

  -4

  Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham

  332

  328

  -4

  Surrey

  487

  485

  -2

  West Sussex

  297

  299

  2

  Croydon

  153

  151

  -2

  Kingston and Richmond

  149

  149

  0

  Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth

  283

  282

  -1

  Dorset

  225

  233

  8

  Hampshire

  521

  527

  6

  Wiltshire

  170

  175

  5

  Isle of Wight

  47

  50

  3

  Berkshire

  266

  271

  5

  Buckinghamshire

  239

  242

  3

  Northamptonshire

  145

  154

  9

  Oxfordshire

  213

  215

  2

  Avon

  365

  367

  2

  Cornwall and Isles of Scilly

  146

  151

  5

  Devon

  363

  364

  1

  Gloucestershire

  204

  206

  2

  Somerset

  152

  147

  -5

  Hereford and Worcester

  214

  222

  8

  Salop

  133

  134

  1

  156

  157

  FHSA

  Total at 30 September 1989Total at 30 September 1990

  Net change

  Staffordshire

  257

  268

  11

  Warwickshire

  142

  141

  -1

  Birmingham

  357

  346

  -11

  Coventry

  90

  90

  0

  Dudley

  93

  95

  2

  Sandwell

  99

  101

  2

  Solihull

  71

  76

  5

  Walsall

  71

  73

  2

  Wolverhampton

  67

  68

  1

  Cheshire

  343

  350

  7

  Liverpool

  171

  172

  1

  St. Helens and Knowsley

  103

  107

  4

  Sefton

  109

  111

  2

  Wirral

  124

  130

  6

  Lancashire

  412

  427

  15

  Bolton

  79

  82

  3

  Bury

  70

  75

  5

  Manchester

  208

  234

  26

  Oldham

  77

  86

  9

  Rochdale

  67

  68

  1

  Salford

  88

  91

  3

  Stockport

  118

  125

  7

  Tameside

  74

  79

  5

  Trafford

  106

  103

  -3

  Wigan

  100

  106

  6

  Total

  17,060

  17,246

  186

  Note: The figures in all three tables are derived from information on the number of registered dentists on an FHSA list as notified by FHSAs to the Dental Practice Board. Since some dentists practise in more than one FHSA, the total number of dentists is less than the sum of the dentists who have contracts with individual FHSAs. As the DPB calculates this information at the end of each month, the figures provided are for 30 September 1989 and 30 September 1990, rather than 1 October 1989 and 1 October 1990.

EMPLOYMENT

  Clothing Manufacturing (Easington)
  Mr. Cummings
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what information he has on how many workers have been made redundant and how many are on short time in the clothing manufacturing industry in the Easington constituency; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  In January 1991 (the latest month for which data are available) there were no confirmed redundancies in the footwear and clothing manufacturing industries (SIC(80) 45) in the Easington constituency. Estimates on short-time working are not available at constituency level.

  European Social Fund
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list all payments to each training project in Greater London from the European social fund due for each of the last five years, the date on which each payment was made and the total number of payments still outstanding for each project.

  Mr. Forth
  The information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost. I am, however, writing to the hon. Member.

  Disability
  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what plans he has for developing the Employment Service's special services for people with disabilities; and if he will make a statement.
  158
  Mr. Howard
  Helping people with disabilities is an agreed priority for the Employment Service agency. In 1989–90 it placed 76,900 people with disabilities into jobs.

  Following consideration of comments on the consulta-tive document, "Employment and Training for People with Disabilities", I have now agreed with the agency major improvements in the special help which it currently provides through disablement resettlement officers, the disablement advisory service and the employment rehabilitation service.

  New local teams will be set up, over the next 12 to 18 months, to provide more accessible, professional and integrated special help to individuals and employers. The teams will offer to individuals specialist advice, assessment and help in finding and keeping jobs, and to employers encouragement and help in applying good practice. Staff training will be strengthened.

  The Employment Service will now implement the plans for improved employment rehabilitation announced in the consultative document. These will involve more use of voluntary and other agents. Nine Employment Service centres—in West London, Bristol, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff and Glasgow—will be developed as centres of excellence. The Employment Service expects to be able to phase out the others over up to five years as adequate agency provision is put in place. Access to residential rehabilitation will be assured for those who require it.

  Following those changes, local coverage of specialist assessment and rehabilitation will be substantially increased, the Employment Service's own service will be more coherent, professional and effectively managed, and have a higher profile; and sources of expertise and commitment in the wider community will be more effectively harnessed. They represent major improvements

  159
  in the quality of service to both individuals and employers and will help more people with disabilities to get and keep suitable jobs.

  I will take decisions on possible developments in other forms of help provided by the Employment Service to people with disabilities after relevant comments on "Employment and Training for People with Disabilities" and the "Evaluation of the Special Schemes for People with Disabilities" have been fully considered.

SCOTLAND

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the total Scottish local authorities'(a) current expenditure and (b) capital expenditure in real terms as a percentage of Scottish gross domestic product in each year since 1970.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  The available information is given in the table.

  Current expenditure as a percentage of the Scottish gross domestic product per cent.

  Capital expenditure as a percentage of the Scottish gross domestic product per cent.

  1971–72

  10·0

  5·6

  1972–73

  10·3

  5·9

  1973–74

  10·0

  6·8

  1974–75

  12·5

  7·4

  1975–76

  14·2

  6·2

  1976–77

  13·4

  5·3

  1977–78

  12·8

  4·9

  1978–79

  13·1

  4·3

  1979–80

  14·5

  4·4

  1980–81

  15·1

  3·9

  1981–82

  15·3

  4·0

  1982–83

  15·0

  3·9

  1983–84

  14·5

  4·2

  1984–85

  14·7

  3·8

  1985–86

  14·0

  3·5

  1986–87

  13·7

  3·4

  1987–88

  13·7

  3·7

  1988–89

  13·2

  3·5

  1989–90

  13·0

  3·5

  Figures on the Scottish gross domestic product are not available for 1970 and are not yet available for 1990. The interim years' figures were supplied by the Central Statistical Office.

  Local Authority Child Care
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many children in Scotland were received into local authority care where the specific cause was family homelessness, in every year since 1979 until the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The numbers of children admitted into care primarily because of family homelessness were as follows:

  Number

  1979

  167

  1980

  165

  1981

  241

  160

  Number

  1982

  320

  1983

  222

  1984

  213

  1985

  41

  1986

  26

  1987

  21

  1988

  18

  1989

  7

  Footnote:

  1 excludes Glasgow

  2 excludes Strathclyde

  3 excludes Glasgow, Ayr and Lanark.

  Health Boards
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland from what date health boards will be responsible for their capital charges.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The capital charging system came into operation on 1 April 1991 and health boards have become responsible for the capital charges on their assets from that date.

  Agriculture
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about the future organisation of the agricultural scientific services of the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department.

  Mr. Lang
  I have decided that under the "next steps" initiative the agricultural scientific services should be a candidate for executive agency status within the Scottish Office Agriculture and Fisheries Department.

  Environment
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement concerning the amount of grant aid being made available under the special grants (environmental) programme in 1991–92 to voluntary bodies in Scotland working in the environmental field.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  I am pleased to announce that the grant aid totalling £239,250 has been offered to the following voluntary bodies in the financial year 1991–92, to assist them in carrying out environmental conservation, improvement or educational work in Scotland:

  (£)

  APRS

  2,250

  Buchan Countryside Group

  2,250

  Centre for Human Ecology

  5,000

  Council for Scottish Archaeology

  13,000

  Community Service Volunteers

  7,000

  Environment Centre

  5,250

  Friends of the Earth (Scotland)

  13,800

  Highland Forum

  9,000

  John Muir Trust

  4,500

  Locus

  1,750

  National Society for Clean Air

  3,860

  Royal Zoological Society of Scotland

  3,500

  Rural Forum

  15,000

  Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

  10,000

  Scottish Community Woods Campaign

  6,250

  Scottish Conservation Projects

  27,750

  Scottish Ecological Consultants

  2,000

  161

  (£)

  Scottish Environmental Education Council

  27,150

  Scottish Field Studies Association

  7,500

  Scottish Historic Buildings Trust

  13,000

  Scottish Rights of Way Society

  5,000

  Scottish Scenic Trust

  2,000

  Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link

  9,500

  Scottish Wildlife Trust

  23,000

  Strathclyde Building Preservation Trust

  7,000

  Venture Scotland

  2,165

  Water of Leith Conservation Trust

  5,000

  West Galloway Fisheries Trust

  1,275

  Woodland Trust

  4,500

  A further £35,750 is being held in reserve to support suitable projects which will further the aims of the Government's White Paper, "This Common Inheritance".

  The experience of the schemes has been generally very good. I am satisfied that the grants now offered will, as they have done in the past, greatly assist the voluntary organisations to increase the level of their activity and do much useful work.

  Forestry
  Sir Hector Monro
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will arrange for the Forestry Commission's regional advisory committees to publish an account of their meetings held to consider disputed grant aid and felling applications and of the advice they give to the Forestry Commission in such cases.

  Mr. Lang
  We addressed the question of publicising the work done by the Commission's regional advisory committees in their consideration of disputed grant aid and felling proposals when we responded to the Agriculture Committee's report on land use and forestry last May. We concluded that it would not be practical or conducive to the committees' conciliation role in such cases to throw open their discussions with the applicant and the objecting authority or authorities to anyone who wished to attend. We did, however, ask the Forestry Commission to look at the possibility of an account of such meetings and of the regional advisory committee's subsequent advice to the Forestry Commissioners being published. I am pleased to say that such information will be provided in all future cases in the form of a press release to be issued at the stage that the committee reports to the commissioners.

  This is an important change which I am sure will be widely welcomed. It will make the work of the committees in this area more open and serve to demonstrate the value and objectivity of their contribution.

  Household Statistics
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give a breakdown of the numbers of households in Scotland according to whether they contain one, two, three or more adults aged over 18 years and the percentage this represents in each category of the total number of households.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: The available information gives the number of persons aged 16 and over rather than over 18 years old in the household. Estimates of the numbers of households containing one, two, three
  162
  and four or more persons aged 16 and over (either living alone or with children under the age of 16) in Scotland are given in the following table.

  Estimated number of households in 1991 containing:

  Number ('000s)

  Per cent of total house-holds

  1 person aged 16 and over

  583

  29

  2 persons aged 16 and over

  1,005

  50

  3 persons aged 16 and over

  281

  14

  4 persons aged 16 and over

  141

  7

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what is the latest available estimate of the number of households in Scotland which consist of one adult only and of the likely number in five, 10 and 20 years' time, respectively;

  (2) what is his latest available estimate of the number of households in Scotland and of the number in five, 10 and 20 years' time, respectively.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: Projections of the numbers of households in Scotland are at present available for the years to 2005 only. Figures for that year and the others requested are set out in the following table. Projections of the numbers of households consisting of one adult rather than one person are not available.

  Total households

  Households containing one person

  1991

  2,009,330

  535,770

  1996

  2,072,750

  589,680

  2001

  2,111,070

  638,140

  2005

  2,134,760

  676,180

  Source:

  1987 based household projections.

  The Scottish Office Environment Department.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what estimate he can make of the cost to his Department in 1991–92 of payments to local authorities to reduce individual liability for the poll tax under the reduction scheme announced in the Budget; and what will be the net cost after allowing for the clawback on the rebate scheme, community charge reduction scheme and other savings;

  (2) what he estimates will be the net benefit to poll tax payers in Scotland in 1991–92 of the reduction scheme announced by the Chancellor in the Budget.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: The general reduction of charges in Scotland will cost about £490 million. After taking into account consequent reductions in the amounts paid by way of community charge benefit and community charge reduction and the enhancements that have been made to the community charge reduction scheme, additional resources of some £380 million will be available.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many poll tax payers in Scotland in 1991–92 he estimates will have their liability in that year reduced by £28 as a result of the poll tax reduction scheme announced in the Budget.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: About 600,000.
  163
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people are registered in Scotland for poll tax purposes at the latest available date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: As at 1 July 1990, 3,834,410 people were included in the community charge registers in Scotland. This figure includes full-time students (who are liable only for 20 per cent. of the community charge) but excludes those liable for collective or standard charges.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what will be the cost to his Department of paying compensation to local authorities for their administrative losses arising from the poll tax reduction scheme announced in the Budget.

  Mr Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: Local authorities will be compensated for the additional administrative costs associated with the issuing of revised community charge bills for 1991–92. We will be consulting the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about the detailed arrangements.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people in Scotland will benefit from the poll tax transitional relief scheme in 1991–92; and how that figure will be varied when the community charges reduction scheme is in operation.

  Mr. Lang [holding answer 15 April 19911
  The personal community charge reduction scheme has replaced the personal community charge relief scheme with effect from 1 April 1990. It is expected that about 1 million people will benefit from the reduction scheme in respect of the financial year 1990–91 and about 600,000 in 1991–92, following the reduction of charges under the Community Charges (General Reduction) Act 1991.

  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many poll tax payers in Scotland will benefit in 1991–92 to the full extent of £140 under the reduction scheme announced in the Budget.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: At least 2·25 million.

  Tenants
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total number of public and private sector tenants, respectively, in Scotland at the latest available date for which figures are available.

  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: Estimates of the stock of dwellings by tenure are published quarterly in the Scottish Office Statistical Bulletins on housing. Copies are sent to Members representing Scottish constituencies and are available in the House Library. These give the numbers of dwellings rented privately or with a job or business, and rented from local authorities, new town corporations or Scottish Homes. Estimates of the number of tenants who occupy these dwellings are not available.

  Dwelling Units
  Mr. Dewar
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he can give an estimate of the number of domestic dwelling units in Scotland at the latest date for which figures are available.
  164
  Mr. Lang
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: Estimates of the stock of dwellings in Scotland are published quarterly in the Scottish Office Statistical Bulletins on housing. Copies are sent to Members representing Scottish constituencies and are available in the House Library.

DEFENCE

  Submarines (Movement Limitation)
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many representations he has received for limiting the presence of submarines in intensive fishing areas.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  In the past six months the Ministry of Defence has received some 70–80 such representations from hon. Members, borough councils and members of the public.

  Nuclear Reactors, Tuwaitha
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the appropriate Soviet and French authorities were contacted in regard to the design details of the nuclear reactors at Tuwaitha before the authorisation of an attack on the facility; and what attempts have been made subsequent to the bombing of the reactors to ascertain the extent of the damage inflicted.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As the design and construction of the two reactors at Tuwaitha were well known prior to the Gulf conflict, there was no need to approach the Soviet or French authorities before the attack on the facility by coalition forces. It is very unlikely that there has been any significant radioactive contamination outside the immediate area of the site, because of the nature of the reactors and local topographic features. Inspections of Iraq's nuclear facilities to be carried out in accordance with Security Council resolution 687 adopted on 3 April should provide an opportunity to determine the effects of the allied attacks.

  Honduran Service Men
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether training facilities have been provided to service men from Honduras in the current year and in each of the past 10 years.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  According to available records, no United Kingdom military training has been provided to Honduras during this period.

  Weapon Storage Vaults
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what further information he has on United States proposals to build new weapon storage vaults at their bases in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Agreement has now been reached on a programme to instal the new weapon storage and survivability system at certain airbases operated by the United States air force in the United Kingdom, as part of a wider NATO-funded infrastructure programme.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Ulster People's College
  Mr. Stott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what proposals he has to provide core funding for the Ulster People's college as part of the cross-community education initiative;

  (2) what funds have been received by the Ulster People's college from his Department since 1982; and for what purposes;

  (3) what request he has received from the Ulster People's college for funding for full-time staff for community relations work.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The Department of Education has made available to the college grants totalling £153,132 as follows:£65,132 from 1982 to 1988 in respect of the salary and other costs, including the production of learning materials, of a tutor-organiser undertaking a project on "Culture and Political Education";
  £60,000 from 1985 to 1988 in respect of a community area education project; and
  £30,000 in 1990 in respect of a contribution towards the purchase of the college premises.

  In 1989, the college requested the Department of Education to provide an annual grant of approximately £160,000 for community relations activities. No offer of annual grant was made and the Department has no plans to provide core funding grant aid to the college at the level sought.

  Prospective investors

  Japan

  Other EC countries

  District council areas

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Antrim

  —

  1

  2

  8

  —

  1

  3

  2

  7

  1

  Ards

  —

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Armagh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  1

  —

  Ballymena

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  1

  2

  3

  —

  Ballymoney

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Banbridge

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  Belfast

  3

  3

  2

  7

  2

  10

  2

  4

  16

  15

  Carrickfergus

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  2

  —

  Castlereagh

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  1

  Coleraine

  2

  —

  2

  —

  —

  —

  2

  2

  1

  —

  Cookstown

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Craigavon

  —

  —

  1

  1

  —

  4

  —

  1

  4

  —

  Derry

  2

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  2

  3

  6

  2

  Down

  1

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  1

  2

  —

  Dungannon

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  2

  1

  —

  Fermanagh

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  1

  2

  —

  Larne

  1

  —

  2

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  2

  —

  Limavady

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Lisburn

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  1

  3

  —

  2

  2

  Magherafelt

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Moyle

  3

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Newry and Mourne

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  2

  1

  Newtownabbey

  1

  1

  4

  3

  1

  —

  1

  3

  3

  1

  North Down

  3

  1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  3

  1

  —

  —

  Omagh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  Strabane

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  —

  Prospective investors

  United Kingdom

  United States of America

  District council areas

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Antrim

  1

  6

  11

  25

  7

  7

  4

  6

  11

  7

  Ards

  1

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  2

  1

  Armagh

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  2

  Ballymena

  —

  —

  1

  2

  —

  1

  —

  1

  1

  1

  Ballymoney

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  2

  1

  Banbridge

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  —

  1

  166
  In 1990, the Department undertook to make a £25,000 grant, initially in 1991–92 and in 1992–93, for the development of a community relations project among young people.

  Investors
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table to show the number of prospective investors from(a) the United Kingdom, (b) the United States of America, (c) Japan and (d) other European Community countries which (i) his Department, (ii) the Industrial Development Board and (iii) the Local Enterprise Development Unit have taken to each council area in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years.

  Mr. Needham
  The number of prospective investors from Great Britain, the United States, Japan and other European Community countries who have been taken by the Industrial Development Board to each council area in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years is detailed in the table. The information relates to first-time visits only and in some instances these visits concentrated on detailed discussions with the Industrial Development Board and were confined to IDB house, Belfast. In addition a number of inward investment missions, comprising groups of companies, visited Northern Ireland over the period.

  The Department of Economic Development and the Local Enterprise Development unit have not taken any prospective investors from those countries to district council areas during that period.
  167

  United Kingdom

  United Stales of America

  District council areas

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Belfast

  15

  9

  13

  60

  37

  39

  11

  1

  28

  31

  Carrickfergus

  7

  4

  2

  3

  3

  1

  —

  4

  5

  Castlereagh

  2

  —

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  —

  2

  1

  Coleraine

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3

  1

  —

  2

  2

  Cookstown

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Craigavon

  2

  2

  2

  8

  6

  2

  2

  2

  3

  Derry

  —

  1

  —

  1

  3

  2

  3

  1

  5

  8

  Down

  1

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  —

  —

  2

  1

  Dungannon

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  1

  2

  —

  —

  —

  Fermanagh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2

  —

  1

  —

  Lame

  1

  1

  —

  —

  1

  5

  3

  1

  1

  —

  Limavady

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  —

  Lisburn

  3

  3

  4

  8

  8

  2

  1

  6

  4

  Magherafelt

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Moyle

  —

  —

  1

  —

  —

  1

  1

  —

  —

  —

  Newry and Mourne

  —

  2

  —

  1

  —

  2

  1

  —

  —

  2

  Newtownabbey

  1

  2

  6

  5

  7

  5

  3

  10

  7

  North Down

  2

  —

  3

  3

  2

  7

  3

  —

  4

  2

  Omagh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Strabane

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1

  Council Clerks
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many clerks to a council in Northern Ireland are members of(a) an education board and (b) a health board.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  None.

  Traffic Lights
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will provide a filter system at the traffic lights at the junction of Regent street and William street, Newtownards, for the use of traffic turning right from Regent street into William street.

  Mr. Needham
  A survey will be carried out within the next few weeks to ascertain whether a filter system is necessary at this location.

  Belfast Action Team Programme
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of Slate for Northern Ireland what is the extent of the Belfast action team programme in(a) Braniel estate and (b) Belvoir estate in the borough of Castlereagh.

  Mr. Needham
  The Belfast action team initiative does not extend to these estates.

  Strangford Lough
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when was the last inspection of the sea walls and water defences around Strangford lough; and what is the programme for maintenance of these walls.

  Mr. Needham
  The sea walls and water defences around Strangford lough were last inspected during January 1991. A programme of routine maintenance costing approximately £20,000 is carried out every year. In the current financial year an extra £50,000 has been allocated for this purpose.

  Civil Servants
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table in the Official Report to show the number of civil servants in each branch
  168
  who are to be moved to Castle Court in Belfast; what are the numbers of (a) Roman Catholics, (b) Protestants and (c) others in each branch so moved; how many new posts and at what levels are to be created by this movement; what area is to be taken into account in assessing whether fair employment exists in the staff so transferred; and what effect the transfer of these staff to Castle Court is expected to have on the proportions of Roman Catholics, Protestants and others employed in the civil service in Castle Court.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  There are currently 308 civil servants located within Castle Court. A further 406 civil servants are to be transferred to Castle Court as follows:

  Branch

  Number of staff

  Central Benefits

  288

  Disability and Incapacity Benefits

  69

  Industrial Injuries

  32

  Ancillary

  17

  The number of new posts being created as a consequence of the move to Castle Court is:

  Grade

  Number of staff

  Staff Officer

  1

  Executive Officer I

  2

  Executive Officer II

  2

  Administrative Officer

  2

  Administrative Assistant

  1

  Support Manager Grade 3

  1

  Support Grade Band 1

  5

  Support Grade Band 2

  19

  The Northern Ireland civil service has an equal opportunities monitoring system which contains information on the sex, community background and disability of its staff. However disclosure of information on the community background of Northern Ireland civil service staff is governed by a code of practice which stipulates that no statistical summaries will be produced which fall outside the categories of analyses agreed with the equal opportunities Whitley committee.

  The Northern Ireland civil service recruits on a wide basis. The community background of successful can-didates plays no part in determining the office to which

  169
  such candidates are posted. Consequently there is no reason why a particular office in terms of its community background should represent the local community in which it is located. An assessment of fair employment for the staff in question is thus inappropriate and has not been undertaken. Fair employment considerations are addressed for the Northern Ireland civil service and details of the community background of staff together with their sex and any disability is given in the series of reports published by the NICS's equal opportunities unit which is based in the Department of Finance and Personnel of the Northern Ireland civil service; copies of these reports are placed in the Library.

  Employment Statistics
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the male employment rate in Northern Ireland as at 1 January in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Needham
  Estimates of the civilian work force are produced on a quarterly basis and relate to March, June, September and December of each year. Estimates of the

  Department

  1985–86 £ million

  1986–87 £ million

  1987–88 £ million

  1988–89 £ million

  1989–90 £ million

  Agriculture

  9·043

  10·024

  12·332

  11·418

  15·795

  Economic development

  11·375

  11·817

  13·793

  15·011

  15·904

  Education

  36·800

  49·500

  55·800

  60·100

  71·800

  Environment (Northern Ireland)

  217·000

  180·000

  181·000

  200·000

  199·000

  Finance and personnel

  NIL

  NIL

  NIL

  1·810

  1·540

  Health and social services

  19·281

  16·499

  22·517

  23·342

  23·901

  Employment Prospects
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what sums he has expended in each travel-to-work area in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years in order to increase the prospects of employment in each of the areas.

  Mr. Needham
  Information in the form requested is not readily available and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what action he intends to take during the current year to increase the employment prospects of(a) men and (b) women in (i) the Coleraine council area, (ii) the Limavady council area, (iii) the Magherafelt council area, (iv) the Londonderry council area and (v) the Strabane council area.

  Mr. Needham
  The full range of financial assistance and advice provided by the Department of Economic Development, the Industrial Development Board and the Training and Employment Agency and their associated public bodies is available to increase the employment prospects of both men and women in the five district council areas listed.

  In addition, employment opportunities will be increased as a result of a number of Government-sponsored special initiatives. These include the
  170
  male civilian work force and the proportion in employment at December in each of the last three years are as follows:

  December

  Male civilian workforce in employment1 (number)

  Male civilian work force (number)

  Males in employment as a percentage of male civilian work force

  1988

  340,340

  419,960

  81·0

  1989

  343,350

  417,720

  82·2

  1990

  348,090

  421,260

  82·6

  1 Including the self-employed and those involved in work-related Government training schemes.

  Capital Works
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table to show the sums expended by his Department on capital works in each council area in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years(a) in total, (b) per elector and (c) per capita.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The information is not available in the form requested; departmental expenditure is not disaggregated by district council area. Total capital works expenditure by Department for 1985–86 to 1989–90 is as follows:

  Londonderry initiative and the CRISP programme (funded by the Department of the Environment and the International Fund for Ireland) which seeks to bring economic and environmental benefits to disadvantaged areas.

  Job Creation
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will publish a table to show(a) the number of jobs created in each local government area in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years by (i) the Local Enterprise Development Unit and (ii) the Industrial Development Board, (b) the cost per job created in each case, (c) the total expenditure and (d) the employment sector in which such jobs were created.

  Mr. Needham
  The information cannot be supplied in the form requested as figures on job creations are not available. However, table A shows the number of jobs promoted by LEDU and IDB in each local government area in Northern Ireland in each of the last five years. Tables B to D also show for the same period the average cost per job promoted, the financial assistance offered by LEDU and IDB to promote these jobs and the employment sectors in which the jobs were promoted. The figures in tables B to D relate to Northern Ireland as a whole as this information is not available by local government area.
  171

  Table A Jobs promoted by LEDU in Northern Ireland according to local government area

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Antrim

  26

  112

  80

  127

  220

  Ards

  118

  214

  55

  107

  100

  Armagh

  105

  91

  122

  107

  297

  Ballymena

  105

  77

  143

  100

  160

  Ballymoney

  7

  11

  30

  39

  48

  Banbridge

  27

  37

  10

  67

  66

  Belfast

  789

  828

  938

  1,108

  1,510

  Carrickfergus

  113

  157

  246

  207

  103

  Castlereagh

  32

  26

  70

  60

  13

  Coleraine

  185

  140

  168

  61

  123

  Cookstown

  84

  98

  61

  126

  40

  Craigavon

  197

  325

  218

  281

  232

  Down

  139

  222

  172

  120

  190

  Dungannon

  267

  336

  201

  311

  252

  Fermanagh

  101

  196

  62

  164

  200

  Larne

  34

  37

  42

  85

  46

  Limavady

  44

  23

  28

  80

  28

  Lisburn

  152

  163

  112

  115

  256

  Londonderry

  273

  248

  361

  326

  540

  Magherafelt

  152

  111

  116

  87

  108

  Moyle

  13

  57

  13

  10

  16

  Newry and Mourne

  276

  300

  347

  440

  425

  Newtonabbey

  135

  161

  103

  115

  189

  North Down

  300

  105

  139

  137

  154

  Omagh

  89

  83

  87

  136

  163

  Strabane

  125

  86

  123

  65

  31

  Total

  3,888

  4,244

  4,047

  4,581

  5,510

  Table A (Continued) Jobs promoted by IDB in Northern Ireland according to local government areas

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Antrim

  30

  477

  364

  712

  798

  Ards

  155

  247

  298

  164

  67

  Armagh

  28

  137

  51

  110

  34

  Ballymena

  71

  8

  187

  90

  206

  Ballymoney

  17

  35

  35

  16

  40

  Banbridge

  24

  15

  —

  99

  —

  Belfast

  94

  279

  92

  303

  601

  Carrickfergus

  21

  15

  103

  452

  100

  Castlereagh

  141

  168

  124

  95

  404

  Coleraine

  185

  88

  254

  115

  127

  Cookstown

  28

  —

  —

  16

  70

  Craigavon

  506

  434

  808

  169

  417

  Down

  10

  67

  108

  318

  24

  Dungannon

  94

  102

  400

  108

  136

  Fermanagh

  162

  35

  245

  296

  76

  Lame

  —

  22

  127

  148

  78

  Limavady

  75

  —

  80

  —

  —

  Lisburn

  232

  255

  123

  1,039

  85

  Londonderry

  650

  227

  393

  432

  827

  Magherafelt

  —

  21

  101

  155

  53

  Moyle

  —

  52

  —

  —

  —

  Newry and Moume

  70

  28

  446

  82

  32

  Newtownabbey

  198

  1,178

  523

  720

  743

  North Down

  74

  75

  108

  14

  147

  Omagh

  20

  32

  —

  —

  36

  Strabane

  25

  190

  330

  —

  30

  Total

  2,910

  4,187

  5,300

  5,653

  5,131

  Table B The average cost per job promoted

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  LEDU

  4,758

  4,461

  4,505

  4,504

  4,115

  IDB

  15,263

  11,418

  11,637

  15,393

  16,177

  172

  173

  Table C Total assistance offered £(000)

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  LEDU

  18,499

  18,933

  18,233

  20,634

  22,674

  IDB

  44,418

  47,809

  61,676

  86,886

  76,533

  Table D Jobs promoted by employment sector

  LEDU

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  Engineering

  731

  639

  722

  765

  740

  Wood/furniture

  347

  237

  324

  457

  507

  Clothing/Textiles

  356

  364

  441

  320

  461

  Food/fish/drink

  690

  467

  560

  706

  597

  Other

  1,764

  2,537

  2,000

  2,333

  3,205

  IDB

  Engineering

  465

  1,678

  836

  2,720

  1,528

  Textiles

  391

  570

  1,029

  612

  1,164

  Clothing

  803

  507

  810

  616

  256

  Food processing

  401

  540

  1,452

  618

  507

  Other manufacturing

  785

  714

  1,121

  1,017

  999

  Tradeable services

  65

  178

  52

  70

  677

  Census
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether a validation survey will be carried out in relation to the Northern Ireland census on similar lines to the validation survey planned for the Great Britain census; and whether the same confidentiality rules will apply.

  Mr. Hanley
  Yes. In line with the plans for Great Britain, a voluntary validation survey on the Northern Ireland census will be carried out to check both the accuracy of the information and the completeness of coverage. Information gathered in the survey will be treated in the same strict confidence as information given on the census form itself. The confidentiality of information collected in the survey will be covered by the Census Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 as amended by the Census Confidentiality (Northern Ireland) Order 1991. The results of the survey will be laid before Parliament and published as soon as possible after the census.

  Cold Weather Payments
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many claims for cold weather payments were received by the Department of Health and Social Services since 1 January; and how many claims were (i) approved, (ii) refused and (iii) still outstanding at 31 March.

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 15 April 1991]: The following table gives the information requested.

  Claims for cold weather payments 1 January 1991 to 31 March 1991

  Number

  Received

  63,889

  Approved

  50,415

  Refused

  11,512

  Outstanding

  1,962

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester.
Lord Annaly—Lord Annaly—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

Tributes to the late Viscount De L'Isle
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington): My Lords, your Lordships will have been saddened to hear of the death over the Easter Recess of my noble and gallant friend Lord De L'Isle. Few Members of your Lordships' House have had so distinguished a career in so many spheres of public life as the noble and gallant Lord. Indeed, it would be hard to find many in the history of our country who could match his many talents and achievements. In him the blood of his famous ancestor, Sir Philip Sidney, ran true.
Lord De L'Isle first entered your Lordships' House in 1945, on the death of his father. At that time he had in fact been a Member of another place for a few months, having been elected to represent Chelsea in 1944. However, before that time, he had performed signal acts of bravery at the Anzio landings for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross. He served in the government of Sir Winston Churchill as Secretary of State for Air from 1951 to 1955. Then, in 1961, he became Governor General of Australia, a post which he held for four years. Thereafter, he pursued a distinguished career in both business and public life.
I know that all Members of the House will wish to join me in sending the sympathy of the House to Lady De L'Isle and his family.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, in his worthy tribute to Lord De L'Isle, the noble Lord the Leader of the House described the various aspects of Lord De L'Isle's long and distinguished career. He was a popular parliamentarian. Further, although his tenure in the House of Commons was short, as the noble Lord said, after he entered this Chamber he served in the Ministry of Pensions and later as Secretary of State for Air for a period of four years. In the latter office, as one would expect, he showed imagination and enterprise. Five years later he returned to public life as Governor General of Australia—the last Briton to hold that post. We are told that it is not easy for the British to achieve great popularity in Australia. But Lord De L'Isle became one of the most respected and well-liked governor generals in the history of that country. Australians will mourn his passing as we do.
However, it was the courage of Lord De L'Isle which became legendary. We know that he inherited and was proud of the long and historic tradition of service exemplified in his ancestor, Sir Philip Sidney. I am glad to be able to say that I found Lord De L'Isle to be a most friendly and modest man whom it was a privilege to know.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, I am glad to be able to associate myself and my noble friends with the tributes which have been paid to a man who, to an exceptional degree, combined personal courage and high service to the state. Only he and Lord Roberts, as some of the obituaries reminded us, could write VC before their KG. He added an engaging geniality to those other qualities. I recollect him displaying that to the full at the dinner of the Other Club last May when he was judged to be the most appropriate person to preside over the special dinner to celcbrate the 50th anniversary of the formation of the great Churchill coalition government. We salute his record from Anzio onwards; we acknowledge our own loss; and we send our sympathy to his family.
Baroness Hylton-Foster: My Lords. I am sure that all Members sitting on the Cross-Benches will want to support the tributes which have already been paid to Lord De L'Isle. He was an exceptionally gallant soldier who, after the war and after criticism that he was not an Australian, was appointed governor general to that country in 1961. When he retired from that post, everyone would have welcomed his extension of appointment. He was also a kind, charming and thoughtful man. I have reason to be grateful to him because on a cold winter evening I was walking from St. Stephen's to the Underground when he caught me up. He insisted that I should not walk alone and escorted me the whole way to the Underground.
I am in order in saying that the field marshals who sit on these Benches would also like to he associated with the tributes and are only sorry that they could not be here today to pay them themselves.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: My Lords, I wish from these Benches to be associated with the tributes. As a former Bishop of Tonbridge in the diocese of Rochester, I took enormous pleasure in having Penshurst Place within my area. Therefore, from personal experience of those days I can speak of the service which Lord De L 'Isle and Dudley gave to the County of Kent and to the diocese of Rochester in which he was patron of the living of Penshurst. Formidable as he was on the beaches of Anzio, he was also formidable in the diocese. We knew him to be a faithful and true Churchman. I join in the tributes to his service to the county and to the Church and also in the conveying of sympathy to his widow and family.

The Gulf War: Cease-fire Arrangements
2.44 p.m.
Lord Campbell of Croy Lord Campbell of Croy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What arrangements for a permanent cease-fire after the war in the Gulf have now been made.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, a permanent cease-fire is now in place following the formal and irrevocable acceptance by Iraq of the terms of UNSCR 687.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer. Under these arrangements, will Iraqi military helicopters still be allowed to fly? Will it be possible for the United Nations observer force, consisting of only 1,400, to be reinforced speedily, should the situation seriously deteriorate?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the use of helicopters was not proscribed under the cease-fire arrangements. Coalition action against them would not be in accordance with the cease-fire agreement. However, the US authorities have informed the Iraqis that the US and other coalition members will be in operation in the north of Iraq to supply humanitarian assistance to refugees. They have told the Iraqis that military action against the relief effort will not be tolerated. My noble friend is right to refer to support for the observer force of 1,440 people. I can confirm that support will be made available if necessary.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, can the noble Earl tell us what proportion of the American and British ground forces has left the area and when the last of these forces will leave? Will he also say with regard to the frontier area how many of the United Nations peacekeeping force will be armed?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I do not know the exact deployment of British and American troops and I certainly cannot speak for the Americans. However, it was agreed that we would remove our combat troops as quickly as possible. Of the officer observer force, we contribute 20 personnel.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, can the noble Earl answer the latter part of the question? How many will be armed?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I do not know exactly how many will be armed, but the observer force is likely to be backed by a UN infantry force.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, yesterday the noble Earl told me that he did not have the text of Resolution 687 and therefore could not answer my question regarding helicopters. Perhaps I may put it again to him, now that he has seen the text. If the use of helicopter gun ships is not prohibited within the text of Resolution 687, can he say why it is not prohibited and whether, in the light of the circumstances which we have seen over the past two weeks, the British Government will go to the United Nations and attempt to persuade the Security Council that that prohibition should fall within the terms of the peace settlement?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the reason the helicopters were not included in the prohibition part of the cease-fire agreement was that the United Nations desired that they should not be. I am sure that the noble Lord would be one of the first to complain had there been a prohibition against helicopter flights, many of which were used for mercy missions.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, on the cease-fire conditions, can the noble Earl say whether a timetable for the destruction of chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles has been
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agreed? Can he also say whether talks on these between United Nations officials and the regime in Baghdad have taken place or are taking place?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, a timetable has not yet been agreed. We actively support the UN secretariat's establishment of a special commission to conduct this process. We have offered expert personnel and support facilities to the UN.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, are the Government content that satisfactory arrangements have been or will be made to protect those Iraqi civilians and army deserters who have taken refuge with the United States forces in south Iraq?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I answered that point yesterday when we discussed that matter in detail. Today's Question concerns the cease-fire arrangements specifically.
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is the United Nations force to consist of individuals as distinct from army units from different countries? Will my noble friend convey to the British officers who have already been appointed good wishes for their mission, led as they are by Colonel Grant-Peterkin of the Queen's Own Highlanders?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I shall certainly pass on the good wishes of the noble Lord. It is good to see that the Scots are back in action. The observer unit of 1,440 will consist of personnel from all ranks and from a number of countries.
Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, one can understand why helicopters are allowed to be used for transport and communication. However, it is nearly impossible to conceive why, after the Allies' experience of the use of helicopter gunships, the Iraqis have been allowed to use those gunships when they are not permitted to use fixed wing aircraft. Will the Minister explain why that is the case?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, those were the terms of the cease-fire agreement under Resolution 687 agreed in the United Nations.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, will the Minister give the House a little more detail on the United Nations peacekeeping force? He may write to me if he does not have the figures with him. When will the force arrive? How big is it? What proportion of it is armed? Those are very important issues arising out of the cease-fire agreement.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I have already told the House that the observer unit will be 1,440 strong. I cannot say how many members of the unit will be armed, but I shall find that out and write to the noble Lord. I shall place a copy of the letter in the Library.
Lord Orr-Ewing: My Lords, when my noble friend says that our troops will be brought out of the area as soon as possible, is he using the parliamentary interpretation of that phrase, which may mean that they will be brought out at any time in the months

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ahead? There seems to be no hurry to rush the troops back when there is so much disorder and disquiet at present in that part of the world.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there is a commitment to bring the combat troops back as soon as possible, especially the military personnel.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I hope I may again ask the question which has been asked several times without receiving a satisfactory answer. I shall put the question in another way. If the cease-fire resolution does not prevent the use of helicopter gunships against Iraqi citizens, why did Her Majesty's Government vote for that resolution?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the important issue was that we obtained an appropriate cease-fire agreement which the UN could accept. That is why we took part in the negotiations.

Snowdonia National Park: Road Development
2.52 p.m.
Lord Hunt Lord Hunt asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether their plans to upgrade the A.5 to trunk road standards where it passes through the Snowdonia National Park are consistent with their policy in regard to road development in national parks.
Lord Reay: Yes, my Lords. Plans for upgrading the A.5 follow the policy set out in the Welsh Office circular 182/77 and in the White Paper Roads in Wales Progress and Plans for the 1990's.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, although I cannot claim to find it satisfactory. Is he aware that the plans in question would inflict major and permanent damage in the Snowdonia National Park, in a most magnificent area of the Welsh mountains? Is he further aware that one of the consequences of the bypass will be felt for the whole 20 miles of the A.5 that passes through the national park in terms of the volume, the speed and the noise of heavy traffic? The bypass will conflict completely with one of the express purposes of a national park, which is to permit its quiet enjoyment by members of the public.
Lord Reay: My Lords, at the outset I should point out that this is not a large scheme. It entails a stretch of road 1.4 miles long. It is only a three-lane road over one-third of its total length, contrary to impressions that some people may have. That section of the A.5 has a personal injury accident rate up to seven times higher than the national average for a single carriageway road. Unless measures are taken to improve that section of the road the accidents are likely to continue.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the upgrading of the A.55, the north coast road, was intended to relieve the A.5 of through traffic? Would it not therefore be much more
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logical to delay work on the A.5 until the A.55, into which millions of pounds have been put, is complete, because if the one is successful the other is unnecessary?
Lord Reay: My Lords, although it is of secondary importance to the A.55, the A.5 is and will continue to be an important route across the mainland of North Wales for tourist and commercial traffic from the Midlands and southern England using the shipping link to Ireland at Holyhead. Heavy commercial vehicles will also continue to need to use the A.5 to deliver goods within the Snowdonia National Park.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, although I appreciate the points the Minister has courageously made, is he aware that the upgrading of a trunk road in Snowdonia is against government policy as set out in the Sandford Report and the White Paper to which the Minister referred? In view of the feelings which are held within many organisations about: this proposal, will the Minister confirm that there will be a public inquiry before a final conclusion is reached?
Lord Reay: My Lords, three routes have been the subject of a landscape advisory committee inspection. The report made by the landscape advisory committee stated that both the northern and the valley routes could not be made acceptable in landscape terms and recommended that they should be abandoned. The report also stated that if an improvement to the A.5 at Padog had to be carried out, the southern route —that is the preferred route—slightly modified, offered the least environmentally damaging solution.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, that is an interesting reply, but it does not deal with the point I made about a public inquiry. In view of the importance of this project, does not the Minister feel that a public inquiry is absolutely essential so that the different organisations and parties interested in the matter are given an opportunity to give evidence?
Lord Reay: My Lords, following the recommendations of the landscape advisory committee, a variation of the southern route was the subject of a public consultation exercise in November. Prior to public consultation, discussions took place with the various authorities, including the county and district councils and the national parks authority. The situation now is that the department's consultants are evaluating the comments which were received during the public consultation, including all the points which were raised in letters to the department. When that report has been received and has been considered, a submission will be made to the Secretary of State and it will be up to him to decide whether to announce this as his preferred scheme.
Lord Prys-Davies: My Lords, I understand that the scheme will cost about £5.6 million. Will the Minister tell the House what part of the £5.6 million will be spent on minimising the impact of this project on the environment?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am afraid I cannot answer that question. I shall look into the matter and write to the noble Lord.
Lord Moran: My Lords, the Welsh Secretary said on 26th March that,
"The protection and improvement of our environmental heritage is a top priority with the Welsh Office".
He added that the proposals in the White Paper were only a beginning and,
"were the spur for us to drive on with existing measures".
How do the Government reconcile that statement with the action of the Welsh Office in this case which appears to be flatly contrary to paragraph 7.37 of the Government's White Paper? Would it not be a good plan for the Secretary of State for the Environment to invite the Welsh Office to read again the White Paper and the recently published and excellent report of the National Parks Review Panel under the chairmanship of Professor Ron Edwards, specifically the sections on traffic and transport and national development pressures which are relevant to this matter?
Lord Reay: My Lords, policy follows the guidance which was given in the Welsh Office circular 182/77, as I have already said. Among other things the guidance requires full consultation with the national parks authorities and, subject to the reasonable needs of road safety and statutory obligations, requires environmental quality to be the prime criteria in planning road improvements. It also invites a determined search for alternatives which do not involve upgrading the existing route or new construction where there is a compelling need to resolve traffic problems in national parks. That guidance has been followed in this case.
Lord Hunt: My Lords, in his reply to my supplementary question the Minister referred only to the 2.2 kilometres double carriageway bypass alongside the Padog bends. Will he bear in mind the other point that I made, namely the effect of the whole length of the A.5 as it runs through the national park —for some 20 miles or so—in terms of the increased speed, volume and noise of the traffic, which conflicts with one of the basic purposes of the national parks?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am happy to take that point on board. However, I pointed out that this is not a very grandiose scheme.
Baroness White: My Lords, it may not be a very grandiose scheme, but does not the noble Lord's Answer show complete lack of sensitivity to the feelings of those in most parts of Wales about this development? Will he ensure that the investigation into the scheme—which, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, indicated, is not just a matter of a couple of kilometres but of the entire route—considers the route as a whole as was done for the A.470? This road is to go from Betws-y-coed to Pentrevoelas. Almost every metre of the A.470 road from Betws-y-coed to Blaenau-Ffestiniog was very carefully studied to make sure that the improvements to the safety of that road were carried out with concern and sensitivity for the totality of the route and for its surroundings. Is the
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Minister not aware that the attitude exemplified in his replies gives us no confidence that the Welsh Office is taking the matter as seriously as it should?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness feels that I or the department are unsympathetic. I am not at all unsympathetic. I realise that it is an important matter and that people are anxious about what might happen. I merely pointed to some of the other considerations which have to be borne in mind. I should add that if the scheme is proceeded with there will be a further opportunity for objections to be considered by an independent inspector at a public inquiry following publication of the draft statutory orders.

Army Tanks: Re-equipment
3.2 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they expect to announce the successor to the present generation of tanks used in the British Army.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I hope that a decision on the equipment for the future main battle tank fleet will not be delayed too long.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, that is the answer that has been given for some time. Did the Minister see the report in The Times business supplement at the weekend which indicated that the final bids for the successor tank were to be in by Thursday last? Therefore should the answer not be forthcoming quickly? In its evaluation of the tank, will the Government place high among their priorities continuity of supply from our own people, bearing in mind the disappointment that was felt with the Belgian reaction when we tried to buy ammunition to supply our troops in the Gulf war? Is it not safer to have our own supplier rather than a foreign supplier when governments and policies can change overnight?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I saw the press report to which the noble Lord referred, but it is premature to suggest that any decision has yet been taken. No decision has yet been taken.
Lord Mayhew: My Lords, is it a fact that the Government gave a grant to Vickers in 1988 to develop a new version of the Challenger on the understanding that a decision as to whether orders would be placed would be taken in September last? If Vickers continues to maintain its large and expensive development group, is there not a reasonable case for giving the company another modest grant until the decision is made?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I cannot accept that there has been any undue delay. We must take the time necessary to analyse thoroughly the lessons that are to be learnt from the Gulf conflict.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, while accepting that the British tank industry must compete in terms of both performance and cost, perhaps I may ask this

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question. Does my noble friend agree that the history of tank building in this country has been second to none? Does he also agree that in terms of performance what we have seen recently in the Gulf war has demonstrated clearly that when properly maintained and resupplied, British tanks can out-perform many others?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. The Challenger I tank clearly performed very well in the Gulf. The support operations provided by the manufacturer to the benefit of our forces in the Gulf were very impressive.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, in considering this matter, is there not the strongest possible case for the Vickers Challenger II for at least two reasons in addition to what has already been said? First, Challenger II proved itself without qualification in the Gulf war. Secondly, the expertise, the continuity and the dedication of the Tyneside workforce will guarantee the continued superb performance of Challenger II.
Lord Reay: My Lords, I think that the noble Lord meant to say that it was Challenger I which performed well in the Gulf. I agree with that.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, to what extent has the concept of the tank become out-dated by the anti-tank weaponry which was demonstrated so well in the Gulf war?
Lord Reay: My Lords, my noble friend has raised an interesting matter which goes rather wide of the Question before us.
Lord Richard: My Lords, can the Minister help us just a little more? Does he not agree that it is high time that a decision was made on this battle tank? Can he tell us how long "not too long" is likely to be? Thirdly, does he not agree that there is, or ought to be, a presumption that in a sphere of equipment for the British Army as fundamental as the new battle tank, a British contender should be chosen unless there are very strong reasons to the contrary?
Lord Reay: My Lords, I cannot agree about the delay. This is a decision of very considerable magnitude and we do not believe that we should rush into it. We believe that a sound decision can only be taken after we have had time to assess the lessons which are to be learnt from the Gulf conflict.
Lord Elton: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that many agree with him that time must be taken to absorb recent lessons carefully? Does he also agree that, not least, it is very unwise for those who specify the armaments required to assume that they know in what climate or terrain those armaments will next be required to operate?
Lord Reay: My Lords, my noble friend has made a most pertinent point.
Lord Richard: My Lords, I am sorry to ask the Minister a second question, but he did not answer the second point that I put to him. Does he agree that there is, or ought to be, a presumption that in a matter
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as fundamental as a new battle tank for the British Army, unless there are very strong reasons to the contrary, it should be British?
Lord Reay: My Lords, as I said, these are matters which are under consideration but no decision has yet been taken.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister not aware that if the order for the tank is not given to the British company and the British workforce, tank production in this country may cease for all time? Is that not an appalling risk to take for 'the future?
Lord Reay: My Lords, all considerations, including that one, will be taken into account.

The Gulf: War Crimes
3.8 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy asked Her Majesty's Government:
What steps they propose to take under international law or the United Nations convention naming genocide as an international crime, or the declaration of human rights within UN Resolution 678, to insist on the surrender of Saddam Hussein and his immediate associates to be tried for crimes against international law by a specially established military tribunal.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, European Community Foreign Ministers agreed on 15th April that the Twelve should work for Saddam Hussein to be held to account and that the EC Presidency would ask the UN Secretary-General for ideas on how that could be achieved.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Am I therefore to understand that the quintessential reply to my Question is, yes? Am I also to understand that Saddam Hussein, who indulged in genocide before the Gulf war, during the Gulf war and after the Gulf war, will be tried by a tribunal so that he will not get away with taking those tens of thousands of lives? Does the Minister agree that his arrest will mean that in future anyone who endeavours to inflict genocide in any part of the world will have to face the same tribunal at the world's highest court, the United Nations?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the position was spelt out clearly in Security Council Resolution 674. Under international law individual Iraqis bear personal responsibility for any offence that they may have committed. The noble Lord read a little too much into my reply. The EC Presidency will ask the UN Secretary-General for ideas as to how that can be taken forward.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Earl to bear in mind the feelings of our people. I have been in touch with representatives and leaders of the Kurds in the past fortnight. They are grateful to our Prime Minister and the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition for their endeavours. Does the Minister agree that all those who have suffered so abominably under Saddam Hussein will not be satisfied unless the

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perpetrator of those evil deeds is brought to justice as quickly as possible so that he cannot continue with his evil endeavours?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I certainly confirm that we would shed no tears at all to see the end of Saddam Hussein.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, perhaps the noble Earl will clarify one small point. Is it the case, as I understood him to say, that if the EC Foreign Ministers' meeting concluded that proceedings should be instituted against Saddam Hussein, the matter would be transferred to the United Nations, which would decide what further steps could be taken?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition is absolutely right. The Twelve agreed that Saddam Hussein should be held to account and the EC Presidency is today taking up the matter with the UN Secretary General.
Lord Monson: My Lords, much as one sympathises with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, does the noble Earl agree that to bring Saddam Hussein to trial would require the deployment of hundreds of thousands of ground forces, which in practical terms means the Americans, and that, unless we can persuade President Bush of the rightness and prudence of such a course, one is wasting one's breath?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord makes a valid point, if there is to be a trial and if Saddam Hussein is to be taken out of the country. However, trials of that kind are best done within national boundaries.
The Earl of Halsbury: My Lords, cannot all this be expressed more economically in the old adage, first catch your hare?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, that will certainly be a relevant issue.

Representation of the People Bill
3.12 p.m.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, I understand that no amendments have been set down to this Bill and that no noble Lord has indicated a wish to move a manuscript amendment or to speak in Committee. Therefore, unless any noble Lord objects, I beg to move that the order of commitment be discharged.
Moved, That the order of commitment be discharged.—(The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Criminal Justice Bill
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers):My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 3 [Procedural requirements for custodial sentences]:
[Amendment No. 18 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 3, line 34, after ("sentence") insert ("which is passed in a case to which subsection (1) above applies").
The noble Earl said: In moving this amendment I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 20, 21, 44 and 75.
Amendments Nos. 19, 20 and 21 are essentially minor drafting amendments to clarify the Bill's provisions concerning the requirement to consider a pre-sentence report before imposing a custodial sentence under Clause 1. Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 simply make clear that the provisions in Clause 3(4) which deal with any failure of the court to obtain a pre-sentence report apply only to cases where, by virtue of Clause 3(1), a pre-sentence report is in fact required. Amendment No. 21 clarifies the purpose of the pre-sentence report. The amendment expands the definition of a pre-sentence report so as to make clear that its purpose is to assist the court in determining the most suitable method of dealing with an offender.
The amendment also ensures that the definition of a pre-sentence report in Clause 3 applies throughout Part I of the Bill generally. There is therefore no need to duplicate the provision in Clause 6 as the Bill's provisions currently do and Amendment No. 44 seeks to delete it. Amendment No. 75 is consequential. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 3, line 35, leave out ("subsection (1) (a) above") and insert ("that subsection").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 3, leave out lines 40 to 46 and insert:
("(5) In this Part "pre-sentence report" means a report in writing which—

(a) with a view to assisting the court in determining the most suitable method of dealing with an offender, is made or submitted by a probation officer or by a social worker of a local authority social services department; and

(b) contains information as to such matters, presented in such manner, as may be prescribed by rules made by the Secretary of State.").

[Amendment No. 22, as an amendment to Amendment No. 21, not moved.]
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 not moved.]
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 25:
After Clause 3, insert the following new clause:
("Criteria for passing custodial sentence on mentally disordered offender
.—(1) Subject to subsection (7) below, this section applies where a person is convicted of an offence and the court is told

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in good faith or has reason to suspect that the offender is suffering from a mental disorder within the meaning of section 1(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983.
(2) The court shall not pass a custodial sentence on the offender unless it is of the opinion that—

(a) the offender's mental condition and his need, if any, for treatment will not be seriously and adversely affected by such a sentence; and

(b) that all reasonable and practicable steps have been taken to investigate and secure for the offender such treatment, if any, as may be appropriate for his mental disorder.

(3) Where a court passes a custodial sentence, it shall be its duty—

(a) to state in open court that it is of the opinion that both of paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (2) above apply and why it is of that opinion; and

(b) to explain to the offender in open court and in ordinary language why it is passing a custodial sentence on him.

(4) A magistrate's court shall cause the opinion stated by it under subsection (3) above to be specified in the warrant of commitment and to be entered in the register.
(5) For the purpose of determining whether it is of such an opinion as is mentioned in subsection (2) above, a court shall obtain and consider a medical opinion on the offender's mental condition and the likely effect upon this of a custodial sentence.
(6) In this section "medical opinion" means an oral or written report which—

(a) contains information as to such matters as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State; and

(b) is made or submitted by a registered medical practitioner approved for the purposes of section 12(2) of the Mental Health Act 1983.

(7) This section does not apply where the sentence for the offence is fixed by law.").
The noble Lord said: I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, cannot be here in the early part of the afternoon and that, as the amendment stands in my name as well as his, it is in order for me to move it.
In moving Amendment No. 25 I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 26 and 46. The object of the amendments and the purpose of the clause is to aid the Government's clearly stated policy—stated indeed on many occasions—of trying to divert from what everyone agrees would be an inappropriate penal custody those people with a mental disorder who should be provided with treatment and care by the health and social services rather than receiving punishment in prison. Its purpose is to send a clear signal to sentencing courts of the unsuitability of prison for an offender whose predominant needs are for specialised treatment. It will reinforce the advice given in the recent Home Office Circular 66/90 and require of a sentencing court a careful and public consideration of the impact of prison custody on the mental condition of an offender who may be especially vulnerable. Sentencing courts which are contemplating the imposition of a custodial sentence will be obliged to obtain and consider a psychiatric opinion on the defendant's mental condition. What is different is that that psychiatric opinion must concern itself with the likely effect of a custodial sentence on the mental condition of the offender.
The first question that one should ask oneself in considering the amendments is whether there is a problem. As I understand it, based on interviews with probation officers seconded to work in prison
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establishments, the National Association of Probation Officers estimates that between 400 and 800 prisoners are mentally disordered within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1983. The Committee will know that the definition of mental disorder within the meaning of that Act is pretty tight.
All those prisoners need transfer to specialist care. In addition, it is estimated that up to 25 per cent. of the entire prison population exhibit disturbed behaviour or are chronically addicted to drugs or alcohol. The overwhelming majority of those prisoners should not be in gaol. They do not benefit from their experience. It does them no good. It does society little good. A study by the West Yorkshire Probation Service in 1990 revealed that 23 per cent. of the divisional caseload were experiencing a mental health problem, but that only one in 10 were receiving even general psychiatric support. Of those 23 per cent., 98 per cent. of the males and 94 per cent. of the females had previous convictions. If one analyses the offences for which they have been convicted, it is interesting to note that 51 per cent. were for theft, 20 per cent. for violence, 11 per cent. for sexual offences, 9 per cent. for driving offences and 4 per cent. for drugs offences. The overwhelming majority of the group were aged between 16 and 40.
I think it is true to say that probation officers throughout the country describe a significant increase in the number of offenders who experience personality disorders and an increase in bizarre behaviour and report no pattern to the behaviour with which probation officers now have to deal. Offending by those clients of the probation service was described as unpredictable so that the traditional methods that the probation services use of confronting offending behaviour were in themselves difficult to use.
From time to time one reads histories of individuals who have been caught up in the system. I have a number of cases. I do not propose to read all of them. However, I should like to refer to one case which indicates the scope of the problem. An 18 year-old youth with four previous convictions for indecent exposure had experienced a sentence of imprisonment in a young offenders' institution. Shortly after the expiry of his licence period he committed a further offence. He was referred to a local psychiatric hospital for assessment. The magistrates' court remanded him in custody for the assessment to take place. The consultant psychiatrist who provided the report stated:
"He suffers from a personality disorder characterised by poor social skills, incapacity and emotional immaturity … a custodial sentence may protect society from him, but would certainly not be conducive to his maturation and to inculcating normal social behaviour in him. I think a placement such as [a hospital] would be suitable for him".
At the hearing the Crown Prosecution Service decided that the case should be committed to the Crown Court. The same report was submitted to the judge at the Crown Court. The judge sentenced him to 26 months in a young offenders' institution, stating that a secure hospital place was just not available. It is against that sort of background that the amendments are being moved.
The new clause would have application wherever a court had to sentence a defendant for an imprisonable offence and the court was contemplating the passing of a custodial sentence. Clearly it would not apply to those cases where the sentence for the offence is fixed by law, for example murder—at least, that is true until next Thursday.
The structure of the new clause is modelled on Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill. Its intention is to require a sentencing court actively to investigate the question of whether or not the defendant suffers from a mental disorder within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1983 and, if so, whether the imposition of a custodial sentence will "seriously and adversely affect" the defendant's mental condition. Under the clause the court would be required to obtain a psychiatric opinion on that question and if, after investigation and consideration of such an opinion, the court decided to pass a custodial sentence, it must state in open court its satisfaction that prison would not be inappropriate bearing in mind the defendant's mental condition. Further, it must then explain to the defendant its reason for imposing a custodial sentence. Those are the very means already adopted by the Bill in Clauses 1 and 2 to influence the sentencing practice of courts.
Subsection (1) describes the circumstances when the clause will come into operation. It means that where the court reasonably suspects or has knowledge that the defendant is mentally disordered it will not be able to sentence that person to custody unless it complies with the requirements of the clause.
Subsection (2) provides the hurdle which the court must overcome if it is lawfully to send into custody a person to whom the clause applies. For the court to do that it must form an opinion on the mental condition of the offender and his need for treatment. Having done so, it has to decide that the imposition of a custodial sentence will not cause those matters to be "seriously and adversely affected" and that all reasonable and practicable steps have been taken to investigate and arrange a non-custodial—treatment —option where this is indeed appropriate.
Currently courts are not obliged to express such an opinion; frequently they send into custody persons whose mental condition will be affected by prison regimes, unrelieved, perhaps I may say, by the inadequate treatment they will receive from the prison medical service; and also courts do not sufficiently investigate non-penal treatment options where these may be of benefit to the defendant and to society at large.
Subsections (5) and (6) simply require the court to obtain and consider a medical opinion to assist it in forming its opinion. When this issue was raised at Report stage in the House of Commons and a new clause almost exactly like this one was tabled, it was rejected by the Government. Two arguments were put by Mr. John Patten on behalf of the Government in another place. On 20th February he said that there were not enough psychiatrists able to do the work involved:
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"Not enough of them have been trained to do this difficult job. The Royal College is tackling that problem now".
The second argument was that imposing this duty upon the courts would mean that defendants would be unnecessarily remanded into custody so that reports could be prepared, which he said would destroy the whole object of the clause.
To the first of those objections, it has to be said that all Section 12 approved doctors are frequently required to carry out rapid assessments, often in police stations, for the purposes of deciding whether a person should be admitted to hospital for treatment under a power in Part II of the Mental Health Act. Further, these same psychiatrists have to visit defendants in prison for the purpose of deciding on court recommendations. It is entirely wrong for the Government to argue that resources are not available for the assessments to be made. What is required is the better organisation of those resources, and that could be achieved by making it a condition of approval by regional health authorities under Section 12 that the doctor assisted with the reports required by this clause.
As to the second objection, there may well be reasons to examine the Bail Act and the power of the magistrates' court to remand into custody a person for a medical opinion. If the clause became law but its implementation was delayed until such time as the resources and necessary arrangements were in place, some of the difficulties envisaged could be avoided. It seems to me that the provision to each remand court of a duty psychiatric rota scheme would prove crucial in preventing unnecessary remands into custody for reports.
I turn now to the second part of the amendments, relating to the Mental Health Act 1983. That Act already provides some mechanisms to aid the policy of diversion from custody of the mentally disordered defendant or offender. Home Office Circular 66/90 emphasises that courts should be willing to use the powers given under that Act more frequently. However, it is generally recognised in relation to certain sections that changes would be of benefit so as to encourage greater use of the power and positively to improve the chances of mentally disordered offenders receiving the health care which they may need. The proposed amendments would achieve those objectives.
Perhaps I may say a word or two about guardianship under Section 37 of the Mental Health Act. That power is very rarely used, often because social services authorities are reluctant to agree to it. We think the inclusion of a power for a court to seek information about guardianship from the authority responsible may encourage its greater use as an appropriate non-custodial outcome.
Finally, paragraph 4 of the new schedule would have the effect of altering the criteria for the exercise by the Home Secretary of his power to arrange the transfer by warrant of a remand prisoner or civil prisoner to a psychiatric hospital for medical treatment. Currently the law allows this only where the prisoner is in urgent need of treatment. The amendment would remove from the criteria the word

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"urgent". It would mean the power could be employed to arrange for the removal of any prisoner needing treatment which the prison medical service cannot provide.
Although in a recent letter to voluntary organisations (of 13th November 1990) the Home Office claimed that use of the section had increased to 100 times in 1989 and it was not felt to be too restrictive, it is noteworthy that the same letter acknowledged that efforts had been made in the largest prison medical wing—Brixton—to encourage its greater use with absolutely no success at all. In 1989 a consultant psychiatrist was retained to visit Brixton one day per week expressly to seek Section 48 transfers for prisoners who were severely mentally ill. Not one Section 48 transfer was arranged during the six months for which that consultant, Dr. MacKeith, was retained. Although the availability of facilities and the attitudes of doctors may have contributed to that, the limited criteria cannot have assisted.
This is a difficult and sad area. Time and again one reads of instances of people with mental disorders of one form or another being caught up in the criminal justice system and, frankly, treated in ways difficult to justify on any set of civilised criteria. Perhaps I may give just one example. It is that of Mr. Billet, who is 60 years old and has had a long history of severe mental illness. A friend of Mr. Billet wrote to the Home Secretary on 27th September 1990 complaining about the way in which this vulnerable man had been treated since his arrest and remand into prison custody. An extract from the letter reads:
"Taken to Brixton, [he] was not brought before a magistrate before, he thinks, another week. There he met with a solicitor for the first time. He was pronounced unfit to plead. Because of this his case was referred back to the Crown Court. Meanwhile [he] stayed in Brixton … He went back to court and was remanded again … and was taken to Albany Street Police Station for a few weeks … Here he began to deteriorate—refusing medication".
The correspondent continues:
"I spoke with police officers who were concerned about him and mystified about what he was doing there for a case of actual bodily harm"—
which was all that he was charged with.
"Finally on the 21st August [he] was found guilty and was put in the custody of a psychiatric hospital. The court was extremely concerned about the amount of time he had spent on remand. [He] was returned to Brixton Prison. But the order of the Crown Court"
—that he should go to a psychiatric hospital—
"was not carried out. He remained in prison for almost a further month—until … 19th September".
So for a period of six months for somebody in need of treatment—it was accepted that he was in need of treatment and the sort of treatment of which he was in need was known—the system could not cope. These amendments are designed to try to make our system work a little better in this respect. I beg to move.
3.30 p.m.
Lord Mottistone: This amendment is not dissimilar from Amendment No. 24, to which I spoke on the first day of the Committee stage. I shall not detain the Committee by repeating what I said before. However, there are one or two points which emerged from that
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debate which perhaps the Committee, and in particular the Government, might like to consider further in tackling this amendment.
I am puzzled by the statement of my noble friend the Minister which he made on 26th March. With one breath he said that my Amendment No. 24 would:
"make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pass a custodial sentence",
on a mentally disordered offender. With the next breath he said that the Government's amendment, Amendment No. 17, made it clear that courts:
"should not pass a custodial sentence if that would adversely affect an offender's mental condition and his treatment".— [Official Report, 26/3/91; col 1055.]
The latter statement of my noble friend is exactly what is said in subsection (2) (a) of Amendment No. 25, the amendment that we are considering, and in subsection (4) (a) of my Amendment No. 24. However, that is not spelled out in government Amendment No. 17, which merely asked the court to consider what might be the likely effects of a custodial sentence on a mentally disordered offender. That is what many do not like about Amendment No. 17 which I said at the time went some way toward meeting our wishes but did not go nearly far enough.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, who said (at col. 1056 of Hansard) that courts are not qualified to consider the likely effects and would need a professional psychiatric opinion to enable them to do so. Hence comes my support for subsections (5) and (6) of Amendment No. 25.
In Amendment No. 46 I particularly support paragraph 2. Short of directing hospitals to care for mentally disordered offenders as suggested in Amendment No. 23, put forward by my noble friend Lady Faithfull and which my noble friend the Minister said would be unworkable, arid I agree, this would at least bring before the court those responsible for the necessary provision in terms of beds or services to account for availability or otherwise. That would prod them into action or show up their inadequacies.
Having said that, I hope that the Minister is able to have a second thought about this amendment which, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said, was turned down in another place. If not and if the Minister seeks a compromise, I have in mind to table an amendment on Report to amend subsection (5) of the existing Clause 3 which defines pre-sentence reports to include specifically the offender's mental condition where appropriate and in that case require the report to be made by a registered medical practitioner approved under Section 12(2) of the Mental Health Act. That would meet the point of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, and ensure that pre-sentence reports give due weight to psychiatric assessment where a mentally disordered offender is involved.
I throw that suggestion at my noble friend although, as he knows, I try to avoid doing so without warning. He might not wish to comment on it at this stage. Depending upon how the rest of the debate goes, I shall consider whether to make a proposal of that sort when we reach Report stage.
I am advised that any doctor approved under Section 12(2) would be competent to 'make such an assessment and that there is no shortage of such

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psychiatrists. In that connection a forensic psychiatric who has been consulted cannot understand the Government's insistence, which my noble friend the Minister repeated when we debated Amendment No. 17 at an earlier stage, that very few people are available to make psychiatric assessments to the courts. That forensic psychiatrist says that there is no such thing as a qualification in forensic psychiatry; people may go on courses to learn more about it, but that is all. To provide the information the court does not need such a requirement but it needs psychiatrists whose job description includes providing a service to the courts and a way of paying for it through Home Office funds.
Perhaps I could suggest to my noble friend that he needs to look into the advice that he has received to the effect that there are not enough psychiatrists to advise courts. That is a line which might well be pursued further. He might like to think about that matter now.
What is lacking is a mechanism for requiring some of the psychiatrists to perform that function as part of their duties and a Home Office willingness for them to do so. That would certainly be cheaper than the cost of inappropriate prison sentences. Also lacking is a determination on the part of the Department of Health to ensure that hospital beds are available for such mentally disordered people. They may have offended but very often they are the same people who were previously treated in the hospitals and who have committed an offence because of their mental condition. To regard them as lower in the patient's pecking order because they have offended is to misunderstand their problems. Often the offence results from lack of aftercare and, for example, may be theft from hunger.
It is ludicrous to suggest that hospital beds should not be made available through, as my noble friend the Minister said:
"anxiety that those who suffer from mental disease should not be kept incarcerated in certain buildings".—[Official Report, 26/3/91; col. 1065.)
The vast majority of mental hospital patients come and go as they please while the fate of the mentally disordered offender is too often literal incarceration in prison.
All the arguments for keeping most mentally disordered offenders out of gaol are well known. It is longstanding government policy to enable them to be cared for by the health or social services. Indeed, in another connection I received a letter from my noble friend Lady Hooper at the Department of Health repeating the fact that it is government policy that people who are mentally ill should not be put into prison but should go to hospital. It goes on to say that they are seeking to provide secure accommodation where necessary throughout the land. That has been the policy, as I am advised, for 15 to 20 years. It has been a very sensible policy. However, nobody is doing anything about it.
On the last occasion when we debated Amendment No. 17, the Minister told us that a joint committee —about which we know—of the Department of Health and the Home Office will report in July 1992.
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That is over a year away. There have been previous reports. The report will be published and consideration given as to what will be done about it. Then we shall find for one reason or another that action has slipped: there is not enough money to provide proper accommodation or for the hospitals; the regional health authorities have to make their own decisions and cannot be told what to do. Such arguments can go on indefinitely. We must have more positive action more quickly to deal with the problem which everyone recognises. The position is not only desperately unfair to the people involved but also involves much more expense than need be for the Government. That is an argument that I should have thought would cut some ice with them.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I briefly support the amendment. One's experience as an advocate in the criminal courts over and again, as the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone, has said, is to come into court with a person who one knows perfectly well is mentally disordered because one has spent time with that person and the court is unable or unwilling to deal with that person other than by sending him to prison. That has gone on for years. The only possible solution to the problem to begin with must be to impose a statutory duty on the court to do various things in those circumstances.
At present, as everyone knows, it is a nuisance to have someone around in public who cannot be professionally certified under whatever section of the Mental Health Act may be invoked. Therefore courts simply, in hurried way, get on with their work and send those people to prison in order to get them out of the way. In prison they are again a nuisance. There is no provision for dealing with them. Again they are simply ignored. They serve their sentences and cause a great deal of disruption and trouble in the prisons.
Perhaps I may plead with the noble Earl that before the Bill leaves this Chamber a perfectly straightforward and simple procedure is laid down in the Bill for that situation. It is no good saying, "Oh, there aren't enough psychiatrists", or, "Oh, there are difficulties about hospitals", and so on. If someone is run over and injured, provision is made; and provision can be made for such people with a little political will. The matter is not as difficult as the authorities have made out over the years.
I urge on the Minister the first step which appears in the amendment: to lay a statutory duty on every court when this matter is brought to its attention to do one, two or three things from which it cannot escape. That is the start of the whole matter. If that duty is laid upon the court, then all the administrative matters and procedures will follow. Provision will be made. I implore the Minister not to let the Bill leave this Chamber without those perfectly straightforward, simple provisions being made.
3.45 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: I strongly support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Mottistone and the ideas propounded by him and by the noble Lord,

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Lord Hutchinson. However, one or two ideas ought to be in the minds of those in the Chamber before we reach the next stage.
In a sense my main thought is implicit in what the noble Lords, Lord Mottistone and Lord Hutchinson, said. It is all very well to say that one can make this or that provision in an Act of Parliament which states that people ought to be sent to this or that hospital, but the money has to be available. We are talking now of providing money to make that possible. Moving people from one institution to another may be slightly beneficial, but there must be much more financial provision. There is no way of getting away from that. I hope that at the next stage that factor will be taken note of.
My other thought may not be so much in the minds of everyone. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, told us that there might be between 400 and 800 people who could be transferred to other hospitals under the existing Act. One would have to ask in the first place how many want to go. It is assumed in this Chamber in these discussions that anyone who is mentally disturbed who should be transferred to a hospital actually would like to move. In my experience a lot of people do not wish to be moved. Many people would rather he in prison than in Broadmoor. One must state that plainly because I know people who have been in both. They have preferred prison because in Broadmoor one is treated as a child; and people would rather be regarded perhaps as an unpleasant adult in prison. People must bear in mind that thought when we discuss these matters.
If there are many thousands of people who require and would benefit from psychiatric treatment—as I believe there are and as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said—they will not be sent to hospitals, whichever way one works it out. The long and the short of it is that one has to provide a far better psychiatric service in prisons than is now provided. Most of the people who can be called mentally disordered, if not within the terms of the Act, should be treated in prison; but there is not the service to treat them. Judge Tumim laid the greatest possible stress in the report that he undertook with Lord Justice Woolf of the need to provide psychiatric services in prison equal to those in the mental hospitals. That may not be achieved quickly. But unless we tackle the psychiatric service provided in prison, we are playing with the problem. Nevertheless, I support the amendment.
Baroness Faithfull: I made my views known when I spoke to Amendment No. 23; but perhaps I may make two points. First, will the Minister make representations to the Department of Health not to close any more mental hospitals? Secondly, although I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, that courts must be instructed not to send such patients to prison, it is a question of bricks and mortar. Perhaps I may make a plea to the Department of Health—and I appreciate that the Minister is in some difficulty because he speaks for the Home Office and not for the Department of Health—that what is needed is secure units built for such people and which are attached to mental hospitals. That involves bricks and mortar. Whatever one tells the court, however we may wish to
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amend the Mental Health Act—and it needs amending—what is needed from the Department of Health is a number of secure units up and down the country.
Baroness Seear: I wish briefly to add one point only because I believe that nearly all the important points have been made. One aspect has not been mentioned. The position of people with mental illness is very important. Nobody has made a point which seems to me of the greatest importance. To ask prison governors and prison staff to deal with people who have mental disorders is to put on the staff a burden which it is quite unreasonable to expect them to bear. That is not within their training. It is extremely difficult for them. They have quite enough on their plates without having to act as amateur psychiatrists which is one of the most dangerous acts one could ask them to take on. They should not be asked to do so. In the interests of making the task more feasible for governors and prison staff, quite apart from what is good for the persons concerned, it is essential that such persons should not be kept in prison.
Lord Renton: The three amendments that we are discussing refer to people who are mentally disordered. They are of two types; the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. It is not surprising that almost all the discussion so far has referred to the mentally ill. I am keeping an open mind about the effect of the amendments upon such people.
However, Members of the Committee should know that, since the passing of the Mental Health Act 1983 and the code of conduct made under it, the mentally handicapped have been treated with more certainty, effectiveness and compassion than was previously the case. Whether one is thinking about the handling of the mentally handicapped by police officers when making arrests and taking statements or of the way in which they are treated in the courts there is less complaint to be made. I hope that in approaching the merits of the amendments the Committee will think of the mentally ill who vary considerably. However, I wished to give the Committee that assurance in respect of the mentally handicapped.
Baroness Phillips: I had no intention of speaking in the debate until the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, spoke. Like certain other Members of the Committee he always makes me rise to my feet. Yesterday I spoke to two young magistrates. The noble Lord said that magistrates hurriedly reach a verdict, although perhaps he did not mean that. I cannot speak for the judges but I know that the lay magistrates act with a sense of service. They are most anxious about the additional directives which are constantly put upon them. In reaching a verdict they must take account of conflicting views in current Government thinking and the sentences that they are expected to impose if they are left alone.
I have the greatest sympathy with people who are mentally disordered. However, every crime has two parties; the other party is the victim. We heard of a case of someone being charged with actual bodily harm. It is not much satisfaction for the person

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attacked with a baseball bat and hit on the head to know that the attacker suffers from a mental disorder. It does not mean much to the victim although it may mean a great deal to the people who must deal with the accused.
For heavens sake, do not confuse the courts any more. If offenders must be referred to a hospital, provide the hospitals. However, it must be recognised that such people only come before a court if they have committed an offence. My noble friend Lord Richard mentioned the case of a man charged with indecent exposure being sentenced to 26 months in prison. Circumstances must have changed because when I sat in court in central London people charged with indecent exposure were fined £1 and told to go away and not do it again. I was astonished to hear that someone was put in prison for indecent exposure.
I ask Members of the Committee to think of the lay magistrates who do a marvellous job and are unpaid. They are a dedicated group of people and do not want to be further confused by more directives. Today everybody suffers from directives, introduced mainly by a few professors who sit in universities but who have never been up against it. The police, hospital doctors and teachers, for example, are subject to directives. That is fair enough but they should make common sense.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, that magistrates are most concerned about the Bill because there will be increasing confusion. I speak cunningly not for nor against the amendments. I am in a situation in which I must not offend my noble friend but I shall not obtain a seat in the Government. I appeal to the Committee to think of the people who must carry out the sentences. We must ensure that any provisions we introduce can be followed through.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, brought the noble Baroness to her feet but I must say that sometimes she brings me to mine. We are not making any criticisms of the courts in discussing this amendment, although other parts of the Bill might be used to do so. The amendment is intended to make clear to the courts that if they know that someone is mentally abnormal, that person must not be sent to prison unless the courts are sure that that will do more good than harm. However, if that conclusion is reached, presumably the offender will be sent to a hospital. In nine cases out of 10 the hospital will say, "This chap is not fit to be in an open ward. We do not have an enclosed ward so we cannot accept him".
Mr. R. A. Butler put forward a perfectly sensible solution to that problem which has been achieved in about one fifth of necessary cases. He proposed that in every court area there should be attached to a hospital or elsewhere under local authority control secure accommodation which is a great deal less than a hospital or a prison. That can be done only by spending a great deal of money. I understand that money was granted for such a purpose but that local authorities spent it on other items. However, that might not be true. The solution is clear; the Minister must find the money to try to achieve that.
Lord Elton: I am brought to my feet not by the noble Baroness nor by the noble Lords, Lord Hutchinson and Lord Donaldson, but by the memory of seeing in prison some unfortunate mentally disordered people when I was then the Minister responsible. It was a moving and disturbing experience. It was then and has since been the policy that they should receive treatment appropriate to their condition, preferably in hospital if not in prison. My noble friend's amendment seeks only to implement that policy and I have great sympathy with it. I am glad to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, has entered the Chamber at this moment. There are two areas of the criminal justice system in which the Department of Health and the Home Office must work in tandem; they are those relating to young offenders and the mentally disordered. Each department has some responsibility for each category of person.
The mentally disordered fall into two classes; they are the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped. Whichever category the offender falls into, the victim must be borne in mind. However, there is no reason why treating the offender in an appropriate way and at an appropriate place should have any effect on the victim other than to reduce the likelihood of a repetition of the offence. The shortage of appropriate hospital accommodation for violent offenders was a matter of great concern in 1984–85. It is a matter of great concern today. I agree with my noble friend Lady Faithfull that we are talking about bricks and mortar and resources. That is always difficult during the process of legislation through a Chamber which does not command those resources and with a Minister whose department is not required to provide those resources.
My reason for intervening is to suggest that, when my noble friend replies to the debate, he may think it appropriate to defer a decision until he has consulted his colleagues who, happily, are present now and the officials of the Department of Health and perhaps give us a substantive reply backed by a programme to which he is able to allude at a later stage. However, at that stage I hope that we shall be able to do something which turns a long-standing policy into an effective action programme.
4 p.m.
Baroness Macleod of Borve: Perhaps I may share with Members of the Committee the experience of what happens in my court. During the 30 years of my involvement with the courts, we have never sent to prison a convicted person who is allegedly mentally ill or subnormal. We remand such a person on bail for three weeks to a psychiatric hospital however local or distant that may be. A bed is found for three weeks during which a psychiatrist makes an assessment and reports back to the same Bench. We then decide whether the convicted man should go to prison or should have treatment. That is how we administer justice where it is needed.
Earl Ferrers: This is an important and sensitive amendment, which concerns us all deeply. The noble

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Lord, Lord Richard, described this as a difficult and sad area. He is quite right about that. He gave a distressing example of how a great deal of misery can be caused when the system does not work as it should. He said that the system cannot cope and I tend to agree with him. There are areas in which the system does not cope as we all wish it to cope.
My noble friend Lord Elton said that he hoped that I would defer a decision until I had consulted colleagues in the Department of Health. I assure my noble friend that I have done that, because this is an important amendment and we are very anxious to take the right course.
I have considered with great care the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. My noble friend Lady Faithfull said that she hoped that there would be no more closures of mental hospitals and she asked me to convey that hope to my right honourable friend. I can tell my noble friend that the Department of Health is well aware of her views and indeed the views of all Members of the Committee who are anxious about this matter.
We had a very full debate on the earlier amendments relating to the treatment of mentally disordered offenders in the criminal justice system. Amendment No. 23 in the name of my noble friend Lady Faithful] and Amendment No. 24 in the name of my noble friend Lord Mottistone were discussed before the Recess. The new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is very similar to the proposal made by my noble friend Lord Mottistone in his Amendment No. 24.
In both cases the court would be prevented from passing a custodial sentence on a mentally disordered offender unless it was of the opinion that the offender's mental condition and its treatment would not be harmed by such a sentence and that there had been an exhaustive investigation of the options for dealing with the offender without sending him to prison. The court would be required also to obtain a medical opinion on the offender's mental condition.
As I said in my reply to the earlier amendments debated before the Easter Recess, I do not believe that there is any disagreement between us as to the objectives. However, we must be careful about imposing legislative requirements which may prove to be counter-productive. For example, we do not wish to see more remands in custody while awaiting psychiatric reports. I am bound to tell Members of the Committee, as my right honourable friend Mr. Patten told another place, that it is our considered view that that would be the effect of Amendment No. 25, especially for those offenders who are of no fixed abode. Because of that, they are less likely to be given bail unless additional or alternative arrangements are set up.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone stated that Mr. Patten had pointed out that there were not enough psychiatrists and my noble friend claims that there are. He suggests that there is no such thing as a specialised qualification for forensic psychiatry. My understanding is that there is a shortage of psychiatrists and also that the Royal College of Psychiatrists has a prescribed course of training which
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forensic psychiatrists must follow be Fore they are recognised as such and before they are qualified to prepare reports on offenders.
The arrangements put forward in this amendment would carry with them serious resource implications in terms not only of finance but also of health and social services facilities. However much we may wish it, those facilities could not be expanded immediately to cope with such a major increase in demand. The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, argued that there is no point in saying that there are insufficient psychiatrists. However, that is a fact of considerable relevance if one places an obligation on courts for which, whether or not one likes it, there are not sufficient resources at the time.
Government Amendment No. 17, which the Committee approved on 26th March, requires the court to consider the information available about the offender's mental condition and to have regard to the likely effect of a custodial sentence on that condition and its treatment before passing a custodial sentence. I believe that that course is preferable to what is prescribed by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, because it will give the right steer to the courts as they try, without bringing about an undesirable increase in the number or remands in custody for psychiatric reports, to find the correct balance between the need to secure prosper treatment for offenders who may be mentally disordered and the need to protect the public from offenders who may simply be dangerous. In the meantime, we shall endeavour to identify and to remedy the gaps which we acknowledge may exist in the current health and social service provision.
As regards the new schedule proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, we should all like the procedures for the admission to hospital of mentally disordered offenders to work as quickly and as smoothly as possible. However, I have grave reservations as to whether it is reasonable to reduce by three weeks to seven days the statutory time limits in Sections 37 and 40 of the 1983 Act, although the proposals and the suggested changes to Sections 39 and 48 of the Act have a superficial attraction. It is always dangerous to tinker with existing legislation in this way without extensive work to identify the precise nature of any deficiencies in the Act in question and the views of representatives of the various agencies involved in operating it. We are trying to carry out such work.
My noble friend Lord Mottistone said that we must take action to deal with the problem which we all know exists. I can understand my noble friend's anxieties. Indeed, I can understand the impatience of Members of the Committee who want to deal with the problem which we all know exists. However, it is important to assess the size and complexity of the problem before taking what may prove to be overall blanket decisions which may in themselves not cater for what is a wide variety of difficult and different mental health problems.
The fact is that those difficulties are not yet fully known, although Members of the Committee may say that they should be. The requirements for treatment and security for the mentally handicapped are

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different from those for the chronically mentally ill. I am glad that my noble friend Lord Renton drew that distinction. There are provisions for both.
Most Members of the Committee consider that in some cases there are gaps in the provision for the mentally ill, whether they are mentally handicapped or chronically ill. I do not dissent from that. What no one knows is exactly where those gaps are or their size or extent. Indeed some people may be in the wrong place at the wrong time; we need to find out whether that is so and where they are before we can address the problem. It is therefore difficult—I venture to say impossible—to provide for the lack of provision without knowing its extent.
We are, accordingly, at present engaged in trying to find that out. We are closely examining recent research findings. The Home Office recently received a report on the sentenced prison population by Professor Gunn, and the Department of Health commissioned a study into where the mental health system and the criminal justice system meet and overlap, or possibly do neither.
The correct approach to overcoming the problems which have been identified should be one of working to develop and improve the practical arrangements and the facilities which are available, rather than to alter the legislation. In that respect I am bound to tell the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that what he seeks to do in the amendment can already be done under existing legislation without altering the practical arrangements.
I have already mentioned that there is a review of services for mentally disordered offenders being conducted jointly by the Department of Health and the Home Office. My noble friend Lord Elton said that we must work in tandem on the matter. I can assure him that we are doing so. The review is concerning itself with this specific area. It is an intensive and important exercise. It will take time to bear fruit. But Ministers have made clear that they expect regular progress reports before it completes its work finally in mid-1992, for the very good reason that whatever action proposed can be taken meanwhile and need not be delayed.
Home Office Circular 66 of 1990 is a very helpful guide to all those in the criminal justice system concerned with the care of mentally disordered offenders. Reactions to and the use of the guidance is being monitored. The growing number of duty psychiatrist schemes, where a psychiatrist is regularly on hand at court to assess offenders, is proving very effective.
In regard to the facilities, the review of the services for mentally disordered offenders will give us a more precise picture of the position nationwide and of the problems and the needs which exist at all levels and in all parts of the various services. In the meantime, the programme of building more secure facilities in the NHS is continuing. An additional £3 million of capital is available during the current financial year for the development of regional secure units and seven NHS regions have further RSU development plans in hand.
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That is practical work being done now in order to keep mentally disordered offenders out of the prison system. I hope that the Committee will agree that we should rest on the legislative encouragement which is given in the Government amendments discussed earlier, and I assure the Committee that all which has been said today will be drawn to the attention of those who are at present studying the problem and will be taken account of in their work.
I suggest that that is the course to adopt rather than the course proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
Baroness Faithfull: Before the noble Earl sits down, perhaps I may thank him for the meeting that he arranged in the Home Office together with colleagues from the Department of Health. All those points were clearly made to the Department of Health officials who were present at the time and who undertook to do exactly as he said. I was grateful to have been present and to have heard the representations that were made to the Department of Health.
Lord Richard: Perhaps I may answer the noble Earl who replied with great charm and firmness. However, I am afraid that we received from him this afternoon an almost total turndown of the proposals that we seek. I must also say that the problem has been known for a long time. It must have been clear at the time when mental homes were being closed and people were being thrown out on the streets that that would have a consequential effect upon the criminal justice system. To say now that greater research needs to be carried out to find the scope of the problem is an argument that I find singularly unconvincing.
I am not satisfied with the present situation. I do not propose to ask the Committee to divide on the matter this evening. However, I give the Government warning—I hope it is fair—that we may return to the issue on a subsequent occasion when I may seek the opinion of the Chamber. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Earl Ferrers: Perhaps I could add one point. I do not wish to delay the Committee because the noble Lord was kind enough to say that he will withdraw the amendment. He said that the Government have flatly turned down the proposal. Let me make it perfectly clear that I take a great deal of interest in the proposal. I considered it with a great deal of depth. It is not a question of turning it down; we are all attempting to reach the same objective. It is a question of the best way of doing so.
The only point I put to the noble Lord is that by his amendment he may be imposing duties and responsibilities on courts which at the moment the system cannot take.
4.15 p.m.
Lord Richard: Of course I acquit the noble Lord of not taking an interest in the matter; of course he takes an interest. However, as he is aware, any Minister must take responsibility for Government inertia as a whole. There is no way in which one can evade that.

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The fact is that not much has been done about the issue. It has been known for a long time and something should be done.
As I am on my feet and before the noble Earl sits down for the fourth time, perhaps I may say that he referred to the report of Professor Gunn. Rumours have circulated regarding what the report will contain. Can the noble Earl say when we shall see it and have an opportunity of judging precisely how many mentally disordered people there are in our prisons? We may then share in the knowledge of the scope of the problem and perhaps contribute something towards the Government's thinking on the matter. It would he nice to learn when we shall see the report.
Earl Ferrers: I did not sit down for the fourth time; it was merely for the second. In Committee proceedings I could sit down 20 times if I so wished. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, the report will be available in due course.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 26 not moved.]
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): If Amendment No. 27 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 27A.
Clause 4 [Suspended and extended sentences of imprisonment]:
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 4, line 1, leave out subsection (1) and insert:
("(1) Section 22 of the 1973 Act (suspended sentences of imprisonment) shall cease to have effect.").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 27, as drafted, seeks to abolish the suspended sentence. It is a probing amendment designed to elicit an explanation from the Government regarding the provisions of subsection (1) of Clause 4. That subsection restricts the suspended sentence to cases where there are exceptional circumstances. The Government have gone so far in restricting the use of suspended sentences; why have they not taken the logical step of abolishing them altogether?
There have always been two logical difficulties attached to suspended sentences. The first is that it involves the courts in the somewhat tortuous process of initially deciding that they think a prison sentence is essential and immediately afterwards reaching the self-contradictory conclusion that it need not after all be imposed. That leap of logic is questionable enough at present but is even more difficult to reconcile with the new criteria for custodial sentences contained in Clause 1. That restricts such sentences to cases where the offence is so serious that only such a sentence can be justified for the offence or where custody is necessary to protect the public from serious harm.
If it is not strictly necessary to send the offender to prison immediately, it would be more sensible to impose a non-custodial sentence such as community service. If the offender fails to comply with that and returns to court, then the court retains the power to send him to prison for breach of the order.
The second difficulty is that, in contrast to someone who has committed a less serious offence who is given a fine, a probation order or a community service order, an offender given a suspended sentence has no
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immediate punishment imposed on him. It is difficult to defend the notion that someone who commits a more serious offence should incur no punishment unless he reoffends while less serious offenders are given penalties which require them to forfeit their money, their time or part of their liberty. Clause 4 goes a considerable way to meet these points. First, it restricts the suspended sentence to cases of exceptional circumstances, and, secondly, it requires the court to consider imposing a fine or a compensation order in addition to any suspended sentence. However, even then the offender will be given an immediate penalty of a fine or a compensation order, which is regarded as lower in the sentencing tariff than a community service order or a probation order with additional requirements.
One has to ask the question why, if the Government have accepted the criticisms of the suspended sentence to the extent of imposing these very substantial restrictions on its use, they have decided to retain the suspended sentence at all? One possible argument for retaining it is the fear that its abolition would increase the prison population. However, the results of abolishing suspended sentences for young adults aged between 17 and 20 years, which was a provision of the Criminal Justice Act 1982, do not bear out that fear. Approximately 6,000 suspended sentences a year were imposed on young adults before this change was implemented in May 1983. Following the change most of those sentences were replaced by non-custodial sentences.
At the same time as abolishing a suspended sentence for young adults the 1982 Act also introduced statutory criteria for imposing custodial sentences on young offenders. The result was a fall in the number of custodial sentences from 24,300 in 1983 to 16,700 in 1989. I wait with interest to hear what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has to say, but there does not seem to me to be any logical argument, having gone down the road as far as they have, for the Government to retain the suspended sentence at all. I beg to move.
Lord Ackner: My Lords, perhaps I may first express my regret at not being present on the first day of Committee. I wrote my apologies to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, explaining that the Law Lords did not usually sit in the week before Easter although they come back a week before Parliament reassembles. Accordingly, I had accepted an invitation from the chief justice of Poland to visit him. I was in Czechoslovakia when the Committee had its first sitting. I regret not being present for a number of reasons. One reason is that for four years I was required by the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery, to be in charge of the sentencing seminars for circuit judges. I learnt some of the difficulties and complications which sentencers face. I shall no doubt return to the fact that this Bill will add considerably to their difficulties.
As regards suspended sentences, I support their retention. They play a very useful part. I also support the proposition that they should usually be coupled with another sentence such as a fine. That was

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certainly one of the messages I sought to give to circuit judges some 15 years ago when I was in charge of those conferences.
I went to one of the assizes in Wales many years ago. A man was up for trial and he pleaded guilty. He was known locally as "Jones the Milk". He was in charge of the distribution of milk over a very large area. He was a pillar of the church (a deacon, I believe) and no doubt leader of the choir and involved in all sorts of other fine activities. He had a 1,000-gallon milk tank into which the Milk Marketing Board poured its milk. He had a run-off system so that he was able to get secretly 200 extra gallons on each delivery. The problem was how on earth one was to sentence him for the three specimen offences with which he was charged. Naturally, he had an excellent record.
I imposed on him a sentence suspended for two years. This was 18 years ago. I fined him £ 750 on each of the three charges and ordered him to pay £ 500 towards the costs of the prosecution. Fortunately, there was a very Welsh assize judge present. I asked him whether he thought I had done the right thing. I remember him saying "God, man! He would rather have been sent to prison any day". That was a very good indication of how the combination of the suspended sentence and the penalty was a very effective one and kept the man out of prison, which would have done him no good at all. The suspended sentence is an excellent idea.
However, I have raised in my Amendment No. 27A the question of the phrase:
"that the exercise of that power can be justified by the exceptional circumstances".
There is already a considerable body of jurisprudence which is to be found quite conveniently in Archbold. I have it here somewhere. It sets out the very narrow circumstances in which a suspended sentence should be imposed and how it is not to be used as a means of merely reinforcing an accused's statement that he intends to go straight. It is not to be used where community service, probation or some other community penalty can be imposed. It is only to be used if it is a proper case for imprisonment but just before one is to impose it one realises that there is justification for the sentence being suspended.
If the words "exceptional circumstances" are accepted we shall run up against the situation that, generally speaking, there are common features in cases where a sentence is suspended. A good record may be one feature, or the probation officer may give very strong support to the suggestion that a prison sentence will have an appalling effect on the family. The sentence may wreck a career which the accused will never return to. These are not exceptional circumstances, but common features. That is why I have suggested that instead of the words "exceptional circumstances" one puts in the words "in all the" circumstances of the case if one has to say anything at all. I would prefer that nothing at all was said in any way to restrict the very effective use which is being made of this particular option.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: Before the noble and learned Lord sits down can he give an explanation of the Welsh situation? Why was it obvious that the man would prefer to be sent to prison than fined? I cannot see that the suspended sentence had anything to do with it at all. I thought it was a clear case of preferring to go to prison to paying £ 2,250.
Lord Ackner: The suspended sentence marked in one respect the very serious nature of the fraud which the defendant had perpetrated on his fellow citizens over a long period while putting forward this external indication of being holier than thou. Therefore it was important to show that he had just escaped imprisonment for that offence. But, as the public would— and do— say if you impose a suspended sentence alone, "That is a let-off; he got away with it", the financial penalty was the reinforcement that he had not got away with it. He would have preferred to go to prison because under our parole system he would have been out in six months if I had given him a sentence approaching 18 months. If I had passed a lesser term of imprisonment he would have served an even shorter period. He would also have saved several thousands of pounds out of his taxed income. He regretted that situation very fervently.
4.30 p.m.
Baroness Phillips: I do not want to delay the proceedings— said she, proceeding to do that— but I am puzzled by the noble and learned Lord's words. He said that because the offender was "holier than thou" — that was the phrase used— he got extra punishment. I cannot follow that.
Lord Ackner: With great respect, I can. If a person has emphasised his sanctimonious hypocrisy and then has been calmly going on perpetrating a swindle that he realised would be difficult to find out, it seems to me that he is in one of the more serious categories of dishonesty.
Lord Renton: I should like to support everything that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has said in favour of retaining suspended sentences. The one point that I would stress, however, which he did not stress, is that the suspended sentence acts as a deterrent upon the particular offender from committing further crimes. That is very much a point in its favour.
The lower we go down the scale of judicial responsibility it is a strange paradox that the more cases we have to try. I was at the middle range. I did a lot of work as a recorder, deputy chairman of quarter sessions, and relief judge at the Central Criminal Court. I did all of it in the days before the suspended sentence was introduced by the 1973 Act, and indeed before the other remedies introduced by that Act had been suggested by Parliament, and one was in a great difficulty. There were many cases in which one realised that one should avoid sending the person to prison, and if one did not send him to prison there was the opportunity of fining. But often fining was ineffective because the person had no hope of

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paying without committing further crime. As a result one tended to place heavy obligations upon the probation officers.
If we were to accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that is what would happen again. After all these years I think I can disclose that I was once reported to a Lord Chancellor of the day for not sending enough people into custody and for placing too big a burden upon the probation officers. But that was because there was no opportunity of suspended sentences. For goodness sake, do not let us get rid of them.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I should like to support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and admit to being a bit depressed by what I have heard from the last two speakers on the sentencing policy of keeping the suspended sentence. This Bill recognises, very much to its credit, the failure and unpopularity of the partly suspended sentence and the extended sentence, and both have gone.
Turning to the present clause, it very nearly recognises the same unpopularity and the same failure of the suspended sentence but does not quite go so far as to abolish it. It draws back by introducing strict restrictions on its use (which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, now wants to get rid of), and by dredging up that old lifebelt for waterlogged and sinking statutory provisions, the "exceptional circumstances".
I entirely agree with the noble and learned Lord that the exceptional circumstances are the essence of all mitigation in the criminal courts. Nearly all mitigation emphasises the exceptional circumstances of a particular case and a particular accused. Almost everything can be exceptions: the person's health; the person's age; the person's employing of a number of other people; sickness in the family; poverty; the fact that he or she made total reparation and repayment, and so on, and even the character to which the noble and learned Lord referred to in "milk the float". Therefore these words really mean nothing at all and are simply a way of retaining the, I would say, now discredited suspended sentence.
When a person is sentenced to a suspended sentence he walks out of court a free person at that moment, possibly with a fine or compensation order as well. It is a less serious penalty at that moment than the community service order or the probation order with conditions. So we have the situation where the person walks out of court a free man and has in fact a less serious penalty than the penalties of community service which are so properly provided for in this Bill.
Of course what happens, with the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, is that with 20,000 or so magistrates there cannot be consistency as to how the suspended sentence is used. All the statistics show that the suspended sentence has in fact been used over and over again where community sentences or probation orders could have been properly used instead. The result of the suspended sentence has been substantially to increase the number of people in prison.
Surely the time has come to get rid of that sentence. A conditional discharge, for instance, is far more
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useful than a suspended sentence. If there are breaches of a community sentence the person is brought back and can be sent to prison. That is exactly the same as a suspended sentence but it has flexibility. The trouble with a suspended sentence is that if the person is brought back he will be sent to prison except in, if I may use the phrase, exceptional circumstances. It is so rigid. Repeatedly people come back in circumstances where patience should be shown by a court. You must have patience with so many offenders. It is no good imposing an inevitable sentence at an early stage. If I may say so in the presence of the Leader of the House, the great thing about this Bill is that that flexibility is now to be found in the community sentences which are set out.
If we keep this sentence, we should be going absolutely against the whole spirit of the, Bill. We are trying and I say this to get the noble Baroness, Lady Phillips, to her feet— to move her away from her culture of sentencing. We are trying— to change the culture of sentencing that has been illustrated by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. For four years the noble and learned Lord was teaching the old culture of sentencing, with the result that the judiciary, and the young judiciary, continue on and on in the old culture, to use the noble and learned Lord's words today, that he "just escaped from prison".
It is always this question of coming back to prison being the ultimate sentence; the sentence that is in everybody's mouth all the time. All sentences are measured by "going to prison": "you have just escaped prison". This Bill gets rid of that idea. It gets rid of the idea that the only deterrence is prison, and brings in a completely new idea, a new culture, of treating people in the community in which they live, and having them do things that are difficult to do. It will involve a great deal of effort and a great deal of work by the probation service, but nevertheless it will be infinitely more effective. I ask Members of the Committee to support this amendment and also to have the courage to go one step further and get rid of this discredited form of sentence.
Lord Gisborough: I hope that my noble friend will resist the amendment. The task of sentencing some villains in the magistrates' courts is very often extremely difficult. We need more, not fewer, options. Indeed, the greater number of options available, the less difficult the task will be.
There is no similarity between a conditional discharge and a suspended term of imprisonment. I believe it is well known that the conditional discharge is used for comparatively minor crimes, whereas for the suspended sentence one needs to have a pretty rotten sort of offender before one considers its imposition. The two forms of sentence are totally different and they should not be confused.
Lord Monson: Amendment No. 28, which is tabled in my name and deals with partly suspended sentences, has been grouped not only with Amendment No. 27, which I fully expected, but also with Amendment No. 27A, which I did not expect.

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The revised Marshalled List was not available in the Printed Paper Office last night. Therefore, I only received a copy of it less than an hour ago.
In my view, to deal with three only partly related amendments would confuse the Committee inordinately. Therefore, with the leave of the Committee I shall speak separately to Amendment No. 28 after Amendments Nos. 27 and 27A have been discussed.
Lord Waddington: Different opinions are expressed in the amendments before the Committee. Moreover, a variety of different opinions have been expressed during the course of this interesting debate. We have before us two amendments concerning the fully suspended sentence. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, argued the case for its abolition whereas the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, argued not only for retaining the fully suspended sentence but also for providing the courts with the possibility of using it more widely than is envisaged under the provisions of Clause 4. I listened carefully to both arguments but I remain of the view that the approach reflected in the Bill is the right one.
Amendment No. 27 would abolish the suspended sentence. However, in 1989, the courts imposed nearly 30,000 fully suspended sentences. They clearly found it a useful disposal for many offenders. It enables a court to denounce a serious offence, but to reduce the punishment to take account of an individual offender's circumstances so that he is not sent to prison.
From time to time it is argued that there is a temptation for the courts to give suspended sentences in cases where, if there were no suspended sentences, they would not consider imprisonment appropriate; and that offenders in such cases then break the conditions of the suspended sentence and find themselves in prison inappropriately. However, the suspended sentence can be appropriate where there is no need for supervision and where the services of the probation service are not required. In fact, most of the offenders who receive a suspended sentence complete them successfully.
In 1989 over three-quarters of offenders who were given a fully suspended sentence completed their sentences successfully. If we took away the suspended sentence we would lose an important means of mitigating the penalty for serious offences in cases where such mitigation was justified. One result could be more people behind bars. I am sure that that is not the aim of the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
I now deal with Amendment No. 27A, tabled in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. As I said, we believe that there continues to be a place for the suspended sentence in the new sentencing framework. We also believe that the use of the word "exceptional" in Clause 4 correctly describes that place. Clause 1 provides that a custodial sentence should be imposed only where the offence is so serious that such a sentence could be justified or where the public needs to be protected. It follows, therefore, that there must be exceptional circumstances to enable a
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judge to come to the conclusion that whereas prison is justified within the terms of Clause 1, it need not in fact be implemented.
I do not agree with the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, that the word "exceptional" is quite meaningless and that any mitigating circumstance can be described as an exceptional circumstance. Indeed, the contrary has been proved often enough; for example, with the use of the word "exceptional" in the provisions concerning drink-driving offences where there was for years— though I am not certain whether it still exists — the provision that there had to be a disqualification unless there were exceptional circumstances. Everyone knew perfectly well— the courts clearly established the fact— that exceptional circumstances in that context certainly did not mean just anything which could be dredged up by the advocate and put forward as a mitigating circumstance. Therefore, the word "exceptional" clearly has a special meaning. I should have thought that an example might be the terminal illness of the offender or of a relative; some severe sickness or perhaps a situation where the offender runs a small business which would close down without him and would therefore mean the loss of jobs for his employees.
In all those circumstances, I suggest that the practice of the courts shows the usefulness of the suspended sentence. Moreover, to make sense of the new structure of the Bill and the restrictions on the use of custody, it is right to mark the fact that the power to use the suspended sentence should be restricted and only used in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, I urge Members of the Committee not to accept the amendment calling for the abolition of the suspended sentence, which is still a useful form of disposal, and to accept that the wording in Clause 4 is correct.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Richard: I listened with a great deal of interest to the noble Lord the Leader of the House explaining his position on this amendment. I trust that I am correct in assuming from what he said— though one cannot make a direct comparison— that the Government's view of "exceptional circumstances" in relation to this clause is at least as restrictive as is their view on the use of the phrase in the drink-driving legislation. The noble Lord will know, as indeed do I and any practitioner in the courts, that it is extraordinarily difficult to get oneself within the straightjacket of "exceptional circumstances" in terms of a drink-driving offence. However, if that is the way in which the Government are approaching the phrase "exceptional circumstances" in this Bill as regards suspended sentences the difference between their position and mine appears to be extremely slim. Assuming that to be the position, I shall beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ackner: I view with some concern the response given by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. My recollection is— though it is off the top of my head and, therefore, probably wrong— that the word "exceptional" in drink-driving cases has to be limited

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to the circumstances of the offence and must not relate to the individual circumstances of the person charged. Accordingly, the terminally ill person referred to by the noble Lord would not qualify.
However, if that is the noble Lord's definition of the phrase "exceptional circumstances" the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is absolutely right: it would mean that you are cutting down the use which you could make of suspended sentences to a great extent. The result would be an increase in the prison population because, as has been indicated, this option which has been used so extensively would no longer be used to the same extent. That is why I suggest to the Committee that we maintain the present jurisprudence.
I found the appropriate reference in Archbold, which is the criminal practitioner's Bible, at paragraph 5–209. It sets out a number of points which I believe the Government may have overlooked. The paragraph states:
"Before imposing a suspended sentence of imprisonment, the court must decide that a sentence of imprisonment is appropriate to the case, without regard to the question of suspension".
This is a way of avoiding sending people to prison who would otherwise do so. The paragraph continues:
"Any statutory requirements which apply to the imposition of imprisonment on the particular offender, in particular, those relating to social inquiry reports",
and all the rest of it, must apply in relation to the suspension. We must go through all the possibilities. Archbold cites the decided cases and says, as I tried to say, that one must go through all the gambits of other community disposals like community service before one ends up with a suspended sentence. I earnestly submit that the Government are reducing a valuable option. That is quite inconsistent with the theme which I strongly support that the fewer persons one can send to prison the better.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord, Lord Richard, wisely sought leave to withdraw his amendment. I believe it has not yet been withdrawn, so we are in order in discussing the next amendment, as the noble and learned Lord has done.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Nugent of Guildford): Will the noble Lord allow me to intervene? Was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, speaking to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, or to his proposal that he should be allowed to withdraw it, or was he speaking to his own amendment?
Lord Ackner: The answer is that I was speaking to my own amendment, using some of the well-known advocacy of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, to support it.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: I shall put to the Committee the request of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that Amendment No. 27 be withdrawn.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Ackner Lord Ackner moved Amendment No. 27A:
Page 4, line 9, leave out ("by the exceptional") and insert ("in all the").
The noble and learned Lord said: I beg to move the amendment formally.
Lord Renton: I suggest that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has given strong reasons for asking the Government to consider further whether it is wise to keep the word "exceptional" in the clause. I am sure that the last thing the Government wish to do is to weaken the opportunity for imposing suspended sentences. I can imagine the arguments people would get into in court as to whether the circumstances of a particular case were exceptional. We avoid all that difficulty if we accept the noble and learned Lord's suggestion. The court would merely consider all the circumstances and then decide whether there is to be a suspended sentence.
I see heads nodding on both sides of the Committee. I suggest to the Government that they would be wise to undertake to consider the point further.
Lord Waddington: I shall respond at once to that and say that I shall gladly consider the matter further. However, I ought to revert to something that was said earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Richard.
When I was replying to the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, I was meeting his point that the use of the word "exceptional" meant nothing. Indeed, despite the use of the word "exceptional", it would be open to any advocate to raise any matter in mitigation. I then referred, as an example, to the drink-driving legislation. I pointed out that there the courts had said that "exceptional" meant something and did not mean nothing. Clearly, it would be for the courts to decide what "exceptional" meant in this provision. Whether the courts would interpret it in precisely the same way as they have interpreted "exceptional" in the drink-driving legislation is another matter entirely.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: Does the noble Lord agree that the reason the matter was interpreted in that way by the Court of Appeal was that as a result of those words being used, all the advocates in drink-driving cases came before the courts with exceptional circumstances in relation to their clients? The result was that the Court of Appeal laid down the most extraordinary rule which has been referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner. It was that any exception in reference to the defendant could not be an exceptional circumstance. The only exceptional circumstances would be those which arose from the driving itself. That was how the Court of Appeal avoided the difficulty into which the Government have now fallen.
Lord Richard: I wish to say to the Leader of the House that it would be impossible to use the phrase "exceptional circumstances" in relation to a suspended sentence without it referring to the defendant, since it is the defendant standing before the judge and it is his exceptional circumstances that must be considered.
I am not sure whether the Government say this: there is no doubt that the purpose of the legislation is to confine radically the circumstances in which a suspended sentence may be imposed. However one tries to define "exceptional", it clearly means "not in

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normal circumstances". There has to be something which takes it beyond the normal circumstances into circumstances which are exceptional, for the court even to be in a position to consider whether or not a suspended sentence should be imposed. That is all we are talking about and it is the intention of the Government as expressed in this legislation.
Lord Waddington: That is entirely right. I believe that I made it abundantly plain that in order to bring these provisions into line with the theme of Clause 1 and the restrictions there on sentencing somebody to a term of imprisonment, it is logical in Clause 4 to put some restrictions on the use of the suspended sentence because of the restrictions which were earlier imposed in the Bill on the imposition of sentences of imprisonment.
However, I am prepared, as I indicated a moment ago, to consider whether the use of "exceptional" is appropriate and is the right way to reflect in Clause 4 the proper restrictions which have been agreed to by the Committee on sentences of imprisonment in Clause 1.
Lord Ackner: In view of the generous agreement by the noble Lord to consider the matter further, I shall withdraw the amendment. I end with my best point that these submissions are strongly supported by the Council of Her Majesty's Circuit Judges, and it is the circuit judges who carry out the bulk of the work in the Crown Courts. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5 p.m.
Lord Monson Lord Monson moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 4, line 17, leave out from ("offenders") to end of line 19.
The noble Lord said: As a complete layman, I am perplexed as to why the Government intend after almost 14 years to deprive the judiciary of a potentially extremely useful weapon in their armoury. I do not use the words "weapon" and "armoury" in any aggressive or fiercely punitive sense. Unfortunately, I happened to be in Lisbon on the day of the Second Reading debate. However, on my return I went through the Official Report with a toothcomb in the hope of finding a convincing explanation for this proposal. Unless I carelessly missed a significant phrase or sentence, only one noncommittal five-word reference was made to the proposal en passant, by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, as it happens, not by the Government or the Labour Opposition.
The Notes on Clauses supplied by the Printed Paper Office were not much more helpful; they did no more than claim that the power was little used by the courts. However, even a cursory daily glance at the pages of our national newspapers devoted to court cases seems to suggest otherwise. Even if it were the case that the powers are not much used, the argument would still be a weak one. When my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce and I were expressing misgivings not so long ago about the proposal to
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almost quadruple the maximum sentence for insider trading from two to seven years, the Government's reply was that even if people were to be rarely if ever sentenced to four, five, six or seven years' imprisonment for the offence, the higher maximum was a useful weapon to have in reserve. That would seem to apply with even greater force to the power to impose partly suspended sentences.
This amendment was due to be discussed before the Easter Recess but because of prolonged discussion of some earlier amendments it was postponed until today. The delay has given me the chance to see exactly what was said for and against partly suspended sentences almost 14 years ago. On 3rd May 1977 Mr. Patrick Mayhew (as he then was) in discussing the Criminal Law Bill, asked:
"Is there not now a strong case for a sentence that is suspended in part rather than wholly suspended as is the case at present?"— [Official Report, Commons, 3/5/77; col. 355.]
The House of Commons as a whole agreed with him because just such a clause was introduced into the Bill and it later became Section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. When the Bill returned to your Lordships' House in July of that year the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, speaking from the Government Front Bench (which was a Labour Front Bench in those days), said:
"The new sentence will, in our judgment, enlarge the scope of the sentencing power of courts. It should provide a salutary check to a number of offenders who will not only see how disagreeable deprivation of liberty can in fact be but will also be given an extra incentive to keep out of trouble".— [Official Report, 21/7/77; col. 469.]
The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, who was and still is a Liberal, said on that occasion at col. 471 of the Official Report:
"I welcome this new clause because it is a further weapon in a range, which should be as extensive as possible, in the hands of the Judiciary in passing sentence".
The noble Earl, Lord Mansfield, speaking from the Conservative Front Bench, also welcomed the new clause and said at col. 473 of the Official Report:
"It provides a new part of a judge's or bench's armoury which I think, especially in the case of a short, sharp sentence, will be very welcome".
I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, in her place today. She also welcomed the new clause. The only speaker who expressed any serious doubts whatsoever was the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, but even her objections were more objections of detail than of principle.
It is true that on studying Section 47 of the 1977 Act — that is the section which introduced the possibility of a partly suspended sentence— a defect becomes evident in subsection (2) which would benefit from rectification. The noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, arrived at exactly that conclusion in his aforesaid speech of 21st July 1977 when he said at col. 472 of the Official Report:
"The other matter I would raise is this. Is it really necessary, where a part of a sentence is ordered to be served, that it has to be as much as a quarter of the whole term? … There is much to be said for the view that a short sentence, actually served, of perhaps two, three or four weeks, might be more than sufficient to ensure that a first offender in those circumstances is extremely unlikely to offend again".
That is my opinion also for what it is worth.
Only last weekend I read of a case of two young men who had travelled on a 125 InterCity train journeying south. The men had had too many cans of strong lager to drink in the buffet car and opened one of the train's doors when the train was travelling at 100 miles per hour "for a lark". They were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. I have no wish to criticise this sentence from the point of view of abstract justice. Apart from anything else, I happen to be a friend of the judge in question. However, one wonders from the point of view of the public good whether it would not have been preferable to sentence the men to 12 months' imprisonment with 10 or 11 months suspended, had that been possible. Such a sentence would have delivered a shock which was undeniably sharp but also short.
The sentence would have been short enough for the convicted individuals to escape being tempted into criminal habits or taught the tricks of the trade by the experienced criminals to be found in every prison. With luck it would also have enabled them to keep their jobs in as much as most if not all of the four, five or six weeks' actual imprisonment could come out of their annual holiday entitlement. After all, to throw them on to the dole queue greatly magnifies the danger of their getting on to the criminal treadmill subsequently.
Retention of the powers to impose a partly suspended sentence, ideally amended by what the noble Lord, Lord Wigoder, suggested— that is to say, allowing nine-tenths rather than three-quarters of the sentence to be suspended— would reassure the public. As regards most crimes, and certainly crimes of violence, the public regard sentences that involve no element of imprisonment whatsoever to be tantamount to meting out no kind of punishment at all. I was interested to hear the noble Lord, Lord Richard, effectively say as much when speaking to Amendment No. 27. Such a course of action might meet some of the complaints made by the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, in his Second Reading speech based on his experiences as a magistrate. It might also help to resolve the dilemma outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, on Second Reading who referred to the problems posed by young car thieves, particularly joyriders.
On a topical note— no doubt my following comment will be controversial— such a course could provide the ideal means of dealing with impulsive, self-centred, but by and large not basically evil young people, such as bomb hoaxers. They certainly deserve a short, sharp shock even for a first offence, but a long period of imprisonment— except for a repeat offence — is generally unnecessary and is possibly counter-productive.
It would not be appropriate to press the amendment this afternoon. However, I should like to hear the opinions of noble Lords and noble and learned Lords who have more experience than myself on this matter. I should also be interested to hear why the powerful arguments that were advanced 14 years ago, not least by the noble friends of the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, are deemed to be no longer valid. I beg to move.
Lord Ackner: I wish respectfully to support this amendment. In reading through the Official Report of the first day of the Committee stage, I was saddened to note that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, with the enthusiasm for which he is well known, had been frustrated in his search in the Library for the handbook issued by the Judicial Studies Board on sentencing, and in particular on sentencing guidelines. As the Library had removed our copy from the Law Lords' Corridor, I felt particularly saddened as I had advised the noble Lord to go in quest of it there. He can now be assured that a copy is to be found there. I refer to that matter because in document C1 of that bundle there are guidelines issued by the Court of Appeal in the case of Clarke in 1982 on partly suspended sentences. I should have thought those guidelines were unlikely to have been issued unless partly suspended sentences are used and used frequently. I believe that to be the case.
I wish to quote a portion of the judgment given by the Lord Chief Justice on behalf of the court where he stated:
"If imprisonment is necessary, and if a very short sentence is not enough, and if it is not appropriate to suspend the sentence altogether, then partial suspension should be considered. Great care must be taken to ensure that the power is not used in a way which may serve to increase the length of sentence. It is not possible satisfactorily to forecast the precise way in which the provisions of section 47 might be used. In general the type of case that we have in mind is where the gravity of the offence is such that at least six months' imprisonment is merited, but when there are mitigating circumstances which point towards a measure of leniency not sufficient to warrant total suspension.
Examples are always dangerous, but we venture very tentatively to suggest a few: first of all, some serious `one-off' acts of violence which are usually met with immediate terms of imprisonment: some cases of burglary which at present"—
— that was 1982—
"warrant 18 months' or two years' imprisonment, where the offender is suitably qualified in terms of his record: some cases of fraud on public departments or some credit card frauds, where a short immediate sentence would be insufficient; some cases of handling involving medium-range sums of money; some thefts involving breach of trust; some cases of stealing from employers. All these are examples of cases where it may be possible to suspend part of the sentence without harm to the public and with benefit to the prisoner.
"We would like to echo the words of the Advisory Council on the Penal System in paragraph 282 of their 968 report on the review of maximum penalties: 'We view the partially suspended sentence as a legitimate means of exploiting one of the few reliable pieces of criminological knowledge— that many offenders sent to prison for the first time do not subsequently reoffend. We see it not as a means of administering a "short, sharp shock," nor as a substitute for a wholly suspended sentence, but as especially applicable to serious first offenders or first-time prisoners who are bound to have to serve some time in prison, but who may well be effectively deterred by eventually serving only a small part of even the minimum sentence appropriate to the offence. This, in our view, must be its principal role".
Having reached the age of anecdotage, perhaps I may be allowed to give one reminiscence from the occasion when I was in charge of sentencing seminars. In groups of no more than four we used to attend at various prisons to get the advice of the prison governor. I remember going to Wormwood Scrubs with a group of three others. The governor said to me, "We are not involved in psychiatric work but we do find for some odd reason that group therapy among

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some of the odder inmates here— the compulsive drug takers, the sexual deviants and the like— is of some value. Perhaps one of you, and I only invite one so that it does not interfere with the day's proceedings, might like to go and listen". Being used to having to volunteer on an alphabetical basis, I agreed to go.
As I marched across with the warder a terrible thought suddenly struck me and I said, "I am going there merely to listen to what is going on?" "Yes", he said, "of course." We arrived at the three cells which had been converted into one. The warder in charge stood up and saluted. He said, "I have told everybody present that we have the advantage of a High Court judge's presence, and we are cancelling our present programme so that each and everyone here may have the opportunity of asking you questions".
One of the questions I was asked was, "What does it feel like for one of you judges sentencing the likes of us to prison?" Thinking fast on my seat, I said, "In many cases you know before I do that you are going to prison, particularly those who have had suspended sentences". Then we passed on to something else. A little while later the person who had asked that question said, "I thought that was a very unfair answer that you gave". I said, "About what?" He said, "About suspended sentences. I had a suspended sentence. I didn't know". I said, "Are you telling me that the judge who imposed the suspended sentence didn't tell you that if you committed an offence of any significance hereafter to prison you would go?" "Oh, yes", he said, "he told me that". I said, "Then what on earth are you complaining about?" "I didn't know what it was like", he said. I said, "If the judge had taken you to the front door and pushed your head through and said, 'Take a look at that', would that have made any difference?" "Oh, yes," he said, "I wouldn't have been there". That is an indication of how the first experience can be so particularly therapeutic.
In the old days the wise old judge on Assize, visiting an Assize town for only about a fortnight, would have those who pleaded guilty brought up for the plea. On the first day he would then say in many cases, not intending to send the person to prison, "Well, this is a very difficult case. I shall want to think about it during the course of this Assize. You'd better be remanded in custody until the last day and then I shall see what I ought to do". On the last day he would make the appropriate speech, saying how nearly the prisoner had gone to prison, how fortunate he was to have the advantage and that he was going to be put on probation. Those 14 days inside waiting for the Assize judge to pronounce what the prisoner thought might well be a prison sentence was very valuable. It is not permitted nowadays, but let us not lose the partially suspended sentence.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Waddington: The Government's reasons for abolishing the partly suspended sentence were clearly set out in the White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public. They followed the proposal to that effect put forward by my noble friend Lord
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Carlisle of Bucklow in his most valuable review of the parole system. My noble friend pointed out, and the Government agree with him, that the partly suspended sentence does not fit easily with the new arrangements proposed for parole.
Under my noble friend's proposals, which as the Committee is aware are very closely reflected in Part II of the Bill, all those who receive a custodial sentence will serve at least 50 per cent. of their sentence in custody and the remaining term in the community either under supervision or at risk of being returned to custody if they commit a further imprisonable offence. That places them in a very similar position to people who might currently be given a partly suspended sentence. As such we can see little purpose in keeping this disposal.
It is also fair to say to the Committee that in the seven or eight years during which the courts have had this disposal available to them they have not chosen to make much use of it. In 1987 there were 2,700 partly suspended sentences; and in 1989 there were 2,200, only 5 per cent. of all sentences of imprisonment which were passed by the courts.
In those circumstances, I cannot advise the Committee to accept the amendment.
Lord Elton: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has underlined the merits of the very short sentence, in effect of 14 days. Perhaps it is unfair to ask him this question at such short notice; but before my noble friend sits down, can he tell the Committee what is the shortest sentence that can be imposed under the present Bill if partially suspended sentences are removed as proposed?
Lord Waddington: I do not know that there is any restriction on the court. I should imagine that it is possible for the court to impose the shortest sentence which it thinks is feasible in the circumstances. However, one cannot imagine a court in practice imposing a sentence of one day, because by the time the fellow had got to court he would be entitled to be released again. So far as I can remember, there is no restriction in the Bill on the length of the prison sentence.
Lord Gisborough: I support the amendment. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has said, from all accounts the first few days in prison and the regime are a shock. However, after a number of days— perhaps a week or a fortnight— people become accustomed to prison and the shock wears off. In many cases the ideal sentence would be that one week before the villain had had time to get used to imprisonment so that he would not want to go back. After two weeks he begins to get used to it and finds that it is not so bad and he knows that he can stand it. The partially suspended sentence would be helpful.
Lord Renton: I was beginning to think that the arguments for and against the amendment were rather finely balanced until my noble friend the Leader of the House came to the last fact that he presented to the Committee when he said that 5 per cent. of sentences were partly suspended and partly for imprisonment. That 5 per cent. is significant and useful. If we seek to

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achieve a certain degree of flexibility of powers for the courts, it is important for them to be able to continue to send 5 per cent. of prisoners to prison for a partly suspended sentence. It would be a great pity if my noble friend were to invite the Committee to turn down the proposal. I hope that we can consider what he and the noble and learned Lord have said and perhaps come back to the matter at a later stage. It is not an easy matter and the arguments are finely balanced.
Lord Waddington: I must point out to my noble friend that the small number of people who were subjected to a suspended sentence which was part of a total sentence, part of which was put into effect, related to a time before the new proposals on parole had been implemented. Even under the present set-up, comparatively few people receive partly suspended sentences, but there will be little point in the partly suspended sentence when the new parole regime, which is dealt with in a later part of the Bill, comes into effect.
Lord Monson: I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for his reply. I admit that I am at fault in not having had time to read the Carlisle proposals, although I believe that I am right in saying that no Government a re under any obligation to accept such proposals in toto: they can pick and choose.
Like the noble Lord, Lord Renton, I was somewhat staggered by the statistic given by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. Five per cent. is quite a substantial proportion. I should have thought that that in itself proves the merits of retaining the power.
The noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, put the arguments very cogently. It is the experience of two or three weeks in prison that deters people. As we have had one anecdote this afternoon, perhaps I may briefly relate another. About 13 years ago, just after the measure became law, I spoke to an elderly judge one evening and asked him whether he approved of these powers. He said, "Not a bit of it. Prisons are so soft and cushy nowadays. Young people will go to prison for a few weeks and think, 'My goodness me, there's nothing wrong with a life of crime if this is all I face". As I said, he was a fairly elderly judge and I do not think that in practice many young people today would react in the way that he suggested.
I am most grateful to my noble and learned friend Lord Ackner for his extremely powerful support, even though we may have some minor quibbles over the precise interpretation cif the phrase "short, sharp shock".
I believe that there is much more support for the principles of the amendment than is evident this afternoon and that it is riot solely confined to any one party. I do not therefore propose to press the amendment this afternoon but reserve the right to come back at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Restrictions on imposing community sentences]:
Lord Ackner Lord Ackner moved Amendment No. 28A:
Page 4, line 21, leave out subsection (1).
The noble and learned Lord said: The amendment is designed to inquire, when dealing with community sentences, particularly a probation, community service, curfew or supervision order, on what basis one can justify that such an order can be imposed only where the seriousness of the offence warrants it. That seems to be inconsistent with the philosophy regarding probation orders. If one looks at Clause 7 at the bottom of page 5, one sees the express reference to one of the aims being to secure rehabilitation. Clause 10(2), which deals with supervision orders, contains the same reference towards the bottom of page 8 and states that the making of a combination order is desirable in the interests of securing rehabilitation.
If, as has certainly been my experience, rehabilitation has generally been the main motivation for a probation or supervision order, to pui: in its place a provision that it can be imposed only because the seriousness of the offence warrants it seems to be a departure which is inconsistent with the philosophy in Clauses 7 and 10. It may be that you must remove a probation, curfew or supervision order from the community order defined in Clause 5(5), but to impose seriousness as the test seems to frustrate a great part of the reasons for imposing some community sentences. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: What I find rather curious about subsection (1) is that it is there at all bearing in mind that the courts are asked not to make community orders unless the offence is serious enough for the sentence. Does that not apply to every kind of sentence that the court must consider and impose? Are we not teaching our grandmothers to suck eggs when we say that? It may be that I have failed to understand the significance of the point, but it is not the kind of thing that we normally need to say in the course of legislation on common law.
Lord Mishcon: The noble Lord the Leader of the House is most courteous. I wanted to intervene so that the Committee may have an opportunity to see the wider area which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, has in part covered. As I see it, the new clause to which he refers makes probation a matter of a conviction. That situation has not obtained until now.
Some of the debate is complete. I shall not weary the Committee by repeating my speech when we come to Amendment No. 45. I thought that I would make the point now so that it can be discussed.
Lord Waddington: The simple answer to the point made by my noble friend Lord Renton is that one goes right back to the beginning of the Bill and finds in Clause 1 the concept of the sentence being the one which is appropriate according to the seriousness of the offence and which concentrates the mind of the sentencer on the instant offence and nothing else. That is refined a little subsequently, but it is the origin of the concept.
Lord Renton: With respect, that refers to custodial sentences. I found that understandable. I do not find this quite so necessary or understandable in the case of those non-custodial sentences of the kind listed here as those to which a community order may be applicable.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Waddington: With respect to my noble friend, he has moved on to the second point. The first point is that the clauses quite logically start with the proposition that the sentencer must concentrate initially on the seriousness of the offence. That concept is clearly spelt out in Clause 1.
When one goes down from sentences of imprisonment to community penalties one can well understand the initial surprise with which the concept of "seriousness" may be greeted. But I hope to persuade the Committee that the idea is both a logical, important and practical step towards achieving the Bill's object of making sure that each offender, whatever the crime, receives the appropriate sentence.
It is too easy to see community penalties as a bit of a soft option. In the case of a probation order, that view up to now has been rather reinforced by its not having the status of a sentence of the court. But we are changing all that, and doing so not least because of the way in which probation orders have changed over the years. When the order was first introduced the intention was that it should be used mainly for first or relatively trivial offenders. Probation orders have recently been used increasingly for persistent offenders and those whose offences put them at risk of custody. In 1989, 86 per cent. of people given probation orders had previous convictions, and 38 per cent. had served a custodial sentence. Probation orders are now used for quite serious offences. In 1989, 11 per cent. of those given probation orders were convicted of violence against the person and 20 per cent. of burglary.
The probation order is now a penalty which can make significant demands on relatively serious offenders. For the vast majority of offenders (some 86 per cent. in 1989) a fine or discharge is the appropriate disposal. There is no point in taking up the time and expertise of the probation service looking after offenders who can be dealt with perfectly well by fines.
At the other end of the scale are custodial sentences, which in general, according to Clause 1 of the Bill, are to be imposed only where such a sentence can be justified to mark the seriousness of the offence. Community penalties are for those offences which are not so serious as to require the use of custody but which are more serious than can be adequately dealt with, for instance, by a fine or conditional discharge. The wording of Clause 5(1) reflects in relation to community penalties the principle that the first factor to be considered in determining the penalty to be imposed is the seriousness of the offence. Clause 5 does not set an absolute standard of seriousness which has to be satisfied, nor does it make the seriousness of the offence the only matter to be taken into consideration when awarding a community penalty.
In encouraging the trend for the probation service to work increasingly with more serious offenders, we do not suggest that the service abandons its work with
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less serious offenders whom it can help; but we feel there needs to be some threshold of seriousness before the resources of the probation service are committed. The court will have to be satisfied that the offence is serious enough to justify this, but it will be up to the courts to make the necessary judgment. The offence would not have to be all that serious to warrant a straightforward probation order without additional requirements. On the other hand, if the court were minded to give a combination order, with the maximum number of community service hours coupled with intensive probation supervision, I think it is right that the offence should be quite a serious one before that is done. Having decided under subsection (1) of Clause 5 that community service is justified, the court will be able to consider under subsection (2) which community sentence will provide a restriction on liberty adequate to punish the offence as well as being the most suitable for the offender: for example, by providing help to tackle the causes of his offending.
I hope that with that explanation the noble and learned Lord will accept that subsection (1) of Clause 5 serves a necessary and useful purpose and fits into the scheme and concepts of the Bill developed right from Clause 1.
Lord Mishcon: With his usual kindness, the noble Lord, Lord Renton, has pointed out to me that I used a wrong word in my brief intervention. I should not have said "conviction" but "sentence". At the moment probation orders are not sentences but they will be if the Bill is passed in its present form. I am most grateful to the noble Lord.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I should like to resist the noble and learned Lord's amendment and to say to him, if I may, that he is clearly stuck in the old sentencing culture. I entirely support what the noble Lord the Leader of the House has said. The whole purpose of the Bill is that community penalties are not soft options. They are in many ways more demanding of offenders than just rotting in prison doing nothing whatsoever. It seems to me that the purpose of the Bill is to try to alter the judiciary's present view that community sentences are soft options and that the only hard option is prison. With the greatest possible respect to the noble and learned Lord moving the amendment, I think it essential that if the Bill is to be successful when it eventually leaves the Chamber, the judiciary, of which he is such a distinguished ornament, should appreciate that those days are now over.
The present philosophy of sentencing is to get away from the total failure of the past philosophy and the complete negativeness and uselessness of sending people to prison over and over again, merely teaching other people how to get through the same circulating door. Here at last is a Bill which is going to stop that eternal practice and make it perfectly proper to impose community sentences, not prison sentences, over and over again. Therefore, I am very much against the amendment. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will, by the time the Bill leaves this place, realise that perhaps the Government are right on this occasion.
Lord Gisborough: Though I do not agree with the proposal, I can see some point in it in relation to community service orders. However, I find it very difficult to see that curfew orders should be subject to subsection (1) of Clause 5.
The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, referred to people going to prison aver and over again. However, there are some villains who continue to do the same thing over and over again and are a danger to the public. I dread to think what the public would say if such offenders were just given more and more community service which they failed to carry out and could not go to prison.
Lord Ackner: With the deepest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson. once again the needle has got stuck on the record with his constant refrain. He has missed the whole point of the amendment, which I am sure is my fault. The amendment is designed to ensure in particular that probation and supervision orders are not restricted but should be available in the widest possible way and accordingly should not be tied in with the seriousness of the offence.
I refer the noble Lord to a memorandum which I understand was sent to the Home Office by the Council of Her Majesty's Circuit Judges:
"We consider that it is wrong in principle to associate the making of, in particular, Probation or Supervision Orders with the seriousness of any offence/s committed. Judges"—
perhaps the noble Lord will pay particular attention—
"have always taken the view that what is important above all in very many cases is the rehabilitation of the offender and/or preventing him/her from further offending. In innumerable cases it has been found that the making of supervision or probation orders for obviously minor offences"—
that is to say, those that are not serious—
"has introduced a measure of sanity into the chaotic domestic background of a persistent petty offender or a young person frequently cautioned".
How that personifies the carnivorous judge that the noble Lord constantly shows us I totally fail to follow.
This is a request by the judiciary, particularly those dealing with this: "Please do not restrict us in the use that we make of, in particular, probation or supervision orders. We want to rehabilitate people. We do not want to send them to prison. In fact we never have". That is the whole purpose of this amendment.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 4, line 35, leave out subsection (3).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move.
Lord Elton: I should like to speak briefly to this amendment. I should do so more lucidly had the piece of paper which contained my notes not escaped from my hand in the past 30 seconds. The purpose of the two amendments which I tabled to the subsection which this amendment seeks to remove from the Bill is to elicit a response from the Government. I hope therefore that I may speak briefly on the subject.
The amendments to which I refer are Amendments Nos. 30A and 30B. They fall within the subsection which Amendment No. 30 now before the Committee seeks to remove from the Bill. I do not resist the
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proposal to remove it. I speak to the two pilot fish which I have put to swim beside this shark before it disappears.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Nugent of Guildford): I should have explained to the Committee that Amendment No. 30 pre-empts the two amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, which is the full justification of his wish to speak.
Lord Elton: I am most grateful. The difficulty which this amendment addresses is that many people who are sentenced by the courts for a second time arrive in court not because they are highly organised and vicious criminals but because they are highly disorganised, inadequate people. The effect of a second sentence is often to put before them requirements in addition to the requirernent of the first sentence which in itself was almost as much as they could cope with. In some statutes the court is required to consider the ability of an offender to discharge the requirements of a sentence before it is made but in other statutes it is not so required.
It has been represented to me that there is a large number of cases in which inadequate people, very often inadequate young people, are given requirements by a court making a second sentence which are too complicated for those people satisfactorily to carry out. One would expect that a court would have in mind the ability of the convicted offender to meet its requirements before it imposed those requirements on him. However, it seems odd that that requirement should be explicitly put on the courts in some legislation and completely omitted in other legislation. As a result there are cases of practitioners in this field being worried by the phenomenon.
The amendments are simply to draw this concern to the attention of the Government. I shall listen to their reply, in the light of which it may be possible to decide whether I ought to put something down to a part of the Bill that will remain in the statute at a later stage.
5.45 p.m.
Lord Waddington: Perhaps I may be allowed to rise to allay the fears which have been expressed by my noble friend. In fact there are several provisions already to ensure that unsuitable community sentences are not given.
Clause 5(2) (a) provides that the particular community order passed on the offender by the court must be the most suitable for him. Clause 6(2) requires a court to consider a pre-sentence report before deciding whether an offender would be suitable for a supervision or probation order with additional requirements, a community service order or a combination order. In addition to all that, Section 14 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973, as amended by Clause 9, prevents a court making a community service order unless it is satisfied that the offender is a suitable person to perform community service work. Then again, when a court makes a probation order with a requirement to undertake specified activities or to attend a probation centre, or when it makes a community service order or a curfew order, it is required as far as practicable to avoid any

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conflict with the offender's religious beliefs or with the requirements of any other community order to which he may be subject, or interference with the times at which he works or attends school or any other educational establishment.
So far as curfew orders are concerned this appears in the Bill in Clause 11 and the conditions apply to the other orders by virtue of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973. No community penalty could be held to be suitable for a particular offender if that offender was unable to comply with its requirements. Of course the courts will have to distinguish between a genuine inability to comply with a particular requirement— for example, because the offender was too ill to be able physically to do the demanding work of a community service order— and cases in which it was merely inconvenient for the offender to comply — for example, because the offender could not be out and about when he wanted. But community penalties are a restriction on liberty and that implies a certain amount of inconvenience to the offender.
I hope that when my noble friend reads in Hansard the report of the discussion and goes through all the various references which I mentioned, he will see that indeed it would be quite inappropriate and wrong for the court to impose a community sentence when the offender was not able to comply with the requirements of the sentence.
Lord Elton: I am most grateful to my noble friend for that lengthy and detailed reply. He is quite right. I shall have to study it between now and the next stage. I can assure him that I am not concerned with cases in which either illness or mere convenience are the matters at issue but with those in which the disorganised nature of the young person is concerned. All of us have in our families, if not children, at least nephews or nieces— I say that in order to absolve noble Lords who are sensitive about their immediate family— who with the best will in the world cannot get their act together and fall into great difficulties as a result. It is those people with whom I am concerned.
I am most grateful to my noble friend. I shall see whether his catalogue covers all cases. In the interim I hope that his officials will also consider why there is this general anxiety that inappropriate orders are nevertheless made. At the next stage we can cover that ground.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 30A and 30B not moved.]
[Amendments Nos. 31 to 32A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 4, line 47, leave out paragraph (d).
The noble Lord said: I speak in relation to two matters which have been grouped together. The first is the new curfew order and the second is the enforcement of the curfew order by electronic tagging.
This group of amendments would delete Clause 11 of the Bill which introduces the curfew order as a sentence of the court; and Clause 12 which provides
1386
for curfews to be enforced by electronic monitoring of offenders. Perhaps I may say a few words about curfews and then about electronic tagging.
The curfew order in our view is a wholly negative measure which does nothing to change offenders' attitudes towards criminal activity. In contrast, measures such as community service, probation orders and reparation to victims involve working with offenders to try to change their attitudes and to divert their energies in more constructive directions. Curfew orders do none of that. They are indeed exactly what they say: an attempt to impose a curfew on an individual as a sentence of the court.
It is interesting that the courts so far appear to agree with the analysis that it is a negative and not very helpful power. Since 1983 curfew requirements have been available to juvenile offenders as a condition of supervision, but they are hardly ever used. In 1988 fewer than 10 curfew requirements were imposed on juveniles in England and Wales. In contrast, during the 1980s the courts have made extensive and very successful use of constructive measures such as intensive supervised activity schemes for juveniles and probation day centres for offenders aged 17 and over. The power regarding juveniles has existed since 1983. If it has not been used, one is bound to ask why not. The short answer is that the courts are not prepared to impose sentences which they know they cannot enforce. That must have been apparent at some stage to the Government when, having decided that they liked the idea of curfew orders, they had to find some way of enforcing them. The idea of electronic tagging therefore emerged.
The origin of the tag was in Albuquerque in New Mexico in the United States of America. Judge James Love studied the exploits of someone called Spiderman in a comic cartoon. I am told that Spiderman in that issue of the cartoon had been trapped in a net by the evil Mr. King Pin. Mr. King Pin bragged apparently that Spiderman would be his permanent prisoner. He therefore attached an armlet to the beleaguered hero in order to track him over the city on a giant monitor screen. Judge Love was a person of technological bent, with some experience in electronics, who had some contacts in the electronics industry. He briefed some friendly technicians— and so penal policy in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was developed.
By the time tagging arrived in this country via Marconi UK it had been developed in Florida. Marconi UK concluded from their knowledge that:
"of the current American experience besides the normal professional recommendations from probation, Legal and Psychiatric Reports, the following is the basic criteria for allowing/selecting suitable potential wearers".
First, they should be a minor or first-time offender or have a previously clean record. Secondly, they should have some form of fixed abode. Thirdly, they should be in employment. Fourthly there should be an available telephone. In other words, the blueprint tagee (if that is the right word) is exactly the person who would not need the tagging anyway because of his nature and social background.
In August 1988 the Home Office invested in three electronic tag pilot schemes for remand prisoners. The

1387
numbers were small. Three courts were involved in Tyneside, Tower Bridge and Nottingham. The Home Office hoped for 150 tags. In fact only 50 people were monitored, including one man who was counted twice. Of the 49 individuals, some 29 either breached their house arrest conditions or were charged with a further offence. Three of the 29 were allowed to continue in the scheme. Of the remainder, six had their tag removed because the criminal charge was varied, in one case because there was a need for a leg operation. In three cases the charge was withdrawn. Eleven defendants completed without breach. Of those, five were imprisoned, three received community service, two were put on probation and one found not guilty. Nearly 80 per cent. therefore breached, violated or removed the device.
Throughout the six-month period, there was a steady stream of disaster stories. In Tyneside a defendant was about to be tagged but escaped from the court by jumping out of the dock before the anklet could be fitted. Another absconded to the South East of England losing his tag on the way. In London two young men from Scotland were tagged with a condition of residence. Later they appeared on television. The reporter, who ought to have known better, paid them a fee. They hit the pubs, went on the run, and, so far as is known, one of them certainly has not been seen since.
In Nottingham, the very first man to be tagged complained of the number of home visits from Securicor, the scheme operators, to check alleged violations. He claimed that the device did not work in certain parts of his flat. Many landlords were reluctant to accept bailees with tags because of the intrusive nature of the scheme. The authorities therefore found a lodging house that agreed to accept them. Unfortunately the first defendant referred demanded to be returned to court because he said that the lodgings were infested and that Lincoln Prison would be a preferable residence.
Finally, the experience of Mr. T offers a fair summary of the scope of the problem. He was charged with burglary and ABH. He had 17 previous convictions. During the experiment probation staff reported that he had 28 violations— which did not lessen police hostility towards tagging. He absconded last January, was rearrested, de-tagged and remanded in custody. His case officer believes that he was later hailed but failed to turn up for his sentence. A Bench warrant was then issued. In all there were 217 violations, 159 equipment failures including tamper alerts, dead spots, home unit failures, battery failures, and— the Committee will not be surprised to hear— British Telecom line faults.
This scheme has been in use at some stage in the United States of America. In Washtenaw County, Michigan, a study from 1987 to 1988 revealed that offenders were rejected from tag schemes on the grounds of probable failure, if (1) they were convicted of assault; (2) they had a history of flight behaviour (which I assume means running away and does not refer to aviation); (3) they had been involved with
1388
drugs; (4) they did not have a permanent residence; or (5) they did not possess a 'phone. As a result only 12 offenders were accepted out of the 223 considered.
With that background and with that history on the Government's experiment, seriously to suggest to the Committee that it is a method that a reputable court would be prepared to attempt to use in order to enforce a curfew order is, I hope, a suggestion that the Committee will not accept.
The total cost of the experiment was £ 700,000 to deal with 50 defendants. If my arithmetic is correct, that is about £ 14,000 per defendant. That is about the annual salary of a probation officer. For the £ 700,000 which the Government spent on producing this farcical scheme we could have employed 50 probation officers for one year doing a far more: useful job.
Electronic monitoring would do little or nothing to divert offenders from crime or prison. Courts in the experimental areas have considered few people to be suitable for electronic monitoring. Most people have broken their bail conditions and more than £ 500,000 has been spent on experiments which have proved a dismal failure. Unlike community service and probation orders— regrettably the Government appear to be serious about the matter so it behoves us to look at it seriously— it is a wholly negative measure which does nothing to change offenders' attitudes towards criminal activity.
If the same resources which are to be used to set up the system of curfew orders backed by electronic monitoring were used to finance more constructive community penalties, many more people could successfully be diverted from custody. These measures are more likely to divert the offenders at whom we are aiming, most of whom have disorganised and chaotic lifestyles, not from crime but towards it. I beg to move.
6 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: In the light of what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I must make an admission. When the matter was first put before some members of the all-party penal affairs group, I did not oppose it. At that time my view was that those of us who spend a great deal of time telling i he Government to reduce the number of prisoners on remand should be sufficiently open-minded when such proposals come before us.
On the basis of what I then saw, I became sceptical for one reason. All the evidence put before us by a well-motivated private citizen who talked to us about the matter drew on American experience. Even on the basis of what he put before us as an enthusiast that experience indicated to me that it was unlikely to be reproduced in the British courts. I took that view for one reason; that on the basis of cases in the state of Florida if the measure were seen as an alternative to custody, it was highly unlikely that any of the people who had a tagging order made against them would be remanded in custody in this country. They were alleged to have committed extremely minor offences.
Nevertheless, Mr. Patten was a great enthusiast for the measure. I say that with no criticism because many of the sensible proposals in the Bill appear as a result

1389
of his energy as a junior Minister in the Home Office. It is now almost inconceivable that we shall solemnly pass the proposals. The research was carried out by the Home Office whose evaluation report stated:
"Magistrates and judges did not seem to have much confidence in the applicability of electronic monitoring as an alternative to a remand in custody, and commented on the difficulties of finding suitable candidates for it. They were willing to countenance a trial with a limited time-span, but if monitoring were to be introduced on any national basis then much greater confidence in the system on the part of both these groups would be vital".
On the basis of the evidence that we have from the three magistrates' courts in different parts of the country it is obvious that there is little support for the idea in the magistracy. Furthermore, some of the police officers involved have reacted with a gale of laughter. Notwithstanding the evidence of the experiments, are we to be asked by the Minister to put the measure on the statute book? The noble Lord, Lord Richard, was entirely justified in making his devastating analysis of the situation. I hope that at this late stage the Government will not proceed with this wholly daft idea.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: I congratulate my noble friend Lord Richard on a splendid knock-about turn. We all enjoyed it very much. I fully support his objection to the use of the idea as proposed. I do not argue with my noble friend Lord Harris; I believe it is wrong to introduce the measure in this context. However, looking at the issue as an ordinary person one might ask whether it would be better to be in prison while one's wife and family are receiving assistance or with the governor's permission, whose confidence after some time one has acquired, go out on a tag at one's request and risk?
That is not an issue for discussion tonight because it does not yet arise; but I believe that eventually the measure will be used in that way. It is an inappropriate weapon for the courts and certainly inappropriate for the police. However, after much refinement it would be an appropriate method for a governor who, like the governor at Grendon 15 years ago, could let out for weekends people who had done the most terrible things saying, "I shall take the responsibility because I trust that chap and he will be back". He never failed. Many more governors would like to do that but they do not have the confidence and courage of Bill Gray. This measure might provide that and should not be dismissed only with laughter, although the suggestion is ridiculous as it appears in the Bill.
Earl Ferrers: We can conclude from the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, that he does not like curfew orders. The effect of his amendment would be to diminish the range of community orders from which a court could choose in imposing a community sentence. In following the sentencing provisions in the Bill, a court will ask itself whether an offence is so serious that it must impose a custodial sentence. If the answer is no, the court will then consider a community sentence. However, if the amendment were accepted, the court would not be able to include a curfew order. It would not be able to combine it with other community orders such as a probation order.
1390
Therefore, a court would have fewer options for imposing a suitable sentence for the offender which also accorded with the seriousness of the offence.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, made an engaging speech described by the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, as "knock about". So it was and it was jolly good fun to listen to. However, it was a Queen's Counsel at his best. Poor defendants pay Queen's Counsel a great deal of money to make engaging and jovial speeches diminishing a good cause. I was worried because the noble Lord, Lord Richard, reminded me of the politician who noted at the side of his speech, "Weak points! shout!". The noble Lord made a jolly speech over a weak point. The weakness was in saying that all these people have escaped and disappeared or appeared on television. That is a good argument for putting them in prison. The point of not doing so is in order that they can serve their community outside.
The curfew order and electronic tagging will not prevent a person from escaping. However, it will indicate when he has absconded and not fulfilled his obligations. If the noble Lord, Lord Richard, says that that is wrong and people subject to an order will abscond, it is an argument for keeping them in custody. I do not believe that that is in accord with measures for which Members opposite have been pressing; and certainly not with the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, whom I had thought would jump at such a proposal.
Curfew orders fill an obvious gap in the range of community sentences available to the courts. I should have thought that they would be welcome by all those who wish to see more offenders being dealt with within the community and not kept in custody. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that a curfew order is a negative measure. I see nothing negative about an order which not only keeps the offender out of prison but which also helps him to keep out of trouble. A curfew order rightly restricts his liberty and it is restricted by him being at home. That is the punishment for the offence which he has committed. However, the restriction is for no more than 12 hours per day and could be for as few as two hours per day.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that there are many failures in the monitoring system. Fifty defendants were monitored in three trial areas. A number absconded and were charged with other offences. It is not sensible to compare those results with general violations of bail. Obviously monitoring allows violations to be detected which would otherwise remain undetected.
The noble Lord referred to the total cost of the electronic monitoring trials. He said that £ 700,000 is a lot of money. Of course it is. However, it was a trial scheme. It established three different schemes on an experimental basis and involved special production of the equipment needed. That does not provide a realistic average cost for the use of electronic monitoring on a large scale.
Let us be perfectly clear that a curfew order enables a person to be sentenced not to custody but to a sentence within the community. It enables him to be at home under surveillance at times when the court may deem it suitable. In other words, if the person has been

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convicted of causing trouble at football matches, he may be told to be at home during the time a match is taking place. If he has been in trouble during pub opening times, he may be told to remain at home at those times. Electronic monitoring merely ensures that he is serving his sentence properly. If he does not, that is an offence.
If one does not accept that argument, one is really saying that people must be allowed to serve their sentence in the community without any check or those people are so bad and so likely to abscond that they cannot be allowed to serve the sentence within the community. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, he made a very good fun speech but it does not stand up. Electronic monitoring enables people to serve their sentence within the community with a check.
6.15 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord, Lord Richard, made a very good fun speech but he was drawing on the Home Office research study of these experiments. These experiments have been an abject failure. The cost does not concern us. If the cost had been double or treble the sum of £ 700,000 but the scheme had worked, we should be very much in favour of it. As I indicated, many of us began this process some years ago by being in favour of the experiment.
One purpose of an experiment is to find out whether or not something works. This does not work and has been a disaster. All one can say in the light of that situation is that it was right to attempt to see whether it would work. It has failed and it seems to me the Government are being stubborn by insisting on proceeding with a project which will, if developed throughout the rest of the country, cost substantial sums of public money.
If the noble Earl has any doubt about that perhaps he will look at the Home Office research study. It states:
"If electronic monitoring is to be developed then it will surely be on a national basis. This will ensure that the costs of the system will be high. Given the low numbers deemed suitable for monitoring during the trials, and the moves towards individualised disposals for offenders which focus on their specific offences, will there be enough candidates to make electronic monitoring financially cost-effective?".
Those of us who participate in debates on the criminal justice system of this country know that in many respects this is an argument about resources. Ministers constantly tell us— rightly, in my view— that they cannot do everything at the same time and they must make difficult choices. We are merely saying that in our view this is an ill-judged choice if it is decided to proceed. In fact the Government will be deciding to have not enough probation officers in some areas or police officers in other areas to carry out the work. Resources will be poured into this project, which, on the basis of the Government's own experiment, has been a failure. That seems to me a great pity and I believe it to be a profound mistake.
Earl Ferrers: I find the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Harris— to whom I always listen with great interest— slightly difficult to follow. He says that the experiment has failed. Perhaps I may suggest that he
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should be careful when he says that because he is saying that sentencing in the community has failed. The noble Lord shakes his head but that is the case. The system has worked. It showed that 29 people absconded who were sentenced in this way. That does not mean that the system failed. It showed that those serving such a sentence did not stick to their part of the bargain but technically the system worked. Therefore, I do not believe that the Committee should be under any misapprehension. The system by which it is possible to electronically monitor people works.
The noble Lord says that it will cost a lot of money if the system is developed across the country. Of course it will. However, if he wishes to see prisons emptier then there must be a commensurate cost. The cost of running an electronic tagging system is far less than keeping people in prison. Therefore, I dispute the assertion by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, that the system has failed. It has not failed; it has worked because it has shown when people have not been where they should have been. That is the whole point.
Lord Richard: It seems to me that there have been two failures. The electronics of the system have been shown not to be universally applicable to precisely the sort of people whom one would wish to tag. The second failure is the idea that somehow or other it is possible to have, as an effective sentence of the court, a curfew enforced by that electronic system. That has failed. I am in exactly the same position as I was at the beginning of the debate. I believe it right to test the opinion of the Committee on this issue.
6.18 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 33) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 79; Not-Contents, 117.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Addington, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Airedale, L.

Hughes, L.

Ardwick, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Birk, B.

Jay, L.

Blease, L.

Jeger, B.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kennet, L.

Bottomley, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Lawrence, L.

Carter, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Lockwood, B.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Longford, E.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

David, B.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

McNair, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Mishcon, L.

Falkland, V.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Foot, L.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Gallacher, L. [Teller.]

Murray of Epping Forest, L.

Galpern, L.

Nicol, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Parry, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Peston, L.

Grey, E.

Phillips, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Prys-Davies,

Hayter, L.

Rea, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Richard, L.

Rochester,L.

1393

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Seear, B.

Tordoff, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Walston, L.

Serota, B.

Whaddon, L.

Stedman, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Willis, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Winstanley, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Winterhottom, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Joseph, L.

Annaly, L.

Kimball, L.

Arran, E.

Kinloss, Ly.

Ashbourne, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Astor, V.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Long, V.

Belstead, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Blake, L.

Lyell, L.

Bledisloe, V.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Blyth, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Boardman, L.

Malmesbury, E.

Borthwick, L.

Mancroft, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Margadale, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Merrivale, L.

Brookeborough, V.

Mersey, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Milverton, L.

Caithness, E.

Monson, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mottistone, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Mountevans, L.

Carnock, L.

Munster, E.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Nelson, E.

Clanwilliam, E.

Newall, L.

Colwyn, L.

Norfolk, D.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Norrie, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Cox, B.

Onslow, E.

Craigavon, V.

Orkney, E.

Craigmyle, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Craigton, L.

Palmer, L.

Cross, V.

Pender, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Platt of Writtle, B.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Prior, L.

Donegall, M.

Rankeillour, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Rees, L.

Elton, L.

Renton, L.

Erroll, E.

Renwick, L.

Faithfull, B.

Rodney, L.

Ferrers, E.

Romney, E.

Fisher, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Flather, B.

Seccombe, B.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Sharpies, B.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Shrewsbury, E.

Gisborough, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Greenway, L.

Slim, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Halsbury, E.

Swansea, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Swinfen, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Harvington, L.

Tranmire, L.

Hemphill, L.

Tryon, L.

Henley, L.

Ullswater, V.

Hives, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Holderness, L.

Waddington, L.

Hooper, B.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Whitelaw, V.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Wise, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Wynford, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the ne gative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
6.26 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris Lord Morris of Castle Morris moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 5, line 2, leave out paragraph (f).
The noble Lord said: With the consent and authority of my noble friend Lord Richard I shall move the amendment standing in his name, which is a probing amendment seeking to elicit detail on the Government's policy and practice with regard to attendance centres. We believe strongly in attendance centres. For 40 years and more they have been cheap, local and realistic responses to certain kinds of crime. However, government policy at present seems to be strangely contradictory and paradoxical. In this matter the Home Office appears to be moving, like God, in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.
The Bill rightly places strong emphasis on community sentences. It is part of the underlying philosophy of the Bill that the greater number of offenders should be dealt with within the community. We applaud that; we support and encourage it. However, Clause 5(5) states that community sentences include attendance centre orders. Those orders should thus increase in significance, particularly in relation to young offenders where the emphasis on keeping offenders out of custody has always been much greater. Recently we have heard much of the "university of life". Prisons must not become the comprehensives of crime.
The latest edition of Attendance Centre News, a Home Office publication, glorifies 40 years of the attendance centre. It praises that method of sentencing. At page 15 it draws attention to the significance of such centres under the present Bill and states,
"the Bill will make a number of changes affecting young offenders. Seventeen year olds will be brought within the juvenile category. Along with 16 year olds they will form a new sub-group to whom special provisions will apply. The maximum length of Attendance Centre Orders for 16 year olds will be brought into line with that for 17 year olds at 36 hours (ie an increase of 12 hours). The Home Office is continuing to consider the implications of these proposals for the management of Attendance Centres".
The natural implication of those words is that an increase in facilities might be required. The only indication of any scaling down in provision is a relatively cursory one— again at page 15— indicating temporary closures at Oxford and Tonbridge. However, in December 1990 reports came to the Justices' Clerks' Society that junior attendance centres were being closed or amalgamated. There seems to have been no consultation or discussion; edicts have simply been issued to places like Basingstoke and Slough that they are to rationalise.
Inquiries established that the Home Office is currently closing junior attendance centres under a policy of rationalisation apparently based on present levels of use. Surely that is premature, given this Bill. The Justices' Clerks' Society wrote on 28th February 1991 to the Home Office complaining and asking for details, numbers and for a full explanation. As yet no reply has been received. Rationalisation in a matter like this is surely a dangerous policy. Attendance centres must be local or the clients will not bother to turn up.
We suggest a better alternative. Junior attendance centres that currently cater only for those below the age of 17 should be opening their doors to 17 year-olds in anticipation of the Bill's provisions. That would

1395
extend the facility to a marginally older group but one which is not adequately served in many areas of the country by existing senior attendance centre provision.
There is every reason to believe that courts would make good use of attendance centre orders for 17 year-olds if provision was increased in this way. I do not know what it costs nationally to provide attendance centres. I hope that whoever answers from the government Front Bench will be able to tell me. But common sense dictates that the attendance centre is one of the more economic provisions in the sentencing range. Typically, the costs are limited to the hire fee for a school hall on a Saturday afternoon plus two sessional fees of around £20 each for those employed to run the centre. To retain those we have, and to provide some more is surely not going to impose such a financial strain as will bring this great nation to its knees. If we do not, then Clause 5(5), as it stands, is no more than a pious hope willing the end but not providing the means. I beg to move.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Waddington: I think I understand what the noble Lord is saying; namely, that the Government are not prepared in future to provide enough attendance centres. If that is what the noble Lord is saying, then this amendment seems a most curious way of expressing that view. All this amendment does is to delete an attendance centre order from the list of orders which are community orders. Therefore the only effect of this amendment would be to maintain attendance centre orders but to free the courts from the disciplines which are imposed on them in respect of all other community orders when the courts are thinking of passing an attendance centre order. In effect, it would mean that the courts could still pass an attendance centre order but they would not have to be satisfied that the offence was serious enough to warrant the passing of an attendance centre order. The courts would not have to be satisfied that the passing of an attendance centre order was the most suitable way of dealing with the offender.
I cannot see much rhyme or reason in the amendment which has been tabled. The matter which the noble Lord raised does not seem to have any bearing on the amendment before the Committee. I have taken instructions quickly and if I have not been able to give the noble Lord as much information as he would like, I undertake to write to him and to give him any more information which I can obtain. The network of attendance centres exists to meet the demands of the courts for this provision. It is the case that some centres have been closed, but that is part of our programme of making sure that centres are available where they are needed and of not making them available where they are not needed. As I have said, I undertake to write to the noble Lord and answer any specific question which he raised as regards the provision of attendance centres.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: The noble Lord the Leader of the House is marvellously diplomatic. As we know, a diplomat is the kind of man who can tell you
1396
to go to hell in such a way as to make you positively look forward to the journey. However, I find that his reply says nothing very much about the future of attendance centres save that there will be some measure of rationalisation going on. However, I am grateful to him for his offer to write to me. I shall study what he has to say and, without prejudice to bringing back this matter at a later stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 5, line 2, at end insert:
("( ) A court shall not pass on an offender a community sentence unless it is satisfied that the necessary resources are available.").
The noble Lord said: This is a small amendment on which I have been advised by the Magistrates' Association. As I understand it, the problem with the community sentence of the kind described in this clause is that it must be credible, realistic and effective as an alternative to custody. That must be clear not only to the public and the judiciary but also to the offender. These criteria can only be realised if one can be sure that there are the necessary resources available. As I understand it, as concerns the various magistrates' benches throughout the land that is not always the case. So it would be helpful if we can have a small paragraph of this nature added to the Bill in order to make sure that there is enough pressure brought to bear to have the resources to implement a proper community sentence. I beg to move.
Lord Richard: I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House a question based on the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. I have great sympathy with the thrust of the amendment and the thinking behind it. However, it raises the issue of what happens if a court is satisfied that, the necessary resources are not available. In those circumstances, it may have decided, having gone through all the hoops, that a defendant should be put on probation, but the probation service is not sufficiently well-resourced to take the man. I am not sure what happens afterwards. When the noble Lord the Leader of the House replies, I shall be grateful if he will address himself to that point.
Lord Waddington: Most of us would agree that a number of offenders are sent to prison at the moment who could be more suitably dealt with in the community. Therefore it is a central theme of this Bill that there should be adequate community penalties available and that the courts should be encouraged to use them. It was always recognised that this would mean more resources for the probation service.
I have just refreshed my memory by looking at the last few pages of the White Paper on criminal justice published in February when I was at the Home Office. In the chapter on resources we went to great pains to indicate that if this new regime was going to work, and if we were to be successful in our efforts in keeping more people out of prison, that was going to need more resources for the probation service.
That is still the position. We plan to increase expenditure on the probation service by 12 per cent. in

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real terms in the next three years. We have made provision for a considerable increase in probation service manpower over this period. There will be nearly 1,100 additional probation officers. That is in anticipation of the increase in the service's workload that will arise from the Bill. We have faced up to the need to put the money where our mouths are, and also to face the fact that extra expenditure will be required in order to make more community service work.
I also point out that for certain kinds of community order the courts must already secure the agreement of those who will operate the order before it is made. For example, a probation order with a requirement to attend a probation centre may only be made if the person in charge of the centre agrees to accept the offender. Clearly such agreement would not be forthcoming if the centre could not cope because of lack of resources. I therefore invite my noble friend to withdraw his amendment on my assurance that we indeed recognise that, in order to make more community penalties available, in order to carry out the theme of the Bill, more resources will be required and have been planned.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I agree basically with the thrust of the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. There is one problem that I raised on a previous occasion concerning the probation service which I should like to mention now. I accept at once that there will be a significant expansion of the probation service as a result of the passage of this Bill. As I said a few moments ago, I know that everyone throughout the criminal justice system complains about the shortage of resources, and the probation service is no exception.
Nevertheless, there is one curiosity about the probation service which, so far as I am aware, applies to no other part of the public service—though no doubt having said that I will find that there are precedents. A substantial amount of work is carried out by probation officers in reality on behalf of the Lord Chancellor's Department for divorce court welfare work. The problem is that this type of work has been expanding at a substantial rate, for reasons that we all understand.
I realise that what I am about to say goes way outside this Bill, but it seems to me desirable first that, if the probation service is going to continue to carry out this work, there should be some specific vote from the Lord Chancellor's Department towards the cost of the probation service. It seems quite wrong that a service which is primarily a criminal justice service should in fact be subsidising the Lord Chancellor's Department in this way.
Secondly, I welcome the document produced by the Home Office a few years ago, Priorities in the Probation Service, which indicated to my complete satisfaction that the probation service should be seen primarily as a criminal justice service. All I would say to the Leader of the House is that I hope that at some stage this matter will be looked into. I was, speaking for myself, perfectly satisfied with the reply of the noble Lord on this amendment.
Lord Waddington: I can undertake to the noble Lord to convey to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary what he said.
Lord Mottistone: I thank my noble friend the Leader of the House for the comprehensive answer he gave to the questions posed by my amendment. There will still be difficulties because inevitably it takes time to do the build-up, as indeed my noble friend said it would. It is clear that the problem that it represents is fully realised by my noble friend and his noble friends, and I therefore request leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 6 [Procedural requirements for community sentences]:
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 5, line 3, leave out subsection (1) and insert:
("(1) In forming any such opinion as is mentioned in subsection (1) or (2) (b) of section 5 above, a court shall take into account all such information about the circumstances of the offence (including any aggravating or mitigating factors) as is available to it.
(1A) In forming any such opinion as is mentioned in subsection (2) (a) of that section, a court may take into account any information about the offender which is before it.").
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 36 and to speak to Amendment No. 37. We discussed these amendments on the first day of Committee with Amendment No. 10. They are mainly of a technical and drafting nature and are intended to clarify the procedures in Clause 6(4) determining a community sentence. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: I venture to suggest that subsection (1) in the Bill as it stands and the amendment that replaces it are both unnecessary. Each of them means that the punishment shall fit the crime and fit the offender. We could have said that incidentally, but the courts know this. They do this.
There are times when I feel that we are quite unnecessarily over-zealous in the way that we legislate. We are entitled to an explanation as to why the Government think, or the draftsman thinks, that we have to spell things out quite in this way. So far as the amendment is concerned, it is obvious that these are the matters that the court has to consider.
Earl Ferrers: I quite agree that the court has to consider these matters. But they are put in the Bill in order to make it crystal clear that when the courts have before them offenders they have to take all these matters into consideration. It is considered appropriate to put the matter in the Bill in the way suggested.
Lord Gisborough: Is it not extremely dangerous to pass this sort of legislation? If we spell out everything in detail and if subsequently we find something that is not spelt out, we assume that it is not meant.
Earl Ferrers: Of course there is always a danger of putting too much in a Bill and of putting in too little.
Lord Renton: It may be that my noble friend has some further information that he now wishes to present to the Committee?
Earl Ferrers: My noble friend is enormously encouraging in giving me the opportunity to rise to my feet again. I do not wish to delay the Committee in any way. The only information I would have imparted to my noble friend is that which I gave at the beginning. The amendment is part of the general scheme set out in the Bill to guide the courts on practice to be taken into consideration in such a matter. Therefore, what I said in the first place still continues.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 5, line 12, leave out ("for the purpose or) and insert ("before").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 38, 39, and 40 not moved.]
[Amendment No. 41 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
6.45 p.m.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Strabolgi): Before calling Amendment No. 42, I have to inform the Committee that if No. 42 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 42A or 43.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 5, line 19, leave out subsections (3) and (4).
The noble Earl said: This amendment is also of a technical nature and is to improve the drafting of the Bill. I say with deference to my noble friend Lord Renton that the amendment was discussed on the first day of Committee with Amendment No. 10, and I hope that this, like all the other amendments, will attract my noble friend's approval. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: May I say what pleasure it gives me to congratulate my noble friend on leaving out any part of this Bill.
Earl Ferrers: My noble friend's generosity is always boundless, and I greatly appreciate it.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 42A and 43 not moved.]
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 5, line 34, leave out subsection (6).
The noble Earl said: I shall be even more in favour with my noble friend because this also is a technical amendment to improve the drafting of the Bill and also leaves out a little bit of the Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 44A not moved.]
Clause 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 7 [Probation orders]:
Lord Mishcon Lord Mishcon moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 6, line 4, after ("may") insert ("instead of sentencing him").
The noble Lord said: There is one principle that the Committee may wish to accept immediately. If something is working satisfactorily, do not alter it. Let us at least listen carefully to the people who are carrying out the job if we are asking them to alter the
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nature of the work that they are doing. That is the background behind the amendment, which I invite Members of the Committee to accept. lt would ensure that a probation order does not, as this Bill says it should, amount to a sentence. I ventured to intervene earlier in order to bring the Committee's attention to the position under the Bill. I do so again now in moving my amendment, but in rather more detail.
As I indicated, the amendment seeks to maintain the present position. Perhaps I may re mind Members of the Committee of that. It exists under Section 2(1) of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 which provides that a probation order may be imposed where the court,
"is of opinion that having regard to the circumstances, including the nature of the offence and the character of the offender, it is expedient to do so, the court may, instead of sentencing him, make a probation order".
Moreover, Section 13 of that Act provides that,
"a conviction of an offence for which an order is made … shall be deemed not to be a conviction for any purpose other than the purposes of the proceedings in which the order is made and of any subsequent proceeding which may be taken against the offender under the preceding provision, of this Act".
We carried that provision forward in that spirit in our legislation when we passed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act in 1974. That Act declares that a probationer's "conviction" becomes "spent" as soon as the order is successfully completed, or a year after the person's court appearance, whichever is the longer. It provides the rehabilitated offender with limited protection against discrimination on the grounds of past offending history. As I asked at the beginning of my remarks, if something is working well and the principle is right, why alter it? However, if you intend to make alterations you should listen to the people who have to carry out the job and see what they have to say.
The National Association of Probation Officers is very definite in its view of this present position which was prophesied, if I may put it that way, in the White Paper. That prophecy did not have attached to it any reasoning whatever which I believe would be acceptable to the Committee. The association literally says that it cannot understand how probation (unless we are to abandon what is meant by that word) can possibly be changed into a sentence. 'That is exactly what it says. The association further states that the concepts involved are fundamentally incompatible; that a sentence is a determination of punishment pronounced by a court, and that punishment is,
"to cause to suffer for an offence".
On the other hand probation—that is how the association has always understood it and is the job it wants to carry out—involves putting aside, or deferring, any notion of sentencing and entails a period of proving and testing.
Probation officers are trained as social workers; they are not trained as people who are meant to carry out a punitive function. In this Bill we are ruining a whole history which goes back over the years, especially in regard to the treatment of young people. Despite those years of history of the probation service and the legislation which covers it, we are now making

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the probation order into a sentence and we are giving the court power to put conditions in the order which are of a punitive nature.
In dealing with another amendment in regard to probation the noble Lord the Leader of the House was good enough to give the Committee an analysis of those people who had been made the subject of a probation order. That analysis seemed to show that very serious offences were being committed in respect of which probation orders were being made. I inferred from that, as no doubt did other Members of the Committee, that we now have a different situation in regard to people who have committed serious offences and who have a pretty grievous criminal record being granted a probation order. However, that is not a reason for altering the whole principle of the probation order and the job of the probation service. It may be an indication that probation orders are being wrongly used. Perhaps we should look at an alternative within community service, which is a fairly novel position that the criminal and penal codes have taken up in our legislation.
It may be that in future probation orders will not be meted out in the circumstances outlined by the noble Lord the Leader of the House. However, for heaven's sake let us have the principle of a probation order. It has stood up well in seeking to ensure that young people especially are given the opportunity of proving their worth, despite the fact that there has been a conviction for what may be a relatively minor offence or indeed a first offence, when the court wants to try the possibility of rehabilitation.
Let us listen to the probation service—it deserves well of this Chamber, and indeed of the country—before we do something as serious as not inserting in this part of the Bill the words which I am endeavouring to put in the legislation by way of this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, has raised an extremely important matter of principle. I earnestly hope that the Government will either agree to accept the amendment or say that, as a matter of principle, they agree that something to the same effect should be done.
Ever since the probation service was introduced early in this century fundamental to it has been the fact that placing someone on probation is not a sentence. Indeed, when placing someone on probation the courts have always told the offender, "You are not being sentenced; you are being given a chance. But for the period of the probation order"—which varies generally between nine months and three years—"you will have to accept the guidance of the probation officer. You won't have the stigma of a sentence recorded against you as long as you accept that guidance. However if you are in breach of the probation by committing another offence, you will have to be punished not only for that offence but for the breach of the probation order. You will then be sentenced for the offence on which you have now been found guilty".
It is an important matter. It would be unfortunate if, in the desire to recast our system of treatment of
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offenders, the Government were incautiously to group probation with other matters mentioned in Clause 5(5), just for the sake of grouping them together as alternatives to custody. I hope that my noble friend will give a sympathetic answer.
7 p.m.
Lord Carr of Hadley: I support the amendment. I have to confess to the Committee that I came in at this moment by chance, I had not intended to participate in the debates today and in a way I need to ask forgiveness for doing so. As a former Home Secretary, I have a self-made rule that I would not intervene on home affairs matters unless I had given a great deal of time and thought to them.
However, I have also recently been elected president of the Rainer Foundation which gave birth to the probation service. Thus I have an additional cause, as well as being a former Home Secretary, to feel sensitive about the issue. It is an important point because it would be a fundamental change. I beg my noble friend to hesitate to give a final decision this evening, the matter deserves much more careful thought.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: Will the Leader of the House answer this question before we come to a decision? Am I right in thinking that the community service order is a sentence and that it is administered by the probation service? If that is the case, I cannot see the difficulty. Is there not some confusion here?
Lord Waddington: I listened with great attention to all that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon. At the end of his speech, he invited us to listen to the probation service. Earlier, he urged us to listen to those who would have to apply these orders when they became sentences of the court.
I am prepared to take that advice because I would not wish Members of the Committee to imagine that all those who have to apply the orders disagree with the policy adopted by the Government. That is far from being the case. I have to tell the Committee that NAPO, the National Association of Probation Officers, is about the only organisation concerned in these matters that opposes what the Government propose in the Bill. The Association of Chief Officers of Probation agrees with the policy adopted by the Government. The Magistrates' Association has expressed support for what the Government propose to do. The National Association of Senior Probation Officers approves of the policy adopted by the Government and NACRO approves of the policy adopted by the Government.
It is rash to give the impression that there is a great tide of opinion against the Government and that all those who fight the cause of probation somehow disagree with probation becoming a sentence of the court. I should have thought that having read out all those bodies, it is fairly obvious that the argument being advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, is a minority view among those who are directly concerned with these matters.
Lord Mishcon: I do not know whether I heard the noble Lord correctly. I believe that he said that NAPO was in favour of this.
Lord Waddington: No, I was telling the noble Lord that NAPO is unique in being the only body which agrees with him in disapproving of what the Government propose in the Bill.
Lord Mishcon: I thought that the noble Lord subsequently said that NAPO was among the associations which he read out. I may have misheard him.
Lord Waddington: If I made an error, I am sorry; but I intended to single out NAPO as being the one body which disapproves of what the Government are doing. Far from this being a retrograde step, making probation a sentence of the court is, in my view, right and fits in well with the whole scheme of the Bill. It will encourage greater use of probation and therefore should point towards fewer rather than more people finishing up in prison. It fits in with the way in which probation has become used over recent years.
There is not the slightest doubt that the emphasis has changed. More onerous burdens are placed on offenders who are made the subject of probation orders. Conditions are attached to probation orders; conditions are attached which make people attend at a particular place for a number of hours and so forth. When one goes over the facts which I related when dealing with an earlier amendment and when one looks at the way in which probation orders are now used in cases of far more serious offenders than used to be the case, there is a difficulty. When one looks at the number of probation orders now made in quite serious offences it is difficult to reach a conclusion other than that the world has changed and that the view being expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon—1 say this with the greatest respect—is rather old hat. The trend is strongly in the direction which has been adopted by the Government, with the agreement of all the illustrious bodies to which I have referred.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, was mistaken. The amendment deals with only the narrow question as to whether a probation order should become a sentence of the court. That is the only matter that I address directly now. The probation order complements the other community orders available under the Bill. Its status as a sentence of the court more closely reflects its current usage. It is increasingly used for more serious offending; for example, in 1989, 86 per cent. of those given a probation order had previous convictions, and 38 per cent. had served a custodial sentence. The use of probation orders for more serious offending is in part because the probation order has been strengthened by the power to attach a requirement to attend a day centre. This means that in practice a probation order can be and often is a penalty which makes significant demands on the offender.
It seems absurd to suggest that a probation order is not a penalty on the offender when attached to it is a condition which requires a person to go to a great deal
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of trouble, give up a great deal of leisure and apply himself to doing something useful for many hours at an attendance centre or elsewhere. I understand the worry that has been expressed that the new status of the probation order might discourage its use for less serious offenders—and I know that this is my noble friend's anxiety—but I do not honestly think that it needs to be the case.
Baroness Seear: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I am trying to get my mind clear on this. I cannot see that any change in kind has happened in what probation officers are being asked to do which requires this alteration. They have always had to put requirements on youngsters—the people who are put on probation.
People on probation have had to fulfil attendance requirements. Requirements have been laid on them which probation officers have had to supervise and insist upon. The fact that the requirements are now heavier does not alter this situation in principle. Surely the principle remains exactly the same. I cannot see that there is any necessity to change this provision just because more serious and heavier requirements will be involved. There is no difference in the position. It has always been like this. Why is it necessary to change it, or have I misunderstood the position?
Lord Waddington: There will be no difference in the position. I have sought to point out that the reality of the matter is that probation orders have changed and the kind of cases for which they are used have changed. I have sought to point out that it is very much a theme of this Bill that judges should look most earnestly at ways of keeping people out of prison and at the whole range of community penalties and ask themselves whether by passing a community penalty they can thereby meet the justice of the case and keep a person out of prison. It is extremely important that we should emphasise to them that a probation order need not be a let-off. It is a sentence of the court and it means something. It might carry with it serious conditions which make serious demands on the person concerned. I do not wish to repeat myself but I feel strongly that it would be entirely inconsistent with the main theme of this Bill to take the rather old-fashioned view that a probation order cannot be a sentence of the court when quite plainly now and for some time in the past probation orders have been so used. They have been used to great advantage in the sense that many people have been kept out of prison who otherwise would have finished up there.
Lord Renton: With great respect to my noble friend, I must say that I am not convinced by his strongly expressed arguments. Will he please answer the fundamental point that if probation is to become a sentence, what happens when there is a breach of probation? Is there to be no further sentence, or is there to be a procedure which the Bill has not described for dealing with the offender further? What exactly is to happen? Has that been thought through?
Lord Waddington: My understanding is that at present if someone on probation commits another offence and appears before a court, he is dealt with for

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the further offence. The judge, however, will also deal with that person for the breach of probation and will give that person a day's imprisonment for that offence. The only difference which will now pertain is that when someone appears before the court for another offence, having breached the probation order, he will be punished for the further offence. I do not think in practice there will be a ha'p'orth of difference in the position.
Lord Renton: It is important to follow this matter. Has my noble friend not realised that by having probation as itself not a sentence, the offender is told, "You are not being sentenced now, but if and when you are in breach of the probation order, then you will be sentenced for this offence"?
7.15 p.m.
Lord Waddington: I appreciate that that will no longer be the case. No doubt in putting someone on probation a judge will make it absolutely plain to that person that the court has taken the view that the justice of the case can be met by a probation order, that the accused has been lucky that the court has taken that view and that if he breaks the conditions of the probation order and reappears before the court for another offence, he cannot expect to be dealt with in the same way again.
Lord Gisborough: Is there not a parallel with the conditional discharge? Exactly the same situation pertains to that provision.
Lord Waddington: I am grateful to my noble friend for coming to my rescue. That provides a perfect answer to the point that has been made.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I wish to make one further point for clarification. The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, referred to the rehabilitation situation. Is not the position exactly the same now as it always has been as regards someone who has been put on probation? If one commits an offence one is convicted, whether one is put on probation or fined or whatever. The sentence of the court makes no difference at all. The point is that one is convicted and that conviction stands. If one is put on probation, from the rehabilitation point of view when one has served the period and completed the order, it is washed out. According to my understanding of the matter, precisely the same position remains today. I ask for guidance on that matter because it seems to me to be a complete answer to what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, was saying. If I am wrong, perhaps my view will change.
Lord Waddington: That is entirely correct, but I am not sure that I am qualified to give much guidance as I have now discovered that I have made a serious error. I am told that in Schedule 2 of the Bill there is provision for sanctions for breach of a probation order. I had forgotten that.
Lord Mishcon: I have been accused of uttering some old hat. If that is an accusation I ask for the probation of the Committee immediately because it is an old hat
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that I am not ashamed of wearing. The situation is this. For years and years we have had a system under which the court in certain circumstances can declare after conviction that it wants to place the convicted person on probation. The court asks for consent to do that. The court may inform the offender that probation is not a sentence and the offender can go away knowing that if he behaves sensibly with a kindly probation officer to look after him and obeys any conditions to which the order is subject, he can tell the world that he has not received a sentence. He can say that to his employer and to his parents. If he happens to be married, he can say that to his wife.
If the benefits of that position constitute old hat, am prepared to wear it with pride. As regards the conditions, this very Chamber, sitting in a judicial capacity, has outlined the principles of a probation order in the case of Cullen v. Rogers in a way which is completely contrary to the way in which the noble Lord the Leader of the House has presented this matter. The judgment of this Chamber confirmed that conditions imposed in a probation order cannot themselves be a sentence because, since the making of a probation order is a course taken by the court to avoid passing a sentence, a requirement imposed under Section 2(3) must not introduce such a custodial or other element as will amount in substance to the imposition of a sentence. This Chamber pronounced that judgment sitting in a judicial capacity. The judgment laid down a principle of the value of the probation order in our criminal system.
As I thought he would, the noble Lord repeated what he said earlier with regard to what may be the deficiency in these days of a probation order. He did not say that the probation order system was a bad one. He said that the courts were making probation orders in cases of a serious nature and where previous convictions had attached to the accused. Yet a probation order was still made. That is not a criticism of the probation order system as we have known it.
Lord Renton: Neither is it anything new. For years the courts have in exceptional cases decided that even previous offenders should be given a special chance, after a good warning, and be placed on probation.
Lord Mishcon: The noble Lord, Lord Renton, is absolutely right. Where the court considers that there are special grounds, having regard to the offence which has been committed and the reasons for it which have been advanced in mitigation, it is usual to say that in that case a probation order shall be made.
The only logical sequence from what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said may very well be that in this legislation we ought to be thinking of some half-way house between a probation order and a sentence of imprisonment. That may very well be a sensible way for a penal reformer of progressive views to consider this matter. However, it cannot be right to abolish what was so sensible in the past and say, "I don't care what your age is, provided a probation order is suitable the court will now have to make a probation order"; instead of saying, as it has over the

1407
years, that that is not a sentence, the court must now say that it is, whatever the circumstances, even in regard to a first offence.
That would tie the hands of the court, quite apart from any other point that I have made, in that the court might think that an absolute or conditional discharge is not suitable because there ought to be a period of probation and a probation officer should look after the accused but the court does not want to impose a sentence. Therefore, in a case in which a probation order would be suitable the court will consider that it has no alternative, although it may wish that there was an alternative. It will have either to adopt the unsuitable option of reducing the punishment by making it an absolute or conditional discharge or considering a short term of imprisonment. Is that what we want?
With great respect to the noble Lord, who is always so lucid in his exposition, I am afraid that I remain not only completely unsatisfied with his answer to the amendment but also proud of the fact that I put the amendment forward.
Lord Carr of Hadley: As someone who was Home Secretary 17 years ago i am very reluctant indeed to cross swords with my noble friend the Leader of the House who has been Home Secretary much more recently. Of course I accept that, proud though I may be of old hats, times change and hats should change with them.
I strongly support the policy direction in which the Government are leading us here, but I believe that there is a need for a sentence of this kind in this area. That is how I see probation orders having developed. However, one could ask, what is in a name? Sometimes not much, but sometimes a great deal.
I cannot help recalling that on the day on which I had the great honour of being appointed Home Secretary Lord Butler telephoned me from Trinity College, Cambridge, to congratulate me and wish me well. His final words were to ask whether he might give me some advice. I said that he certainly could and I would welcome it. His advice was: never leave the Home Office at night without having a good sniff round for rats, and at the slightest smell of rats do not go home. I have to say to my noble friend that I smell a rat here and we ought to think very carefully before we put this particular issue to bed.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: Can the noble Lord, Lord Carr, explain the advantage of not calling a probation order a sentence? I find it difficult to understand. Everyone agrees that the result is exactly the same. The only difference is that one is called a sentence and used not to be called a sentence.
Lord Carr of Hadley: It is difficult to say, and it is because it is difficult to say that I believe that we should not put the issue to bed tonight. I believe that it needs further reflection. The proposed change appears merely to recognise something that has developed and what a probation order has now become. However, if we formalise that and call it a sentence, as is proposed in the Bill, we may inadvertently change the attitude of the courts, the
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attitude of the probation service and the effect on the offender in a way which we cannot at this moment foresee and may not intend.
I am not sure what the right answer is. All I am saying to my noble friend tonight is that this is a matter which needs careful thought before we finalise it. I should hate to see it, for example, pushed to a Division now. I hope that we may give the matter further thought before we come to a firm decision.
Lord Mishcon: I apologise to the Committee for rising again but I have to do so in order to deal with the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington. He asked what is the difference if one says that a sentence follows on a probation order automatically. First, it is and was always meant to be an indication to the outside world that if there was hope for somebody who had been convicted, the court said that he had a chance of proving himself, which is the very essence of the word probation' and although convicted no sentence was passed on him. That was extremely important.
In case any Members of the Committee feel that that is merely verbiage and does not mean anything, I remind the Committee once again of the language of your Lordships' House sitting judicially pointing out the difference; namely, that this is not a sentence, was never intended to be a sentence and therefore conditions should not be imposed in a probation order which amount to a sentence. Those are the words of your Lordships' House. There is a difference.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Carr, I do not cheaply—if the noble Lord will forgive the word— want to put the matter to the Committee in a Division. It is a very serious matter, and I hope that in view of what has been said, especially by noble Lords on his side of the Chamber, the noble Lord the Leader of the House will agree that this is a very serious matter. Possibly, as I indicated previously, before it is too late and before the Bill leaves this Chamber we should consider some intermediate stage, keeping the old probation order and no sentence. I ask the noble Lord to say, at least out of courtesy to this Chamber and this important debate, that he will agree to reconsider the matter before the next stage of this Bill.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: During the debate on the Queen's Speech I indicated that I thought that criminal justice issues when debated in this Chamber should not lead to the usual confrontation between political parties. I say that in order to explain why I agree with the noble Lord the Leader of the House and probably disagree with the majority of my colleagues. I say that because I have had knowledge of the probation service for a substantial period of time and am President of the National Association of Senior Probation Officers which favours the change that is incorporated in the Bill, as does the Association of Chief Officers of Probation. As the noble Lord the Leader of the House said, those are powerful organisations which represent middle and senior management in the probation service.
I agree with the noble Lord because I want to see, as we all do, more people diverted from custody. I want to see the probation service dealing with more

1409
and more difficult clients. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, will not agree with me; but it is my view that, if a probation order is a sentence of the court, it is a recognition of the fact that it is the desire of Parliament that the service should supervise more difficult offenders and, in some cases, more dangerous offenders.
I recognise that many of my noble friends will not agree with that view. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, —and, speaking entirely for myself, I would not find it possible to vote against him—that, as he and others have asked the Government to look at the matter between now and Report stage, it would probably be prudent to do so. That is entirely a matter for the Leader of the House. I believe that the proposal is correct and I support it.
7.30 p.m.
Lord Waddington: Perhaps the Committee will bear with me while I deal with one other matter before coming to the rather beguiling invitation to look again at that aspect.
On reflection and with the greatest respect, the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, was in error. Making a probation order a sentence of the court has one important practical effect which again fits in with the scheme of the Bill. As a result of making a probation order a sentence, something can be coupled with a probation order and it will be possible for the first time to pass a probation order and fine someone as well. It fits in with the theme of the Bill because it increases the range of options as regards community penalties.
I should not be honest with myself if I were to say that I would think again in this case. I have paid the greatest attention to all that has been said and certainly realise that people with great experience have mentioned their worries about this matter. However, this is not something that has suddenly come to fruition. The policy was set out clearly in the White Paper which was published at the beginning of last year after the most extensive consultations. I believe that I can say with absolute confidence that, with a few exceptions—one of them being NAPO—that policy was formulated as a result of wide agreement among all the interested parties. It is therefore one of those cases in which I can say with my hand on my heart that the Government have thought most carefully about the matter and seen many advantages in making a probation order a sentence of the court as I have explained to the Committee today.
Lord Mishcon: I know that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will not think me discourteous if I say that it is a great pity that he did not accept the courteous invitation given to him from all sides of the House. Having said that, I regard the matter as of such importance that I think it would be—
Lord Elton: I hope that the noble Lord recognises that the opportunity to give time rests with himself as well as with the Leader of the House.
Lord Mishcon: I thought that I had made that clear. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, was not listening with his usual care when I said that I did not intend to divide the Committee.
Lord Elton: I apologise.
Lord Mishcon: The apology of the noble Lord, Lord Elton, is worth very much to me and I thank him for it. I was about to say that I think this principle is so important that it would be wrong, without a full Chamber and at a more appropriate time of the day, to test the view of the Committee. I intend to do that at a further stage of the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8 agreed to.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving the Motion, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage does not begin again before 8.35 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Export and Investment Guarantees Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
7.35 p.m.

Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981

  (Variation of Schedule) Order 1991
  Lord Kimball Lord Kimball rose to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the order [SI 1991/367] be annulled.
  The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Motion deals with the protection afforded to the adder and the freshwater pearl mussel by the quinquennial review of the degrees of protection which are necessary under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981. It would not be appropriate—and I should make it clear that it was not my intention—to divide the House on either of those issues tonight; but I hope that at the end of our discussions the House will make it clear that we shall no longer tolerate blanket protection orders which are not linked to proposals for the culling and proper management of any protected species.
  In the part of the country where I have a hill farm, there is no shortage of adders. Nor have I seen any publicity saying, "Adders are scarce. Please do not kill them unless you have to". The Nature Conservancy Council is never slow to gear up its publicity machine. We saw the almost hysterical publicity that it generated about the future of the flow country. Why have we not seen some publicity about the shortage of and dangers to the adder population? I had one suckle calf bitten by an adder and one ram which died last year as a result of an adder bite. The suckle calf nearly died because it was bitten on the nose and all its jaw swelled up so that it could not eat. The House should realise that cattle are particularly vulnerable to adders.

  1411
  Many noble Lords will know that, if you have a myxie rabbit in a field and it cannot get away, all the cattle gather round it and mob it. Cattle are nosey beasts and, if there is an adder in the middle of the field, they will gather round it and mob it and it will bite and strike them for its own protection. No good stockman will leave an adder in a field of cows and calves.
  I press my noble friend who is to reply to the debate to make it clear, because the NCC has certainly not made it clear in any publicity, that it is in order for a stockman, a herdsman, a shepherd or anyone who is in charge of livestock, to kill an adder if he feels that that adder endangers his livestock. I am not quite certain—perhaps my noble friend will clear up this point—who constitutes a person authorised under the order to kill an adder. Perhaps he will confirm that it is the farmer or the occupier or his shepherd or herdsman. We must face the fact that, whatever the law may say, most countrymen who feel that an adder is a danger to livestock, dogs or children will kill it. I do not see why we should make that a criminal offence. It worries me that an authorised person may find himself in the same position in which we find ourselves over the killing of sawbill ducks—that is, goosanders and mergansers—where you have to obtain a licence. Every time you obtain a licence, the period during which you can kill them and the number that you can kill is reduced and there is always an argy-bargy. On the scale on which it is necessary to control adders, certainly in the part of Scotland that I know, no form of licensing and authorisation would be an acceptable solution.
  Adders are not scarce, but in England the suitable habitat in which they might want to live is becoming scarce. That is why they are scarce. There is nowhere that is particularly suitable for adders, particularly in the south of England. Noble Lords will know that the population of adders varies very much and follows the cycle for voles and small mammals. After a peak in the population of voles and small mammals, there is a peak in the adder population. I contend that it is wrong to make a criminal offence out of something which any sensible countryman will do only when it is absolutely necessary.
  I turn now to the other item on the protection order dealing with the question of the freshwater pearl mussel. On this question, I am particularly indebted to the farm of the noble Lord, Lord Cranbrook, which produced a considerable amount of information which was taken up by the Department of Zoology at Aberdeen University. In its 1983 survey that department estimated that in England and Wales there were 56 rivers and in Scotland 118 rivers which contained pearl mussels and that over-fishing by pearl fishers had contributed to a serious decline in 39 of those rivers. Pollution had contributed to a decline in a further 12 rivers, and disturbance from the building of bridges and new roads and the taking of gravel out of rivers had affected a further six.
  The mussel is in the same category as the tick and the cuckoo. It is a creature which needs another in order to survive. Following spawning it spends its first year living in the gills of a salmon parr. At the end of its first year it leaves the salmon parr when the smolt
  1412
  goes to the sea. For the purposes of reproduction it is dependent on a healthy population of salmon parr. That is a major indication of the health and purity of our rivers.
  I am certain your Lordships realise that the freshwater mussel is extremely long-lived. It can live to between 70 to 100 years. It cannot produce a pearl until it is nine years old and that pearl will not be mature until it reaches the age of 15 years. Only about 1 per cent. of all freshwater mussels in England and Scotland produce pearls.
  The problem facing mussels is posed by the vast number of people who have bought wet suits and diving gear and rushed out in the hope of finding the odd pearl. They go into the rivers wearing this marvellous kit and fill sacks full of these wretched mussels. I have seen it. They take off their diving gear, open up the mussels and hope to find a pearl. The mussels are then thrown aside. The destruction those people do is enormous. There is no question of applying a size limit and no thought is given to those mussels which might or might not have pearls in them. Such a treasure hunt has become all the more popular with access to the countryside and invasion by the motor car.
  I am particularly indebted to Mr. Martin Brooks, a well-known pearl fisher from Scone on Tayside, for the help and advice he has given me on the management of mussels in the River Naver watershed in Sutherland. Mr. Brooks is a remarkable man. He can pick a mussel out of the river, open it with a set of tongs and see if there is a pearl in it. If it contains a pearl he can extract it without killing the mussel. If there is a tiny start of a pearl, he can put the mussel back until the pearl matures, marking the shell of the mussel so he does not disturb it again for another 10 or 15 years. As chairman of a fisheries board I would want to license Mr. Brooks to manage the mussels in the watershed. I understand from the Association of District Fishery Boards in Scotland arid the National Rivers Authority in England that they would like to do the same thing.
  There are at present about 40 well-known, reliable pearl fishers in this country. I believe that those responsible people, who do not kill the mussels, should be given the opportunity to develop our fisheries. I support the order but object most strongly to the fact that like so much of our conservation legislation at the moment it has not been thought through. To conserve a species you must have a proper policy of conservation and culling. All that the order does is to make it an offence to kill a mussel. No water bailiff has power to stop a pearl fisher. The police have to be sent for. All one can do is stop the person from actually killing a mussel. One cannot say to the person concerned, "This particular pearl mussel fishery is being managed by the person I have licensed to manage it". We have a hopeless situation in which we rush in to preserve something without thinking of the consequences or how we will manage it.
  I should like an assurance tonight from the Government that they will take a benign look (which is all they can do) at the possibility of a Private Member's Bill being brought forward in this House or

  1413
  in another place which would allow the district fishery boards in Scotland and the river boards in England to license the respectable mussel fishers. I also believe that most of the people in the district fishery boards would like to put some restriction on the amount of effort put into pearl fishing. We do not want people in wet suits diving into deep pools. I believe the activity should be limited to people in thigh-waders with glass boxes and forked sticks, because the deep pools are the reservoir from which most of the mussels come and should not be fished.
  I am afraid that many farmers and people in the countryside today are beginning to feel that the Nature Conservancy Council is developing a certain scientific arrogance which is divorced from the practical realities of the countryside. In this debate on the adder and the mussel the House is presented with an opportunity to say quite clearly that it is not going to tolerate an ill-conceived and not properly thought out piece of protective legislation. On the basis of the order before us tonight, one protection (for the mussel) is necessary but has not been thought through and the other (for the adder) is unnecessary and has been brought forward without proper consultation and publicity. I beg to move.
  Moved, That a humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Order [S.I. 1991/367] be annulled—. (Lord Kimball.)
  Baroness Nicol: My Lords, first I must apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey who has been unavoidably delayed and I fear is unlikely to get here before the end of the debate.
  The noble Lord, Lord Kimball, waxed eloquent about the Nature Conservancy Council. Perhaps he has forgotten that it ceased to exist on the last day of March and was replaced by a Scottish body, by English Nature in England and by a different council in Wales. We are fortunate in having with us this evening the chairman of the English body and no doubt he will take in everything that is said. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, will find communication with the Scottish body a little easier in the future.
  In the meantime, all of us have to rely on the evidence provided to us by English Nature. The first piece of evidence from it— which I have to accept— is difficult to reconcile with the statement by the noble Lord, Lord Kimball. English Nature says that adders are becoming scarce and endangered; Lord Kimball says that he is overrun with them. Somewhere along the way there must be a truth which we will have to discover. In the meantime, if the noble Lord will forgive me, I will accept the stand taken by English Nature that we have to add the adder to our protected list. On that basis, we welcome the order. However, I have to say that I am sorry the opportunity was not taken to add to Schedule 9 of the Act the barn owl and the chuff. The release of those birds from captivity into the wild is causing problems which we will need to deal with in future. Perhaps I can put down that marker for the attention of the Government.
  The Government accept the philosophy of sustainable development. That philosophy must be underpinned by the management of natural resources,
  1414
  not least by protecting biodiversity. A species extinct is lost for ever, as is its potential in terms of genetic resources. The case for the protection of endangered species as far as this country is concerned was made and accepted in the passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Since then, the need to protect the biodiversity of the planet has become even more widely accepted.
  The adder may not be as appealing as the giant panda but it has its place in the scheme of things. The case against it is much overstated. In fact it is a timid creature which bites only when it feels threatened. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals points out that in the past 100 years fewer than 10 deaths have been caused by bites from adders and that in at least some of those cases it was the attempted cure that killed rather than the bite. It was the practice to give a large dose of horse serum, which proved fatal more often than the bite that it was meant to cure. The last known death from an adder bite was in 1975. Adders are fully protected in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary and Norway. It is time that Britain joined the list in line with our obligations under the Berne convention.
  The pearl mussel is vulnerable throughout Britain and highly vulnerable in England. English Nature is again concerned. The present mussel population profiles indicate a low proportion of juveniles which is a sure sign of decline. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, that the activities of amateur collectors must be restrained. His suggestion of a licence is well worth following up. The decline is already taking place because of water pollution, especially in England, and we must do everything that we can to preserve the species.
  As the noble Lord said, commercial collectors have a more responsible attitude. They collect over a wider area and leave a reserve for future stocks. The pearls are removed by special tongs which leave the mussel alive and it can be returned to the water. Commercial fishermen will not be prevented by this order from pursuing their activities. I hope that the Government will look kindly on the suggestion that we should license fishing for pearl mussels and that it will not be necessary to go through the hassle of a Private Member's Bill. I have no remarks to make about the shad, which appears to be not controversial. I have not heard anyone grumble about putting it on the list.
  I hope that the noble Lord will not press his Motion —I believe he said that he would not—and that this useful amendment to the wildlife Act is carried with all speed. I hope that we can meet the objections and that someone who knows more about the present position of the adder will be able to enlarge on what he said. It seems to me that we have here a direct contradiction: either there are plenty of them or there are not. I hope that when the Minister comes to reply he will be able to sort out that point.
  Lord Addington: My Lords, I find myself in the position of not knowing a great deal about the habitat of adders and where they happen to be living or about their numbers in various parts of the country. I totally accept that the destruction of habitat is usually the best way to wipe out any species. I should be surprised

  1415
  if there is not a great element of truth in what the noble Lord said and that in certain parts of the country the species will be abundant and not in other areas.
  The fact remains that if we are to have left a small eco-system on a natural level we have to put up with what at least to our way of thinking are unpleasant things that we do not like. For instance, everyone likes the cuddly panda so we say that we shall keep those. Generally and culturally we do not like snakes, so adders get a bad press. I have often wondered why. Most poisonous snakes are comparatively small creatures and most wild animals will bite only if they want to eat you or if you threaten them. If an adder were to want to eat you, I suggest that he would have to learn to use a knife and fork to get the bits down. I see that the noble Lord laughs. There is a great danger of ridicule here. He pointed out that these creatures were only dangerous because cows come up and nose them. If I were an adder and a cow came up to me and put her nose in my face I too should probably bite. We have to accept that the creatures which do not have general public appeal and may occasionally cause some damage to farming processes are nonetheless entitled to a degree of protection. That must he universally accepted.
  The noble Lord mentioned that the mild winters have led to the expansion of certain types of wildlife such as small rodents. Those which are pests find also an expansion of those creatures which prey upon them, in this instance the snakes. It might be a case of trying to hold a balance between the amount of damage done by small rodents and the occasional loss of cattle through the adder which is trying to protect itself from them. Once again these are problems that we must bear in mind; but if we are serious about conservation, we must evenly conserve all things.
  I found nothing to disagree with on the question of the freshwater mussel. People who go on a small glory hunt looking for an occasional pearl and destroy an entire bed of mussels deserve everything they get coming to them in terms of the law. I hope that the House will forgive me for using such non-exact terminology.
  Everyone seems to agree with regard to the allis shad. In a discussion in the Bishops' Bar between myself and other noble Lords we were rather convinced that it was a bird and not a relative of the herring family. Everyone agrees that it should be protected. As I discovered, it is threatened by pollution.
  We should look at the whole of the natural surroundings and at the regional situation. I suggest that this Prayer, which the noble Lord said he would not press, would be somewhat destructive.
  7.56 p.m.
  Lord Moran: My Lords, the noble Lord's Prayer seems to me to call in question the procedure for dealing with problems of this kind. In this case the Government have acted wholly correctly. The statutory instrument deposited by the Secretary of State for the Environment shows that the Government received a representation from the Nature Conservancy Council, as it then was. They then gave
  1416
  local authorities and other persons opportunities to submit objections or representations and formed the opinion that the species referred to were in danger of extinction in Great Britain or likely to be so endangered unless conservation measures were taken.
  Therefore the Government decided to bring in the order. As I understand it, they announced their intentions at the standing committee of the Berne convention in terms of UK compliance with our obligations for such declining and persecuted reptiles under the provisions of the pan-European wildlife convention. It seems to me that they proceeded in a careful, considered way and that is certainly what should happen. I believe that they are quite right to propose this order. I should be very sorry indeed if we were to object to it.
  Of the three species in question my personal concern is mostly with the allis shad. I had occasion to talk about its related species, the twaite shad, at the Second Reading of the River Usk Barrage Bill recently. I am less familiar with the allis shad because it is a much rarer species. I understand that everyone who has spoken so far agreed that it s appropriate that it should be given further protection. I am sure that that is right.
  I was interested in what the noble Lord said about freshwater mussels. He explained the situation very clearly. I fully agree with him that the threat to the species appears to come from amateurs in wet suits, diving particularly into deep pools, rather than from the commercial fishermen. However, it is my understanding from the information we have received that, as this further protection proposed in the order relates only to the killing and injuring of freshwater pearl mussels, the commercial fishermen who have now found this technique of extracting the pearl with a pair of tongs and returning the mussel alive to the water would not be affected by the order. However, the amateurs who take them out in sackfuls, as the noble Lord said, and kill them would be stopped. That seems to be what the noble Lord seeks to achieve. It is what we should seek to achieve. But if the measure were reinforced by a licensing procedure, I hope that the Government will consider it.
  The most controversial species is the adder. We have to rely not only on our personal and limited experience but on the advice that we receive from the statutory bodies set up to consider the matter. The Nature Conservancy Council and English Nature—which has now succeeded to one part of its responsibilities—say that the decline of the species in Britain is well documented. Most of the very limited number of people who have been killed or injured by adders have interfered with or picked up the adder. We want to persuade people to leave them alone. To give them the measure of protection proposed in the order would do precisely that. We wish to have the greatest number of species of all kinds in our country. Those in danger of extinction or of greatly reduced numbers should be given protection, whatever they are. We should not seek to preserve only the cuddly and attractive species. All species deserve to be protected if they are in danger of extinction.

  1417
  I therefore hope that we shall agree with the order which seems responsible and sensible, and we shall allow it to be passed.
  8.4 p.m.
  Lord Houghton of Sowerby: My Lords, I apologise for not having put my name down to speak. I never dreamt that the protection of the adder and other species in the draft order would attract so much attention. But in your Lordships' House we are used to the moving experience of passing from high matters of state to the protection of the last remaining species of snake and believe that that is a normal course of the business of the House. We lower the lights just to show that it is a somewhat mournful occasion. The television people go home and we are left to talk in private about the grief that might occur if the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, had his way.
  I knew that there were likely to be a few snakes in the grass in this debate, but I never dreamt that one would be the noble Lord, Lord Kimball. After all, I recall that when the Wildlife and Countryside Act was under consideration in your Lordships' House the noble Lord was still a Member of another place. But his shadow fell across that Bill from beginning to end because he obtained from the Government a firm assurance that they would not allow the wildlife section of that Bill to be used by such people as me as an attack on blood sports and other laudable activities that those who live in the country (as I do) wish to enjoy. I never dreamt that the noble Lord would be in the grass in this debate. I had associated him with being on a horse. I thought that the only time I had to be in fear of him was if a debate on horses were about to be deferred and he thought that it ought not to be. That is the last time that I saw him roused over proceedings in your Lordships' House.
  The noble Lord should also have some regard to the reputation of this country abroad. I visited Canada shortly after the passing of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. I held Canadians spellbound when describing how we had protected the natterjack toad and partially protected the adder. When I said that anyone who wilfully trod on a natterjack toad was liable to prosecution because that had become an offence in Britain, their eyes opened and admiration welled into their faces; and I felt very proud of Britain at that moment. Yet here is the noble Lord, Lord Kimball, trying to rob us of the moral quality of British politics. He states that further protection of the adder has not been properly thought out.
  Can we hear a little less about what the farmers think every time we wish to undertake a little conservation? They have had it their way pretty well all the time. We have conceded a great deal to them. We must try to preserve what is left of our indigenous species. They are few enough. I should like to see a few wolves brought back. That might make the countryside more interesting than at present. They might even get into Parliament and do some scouring in the place.
  I do not believe that the noble Lord really wishes to press the matter at this hour of the day in your
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  Lordships' House. Just think of all the other noble Lords eating their suppers in peace and harmony and talking to their wives, comrades and guests, and here we are about to expose the adder to the venom of its enemies and allow it to become extinct. The noble Lord knows full well from his close contact with the passing of the Bill in 1981 how difficult it was to secure protection under the endangered species clauses. Emotionally speaking, there would be much public opinion in favour of putting the badger on the danger list. But, no, it is not an endangered species; there are still too many of them to qualify. The adder needs protection, as does the grass snake—a lovely little creature. It is not suitable that we should be asked to pass this measure.
  I admire the number of noble Lords on the Benches opposite who have turned up for the debate. I wish there were time for them all to declare for or against the adder so that the noble Lord might know whether his own colleagues are in favour of what he wishes to do. Anyway, I have had my say.
  8.8 p.m.
  Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, after that characteristically trenchant and amusing speech by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, I must rise to the defence of my noble friend Lord Kimball for a moment. The burden of my noble friend's remarks were directed towards the fact that this is a blanket order covering both England and Scotland. It is an order relating to Great Britain. I apologise to my noble friend on the Front Bench for not having given him notice of my questions, and indeed for not having put my name down to speak.
  Which Secretary of State was satisfied under Article (3) of the early parts of the order in relation to adders? What indeed, if any, has been the reaction of the Scottish Office to the proposal? Has the Secretary of State for Scotland been consulted? What was the evidence upon which the decision was taken with regard to Scotland? Who collected that evidence? What has been the nature of the representations made against the proposal?
  I am surprised, like my noble friend Lord Kimball, that because of the parentage (if that is the proper word) of the order, the narrow proposal that it contains must extend as widely as it does. Like my noble friend Lord Kimball, not only can I give many examples to show that there are many adders in the East Grampians—my noble friend referred to another part of Scotland—I can also give instances of cattle being killed and dogs certainly being injured if not killed.
  The order is wide, but Section 22(3) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act appears to provide opportunities for the Secretary of State to make provisions in relation to particular areas of the country in regard to Schedule 5. Can my noble friend say why it has not been possible to make such provisions in this case? I know that he will be able to tell the House that a licence may be granted to enable people who need to kill adders that are putting at risk either human beings or animals. However, that is a cumbersome performance and it cannot easily be obtained. It is

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  unusual in that, although the arbiter will be the agriculture Minister in Scotland or in England, the advisers will be the successor bodies to the Nature Conservancy Council, yet the council or its successor bodies are proposing the blanket order.
  While we wish to see a proper number of adders— preserved I entirely share the view held by the noble Lord, Lord Houghton—there is no shortage in certain parts of the country where they are becoming a menace. Their habitat has been maintained because during the past few years the winter weather has not allowed their demise. The whole issue begs the question of whether the Nature Conservancy Council or its successor bodies, well meaning and thorough as they are, fully understand the implications of the advice that they are giving to the Secretary of State.
  Lord Lyell: My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend, to whom I gave notice that I had an interest in the order. I do not live too far away from my noble friend Lord Glenarthur but a considerable distance from my noble friend Lord Kimball. Perhaps noble Lords do not appreciate a particular issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, made a moving speech in favour of the adder—luckily not today the natterjack toad. The adder is one of the most obvious creatures capable of causing death to humans. The noble Baroness said that there have been only 10 deaths since the mid-19th century. I recall the death in 1970 of a shepherd in the west of Scotland. On a hot day the shepherd put down his jacket, and perhaps he was not particularly cautious in putting it on. An adder bit him in the armpit. Scotland is a large area and the nearest facility capable of administering serum was about 50 miles away over difficult roads. As a result the shepherd died.
  My noble friends Lord Glenarthur and Lord Kimball have pointed out the risk to livestock and to small animals such as dogs. They do not have a large body area to assimilate the adder's toxin. In 1955 within half an hour I saw three incidents of adult adders causing danger to dogs. That was a warm summer in the glens of Angus, which is 30 miles from the nearest source of anti-adder toxin. We must strike a balance with the need to protect animals and humans. The noble Baroness or my noble friends Lord Kimball and Lord Astor might know of an authority which can assess the adder population in Scotland and in England. I too wonder whether we have achieved the right balance as regards the only poisonous snake in the United Kingdom which can cause death to man.
  I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton. I wondered whether we should hear of the need to bring back wolves. In Scotland we can well do without them in a harsh winter. If the noble Lord would care to take an evening off he might see a film currently being shown in the West End about wolves and— perhaps he might direct a film about adders. Tonight I leave the case to my noble friend.
  8.16 p.m.
  Lord Norrie: My Lords, I was delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, should mention the barn owl. I too am concerned about additional protection
  1420
  for the species. During the progress last year of the Environmental Protection Bill I made a case for reviewing the schedules relating to the protection of birds as part of the quinquennial review. That review deals only with plants and animals. Although we are debating Schedule 5 and in particular the protection of the allis shad, the freshwater pearl mussel and the adder, this is a perfect opportunity to make the case for providing additional legal protection to the barn owl. I strongly suggest that there is now a need to add the barn owl to Schedule 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.
  The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is concerned about the damaging effect of releasing captive-bred barn owls into the wild. is estimated that more than 3,000 barn owls are released each year in England and Wales from a captive stock of between 20,000 and 30,000 birds. The RSPB believes that it is inappropriate to introduce genetic complications to release birds without addressing their habitat requirements. The survival of captive-bred and released birds is generally poor. Studies carried out by the British Trust for Ornithology indicate that the mortality rate of captive-bred and released barn owls is two to three times higher than of wild barn owls. Therefore the society is opposed to the captive breeding and release of barn owls except in cases where releases are undertaken as part or a structured conservation project.
  In consequence the RSPB recommends that barn owls should be added to Schedule 9 to the Wildlife and Countryside Act making it an offence to release or allow to escape into the wild barn owls except under and in accordance with the terms of a licence granted by the appropriate authority. I hope that the Minister will assure the House that the quinquennial review will include a review of the schedules relating to birds as well as those relating to plants and animals.
  8.19 p.m.
  Viscount Astor: My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate on the Motion put forward by my noble friend Lord Kimball. He made a most interesting speech on the statutory instrument giving new or additional protection under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to three of our native species the allis shad, the freshwater pearl mussel and the adder.
  The Government's scientific advisers on wildlife have a statutory duty under the 1981 Act to recommend protection for species which are endanered or under threat in Great Britain. Before making these recommendations they undertake wide-ranging scientific investigation and research. Included within that general duty is a specific requirement to undertake a review every five years of all the animals and plants protected by Schedules 5 and 8 of the 1981 Act—the process known as the quinquennial review. Until the beginning of this month, this duty was vested in the Nature Conservancy Council. Under the provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, it passed on 1st April to the new country agencies in England, Scotland and Wales acting through their joint nature conservation committee.

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  The proposals contained in the instrument before your Lordships this evening were first put forward by the NCC in 1986 as part of the first quinquennial review of species covered by the 1981 Act.
  The Secretary of State for the Environment has to be satisfied that the level of protection proposed is appropriate and all the relevant Government departments were consulted.
  My noble friend Lord Kimball has mentioned the freshwater pearl mussel and I am advised that this is a species which is in decline throughout most of its European range. It is in decline in England and Wales although it seems that in most of its range in Scotland the species is not under as much threat as elsewhere.
  The level of protection proposed is aimed to deter irresponsible and indiscriminate fishing for pearls. The professional fisherman is able to use his skill to identify mussels likely to contain pearls and remove the pearls without killing the mussels, as described by my noble friend Lord Kimball. It is also in the interests of these responsible fishermen to attempt to maintain stocks of the mussel at as healthy a level as possible—the principle of sustainable utilisation. The Government believes that they have struck a balance between conservation and the livelihood of the profession.
  The powers which the Government have available under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 relate only to the conservation of endangered species. It would not be appropriate to use the Act to introduce measures such as those which my noble friend has suggested for the pearl mussel this evening. Indeed, my noble friend recognises that because he is considering putting forward a Private Members' Bill as an alternative. If such a Bill comes before us, the House will examine it on its merits. As the House will know, the Government's starting point on such matters is traditionally neutral. We should only stand in its way if we thought that the proposals were incompatible with government policy.
  The allis shad mentioned by some noble Lords is a species of fish. Indeed it is a grey rather than a red herring. It was once probably formerly present in many of the larger rivers in the British Isles. The protection proposed in the order before your Lordships against killing, injuring and taking the shad will lead to an enhanced conservation effort and the protection of remaining spawning grounds. The species is not actively fished for and fishing interests are safeguarded in that accidental taking and sale are excepted under the provisions of the 1981 Act.
  Out of the water and on to the land, I turn to what I believe the noble Lord, Lord Houghton, described as the lovely little creature—the adder. The Government have been aware from the outset that there were three critical issues surrounding the extension of the protection afforded to this species. First, that additional protection for the adder, as Britain's only venomous snake, could only be justified on the basis of sound scientific evidence. Secondly, we had to take careful account of anxieties about safety for members of the public, for livestock and for domestic animals. Thirdly, we had to take account of our international
  1422
  responsibilities, particularly those under the Berne convention, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol.
  On the first point, the NCC put the results of wide-ranging scientific investigation and research before the Government. This demonstrates that adder populations in Great Britain as a whole are in decline and that human persecution, as well as habitat loss, is a cause of that decline. A 10 year survey of the commoner amphibians and reptiles for the NCC showed marked declines in certain core areas for the adder throughout Great Britain, and the adder has become extinct in some areas.
  Over and above that evidence of the adder's decline, was the knowledge that the three other species of reptile found in Great Britain—the grass snake, the smooth snake and the slow worm—were regularly being killed or injured in the mistaken belief that they were adders. These species are also in decline. The smooth snake is the rarest, and has been fully protected against killing, injuring or unauthorised sale since the 1981 Act came into force. The grass snake and the slow worm received additional protection against killing or injuring under the Government's initial response to the quinquennial review, via the Wildlife and Countryside Act (Variation of Schedule) Order 1988.
  The second, and to some extent counter-balancing, issue is public and animal safety. The Government were extremely concerned about this issue, so much so, that we conducted a long and careful review of the original NCC proposal submitted to us in 1986. During the period between 1986 and the announcement made by my honourable friend the Minister of State in January this year, we considered all the arguments put forward objecting to the extra protection for the adder. There is no doubt that adder bites are painful. Before the development of effective anti-venins they could, of course, be rather more than just painful; but there have been no recorded deaths caused by adders in this country since 1975. Deaths from bee or wasp stings are statistically a much higher risk, yet still one that most people would regard as acceptable.
  None of this implies that the Government have overlooked safety in these provisions. In fact we have quite intentionally ensured that it will remain legal to take—that is, capture—adders so that individual snakes, or colonies, presenting a threat to humans or animals can be moved to a more appropriate site. The local offices of the conservation agencies will provide advice to anyone who is concerned about adders. Furthermore, after taking account of advice from the relevant country conservation agency, my right honourable friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is empowered to issue licences to kill adders under Section 16 of the 1981 Act for the express purpose of "preserving public health or public safety" or "preventing serious damage to livestock". Licences to kill adders would of course be issued only in cases where there was no alternative solution. Under Section 10(4) of the 1981 Act, an authorised person shall not be guilty of the offence of killing or injuring an adder if he shows that his action was

  1423
  necessary for the purpose of preventing damage to livestock. Many noble Lords were interested in who is an authorised person. An authorised person in this instance is defined as the owner or occupier, or any person authorised by the owner or occupier, of the land on which the action was taken. One can of course envisage emergencies in which the person concerned does not have a licence. Depending on the circumstances, where there is a threat of death or serious bodily harm, the defence of necessity or self-defence may be available. Therefore, the powers are there if they are ever needed.
  The third and final key issue centres on the UK's international responsibilities. The adder is protected under Appendix III of the Berne Convention on the conservation of European wildlife and natural habitats, to which the UK is a party.
  My noble friend Lord Glenarthur asked why there should not be protection i n specific areas. The adder is in general decline. Where it survives, it needs to be preserved. It would be very confusing for the public if we had to specify areas where there was or was not protection. That would be a muddle. In the Government's view, it is much better to give clear guidance to the public on the statutory protection for adders throughout the whole of the country.
  My noble friend Lord Norrie made an interesting point which I do not believe was entirely relevant to this evening's debate. We are not discussing the owl and the pussy cat but the adder, the allis shad and the pearl mussel. However, I shall look into the point which he raised and I shall write to my noble friend.
  Those are the main reasons why we have accepted the case for giving extra protection to those species. Therefore, I invite my noble friend to withdraw the Motion before us this evening.
  Lord Kimball: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  [The Sitting was suspended from 8.29 p.m. to 8.35 p.m.]

Criminal Justice Bill
House again in Committee.
[Amendment No. 46 not moved.]
Schedule 1 [Amendments of 1973 Act]:
Baroness Faithfull Baroness Faithfull moved Amendment No. 47:
Page 59, line 47, at end insert:
("(1A) A court shall not make a direction under this paragraph unless it does so for the purpose of extending the period during which the offender is required to participate in treatment or therapy designed to reduce the likelihood of further sexual offences.").
The noble Baroness said: The Committee will be glad to hear that this is a probing amendment. At Report stage in the House of Commons the Government introduced amendments to the Bill empowering courts to impose longer periods of supervision for sex offenders. First, the courts would be able, as a condition of a probation order, to require sex offenders to attend at specific centres or participate in specified activities for longer than the normal maximum of 60 days. Secondly, courts passing a
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custodial sentence would be able to specify that sex offenders should be supervised on release for longer than the normal period of post-release suspension.
When he introduced the government amendments at Report stage in the House of Commons on 20th February, the right honourable John Patten, Member of Parliament and Minister of State at the Home Office, said,
"These amendments will enable the courts to require many sexual offenders to undergo longer and more intensive programmes of supervision. The purpose is to increase the confidence of the courts—that is very important—and of the public in the arrangements for dealing with sexual offenders, to protect the public from the risk of serious harm from sexual offenders, and to try to help sexual offenders to reduce the risk of their committing further sexual offences".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/2/91; col. 287.]
Sexual offenders need positive help. If they are kept in prison for a long time or released on supervision for a long time and do not receive help, I can assure the Committee that the prison sentence will have done them no good; they will commit offences again. It is important that we help to rehabilitate those offenders in order that they may return to their families. That view has shocked many people, particularly when expressed by Lord Justice Butler-Sloss, who said that she hoped that many men would return to their families.
However, all we want to do is to lengthen their sentence or period of supervision if they are to receive help. We want to bring to the notice of the Committee the work of the Gracewell Clinic in Birmingham, which was set up privately by two men, Mr. Trevor Price and Mr. Ray Wyre. It is run privately with no money at all from the Government. I shall not go into detail about the Gracewell Clinic because the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, made a long speech about the clinic which appeared in Hansard on 26th March at col. 1015. Anyone wanting to know about the Gracewell Clinic will be able to read his speech. It is such a good speech that it will be quite wrong of me to repeat it.
I plead with the Committee that the Gracewell Clinic should be acknowledged and known and that the men who have committed these admittedly horrifying offences should be helped so that they can return to their own families. They can be helped in three ways: first, by being admitted to such places as the Gracewell Clinic where there is very careful treatment. Secondly, they should be allowed out on supervision after they have had time in the clinic. Thirdly, there should be lectures. Indeed an institute has been set up in Birmingham to give courses to prison warders so that they may help these men while they are in prison. Though that is a very important factor—many of the warders in the prisons of this country are glad to have this help—the environment and the kind of atmosphere that the Gracewell Clinic offers is something which should be financed, helped, supported and expanded throughout the country. I beg to move.
Baroness David: I support very strongly the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. Everybody nowadays is worried about sexual offenders, whether the offences concern

1425
children or people of any age. We do not seem to have found an answer over the country as a whole. The Gracewell Clinic certainly seems to have worked very well. Its success record is very great. It has had 526 referrals and of that number 110 persons have been treated at the clinic. There are at the moment 21 residents.
Nobody who has been treated at the clinic has been reconvicted. It is a most remarkable record. The extraordinary fact is that, although it has this extremely good record, to date the clinic has had no help from the Government and no funding from them. My noble friend Lord Richard was speaking earlier about electronic tagging. He said that £700,000 was spent by the Government on that experiment. However, there has been no help whatever for this clinic which has an extremely successful record. It is not enough to have one clinic; we need many more.
I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House can say that the Government appreciate what has been done and that there can be some financial help. I am sure that the clinic depends very much on the brilliance of Ray Wyre and the people who are running the clinic. Other people could be instructed and helped by them to start clinics in other areas of the country. We know of the problems as regards sex abuse, particularly child abuse. It is a situation which everyone wishes to improve. The noble Baroness said that this was a probing amendment only. It would be nice to have a positive response on the matter tonight.
I have also learnt that no Minister has yet visited the clinic. That is very surprising indeed. I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House can tell us that that situation will be remedied fairly soon. We all realise that there is a problem here. I hope that this amendment will bear some fruit. I am very happy indeed to add my name and support to the noble Baroness's amendment.
8.45 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Worcester: I add my support to this amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull. On Christmas Day last I visited a prison which shall be nameless. After the Christmas service I went to the prison hospital. The first person I saw was a man with a terrible scar on his face. He was a sexual offender who had been attacked by his fellow prisoners. We know in this Committee that it is inadequate merely to put sexual offenders away. In any event they have to be protected from their fellow prisoners. They need therapy which will make less likely the recommission of crimes of this nature. I do not know about other Churches, but the Church of England has received applications for funding for people to go to the Gracewell Clinic. It is not possible for us to fund on any realistic level. I do not know exactly how long a course lasts, but it costs £6,250. We might be able to support one prisoner but we cannot give support on a larger scale.
I am not talking about any particular party of government, but it is government money which is required. As has already been said by the noble Baroness opposite, the Government have supported
1426
other experiments in the past concerning community service and reparation. I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will be able to tell us tonight that the Government will support this kind of therapy, otherwise it is no use the courts recommending a course of training and therapy because it will be unobtainable. I add my support to this amendment and the precept of government financial support for the likes of the Gracewell Clinic, many more of which are needed.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I agree with what the right reverend Prelate has just said. He has been right in identifying one of the major problems which the prison service has at the moment. A very substantial number of sex offenders have to be held and there is the increasing size of the Rule 43 population. One of the elements in the Strangeways situation was the venomous attacks which were made on Rule 43 prisoners in Manchester. Therefore, there is no doubt in my view that this is an issue which deserves high priority from the Government.
I had the opportunity of visiting the Gracewell Clinic quite recently. I was very impressed by what is being done there. I recognise that the clinic rightly charges substantial fees for those who go there. Notwithstanding it runs at a deficit. The cost of its therapy programme is infinitely greater than the total cost of any service that it can provide for any particular probation service. I was impressed both by the quality of the staff and some of the offenders who were there. They were quite open as to the offences for which they had been convicted by the courts. They had committed offences of considerable seriousness. Undoubtedly. if the Gracewell Clinic had not existed the offenders would have been sent to prison for very substantial periods.
I do not want to make any ambitious claims on behalf of the clinic. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady David, in saying that it is a great pity that no member of the Government has visited the Gracewell Clinic. I recognise the pressure on Ministers. I know that it sounds as though one is being unreasonable when one makes a complaint of this kind. The fact is that the entire project has been founded by a single individual. He has put into this clinic hundreds of thousands of pounds of his own money. Unless the clinic has some form of support from public funding in the future, there is a real risk over a period of time that the Gracewell Clinic might not exist. That would be a tragedy so far as our criminal justice system is concerned.
I am sorry that I missed the speech of the noble Baroness when she introduced this amendment; but I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will be able to give us some message of encouragement so far as the clinic is concerned. I understand that they are now involved in work with the prison department in Birmingham and possibly elsewhere, but certainly in Birmingham. Many of us would be particularly pleased were we to be told that a Minister was going to visit the clinic.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, as she always does, put her finger on

1427
the key point when she quoted the right honourable John Patten when he said, on 20th February in another place,
"These amendments will enable the courts to require many sexual offenders to undergo longer and more intensive programmes of supervision."
Then he said:
"The purpose is to increase the confidence of the courts —that is very important—and of the public in the arrangements for dealing with sexual offenders, to protect the public from the risk of serious harm from sexual offenders, and to try to help sex offenders to reduce the risk of their committing further sexual offences in future."
That is at col. 287 of the Official Report.
One should not put too much stress on a Minister's syntax or the order in which he puts things, particulary in the greenhouse effect of debates in another place. But the purpose of those amendments seems marvellously universal. Once again it seems that the Government have willed the end and failed to provide the means. The noble Baroness's amendment points this out and suggests a better course.
The Government's amendments, welcome as they are as they appear now in this Bill, will, if their purpose is achieved, increase the confidence of the courts, increase the confidence of the public, protect the public from sexual offenders, and finally—or is it a triumphal climax?—try to help sex offenders to reduce the risk of their committing further sexual offences in future.
A student was once writing a thesis on the literary works of the 17th century diarist, John Evelyn. In the introduction she tackled the difficult question of how her thesis should spell the diarist's name. She assembled all the evidence and laid it out. "We find spelling (a)", she said, "in 14 contemporary printed books. We find that spelling (b) is that used by his father and his grandfather. Spelling (c) is the way he is referred to in 66 legal documents of the time; while spelling (d) is the one he seems invariably to have used himself. Which should we prefer?"
"But", said her supervisor, "you have one class of evidence there which outweighs all the rest." "What is that?", said the student. "The spelling", came the reply, "which he invariably used himself. Use that, and the rest are unimportant." So also if we can successfully prevent sex offenders committing further sexual offences in future, we shall automatically increase the confidence of the courts and increase the confidence of the public, and protect the public.
As we have heard from all sides of this Committee, the Gracewell Clinic, which has no regular Government funding, which has not yet been visited by any Government Minister, has a most interesting record. No one treated at that clinic has been reconvicted. Q.E.D.
Lord Waddington: The whole Committee ought to be grateful to my noble friend for having raised this matter. I have been most interested to hear about the work of the Gracewell Clinic. The Home Office is following with interest the work that is being done there, and it is a good example of the role that voluntary and charitable effort can play in the criminal justice field. I shall certainly pass on to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary the
1428
suggestion that he, or one of his colleagues, should visit the clinic and give encouragement to those who are doing such important work.
I have no doubt whatsoever that there are plenty of cases where useful therapy is required, and that message has come over quite clearly in this Committee tonight. But if one turns to the amendments, one is talking about something slightly different. The Bill provides for extended supervision in sexual cases, and what these amendments would do would be to limit the powers of the courts to order extended supervision, only allowing the court to order extended supervision if therapy or treatment was going to be involved in that supervision, on the assumption, presumably —and I think it must he an assumption not justified by the facts—that no benefit could accrue to either the offender or the community in any case which might come before the court if extended supervision did not involve treatment.
I do not think anything that has been said here tonight leads me to suppose that anybody here believes that in every single case what is necessary is treatment or therapy. Indeed, one has to bear in mind that if treatment or therapy were not available for some reason or another, there could be benefit from supervision if only a benefit in greater protection for the public; the supervision perhaps making it less likely that the person would reoffend. I think what the Committee expects me to do is to accept the important message that has been given; namely, that the Government should take the closest interest in this voluntary work being carried out; but I do not think that the Committee would expect me to accept the amendments which actually would limit quite severely the powers of the court in a way that would be inappropriate.
One cannot judge—and one certainly cannot come to the conclusion—that in every single case therapy or treatment would be involved, or, to put it the other way round, that no benefit would accrue to the public by supervision unless therapy or treatment were involved. That is the right way to put it; but I repeat that I shall certainly pass on to my right honourable friend what has been said about the Gracewell Clinic, and the feeling of the Committee that it would be desirable if he, or one of his colleagues, could make a visit there.
Baroness Faithfull: I thank the Leader of the House for his reply. Most of us believe—and it is borne out by experience—that if men do not have specialised help and they just have a longer sentence, then they come out as bad as they went in. Therefore, it is in the interests of the community at large that men should be assessed as to those of them who need help and can benefit from help, and that they should receive help.
A number of men have come out, as the right reverend Prelate said, after having been cruelly treated by the other prisoners in prison. They come out, they divorce their wives, or their wives divorce them. They go to another part of the country and start again. I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for having brought up the matter as he did. It is important, first, in order to diminish the number of people in prison; and, secondly, to prevent the offence happening again.

1429
My noble friend Lord Howe, who lives in the Midlands, wrote to me. He lives near the clinic and wished to express his support for the arguments.
I should point out just how much this has saved the prison service. I believe I am right in saying—the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, will correct me if I am wrong—that it costs £335 a week to keep a prisoner. There have been 110 successful cases passing through the clinic. Therefore, the prison service has been saved a great deal of money even in that short period of time.
I am most grateful to my noble friend the Leader of the House for his comments. We shall study carefully what he said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9 p.m.
Lord Mancroft Lord Mancroft moved Amendment No. 47A:
Page 61, line 16, leave out ("is dependent on drugs or alcohol") and insert ("has a drug or alcohol problem").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall, with the leave of the Committee, speak also to Amendments Nos. 47B, 47C, 47D, 47E and 47F. I should point out at this stage that there is a drafting error, for which I take full responsibility, in that there should be similar amendments to Amendments Nos. 47A and 47B as regards lines 19 and 25 on page 61 of the Bill where the words "dependency" and "dependent" occur. Those words should be substituted as set out in the aforesaid amendments.
This is a probing amendment. Its aim is to seek clarification. Last year we had the National Health Service and Community Care Bill and this year we have the Criminal Justice Bill. These two pieces of legislation add up to a great revolution in the way that we are to treat drug addicts and alcoholics both from the point of view of health and the situation when such people appear before the courts.
The problem with all such issues is implementation. Under the National Health Service and Community Care Bill the Government followed the 1982 recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the later recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Alcoholism and described these people as "problem drug takers" and "problem drinkers". However, they have not done so in this Bill. I fear that if there is no conformity in the terms used there will be confusion, especially when the National Health Service and the Department of Social Security become involved in the treatment process, as they must. As my noble friend Lord Ferrers told the House on Second Reading, they will be footing the bill.
There is also a difference between those who are dependent and those who are problem drug takers or problem drinkers. All dependants have problems but not all problem drinkers and drug takers are dependent. If one uses the term "dependency", all those who have problems but who are not dependent will be left out. There are two completely different forms of treatment. Therefore, to send someone who
1430
is not dependent but who has problems for treatment designed for people who are dependent would be a waste of time and money for all concerned.
Amendment No. 47C concerns a most interesting phrase; namely, "susceptible to treatment". I have not met anyone who uses drugs or who is dependent upon them who is not susceptible to treatment. I may have read the passage in the Bill wrongly, but it appears to me at present that such people would have the option to receive treatment only on one occasion. One of the things that we have learnt is that most or many people need to go perhaps once, twice or even three times for treatment. As I say, I may have read the passage wrongly, but that is what the position appears to be at present. I believe that the phrase "susceptible to treatment" requires further explanation.
Amendment No. 47D is an attempt to re-position slightly the options which the court will have at its disposal. As the Bill stands, there will be a tendency to impose treatment orders on people who could be more appropriately dealt with by using a community sentence, with perhaps a fine, a discharge (either conditional or absolute) or a standard probation order.
Experience has shown that compelling unwilling or disruptive individuals to take treatment does little good and merely interferes with the treatment process of the other people in the unit. I believe that the treatment condition should be used to reduce the number of offenders receiving short-term prison sentences rather than to increase the tariff for using offenders on whom the court intended originally—or would have—to impose a community sentence. I hope that this amendment will achieve the objective of reducing the use of imprisonment without increasing penalties on those who would not otherwise require such a stringent sentence.
Amendment No. 47E seeks to remove paragraph 6(7). I cannot understand why this subparagraph is necessary. It allows the transfer of an individual from one treatment facility to another. The notification of the transfer is adequately called for under paragraph 6(8), whereas the ability to make the transfer is allowed under paragraph 6(6). The only possible difference in subparagraph (7) is that it specifically mentions residential treatment. I should have thought that that was well covered in the previous subparagraphs and in the following one. I cannot see the point for the existence of that subparagraph.
Amendment No. 47F is about combination orders with a treatment condition. If an offender needs a treatment order then presumably his drug use is bad. Therefore, he will need to concentrate upon treatment. I believe that imposing a combination order is asking for trouble. Three people will be required to administer it, namely the probation officer, the person administering the treatment and the person administering the community care order. To put it bluntly, that is asking an awful lot of people who cannot commit a simple crime without getting caught. It is asking too much of them if they are to be brought before the court again for failing to meet all the conditions of the order.
Earlier this evening my noble friend Lord Elton mentioned this very subject. It is one which very much concerns us all. Drug users are people who cannot organise their lives. Indeed, that is one of the symptoms of drug use. Therefore, to ask them to do too much would be negative. I appreciate that there must be an element of punishment involved. However, there is no point in that if it is so great—although it would probably not be so great for an ordinary person —that it will lead them to re-offend. We believe that combination orders with treatment attached will be unworkable in practice and that they will detract from the benefits of the treatment conditions.
In conclusion, the amendments in no way alter the principles or the purpose of this part of the Bill. I brought them forward after wide consultation with colleagues in the private and voluntary sector and with the full backing of the Standing Conference on Drug Abuse. As the Government know, it is the private and voluntary sector which will have to shoulder the bulk of the work in this area. We believe that this fine tuning can only add to the successful working of the Bill when it becomes law. I beg to move.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: From these Benches I am happy to support the amendments because they are obviously improvements to the Bill. They are in line with the general thrust of the Bill so far as it concerns drug takers. They introduce a welcome gleam of clarity into some of the areas still dark with imprecision.
The aims of the Bill are to reduce the use of custody for drug users, not to result in greater penalties being imposed on drug users on whom the courts had no intention of imposing a custodial sentence. At present, there is no guidance on the use of the treatment condition. The Government have placed reliance on Clause 5(2) of the Bill as a means of preventing inappropriate use of the treatment condition. It says that the community sentence must, in the opinion of the court, be the most suitable for the offender and must, in restricting the liberty of the offender, be commensurate with the offence. It is likely that for many drug users the court will be satisfied that both conditions are met and seek to impose a treatment condition. The effect will be to increase penalties rather than to reduce the use of custodial sentences. That would be particularly unfortunate.
All the evidence shows that the majority of drug users receive sentences of less than one year's imprisonment. Many are remanded in custody and this time is taken into account when calculating the release date. As all prisoners serving a sentence of 12 months or less are released at the 50 per cent. point of their sentence, most will then be released within two or three months of conviction. In such a short space of time no work can be undertaken in prison. No release plan is prepared. The drug user is released to exactly the same circumstances as those pertaining when arrested. Prison is no more than a temporary interruption to drug use, rather than an introduction to treatment.
I argue that the range of community options should be used first, before a specific treatment condition is imposed. That would offer a graduated criminal
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justice response, starting with a police caution requiring no court attendance, through other options like a fine, absolute or conditional discharge, a community service order, an ordinary probation order or a probation order with the attachment of specific activities, to a probation order with a treatment order. That would give much greater opportunity for parity of treatment.
I come now to the use of the words "dependent" and "dependency" in Amendments Nos. 47A and 47B. The arguments for the changes which are proposed are unanswerable. The word "dependent" is inappropriate because the use of drugs does not automatically mean that the person is dependent. Use can be spasmodic and it can be problematic, but the user is not necessarily dependent. The use of the words "problem drinker" or "drug taker" would not exclude a person from treatment who does not habitually use, but may use on a regular basis, and at these times may come into contact with the criminal justice system.
One example which has been provided for me instances someone who drinks heavily once a week and always drives home from the pub, or who regularly gets into a fight or commits criminal damage. Such a person would not be assessed as alcohol dependent, but he certainly has a drink-related problem if such behaviour only occurs when that individual has been drinking. Similarly, someone who uses stimulants heavily but only at the weekend and who only commits offences while under the influence of the drug is not dependent but he has a. drug-related problem.
If anything, the additional clarity which these amendments propose would lead to a greater inclusiveness, perhaps even to a greater severity in the courts. However, they would produce a clarity in describing the kind of people concerned which would be of assistance to the courts. Further, for similar reasons I support the deletion of the words, "may be susceptible to". I can envisage no drug problem which would not be susceptible to treatment. Everything is susceptible to some kind of treatment. A person with a drug problem cannot be described as suffering from some kind of catholic, invincible ignorance which makes him impenetrable to the holy spirit of the appropriate treatment.
Cessation of problem drug use can take a long time. Changing the habits that have dominated one's life for perhaps 15 or 20 years can be a lengthy process. A probation order with a treatment condition attached will obviously be fully negotiated with the drug user. Experience in the specialist drugs field has shown consistently that drug users sometimes need one, two, three or more attempts to reduce drug use with a view to stopping.
The courts must exercise both charity and patience in these matters. My concern is that the words "susceptible to treatment" imply that the drug user will be allowed only one chance. That is unrealistic when one is working with problem drug users. The removal of those words will allow for repeated attempts at treatment and the use of staged treatment goals as recommended by the Government's own advisory council on the misuse of drugs and Part 1 of

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its report on AIDS and drug misuse. In the interests of parity, clarity and charity I hope that the Government will look kindly on these amendments.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Waddington: I have some sympathy with the intention behind my noble friend's Amendments Nos. 47A and 47B. He wants to ensure that probation orders with a condition of treatment for drug or alcohol misuse are not confined to those who are clinically dependent on drugs or alcohol, but are also available for those who regularly misuse these substances without being dependent. I hope I can reassure my noble friend that the Bill covers these cases through its definition of dependency. I draw the attention of my noble friend and of the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, to paragraph 6(10) of Part II of Schedule 1 which defines dependency on drugs or alcohol to include a propensity to misuse them. This is intended to cover cases where, for example, someone regularly over-indulges in drink and commits offences as a result. It no doubt covers someone who takes the occasional drink and then offends.
There are a couple of reasons why I would prefer to retain the wording in the Bill even though my noble friend's amendments may have the same effect. First, the words in the Bill are more precise. I fear that the courts may have difficulty in interpreting exactly what is meant by the term "drug or alcohol problem". That term may be commonly used but I am not at all sure how the courts would interpret it. Does it mean, for example, that the offender regularly drinks too much, or that he sometimes has one too many? Although the phrase may be popular with practitioners, in framing a statute great care has to be taken to be as precise as possible.
Secondly, the criteria in the Bill reflect the views of the Criminal Justice Working Group of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. That working group recommended earlier this year that the criteria for a condition of treatment should include not only clinical dependency but also cases where the offender misuses drugs or alcohol and this contributed to the offence with which the offender is charged. The working group did not recommend the phrase "drug or alcohol problem".
As regards Amendment No. 47C, I can assure my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that the drafting of the Bill does not rule out an offender being sent for treatment two or three times or however many times it takes. Amendment No. 47C would remove from paragraph 6(1) (c) the criterion that an offender's dependency may be susceptible to treatment. Instead, the courts would only have to be satisfied that the offender's dependency required treatment. This would mean that the courts could make a probation order with a treatment condition on anyone whose condition required it, regardless of whether or not his condition was susceptible to treatment. As such, my noble friend's amendment would go wider than the Bill. But we want to make the best use of the facilities that are
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available for the treatment of drug and alcohol misuse. This means, simply, that it would not be right to use up the treatment facilities in cases where these are not going to be effective. I cannot agree with the proposition advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, when he said that everything is susceptible to treatment.
Amendment No. 47D would prevent the courts making a probation order with a condition of treatment unless two further criteria were met. The first is that a probation officer thought that it would be impossible to supervise the offender unless he was subject to a treatment requirement for drug or alcohol misuse. The second is that, if it did not make a probation order with a condition of treatment, the court would otherwise pass an immediate custodial sentence. But this will restrict quite significantly the use of these probation orders. Under the Bill, custody is reserved for offences that are so serious that no lesser disposal will do. If a court considers that an immediate prison sentence would be necessary, then it will already have decided that a probation order would not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offence. This amendment may be thought apt for cases where the offender commits a very serious offence, such as inflicting grievous bodily harm to obtain money to fuel his addiction to drugs.
However, there are many cases where imprisonment would not be justified by the gravity of the offence, but the offender would benefit from a probation order with a condition of treatment. Such offenders would be excluded by this amendment.
We prefer the approach taken in the Bill. Clause 5(2) (a) requires a community sentence passed on an offender to consist of the order or orders most suitable for him. Clause 6(2) requires a court to consider a pre-sentence report before making a probation order with a condition of treatment so as to ensure that that would be the most suitable disposal. That, in our view, will effectively prevent the inappropriate or indiscriminate use of these probation orders.
Turning to Amendment No. 47E, it might be helpful if I explained what the provisions in sub-paragraphs (7) and (9) of paragraph 6 are intended to achieve. Sub-paragraph (7) is simply concerned with the variation of part of the programme of treatment for drug or alcohol misuse in which the offender is participating. Paragraph 6(3) requires a probation order which includes a requirement for such treatment to specify either an institution or place where the whole of the treatment should take place or a named person with the appropriate qualifications and experience to supervise a programme of treatment. If the institution or place named in the order or the named person changes, then the matter must be referred to the court for its consideration. However, provided the person or institution named in the order remains responsible for the treatment programme, paragraph 6(6) provides for a degree of flexibility in planning that programme of treatment without the matter necessarily returning to the court because paragraph 6(6) allows the person directing the treatment to make certain changes to the programme of treatment, with the consent of the offender.

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Turning briefly to Amendment No. 47F and paragraph 6(9) there has, I know, been some confusion about this provision. The reference to Section 10 has been react as a reference to Clause 10 of the Bill. However, Schedule 1 to the Bill amends the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973. The reference to "section 10 of this Act" in paragraph 6(9) is thus a reference to Section 10 of the 1973 Act.
My noble friend has raised a number of matters but I hope that his fears have been assuaged by what I have said. Certainly Amendment No. 47F need not bother him because all that the provision does is ensure that proper arrangements can be made to allow an offender who is normally resident in Scotland but is convicted in England and made the subject of a probation order, with a requirement for drug or alcohol treatment, to have his treatment carried out in Scotland. I do not believe that I can help my noble friend further.
Lord Richard: I do not want to prolong the debate, but is the noble Lord the Leader of the House really telling us that the drafting of subparagraph (9), in which "section 10 of this Act" does not refer to this Act but to something that has been referred to at the beginning of the schedule, is felicitous and that it necessarily has to be done in that complicated way? I find it hard to believe that he is saying that. Will be look at that again?
Lord Waddington: I can assure the noble Lord that I am correct. If he turns to the beginning of Schedule 1 on page 55 of the Bill he will see that it is entitled:
"Schedule 1
Amendments of 1973 Act
Part I".
What follows is part of the 1973 Act and therefore references thereafter to "this Act" must be references to the 1973 Act.
Lord Elton: There is nothing unusual about that. It is perfectly normal to have a schedule to one Act amending the text of another Act. Once one sees the heading of the schedule it is perfectly clear what is intended.
I should like to ask my noble friend to consider with his officials the advisability of having a different definition of dependency in statute and in clinical language. I can see considerable difficulties developing in court down the years if expert witnesses are expected to translate their accustomed language into the language of the law. It may result in confusion. I do not wish to delay the Committee further.
Lord Waddington: I shall pass on what my noble friend has said in that regard, but there is a clear definition of dependency in the Act and I quoted from that definition.
Lord Mancroft: I have had a long and complicated answer from my noble friend the Leader of the House and I shall have to read it carefully. I am concerned about the problem of terminology. I appreciate that this is a legal Bill, that definitions must appear before a court and that the health service's definitions are not for the courts. Nevertheless, they must both be
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accurate definitions of the same thing. It is a pity that they are unnecessarily complicated. They are the exact opposite of each other.
It is also a pity that the definition in paragraph 6(10) is completely opposed to the view of the Department of Health. They are two departments in the same Government. It is a bit of a muddle. This is a field in which various government departments get together. I am told that there are various Cabinet sub-committees which ponder those problems. It is slightly worrying if they cannot decide on a definition. It is therefore hardly surprising that there is such a muddle lower down in the field where the work has to be done.
The answers to the other amendments are quite complicated and I shall read carefully what my noble friend said. I am still not wholly convinced that paragraph 6(8) is necessary but I shall take his word for it for the moment. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 47B to 47F not moved.] Schedule I agreed to.
Clause 9 [Community service orders]:
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 48:
Page 8, line 11, leave out subsection (2).
The noble Lord said: As I understand it, the purpose of Clause 9(2) is to increase the maximum number of hours of community service for 16 year-olds to 240. Currently the maximum is 120. I believe that the breach or failure rates would markedly increase as a result of that extension. Many 16 year-olds would therefore be tripwired into custody because of further offences or of failure to comply with conditions.
If one looks at the 16 year-old offender group it is typically fairly immature, it leads a somewhat disorganised, undisciplined lifestyle and it has frequently experienced learning difficulties. Many young people would therefore find themselves in a position of failing as a result of the imposition of extra conditions and hours. For all ages, the more hours that are specified, the higher the breach rate. For example, those sentenced to between 40 and 100 hours have a 77 per cent. success rate; those sentenced to between 100 and 150 hours have a 70 per cent. completion rate; those sentenced to between 150 and 200 hours have a 66 per cent. completion rate; and those sentenced to between 200 and 240 hours have a 61 per cent. success rate. Therefore, the failure rate for 16 year-olds sentenced to more than 120 hours seems set to soar, perhaps with a majority who are sentenced to it breaching.
The evidence suggests that the longer the order, the higher the breach rate. It also suggests that the younger, the less mature and more disorganised the offender, the higher the failure rate. If you put those two together, the proposed combination of those two factors for 16 year-olds seems certain sharply to increase the number failing to comply and therefore a significant number will receive custody through sentences.
Prison statistics show that 80 per cent. of 16 year-olds sentenced to custody are reconvicted within two years. Therefore, the imposition of extra community service seems set to increase the use of custody for 16 year-olds and confirm rather than deter criminal careers. I have seen no practical justification for increasing the maximum from 120 to 240 hours. I beg to move.
Baroness Faithfull: I rise to support the noble Lord, Lord Richard. With 16 year-olds the law of diminishing returns sets in. If one is to impose very long sentences, the young people concerned receive less and less positive help. From my experience, the longer a child is in custody, the more difficult it is to rehabilitate that child into the community afterwards. I support the noble Lord on those two points. My noble friend Lord Elton knows all about the very good system of the intermediate treatment within the community. It is far better to keep young people in custody for a shorter time and see that they receive rehabilitation afterwards. Therefore, I support the amendment.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Gisborough: I also support the amendment. Those charged with the duty of carrying out community service orders for 16 year-olds believe that such orders have a much better chance of being completed successfully when the young offenders have a grasp of the parameters of the orders. The maximum number of hours should apply also to 17 year-olds dealt with in the new youth courts, so creating some differential between orders for adults and juveniles and young people.
Lord Waddington: The proposal in Clause 6(2) must be looked at against the background of the proposition in the White Paper that 16 and 17 year-olds should be dealt with as near-adults. That is the origin of the proposal. All it does is say that the same powers would be available to the courts in this regard for 16 year-olds as for 17 year-olds. That is directly in line with the general proposition in the White Paper that both 16 and 17 year-olds should come within the purview of the new youth court.
The amendment would retain the maximum number of hours of unpaid work which can be imposed on a 16 year-old offender at the existing limit of 120 hours. We believe that increasing the maximum number of hours to 240 in line with the maximum for other offenders will be helpful to the courts in dealing with offenders at this age. Of course, the courts do not have to impose more hours of community service unless they think it is right to do so. It is an integral part of our general approach in dealing with 16 and 17 year-olds that teenagers of this age are at an intermediate stage between childhood and adulthood. The arrangements for dealing with such offenders should reflect that by providing the courts with a wide range of disposals so that the sentence can properly reflect the maturity of the individual offender. It seems to me that to accept the amendment would be to
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deprive the court of some additional flexibility so as to make the penalty fit the crime and the particular young offender.
Lord Richard: If I may say so, I find the response unconvincing. I have seen no evidence anywhere that courts presently dealing with 16 year-olds are saying to themselves, "Good heavens! Wouldn't it be nice if we had power to impose 240 hours as opposed to being stuck with 120?" It seems to me that the present system is working reasonably well, and that there are dangers in interfering with it. At this hour I will not attempt to divide the House on the issue. I ask for leave to withdraw the amendment. We may come back to it at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Orders combining probation and community service]:
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 49:
Page 8, line 48, at end insert:
("(2A) A court shall not make a combination order unless it would have imposed a custodial sentence if it had not made such an order.").
The noble Lord said: This is another amendment raising a fairly short point. I hope I may be more successful in this than on the last short point I raised with the noble Lord.
The amendment would require courts to use the new combined probation and community service order only when they would otherwise have imposed a custodial sentence. As I understand it, the aim of the new combination order is to provide the courts with a new intensive and demanding penalty which would be a credible alternative to custody for many offenders who are currently in prison. However, there is no guidance to that effect in the Bill. In the absence of any such guidance there is every possibility that the courts would use the new order for many offenders who had currently received probation orders, community service orders or other existing community penalties. For example, the community service order introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 1972 was intended primarily as an alternative to custody. A few years after its introduction Home Office research found that only 45 per cent. to 50 per cent. of such orders were passed on offenders who otherwise would have gone to prison.
If that were to happen in this case it would seriously reduce the impact of the new order on the unnecessary use of custodial sentences. A further danger lies in the fact that the greater the number of requirements imposed on offenders the higher the chance that the offender will break one of the conditions, be returned to court for breach and be imprisoned. If the combination order were widely used instead of the existing non-custodial penalties it could lead to the imprisonment for breach of many offenders who otherwise would not have been at risk of custody. The Bill should therefore be amended to stipulate that the courts must use the combination order only when they would otherwise have passed a custodial sentence.
A combination order will be the most intensive community penalty available to the courts. By

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reserving it for more serious cases which would currently receive a custodial sentence the amendment would reinforce the idea that the more intensive penalties should be used for the more serious offences which deserve them. I beg to move.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I propose to speak very briefly on this amendment. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Richard. When community service was first introduced—I think by the noble Lord, Lord Carr —on an experimental basis and the resources were provided by the successor Labour Government to extend the system to the rest of the country, it was made clear that community service was seen as a direct alternative to imprisonment. I am not sure that that approach necessarily succeeded over a period of time but it is probable that somewhere in the region of half of those who at that time were sentenced to community service would otherwise have gone to prison. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, to which I added my name, would require the courts to use the new combined sentence only when otherwise there would have been a custodial sentence. That seems to me to be right.
It is also right for another reason. If one is to have the new sentence—the combined order—the resource implications for the probation service are very considerable. They will be infinitely greater than they are, for instance, in the single probation order or the single community service order. As Ministers constantly and rightly explain, the resources of the probation service are limited. That being so, it seems to me that this amendment is exactly the right approach; namely, that it should be seen as a direct alternative to imprisonment.
I read the report of what the Minister of State said in the House of Commons. He seemed to be most unpersuasive as to why the Government were not attracted by this approach. Even in terms of the resource implications for the probation service I believe that this is the right way to deal with the issue. I hope, without an immense degree of optimism, that the Government will agree with us.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: Perhaps I may add a brief word. So far today I have not spoken and perhaps I shall be allowed a little credit in that respect. I agree about the resource implications mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. To my mind the most important reason for agreeing to this amendment is that should it not be accepted the most valuable new combined probation and community service inevitably would be devalued. That would be a great pity indeed. It would only be devalued by being used for the wrong purpose; that is, as an alternative to other non-custodial sentences. I believe that it would lead to the imprisonment of those in breach of many of the orders who would ordinarily not have been confined to custody. However, if they are subject to one of those orders and are in breach they would then be at risk unnecessarily of imprisonment. One is thereby increasing the risk of imprisonment by not making the distinction which the amendment seeks to make. I strongly support the amendment.
Lord Waddington: I understand the intention behind the amendment. However, the wording of the amendment is unfortunate. Perhaps I may remind the House that the provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill relating to community sentences are, deliberately framed so as to move away from what is thought of by many as the outmoded concept of "alternatives to custody". The trouble with that approach is that it encourages sentencers to think that the only real penalty is custody, and that a sentence other than a custodial one is therefore unlikely to be appropriate for relatively serious cases. This is quite out of line with the sentencing principles of the Bill which establish quite clearly that custody should be used only when no other penalty will do.
I believe that we are all agreed that there should be as wide a range as possible of community penalties available to the courts so that the courts are encouraged to use community penalties. In introducing a new type of order—in this case the combination order—it is surely right to ensure that it is used like other community sentences as a penalty in its own right for offenders for whom it is suitable. The combination order will, I believe, be particularly suitable for those offenders who have committed quite serious crimes on the border between a community penalty and custody. But it is only clouding the issue to require the courts in this particular case to ask themselves the very question that we do not ask courts to ask themselves in any other case: whether they would have given a custodial sentence if the combination order had not been available.
I understand the concern that combination orders should not be used indiscriminately, and in particular should not be used in circumstances where an ordinary probation or community service order would be more appropriate. I do not, however. believe that this will happen. The yardstick for any community sentence, including a combination order, is set out quite clearly in Clause 5(2) of the Bill. Under Clause 5(2) (b), the restrictions on liberty in an order are to be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence. Under Clause 5(2) (a) the community sentence must be the most suitable for the offender. These are tight and rigorous tests which will ensure that the combination order, and indeed other community sentences, are used appropriately.
I hope that what I have said has served to explain more fully the way in which the Bill provisions will work and that the noble Lord, Lord Richard, will understand why I do not think it would be right to restrict the use of a combination order in the way that he proposes.
Lord Richard: I hear what the Leader of the House says. I take the point that the philosophy of the Bill and the terms of the amendment do not fit as well together as they should. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage. However, I should like to consider the drafting to see whether it may be possible to produce an amendment which sits rather better with the philosophy of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 agreed to.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Gisborough Lord Gisborough moved Amendment No. 50:
After Clause 10, insert the following new clause:
("Commencement of s. 49 of Criminal Justice Act 1972.
Section 49 of the Criminal Justice Act 1972 shall come into force on the date this Act is passed.").
The noble Lord said: Section 49 of the 1972 Act provides that in any case where a magistrates' court has powers to issue a warrant of commitment for default of payment of a fine the court may make a community service order instead of a commitment to prison. We are agreed that it is preferable to put a man on community punishment rather than to send him to prison. However, the section has never been brought into force. I understand the reason is that the probation service is not adequately funded nor staffed to deal with the numbers involved. Thus defaulters are sent to prison. The cost of keeping them there must far exceed the cost of putting them on community service even if it comes from a different budget. In addition there are the well-rehearsed disadvantages of introducing a man to prison. If community service is constructive it will achieve a value in the work carried out which will balance the unpaid fine. It would be wholly desirable as well as being a great economy to fund the probation service to the extent that it would be prepared to take on the duty relating to this section. Therefore it should come into force with the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Waddington: We all agree that we wish to see fewer fine defaulters in prison. Members of the Committee will be aware that the Bill contains important provisions which should have a beneficial impact on the problem. The introduction of unit fines and the attachment of income support will lead to less imprisonment for default as a result of fairer assessment and easier enforcement. They should ensure that only those who have deliberately not paid their fines will end up in prison as a result.
There is no doubt that a large number of people wait a long time before meeting their obligations. At the eleventh hour and under the threat of imprisonment they decide to pay up. The question is whether the proposal in the amendment would be a wise use of resources and have the beneficial effect which my noble friend suggests.
Having considered whether to bring Section 49 of the 1972 Act into force and to make community service available for fine defaulters, we have decided not to go down that road. We do not believe that community service would be as effective as imprisonment in encouraging defaulters to pay their fines. About 120,000 warrants are issued each year committing fine defaulters to prison and more than 80 per cent. pay up. The use of community service would divert the probation service from its important task of supervising more serious offenders.
My noble friend has freely acknowledged that the use of community service would cost the probation service a great deal in resources. In our judgment it would cost the probation service more than it would save the prison service. Those who fail to comply with the community service order would still end up in
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prison for default. A nice judgment must be made. For those reasons we have reached the conclusion that at the present time it is not wise to go down the road recommended by my noble friend. I hope that he will look at the issue in the context of the other proposals in the Bill which should have a desirable impact on the number of people who end up in prison for fine default.
Lord Gisborough: I thank my noble friend for that reply. I am not convinced but I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 11 [Curfew orders]:
[Amendment No. 50A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
[Amendment No. 51 not moved.]
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [Electronic monitoring of curfew orders]: [Amendment No. 51A had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Enforcement etc. of community orders]:
On Question, Whether Schedule 2 shall be agreed to?
Lord Ackner: I have given notice of my intention to address the Committee on this issue. I hope that I have adopted the right procedure. I have done so because, as I understand it, major changes are being made in the way an offender is to be dealt with for breach of a requirement of a probation order. I may be wrong but that is my understanding of Schedule 2.
An offender who is in breach of an order may be fined, or the order may be revoked and the offender resentenced for the offence. However, it will normally be possible to impose a custodial sentence on an offender who is in breach of a requirement of the order only if his breach is "wilful and persistent". Those are the words at paragraphs 3(2) (b) and 4(2) (b) of Schedule 2. The court will not generally be able to impose a custodial sentence under paragraph 4(1) (c) as the original offence was not sufficiently serious to satisfy Clause 1(2). The offender's failure to respond to the probation order must, as I understand it, be ignored by reason of the strange provisions of Clause 3(2). That may make the probation order a distinctly less attractive option in the more serious and potentially risky cases.
Further, the commission of a further offence during the period of a probation order will not in itself be a ground for resentencing the offender for the offence for which the probation order was imposed, as it has been in the past. Resentencing following a further conviction in a magistrates' court will be possible under paragraph 7 if the offender or supervising officer applies to the supervising court for revocation and under paragraph 8 if the offender is convicted in the Crown Court. In neither of those cases will it normally be possible to impose a custodial sentence for the original offence, as the criteria for custodial sentences in Clause 1 will normally prevent that, except of

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course in cases where they do not apply; that is, in indictable only offences committed by an offender who has served a previous sentence of imprisonment.
All that adds up to the proposition that the general effect of these changes, contrary to what I understand to be government policy, seems to be to weaken the probation order by restricting the sanctions available on a breach or conviction for a further offence. Therefore, this is one of these very rare, if not totally unique, situations where I expect, if he is going to be consistent with his peroration today, the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, will leap to my support. In that happy and confident vein, I commend what I say to the Committee.
Earl Ferrers: Perhaps I may explain to the noble and learned Lord what the position is. If we are to have community sentences then we must have means of enforcing them, otherwise the system will fall into disrepute. There must be provisions to cover such eventualities as an offender not turning up for a community service work appointment, committing a further offence or moving to another part of the country.
Schedule 2 contains a set of enforcement provisions that are largely based on existing procedures. However, we have tried to make them clearer and more consistent. We have tried to apply the same approach as nearly as possible to a number of community orders—the probation order, the community service order, the combination order and the curfew order. In doing so we aimed at consistency with the sentencing framework in Clauses 1 to 6 of the Bill.
Enforcement of community sentences needs to be rigorous so that offenders cannot ignore the requirements of their orders with impunity. At the same time they should not be over zealous so that a minor breach will send the offender back into custody. It is difficult to obtain the correct balance and I hope that the schedule achieves that.
In general, when dealing with breach of the requirements of a community sentence the courts will be able to impose a penalty of either a fine equivalent to level 3 maximum £.1,000—or up to 40 community service hours. The original order will remain in force. If a court revokes an order following a breach of requirements so as to deal with the offender in another way then it must take into account how far he or she has already complied with its requirements. The Bill brings the powers for dealing with re-offending during the currency of a probation order more into line with the arrangements for community service orders, reflecting the new status of the probation order as a sentence of the court.
Part III of Schedule 2, which deals with the revocation of an order, preserves the existing power of the courts to revoke a probation order in circumstances where the probationer has made good progress. The last part of Schedule 2 deals with the amendment of a community order for other reasons; for example, where an offender moves from one area to another or where a community service order needs to be extended beyond the original 12 month period to enable an offender to complete it.
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I hope the provisions in Schedule 2 will be easier for all concerned to understand and apply than are the current provisions of the law. They seek to achieve a greater degree of consistency and a balanced approach between encouraging the offender to complete the order successfully and punishing him or her appropriately for any failures on the way to completion.
Lord Ackner: Before the noble Earl sits down perhaps he will confirm that I was right in my inference that the effect of the changes is to weaken the probation order by restricting the sanctions available for a breach or conviction of a further offence.
Earl Ferrers: I shall need to consider that proposition more carefully. I do not believe that the Bill weakens the probation order; it treats it as a punishment in its own right. However, I shall consider what the noble and learned Lord said and if I am incorrect I will write to him.
Schedule 2 agreed to.
Clauses 14 and 15 agreed to.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
10 p.m.
Clause 16 [Fixing of certain fines by reference to units]:
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 52:
Page 12, line 31, leave out ("at the time of the conviction").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of Amendments Nos. 52 and 53 is to deal with two points affecting the operation of the unit fine scheme under Clause 16. The Bill provides for a unit fine to be determined with reference to two things; that is, the seriousness of the offence and the disposable weekly income of the offender. The court will ascribe a number of units corresponding to the first of these and a value to each unit corresponding to the second.
The first point arises in Clause 16(2) (a). This requires the court to determine the number of units at the time of the conviction. However, the court does not always pass sentence immediately after it convicts an offender. For example, a court may convict an offender of two or more offences on two or more separate occasions and may then proceed to pass sentence for them all at one sitting. It is clearly desirable that the provisions of the Bill should accurately reflect court procedures. Accordingly, Amendment No. 52 removes the reference to the time of the conviction in Clause 16(2) (a). Amendment No. 53 is a drafting change consequential on Amendment No. 52.
The second point is that the Bill, in Clause 16(7) (b), allows the value of each unit to be determined by court officials in accordance with rules made by my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor. This would work as follows. The offender would provide a statement of his means. The court officials would work out his disposable weekly income and then ascribe a value to each unit. Then the amount of the fine could be calculated. This could happen when the offender was sentenced or at some later point. In the latter case

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the court officials would under Clause 16(2) write to him and let him know the amount of the fine he had to pay.
We thought very carefully about that and we have come to the view that such a practice is incompatible with the principle that court proceedings are generally supposed to be public and open, with the sentence stated in open court. This means that the value of each unit in a unit fine, on which the amount of the fine partly depends, will also have to be announced in open court. Another problem is that it is not clear where an appeal lies if the offender thinks that the court officials have wrongly calculated his disposable weekly income.
On that basis we have concluded that the task of determining the value of a unit must be left to the magistrate. We cannot shovel it off on officials. The magistrate may take advice from court officials, but he will be responsible for determining its value and announcing the amount of the fine in open court. Amendment No. 60 therefore removes Clause 16(7) from the Bill. Amendments Nos. 54 and 55 are consequential: if the fine is to be announced in open court and not determined by court officials in private, there is no need to notify the offender by post. So Amendment No. 55 deletes the tailpiece to Clause 16(2). Amendment No. 54 preserves my noble and learned friend's power to make rules governing the way in which the value of a unit is to be determined. These are amendments which make a real improvement to the Bill. I commend them to the Committee.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 53:
Page 12, line 36, leave out ("that") and insert ("the same").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 54:
Page 12, line 37, after ("court") insert ("in accordance with rules made by the Lord Chancellor").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No.55:
Page 12, leave out lines 38 to 40.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 56:
Page 12, line 40, at end insert:
("(2A) In making any such determination as is mentioned in subsection (2) (a) above, a court shall take into account all such information about the circumstances of the offence (including any aggravating or mitigating factors) as is available to it.").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is simply to ensure that a court takes into account the circumstances of the offence (including any aggravating or mitigating factors) in fixing the amount of a unit fine under Clause 16(2). This is to be consistent with the related provisions in Clauses 3 and 6. When a court is thinking of imposing a custodial or community sentence under Clauses 3 or 6, it must consider information about the offence, including aggravating or mitigating factors. This is to enable it to decide whether the offence is serious enough to justify one of these sentences. Clause 16, as drafted at present, contains no similar reference to these factors. We think that there should be consistency between this provision and the related provisions in Clauses 3 and 6. So Amendment No. 56 makes it clear that when a court is considering how many units would properly reflect the seriousness of the offence it should take into account any available information about the circumstances of the offence just as it should when imposing any other kind of sentence. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henderson of Brompton Lord Henderson of Brompton moved Amendment No. 57:
Page 13, line 9, after ("above)") insert ("unless the court is satisfied that this would be unreasonable having regard to the circumstances of the offender").
The noble Lord said: This amendment, which I am happy to say has all-party support, seeks to make one small but important amendment to the means related unit fine system which is introduced in this Bill, and which I think I can say for all of those who support this amendment is immensely welcome. We have been working for this for some time. Indeed I well remember that I moved an amendment, which was not so expertly drafted as the provisions in this Bill, to the Criminal Justice Act 1988, when I regret to say that it was received with a rather cold answer from the Government. I am sure they were right to do so, because since then there has been this valuable experiment in four areas which has amply justified the introduction of the unit fine system.
The only area that we would quarrel with is the provision which allows courts operating the unit fine system to calculate an offender's weekly disposable income at less than £4 where to calculate it at £4 a week would be unreasonable. We do not like this limit of £4 in the case of very poor offenders. Under the unit fine system, as the Committee will know, the size of a fine is determined by multiplying the number of units representing the seriousness of the offence by the weekly disposable income of the offender.
When this experiment took place, three out of the four courts set a minimum amount of £3 a week, and Bradford, one of the experimental centres, had a minimum of £5 a week. But the reality turned out to be—and this is in the evidence of the Home Office evaluation of the experiments—that at Bradford, where the minimum weekly amount was £5, in practice more than one-third of the fines were set at £3 or less, and 11 per cent. were set at £1 or £2 a week.
At Swansea 41 per cent. of the fines were set at £3 or less, and 13 per cent. at £1 or £2 a week. At Teesside, the area of highest unemployment, nearly half of the fines were set at £3 a week or less, with as much as 39 per cent. being set at £1 or £2 a week. We should not ignore the valuable evidence that came from these experimental areas. Even in the relatively well-off area of Basingstoke, although they had few fines below £3 a week, the magistrates there occasionally fined the odd offender as little as £1 or £2 a week. We ought to have regard to the experience that has been gathered from this valuable experiment in four diverse areas of the country where the magistrates found it necessary to lower the bottom limit to as little as £1 or £2 a week.
I should have thought that it would be in accordance with the respect that we would show for magistrates' courts that we should allow them, where they have evidence of perhaps default of a fine because of the personal circumstances or very low income of the offender, to allow payment at a lower rate. If they are not allowed that discretion, then the offender might unfortunately end up in prison in default of payment.
Not only should we defer to the experience of the magistrates and trust them in this matter, but we should also have regard to the fairness of the scheme. Such fairness lies in ensuring that fines have a more equal impact on the poor and on those who are well off. For example, if an offender who can afford to pay £20 a week receives a fine of £20 a week but a poor person who can only afford £2 a week is fined as if he could afford £4 a week, it is quite clear that the degree of fairness—which is an admirable feature of the unit fine system—is reduced. Moreover, the likelihood of default at the lower end of the scale is increased.
I turn now to the remarks made by Mr. John Patten in another place; namely, that if the monetary value was set lower than £4 a week there would be:
"the risk of setting up a system such that the monetary value of the fine would become derisory".—[Official Report, Commons, 20/2/91; col. 404.]
I believe that is overstating the case. I do not believe that it would be derisory. I believe that it would be possible to collect a sum of perhaps £1, £2 or £3 a week and that it would be paid: whereas, if a very poor person is forced to pay as much as £5 a week, there will be a default and the whole purpose of the system will be defeated by the defaulting offender being sent to prison.
The case is a most powerful one. In order to make the system which we all agree is extremely valuable more effective as well as fairer, I strongly commend the amendment to the Committee. I beg to move.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I support this amendment. It is very late at night but this is a most important issue. The means-related unit fines system has substantially reduced the number of people being committed to prison for fine default. In my view, there can hardly be a more important motive than to somehow reduce the ludicrous number of people who are at present sent to prison for very short periods of time for fine default.
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, mentioned the various places where the experiment has been introduced. In Basingstoke, the cowl has almost completely abolished imprisonment for default. Indeed, it has proved what many of us have been arguing for years in this Chamber; namely, that with proper arrangements prison can be abolished altogether for fine defaulters.
I was sorry to hear the noble Lord the Leader of the House say earlier how many people repay their fines only because of the threat of imprisonment. That is simply not necessary. There are other ways of obtaining the money rather than the old-fashioned method of the blunderbuss of threatening imprisonment. Basingstoke has proved its point. What is proposed is most essential. I say that because there are many offenders who simply cannot afford to pay £4 a week.
I do not believe that the Government appreciate the depth of poverty which many people face in this country at present. Surely the Government are able to recognise the fact that magistrates' courts are well able to decide the appropriate sum which should be fixed at the bottom of the scale. These experiments have shown that the various courts have not been given a

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sum which is frozen; they set a sum and have the flexibility to vary it in special circumstances. Surely that is the proper way to deal with the matter.
The amendment is strongly supported by the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. It has supplied us with a number of examples and I shall not quote them all at this late hour, but it is important to give at least two of them. A CAB in Lancashire reports the case of a single parent on income support who was fined £50 for non-payment of a TV licence. She could only afford to pay £1 a week and she fell behind with the payments. Bailiff action was started to recover the fine, incurring costs amounting to a further £30.
A CAB in Devon reports a case where a man with a family, including a child under five, used his income support to pay his fines having been threatened with imprisonment for non-payment. He was subsequently refused a social fund crisis loan and the family were left without any money for 11 days. In another case, a CAB in Derbyshire reports that it has a client who works for 20 hours a week in a residential cafe home. His pay is £20 a week. He visited the bureau because the DSS had stopped his income support. Its reason was that it did not believe that anyone could be paid so little and the DSS assessed his earnings at £40. Those three examples out of a great number indicate the depth of poverty which people face in this country. Surely flexibility is essential.
10.15 p.m.
Baroness Faithfull: As one who has had to collect debts from people I strongly support the amendment. If people are asked to pay an amount which they cannot manage then they pay nothing at all and there is a difficulty. If they try to pay from their income, particularly if the family is on income support, there is disruption in the family because the mother does not have enough money to look after her husband and children.
It is right that people should be fined if they run into debt in this way, but if they are ordered to pay £4 per week but cannot do so they are worse off than before because they will go to prison. I cannot understand why, if they must pay the full amount, it cannot be spread over a longer period so that they pay a much smaller sum which is within their budget. Such people will then face their problems. However, if they are forced to repay amounts which they cannot afford they will pay nothing at all. This is my personal experience of dealing with debtors.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Was it not that great dramatist and contemporary of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, who, speaking of the importance of the Greek and Roman writers to the writers of his own generation, said that the ancients should be guides not commanders? So here it seems eminently sensible, fair and cost-effective to relax this commanding rule of "never less than £4 a week" and use that phrase as a guide, mollified by the words of the amendment.
As we have heard, the pilot schemes have been eminently successful and not to accede to the
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amendment would reduce the fairness of the whole system. Its fairness lies in ensuring that fines have an equal impact on the poor and the well-off. It would also reduce the effectiveness of the system because offenders, required to pay twice as much as their real disposable income warrants, are more likely to default. Sense, prudence, fairness and Ben Jonson commend this amendment to the Committee. So do I.
Lord Waddington: As usual my noble friend Lady Faithfull got to the nub of the matter as she addressed most of her remarks not to the level of the fine but to the rate of payment. That, of course, is a solution to the problem. I believe that the case is being grossly overstated by those supporting the amendment when they talk as if a minimum fine of £4 is a fine that no one in the depths of poverty could ever pay. It is, of course, always up to the magistrates to decide at what rate a fine should be paid. Clearly magistrates can take into account the desperate straits of a person in deciding the rate of payment. That is really the important issue.
We must remember that we are introducing a new scheme. For such a scheme to be viable and to have credibility with sentencers, offenders, victims and with the public at large, a minimum value of the kind proposed in the Bill is surely an essential element. We have adopted a starting point of £4. We have tried to achieve a balance between the need to take proper account of an offender's means and the need to ensure that the seriousness of the offence is properly reflected in the fine.
It is difficult these days to think of a single offence the seriousness of which could be reflected in a derisory fine as low as £4, £6 or £8. In making this judgment we have taken full account of the experience of the courts participating in the pilot projects initiated to test the unit fine scheme. As I believe the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, acknowledged, each of those projects adopted a minimum value for a unit. Admittedly they did not all adopt the same minimum value but, as far as I recall, they all adopted a minimum value.
I went down to Basingstoke to see how the scheme was working. It is working incredibly well. No one here is suggesting that we are not right to go ahead with the unit fine scheme. However, we must make it work and we must ensure that it has credibility. I do not think it helps to build up the credibility of the scheme to say that a magistrates' court might impose a minimum value on a unit of 50p or £1. It is for us to ensure that a value lower than £4 is not set as that would lead to the imposition of a derisory fine.
As I have said, it is important to recognise that the unit fine system is about fixing a penalty for an offence. It is not about making arrangements for the payment of fines. If a unit fine based on a minimum value of £4 is too much for the offender to pay on a weekly basis, the court has the discretion to allow the offender to pay in weekly instalments of less than £4. That provides a safeguard to ensure that offenders do not end up in prison simply because they do not have the money to pay the fine at a rate of £4 a week.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, when I referred to 80 per cent. of people paying up

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under the threat of imprisonment, I was talking about the set-up under the present law. I repeat that there are other provisions in this Bill which should make it much less likely that people will end up in prison for fine default as a result, for example, of an attachment of earnings order. I believe that a minimum value of £4 for a unit is within the means of most offenders. I cannot recommend to the Committee an amendment which would allow a unit value of less than £4.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: Before the noble Lord sits down, will Be address his mind to the question of fairness to which I referred?
Lord Waddington: The scheme would be absolutely pure and immaculate if whatever disposable income was calculated was the income which was taken into account, even if that resulted in a unit of 2.5p. However, I do not think the noble Lord is seriously arguing that one should destroy the credibility of a scheme of this nature by taking the assessment to absurd lengths. If we are to achieve a fine which has any meaning at all, we should establish a minimum level.
The question is what the minimum level should be. The noble Lord has acknowledged that in each of the pilot schemes the courts felt it right to have a minimum level. So what we should be arguing about now is not the perfect purity which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, now seems to be urging on the Committee but what the minimum level should be. I could understand it if he now argued that the minimum level should be £2 rather than £4 but I find it very difficult to accept his apparent argument that whatever figure emerged there should be no minimum level whatsoever.
Lord Gisborough: In my experience many people come to the court—sometimes the worst offenders—who are out of work. They have an income of about £40 a week and commitments of about £30, and at most £10 for their food and for their children. Therefore the amount that they can pay is often only £1 or £2 and that is all that one can get out of them. That ignores the problem of the following week and the week after when they come back charged with further offences. What does one do then? One adds another £1 and then another £1.
That does not take into account the many people who already abuse the system. They are not born yesterday. They have solicitors who, if they do not know already, soon tell them, I am afraid to say. (Perhaps I had better withdraw that remark, no matter what I think.) There are many who abuse the system and say that they have only £40 a week and commitments of £30. We had a case the other day and were just about to take pity on the man when he admitted that he was late because his car had broken down or because of the traffic. He then pretended that it was not his car but his son's car and that he had put £20 worth of petrol into it. That remark cost him a lot. There is no doubt that the system is already being abused.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I cannot help but say that the noble Lord the Leader of the House has given
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a very unhelpful reply. It was most heavy handed when one considers the light way in which we moved this very important amendment. We attach a great deal of importance to it, but all the noble Lord the Leader of the House has done is to use words like "derisory" and "absurd" and to take the argument to absurd limits himself. None of us has mentioned anything like a 50p fine, so what did the noble Lord mean by introducing the question of a 50p fine when none of us was thinking in those terms`' That is not the way to answer an amendment which has been put forward seriously from all quarters o f the Chamber. We do not feel that we have been treated with the seriousness which this amendment deserves. Ordinarily speaking in this Chamber a Minister would at least consider what was said instead of delivering a rather blustering reply to what has been moved mildly by people who agree that the unit fine system is admirable but detect a flaw in it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, was most impressive because she spoke from personal experience of collecting fines. I should have thought that the noble Lord the Leader of the House would have had the grace to respect that very important personal experience of a very distinguished Back-Bencher, but apparently not.
It is too late to divide the House at this hour, but I should have thought that the expression of opinion from all round the Chamber has been such that we should return to the matter at a later date, when we hope to have a more satisfactory and more gracious reply than we have received today.
Lord Waddington: Before the noble Lord sits down perhaps he will allow me to say that I certainly meant no discourtesy. However, sometimes it is helpful to refine the issues. Sometimes it is also necessary to give a robust reply in order to illustrate what I believe to be the fallacies in the arguments advanced by the noble Lord, just as he addressed what he believes are arguments which show the fallacies in the Government's case. I certainly meant no discourtesy. I certainly meant no discourtesy to my noble friend. I spent some little time replying to the principal point that he made which related to the rate of payment of a fine.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I accept that and I do not wish to persist with it in view of what the noble Lord said.
I should like to make one final point. In all honesty, I do not believe that the Government have fully taken into account the implications of the experiment. It is right that they had a minimum in all four cases, but they did not stick to the minimum. That is the important point. One must trust the magistrates in this matter. All four experimental magistrates' courts found it necessary to impose less than a £5 limit and as little as £1 or £2 in certain cases.
I hope that the noble Lord will consider that evidence from the experiment because the experience of the magistrates on the spot and of the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, in dealing with fine

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offenders should surely be taken into consideration. If all those four experimental schemes found it necessary to fine as little as £1 or £2 a week, surely that is important evidence which the noble Lord should take into account. I hope that he will agree to reconsider the amendment in the light of that important evidence from those four schemes. I should not have thought that to reduce the minimum would reduce the credibility. If we insisted on a rigid minimum, we would send many people to prison who would not otherwise go. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 58:
Page 13, leave out lines 21 to 26 and insert:
("(a) in the case of an offence in relation to which a compensation order is made, the reduction of the amount of the fine in pursuance of section 35(4A) of the 1973 Act;").
The noble Lord said: This amendment deletes Clause 16(6) (a) and (b) which enable a court to reduce the amount of a unit fine in two specific cases. That is because the new clause to be inserted after Clause 23 makes general provision for mitigation of sentence throughout Part I of the Bill, thus rendering these subsections unnecessary. A new provision is then inserted into Clause 16(6) to make it clear that, when a unit fine and a compensation order are imposed together, the court may reduce the amount of the fine. That reflects Section 35(4A) of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973 which provides for a compensation order to take precedence in those situations. Without the amendment, the court would not be able to reduce the fine. I am sure that the Committee will agree that compensation to the victim should continue to take precedence over a fine.
Amendment No. 59 deals with the particular case of evading payment of a television licence fee. Under the unit fine scheme, it would be quite possible for an offender on low income to be given a fine for not buying a licence which was less than the licence fee itself cost.
We do not want to encourage people to evade paying their licence fees, so Clause 16(6) (d), as revised by this amendment, would enable a court, first, to set the amount of a fine for the offence of watching television without a licence, then to increase it by a sum up to the value of an annual licence. If, for example, an offender is fined £40 for the offence, he will not benefit from not buying a licence since its value could be added to the fine. The existing Clause 16(6) (d) did not technically achieve that end. It was also drafted too widely, given that its only aim was television licence fee evasion. I commend the amendments to the Committee.
Lord Richard: I assume that the noble Lord was referring to Amendment No. 59 to which I also wish to speak.
I am interested in this dreadful offence of watching television without a licence. I have little to say about Amendment No. 58, but, with regard to Amendment No. 59 and with great respect, surely it is nonsense that the criminal law must be invoked in order to make people pay their television licences. I understand
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the purpose of Amendment No. 59. I appreciate that the language of the amendment achieves what the Government set out to achieve; namely, to ensure that, when the unit fine system is in operation, courts can fine an offender who has not paid a television licence fee an amount which means that he has not made an overall profit out of not buying a licence. What on earth are we doing, invoking the criminal law and fining people for not having television licences?
As I understand it, the Home Office was unable to provide the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons with any recent figures for the number of people imprisoned for fine default following conviction for not paying the television licence fee. It estimated that in 1983 400 men and 120 women were imprisoned for fine default in such circumstances. It is unlikely to be any lower today in view of the increased efforts to combat licence evasion and it could well be higher.
Of course, people should pay their television licences. But it is difficult to see the justification for using the full panoply of the criminal law, and even imprisonment, to enforce payment of the licence fee. We do not do it when people fail to pay their water rates, gas bills, electricity bills or, for that matter, debts owed to private companies or individuals. Water, gas and electricity companies cannot ask the courts to fine and imprison somebody who owes them money, nor can an independent television company ask a court to fine or imprison an advertiser for failing to pay a larger sum than the television licence fee. They can use the normal process of the civil law to obtain redress against the debtor. The BBC should do the same.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I should like to say a brief word in support of the noble Lord, Lord Richard. I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House why the Government rejected the recommendation of the report of the House of Commons entitled The Future of Broadcasting of June 1988 when they suggested that non-payment of the television fee should be treated as a civil rather than criminal matter. They asked Mr. Renton if decriminalisation of non-payment was part of his plan and he explained that that had not been considered. I suppose it has been considered since 1988, but I should very much like to know why non-payment has not been made a civil rather than a criminal matter.
An important point made in the report which so far has not been mentioned is that the present situation is clearly a waste of court time. Why should the public have to spend money on the courts adjudicating on this matter when they do not have to do so in the case of people who do not pay water rates, gas bills and electricity bills? The amendment would be a sensible reform and I hope that it will be considered favourably by the Government.
Lord Waddington: The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, is entirely right that the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place recommended some time ago that the licence fee should be recoverable as a civil debt and the criminal law should no longer be invoked. The argument deployed against

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that has always been that the BBC's revenue could drop very considerably. Criminal penalties result in a fairly high level of payment. Unlike the case of the utilities where the supplier has the sanction of cutting off supply, there is no equivalent in broadcasting. But that is nothing to do with the amendment now before the Committee. The Bill does not deal with substantive changes in the criminal law in that sense. It must be left to another day to discuss whether the law should be changed in the way recommended by the noble Lords, Lord Henderson and Lord Richard.
I was slightly surprised by the remarks of the noble Lord. Lord Richard, because I have always thought that the Labour Party was in favour of the present system of funding the BBC. If I am wrong and there has been a change of front in that regard I stand to be corrected. When I was last in the Home Office I certainly was not aware that the Labour Party supported the conclusions of the Select Committee.
On. Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 59:
Page 13, line 30, leave out from ("offence") to end of line 33 and insert ("of installing or using any apparatus for wireless telegraphy except under a licence granted under section 1 of the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949, the increase of the amount of the fine by an amount not exceeding the sum which would have been payable on the issue of such a licence").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 13, line 34, leave out subsection (7).
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 60A:
Page 13, line 49, at end insert:
("(10) In section 41 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 ("the 1988 Act"), subsection (7) (Crown Court sentencing powers in relation to summary offence dealt with together with either way offence) shall have effect as if this section had not been enacted.").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 60A deals with cases where a magistrates' court commits a person to the Crown Court for trial for a number of related offences, some of which are triable either way and some of which are summary only. If he pleads guilty to any of the summary offences, then Section 41(7) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 requires the Crown Court to deal with him for that offence as if it were a magistrates' court.
A problem arises if the Crown Court wishes to impose a fine in such a case. As it is bound by the magistrates' courts' sentencing powers, it must apply the unit fine scheme. I do not want to pre-empt our discussion on Amendment No. 61 to Clause 17, but our view is that it would be quite inappropriate for the Crown Court to be bound by the unit fine scheme. There seems little point to us in introducing the scheme into the Crown Court for the relatively few cases that would arise under Section 41 of the 1988 Act.
This amendment therefore continues to bind the Crown Court to the sentencing powers of the magistrates' courts in cases to which Section 41(7) applies. For example, the value of the fine could not
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exceed the maximum that could be imposed by a magistrates' court. But the amendment does not require it to calculate a fine under the unit fine scheme.
Amendment No. 64A to Clause 20 is simply consequential on Amendment No. 60A. The Criminal Justice Act 1988 having been referred to in Amendment No. 60A can therefore be referred to simply as the 1988 Act thereafter.
I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 17 [Fixing of fines in other cases]:
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 14, line 3, leave out ("means of the offender so far as they appear or are known to the court") and insert ("disposable weekly income of the offender so far as it appears or is known to the court and shall impose a fine of the number of weeks' disposable income which in the opinion of the court is commensurate with the seriousness of the offence unless the court is of the opinion that this would be impraticable or inappropriate in the circumstances of the case.").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is slightly pre-empted by what the noble Lord the Leader of the House said in relation to the last amendment. Perhaps I may put the contrary view to the one that he has just expressed. These amendments would require Crown Courts to adopt the general principles of the unit fine system when imposing fines. They would be able to dispense with this requirement where it would be impractical or inappropriate in the circumstances of the case—for example, when fining a company, when it is impracticable to work out the exact weekly disposable income of a very rich offender or when there are other features of the case making the unit fine approach inappropriate.
I think that everyone agrees and the evaluation report of the Home Office itself on the recent experiments with unit fines concluded that the consensus among magistrates and court staff at all the courts involved in the experiments was that unit fines were an improvement on the present system. It seems to me that there is a very powerful argument therefore for applying the same principles to fines imposed in the Crown Courts. It seems unfair that if an offender is convicted of theft in the Crown Court he should be fined a different amount from the fine that he would have received for the same offence if he had been tried in the magistrates' court, and in consequence, if he fails to pay the fine, he should be liable to serve a different length of time in prison for default.
I think that extending the principle of unit fines to the Crown Courts is a perfectly practicable proposition. Indeed, some individual judges already adopt the principle behind the unit fine system by first at least mentally estimating the weekly amount which the offender can afford to pay and then reflecting the gravity of the offence in the number of weeks' disposable income which they require him to forfeit. These amendments would merely require this to become the normal and overt practice.
I therefore suggest to the Committee that all the arguments that the Government have rightly advanced in favour of applying unit fines in magistrates' courts are indeed equally valid in relation to Crown Courts. I beg to move.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord the Leader of the House tells us—I think I have understood aright—that it would be quite inappropriate to extend the unit fine system to the Crown Courts. He bases his argument on the fact that on only a limited number of occasions would the Crown Court impose a fine. But perhaps the noble Lord will tell us what damage would be done if the provision were extended to the Crown Court.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, put what is in my view by far the most substantial argument in favour of the amendment. It is this. What happens in the case of the either way offence? The man opts for trial by jury on a charge of theft at the Crown Court. That is his right. However, by doing so he exposes himself to a wholly new situation. If he were fined for that offence in the magistrates' court he would be fined on the basis of the unit fine system. If he goes to the Crown Court he will be fined without that unit fine system applying. Why should that be so? Why should he be exposed to that further risk that if he does not pay the fine from the magistrates' court he will, for the most obvious of reasons, have a shorter sentence of imprisonment than will be the position if he does not pay the fine in the Crown Court?
I do not begin to understand the logic of the Government's position. I am sure that there is a valid reason for the provision. However, I find it difficult to comprehend the basis for the argument. We have not yet heard it. I hope that we shall now hear it from the noble Lord, Lord Waddington.
Lord Waddington: The principle that a court should take into account the means of an offender in setting the level of a fine should clearly apply to all fines, whether imposed by the Crown Court or by a magistrates' court and whether imposed on an individual or on an organisation. There can be no doubt whatsoever about that. Clause 17 of the Bill already makes that clear. The provision in Clause 17 allows a court both to increase and reduce the level of a fine in the light of the means of the offender so far as they are known to the court.
The Crown Court deals with the most serious cases. That is reflected in the fact that its power to fine is unlimited. In practice less than 1 per cent. of fines imposed are imposed by the Crown Court. The much broader—indeed unlimited—range of fines which can be imposed by the Crown Court means that the disadvantages and practical difficulties of requiring the Crown Court to follow the procedural requirements envisaged under the unit fine scheme far outweigh any benefits. Similar arguments apply to fines imposed on companies. It is clearly unrealistic to expect either a magistrates' court or the Crown Court to assess the disposable income of a company.
I think we all agree that the principle that a fine should take account of the means of an offender is right. However, except in the case of summary fines imposed on individuals —the vast majority of all fines —I think the guidance that is given the courts in Clause 17 is the right approach. The more structured unit fine approach should be reserved for those
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offences and offenders .where it is likely to have most practical benefit. That is what Clauses 16 and 17 achieve.
In answer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about either way offences, if an offender opts for trial in an either way case, he exposes himself to different penalties. He exposes himself to the possibility of longer imprisonment. He exposes himself to the prospect of an unlimited fine in many cases. The situation which arises as a result of the structure of the Bill is therefore no different from the consequences which apply to an offender in an either way case when he opts to go to the Crown Court.
Lord Richard: I am not convinced by that argument. At this late hour the Committee would not be happy were I to ask it to divide. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 62 not moved.]
Clause 17 agreed to.
Clause 18 [Statements as to offenders' means]:
Lord Waddington Lord Waddington moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 14, line 24, at end insert:
("(3A) Proceedings in respect of an offence under subsection (3) above may, notwithstanding anything in section 127(1) of the 1980 Act (limitation of time), be commenced at any time within two years from the date of the commission of the offence or within six months from its first discovery by the prosecutor, whichever period expires the earlier.").
The noble Lord said: The amendment simply exempts Clause 18 from the general rule that proceedings may not be instituted in the magistrates' court for an offence later than six months after it has been committed. This general rule is in Section 127 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.
Section 80 of that Act makes an exception to the six-month time limit on instituting proceedings where false information has been given in a means inquiry on a defendant defaulting on the payment of a fine. The amendment follows the same pattern. I recommend it to the Committee and beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 18, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 19 agreed to.
Clause 20 [Default in other cases]:
Lord Mottistone Lord Mottistone moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 15, line 32, leave out ("3 months") and insert ("84 days").
The noble Lord said: This amendment has been advised to me by the Magistrates' Association. It has long been its policy that short periods of imprisonment in default of a fine are better expressed in days than in months. It is a psychological issue because using days instead of months gives the defendant the impression of a longer period of time without it being so. Therefore the sentence has a greater impact.
Clause 20 describes sentences in terms of seven days, 14 days, 28 days, 45 days and three months. I hope that my noble friend will give regard to this small point. It has been presented by the Magistrates' Association and therefore is the result of long

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experience of how such matters are best expressed in the practical life of giving judgments. I hope that the Government will be sympathetic. I beg to move.
Lord GisboroughM: I too support the amendment on behalf of the Magistrates' Association for the reasons put forward by my noble friend.
Lord Waddington: Three months sounds more familiar than 84 days. Before reaching a conclusion on how to answer the amendment I had to sit down and make sure that 84 days amounted to three months. Three months is common parlance and the way in which a sentence is normally expressed. One would not be changing to more normal parlance; one would be taking an exceptional course.
Periods for committal to prison are generally expressed in legislation as a number of days for periods of up to 45 days and then as a number of months. That is the approach adopted in the tables setting out maximum terms of imprisonment for fine default in Clause 20, the similar table in Clause 19 and existing tables in current legislation. If we are to break with that practice for maximum periods of three months' imprisonment for fine default, should we do the same for periods of six months for fines between £5,000 and £10,000? I believe that that would be 168 days. I do not believe that that sounds very familiar and it is certainly not a type of sentence which is ever passed by the courts. Should we adopt a similar approach for the statutory maximum period of imprisonment for certain offences?
My own preference is to retain the existing approach of expressing very short terms of imprisonment in days and longer periods in months and to rely on the good sense and experience of magistrates to impose a sentence of imprisonment which properly reflects the amount of the fine outstanding and the offender's culpability in non-payment. Therefore, I do not believe that any great benefit would be gained by going down the road recommended by my noble friend Lord Mottistone. The present practice is very familiar to all, and some eyebrows may be raised if the suggested change were to be made.
Baroness Seear: I have never known three months to add up to as little as 84 days, if my arithmetic is correct. The number of days in February, March and April, which are the shortest three months that one can have, add up to more than 84.
Lord Waddington: The noble Baroness is quite right. Normally terms of imprisonment expressed in months are calendar months. However, this is three times 28 days.
Lord Mottistone: Let us not be too worried about the arithmetic. I should like to refer the Leader of the House to the principle of this matter. He was arguing that as this is how matters have stood for a long time, there is no reason to change them. The magistrates work every day and have great experience of sentencing people. They reached this conclusion some time ago. I understand it has been their policy for some time.
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The magistrates are seeking to make a change on the basis of experience. With the greatest respect to my noble friend, in the higher courts it may not be a matter of importance. They are seeking to make a change only in respect of a three-month sentence. They are not seeking to make a change in respect of the longer periods. They do not seek to change the latter part of this clause in respect of a sentence of 10 years.
I leave with my noble friend and the department the thought that this is not a superficial matter devised by a crowd of cranks. It is a change proposed by magistrates whose experience shows it to be necessary. I am sure that they would not argue if the change was made to be 90 rather than 84 days. 'The principle is that they believe that this would have an effect on the people who appear before them in the courts. We know that out of all the people appearing in courts in this country, 98 per cent. come before the magistrates. The magistrates believe that this change would have an effect on those people. I do not believe that Members of the Committee should believe that to be a superficial matter to be ignored.
I shall not press the amendment now; but I hope that if it becomes necessary to return to this issue on Report, there may be a reflection that this is a small change which may prove to be a benefit to the administration of justice at local level in this country.
I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11 p.m.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 64A:
Page 16, line 21, leave out ("the Criminal Justice Act 1988").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 20, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Henderson of Brompton Lord Henderson of Brompton moved Amendment No. 65:
After Clause 20, insert the following new clause:
("Warrant of commitment for default in paying
.—(1) A magistrates' court may not issue a warrant of commitment for a default in paying any sum adjudged to be paid by the conviction unless it is of the opinion that it would be—

(a) impracticable to enforce payment of the sum by a warrant of distress or an attachment of earnings order or an application for the deduction of sums from amounts payable to the offender by way of income support; and

(b) inappropriate to enforce payment by any other method.

(2) Where a magistrates' court issues a warrant of commitment for default in paying any sum adjudged to be paid by the conviction, it shall state in open court the reasons for its opinion that it would be impracticable to enforce payment of the sum by a warrant of distress or an attachment of earnings order or an application for the deduction of sums from amounts payable to the offender by way of income support.
(3) A magistrates' court shall cause a reason stated under subsection (2) above to be specified in the warrant of commitment and to be entered in the register.").
The noble Lord said: I shall try to be brief but I need to take a little time in moving Amendment No. 65. It seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 20 and deals with keeping fine defaulters out of prison.
The requirement of the amendment is that any court which seeks to impose imprisonment in default of a fine must state its reasons in open court for believing that it is impractical to enforce the fine by attaching earnings, income support or distraint of goods. That requirement would substantially reduce the number of offenders sent to prison in default of paying fines.
Over one-fifth of the people sent to prison each year in England and Wales are in prison for non-payment of fines. In 1989 almost 17,000 people were imprisoned for fine default. One can imagine the strain that that number of people places on the prison system. Of course, that strain does not fall evenly on the prison system; it mainly falls on local prisons where there is the greatest overcrowding. If that number of 17,000 can be reduced those prisons under most pressure will be relieved of much of that pressure.
The workload imposed on those prisons in taking 17,000 prisoners involves each prisoner being received and discharged. That involves a large amount of paperwork, regardless of the prisoner's length of stay in prison. We seek to relieve the local prisons of that substantial extra load. I should have thought that that would enable the Government to give the amendment a friendly, warm reception. It is a benign rule in regard to the prison system.
In the House of Commons Mr. John Patten recognised that the new clause was what he called "well-intentioned". However, he also said that it was "unnecessary". I would not dream of introducing this amendment in the House of Lords if I were convinced that it was unnecessary. The evidence for saying that it is necessary comes from two studies. The first is a study by the respectable and highly regarded Vera Institute of Justice. In 1986 it published its report, The Enforcement of Fines as Criminal Sanctions which stated that,
"courts rarely exhaust the enforcement options available to them before they resort either to the most coercive (and most costly) enforcement device—a committal to prison—or to writing off the fine as uncollectable".
That is an important finding. What is more, it was confirmed much more recently by Dr. Allison Morris and Dr. Lorraine Gelsthorpe, who published a paper in The Magistrate in October 1990. They concluded that powers other than sentencing to prison could be more widely used than they are at present. There again, that points to the necessity of this amendment. To use the words of Mr John Patten, it is not unnecessary. It is necessary from the evidence of those two reports. The second report concluded:
"Arrears courts should perhaps be obliged to show that they have used all other powers available to them before resorting to suspended committals".
The discipline and giving reasons in the form required by the new clause would help to focus the court's attention on the alternative enforcement methods available and reduce the chances of defaulters being unnecessarily imprisoned. The clinching argument is that the Bill requires courts to give reasons for imposing custodial sentences, but does not require them to do so when imprisoning offenders for default. The arguments apply equally for both default cases
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and the unnecessary imposition of custodial sentences without reasons. Reasons are necessary in both cases. In order to make the Bill consistent, I hope that the Government will agree to this amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness David: I support this amendment to which my name is attached. The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has moved it very convincingly. I hope this time, if the noble Lord the Leader of the House is responding, he will give a more favourable response than he has been giving to most of the amendments that have been moved this evening. It seems that the logic of the case is that reasons should be given in this case as when custodial sentences are given. It is very good for magistrates to have to think and to give their reasons just as they do when not granting bail. I hope very much that we shall have a nicer response this time.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: It was most certainly the apostle St. Paul who wrote:
"The good I would, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do".
So it is with this amendment. Courts should certainly be required to state their reasons for their opinions in open court,
"that it would be—
impracticable to enforce payment of the sum by a warrant of distress or an attachment of earnings order or an application for the deduction of sums from amounts payable to the offender by way of income support".
The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has referred to the research carried out and published in The Magistrate by Drs. Morris and Gelsthorpe. They concluded their article with these words:
"Arrears courts should perhaps be obliged to show that they have used all other powers available to them before resorting to suspended committals".
Those words are almost a pr écis or a paraphrase of the amendment which is before us. When they are the summation of the research of not one but two learned doctors (whether they be LL.Ds, M Ds or mere Ph.Ds, I know not) who am I, as an unregenerate academic who has spent his life prowling around universities teaching and conducting research, to doubt them and how could I fail to commend this amendment to the Committee?
Viscount Tenby: The hour is late and our spirits are flagging, but I shall be as quick as I can in replying to this particular amendment. It is with a heavy heart that I rise to say that I cannot support it. I acknowledge humbly the formidable legal expertise and compassion which the noble proposers command; but I believe that to place mandatory requirements on a bench's freedom of action when considering fine evasion cases adds nothing practical to the process. It will only add time taken in the disposal of a case. It is unlikely by itself to reduce the number of committals for fines evasion. I acknowledge that fact as someone who has long supported the principle that punishment in the community is in every way a more civilised and practical option than custodial sentencing other than for serious offences of violence and sexual offences.
So I am sad indeed not be on the side of the angels in this particular instance. Fines are the most

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important part of the sentencing system in the lower courts, and they account for the largest proportion of sentences by a very considerable margin.
In this part of the Bill we are concerned—are we not?—with the casualties of the system. But as a somewhat rueful introduction to my remarks I have to admit that some magistrates when sentencing do not stress often enough the importance that fines must play in the order of precedence so far as the financial commitments of the offender are concerned. Too many offenders, I fear, regard fines as just one more weekly payment, on a level footing with payments to the club or an instalment on the video, and it is not made clear to them sufficiently often that after essentials they must have absolute priority.
I think, if I may say so, there has been an overemphasis this evening of the poverty angle, as if every fined person was not just on the breadline but almost on the crumb line. The concept of imprisonment for fine default is of course repugnant in theory and in social conscience. It resurrects the times of Dickens. Clearly if there are any alternative practical ways of getting the money they should be used. In a civilised society, and with prison standards like ours, no one would dispute that.
But let me put the matter into perspective by referring to my own experience. The court of which I am chairman could, I suppose, be described as medium to large (ignoring large inner-city benches), having an establishment of some 95 magistrates and the regular use of a stipendiary magistrate. Last year 1.6 per cent. of all fine defaulters were sentenced to a term of imprisonment as a result of non-payment of fines. In effect this was a figure of 80. Of this total 33 paid in full before reaching prison and a further 10 paid in full while there. leaving 37 to serve a sentence which on average would have been a small one, say a fortnight.
Many of these 37 were persons who are fully aware of the system and play it to its full extent and who at the end of the day see imprisonment for default as far more effective for them financially than paying the original fine. I have to say that there is a small core of fine evaders who now play, and will continue to play even more if this amendment is passed, the system for all it is worth. They have no intention of paying until they are forced to—until, that is, they are faced with the stark reality of the prison gates, through being given forthwith a committal or a suspended committal. Experience shows that such people are far more likely - and I regret having to say this - to pay fines when the threat of prison hangs over their heads than when it does not, and any alternative forms of punishment are non-runners.
Now let me turn to the other side of the coin, which in many ways is the more important one, and it has not been touched on tonight. What we need to do is to reduce the number of fine payers at risk. I warmly endorse the attachment of benefits orders for those in receipt of income support, who are the majority of fine offenders; but what off f those on wages? Of course courts can issue attachment of earnings orders for those offenders, but assuming that they are agreed to by the defendant - and they have to be agreed to by the
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defendant, and I am afraid it is a big assumption-whether they become a reality or not lies in the hands of the employer. Particularly, it must be said, where smaller firms are concerned, non-co-operation is rife. This is hardly surprising when one looks at the ludicrously low fine levels for the offence that the law at present permits.
I cannot emphasise this point enough, and I hope that the Minister will be good enough to take it on board. It is something we all feel deeply about. Surely it must be right to do everything that we can, over the whole spectrum and not just a piece of it, to ensure that we make it possible, easy and automatic to part someone paying fines from his money so that he does not have the temptation to keep it for other purposes or does not have to make a difficult choice over relative priorities.
I would make a further point. Do we make it easy enough for offenders to pay? Very few courts offer payment by bank giro credit, credit card or direct debit. If these were universally available the number of enforcement actions would in my view be considerably reduced. But, even after all this has been done and all those constructive steps have been taken, there will still be those who wilfully refuse to pay or who culpably neglect to pay. I refer not to those who cannot pay but to those who will not.
Fines are a vital part of the sentencing system in the lower courts. They are an admirable way of dispensing justice, provided that they are realistic and uniform —essential requirements which the new unit fine system will go a long way to providing—but they must be collected if this particular form of sentencing is not to be brought into contempt and misuse.
I appreciate that this amendment will not take away the discretion of magistrates to commit people to imprisonment in suitable cases. But the input of the proposed restrictions is such as to make it an extreme and long drawn-out option. I would hope that any proper magistrate would in any event consider all the alternatives to imprisonment, as indeed he or she is required to do at present, without there being a need to chisel that requirement into the stones of the law.
Magistrates already have a discipline; indeed, any decent bench has a discipline in such matters. If this amendment goes to a Division and is passed, I fear that benches will be inclined to use the fine system less often and other less appropriate options more often, which would be to the detriment of justice in the lower courts.
11.15 p.m.
Lord Waddington: The first part of the proposed new clause would require magistrates' courts to be satisfied that fine enforcement by distress warrant, attachment of earnings or deduction from income support was impracticable and that any other method of enforcement would be inappropriate before issuing a warrant of commitment to prison. However, I am glad to say that the provisions of Section 82 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 already require a magistrates' court to consider all those aspects before issuing a warrant of commitment to prison for default, except where the case is punishable by imprisonment

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and the defendant appears to the court to have the means to pay forthwith. I believe that it is right—I say this, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson—to say that the first part of the proposed new clause is unnecessary. I say that because the powers are already included in Section 82 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.
The second part of the proposed new clause would require the reasons for deciding that enforcement proceedings have proved impractical to be stated in court and recorded in the warrant of commitment and in the court register. However, Section 82 of the Magistrates' Courts Act also provides, as this amendment does not, that the court must also be satisfied that default was due to the offender's wilful refusal or culpable neglect to pay before it can commit him to prison for default. Therefore, ironically, the existing law actually imposes a more stringent requirement on the magistrates than that which is set out in the proposed new clause.
I must make it clear that a court cannot commit someone to prison solely on the basis that enforcement proceedings have proved unsuccessful or are inappropriate. That is only the first part of the consideration. Before commitment can be authorised, the court must also consider whether the failure to pay was due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect by the offender. If it is not so satisfied, it cannot commit him. It is the consideration of the question of wilful refusal or culpable neglect that is the final determining factor. That consideration is certainly announced in open court and recorded in both the court register and the warrant of commitment.
I mentioned earlier that the only exceptions to those arrangements were cases where a fine had been imposed for an offence punishable by imprisonment and it appeared to the court that the offender had the means to pay forthwith. If the court is satisfied that the offender has the means to pay, then I cannot see that it is sensible or helpful, despite that, to require the court to consider or try all other means of enforcement. It will be clear to the court that the offender appears to have the means but will not pay. The amendment would be unhelpful to the court and it might be considered as undermining its authority.
In answer to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, on the research by the Vera Institute, I am aware that research carried out into fines and fine enforcement in 1986 by that institute and by Drs. Morris and Gelsthorpe in 1990 suggested that the sanction of attachment of earnings is not extensively used by the courts. The reasons they gave for this were, first, that attachment was thought to place a burden on the employer that might lead to the loss of employment for the offender. Secondly, attachment of earnings can only be used when the offender is in steady employment. The new clause would not tackle either of those issues. In all the circumstances, I do not think that the new clause is necessary and, in any event, I doubt whether it is desirable. I cannot advise the Committee to accept it.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I am grateful to the noble Lord the Leader of the House for his reply. It
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has been helpful for him to refer us to Section 82 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980. In view of what he said, I would not dream of pressing the amendment at this stage, let alone at this hour of the night.
I am nonetheless slightly puzzled by the discrepancy between the statutory requirement of Section 82 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 and the findings of the two reports to which we have referred. In the interval between now and the next stage I shall look into the discrepancy and see whether it is worthwhile returning to it at the next stage of the Bill. I thank the noble Lord for his reply and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 21 agreed to.
Lord Gisborough Lord Gisborough moved Amendment No. 66:
After Clause 21, insert the following new clause:
("Payment of fines by work in lieu
.—(1) The Secretary of State may by rules make provision to enable any offender on whom a fine has been imposed to perform work for an approved employer at an approved rate of payment.
(2) Payment for any work performed under rules made under this section shall be in the form of a certificate which may be used for the payment of all or part of a fine and for no other purpose.
(3) Rules made under this section shall require any work to be performed only at the request of the offender and may include provision for approved rates of payment by piece work to be varied according to the nature and difficulty of the work performed and for the value of certificates to be increased where appropriate in respect of approved necessary expenses incurred by the offender.").
The noble Lord said: Much police time is wasted in looking for defaulters and many fines are written off. To help cater for these and for those on low incomes the unit fine system, on the face of it, may seem to be the answer. However, I submit that it will be fraught with many drawbacks. First, it is unfair on the man with a job. He is penalised for working hard by being given a full fine, being ineligible for the unit fine rate. He may well lose his job by reason of the conviction. He will then be side by side on the dole with a man who has received a unit fine for the same offence and he will be unable to pay his fine.
Then there is the offender with a car who knows he is eligible for the unit fine rate and will find it much cheaper to risk having no insurance and paying the unit fine, if caught, than to buy car insurance. The Home Office says that fines would have to be large enough to deter this but then we lose the unit fine rate. The offender will be unable to pay his fine.
While the rate of the fine can be fixed to suit the income, what happens the next week when the same man appears, as he so often does, on one charge after another? He has no money to pay further fines, so either he is not fined at all or he cannot pay. All such cases would end up in prison. Many offenders cannot pay fines, maintenance and compensation so inevitably one or the other cannot be paid, whether or not there is the unit fine.
There is a simple way out of this. It does not in any way affect the sentencing which may or may not include unit fines although it dispenses with the need for unit fines; hence this amendment. It has nothing directly to do with unit fines but is a scheme to provide

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work for people who have been fined. Unlike the arbitrary sentence of imprisonment for non-payment which may or may not equate with the sum owing, the work would equate exactly with the fines owed. What would happen is that the fines office would ask an approved employer—for example, the Forestry Commission—at the request of and on behalf of the offender, for a job of work for a certain value. The employer would show the job to the offender and the latter would turn up at the employer's premises in his own time to perform the work unsupervised. Once it was completed, and provided that the job was carried out satisfactorily, the offender would be paid in the form of a certificate which would be valid for the payment of his fine; in other words, this would constitute piece work. Any expenses incurred such as travel expenses would count towards the fine and the cost of management of the scheme would be paid by the offender out of his real money by instalments.
The Forestry Commission has said that it could run such a scheme and that brashing would benefit its timber. I must make it quite clear that this work would not constitute a punishment or a sentence of the court, nor would it be imposed instead of a fine. It would be work made available by which to pay a fine. It would be made available purely at the request of the offender who sees an advertisement in the court waiting-room and who prefers to work for a week or two rather than spend the next year paying instalments with no money in his pocket. I fail to see that any complicated or expensive administrative problems will arise as a result of this.
While the unemployed yob is working in the woods or in another location, he will not be standing bored on the street with nothing to do and no money to spend, ready to commit his next crime to relieve his boredom. In some cases a week or two at work, perhaps in a wood, followed perhaps by a good reference, could set such a person on the road to a proper job. Such a scheme could also benefit youngsters by using up some of their surplus energy with work of this kind. Otherwise such energy could and often will be let loose in the evenings after the pubs close. In addition, the offender's cash income would then be available to pay maintenance and compensation. That is an important factor which has been part of the Government's policy. If the offender is on a low income, the suffering of his wife and family would be reduced, as would the consequent disharmony and possible break-up of his relationship.
Another benefit of the scheme is that fines of whatever amount would be paid sooner. This would save a lot of court and police time in chasing up defaulters. With so many benefits there must be a downside to the scheme and there is. Whereas money collected from fines goes into the Treasury, with this scheme the national forest would benefit instead. But we must remember that it is expensive to chase up fines and they are often written off. That makes a mockery of justice. Under the work scheme I have advocated, there is far less need to reduce fines and no excuse for not settling them.
Fines could be more closely related to the offence than to the client and the multiple offender will pay for
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the cost of his crimes. If the Government really want to reduce crime without recourse to prison, a provision enabling a person to pay an appropriate fine must make sense. It would also reduce the need for the final sanction of prison for defaulters.
This amendment would not in itself make any change whatever to sentencing. It would merely allow the Secretary of State to establish a scheme whereby a fine could be settled by the production of a certificate for the value of work done. The employer would carry out the administration for which the offender would pay. There are a number of other details such as tax arrangements, tools and travel which cover all the objections which have so far been raised by the Home Office. I believe that the scheme fits in with the Government's aims and I hope that the Committee will support it. I beg to move.
Lord Richard: This is an interesting and novel scheme. However, I am not sure how novel it is as there may have been schemes in the 18th century which had one or two similarities. It is an interesting scheme in the context of what we are discussing in this Bill. I have, however, one or two problems with the scheme, as I am sure the noble Lord would have expected. I am trying to follow the scheme. How does the money get to the court? The answer is that it does not. Presumably if the object is that the offender shall pay a fine—in other words, that the court will receive money from the man—presumably the prospective employer will have to buy the fine off the court before the employment commences. Otherwise a job is provided and part of the wages for the job are paid in the form of a scrip and that scrip is redeemable that is how I understand the matter—by presenting it to the court and it is then set off against whatever fine the offender owes the court. Therefore, in terms of cash coming into the court there is none. The employer, on the other hand, receives the benefit of the individual's labour at what would presumably be a negotiated price. Are the trade unions to be involved in the negotiation?
The noble Lord said that he thought that the unit fine scheme was fraught with dangers. I consider his scheme to be equally fraught with dangers. Before we on these Benches could give it our blessing we would wish to see a great deal more detail. I could not advise my noble friends to support the amendment.
Lord Gisborough: Perhaps I may answer those questions. The noble Lord is right to say that no money would change hands, except for expenses, which the offender would pay. The majority of the fine would be covered by the work that he did. There would be a certificate from the employer, which preferably would be a government employer, such as the Forestry Commission, or a charity. That certificate, stating that he had done work to a certain value, would satisfy the fines office that he had undertaken work in lieu of a certain level of fine.
The price of labour could be anything, but I propose that the offender should be paid one-and-a-half times the agricultural rate, by piece rate, but that could be determined.

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As to whether he would take other people's work, the work would have to be work which would not otherwise be carried out. That is why the scheme fits in so well. Brashing of forestry is uneconomic and is not done. Therefore offenders doing such work would not be taking the job of any union member but would be creating jobs, because once the forestry had been brashed it would be improved from the point of view of recreation and it could then be managed much more productively by paid labour. Therefore the scheme would create jobs.
Baroness Seear: The scheme is interesting. Like the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I am sure that there are considerable catches in it but I shall not go into them at this time of night. Regarding the question of the money reaching the court, I cannot see why the employer—the Forestry Commission, for example—instead of paying the man cannot send the money to the court. If he has earned the money he should not receive it, the court should receive it. Is that too difficult?
Earl Ferrers: In that case the wrong person would be paying the fine because the person paying the fine to the court would not be the person who had incurred the fine or the reprimand.
I realise that the amendment is motivated by concern about poor offenders who may have difficulty in paying their fines. We share that concern. I know that the matter has worried my noble friend for a long time because he has been in contact with me about it. He has also been in contact with my right honourable friend Mr. Patten and will shortly have a meeting with my right honourable friend to discuss these points.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, are quite right. There are a number of drawbacks to the scheme which my noble friend has put forward and I could not advise the Committee to accept it. My main difficulty is that my noble friend's proposals would inevitably involve the less well off offender undertaking something that would be very similar to community service when the seriousness of his offence properly calls for a fine. That would be at odds with the approach in the Bill for penalties to form graduated restrictions on liberty which increase with the gravity of the offence. That approach recognises that everyone's liberty is equally valuable while accommodating the fact that fines have a different impact on offenders according to their means. My noble friend envisages that the offender would ask to perform work in order to pay his fine. But we think that it is for the courts to decide what penalty is appropriate for the offender.
We are also concerned that my noble friend's scheme would be complicated and costly to administer. There would be overheads and a certain amount of supervision would be needed. Deciding what value to place on the work undertaken and what certificate should be given to the offender would be fraught with difficulties. If the approved employer were to make that decision, that would undermine the courts' sentencing role.
Another of our concerns is that the proposals could
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conflict with our obligations under the International Labour Organisation convention on forced labour. That convention rules out the use of compulsory or forced labour. Although it excludes from the definition of forced labour any work ordered by a court following a conviction, it specifies that the work must be carried out under the supervision of a public authority. It does not permit the offender to be hired out to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or associations.
There are many difficulties associated with my noble friend's amendment. Although I understand his reasons for putting it forward, I could not recommend that the Committee accept it.
Lord Gisborough: I thank my noble friend for that reply. However, I do not accept any of those criticisms. The less well off offender would work at the rate of one-and-a-half times. The agricultural rate would be a fair starter to think about, but we must remember, for example, the lorry driver who is fined. He would perhaps drive his lorry for a fortnight to pay his fine. So it is exactly the same thing. They would both work to pay off their fine, so it makes no difference.
On the question of supervision, if we had a system whereby the offender were to receive a large bonus if the work was done properly, we would not need supervision. It has nothing to do with community service. It is purely at the request and to the benefit of the offender.
The first criticism of the scheme that I received was that it could not work because some trees were on the hillside and some were on the flat. The Home Office was really scraping around. Now it has thought of some more reasons. No doubt when it has got over these it will think of some more absurd reasons. It should come up with some proper answers rather than these idiotic replies if it does not like my proposal. I am sorry if I have perhaps said more than I should. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 22 [Committals for sentence]:
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 67:
Page 18, line 3, leave out second ("the").
The noble Earl said: In moving this amendment perhaps I may speak also to Amendments Nos. 68, 69, 103, 104 and 105. This group of amendments makes a number of changes, mainly consequential, to the Bill's provisions on committal to the Crown Court for sentence.
The main change is in Amendments Nos. 69 and 105. These enable a magistrates' court for the first time to commit a company for sentence as well as an individual. The question of committing companies to the Crown Court arises now because Clause 22 changes the criteria for committal. Under the Bill these criteria are concerned with the seriousness of the offence rather than, as at present, with the character and previous convictions of the individual offender. These criteria are not appropriate in the sentencing of companies. I think it is right that the new criteria should also apply to companies. Circumstances may become apparent during the hearing, after the

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magistrate had decided to hear the case himself, which would justify a higher penalty than that which the magistrates' court could impose.
Amendment No. 68 allows a magistrates' court to commit an offender to the Crown Court for sentence if a number of offences of which he has been convicted, taken together, would justify a higher sentence than that which the magistrates have power to impose. This is consistent with the sentencing provisions elsewhere in Part I of the Bill and brings this part of the Bill in line with the earlier provisions. In Clause 2(2) (a), for example, a court may take account of all the offences before it in determining the length of a custodial sentence.
Amendment No. 103 amends the form of the caution which must be administered by a magistrate to a defendant, which refers to the possibility of committal for sentence if certain criteria are met. This is consequential on the changes to the criteria for committal made by Clause 22. The form of the caution should obviously reflect the new criteria rather than the old ones which are replaced. Amendment No. 104 is consequential on Amendment No. 103.
Amendment No. 67 is a simple drafting amendment to remove an unnecessary word from the preamble to Clause 22(2). I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 68:
Page 18, line 4, after ("offence") insert ("or the combination of the offence and other offences associated with it").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No.69:
Page 18, leave out lines 18 to 20 and insert:
("(3) Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (2) above shall be construed as if they were contained in Part I of the Criminal Justice Act 1991.
(4) The preceding provisions of this section shall apply in relation to a corporation as if—

(a) the corporation were an individual who is not less than 18 years old; and

(b) in subsection (2) above, paragraph (b) and the words 'in custody or on bail' were omitted."

(2) In Schedule 3 to the 1980 Act, paragraph 5 (provisions relating to committal to Crown Court for sentence not to apply to a corporation) shall cease to have effect.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 22, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Reay: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at nineteen minutes before midnight.

  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES: ABOLITION
  CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE DEPENDENT TERRITORIES: ABOLITION
  CHINA AND HONG KONG:FOREIGN SECRETARY'S VISIT
  CHINA AND HONG KONG:FOREIGN SECRETARY'S VISIT
  PREMIUM BONDS
  PREMIUM BONDS
  THE GULF WAR: ATTACK ON RETREATING FORCES
  THE GULF WAR: ATTACK ON RETREATING FORCES
  COMMUNITY CHARGE INCOME: ADVANCES TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES
  COMMUNITY CHARGE INCOME: ADVANCES TO LOCAL AUTHORITIES
  LISTED BUILDING CONTROLS: PENALTIES FOR BREACH
  LISTED BUILDING CONTROLS: PENALTIES FOR BREACH