Sitting of 19 February 1991

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

    The Gulf
    Mr. Tim Smith: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the total costs of the Gulf war to date; and what proportion of this he now expects to be funded by allied nations.
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Tom King): The additional costs of the Gulf conflict so far assessed are some £1½ billion, including equipment lost and munitions used. On the basis indicated by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the debate on the autumn statement last week, we expect that the eventual costs could be £3 billion.
    Allied and other nations have promised contributions of some £1¼ billion and support from host nations is worth about £200 million.
    Mr. Smith: Is not it very good news that, following the successful visits of the Foreign Secretary to the Kuwait Government-in-exile and of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to the United Arab Emirates, we now have a substantial commitment to our costs in the Gulf? Will my right hon. Friend confirm, however, that the Government will continue to try to ensure that countries such as Japan, which can expect to gain most from stability in the Gulf, make their fair contribution, too?
    Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I confirm that we have hopes and expectations of significant additions to the sums that I have announced. My hon. Friend mentioned Japan. I had the pleasure of meeting the new Japanese ambassador yesterday and I know that the Japanese Government are keen to show their appreciation of the very significant contribution made by British forces to the coalition effort.
    Mr. Radice: In view of the substantial allied financial contributions and the fact that replacement costs could be spread over a period of time, could not the financial costs of war to Britain easily be met?
    Mr. King: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman means by "easily be met." This is a very costly undertaking. I have set out what I think the costs will eventually be—of the order of £3 billion. We very much appreciate the contributions that are being made to help towards that sum, but I do not disguise from the House the fact that a signficant cost will remain to be borne by the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Cash: Does my right hon. Friend share my gratitude and that of the British people for the £275 million that has been provided by the German people? Does he agree, however, that there may still be some leeway for a further and much more substantial contribution from them and that it does not particularly help to give £275 million one day and then to increase interest rates by 0·5 per cent. the following day?
    Mr. King: That question goes a little wider than my immediate concerns. I appreciate the contribution that has been made. As my hon. Friend realises, we are also most grateful for the very substantial help that has been given by the German Government—the German Ministry of Defence—in a range of different matters, including vehicles, training, ammunition and equipment of one sort and another. I think that I am right in saying that every request that we have made to the German Government has now been met.
    Mr. O'Neill: The costs that are being borne by our service personnel in the Gulf are a cause for concern to many people. That applies in particular to the poll tax. Will our troops be compelled to continue to pay the poll tax and, if not, who will make up the lost revenue that local government will have to raise?
    Mr. Speaker: That question is just about as wide as the last one, I am afraid.
    Mr. King: rose—
    Mr. Speaker: If the right hon. Gentleman wishes, he may answer the first part.
    Mr. King: I do not remember what the first part was, although I thought that both were out of order. The hon. Gentleman was perhaps trying to anticipate some of the discussions later today.
    Mr. Favell: Has each of the Community countries now made a contribution towards the effort in the Gulf? In particular, have the Irish done so?
    Mr. King: No. The House knows the Irish policy of neutrality and Ireland has not made a contribution in this respect.
    Mr. McAvoy: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department is contributing funds or personnel towards the operation to clean up oil slicks in the Gulf.
    The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton): The Ministry of Defence, in common with other Departments, responded promptly to requests for assistance in dealing with the oil slicks in the Gulf. For example, we made available three charter flights to transport 90 tonnes of pollution control equipment from industry stocks held in the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia on 28 to 30 January. In addition, ships of the Royal Navy and our military aircraft flying in the area of the slicks have, where possible, been providing information on the slicks to assist in the assessment of their location, extent and movements.
    Mr. McAvoy: It is all very well for the Minister to say that, but why, after so many predictions that oil spills were likely in the Gulf war—whether deliberate or accidental—did the Ministry of Defence take no steps to position oil spillage clean-up equipment in the Gulf before the fighting

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    started? Will he give priority to the environmental clean-up? Will he give a further commitment that the allies will not worsen what Saddam Hussein has done by bombing oil tankers or oil wells?
    Mr. Hamilton: That is not the position. Saddam Hussein decided to put oil slicks in the Gulf. It would have been difficult for the allies to position oil spillage clean-up equipment in the area because it would have come under attack and been shelled by the Iraqis. The hon. Gentleman should make no mistake that the allies' aim was to stop off oil flows into the Gulf. Precision bombing has succeeded in stopping some of the slicks.
    Mr. Hannam: Is my hon. Friend aware from reports in the media by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals that it is the only organisation that is sending people to the Gulf to deal with the problems of wildlife damaged in the oil spill and that it is making a direct appeal for funds? Can any help be given to that organisation and will he clarify whether the RSPCA is the only organisation looking after wildlife in the Gulf?
    Mr. Hamilton: I am not aware of whether the RSPCA is the only organisation doing that work, but it is certainly making a valuable contribution. I hope that the British people will respond generously to what it is doing.
    Mr. Boyes: Does the Minister agree that there was insufficient planning for an inevitability? Saddam Hussein should be in the dock for his malicious, wicked and futile gesture. He stands virtually unanimously condemned by the whole world for pouring millions of tonnes of oil into the Gulf which has proved dire for humans and calamitous for wildlife. Will the Minister join me in taking this opportunity to praise all those volunteers who have travelled to that troubled land to save as much wildlife as possible?
    Mr. Hamilton: Yes, I certainly do, and I echo the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Saddam Hussein's callous act has led to the oil slicks and I pay tribute to the volunteers who are doing all that they can to clear them up.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what account is taken of the possible consequences to the environment in the military strategy employed in the Gulf war.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: Environmental factors are taken into account to the extent possible in the planning and conduct of military operations in the Gulf. We have repeatedly made it clear that we do all we can to ensure that collateral damage from our operations is minimised.
    Mr. Hinchliffe: Bearing in mind the appalling environmental consequences of the Gulf conflict so far and the sad fact that worse may be to come, what dialogue has there been within the United Nations about that aspect of the Gulf conflict? Has consideration been given to the formation of an environmental equivalent of the Red Cross or Red Crescent to tackle that aspect of the war?
    Mr. Hamilton: There has been a great deal of international co-operation on that aspect and I believe that the United Nations is conducting studies to ensure that minimal damage is done.
    Mr. Brazier: Does my hon. Friend agree that the best thing for the environment in the Gulf would be for the allied forces to win the war so that the polluter will be forced out of the Gulf and we can start the clean-up?
    Mr. Hamilton: I could not agree more. We must also bear it in mind that Saddam Hussein is capable of polluting the area with nuclear and chemical weapons, too.
    Mr. Dalyell: Why should Mr. David Olsen, the consultant adviser on the environment to the Saudi Government, complain about a shortage of equipment?
    Mr. Hamilton: I cannot answer for Mr. David Olsen. However, we have done our bit by sending about 90 tonnes of equipment which has been held here by the Department of Transport to help to clean up the problems in the area.
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many representations he has received about the use of British forces in the Gulf.
    Mr. King: I have received a substantial number of letters from Members of Parliament and the public regarding the situation in the Gulf. Some 20 per cent. of a recent sample of letters reflected opposition to the presence of British forces and military action. This is very much in line with recent opinion polls, which also indicate overwhelming support for our forces in the Gulf.
    Mr. Marshall: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, which praises the professionalism and self-restraint of British soldiers in the Gulf. Does my right hon. Friend agree that civilian casualties—the direct consequence of any war—are the result of the intransigence of Saddam Hussein? Will he contrast the attempt of the allies to minimise civilian casualties with the efforts of Saddam Hussein to maximise them by aiming Scud missiles at innocent civilians in Israel and Saudi Arabia?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend puts it very clearly and is absolutely right. I confirm again to the House that the absolute instruction for our service men—and, with the present air campaign, for our aircrews—is at all times to minimise civilian casualties. As my hon. Friend says, there is a sharp contrast in that we are seeking to minimise casualties while Saddam Hussein aims to cause them deliberately by aiming Scud missiles at civilian areas. The House may also have noted another contrast: if something goes wrong, as can happen, tragically, we manifestly try to set out the truth as well as we know it and do not try to conceal anything.
    Mr. Menzies Campbell: Like the rest of us, even now the British forces in the Gulf would welcome Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait in accordance with the United Nations resolution. However, can the Secretary of State confirm that, if Iraq does not withdraw from Kuwait, the British ground forces have now reached such a state of readiness that they can fulfil any military task that may be assigned to them?
    Mr. King: Yes, I can confirm that. I spoke to General de la Billiere yesterday and he confirmed that the British ground forces are ready for a land campaign should it prove necessary. Of course, we hope even at this very late stage that Iraq will recognise the essential need to observe to the full the United Nations resolution. If not, it will have to face the consequences.
    Sir Nicholas Fairbairn: Is not it strange that in the alleged attack on the bunker only women and children were in that air raid shelter? When on earth have only women and children entered a shelter during an air raid? Can the BBC please not provide propaganda for the enemy by suggesting that it was an attack on a civilian target?
    Mr. King: The whole House will regret the death of any civilians, including women and children. The United States has made it clear that the building was a military command and control facility and that it had been on the target list for some time. However, it is very much regretted that there were civilians there, too, and the United States has made it clear that if it had been known that civilians were in that bunker, it would not have been attacked.
    Mr. Duffy: While the Secretary of State is referring to public opinion, will he on every appropriate occasion bring to the notice of our men and women in the Gulf the quite extraordinary blend of public opinion at home, in the Arab world, in the international community and in the United Nations supporting totally their role, as well as the fact that their's is truly an historic mission and that they have the confidence of the House of Commons?
    Mr. King: I am very grateful for what the hon. Gentleman, particularly with his background and experience, has said. I hope that those men and women know that. He is right to draw attention to the remarkable coalition, now involving 33 countries which have provided forces or contributions to the Gulf effort. That is very significant. He is right to draw attention to the contribution of our armed forces, which approach the matter not in an aggressive sense, but in the recognition of a job that may need to be done.

    Forces and Equipment
    Mr. Dickens: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the training of United Kingdom armed forces and the servicing of United Kingdom military equipment.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: Members of the armed forces undertake regular training to prepare them as fully and as realistically as possible for the tasks that they may have to undertake in hostilities and to assist them in carrying out peacetime duties. Servicing of military equipment is aimed at maximising operational availability while ensuring that quality is achieved at a cost-effective price.
    Mr. Dickens: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Gulf war has vividly demonstrated to everyone that today's warfare is highly technical and highly sophisticated? Must not we have the right calibre of personnel in our armed forces and give them the right well-maintained equipment and good training? Is not that what the British armed forces have always done and why they have always been considered to be the best in the world?
    Mr. Hamilton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I follow him in paying tribute to our volunteer forces who are superbly trained and highly motivated and who have some of the best equipment in the world.
    Mr. Douglas: Will the Minister acknowledge the contribution made by the Rosyth naval base and the
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    adjoining dockyard to the training of personnel and to the servicing of equipment? Does he accept that it would be a cruel acknowledgement of that activity if the naval base were peremptorily closed? That would have a severe impact on the economic fabric of Fife.
    Mr. Hamilton: I pay tribute to Rosyth naval base and the dockyard for keeping much of the Navy well equipped and enabling it to perform an excellent job. I am unable to comment on "Options for Change", which is reviewing all our support facilities. I cannot help the hon. Gentleman any further on that.
    Mr. Sayeed: Does my hon. Friend agree that low flying has played a very important part in the courageous missions that the Royal Air Force has flown? Does not that give the lie to the Opposition's considerable irritation when they said that low flying was no longer necessary?
    Mr. Hamilton: Yes, absolutely. One lesson that we have learnt is that low flying is something at which it takes a long time to become proficient. It is not something that can be worked up quickly in a short period before hostilities. I am afraid that, for the foreseeable future, we must continue with low flying, the value of which has been very much proven during this conflict.

    Foreign Forces (Training)
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if any consideration is being given to a review of training facilities offered to the military forces of foreign governments in the light of events in the Gulf.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: Our policy on the provision of military training for overseas countries takes into account a wide range of factors and is kept under continuous review.
    Mr. Banks: How can the Minister justify the fact that until March 1990, we were training Iraqi military personnel in this country? When Saddam Hussein was gassing the Kurds and invading Iran, we were supplying him with technology and training his military forces. When will the Government realise that when we accept money from every tinpot dictator who wants to send his troops here we are acting against the long-term interest of not only British troops in the Gulf, but all the British people?
    Mr. Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman should get things in perspective. Since 1979 we have trained the forces of 110 different countries.
    Mr. Banks: How many more of Saddam Hussein's forces are we training?
    Mr. Hamilton: I totally accept that with the advantage of hindsight we would not have trained the Iraqis. However, the hon. Gentleman is now showing the wisdom that we would be at war with Iraq which no one else was able to do.
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is greatly to the credit of this country that so many students from overseas wish to come to our training establishments? Perhaps they pick up some good ideas about relationships between politicians and service men. Does he also agree that they give us quite a lot of cash in the process?
    Mr. Hamilton: That is absolutely true. Much of the training that we provide leads to export sales and the whole business of training for the armed services cements relationships with a number of countries.

    Ulster Defence Regiment
    Mr. John D. Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many part-time and full-time members there are in the Ulster Defence Regiment.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: On 1 January 1991, there were 3,088 part-time and 2,955 permanent cadre members of the Ulster Defence Regiment.
    Mr. Taylor: As a Minister involved 20 years ago in the launch of the Ulster Defence Regiment, I welcome those figures. Will the Ulster Defence Regiment continue to have sufficient resources made available to it to maintain its manpower, especially as it is in competition with other security forces such as the RUC, the Territorial Army and various Irish regiments in the regular British Army? From the experience of the past 20 years, will the Minister ask the Leader of the House to provide time for a debate on the Ulster Defence Regiment so that we can further improve and strengthen that regiment in Northern Ireland, whose service is respected throughout the whole community?
    Mr. Hamilton: I, too, pay tribute to the Ulster Defence Regiment, which plays a valuable role in combating terrorism in Northern Ireland. We will, of course, ensure that it is properly funded. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will have heard the right hon. Gentleman's remark about a debate.
    Mr. Conway: Does my hon. Friend accept that the UDR is an effective part of the Territorial Army and that any move to reduce the scale of the Territorial Army, which consumes less than 3·5 per cent. of the Army's budget, would be greatly contested by many in the House?
    Mr. Hamilton: I must put my hon. Friend right. The UDR is not part of the Territorial Army; in Northern Ireland, the Territorial Army is a wholly different organisation. However, I hear what my hon. Friend says about the Territorial Army and I will take that into account when we come to consider its future.

    Chieftain Tank
    Mr. Cousins: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he will announce his decision on the replacement for the Chieftain tank.
    Mr. Trotter: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to be able to announce an order for a new tank to replace the Army's Chieftains.
    The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Alan Clark): We had hoped to announce a decision on equipment for our future main battle tank fleet in the early spring. Hon. Members will appreciate that it would not be realistic to take such a decision at present and that it is sensible to defer it.
    Mr. Cousins: Does not the Minister recognise that this further postponement, for perhaps as long as 18 months, on a firm decision on Challenger 2 puts at risk the jobs of many hundreds of people on Tyneside and in Leeds? Does
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    not the Minister further recognise that those same people are working—and have been working for many months—to supply our forces with Challenger 1 tanks, which are now in the Gulf, with all the equipment that they need? Does not he realise that his answer means that those workers face the production line now and the redundancy queue later?
    Mr. Clark: No. The hon. Gentleman's question is entirely unjustified. However, I join him in paying tribute to the workshops in those factories and to the tremendous support that they have given to the existing tank fleet in the Gulf. The figure of 18 months is pure invention by the hon. Gentleman and he should know better than to try to spread it round.
    Mr. Trotter: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the same skill and dedication as have been shown in support of the Army in the Gulf by the work force at Vickers have gone into the design of Challenger 2? It has been designed specifically to meet the British Army's requirements for the future and it does meet them. Does he accept that we want the tank order to be placed with Vickers on the basis of our confidence in its capabilities and that an early decision is necessary to remove the present uncertainty in the plants in the north-east?
    Mr. Clark: I certainly confirm that Challenger 2 has achieved all the thresholds that we put in place for it to satisfy. My hon. Friend will agree that, faced with the likely prospect of the first major armoured engagement since the Yom Kippur war, it would not be prudent to make a precipitate decision in advance.
    Mr. Batiste: Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of our friends overseas who were planning to buy battle tanks for themselves have been very favourably impressed by the performance of Challenger, but that they are waiting to see the outcome of the United Kingdom competition? Will he bear that very much in mind in deciding his timing and so assist the company in building on the dramatic progress that has been made since the day that Vickers took over the royal ordnance factory at Barnbow?
    Mr. Clark: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that point. The performance of Challenger 1 in the region has been impressive and the mean time between failures has greatly exceeded the figures that it was turning in in Germany. That has been apparent to a number of potential customers in the area who have noticed it favourably.
    Mr. Cryer: Would not it be a good idea for the Government to consider the development of alternative uses of such factories to employ their great skills and equipment? Dependency on one product makes factories vulnerable. Surely the Government will examine the odious international arms trade after the cessation of Gulf hostilities in an attempt to curb that trade. That would stop our troops having British weapons used against them.
    Mr. Clark: It is not the business of government to direct companies on the form of their commercial activities. The hon. Gentleman might care to make his point to the work force or have a quiet word with his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins).

    Builders (IRA Threats)
    Mr. Kilfedder: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the armed forces in Northern Ireland are experiencing any problems as a result of IRA threats to builders and suppliers.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: The Government take all the steps necessary to ensure that the requirements of the armed forces in Northern Ireland are met. Intimidation and brutal, cold-blooded murder by terrorists of ordinary people working for their living has not, and will not, advance the terrorist cause one inch.
    Mr. Kilfedder: Will the Minister pay tribute to all those people of courage who have fulfilled their contracts for the security forces, especially those who have been murdered by the cowardly members of the IRA? Is the Minister aware that the Ulster people have nothing but contempt for those who seek out such soft and easy targets as civilians who work for the security forces, especially Roman Catholic members of the community who are trying to do their best for Northern Ireland and for their families?
    Mr. Hamilton: Yes, I am delighted to pay great tribute to the people who work for the security forces in Northern Ireland. The whole programme of construction in Northern Ireland, which has been massive, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, has not been put back one bit by terrorist acts.
    Mr. Ron Brown: While we all roundly condemn terrorism, especially the terrorist acts recently in London, does the Minister agree that there is an argument for withdrawing, especially British troops, from the Province—as there is an argument for withdrawing Scottish troops from the Gull—[Interruption.]—and may I remind the Minister that about 42 per cent. of all British troops are Scots? We must argue the case—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The question is about Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Brown: I was talking about the linkage and pointing out that, as we all say, negotiation is better than conflagration and peace is better than war.
    Mr. Hamilton: I remind the hon. Gentleman that the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland is to uphold the democratic will of the majority of the people there. He must believe as much as I do in the democratic rights of the people of Northern Ireland.

    Defence Equipment (Overseas Sales)
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what new initiatives he plans in the area of overseas sales of defence equipment.
    Mr. Alan Clark: Officials in the Defence Export Services Organisation are in constant touch with friendly foreign countries, both directly and through overseas posts, to best help furnish the equipment they require for their own self-defence.
    Mr. Flynn: Does the Minister recall that the Indonesian Government killed a bigger proportion of the population of East Timor than Pol Pot killed of the population of Cambodia? Why are Government agencies at this moment
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    encouraging British Aerospace to sell Hawk aircraft and other weapons to the butchers of Indonesia? When will we realise that the international arms trade is the greatest cause for evil in the world? When will Britain stop selling arms to the madmen, butchers and tyrants of the world?
    Mr. Clark: I reject the imputation that the hon. Gentleman puts on his supplementary question. Very strict and stringent conditions are applied to the sale of armaments. All armaments require export licences and they are considered by three Departments—mine, the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry.
    I reject the hypocrisy that is evident in many of the questions that are directed from the Opposition Benches on this subject. Provided the rules and guidelines are strictly followed, there is a considerable benefit, in terms of domestic employment and overseas earnings, from defence sales. The House is littered with hon. Members on both sides who lobbied me, when I was Minister for Trade and since, on contracts that affected their constituencies, although I recognise that they prefer to keep silent on this occasion.
    Sir Dudley Smith: Does the Minister believe that once the war is over, there might be some merit in having a thorough European appraisal of the whole question of the sale of defence equipment, perhaps via the aegis of a body such as the Western European Union?
    Mr. Clark: Yes, certainly. After the successful conclusion of the conflict, the most important concern will be to build up and maintain stability in the area. In his Blaby speech, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary developed that theme at some length.
    Mr. Rogers: Further to the remarks by my hon. Friends the Members for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), coalition forces in the Gulf are now faced by Iraqi troops who have weapons supplied by coalition countries. Surely that demonstrates the need for more effective control of the arms trade, especially in the light of the fact that in his main answer the Minister said that we should supply arms to friendly foreign countries, which Iraq recently was. Will the Government give the highest priority to the issue of the introduction of weapons into an unstable area, such as the middle east, as soon as the war is over?
    Mr. Clark: The basis of Britain's role in defence sales is the right to self-defence as enshrined in article 51 of the United Nations charter, but, of course, that question must be considered sensitively and intelligently and in the light of all the diplomatic and political factors prevailing at the time. When the conflict is over, I have no doubt that, together with the Foreign Office and the Department of Trade and Industry, my Department will look at many of those topics with that point in mind.

    The Gulf
    Mr. Riddick: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the latest situation in the Gulf.
    Sir Philip Goodhart: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make a further statement about Operation Desert Storm.
    Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the conflict in the Gulf.
    Mr. Tom King: Allied pressure on the Iraqi military machine continues to grow. The main weight of the air campaign is now directed against Iraqi forces in and near Kuwait, and the Iraqi navy has been largely destroyed. Yesterday, British artillery was in action for the first time in a limited engagement. This is part of the preparations for the ground campaign which will be inevitable unless Saddam Hussein complies with UN Security Council resolutions.
    Mr. Riddick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a former Labour Cabinet Minister yesterday described reporters in Baghdad as "fifth columnists" not, perhaps, without some cause? Will my right hon. Friend communicate to the BBC and ITN the real sense of anger that is felt by many people in this country at what they see as Britain's reporters reporting back to this country from Baghdad only what Saddam Hussein wants them to report in his efforts to undermine the morale of the British people—efforts which will, of course, prove ineffective?
    Mr. King: I very much agree with my hon. Friend's sentiments. It is extremely difficult for the correspondents in Baghdad to be able to begin to discharge their proper responsibilities when operating under the conditions which manifestly exist. One cannot draw a bigger contrast than to point to the way in which, over the weekend when it is possible that there may have been a most unfortunate and regrettable incident in which some civilians may have been killed, we made a point of putting before the public such facts as were available to us.
    Sir Philip Goodhart: While saluting the skill and bravery of our service men and women in the Gulf, does my right hon. Friend recognise that it will take some time to evaluate the military lessons of Operation Desert Storm, which will inevitably mean that there will have to be a fundamental review of the paper "Options for Change"?
    Mr. King: As my hon. Friend knows, I have made it clear that we wish to learn any lessons that can be learnt. The remarks of my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement on the subject of the next tank order will obviously take account of the lessons that can be learnt. We shall be keen to take full stock of the implications that flow from Operation Desert Storm.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Given that there is still some outside hope of a diplomatic solution to the crisis, are there any contingency plans for supervising a peaceful withdrawal of the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and how long would that take?
    Mr. King: We do not yet know whether the Iraqis will withdraw. We have made it quite clear that we wish to see an immediate and unconditional withdrawal. Once we are satisfied that that is happening, arrangements about the way in which it is to be carried out will be a matter for urgent discussion.
    Mr. Burns: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the conflict and peace in the middle east cannot be won simply by the acceptance of resolution 660? Does he agree that the
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    other resolutions, up to and including resolution 678, must be implemented and that Iraq's chemical and nuclear capability must be removed?
    Mr. King: We have always stood by the United Nations resolutions. As my hon. Friend says, that means more than resolution 660.
    Ms. Short: Will the Secretary of State explain how it helps to get Iraq out of Kuwait to bombard Baghdad more heavily than it has ever been bombarded before, as we have been told in the press that the allies did last night? Is not it a breach of the Geneva convention to deprive civilians of water, food, electricity and proper medical treatment and to destroy their sewage system, so causing disease in the centre of Baghdad?
    Mr. King: The attacks conducted as part of the air campaign are specifically directed at strategic or military targets, as the House knows. In Baghdad, there are control centres and communication centres which directly control and order the people in Kuwait. Those centres are certainly legitimate targets.
    Representing the constituents she does, the hon. Lady should think hard before she starts talking about the Geneva convention. She knows perfectly well that there are families of service men who do not yet know whether their sons or husbands are alive or dead. Those service men have been shown on television and we do not yet know their fate. We have not had a single word from the Iraqi authorities to fulfil the most elementary obligation under the Geneva convention. I do not know how the hon. Lady can stand up and berate us about the Geneva convention without addressing that aspect.
    Mr. O'Neill: Will the Secretary of State assure the House that there will be no reduction in military pressure until Saddam Hussein clarifies last Friday's announcements from Baghdad and starts to make arrangements to withdraw from Kuwait?
    Mr. King: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs made the position clear. I make it clear that until and unless Iraq immediately and unconditionally withdraws from Kuwait, hostilities will continue as planned.
    Mr. Hayes: While fully appreciating the difficulties experienced by journalists in Baghdad in reporting the situation out there, does my right hon. Friend agree that the report on the "Today" programme from a BBC journalist who talked about the allied forces perpetrating five hours of bombing was disgraceful? According to the Oxford English dictionary the definition of "perpetrate" is to commit a crime, a blunder or something outrageous. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that report was nothing short of disgraceful and that such reporting does nothing to help the morale of our people here or in the Gulf?
    Mr. King: On the last point, I would not be so despondent about the morale of our people here. In spite of reservations that we may have about the way in which some of these matters have been reported, we can recognise with admiration the steadily increasing support shown in the polls and right across the country for our forces in the Gulf, the dangerous work which they are undertaking and the difficulties that they face. We, for our part, will tell the truth about the circumstances in which we

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    are involved in the conflict, even if mistakes are made or things go wrong. Broadcasting authorities and correspondents have a heavy responsibility to make sure that at all times they give the fairest possible representation of the true facts.

    Quality Assurance Unit
    Mr. Cartwright: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to announce a final decision about the future location of the Directorate General of Defence Quality Assurance.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Kenneth Carlisle): Our studies are well in hand. We are considering several options for the relocation of the Directorate General of Defence Quality Assurance and will come to a decision as soon as possible.
    Mr. Cartwright: Does the Minister realise that uncertainty about defence quality assurance has continued for more than 15 years? As one final decision to build a new headquarters at Woolwich is said to have been overturned and a second final decision to move to Teesside now seems in doubt, can he assure us that this costly dithering will stop and that the next final decision will really be final?
    Mr. Carlisle: As I said, we are looking at all the options and no decision has yet been taken. We hope shortly to come to a decision. I know that the hon. Gentleman is concerned about his constituency, but he should bear in mind that it will greatly benefit from any redevelopment of the royal arsenal west site.
    Mr. Devlin: It is nothing short of disgraceful that the Government, who previously announced the movement of the quality assurance unit from Woolwich to Teesside in 1989, now seek to renege on that commitment to move those 1,500 jobs. When will the Minister bring this matter to a positive conclusion in favour of the previous announcement?
    Mr. Carlisle: My hon. Friend has fought long and hard to win the relocation for Cleveland and I pay tribute to his efforts. He will understand that we have a public duty to look at all the options in order to achieve the best value for money. I repeat that we have not yet made any decision, but hope to make one shortly. We certainly recognise the merits of his Preston farm site.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. John Carlisle: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    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. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen.
    Mr. Carlisle: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the one event in these troubled times that has given much pleasure to people, and especially to our troops in the Gulf, has been the comprehensive English rugby victory at Twickenham? In that context does he further agree that we
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    should begin to think about providing them with some real opposition which can now come only from South Africa? Is my right hon. Friend encouraged by the meeting of Commonwealth Foreign Ministers at the weekend which virtually saw the beginning of the end of the infamous Gleneagles agreement? Will he take further initiatives to restore British-South African sporting relations?
    The Prime Minister: In answer to my hon. Friend's first point, I am not sure that many Scots troops in the Gulf would necessarily agree with him. I recall occasions when both the Scots and the Welsh had rather too satisfactory results at Twickenham and elsewhere. I agree with my hon. Friend's substantive point that the time has come to resume sporting links with South Africa in areas where there is now proper integration of sport within the Republic of South Africa. I have discussed that matter with other Commonwealth leaders and I hope to take it forward.
    Mr. Kinnock: The Secretary of State for Education and Science today said:
    "I'm not interested in proposals that transfer expenditure on education from the local taxpayer to central Government taxation".
    Does the Prime Minister agree with his Secretary of State?
    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are examining a whole series of options in the community charge review. If the right hon. Gentleman will be patient we shall announce the result of that as soon as possible.
    Mr. Kinnock: But the Secretary of State could not have been clearer in ruling out the idea of transferring expenditure from local taxation to central taxation. Will the Prime Minister make his position clear on this aspect of concern? Does he support his Secretary of State for Education and Science?
    The Prime Minister: I shall make the position entirely clear on the matter under review when we have finished the review.
    Mr. Kinnock: Why does not the Prime Minister save a great deal of time and the country a huge amount of money by abolishing the poll tax and accepting the Labour party proposal for a modern system of fair rates? That is the best way to, deal with the poll tax.
    The Prime Minister: I am sure that the whole country will have listened with interest to the right hon. Gentleman. What a shame that when he announced his proposals in Scotland they did not meet with the acclaim that he expected.
    Mr. Malins: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the man who was so cruelly murdered by the bomb at Victoria station yesterday came from Thornton Heath, which is in my constituency, and leaves a wife and baby son. Will my right hon. Friend send the sympathy of the whole House to that family, and can he assure us that no expense or effort will be spared, to bring the callous killers to justice?
    The Prime Minister: The whole House will share the views that have been expressed by my hon. Friend. I certainly offer to the family of the gentleman who was killed, and to all those who were injured, our very warmest sympathy. One is bound to ask what sort of people it is that can carry out attacks of this kind. They are certainly

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    consumed with hate, and they are certainly sick of mind. And they can be certain of one thing—that they will be hunted and hunted until they are found.
    Mr. David Marshall: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marshall: With unemployment soaring past 2 million, with record numbers of homeless people and home repossessions, with pensioners freezing to death because of his penny-pinching policies, is not the Prime Minister reminded of the tale of the king's new clothes? Can he tell the House just what is different about his premiership, when it is apparent to all that, if he is not altogether naked, he is simply wearing the threadbare clothes of the previous Prime Minister?
    The Prime Minister: I am not entirely sure that they would wholly suit me. With regard to the hon. Gentleman's substantive point, I have to say that he left something out of his catalogue. For example, he omitted the work on the £55 million programme to transform a rundown area of Glasgow's east end. I should have thought that he would know about that. He also forgot that that programme will create 1,000 jobs in that part of Glasgow.
    Mr. Gale: My right hon. Friend is aware of the level of public concern that has been expressed about media coverage of Gulf events—particularly reports from Baghdad. Does he agree that it is not incumbent upon either the BBC or ITN to sink to the levels of some foreign news organisations? Is not it particularly important at this time, when the wives and families of service men are watching television, that every effort should be made to ensure that the public are made well aware that any report coming out of Iraq is subject to very severe censorship?
    The Prime Minister: I think it is clear to people that reports coming out of Baghdad are subject to censorship, and I hope that the BBC and the other transmission channels will make that clear on every occasion.
    Mr. Livingstone: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Livingstone: In the light of the news from Moscow that President Gorbachev has given Saddam Hussein 48 hours to reply to his peace proposals, can the Prime Minister assure the House that no ground war will be launched by the coalition while those negotiations continue?
    The Prime Minister: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman can seriously expect me, on this occasion or on any other occasion, to give information of a military sort. Certainly I can confirm that President Gorbachev sent to me late last night the proposals that he had put to Tariq Aziz.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Has my right hon. Friend seen this excellent report of the North Western regional health authority, a copy of which I sent him? If so, he will have noted that the health authorities of Lancaster and Blackpool top the league in the immunisation against diphtheria of children under two. Those districts also have the lowest rates of death from cancer at all ages.
    Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating all those concerned—the administrators, the doctors, the nurses, the ancillary staff and all others involved—on their splendid team effort?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I have seen the brochure that my hon. Friend sent me. I congratulate all those concerned in the Blackpool and Lancaster districts on their achievement in respect of immunisation rates and the low rates of death from cancer. The national target for immunisation is 90 per cent., and that has been achieved. It is worth mentioning that the accelerated immunisation schedule for younger children and the introduction of the new GPs' contract should further improve the immunisation uptake figures nationwide. It is becoming clear that the health reforms are improving preventive medicine in a remarkable way.
    Mr. Kirkwood: Has the Prime Minister had a chance to study reports in today's press on the progress made to date on the internal Government review of the poll tax? Is he aware that those reports imply that no one involved in those review negotiations is in favour of the Government retaining the poll tax? If that is true, does not the right hon. Gentleman have a duty to make an early statement to the House and the country that, whatever options are still being considered, the poll tax is now well and truly ruled out?
    The Prime Minister: We will make a statement at the end of our review and not before.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Greenway: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his commitment to an excellent education for all our children is widely supported and welcomed throughout the House and the nation? To that end, is he pleased that Her Majesty's inspectors' report shows that the first year of national curriculum maths is going extremely well for five and 11-year-olds and throughout the age range, and that children and teachers are working well to achieve that? Will my right hon. Friend congratulate them?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I am happy to do as my hon. Friend suggests. The report demonstrates that the national curriculum has stimulated a range of improvements in schools and that teachers have worked hard to take advantage of the opportunities. That can be only to the benefit of the children and I look to see it continue.
    Ms. Primarolo: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Ms. Primarolo: Given the expected statement this afternoon by the Secretary of State for the Environment giving poll tax exemption to forces serving in the Gulf, will the Prime Minister this afternoon agree to extend exemption from this vicious tax to all deserving groups, such as the nurses?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Lady and her colleagues will carry more weight on the community charge matter when all of them pay their community charge and their fair share of local government taxation. I have no doubt that the hon. Lady has already done so. [HON. MEMBERS: "She has not."' I note that the hon. Lady has not and I hope that others will have noted that, too.
    Ms. Primarolo: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. I have paid my poll tax.
    The Prime Minister: The community charge reduction scheme will help 18 million people who face community charge bills.
    Mr. Knowles: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Knowles: Despite the scaremongering from some local authorities, I welcome the community charge relief scheme, but will my right hon. Friend comment on the effects of that scheme throughout the country? If he had available the figures for Nottingham in particular. I and my constituents would welcome them.
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend knows, the community charge reduction scheme will make a significant difference to a large number of people this year with more than 18 million people being eligible for rebates under it. If Nottingham city council sets the same level next year as it did this year, a couple living in an averagely-rated property would receive a reduction of £238 between them.
    Mr. Turner: Will the Prime Minister comment on the recent statement by the hon. Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) that unless substantial funds are made available to the NHS before the end of the financial year, elderly people and people from other groups might die? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with that statement? [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not hear that.
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) sitting behind me says that he said no such thing.
    Dame Jill Knight: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Dame Jill Knight: Has the Prime Minister any up-to-date knowledge of the British airmen who were shot down or who ejected over enemy territory? Will he assure the House that any peace terms that are accepted will include as a priority the return of those airmen unharmed?
    The Prime Minister: I wish that I could say to my hon. Friend that I had the information that she seeks. We have tried repeatedly but thus far have had no success in getting it. I share my hon. Friend's great concern about Iraq's failure to fulfil its commitments under the Geneva convention and to grant the Red Cross access to prisoners of war. We remain in constant touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross and are urging it to do everything possible to get Iraq to live up to its obligations. I agree very much with my hon. Friend that the immediate release of prisoners of war, including our airmen, must be part of any ceasefire.
    Mr. Strang: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 19 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Strang: If President Saddam Hussein responds to the Soviet peace initiative with an undertaking to withdraw all his forces from Kuwait unconditionally, does the Prime Minister agree that the allies should respond by stopping the bombing and halting moves towards a ground war in Kuwait?
    The Prime Minister: We are all aware that proposals have been put by President Gorbachev to Iraq. I confirmed that to the House earlier. In his message President Gorbachev specifically asked me to keep the proposals confidential. Therefore, upon those I can offer no substantial comment. In any case, as the hon. Gentleman intimated, we have to bear it in mind that it is the Iraqis who have been asked to respond, not us. We await a response from them. Nothing has yet happened which would incline us to agree to a ceasefire or a pause in the conflict. If Saddam Hussein wants to avoid a land battle, he knows what he must do: he has to withdraw unconditionally and immediately from Kuwait and implement the Security Council resolutions in full. Unless and until he does that, the conflict will continue.

Point of Order
3.31 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you were entering the Chamber at 2.30 pm, the last 50 of the 8,000 passengers who were on the Central line this morning were being escorted out of the tunnel, having been there for about four hours. This is the second day running that the whole of the London transport system has snarled up. There is nothing that British Rail or London Underground can do about the activities of the IRA, but there is a lot that they could do about communicating with passengers and letting them know how the system is working, so that people could avoid getting themselves into terrible problems.
Have you had any request, Mr. Speaker, from a responsible Minister to explain to the House what happened on the Central line today and to try to explain why, given so many years of under-investment on the Central line and on London transport, we have reached a stage where London transport is in chaos?
Mr. Speaker: I have not had a request for a statement. It seems to be a good subject for an Adjournment debate. Why does not the hon. Gentleman try that?

Prescription Charges (Exempt Medical Conditions)
3.32 pm
Mr. Gary Waller: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide an exemption from payment of prescription charges in respect of any permanent medical condition or ailment.
I hope that the House will give me leave to bring in the Bill for which I am about to make a case. In addition to the various categories of people, such as retirement pensioners, children under 16 and pregnant women, who are entitled to free prescriptions, people suffering from one of a list of medical conditions and disorders are also included. Those conditions include, among others, various forms of diabetes, Addison's disease, colostomy and epilepsy requiring continuous anti-convulsive therapy. However, there is a longer list of permanent conditions, sufferers from which may still be required to pay for vital drugs and medicines. Those include Parkinson's disease, cystic fibrosis, psoriasis, and schizophrenia.
There is no logical reason why some conditions are included while others are not. To give them their due, I do not think that Ministers have attempted to justify the distinction on the basis of logic. When the list of exempt conditions was drawn up in 1968 to coincide with the reintroduction of prescription charges by the last Labour Government, it was argued by medical practitioners that they could agree to exemption only for readily identifiable medical conditions that called automatically for continuous, life-long medication. However, even then the list must have seemed arbitrary and illogical. I wonder how much time since then has been spent by Ministers and their civil servants in responding to patients and hon. Members who questioned the basis for the list.
Those people who do not qualify for free prescriptions but who require regular medication are able to take advantage of prepayment certificates, which are better known as season tickets. That often provides a considerable saving. Furthermore, the Goverment may justifiably point out that, as a result of the present exemption arrangements and of the season ticket system, a prescription charge is paid on less than one item in five dispensed, whereas in 1968 the proportion was close to two in five items dispensed.
Nevertheless, the fact that only a minority of patients have to pay makes it all the more galling for sufferers of disabling and unpleasant conditions, who are given the impression that their complaints are regarded as less significant and are taken less seriously than other complaints which confer exemption. Medical science has moved apace during the past decade and for several conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, drugs are available which can make an enormous difference to the quality of life for sufferers.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, the difficulty is that an extension of the list, although not necessarily costly to the Exchequer in itself, could lead to yet further calls for the boundaries to be moved. I do not think that the fact that change would present difficulties is an overwhelming reason for maintaining the present inertia.
The cost involved in extending the list need not be as great as it appears at first. Many patients will already be exempt from paying charges because they are elderly, because their disability prevents them from leaving home

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without help, or because they are entitled to income support. Some of the costs could also be clawed back by altering the arrangements so that prescriptions in respect of medications for ailments other than a specific condition are not free. At present, if people need a prescription because they have influenza or the bad throat from which I am suffering, it does not cost anything if they are exempted by virtue of one of the conditions specified in the regulations. Some people would go further, arguing that any list of exempt conditions is bound to present problems and that it would be better to abolish lists altogether, relying instead on the season ticket system. If that were done, it would no doubt be possible for prepayment certificates to cost a great deal less.
I mention these points because I suggest that almost any system would be better than the present one, which maintains the illogical distinctions to which I referred. Perhaps the principal factor which prevents change is the belief that people are less likely to complain about a system which has been hallowed by time. We require a fresh look at the whole scheme of prescription charge exemptions to assess whether help could be directed more effectively to people who need it.
In bringing forward this Bill today to extend help to sufferers from conditions other than those on the existing list, I hope to demonstrate that there is a consensus which believes that a change sooner rather than later is not only desirable but necessary.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Gary Waller, Mr. Jack Ashley, Sir David Price, Mr. Ivan Lawrence, Mr. Tom Clarke, Mr. Peter Viggers, Mr. Roger Sims and Mr. John Hannam.

Prescription Charges (Exempt Medical Conditions)
  PRESCRIPTION CHARGES (EXEMPT MEDICAL CONDITIONS)
  Mr. Gary Waller accordingly presented a Bill to provide an exemption from payment of prescription charges in respect of any permanent medical condition or ailment: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 15 March and to be printed. [Bill 88.]
Opposition Day
[7TH ALLOTTED DAY]
Opposition Day

  Poll Tax
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. I understand that a large number of hon. Members wish to participate in the debate. In a half-day debate I have no means of controlling the length of speeches, but if hon. Members were to stick to approximately 10 minutes each I should be able to call most, if not all, of them.
  3.39 pm
  Mr. Bryan Gould: I beg to move,
  That this House calls upon Her Majesty's Government to bring forward legislation to abolish the poll tax.
  The motion invites the House to support a simple proposition. It requires us only to acknowledge what is now widely apparent—that the game is up. The poll tax is now virtually bereft of supporters. There is nothing for it but to acknowledge that a ghastly mistake has been perpetrated and that a new start must now be made.
  So that the House can concentrate on that simple point, we have excluded from our motion anything that might be regarded as contentious. We do not argue that the poll tax has proved itself to be hopelessly unfair, though that is now universally admitted. We do not argue that the poll tax has failed to secure the consent of the people and, as a consequence, is widely resisted, though that is now undeniable. We do not argue that it has proved horribly difficult to administer and collect and that the business of maintaining a register has been a nightmare, costing local authorities up to £130 million, according to the local government information unit, as they grapple with 13·5 million changes to the register that affect 38 per cent. of the register in the current year. We do not argue that local government administration, budgeting and delivery of services are near to chaos as a consequence of the poll tax. We do not even argue that the attempt to impose some order on the whole nightmare has meant a perversion of the original rationale of the poll tax. Intervention by central Government to an unprecedented degree has delivered a mortal blow to local government independence.
  We do not make those arguments in our motion because they no longer have to be made. They have been established and admitted not just as a result of the attacks on the poll tax by the Government's political opponents—though we should naturally wish to claim some modest credit for that—nor have they been established and admitted by the horrified complaints of local government or the cries of pain from those who have to pay the bills and suffer the cuts in services, though these, too, have all played their part.
  The arguments have in fact been made most eloquently by the actions and statements of Conservative Members of Parliament—those hon. Members who stood for election on manifestos that contained commitments to the poll tax, those hon. Members who have been whipped ferociously to ensure their continued support for the poll tax, those hon. Members who, more than anyone else, must recognise all too clearly the political penalties if the poll

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  tax is seen to fail. Yet the condemnation of the poll tax is all the more convincing because it comes from those who were hitherto committed to supporting it.
  It comes, first, in the votes cast against the poll tax by Conservative Members of Parliament. No fewer than 66 hon. Members who sit on the Conservative Benches—one fifth of the parliamentary party, one third of the Back Benchers—have defied a three-line Whip and refused to support the poll tax on one occasion or another. They will have the chance again tonight to confirm that decision and to ensure that this time their votes count.
  Conservative Members of Parliament have not limited themselves to voting against the poll tax. They have been remarkably fertile in proposing suggestions as to how it could be reformed, amended and changed out of all recognition. Those who have put forward such suggestions have gone well beyond the ranks of the usual poll tax dissidents. Thus, the hon. Members for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) and for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) have backed relief for non-working wives. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) supported relief for those under 21. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Nelson) recommended an extension of the rebate scheme, and the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) proposed relief for pensioner wives and mothers of young children. The hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) wanted to extend the rebate taper. The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) sought help for the owners of empty houses. The hon. Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham) suggested charging top-rate poll tax payers more. The list is a long one. I could go on for some time yet. No fewer than 43 separate schemes have been put forward from the Conservative Benches to ameliorate the poll tax.
  Nor have those hon. Members contented themselves with simply proposing amendments—
  Mr. Roger King: The hon. Member has listed a catalogue of Conservative Members who have wanted to see some changes in the community charge. Would he care to give the number of his colleagues who have sought to develop an alternative policy?
  Mr. Gould: I am delighted to say, in case the hon. Gentleman is unaware of it, that we are in the happy position of being united in support of the policy that we propose, something that I believe the Secretary of State will be unable to boast this afternoon.
  Nor have Conservative Members contented themselves with proposing amendments to the poll tax. They have also—usually in the local press—been remarkably quick to distance themselves from the poll tax even when they have demonstrated loyal support for it in votes here at Westminister. Thus the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) told The Reporter and Southampton Guardian:
  "The poll tax has definitely caught Mrs. Thatcher napping—she cannot talk her way out of this totally new policy. It is too much for people to pay".
  The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) told The Independent:
  "The figures have got worse every time they are revised. We have been led down the garden path".
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  The hon. Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox), who is or was vice-chairman of the Tory party, said to the Daily Mirror:
  "We are punch drunk over this. Mrs. Thatcher must change her mind."
  Disenchantment with the poll tax now runs wide and deep in the Tory party. I have limited myself to just a small selection of the comments and actions of Conservative Members, but I could equally well have quoted a large number of critics from Tory local government and from the Tory party's organisation and senior staff.
  Perhaps the most famous—or should I say the most notorious?—of the Tory party's dissidents is the man who is now Secretary of State. His record in voting against the poll tax is pretty meagre—just one revolt on the question of banding—but he is the undisputed champion when it comes to ideas for reforming and amending the poll tax and changing it beyond recognition. He has been by far the most prolific source of ideas, from requiring councils to submit themselves to a referendum if they spend more than permitted by central Government to surcharging councils in the same circumstances; from halting the withdrawal of the safety net to calculating transitional relief, not according to assumed figures, he tells us, but according to actual figures; and from improving the rebate scheme to exempting student nurses. The ideas have flowed freely.
  The right hon. Gentleman's main problem has been that as each idea has bubbled to the surface it has been promptly pricked by a senior colleague. His every idea has been contradicted by senior Tories and on some occasions by a senior Tory called Michael Heseltine. There can be no doubt where the Secretary of State stands: he stands in a fever of indecision. He is assailed by contradictory advice from all sides. He seems to lack the political will or the political skill to persuade his colleagues that any single one of his many ideas could conceivably work.
  We know where the Secretary of State would like to stand: at least, I assume that he would like to stand for the abolition of the poll tax. Where he actually stands is a great deal less comfortable—usually on his head and with alarming frequency. So it is that he opposed capping, for very good reasons, and then presided over a major extension of his own capping powers. So it is that he assured us that poll tax would average £380 this year—already a £100 improvement or increase on the similar figure postulated for this year—then immediately conceded, just two days ago, that, in fact, the average will be at least £400. So it is that he proposed to exempt student nurses but has failed to lift a finger to help them or to help other groups such as non-working wives.
  So it is that the right hon. Gentleman accepted that the old transitional relief scheme was flawed because it dealt in invented figures, yet has now introduced a scheme with a different name—the community charge reduction scheme—but which is equally flawed because it, too, deals in invented figures. Attached to the very statement in which the right hon. Gentleman misled the House was a list setting out an assumed community charge for every local authority in the country. The consequence is that many thousands of people who have been led to believe that they will benefit from that scheme will find that they are excluded. As the real figures become apparent—in some cases, they are nearly £100 per head higher than the assumed figures—they will find that they have to pay every penny of that difference themselves. Many more thousands will find that the same exclusions that debarred them from the transitional relief scheme will exclude them

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  from help under the new scheme—if they have moved house or if they live in a household of more than two people.
  The Secretary of State has offered little, therefore, by way of immediate relief for poll tax payers whose anger and sense of injustice will be felt even more keenly this time round because of those raised and dashed expectations. Many of them will feel that they have been taken for a ride by the Secretary of State and the Government.
  In the long term, too, the Secretary of State falls far short of the decisive action that he promised when he was seeking the Tory party leadership. Instead, he is bogged down in a review whose purpose, timing and outcome remain shrouded in mystery. Even his own Prime Minister seems unsure as to when we can expect the conclusions of this famous review. In advance of a speech to the 1922 Committee, journalists were briefed to the effect that the Prime Minister would undertake that the results of the review would be published before the May elections, but before the speech had even been delivered that briefing had been reversed. All that the Prime Minister will do—he did it again today—is to repeat the fatuous and evident absurdity that of course when the review is completed we will have the results. Perhaps the Secretary of State will clear up that confusion this afternoon.
  As to what the review is about, the only clue that we are given is the constant recitation of that curious mantra, "Nothing is ruled in; nothing is ruled out". It would perhaps be more accurate to say that everything has in its time been ruled in but that equally everything has in its time been ruled out. One thing only is clear: any solution that retains the poll tax will surely be unacceptable, not least to dozens and scores of Conservative Members.
  Mr. Patrick Thompson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that recent surveys have shown that, of all the options that have been advanced by hon. Members on either side of the House and by those outside, the most unpopular of all is the Labour party's proposal, in Scotland, of a roof tax?
  Mr. Gould: I am afraid that I must flatly contradict the hon. Gentleman. All the polling evidence that I have seen—and I have seen a great deal—shows that the poll tax is by far the least popular option and that a modernised and fair system of rates is the most popular.
  We are told that the Secretary of State is now less enthusiastic about transferring education spending to the central Exchequer as a means of keeping the poll tax down. According to today's edition of The Times, another device has now been suggested. Its main purpose is to serve the demands of those idealogues in the Conservative party who will fight to the death to maintain the principle of the poll tax. That solution is said to be a two-tax system—a new property tax to add to a lower-rate poll tax or head tax. That is a nightmare scenario, with all the transitional costs and confusion of moving to a new tax without alleviating the huge administrative burden of keeping the poll tax in place. The problems of the poll tax under such a scheme would not only be retained; they would be doubled—indeed multiplied many times over.
  At what level will the new poll tax or head tax be set? If it is set high enough to cover the cost of collection, it will continue to bear heavily and unfairly on those with no income with which to pay it. But if it is set so low as to be
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  a tolerable burden for those with no income, it will cost more to collect than it could conceivably raise in revenue. It is shot through with anomalies.
  Floor space is the crudest of measures and bears little relationship to the ability to pay. The addition of an element of personal taxation is a recipe for family discord. It is two taxes dressed up as one—a twin tax torture. It is a head tax and a floor tax rolled into one—a catch-you-at-both-ends tax and a top-to-toe tax. It counts the number of bedrooms in one's house and then adds the number of people who eat breakfast there—a bed-and-breakfast tax. It is doomed to disappoint all those who hoped for a fair and rational system of local government taxation.
  My conclusion is that the Secretary of State needs help. To be fair, he has already sought help. His only escape from his dilemma appears to be his offer to others to share his dilemma. His offer of consultation was not, however, all that it might have been. A genuine offer would have been preceded by some informal contact and accompanied by suggestions about a serious agenda, machinery for consultation and a time table.
  We have heard nothing from the Secretary of State along those lines. We simply cannot be drawn into a process, the likely outcome of which is that the Secretary of State will say "Thank you for your interesting ideas; we are delighted to see how closely they accord with our own. We are pleased, therefore, that you will support them when they appear in the Tory manifesto". Alternatively, he will say, "Thank you for your interesting ideas. We have now put them through our computers, had the civil servants crawl all over them, and we are sorry to say that they are hopelessly impractical".
  The rather naive Liberal Democrat Members now have good reason to know how fully they fell into that trap. We shall not be drawn into a process, the likely outcome of which may still be to prop up the poll tax. That would be to betray literally millions of people who look to the Labour party, above all, to sweep away the poll tax as soon as it gains office. It is here that the Secretary of State needs help, not from us but from his own party. He lacks the will or skill to prevail on his own. As matters stand, the idealogues will force him to retain the poll tax against his better judgment.
  Mr. A. J. Beith: As the hon. Gentleman believes that our local income tax proposals have been afforded a great deal of scrutiny and consultation, will he now say precisely how the Labour party scheme works so that we may know whether it is a viable alternative?
  Mr. Gould: Rather than delay the House, I shall recommend to the hon. Gentleman that he should read the full proposals that we published at the end of July.
  Our motion provides the opportunity for all Conservative Members who have openly expressed or secretly harboured hostility to the poll tax to ensure that the Secretary of State's hand is strengthened and that a clear message is sent to the Cabinet to the effect that, whatever else is proposed, the poll tax must go. There will be no prospect of sanity and common sense until it has been abolished, and a vote for our motion tonight could end the misery. It would end the misery of local authorities which are caught up in chaos and confusion, the misery of millions of poll tax payers who are worried sick about how

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  to pay this year's bills, and the misery of the Secretary of State, who cannot escape the insistence of his colleagues that the poll tax should remain; and, most of all for Conservative Members, their votes tonight would end the misery of the Tory party that arrogantly and mistakenly imposed a wicked and unfair tax and now has one last chance to admit its mistake.
  If the Secretary of State will have the courage and honesty to say now what he said so eloquently from the Back Benches, we can sit down and consider sensibly what should replace the poll tax. We are ready: we have published our proposals and put them on the table. The question is now a simple one: will Conservative Members have the courage and wisdom to admit their mistake, set about putting it right, and bring the nightmare to an end?
  4 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  'welcomes the Government's thorough review of the functions, structure and finance of local government; notes that the Government has provided for a substantial increase in Aggregate External Finance for 1991–92; and welcomes the introduction of the Community Charge Reduction Scheme which will provide £1·7 billion extra help in England for those former rate payers, the elderly and the disabled who have faced the biggest increases in their contributions to the cost of local services.'.
  Perhaps the House will understand that the first task that fell to me as Secretary of State in conducting the review with which the Prime Minister entrusted me was to look at the issues that could be immediately addressed in the context of the settlement for the next financial year. The House will be all too familiar with the constraints that the need for primary legislation to change the existing framework imposed on any review. There were bound to be specific sectors of concern and I shall say a word or two about a number of them, particularly the liability of service men in the Gulf, in the light of recent legal decisions.
  I know that many hon. Members are concerned about the service men and women in the Gulf and their treatment with regard to the community charge. In an earlier debate, I promised to provide further guidance on that subject. It is likely that last Thursday's judgment in the Anderton case, dealing with the sole and main residence of a merchant seaman, has implications for the advice that we gave local authorities last November, and which we would have updated in the further guidance. We have yet to receive the final terms of the High Court judgment, and yet to consider the full implications.
  In our view, service personnel and associated civilians posted to the Gulf should not have to pay the personal community charge during the period of their posting. If detailed study of the judgment shows it to be necessary, we shall take appropriate steps to ensure that they do not have to do so, either by legislation or by other means. I am grateful that the Opposition have already made it clear that if we do take such legislation, we shall receive their support.
  Mr. Gould: I happily confirm our earlier assurance. Will the Secretary of State make it clear that the
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  dispensation he mentioned will apply to all service men and women, irrespective of where they are based in the Gulf and will extend, particularly, to merchant seamen? Will he also make it clear that the Government will recompense local authorities for any loss of revenue that they suffer as a result?
  Mr. Heseltine: The assurances that I have given apply to all those involved in the military endeavours in the Gulf, and I announced on an earlier occasion that it applies to auxiliaries as well as to the professional services. However, it does not apply to those who are engaged in the normal pursuit of their careers as merchant seamen. We are dealing with people who are involved in the Gulf endeavour and I must carefully ring-fence that particular arrangement.
  Mr. Gould: It is important that we should try to make this point clear, because many thousands of merchant seamen and their families will want to know the answer to this question. Is the Secretary of State excluding merchant seamen as a category, or does he accept that some merchant seamen will be present in the Gulf in a supporting role to the military effort and they will be included in the scheme?
  Mr. Heseltine: Of course, if they have been involved in the Gulf as a consequence of Gulf activities, they will come within the assurances that we have given. In what I said earlier, I was referring specifically to merchant seamen pursuing their normal activities. They would not come within the context of the announcement that I have made.
  The second issue about which I am concerned—and this covers a point raised by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)—relates to those local authorities where service men represent a significant proportion of their charge payers. Those authorities face a drop in their community charge income when troops are sent to the Gulf. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) has raised that issue with me extremely forcefully and he in particular made representations about the effect on the authority with which he is concerned. We have therefore announced this afternoon a scheme to provide grants for the authorities most affected to compensate them for loss of income. I know that that extra Government help will be warmly welcomed in the areas concerned.
  Mr. Gould: I am sorry to bother the Secretary of State again on this point, but it is important that we get it as clear as possible. The phrase that the Secretary of State just used was a little opaque. He referred to grants to cover the authorities most affected. Is he not prepared to make it clear that, as a consequence of this scheme, he will recompense every authority for all loss of revenue suffered?
  Mr. Heseltine: I do not believe that my statement was opaque. Some authorities have very limited numbers of service men within their areas and they would not be outwith normal movements that one would expect in normal circumstances. We have introduced a scheme to deal with authorities in which a significant number of local inhabitants have been moved as a result of troop dispositions. I have no doubt that once the details of the scheme have been examined, and in the light of

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  consultation with the authorities concerned, the House will be satisfied that we have dealt with the matter effectively.
  Mr. Julian Critchley: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the sense of relief felt by service men who are serving in the Gulf and their families and by the electors in places like Rushmoor, which is Aldershot and Farnborough combined, who faced a notional additional charge of £14 a head. My right hon. Friend knows that he is always welcome in Aldershot and never more so than when he comes to speak to the local Tory party in May.
  Mr. Heseltine: On that occasion I shall be able to explain to the electors in that constituency that, were it not for the persistent pleas of my hon. Friend, they might not have gained the benefits that I have announced this afternoon.
  I announced the details of the community charge reduction scheme some time ago and I am the first to recognise that, as it must take into account the level of the community charge that is set for next year, it is not possible in advance of that to be precise about the exact quantification of benefit that will flow to individual charge payers in each local authority. However, it is possible to identify the indications, and examples can be given in general terms.
  In gross terms, about £1·7 billion will go to more than 18 million people in England. When we turn that sum of money into individual cases, it will be clear to anyone who has made the calculations that a couple living in a previously averagely rated house in Lancaster, for example, could see a reduction of nearly £300 in their joint liability next April if their local authority sets its community charge at the same level as this year. We have a very important responsibility to bring home to large numbers of people precisely how much help will be available. I know that all my right hon. and hon. Friends will take it specifically on themselves to spell out locally exactly what that means.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Does the Secretary of State recognise that the nightmare of the poll tax has meant that hundreds of thousands of young people—some in my constituency—are refusing to pay? Does he recognise the implications of driving that number of young people into illegality? Should not some special concession be introduced? Are those people to remain in debt for many years to come? They form a sensitive age group.
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman is fully aware that the provisions in legislation cover the age groups to which he has referred. There is no way in which they can be excluded in the absence of primary legislation to deal with the issue. All over the country, many young people recognise the force of the law and are paying their bills. Those who are not paying are, doubtless, fully aware that some Labour Members are encouraging others not to pay. There is no justification for individual hon. Members to assume that they are above the law of the land.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: You have asked us to make progress, Mr. Speaker. This is a short debate and many hon. Members wish to speak.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I support what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Many hon. Members wish to participate. Some of them now seek to intervene. That will not help their chances to make speeches later.
  Mr. Heseltine: The community charge reduction scheme does not, as I have said, apply only to many people in general. Specific additional relief has been give to those living in sheltered housing. That is additonal to the scheme that we announced for poll tax payers generally. In addition, we were able to exclude certain people who were living in property that came within the definition of "charitable". The scheme was the first response of the review. It is a comprehensive scheme which will bring significant benefits to many millions of people. It was, perhaps, in advance of the expectations of what we might do in such a short time. Perhaps the indignation of the hon. Member for Dagenham is a sign of his growing awareness of just how many people are likely to benefit from what we have already done.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham also questioned meabout the review. It has been under way for only a few weeks and it would have been wholly unrealistic to assume that we would come to conclusions about so complex a matter in so short a time. We have made significant progress in a wide range of detailed examinations into function, structure and finance. We have now reached a point where we are able to begin to decide those options with which we may not wish to proceed. As I said recently to the House, I hoped that by April, I should be able to narrow the focus of attention—[Interruption.] I find it extraordinary that I am urged by the Opposition Front Bench to speed up the review, yet the moment I agree to do so there is a baying of indignation from Labour Members. They are obviously frightened that we might do just that and that they will not be pleased with our conclusions. The Opposition will not deter us from moving on with the expedition that the matter requires.
  Anyone who has the slightest doubt about the real views of the Opposition and about the timing involved in such a complex matter may have had the chance to listen to the hon. Member for Dagenham speaking on the "World This Weekend" last Sunday. When asked about the whole question of timing, he answered:
  "what we propose is that we should deal with the problem in stages—that it's futile to think that we can achieve all that is necessary overnight."
  However, when the hon. Gentleman comes to the House, he assumes that the Government can do precisely what he said could not be done. It is entrancing to note the speed with which the hon. Member for Dagenham has moved his position. I remind him of what he said about a year ago, when he was involved in this review—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: What did the right hon. Gentleman say, at that time?
  Mr. Heseltine: If the hon. Gentleman is not careful, I shall tell the House what Labour Members were saying a year earlier than that. That makes the position even more complicated. When the hon. Member for Dagenham was asked about this complex business, he said:
  "we are making very good progress with the work that we have undertaken to prepare our alternative…We have every confidence that in the coming months we shall reach a conclusion that we shall be able to bring forward with confidence."—[ Official Report, 18 January 1990; Vol. 165, c. 438–39.]

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  Two months later he was asked who would pay under Labour's new system, to which he replied:
  "that's the one issue we have yet to decide…We will reach a decision very shortly."
  He said that on 27 March 1990, but we still have no idea who will pay under Labour's proposals.
  Mr. Gould: The Secretary of State cannot be allowed to get away with that complete misstatement. I am disappointed—if it is the case, since the right hon. Gentleman has a reputation for not reading his papers—that, as we published a full statement of our proposals in a document entitled "Fair Rates," which I passed across the Dispatch Box at the end of July, he has not yet read that statement. Not having read it, he will not necessarily have understood our proposals. I recommend him to read the paper because in it he will find the answers he seeks.
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman is helpful in inviting me to go on giving what he must regard as uncomfortable quotations, for, although he tries to say what he would like us to believe, he gave a much clearer indication about a month after making the statement that I quoted last, when he said—
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: What did the right hon. Gentleman say when he was on the Back Benches?
  Mr. Heseltine: As the hon. Member for Dagenham interrupted me to say that I had misquoted him, I am surely in order in trying to put the record right. He said that people would be given
  "plenty of information in good time so that they will have some idea of what the relative size of their bill will be."
  Labour's "Fair Rates" document was published in July 1990. It outlined a range of proposals for a property tax, but it gave no indication of how much anybody would pay.
  What I found most revealing about the remarks of the hon. Member for Dagenham this afternoon was that he criticised the Liberal party for being prepared to talk to me, when he was frightened that his proposals would be put through the computer and that the facts might emerge. So now we know that at least the Liberals have a policy in which they have confidence, that the Scottish Nationalists and Welsh Nationalists have policies in which they have confidence, but that the Labour party has a policy in which it has no confidence—[Interruption.]—and that has been revealed all too clearly.
  Mr. Richard Tracey: My right hon. Friend's proposals for relief for those who have been hit by the community charge will be most welcome. Does he agree that the most important question now for the occupants of the Labour Front Bench is whether they will condemn those in the community who are refusing to pay the community charge, in particular Labour Members who are law-breakers?
  Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend is of course—
  Ms. Dawn Primarolo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: I shall call the hon. Lady to raise a point of order in view of a misunderstanding that occurred earlier.
  Ms. Primarolo: During Prime Minister's Question Time, I asked a question—[Interruption.] I urge Conservative Members to listen for a moment. They should calm down. I asked a question about the extension to other deserving cases of the poll tax exemptions. In the baying and braying that goes on during Question Time, the Prime Minister said that I had not paid my poll tax. Unfortunately for the right hon. Gentleman, he was wrong in that statement. For the future, may I urge all right hon. and hon. Members who utter such comments in the Chamber to check their facts?
  Mr. Speaker: I allowed the hon. Lady to make that point of order to put the record straight because I believe that most of those in the Chamber at the time took her nod to be a negative, but it was evidently a positive.
  Mr. Heseltine: Let me say at once how much I admire the hon. Lady for having complied with the law. Although I am not saying that she feels exactly as indignant as I do about the fact that so many of her right hon. and hon. Friends have not paid their poll tax, I must advise her that the only effect that that can have is that her constituents will be likely to find their costs rising because others do not
  pay.
  I return to what has now been so clearly revealed about the difficulties of the Opposition in this matter. It should not be a great surprise to my hon. Friends because when the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) was responsible for the Labour party's local government policies, he described his party's dilemma with admirable clarity when he said:
  "I'm saying to the NEC policy makers, I'm saying 'Hang on a minute, what's our policy on local government?…Putting it at its boldest, we haven't got a policy, that's the actual truth"
  Time has marched on, but the policy making has not.
  Mr. Jeff Rooker rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman has popped up, so I shall give way to him.
  Mr. Rooker: The Secretary of State should make it clear that he is quoting from an article in The Independent of September 1987, which was true because our consultation process and policy formulation on local government had been interrupted during the general election. The article then stated—the Secretary of State will not have the guts to read this out—that my party was being the more honest about local government by admitting that we were going back to square one to look for a better way of funding local government.
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman has made my point. There is a gap, a ravine, between us, but this process takes time. The difference between the Government and the Opposition is that we shall reach conclusions that people will understand, but, three years on, the Opposition still have not done so.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order. What is the point of order?
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to read the motion and the amendment that are on the Order Paper? Will you ensure, as you normally do, that right

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  hon. and hon. Members keep to the motion and the amendment? The Secretary of State is debating a matter that is not on the Order Paper.
  Mr. Speaker: The Secretary of State is addressing himself to the Government amendment.
  Mr. Heseltine: By this time, I am sure that the House is beginning to share my acute anxiety for the hon. Member for Dagenham as he finds himself—
  Mr. Alistair Darling rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: No.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham is now facing increasing difficulties defending the position of Labour authorities which consistently overcharge at local level. As the House knows—because I have read it into the record previously—we now have the clearest indication that in all classes of local authority—the London authorities, the metropolitan districts, the shire districts, and in England as a whole—the fact is that, when stripped of the safety net, Labour authorities consistently set higher poll tax charges than all other political parties. The evidence is not only a matter of history—the evidence is there for the coming year. This week's Municipal Journal gives the figures for the counties. Only three of the 22 counties that are controlled outright by the Conservatives or by the Conservatives in conjunction with other parties have set their budgets above their SSA, whereas all but three of the 13 authorities where the Labour party is in charge or in joint control have exceeded the level of their SSA. Again, it is the old, old story—
  Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: No.
  The next difficulty for the hon. Member for Dagenham is that, in order to justify his talks, he has to talk in terms of cuts when all hon. Members are fully aware that there are no cuts. The Government have been responsible for injecting an additional £4·25 billion of central support to keep down the level of charges this year. If the Labour party claims to be fit to be the Government of this country, it ought to tell the people just how much above £4·25 billion it believes that a national economy can stand in any one year. But it cannot do that.
  The next argument with which we are all too familiar is that all the changes bring about dramatic cuts. There is an annual ritual of claiming that cuts will have to be made. Yet time and again the anticipated cuts that we hear about do not materilise when the budgets are set. Last year we were told that the Government's proposals would have the most serious implications in many authorities; but charges broadly within acceptable levels were introduced and the cuts disappeared. Economies were found without great difficulties.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham has now taken to suggesting that the assumptions on which we based the community charge reduction scheme were ill founded. He suggests that we are working on some notional calculation, as opposed to the actual calculations on which the scheme is based. He managed to put out a document which suggested that 26 authorities are in significant excess of the figures that we estimated. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) said that if local authorities set their charge in line with the Government's assessment
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  of what they needed to spend, the charge would be £380. The list published by the hon. Member for Dagenham included 26 authorities, 13 of which had set their charges at £380 or, indeed, less. The hon. Gentleman reveals clearly that he has not understood the essence of our announcement.
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As the Secretary of State is speaking, three of his hon. Friends have fallen asleep. Will you ask the Serjeant at Arms to check the ventilation in the House to find out whether it is detrimental to the health of us all?
  Mr. Speaker: That is one of the common accusations made in this place. Sometimes when there is some noise, hon. Members lean their head sideways towards the amplifiers.
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Member for Dagenham failed to understand that we took as the basis of our assumptions the actual community charges for the current year but that we had to adjust them to take account of the safety net. It is obvious that we would not have established a community charge reduction scheme in which the safety net was included. So we adjusted the figure for the actual charge, net of the safety net. In some cases that meant that we increased the assumption on which the benefits are provided. It is apparent to anyone who examines them that the figures produced by the hon. Gentleman show that our assumptions are largely accurate. The figures for the list of authorities support everything that we have said, even on the hon. Gentleman's calculations.
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one fundamental thing which the British public understand is that any fool can spend money but that it takes a lot more ability to spend it well and that that is what local authorities should do? If he takes the opportunity in his busy day to examine Lancashire county council, which is Labour controlled, he will find that the authority commissioned a report from the consultants P and A, who advised it that its social services were expensive and badly delivered and recommended a series of alterations to the service. The authority totally neglected those recommendations and a poor service to the public is continuing as a result. That authority continues to increase its spending well above the rate of inflation. Perhaps not only my right hon. Friend but the voters of Ribble Valley will take note of that.
  Mr. Heseltine: I have not the slightest doubt that my hon. Friend is right in saying that well-managed Conservative local government is much more likely to give value for money to its electors and will continue to do so.
  The last area of increasing embarrassment is the failure of the hon. Member for Dagenham to take part in the consultation process to which we have invited him. Undoubtedly there was a chance there for the Labour party to measure up to the responsibilities of a national party genuinely interested in a constructive debate. I could not have asked for greater evidence of its reasons for doubt than the speech by the hon. Member for Dagenham who said that he did not take part in consultations because he was frightened that we would put his figures through the computer. That is the greatest giveaway of all time. He will not put his figures through the computer because he does not know the implications of the scheme on which he is campaigning.

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  The hon. Gentleman blames us for taking our time in a thorough review to get these matters right. We will take what time is necessary for that comprehensive review and will come forward with policies which we believe are right and on which we can secure the support of the British people. We will not fall into the Labour party. trap of producing words without facts to underline them. It is quite apparent that the Opposition are more interested in raising the anxieties of the British people than in contributing to a constructive debate. That is why my right hon. and hon. Friends will vote against the motion.
  4.31 pm
  Mr. Peter Archer: Notwithstanding his robust peroration, I hope that the Secretary of State for the Environment will forgive me when I say that he was rather longer on history than on contemporary facts. In a lengthy career in the House, I do not recall a Minister making it clearer that he had been given a distasteful brief, that he was speaking to a case which he found difficult to argue, and that altogether he would have preferred a different job if one had been on offer.
  I propose to follow the Secretary of State in not referring to any of the facts of higher national finance, but I shall do so for a rather different reason. I want to tell a simple parish-pump story because the poll tax is about parish pumps. At this time of year, most councils consider their budgets for the forthcoming year. The rate of tax in Sandwell in the west midlands was announced at the end of last week. It will be £459—an increase of £36 over last year.
  Colleagues and I who know Sandwell have spoken many times in the House about its problems. By any possible criterion and on any possible perception, it has more than its fair share of problems. It has all the difficulties of an inner city, although an accident of history has meant that it is not an inner city and so has missed much of the help that would otherwise be available. The increase in poll tax will not be warmly welcomed by the people of Sandwell. The blow will not be cushioned when they discover that even that figure has been achieved only by the imposition of further cuts in public services.
  I shall offer the Secretary of State a few facts about Sandwell in case he is not as familiar with them in his new job as he may be later. He will not be surprised to learn that the amount available from Government grants and industry taken together, the jargon for which is aggregate external finance, has increased by 8·7 per cent. The gratitude of the people of Sandwell is tempered a little by three reflections. The first is that inflation is running at 10·5 per cent. The second is that that increase did not come from the Government at all. In fact, total Government grants, in absolute terms, have decreased. In the forthcoming year, the figure will be £200,000 less than that for the current year.
  The whole increase, plus the deficiency that had to be made up, came from the uniform business rate. Not a day passes when I do not receive correspondence from business men in my area saying that there have never been so many businesses calling in the receiver, that never has unemployment in Sandwell risen in such a way. In December of last year unemployment in the west midlands rose by 8·8 per cent. Business men are saying, "Here we
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  are, having to look at all our overheads in order to be able to stay in business, yet we are making payments for which councils might otherwise have looked to the Government."
  For the Secretary of State, the good news—if the absence of bad news can count as good news—is that the poll tax rate that has been set has been achieved because, in the forthcoming year, poll tax payers in Sandwell will not pay a contribution of £26 per head by way of relief for more affluent areas. Over the last 12 months their hardship was aggravated by the fact that they were contributing to the safety net—something that, traditionally, has been regarded as the responsibility of the Government.
  The third reflection is that the figure has been increased as a result of provision for people who have not paid. This afternoon we have heard a little from the Government side on that theme. At present the non-collection rate in Sandwell is running at 25 per cent. That does not indicate a lack of enthusiasm on the part of the council to collect; indeed, it is despite a sequence of reminders, final notices, summonses, liability orders, seven-day letters and information requests. Admittedly, some of the people who have not paid are those who are always prepared to take a free ride. Every area has a number of such people. Furthermore, some people are using non-payment as a means of protest. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said, the Government have succeeded in turning people who are normally law abiding to the point of conformism into people who are prepared to go outside the law as a means of protest.
  Mr. David Wilshire: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Archer: I shall give way in a moment, but, lest the hon. Gentleman forestall the point that I am making, I shall first complete it.
  I hold no brief for those who are refusing to pay. I believe that the impact of their protest is felt not by the Government but by their own neighbours in Sandwell.
  Mr. Wilshire: Will the hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear that the free riders whom he denunciates include his hon. Friends who are setting a bad example by breaking the law and thereby indicating that the Labour party believes in law breaking?
  Mr. Archer: Of course I am happy to make that absolutely clear. I have already said that I hold no brief for those who do not pay their poll tax. But the hon. Gentleman has failed to notice that I made a distinction between free riders and those who, as a mistaken form of protest, choose not to pay their poll tax. The two categories are not necessarily the same. One of the tragedies is that people in my area who, two or three years ago, would have been horrified at the suggestion that they might go outside the law are now doing exactly that because they think—misguidedly, I believe—that that is a proper form of protest. This is not a record of which any Government ought to be proud.
  Mr. Brian Wilson: I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend would wish to include in his perfectly correct denunciation of the non-payment campaigns an interesting movement which is growing in Scotland and which will undoubtedly be seen in the south before very long. I refer to the Tory non-payers—leading figures in the Conservative party, holding office

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  bestowed by the party, who are inciting Tories in Scotland not to pay that portion of the poll tax that they believe to be due to non-collection. In so doing, those people make no attempt to differentiate, as my right hon. and learned Friend rightly does, between wilful non-payment by people who are perfectly able to pay and the vast majority of non-payment, which is endemic in the tax itself. Will my right hon. and learned Friend join me in condemning the Tory non-payers? I am sure that he would like to hear from the Government Front Bench a denunciation of that form of non-payment.
  Mr. Archer: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I could show him letters from my constituents who say that they have always voted Conservative but do not intend to pay the poll tax, and the reply that I send to them is precisely the same as the one I send to everyone else.
  Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that many hundreds of thousands of people who cannot pay and who do not go to court are the very people who should go to court and have someone to speak on their behalf? Of 1,000 cases in Caernarfon last Tuesday, only 40 were present and they were people who refused to pay as a matter of principle and who sought to make their views known in court. Those issues need to be heard in court.
  Mr. Archer: The hon. Gentleman has forestalled something that I was about to say.
  The majority of those in Sandwell who have not paid do not fall into either category—the free riders or the protesters. They are people who, as the hon. Gentleman said, cannot pay. Hardly a surgery passes when I do not have someone in tears because they have never failed to pay a debt, they have never owed a halfpenny, but they do not know how they will pay their poll tax. Every post brings letters to the same effect.
  The council must draw a sensitive line between enforcing payment and adding to the hardships of those who already have too many. It may be because councils are reluctant to enforce the poll tax where they know there is hardship that we do not hear about such cases.
  In the coming year Sandwell council will have to make allowance for those who will not pay—
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware of the appalling situation of some of those in receipt of benefit who see money diverted to the poll tax leaving them on a low level of support after they have paid what is necessary by way of rent, the poll tax and so on? Many who are paying the poll tax find themselves in abject poverty in the process.
  Mr. Archer: It is not always those who have not paid their poll tax but those who have who pose the problem. If time permitted, I would have elaborated on that, but Mr. Speaker has enjoined us to be brief.
  Many now qualify for some transitional relief, and I hope that some of the ill-thought-out anomalies with which we have lived for the past 12 months are being ironed out. I wrote to the Secretary of State, as he may remember, about a student in my constituency. When that student was at school, his family received child benefit. He finished school on 5 September and began a course at university on 3 October. At that time, he qualified for relief. For all common-sense purposes, he had been in
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  full-time education throughout, but because the poll tax is calculated on a daily basis, during that month neither he nor his family received any relief.
  The Secretary of State sent me a kind reply to my letter. I do not know whether it will assist the right hon. Gentleman with his party, but his letter was rather warmer than might have been wise. However, I shall not publish it in detail. But the right hon. Gentleman admitted that that case represented an "administrative untidiness". He said:
  "Should the opportunity occur in the future, we will carefully consider what can be done to simplify this area of legislation."
  I hope that he and his hon. Friends will do exactly that. But we are not asking for simplicity, although, in any administration, that is devoutly to be wished for. We are asking for justice. Many anomalies need to be ironed out.
  In the coming year more will qualify. But, as the criterion adopted by the Government depends on former rate bills and when people last moved, most hon. Members will have a succession of callers at their advice bureaux asking why they are paying more than Mr. So-and-So when there is no real difference in their financial positions. That is the irony of the situation.
  Sandwell council calculates that 80 per cent. of families in the area will qualify for some form of transitional relief. That is the ultimate confession of confusion. Any burden imposed by a Government should be flexible and make provision for those who cannot bear it. There will normally be some exceptional cases, but if those exceptional cases amount to 80 per cent. that amounts to the logic of "Alice through the Looking-glass". It is an admission that the general principle is in chaos.
  The council has been realistic in recognising that, despite all its effort, it is prudent to make provision for a 10 per cent. non-payment during the current year and next year, and that has added £60 to every poll tax payer's bill. That will cause resentment, which I for one certainly understand. However, I suspect that that resentment may sometimes be directed at the wrong people. If it were directed at the right people, it would be directed at those who introduced the scheme. But it certainly will not make for that harmonious community for which many of us have worked so hard for so many years.
  The final fact of which the Government should be aware and with which the residents of Sandwell will have to live is that the figure of £459 has been achieved only by cuts in local services. The Government have attempted to raise unrealistic expectations by referring to an average poll tax of £380. That is a cruel joke because they must have known that for most councils that would have entailed further cuts, and it would have assumed 100 per cent. collection, with no non-payers. Last year the Government indicated expectations in Sandwell which, had they been implemented, would have entailed a 10 per cent. cut in teaching staff, a reduction in street cleaning and lighting, a cut in the warden service for the elderly, the end of catering concessions for senior citizens, the closing of every public convenience in the borough and many other privations.
  The council did not encompass so draconian a solution, but it did have to impose substantial cuts last year. A further reduction of £1·8 million will be required this year in the education budget, a 3 per cent. cut in technical services, further job losses by council employees in an area

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  where job losses are already increasing and where there are more than enough, and there will be further complaints that the quality of life in Sandwell has fallen yet further.
  I have some sympathy with the position in which the Secretary of State finds himself, and I can well believe that other problems exist which he would prefer to address. But there is only one way to rectify this position—a confession that the whole concept of the poll tax was a ghastly mistake and to listen to what Opposition Members have been saying for the past two years.
  4.49 pm
  Sir William Shelton: I want the House to hear me on behalf of my constituents who live in Lambeth. This is indeed a cry from the heart. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) has described the stress that is caused to his constituents. I wish that in Streatham we had the problems that he seems to have in Warley, West.
  In my constituency the community charge is capped at £521 per head. The anxiety and the despair of people who are driven to break the law for the first time in their lives can be imagined. Their despair springs from the introduction of the community charge, but by heavens, it is aided and abetted by the incompetence and gross overspending of Lambeth council.
  As to incompetence, the low recovery of community charge in Lambeth is not so much due to refusal to pay, although the leader of Lambeth council has announced that she has refused to pay; it is more due to the incompetence of the council. By the end of August, 39,000 bills had not been issued. By the end of November, 13,000 bills had not been issued—let alone reminders. I am talking about the initial bills. The chairman of my Conservative association has still not received a demand; I cannot believe that that is because of political favouritism. By mid December, £32 million out of an expected total of £64 million had been recovered—a recovery rate of 50 per cent., not so much because of refusal to pay but because many people had not received bills. That shows gross incompetence.
  I shall give the House two small examples. A constituent wrote to me:
  "Unfortunately the situation has become rather out of hand with payment books arriving on a daily basis. To my knowledge we are now in receipt of at least 18 different booklets, all requesting different amounts."
  Mr. Wigley: That is not uncommon.
  Sir William Shelton: The hon. Gentleman clearly lives in Lambeth.
  There is a block of 10 flats in my constituency with an address of 76 such-and-such road; I will not name the road. One letter arrived from the council, addressed to "The Occupier", with one community charge form in it—another example of inefficiency.
  The council is guilty of gross overspending. The spending forecast, as far as I know because it is difficult to find the figures, is £345 million for 1991–92. The capping level is £307 million, so there is a gap of £38 million. That is despite a very generous settlement; total external support from the Government is £268 million, the highest settlement of all inner and outer London boroughs.
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  In addition, it is calculated that further provision will probably have to be made for such things as bad debts and the ending of the pension fund holiday which the council has been running for some years. The gap will probably be over £50 million which, uncapped, would give a community charge not of £521 but of about £800. Of course, I expect the charge to be capped, but how can one cap a borough and remove £30 million from its expenditure, let alone £50 million, and still give my constituents adequate services? I do not see how the circle can be squared. I support we shall win a compromise. The community charge will be £600, £550 or £650, and once again services will get worse.
  Mr. Wilson: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman with great interest and sympathy. He has been informative about conditions in Lambeth. Will he acknowledge that in other parts of the country it is possible for the poll tax to rise by 30 to 35 per cent. and at the same time for cuts of tens of millions of pounds to be made, not because of incompetence or the non-issue of bills, but because of the mechanism of the poll tax and particularly its gearing effect, which means that everything is piled on to the poll tax because the local authority has no control over any other source of revenue? I am happy to accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. Will he accept what I say?
  Sir William Shelton: I accept entirely what the hon. Gentleman says. The poll tax is highly geared, but I must tell the hon. Gentleman that when my constituents in Lambeth look around, they look to Wandsworth next door, which rides along with a poll tax of £148. The services there are better. I hear that Wandsworth will have a vast explosion in its community charge next year to something like £170. That is the direction in which my constituents look.
  I welcome very much my right hon. Friend's community charge reduction scheme. I spoke to the private office of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo) which was very helpful. As a result, I issued a press release containing figures which I am sure are right because they were given to me by his office. Two community charge payers living in the same place since March 1990, on average rates, will receive between them £470; that will rise to £730. That is very much to be welcomed, and I am grateful for it. Clearly that cannot be a long-term solution, as the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West said. One cannot go on paying such amounts year after year.
  What is to be done? I know that my right hon. Friend is very much enmeshed in the matter. Indeed, I wrote to him in December. The proposition which I put to him was for a minimum community charge plus some form of property tax. However, on reflection, I realise that a minimum community charge would cost the same to raise as the present community charge; I understand that the collection cost runs at 3 per cent. If the community charge was knocked down to an average of £100 or so, the cost of collection would be outrageous.
  I read today's report in The Times with great interest. Whether it is true, I do not know. The House knows what is suggested—a property tax by floor area plus a personal premium. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who is no longer in his place, was very rude about it, but I like it. I would certainly support it; indeed I will not conceal from my right hon. Friend that I would support

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  almost anything rather than the community charge. I like that proposal because it still has a measure of accountability and I warmly welcome it, if it is true.
  However, neither that proposal nor a local income tax would solve the problem of my constituents due to the incompetence and overspending of Lambeth council. For instance, if we had a property tax with a personal charge, I guess that a one-bedroom or studio apartment in Lambeth would have a tax of £2,000 a year. I do not know what the charge would be, but it would be outrageous.
  If I may give my ideas, gained from what I might call the Lambeth experience which I have endured for some years, I would urge on my right hon. Friend—I know he has this in mind—to seek major reductions in local government provision. It is wrong to draw conclusions from a single experience, but my experience has led me to doubt the efficiency of local government. Hon. Members may have very efficient local government in their areas, but that is not the case in Lambeth. Reductions in provision simplify the duties and ask less from local government.
  I ask my right hon. Friend to agree with our right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Sir R. Boyson) and to make schools grant maintained, controlled not by Whitehall, but by the schools. Incidentally, there is something in that because there is a rumour in Lambeth that the council intends to raid the budget for other purposes. The SSA for education is £125 million, plus the transitional grant of £6·3 million, making £131 million. I am told that Lambeth is seeking to set an education budget of £111 million and wishes to use the rest perhaps to make the area more nuclear-free, or something like that.
  Cannot we reduce the responsibilities placed on these local councillors who have a job to do, most of them in their spare time? Lambeth employs 19,000 people. How can anyone employ 19,000 people in their spare time? What about local government social services? I understand that there are two or three experiments in which a trust has been set up to run the local social services. Perhaps this could be looked at. There are also the police, fire and ambulance services to be considered.
  My constituents are genuinely in real need and l feel deeply concerned about it. I seek help for them from my right hon. Friend and from the Government. I ask them to lift from my constituents the burden that they are suffering, placed upon them by Lambeth council.
  5.2 pm
  Mr. Matthew Taylor: I do not entirely agree with the hon. Member for Streatham (Sir W. Shelton) when he says that almost anything would be better than the present poll tax, but we Liberal Democrats have some sympathy with that view. The only thing I would say to him is that if one were to cut the services that councils are required to provide there is always the risk that one ends up paying for nothing but bureaucracy and inefficiency, and that might be even less popular. One of the ways in which local authorities can be controlled is to make them more democratic and, while I have heard many arguments advanced against electoral reform nationally, based on strong government, I find it hard to believe that it would not help the situation—at least of many local authorities where extremists gain control—if there were a measure of electoral reform.
  However, the substance of this debate is opposition to the poll tax and the great unanswered question in this
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  debate so far has been what the alternative should be. That was resonant in everything that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, including the Secretary of State, said. That is the background brief to what they are saying—small changes now in the hope of better things to come, but no decisions on what that means. There is an irony here, because in Committee the Government and the Liberal Democrats both had something to put forward. Now it is only the Liberal Democrats. The Labour party failed to come up with any alternative during those long debates. Again, the Labour party's inability to play the role of an Opposition and to provide an alternative, not simply to oppose, was exposed for all to see. It has shown that in today's debate again—[Interruption]—even though Labour Members may say "nonsense". The fact is that not only did the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) fail to give a single indication of the Opposition's alternative, but the most recent articles that they have published on this, while going into fine detail on the difficulties involved, the lack of information before taking up government, and all sorts of other excuses, failed to give any idea of what people would have to pay under the Labour party's system. Without that it is impossible to believe that the Labour party can claim to be putting forward a credible alternative.
  The debate needs answers to two simple questions. First, when will the Government abolish the poll tax? Secondly, what will be put in its place? Dissatisfaction with the poll tax was widespread long before the measure was even passed. It was widespread within the Conservative party as well as outside it, although Conservatives allowed it to go through. Now that people have had a year of paying the tax, the resentment and hatred of this unfair burden goes much deeper than even the Secretary of State realises. He in particular must finally realise what everyone else knew from the beginning—that the poll tax is unworkable, unpopular and must go.
  An enormous amount of hardship is caused to low-income groups. Local government finance is in chaos. The tax is everywhere deeply unpopular. The high level of non-payment is undermining respect for the law. Radical change, not just review, must be on the immediate agenda.
  I give as an example my own area. We were once told that the Bills could be expected to be around £130 to £140 in Carrick and Restormel councils. Later I published figures showing £170 to £180 per head and was told by Conservatives that I was exaggerating. Next year's figure in Carrick will be £390 and in Restormel £365, if the proposals that are being put forward are accepted. The Government deceived their own party and Members of Parliament into supporting a Bill that should never have been allowed to pass through this House in the first place. While our figures are nevertheless comparatively low, and the Liberal Democrat councillors are to be congratulated on keeping them below average levels, the truth is that, in an area where average wages are among the lowest in the country, poll tax levels are causing hardship for many people.
  Only the Conservative Government can be blamed, both because they have cut support to local authorities and because they have introduced a system that is wholly unrelated to ability to pay. Only the Liberal Democrat alternative of local income tax can produce fairness in the financing of local government.
  Dr. John G. Blackburn: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I have listened intently to his comments suggesting that the community charge in his area would be anything between £130 and £180. He has produced these ghastly figures. Does he agree that there are many local authorities, such as the one in which this Palace is situated, that have brought forward a community charge of £195? Does he also agree that there is a need for two things to be recognised? The first is that there is a silent majority that finds the poll tax acceptable as an alternative to rates? Does he agree that there are many people, some in my constituency, who are now saving over £1,000 a year? Secondly, there is a need for a fundamental review of the efficiency of this tax.
  Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman should have a word with the Secretary of State for the Environment who would undoubtedly put him right about his claim that there is support for the poll tax. I do not believe that many members of the Conservative party believe that; nor does the Secretary of State. That is why he is undertaking a review. I certainly do not believe that the great majority of people in this country believe in the poll tax. The Government are already talking about replacing it.
  The Government tell us that we must wait for the conclusions of the review and that it will take until 1993 at the earliest to replace the poll tax. The Liberal Democrats know that it could be replaced sooner than that. It could be replaced within the space of a given financial year, provided that the decision to proceed with its replacement was taken six months before the start of that financial year. That is because the base for our local income tax system is already in place. It could be implemented in a short period because the Inland Revenue already holds the necessary information. There is no need to have any valuation of the tax base, which would be necessary with any new property tax. That is an important reason for supporting such a tax.
  If the poll tax is abolished, the great expense that local authorities have suffered in implementing it will have been wasted. We do not want any new scheme to involve similar costs. That argument, if no other, should carry weight with the Treasury which, if newspaper reports are to be believed, has blocked implementation by the Secretary of State of a local income tax scheme. I assume that the necessary legislation could be quickly pushed through the House. There are many precedents for rapid action when things go wrong, as they have done with the poll tax.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: The hon. Gentleman says that information about income tax is available. Is he aware that tax offices tax people according to their place of employment, not according to their place of residence? Therefore, local authorities and the Inland Revenue would not know the tax base upon which to charge a local income tax.
  Mr. Taylor: The hon. Gentleman refers to the present system, but the Inland Revenue knows where people live. That information is already available.
  If the reports today in The Times and other newspapers are correct, the Secretary of State must tell the House whether he is prepared to support a system that is not directly related to ability to pay. That is the nub of the matter. For all the sophistry of those who support other schemes, only one scheme is related to ability to pay—a form of local income tax.
  Mr. John Battle: Can the hon. Gentleman explain how a local income tax system would redistribute resources from wealthy areas to poorer areas and between areas of high unemployment, where people still need services, and areas of low unemployment where more money would be received in the form of income tax?
  Mr. Taylor: Any local government finance system must compensate poorer areas. My area is poor. A roof tax, a rating system or the poll tax have to take that fact into account.
  The Layfield committee of inquiry favoured a local income tax. Moreover, according to opinion polls, it is favoured by many people. In fact, in my own area, 20,000 Cornish men and women signed a petition at this time last year in favour of a local income tax in the matter of just a few weeks.
  If we examine how the Conservative party is handling its poll tax problems, we find that it is making vague promises for the future. It also makes claims about mitigating factors for the present. The Tories have just published a leaflet for the Ribble Valley by-election. It contains the line:
  "Nigel Evans and Michael Heseltine working together."
  It would have been better if it had said "undecided together." Both have refused to say whether they are in favour of retaining the poll tax. Both the leaflet and the Government herald the additional transitional relief that has been announced as the answer to people's basic objection to the poll tax, yet the transitional relief scheme is, and always has been, inadequate. It leaves out those in the rented sector, many of whom are old, or young, or poor. The relief does not apply to those who have moved house since the introduction of the poll tax. As Mr. Evans and the Government refuse to say whether they would abolish the poll tax, it might be more appropriate if they campaigned using the slogan "Nigel Evans and the Government confused together."
  The Secretary of State has admitted that the Cabinet is split on the abolition of the poll tax. A defeat for the Tories in the Ribble Valley by-election will ensure the end of the poll tax, in just the same way as the defeat in the Eastbourne by-election helped lead to the fall of the Prime Minister who introduced the poll tax.
  The Times report today suggests that a property tax, based on the number of people living in a household, is the Secretary of State's favoured option. I hope that he will confirm that today in the House rather than by leak and innuendo in newspapers. At least we should have an indication of the direction in which the Government are heading, although their reported alternative still fails the essential test—its relationship to ability to pay.
  Earlier today the BBC gave us the Secretary of State's latest version, so we were led to understand—a floor tax with a personal ceiling for each individual. Since it has a floor and a ceiling, perhaps it ought to be called a room tax. No doubt we shall be given a list of exemptions and rebates that we can call the windows. With Labour's roof tax, we could end up with a house tax, better known as the rates—just what the Tories opposed in the first place.
  Labour feels that the problems of the present can be solved only with yesterday's solutions, since it favours some form of property tax. Obviously it has little confidence in its alternative, since it is not even prepared to take part in all-party discussions with the Secretary of State. That was confirmed today when the hon. Member

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  for Dagenham said that the reason that the Labour party would not take part in the discussions was that it was afraid to have the figures analysed. The Liberal Democrats are well aware of the dangers of having figures analysed, so we do it ourselves. Ministers now accept that their earlier figures were not based on our scheme. The Labour party can give neither figures nor ask others to help out. That it the most abject cowardice of all.
  The Liberal Democrats have taken a constructive role in the talks. We have a solution in which we believe. We have the honour in this House to be the only party to have argued consistently for a scheme of local government finance against the old rating system. We saw and rejected its unfairness. We were against the poll tax when the Government sought to introduce it. There was an absence of Labour party policy throughout the debates. Now there is an absence of Conservative party policy. We have been proud to stand throughout behind a system that relates local government finance directly to people's ability to pay. We believe that the system, local income tax, commands the support of the country.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I remind the House of Mr. Speaker's appeal that speeches should not exceed 10 minutes in length.
  5.18 pm
  Mr. Andrew MacKay: There does not seem to be much enthusiasm on the Labour Benches for their own Supply day. It will not have gone unnoticed outside the House that few Labour Members are present for the debate. Having listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), which was very disappointing, I am hardly surprised. It was one of the most inept and pathetic performances that we have heard for many a long year.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) that the official Opposition have absolutely no alternative to the community charge. They were not prepared to be flushed out by providing the House with a detailed policy. Critics of the community charge in my constituency readily acknowledge, when they complain to me about it, that the Labour party has provided no alternative. The Opposition are just not getting their message across.
  Mr. David Clelland: Will. the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. MacKay: I am not prepared to give way. The hon. Gentleman has only just walked in to the Chamber.
  The unfairness of the old rating system has been completely forgotten by the Opposition. It caused an immense amount of distress, particularly to single people living alone and to pensioners who had to pay a disproportionate part of their income towards local government services. To return to such an unfair system would be very cruel. I am surprised the Labour party is considering a return to it.
  What has impressed me about the objections that I have received to the community charge is that people are prepared to acknowledge that it has certain benefits. 'They acknowledge that payment for the use of services is right. They acknowledge, too, that local government accountability is very important. They like to know how much money is being spent by local authorities on their behalf so
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  that they can reach their decision accordingly at local elections. Furthermore, it has to be acknowledged that the implementation of the community charge leads to unfairness. I should like to bring one or two instances to the attention of the House.
  People who have been very badly affected include couples, often pensioners, past working age, who perhaps have some small savings which make them ineligible for rebate on financial grounds but who are far from well off. They have found it a great struggle in many cases to pay the community charge. Another group that concerns me are young couples with young families, where the breadwinner is on a relatively low income but not so low that the couple are eligible for a financial rebate. Because of the age of the children, the non-working spouse is unable to go out to work, even if he or she wanted to, because they are, rightly, looking after their young children. Such couples have suffered greatly.
  By and large, these people tend to live in smaller, older properties which were low rated and they have found the increase from the old rating system to the new community charge very great. That is why I warmly welcome the community charge reduction scheme announced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) last month, which comes into effect in April at the beginning of the new financial year.
  The scheme has addressed two areas of gross unfairness. I felt blasé when I first heard my right hon. Friend's statement; so often one is told by politicians of all parties that new arrangements will be of great benefit to certain sections of the community, but when one goes home one checks out the arrangements, talks to local authorities and others and finds that they will not be quite as good as promised.
  Mr. Battle: Like cold weather payments.
  Mr. MacKay: I can tell the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Battle), who is interrupting from a sedentary position, that when I returned to Berkshire and spoke to the borough treasurers and the council leaders in Bracknell and in Windsor I found that a large number of my constituents would benefit greatly under this reduction scheme. Many couples in Bracknell will save up to £250 on their community charge next year. That is not an insignificant sum, and these are precisely the sort of people that we need to help. Any couple who were paying less than £596 in rates under the old system will benefit to some degree, and many of them, particularly those paying well below that figure, will benefit by three figures. That is not insignificant.
  The other good news for my constituents is that due to worthwile savings by Berkshire county council, by Bracknell Forest borough council and by the royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead at the other end of my constituency, there is a real possibility that all charge payers will pay considerably less in 1991–92 than they did last year and that those who are least well off will benefit considerably from the community charge reduction scheme.
  There are, however, one or two other areas where it is important that we review the community charge. I do not see much point in charging students. We have acknowledged that they can pay only a very small community charge, so we levy a mere 20 per cent. on them. In most cases, that sum is not worth collecting.

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  Nevertheless, it causes some hardship and certainly some frustration to students, who are not earning money and who cannot see why they should pay any community charge.
  Equally, students by and large are not studying where they are going to live permanently, so the accountability in local government is not relevant at all. There seems no benefit, therefore, in continuing to charge students 20 per cent. We should forget all about charging students.
  Another area worries me very much. I have corresponded with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), the local government Minister, and I await a reply. No doubt a considered and detailed reply will be forthcoming shortly. The matter concerns constituents of mine living, for instance, on the Broadmoor hospital estate who are staff at Broadmoor. Until the advent of the new system they did not pay rates directly; rates were part of the rent that they paid to the hospital. The houses in the Broadmoor hospital estate were rated as one entity. Although they would have been low-rated houses if they had been rated individually, they were rated in bulk as an estate, so they were not eligible for transitional relief; and we fear that they will also not be eligible for the new community charge reduction scheme.
  If that is true, it means that some of the people who can least afford to pay the full community charge and who, if they had been living elsewhere, would have been eligible for the reduction will not be able to obtain it. That cannot be either right or just and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate, not tonight but when he replies to me shortly, will put our minds at rest on that point.
  I commend to the House the Government's decision fundamentally to review the workings of the community charge. Contrary to what Opposition Members would like to think, I have found that the public welcome the decision immensely. First, they approve of a Government who are prepared to take a further look at a policy which has not worked as successfully as some of us would have liked and who have acknowledged that in the implementation of it there have been anomalies and unfairnesses.
  The public also think that it was right for the Prime Minister to state from the Dispatch Box that nothing would be ruled in and nothing would be ruled out, and they are confident that the review will take into account many of the unfairnesses and many of the criticisms. I do not want tonight to give my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate too many suggestions. There is a lot that is good in the community charge, but there are many unfairnesses. Ability to pay needs to be taken into account, but the old rating system was wildly unfair. It would be extremely helpful if my hon. Friend the local government Minister could use his very real talents and those of the Secretary of State and their advisers to come up with a package of local government finance that would reflect the very best of the old rating system and the very best of the community charge system, while rejecting the anomalies, the unfairnesses and the irrelevance in both systems. That is no easy task. I am not giving my hon. Friend the solutions, but I wish him well when he replies to the debate.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: In case hon. Members have not noticed, the digital clock stopped working at 5·17 pm. I hope that hon. Members will look at the clocks at each end of the Chamber to calculate when their 10 minutes are up.
  5.30 pm
  Mr. Joe Benton: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) that in examining the effects of the poll tax one has to take account of local circumstances. I have found that to be very true, and several hon. Members have referred to it.
  At my constituency surgery last Saturday I dealt with four cases arising from the effects of the poll tax. I do not want to bore the House and I shall be as brief as possible, but I want hon. Members to cast their minds back to the Government's initial justification for the introduction of the tax, which was that it would be fairer, simpler and less costly. The four cases to which I shall refer give the lie to those claims.
  Mrs. Drohan is a lady with a severe handicap—she is deaf and dumb—but is fortunate enough to be working. Indeed, she is the sole breadwinner; her husband is unemployed and gets no benefit, because of her income, even though it is very small, at about £147 a week. Mr. and Mrs. Drohan have two children, both of whom are at school and their poll tax commitments amount to £308·47 for the husband and £383 for the wife. To compound the injustice, Mrs. Drohan has to pay her husband's poll tax.
  My constituents have no objection to my mentioning them. The second case involves a man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Mulhearn, and their four children. The husband suffers from a severe disability and has had to retire from work. Their total income is £179·68 and two of their four children are unemployed. After transitional relief and Government rebate, both parties have to pay £289·79.
  The third case is different from the others and very tragic. The poll tax was supposed to be efficient. Mrs. L. Somers is 85 and blind and disabled. She lives in a high-rise development. She has just received a court summons, even though on five or six occasions she has informed the local authority that the cash is available but that, because of her handicap, she requires someone to come and pick it up. So much for the poll tax being efficient.
  My final case is that of Mr. J. Lloyd, who has transferred into sheltered accommodation but receives no transitional relief even though, because of the block assessment, there is a link to the housing association. Again, so much for the efficiency of the poll tax.
  Those four cases provide an insight into what is really going on in terms of both the management and the injustice of the poll tax. I hope that, having listened to what I have said, Conservative Members will appreciate my point; after all, they claim that they are the Government of the family. It does not take much imagination to see the poverty and travail that lie behind those cases. It is tragic that people should be placed under all those pressures when they are trying to rear a family.
  Much reference has been made to law-breaking. The constituents of Bootle have always rendered unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's, although I must say that, even in his wildest moments, Caesar would never have introduced a tax like the poll tax into Great Britain. The Government should try to understand people's dilemma. I would never advocate that anyone should break the law and I would never encourage anyone to do so. I oppose law-breaking and I always say to people, "You should pay your poll tax." I would say that to anyone, right across the board. However, the Government must understand that many people cannot pay their poll tax and Ministers must make

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  a distinction between those who will not pay and people such as those to whom I referred, who face tremendous hardship.
  I do not know how many Conservative Members live on £160 or £170 a week and are trying to raise four children. I do not know whether they have the wit or imagination to perceive how difficult it is for people who genuinely want to meet their legal obligations but who cannot do so because they do not have the money. We must differentiate. No one is advocating that people should not pay their poll tax; I have told every one of my constituents that. But the fact is that some of them cannot pay. The Government must be big enough to appreciate their dilemma and to legislate to ease the hardship that those poor people have to endure.
  Let me conclude on a simple note. Hon. Members have referred to the Labour party's alternative proposals and also to a local income tax. I understand that legislation introducing such a tax would take three or four years to reach the statute book. I do not know whether that is the case, but I can well believe that it is. What do we do in the meantime about the poll tax and its injustices? Something has to be done. Even if one accepts the principle of a local income tax, we cannot wait three or four years for the abolition of the present unjust and heinous tax. Even though there may be i's to be dotted and the t's to be crossed, any alternative—and the Labour party's is the best—will be better than the poll tax.
  5.38 pm
  Mr. Robert Hayward: I followed with interest the remarks by the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Benton). I was especially interested in his comment that nobody was advocating that people should not pay. I suggest that he addresses his comment to a number of Labour Members of Parliament—one of them a near neighbour of his on Merseyside—who are doing precisely that.
  Not one of the three speeches that we have so far heard from the Labour Benches has described one aspect of the content of the Labour party's proposals.
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: They have been published.
  Mr. Hayward: The hon. Lady says that they have been published. If the details are so good and so well known, why has not one Labour Member had the courage to refer to any of the contents of the published document? As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) said, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) has admitted that the Labour party does not want to subject its proposals to detailed scrutiny. That is the key
  Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley,Vest, and Penistone): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Hayward: I shall not give way, because Mr. Speaker and M r. Deputy Speaker have appealed for brevity.
  Mr. Allen McKay: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Hayward) is, probably unwittingly, misleading the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) did not say that; he said that there would be no
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  co-operation between the Front Bench spokesmen until the Government show their willingness to do away with the poll tax.
  Mr. Hayward: That was not a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I shall not reassert my position on the subject. The hon. Member for Truro, who is sitting alongside the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay), shakes his head in disbelief, as do many of my hon. Friends.
  I have much sympathy with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Sir W. Shelton), as I am aware of someone who has written three times to Lambeth council in an attempt to pay his poll tax, and has received no response.
  Mr. Tony Banks: They do not want the hon. Gentleman's money.
  Mr. Hayward: It is not my money. I have paid my poll tax in Southwark and Bristol, both of which are charge-capped.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay) drew attention to the problem of wives with husbands on low incomes, where the wife is at home looking after the children. For the sake of brevity, I shall not expand on that but I support my hon. Friend's comments. I have written to my hon. Friend the Minister of State about another group of people whose position concerns me—families in which the husband or wife stays at home to look after a disabled member of the family, therefore denying himself or herself a second income while easing the burden on the state by staying at home and looking after that relative. Such people should receive more favourable treatment.
  Will the Minister of State, when he winds up, clarify the Secretary of State's earlier remarks concerning the relief provided for people in the Gulf'? I think that he used the phrase "associated workers". Would that apply, for example, to the likes of employees of British Aerospace, who are already in the Gulf but are providing support services—not necessarily to the British services but, for example, to the Saudi Royal Air Force? Thousands of families would be affected by that provision.
  Much has been made, in this afternoon's debate, of the community charge reduction scheme. It is about time that the benefits of that scheme were clearly identified. The scheme was announced on the day the Gulf war broke out and few people noticed it. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) referred to the scheme and complained that 80 per cent. of his constituents would benefit from it. That shows clearly the substantial benefit of the scheme and its progressive nature. I encourage the Government and all local authorities to emphasise the scheme's benefits. In my constituency of Kingswood borough, a household that previously paid £400 in rates—a fairly typical amount and assuming that a married couple would have to pay £50 per person more this year—would probably benefit by £100 per household. Most people expect to pay more next year, but do not realise that, in those circumstances, they will pay about £100 less.
  Part of my constituency has a combination of two loony councils. Half of my constituents come under Bristol city council, where the problems are enormous, and others come under Avon county council. They were both charge capped last year. According to The Sunday Times, we are

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  faced with perhaps the largest community charge increase of any district authority in the country. The Sunday Times suggested that the increase for this year would be £125, making the total figure in Bristol £550.
  I share the concern of the hon. Member for Truro about the amount of community charge being paid in areas where earnings are low compared with those in London. Bristol set out not to administer the community charge properly and is now making no effort to publicise the community charge reduction scheme, despite the fact that probably the majority of adults in 31 of the 34 wards in the city will benefit from the scheme. The latest estimate is that some 200,000 adults in Bristol will benefit from it. Bristol and Avon county councils are more interested in imposing ever greater burdens on ordinary community charge payers and on schools in the district. The headmasters and headmistresses to whom I have spoken have complained bitterly. Some of them have gone public about the burden imposed on them by the local education authority. Just before Christmas, they made public an appeal that the local education authority should get off their backs. That is the nature of the two local authorities with which we are dealing. Last week, the Labour lord mayor of the city was deselected because he was too moderate. I beg the Department of the Environment to consider seriously abolishing Avon county council and others as quickly as possible, because we cannot cope with two loony councils.
  In conclusion, Mr. Deputy Speaker, before I allow other hon. Members to speak, may I say that I regret that throughout the debate the Benches of the Labour party, which initiated this debate, have been so poorly filled.
  5.47 pm
  Mr. Tony Banks: I wish to raise issues that affect two local authorities in London—the London boroughs of Newham and Greenwich. Conservative Members will know that the London borough of Newham is one of the most deprived local authorities in the country. At my advice sessions on Friday, an increasing number of people complain that they cannot afford to pay their poll tax. Incidentally, in many cases those people have to pay only 20 per cent. of the poll tax. If the Government are to consider other ways of tinkering with the poll tax to make it more palatable, getting rid of the category that pays 20 per cent. would be of some advantage. I would welcome such a change on behalf of my constituents, although nothing would be better than the abolition of the poll tax. However, we shall have to wait for the advent of a Labour Government before that happens.
  Those who cannot afford to pay are taken to court in large numbers. They are not making a political statement. Several hon. Members have mentioned people who refuse to pay the poll tax. If it is an iniquitous tax, people have the right to say that it is so evil that they will not pay it. They must then pay the penalty of refusing to pay. I am concerned not about such people, but about the thousands in Newham who simply cannot afford to pay. Some 50,000 liability orders have been issued by magistrates in Newham and 5,000 cases have been sent to the bailiffs. Those people are law-abiding east enders who have been criminalised by the Government.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does the non-payment and the wish not to pay of a number of the hon. Gentleman's constituents show that they agree with councillor Steve Timms that Newham is
  "seen as an unsatisfactory place with poor quality services"?
  Mr. Banks: I assume that the hon. Gentleman is quoting accurately from Steve Timms, who is the leader of the council. I do not know how much the hon. Gentleman knows about the London borough of Newham. I do not know whether he has simply passed through it or has spent some time there. Perhaps I can take him around the borough when he next visits it and I can then enlighten him about our problems. Some of the services in Newham are poor, but they are being made worse by the fact that the financial penalties imposed on us by central Government make it impossible for us to address the borough's real problems.
  It is no great coincidence that Labour-controlled authorities find it so difficult to manage. Labour-controlled authorities rather than Conservative-controlled authorities must face the social and economic problems which in many ways have been imposed on them by central Government policies.
  What really annoys me is that, even when we are trying honestly to address our problems, we hear only petty political points from Conservative Members who are not interested in a consensual approach to local government finance or organisation. They are interested only in making cheap petty political points. As someone who worked in local government for many years, I find that response most distasteful. I wish that we could get back to those days when central Government did not interfere in the affairs of local government as they do now. Once we got rid of the Boadicea of Finchley, I hoped that a little more sanity would enter central Government with respect to Government policies towards local authorities. Perhaps we will see that sanity one of these days, but I cannot see it coming from the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities whose reputation is based on his Thatcherite attitudes.
  The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. Michael Portillo): If we were still in those happy days when the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) was on the Opposition Front Bench, I have no doubt that he would take a consensual view and want to talk to the Government about local government finance. Is he aware that his colleagues who now sit on the Opposition Front Bench, which he has recently left, refuse to speak to us or to adopt a consensual attitude?
  Mr. Banks: I am not surprised that my colleagues refuse to do that. The conditions upon which negotiations are taking place are completely unacceptable. The Minister cannot try to inveigle us into the Government's policy on the poll tax. If the woolly-hatted, Tory lickspittles of the Liberal party want to get involved with the Government, they can do so. They will get no honour or credit from that. The Government created the poll tax mess. We will not help the Government get out of their own mess. The poll tax is one of the major millstones that will drag the Government down to defeat at the next general election. We are not about to assume the weight of that millstone on our backs in order to save the Minister's wretched skin. That is why we are not prepared to deal with the Government.
  Mr. Clelland: I can confirm that the Government are in a mess with regard to the poll tax. Is my hon. Friend aware that the Northumbria police authority met this morning and it has had to cut its budget, as a result of the Government's poll tax policy, by £2·5 million which is equivalent to 116 police officers at a time when there is a crying need for more police officers—and that from a Government who claim to be in favour of law and order?
  Mr. Banks: My hon. Friend demonstrates the Government's sheer breathtaking hypocrisy. They load more and more responsibilities on local authorities and then deny those authorities the resources to meet those added responsibilities. When—surprise, surprise—those local authorities cannot meet those requirements, the Government accuse them of being inefficient and unable to do their job. If central Government were half as efficient as local authorities—both Tory and Labour—they would be twice as good a Government and that would be an improvement which many of us in Newham and elsewhere would like to see.
  Unfortunately, the London borough of Greenwich is not represented by a Labour Member of Parliament at the moment. There is no representative from Greenwich in the Chamber today because the Liberals are too busy collaborating with the Government. Those muesli-eating lickspittles who sit down with the Tory Government cannot be here today to defend the London borough of Greenwich.
  Greenwich set its 1990–91 poll tax level at £203 million. Greenwich was forced to use its reserves and to make cuts in services in order to reach the Government's targets. The indicated designation level for 1991–92 is £212 million, which is an increase of only 4·9 per cent. over the 1990–91 limit and the increase for Greenwich of 4·9 per cent. is the lowest in London.
  The Government do not seem to understand the great problems facing Greenwich. Why is the gap so large with regard to Greenwich and its standard spending assessment? It is clear that in setting an SSA for Greenwich the Government have failed to recognise the number of children in care and on the at-risk register; the impact of the developing new town of Thamesmead; the level of maintained opened spaces in Greenwich and the areas of population density, the effect of which is diluted in the formula due to the sizeable areas of parkland i a the borough. The Government have failed to take account of daytime tourism inflows into the borough. I noticed that Westminster council received additional money because of tourism, but Greenwich did not receive any additional recognition. No account was taken of the number of one-parent families in the borough.
  As a result, Labour-controlled Greenwich borough council must make massive cuts because of the Government's unrealistic SSA. The council is talking about closing a holiday home for the elderly and disabled, four branch libraries, two day nurseries, two council halls, one community centre, public conveniences, two art galleries, one staff day nursery and all council playgroups and adult education centres. That is what is happening in Greenwich, and the experience is being repeated in other Labour and Conservative controlled local authorities. It is evident, for example, from what is happening in Berkshire.
  When will the Government face up to their responsibilities? The Government have made a God-awful mess of local authority finance and local authority
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  services. They have reduced those services to the point at which they can hardly sustain themselves. It is about time the Government recognised their responsibilities and, more to the point, it is time that they stood down and Labour took over control of central Government. We will give local authorities the responsibility and resources that they deserve.
  5.57 pm
  Mr. Ken Hargreaves: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part once more in a debate on a subject which is of great concern in my constituency. When I last spoke in a debate on the community charge—when it was about to be introduced—the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) described my speech as brave because I had said that, having listened carefully to previous speeches, I found myself agreeing more with Opposition Members than with my colleagues. I have not done that today.
  Three years ago I warned the Government that the introduction of the community charge would be a disaster, not least because no matter how often we repeated that the community charge would be fairer, it would not be perceived to be fairer by people in terraced houses who were paying more while people in detached houses paid less. Had we said that it would be fairer for everyone to pay a contribution to local services, that might have been acceptable, but the bold statement that the community charge is fairer was as unacceptable as it was wrong. Any system of local government finance must be based on the ability to pay.
  Speaking against the community charge from the Conservative Benches is now a less lonely affair and I welcome the Government's review and recognition that so many of the things that I predicted earlier have now come to pass. I welcome not just the fact the Government have recognised the problems and the hardship caused to so many thousands of people in constituencies like mine, but the fact that the Government have acted to reduce that hardship. They have acted in a manner that can only be described as generous.
  Twelve thousand households in Hyndburn qualified for transitional relief, despite a claim by the Hyndburn Labour party that no one in Hyndburn would benefit. Twenty-nine thousand households—80 per cent. of all households—will qualify for the new community charge reduction scheme and they will benefit to the tune of the £6 million which the Government will pay to reduce community charge bills. Therefore, £6 million will remain in the pockets of the people in Hyndburn to save or to spend as they wish. It will give a welcome boost to the local economy.
  If only Labour-controlled Lancashire county council would show equal concern for the hardship caused by the level of charge that it levied on Hyndburn last year, there could be enormous reductions in bills this year. Instead, for those for whom no relief is available, Iancashire county council is likely to increase the charge by double the rate of inflation.
  The Government's new scheme gives generous help to the 29,000 households in Hyndburn who qualify. For example, a couple who live in the average terraced house in Hyndburn will have this year's bill reduced by £265. A couple living in a house on which they paid rates of £180—and there are many of those in Hyndburn—paid £630 in

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  community charge last year. Even if the county council's increase is double the rate of inflation—as we expect—that couple will pay only £420, instead of £816. That is £210 less than they paid in the current year and £396 less than they would have had to pay but for the introduction of the community charge reduction scheme.
  There are similar reductions in the rest of east Lancashire, not least in Ribble Valley where, on 7 March, the public will have the opportunity to show their support for the Government's efforts to keep down the community charge bills. Based on the £216 average rate in Ribble Valley, a single person will save £38, a couple will save £279 and three people will save £297 as a result of the community charge reduction scheme. That is welcome news for the many people who have found paying the community charge this year a real hardship.
  People in east Lancashire are genuine, hardworking, honest folk, so, generally speaking, they have paid up, even though it has not been easy. They very much resent the fact that people who can afford to pay have not paid. They resent especially the fact that the campaign against payment was led by the local Labour Member of the European Parliament for Lancashire, East, Mr. Michael Hindley, by the then chairman and secretary of Hyndburn Labour party, Mr. Ken Slater, and by county councillor Peter Billington. Through their bad example which has encouraged law breaking, they have helped to ensure that people in Hyndburn will have to pay £25 extra next year. That is extremely unfair to many thousands of my constituents who have struggled to pay this year. They are angry and many say that they will not pay the extra £25.
  Only this morning I received a letter from Mr. Clark, one of my constituents. He said that his reason for writing could be summed up in one sentence. He wrote:
  "My wife and I have no intention of paying any increase of my poll tax payment next year which can be attributed to non-payment by others."
  He also said that he had seen a
  "full page of non-payers of the poll tax in the Evening Telegraph with quite a few who are resident in my area who enjoy a much more active social life than my wife and I and the majority have two wages coming in".
  I also welcome the fact that the community charge reduction scheme offers more help to those who live in sheltered housing, but I regret that the relief available under the scheme is lost when people move house. That will cause enormous problems and, again, it will be claimed that it is unfair.
  I have been against the community charge from the beginning. I would welcome its abolition provided that there was clear evidence that whatever replaced it would not be equally bad. Figures were available to show the effect on people in areas such as Hyndburn but, sadly, we have been given no such evidence today. It is easy to mouth slogans such as, "Scrap the poll tax" without explaining how local government would be funded. Whatever the system of local government finance, we shall have to pay more, one way or the other, unless local authorities keep their spending under control.
  Mr. Patrick Thompson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I agree with much of what he said. Does he agree that if we were to return to a form of property tax or, as the Opposition have suggested in Scotland, to a roof tax, we should have to consider many other categories of
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  people, especially the elderly, who suffered under such property taxes. We must bear such people in mind when seeking a way forward.
  Mr. Hargreaves: My hon. Friend makes a good point. One of the few good points about the community charge is that it attempts to make local councils accountable and, to some extent, it has succeeded. People are now beginning to understand that if their local council spends more, they will pay more. Unfortunately, in areas such as Hyndburn, even if people object—as they do—to large increases in their bills, they can do nothing about it until the next county council elections, which are two years and two further increases away. If the poll tax is to remain, even in an amended form, and if there is to be accountability, there must be annual elections for the county council as well as for the borough councils.
  I hope that, as a result of the review being undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, it will be decided to abolish the community charge. If that is not possible, I hope that, at the very least, education spending will be funded centrally. That would bring down the community charge to a more acceptable level, but we must recognise that that would probably mean an increase in income tax. There is no easy option, but that is a fairer one.
  Some control could be kept on local government spending by increasing its funding each year by the rate of inflation and by allowing it to increase its charges by only that rate. Pensioners have to live within those limits—why not local authorities? For far too long, local councils have, in effect, said, "This is what we are going to spend and you, the charge payers, must find the money to pay for it even if it means hardship." Local authorities should ask how much people can afford and then decide how best to spend that amount.
  6.5 pm
  Mr. Allen McKay: Throughout history, all despotic Governments have needed a scapegoat. We do not have a despotic Government in such a sense, but they advocate central control of a despotic nature. They needed a scapegoat, which turned out to be local government. Since 1979 they have used local government, local government services and local government councillors as scapegoats to cover all their mistakes. They introduced fiscal policies that have changed the nature of taxation so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poll tax is no different.
  There are several main considerations in local government finance. The Government are now struggling to find an alternative to the poll tax and to save face rather than admit that they have made a huge mistake. The best thing that they could have done was to admit that they had made a mistake. They would probably have been more popular if they had admitted it. They have thrown money at the customer side but forgotten local government services. They have tried to ease the pain caused by the way in which the poll tax was introduced, but they have forgotten the pain caused by the reduction in local government services. If they do not believe that pain has been caused by a reduction in services, they are not listening to what has been said by local government institutions.
  The Government have now introduced the community charge reduction scheme, which is fine. I have complained

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  on behalf of many of my constituents and there is not a shadow of a doubt that some of them will be £100 a year, probably more, better off. However, they will pay for that in other ways. The Government have failed to say that people in receipt of other benefits will not see any of that reduction. They may get the money back in one way, but it is taken off housing benefit. The people who think that they will be £100, £120 or £150 better off a year will get nothing.
  Despite all the expectations that have been built up, my constituents will get a surprise when the bills come through the letter box. On the one hand, the Government say, "Look at what we have done for you"; on the other, they say, "We will take it back in another way." Nothing has been said about that today. The scheme has given money back to some people, but those in greatest need will get nothing, or very little. It is time that we were told the truth.
  Local government must be paid for and has always had to be paid for. People complained about the rating system and said that it was wrong. For about 25 or 26 years, I and others in local government have looked for an alternative to the rating system, but we have never found one. We have looked at various schemes. Which scheme is easy to collect, does not cost much, is less easy to evade and provides what is wanted? All the schemes that have been considered have had one fault or another. One would have thought that no Government could ever envisage a scheme that had all the faults all the time. The community charge is easy to evade, it is expensive to collect and it does not provide the money for the local government services that are wanted.
  The Government talk about control of local government. There is control of local government—it is called the ballot box. The people decided what rates they should pay and how they should be spent. That was always so. However, this Government took away that control and what they came up with is a farce. The Government talk about accountability, but there is none, although the poll tax was supposed to be based on that. They talk about accountability in one tax, yet they introduced a uniform business rate that took accountability away. That tax and other Government grants are providing 75 per cent. of the money. The other 25 per cent. is under Government control. The whole of local government is controlled by central Government.
  The poll tax has damaged local government services tremendously and it will take a long time to get back to even stevens. The biggest damage has been done to the education services. My local authority has not built a nursery school for five years. When I asked the education director when the next one would be built, he said, "God knows; I don't." My constituents want nursery education to be provided because they realise the value of education at three.
  We have now run out of money for road gritting. What will happen if we have another snowfall like the one that we had recently? Where will the money come from? We are already over budget. Will central Government now recompense local government for the extra costs caused by the bad winter? At one time, local councils could move money from one part of the budget to another to overcome problems, but they can no longer do that because budgeting has been departmentalised. If an authority moves a little bit more money around, it is capped, which makes matters worse.
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  There have been big cuts in social services. We have closed old people's homes. There has been rationalisation and, on paper, it seems as if we have achieved value for money. However, people forget that the Government have taken away a person's home. That person may have been there for a considerable time, so it is home. Those people have been deliberately and actively uprooted.
  Conservative Members talk about the little old lady who came under the rating system. They kept trotting her out and saying that she was paying more rates than she should. What did the Government do when they brought in the rent rebate scheme? They put the boot into that little old lady. They said, "If you are living in too big a house and you don't get out, you won't get a rent rebate." That little old lady was wrong under the rating system, and under the rent system, she was wrong again. The idea of the little old lady is a red herring.
  The Government have already extended local government services. Where will the money come from? Spending may be capped. The Government have introduced the Children Act 1989, care in the community and the Environmental Protection Act 1990, which all cost money. Where does it come from? We cannot raise the money from the ratepayer because local government will then be capped. The Government will not provide the money.
  The cost of poll tax collection is escalating. In Barnsley, it costs £3 million more than it did to collect the rates. What is the sense of having a system of collecting local government finance that costs £3 million more than it did under the old system?
  Some people are non-payers as a matter of principle. That matter will be sorted out anyway. However, some non-payers genuinely cannot afford to pay. The poll tax has been a shock. A household of six poll tax payers who used to pay £296 in rates at one fell swoop had to pay £2,400. Of course they cannot pay that. Where will they get £2,400 when they used to pay £296? That is what is happening to people on low wages who live in low-value areas. There were grants to ease the effects, but they did not work.
  The Government have now caused uncertainty. The Secretary of State and his Ministers say that they are carrying out a review and that they will bring out something else. They have not got anything else. For 26 years, we have looked for an alternative and there is none. The Secretary of State comes out with twaddle about how they will find something else. All that he will come out with in April is some scheme to try to ease the situation so that the Conservative will win more seats in the May elections. That is what it is all about. It has nothing to do with the poll tax and it has nothing to do with local government services. The review will probably cause an increase in payments.
  Local authorities are also involved with the police, fire and transport services. The police and fire services probably received favourable answers, such as an invitation to break the law. There was an invitation: "We'll tell you that you can have 19 police. You may not be able to pay for them without being capped, but put in for those police anyway." There will be no grumbles about having 19 more policemen. However, although the authority may not be capped, somebody somewhere will pay—the poll tax payer. The same is true of the fire service. The review may cause the Home Office severe problems,

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  but we would be silly not to pay according to the Home Office requirements. If it costs a little more money, so be it.
  Mr. Portillo: Did the hon. Gentleman just say that it had been claimed before that his authority would have to get rid of 19 policemen to avoid being capped but that it was now recognised that it would not have to do so because savings could be found elsewhere?
  Mr. McKay: I said that we might have an objective of 19 extra policemen according to Home Office standards. I said that it seemed as if we would not be able to get those 19 policemen because we could not afford them. Representations were made. We were told that if we adhered to a careful budget, it might allow the 19 extra policemen. I do not want to mislead the House or to tell the Minister lies. The matter is serious. Many hon. Members do not take the work of local government seriously enough. Another problem, remuneration of councillors, is coming up. Some 50 per cent. of councillors will have to disappear simply because they cannot afford to do the job. However, that is a matter for another debate.
  It seems that the Government are considering a poll tax and a property tax. They should forget it because having two taxes will escalate costs. We need to get rid of the poll tax and to replace it with a system that will be sustainable not for the next five, 10 or 15 years, but for the next 100 years. That is worth doing and it is worth taking time to do. The Government should stop shilly-shallying. Let us put the cards on the table and have a proper system. Local government is too important to be a political ball in a political game.
  6.18 pm
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: The Opposition motion is a complete farce. The Labour party proposes to abolish a tax, but gives us no word on its replacement. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said that he did not not want to complicate the debate by putting forward an alternative. All we need to know, he told us, is that the Labour party is united behind the undefined alternative. Earlier today, the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock) told us what the alternative is—fair rates. However, not once did he or any other Labour Member clarify what was meant by that.
  Why is the Labour party so against the community charge? Perhaps the reason is not least that it shows up the record of Labour local government. This year, the first year of the community charge in England, has shown a trend that is becoming clear. Efficient Conservative councils charge less for frequently better services than wasteful Labour ones. The average Conservative council—and where there are two councils, as in the shire counties, where they are both Conservative—has charged £27 less than Liberal councils and £51 less than Labour ones. Further, if one strips out the safety net contributions levied on largely Conservative council charge payers to subsidise largely Labour councils, one finds that residents of Conservative districts on average paid no less than £107 less than those in Labour districts and £87 less than Liberal district charge payers. Those figures explain much of Labour's agitation on the subject of the community charge and its determination to lay a thick smoke screen.
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  Unfortunately for Labour Members, a torrent of figures are now coming out for next year's community charges. They are pouring out of the town halls and make the matter starkly clear. Let us consider the first batch of community charge announcements listed in The Times yesterday. Top of the pack was the city of Bristol where the Labour council plans to pole-axe local people for £500, a 17 per cent. increase on this year's charge. We then have a whole clutch of Labour community charges of over £400—for example, Hackney at £462, Cambridge at £469, a rise of no less than 25 per cent., and Hounslow at £425. What do they have in common? They are all Labour controlled—not the loony left, we are told, just managed by the new style Labour party.
  One community charge figure caught my eye, that for the London borough of Merton at £430, an astonishing 54 per cent. up this year. We must remember that that council went Labour at the elections last May. Its record reminded me of the 62 per cent. increase at Waltham Forest in 1987 following its capture the previous year by Labour and, worse still, the 66 per cent. increase in Ealing. That is in line with the long-standing Labour tradition of thanking local electors for their support by kicking them in the teeth, or rather in the pocket. Even in flagship Bradford, Labour has kicked local residents to the tune of another 31 per cent. next year, despite the continuation of Government safety net support at identical levels year on year.
  The people of Ealing did not forget. They chucked Labour out at the next opportunity, at the borough elections last year. It is interesting to note that the successor Conservative council there is cutting the community charge by 9 per cent. in the coming year. That is being achieved by going through the council services with a fine-tooth comb and scrapping nonsenses such as the gay and lesbian advisory services and other Bennite extravagances. Of course, we have yet to take note of the charging proposals of the more mainstream loony left Labour councils such as Lambeth, Southwark and Greenwich. No doubt more anguish will be expressed by Labour Members over those.
  I have the honour to represent in this place the people of Gravesham. They are served by a well-run Conservative borough council which has levied the low community charge of £293. Through good housekeeping, the council proposes to keep its charge unchanged at £293 in the coming year. I trust that my constituents will ponder deeply on the experience of the residents of Merton, Waltham Forest and Ealing before electing their new council next May. They already have the stark contrast between their own £293 community charge bills and the massive £413 bills across the river imposed on the residents of the Labour-controlled borough of Thurrock.
  The vacuum that passes for local government taxation policy on the Opposition Benches has been exposed clearly today, and I am sure that in the vote tonight the House will implode it.
  6.26 pm
  Mr. Brian Wilson: I am grateful for this opportunity, towards the end of the debate, to make a contribution. The speech that we just heard from the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) was the type of contribution that gives tailors' dummies a bad name.

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  The hon. Gentleman represents a tendency in the Tory party which causes a major problem for the Secretary of State for the Environment, in that there remain some true believers on the Government Benches. We clearly have a Conservative Member who is still reading, if not wearing, last year's briefs. He is busy telling us that everything is all right with the poll tax, and the evidence for that is simply that in thrifty Gravesham it will be only £7 short of £300.
  With some of my hon. Friends, I had the dubious privilege and pleasure of serving on the Standing Committee of the Local Government Finance Bill. At that time there were queues of Conservative Members, not unlike the hon. Member for Gravesham, telling us, with greater sincerity and self-belief, that the poll tax levels in their areas would be £100, £150 or perhaps £160 as a result of the wondrous legislation that was being bestowed upon them. So they voted for every jot and tittle of it. Now they tell us, just two years later, that it has been a wonderful success—in Gravesham if nowhere else—because it is only £300.
  The speech of the Secretary of State was definitely the effort of a guilty man. The louder he speaks of his honour, the faster we should count the spoons. Rather than his speech being a serious attempt to address the issues, it was another go-as-you-please turn from the aging matinee idol in which he thought that if he kept the laugh lines coming fast enough, with little jibes at the Opposition occurring often enough, we might not notice that there had been no noticeable progress since he became Secretary of State.
  There has been a remarkable decline since the brave days of yesteryear when the right hon. Gentleman was on the Conservative Back Benches denouncing the Tory tax in vigorous terms. Indeed, we are grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving us the expression "the Tory tax," which is succinct and accurate. He prophesied that the poll tax would become known throughout the land as a Tory tax, and it has. The electorates in many parts of the country pay testimony to that.
  We heard nothing from the Secretary of State about what the Government are proposing. The Tory ranks are in utter disarray over the poll tax because while we have the Gravesham tendency—that everything is all right with the poll tax; at least Gravesham is secure—there are many, probably the majority, on the Tory Benches who yearn for a return to the relatively safe haven of a property tax. Then we have those on the far right among Conservative Members who were so over-zealous and extreme in denouncing a property tax that it would now be a gross embarrassment to many of them to have to return to such a tax.
  The comments of the present Minister of State, Scottish Office and of the present Secretary of State for Scotland about a property tax were so hysterically over the top—I am glad to see the Secretary of State coming into the Chamber—that should the Tory party adopt a property tax, they would surely have no alternative but to resign.
  Today's leak is that the Government intend to go one better than that. Apparently, not only will they adopt a property tax, but they intend to keep the poll tax as well. That should go down a bundle on the doorsteps. Even in Gravesham the Tories may find some difficulty explaining that one away. Although it may seem a manic proposal, it is in line with the dilemma in which the Secretary of State for the Environment finds himself. All the escape hatches that should open to him have been blocked by the previous pronouncements of many of his hon. Friends.
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  For example, we are told that the Government are no longer in favour of removing education from local financing and giving the responsibility to central Government. I suppose that that is a pity, if only in the sense that we shall not be able to test the assurance of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) that such a move would add 7p to the standard rate of income tax. I would have thought that those words from "Her Majesty" would have been regarded on their own as a singular deterrent, in the run-up to an election.
  The gearing effect is the key to much of the discussion. Because there are serious hon. Members present who want to talk seriously about the poll tax, let us strip away the rhetoric about so-called high-spending Labour local authorities, and even about Harrogate, and discuss the mechanics of the poll tax which are endemic to it and are the reason why not only Labour local authorities find that they cannot live with it. It will not be long before every Tory local authority in the land will not be able to live with it.
  What is happening can be summed up in the three words, "the gearing effect". That means that not only every piece of discretionary expenditure by a local authority but, much more important, every piece of non-discretionary expenditure by a local authority can be piled on to only one narrow base. I can give the House a vivid example from my constituency and from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie). Our little district council, Cunninghame district council, was unexpectedly and unpredictably faced with a £2 million bill this year for past years' valuation appeals that had succeeded. The council lost £2 million, all of which had to be paid within a year. Under the old system, that £2 million would have been spread across a rating base of commercial and industrial properties, as well as those in the domestic sector. There would have been many complaints and many bleeding hearts, but only a few per cent. would have been added to the rates. However, under the new magical system, no discretion is given to the local authority over its business and industrial rates. Therefore, such extra expenditure can be met only by the poll tax payers. So £2 million piles on to the poll tax in one year, which means an extra £19 on each poll tax bill, which is an increase of over 25 per cent. in the district's share of the poll tax—from just one source, a source which is outwith the control of the local authority. That is the gearing effect in action.
  Councils such as Strathclyde and Lothian are cutting tens of millions of pounds worth of services, but are also having to increase their poll taxes by between 30 and 35 per cent. at the same time. Perhaps there was logic in the poll tax, even if it was wrong, cruel and wicked logic, if the Government could say that they would impose on the local authorities the requirement to cut services to keep poll tax bills down, because those local authorities could not go to their electorates with a high poll tax. But there is not even that logic in saying to local authorities, "You cannot provide the services. You must slash the services, but at the same time you must increase your poll tax bills by 30 or 35 per cent." These increases are not in order to improve services, but simply because of the mechanisms built into the poll tax.
  That is what has been realised not only in Labour areas, but in Tory areas. That is why the Government cannot live

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  with the poll tax; nor, as I have explained, can they escape from the poll tax, and it is why it will haunt them until the day of the general election.
  6.31 pm
  Mr. John Bowis: We have heard a lot of passion from Opposition Members tonight about people who have not been able to afford to pay their poll tax bills. I share that passion when I hear those things, but the reason why so many people cannot afford to pay is that so many Labour authorities have overspent and overcharged. If anybody has a low income and his or her local authority is meeting the target figures, the poll tax payment is met by the benefit system and the taper that is above it—
  Mr. Battle: No, it is not.
  Mr. Bowis: Yes, it is—but if the spending goes above that level, it is not, and, if a council charges less, such a person will be in pocket.
  The debate has been about the three most fearsome words in the English language, "Labour local government". I am amazed that the Labour party has chosen this subject for its Opposition day. Whenever the Labour party raises this issue, my majority and the Conservative majorities in marginal seats across London increase because we know what the Labour party meant to Londoners when it was in charge. It meant that boroughs such as mine in Wandsworth were no different from the neighbouring boroughs of Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, about which we heard so eloquently from my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Sir W. Shelton). Wandsworth used to be one such borough. It was run-down. It had an uncaring, hopeless, wasteful council. People did not want to live or work there. It had council estates on which no one wanted to live. Now we have a Conservative council and people are queueing up to buy properties on those erstwhile sink estates. People are queueing up so that their children can go to school in those erstwhile sink schools. That is what can happen under sensitive Conservative council management.
  If this is any consolation to the Labour Front Bench, I say, "Please go on referring to local government policy because then we shall again have what we had this year in Wandsworth, which is a Conservative majority of one increasing to a majority of 35."
  It might be thought, therefore, that I would say that the community charge is fine. If one is thinking only of Wandsworth, one might well say that there should be no change. However, I accept that the cost of the community charge is unacceptable in some parts of the country for a whole variety of reasons. It is partly because of council treasurers accounting for increased spending and paying off debts and building up reserves. It is partly because of pay deals that were reached in the past. It is partly because of the complexities of the SSA formula and it is partly because of the removal of the subsidy from high-rateable-value areas to low-rateable-value areas. However, we must never forget that it is partly the intentional policy of Labour authorities to charge
  "as much as they can get away with".
  That was the advice that was given to Labour authorities—I have it in writing—and so many of them did just that.
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  We must look for alternatives and for ways of making the system more acceptable to more people. Although I shall not go into detail because time is against me, there are two ways of doing that. One could either remove the system altogether through central taxation grant, with local leeway in terms of income from sales and fees, or one could seek a balanced mixture, between the home and its occupants. It should be possible to take into account the size of the home and to multiply it by a neighbourhood factor to produce a household charge that would include the first two occupants. There could then be a flat-rate charge with a maximum of, say, £100 for each occupant thereafter.
  Whatever the system, we must achieve two things. People who can afford to pay must pay—and that includes Members of this House. We must also continue to look for efficiency improvements that can lead to a charge that people can afford to pay.
  My final example relates to the London borough of Ealing, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) referred. That borough went Conservative this year. It has made efficiency savings throughout and the beneficiaries are the residents of Ealing. I suggest that any hon. Member who wishes to speak to such a resident seeks out. Mrs. G. Kinnock and her spouse who are better off to the tune of £100—not as a result of good fortune, but as a result of good Conservative management in Ealing.
  6.36 pm
  Mr. David Blunkett: Before I turn to the thrust of the debate, I should like the Minister to answer a number of questions about the Secretary of State's announcement relating to the exemption from poll tax for troops in the Gulf. Although we welcome any such move and, as we have said, wish to see every possible support from Opposition Members for it, we are, to say the least, unhappy about this afternoon's announcement.
  It appears that only a small number of people will benefit. What is meant by "the authorities most affected"? What is meant by "significant numbers"? When can discretion be used? Can it be used from today, or does the 61-day rule for single people and the six-month rule for a married man or woman in the Gulf who has a spouse living at home still apply? Such questions are important in terms of the number of people who can claim an exemption, as is the area of the country in which they live. Without reimbursement, local authorities are not in a position automatically to grant an exemption to such people when they cannot grant exemptions to other deserving cases.
  Mr. Thomas Graham: Is my hon. Friend aware that the first £10 of a war pension was discounted? In Strathclyde, the Department of Social Security has now instructed Strathclyde regional council that that £10 must now be included. Is he also aware that the husband of one of my constituents is a war hero who lost half his brain in the last war and that, although he is exempt, his war pension must now be included as part of his wife's income for poll tax purposes? Does my hon. Friend agree that that is appalling?
  Mr. Blunkett: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that it is. It illustrates a point made by Labour Members when we were told a few moments ago that those who were badly off were cared for and looked after. We all know that they

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  are not. What is given with one hand is so often taken away with the other, and that will be so while the poll tax exists. That is why our motion is simple and clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said. It asks the Government to introduce legislation to abolish the tax. Why will not Conservative Members do so? It is because they are in disarray and are divided. There are still some—we have heard them today—who defend the poll tax and there are, of course, those who wish immediately to abolish it.
  On Sunday the Secretary of State said in his interview on the "World This Weekend":
  "You do not parade your disagreements in public."
  I understand that. The Labour party used to do it and it did us no good. But that does not hide the fact that disagreements exist. The solutions being considered by the Conservative party would in many cases result in a worse mess than the one that we have already. Let us take the announcement mentioned earlier which appears to have been leaked to The Times today about the two-tax solution—the floor tax and the poll tax. It is what my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham referred to as the bed-and-breakfast tax. That will be hidden as, not a poll tax at a lower flat rate but a method of charging everyone something, whatever their income.
  But, as has already been said, such a solution leads us to ask whether people would be entitled to a rebate on the flat rate poll tax. What would be the administrative costs of collecting it? How would the register be maintained in terms of eligibility for the tax? The confusion and administrative nightmare that would face local authorities in chasing people has already been described.
  Of course, we do not need the words of Labour Members to describe the position if taxation had two elements. We have the Home Secretary's words. In the Daily Mail on 19 September 1989, referring to what he described as the two-tax nightmare of the Labour party, he said:
  "Only Labour would want to replace the unfair rating system with two taxes … They will hit millions of homeowners very hard…It is a socialist double tax."
  It seems to me that if it is a socialist double tax, it must he a Tory double tax. There can be only one thing worse than the Tory poll tax and that is a Tory poll tax plus a Tory floor tax. The floor tax would charge people more for living in a rambling, decrepit terraced house than someone living in a penthouse suite with Lady Porter. In other words, the poorer one is and the more one struggles, the more one pays. Those are the nonsensical ideas coming out of the Conservative party.
  The Secretary of State said this afternoon that the focus would be narrowed. When talking about the present consideration of the options, he said that his intention was to narrow the focus by April.
  Mr. Patrick Thompson: I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman says about the floor tax. Can he explain whether the roof tax, as proposed for Scotland, is still official Labour policy?
  Mr. Blunkett: Labour party policy, which the hon. Gentleman can read in our "Fair Rates", is clear and will involve the modern property tax adjusted according to the ability to pay. It is simple, straightforward and extremely quick to implement, unlike any other option before us. Of course, Conservative Members know that. The simple
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  solution would be to adopt our proposals. That is what is before us today—no floor tax, no roof tax, but a fair tax. That is what we propose.
  We must examine what the Secretary of State described on Sunday as "refining the options", which is Toryspeak for "We haven't got a clue." What are the options? A sales tax is clearly out. The Government have ruled out local income tax. They have ruled out our proposals. They will not go straight back to the rating system. So what are they left with? The flat-rate poll tax and floor tax appear to be the only runner, other than removing items from local government. The solution of the Conservative party is, "If you can't beat it, take it." Who in his right mind would want to hand over education to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke)—the Rasputin of Rushcliffe, as he is rapidly becoming known in the classroom? Who would want to hand over the future of their children and the development of the potential of our loved ones to the tender mercies of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe? I have three children in school, and I certainly would not.
  It is bad enough in an authority such as mine, struggling to maintain the existing budgets and the high-quality service, accredited as one of the top half dozen in Britain by Her Majesty's inspectorate. It is hard enough to keep that service going spending millions of pounds above the standard spending assessment laid down by the Government. If authorities across the country had to reduce their education spending to the SSAs laid down by the Government, there would be enormous cuts in every part of Britain. Those will be cuts brought about by the poll tax. It has also caused misery because of the sums that people have to pay.
  Adult education is to be wiped out in Surrey. I had a letter from a lady yesterday appealing to me to put across the message of those who have limited or no Labour representation that their services are being decimated. Those cuts hit people. They are cuts which the former Secretary of State described as a parade of bleeding stumps. The present Secretary of State put it slightly more mildly. In his interview on Sunday, when he talked about likely cuts, he said that there was an element of ritual about them. There is not an element of ritual but there is an element of elderly people not receiving home helps. There is an element of not having books in classrooms that are not fit to use. There is an element of cutting back on teachers and closing schools which everyone knows should be kept open on educational grounds. There is an element of large cuts in Tory authorities—£7 million in Warwickshire and £11 million in Berkshire. There are massive cuts in Surrey. I hope that the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) will bear in mind that the removal of services to keep his poll tax below £300 hits those who cannot go into the marketplace to buy alternative provision. That is what it is all about.
  Far from bringing relief to those in greatest need through extending the rebate system, far from ensuring that we fund services and prevent cuts, the community charge reduction scheme is a simple mechanism to bribe the electorate and to try to save Tory seats such as Ribble Valley.—[Interruption.] The Minister says that that is right. It is right. It is an attempt to bribe the electorate into voting Conservative. It is a temporary scheme which will disappear the moment the general election is over. It is a scheme to manipulate and massage bills when the Government know that the real problem is the poll tax.

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  The community charge reduction scheme compares what with what? It compares the poll tax with the old rating system. The despised rates are now the benchmark by which people are being bribed into believing that the poll tax is not so bad after all. The Government are putting £1·7 billion of our money into a Conservative scheme to help the Conservative party. To cap it all, at a time of recession, unemployment is being accelerated by the cuts. The downturn in investment in infrastructure and capital investment is being accelerated.
  We must be absolutely clear. The debate is between those who have a solution which can be implemented immediately and those who wish to buy time, as the Secretary of State clearly showed that he does, in an effort to dig themselves out of a mess of their own making. The mess which the Conservative party has got itself into was not inherited; it was invented by it. It is responsible for the scheme before us today, and it must take the blame in the general election.
  The mess in which the Government find themselves is entirely of their own making and they must carry the can. Our simple message is that tinkering is not an option. We say to the Government, "Fiddle with the tax at your peril." We offer the electorate a way out because we offer the British people the only solution, the real choice, and it will be voted on in the by-election and the general election. The British people will have a chance to get rid of the Conservative muddle and confusion and the extra costs and cuts. I ask those people to vote Labour, because we will abolish the poll tax.
  6.50 pm
  The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. Michael Portillo): It was quite extraordinary to hear the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) talk about an alternative when, throughout the debate, all Labour Members have refused to talk about any alternative to the community charge. The point was well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold). Opposition Members have been taking their cue from their leader who recently had a marvellous opportunity to address the Labour party conference on local government. A review of his speech in the Municipal Journal said:
  "Mr. Kinnock only made a passing reference to Labour's 'modern rates' scheme.
  That will be Labour's tone in the coming general election campaign—when the party will put more effort on exploiting voters' discontent with Government policies like the community charge, rather than promoting enthusiasm for its own."
  That is a despicable and disgraceful way for the Opposition to carry on.
  The hon. Member for Brightside derided the Government for allegedly having a two-tax policy. We have made no announcements whatever. Not only has his party officially espoused two-tax policies in the past, but apparently it has such a policy now. At the same local government conference, who should rise up and strike down Labour policy than that demon of the supper club the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). In a speech to a fringe meeting the hon. Gentleman revealed that there should be a regional tax for
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  the new regional assemblies which will also receive Government grant. It appears that, after all, two taxes are now proposed by the Labour party.
  The Government have set out on a review of the community charge. Anyone looking for an example of why we should not make announcements until we are ready will find it in the Labour party which has produced a series of half-baked proposals at regular intervals every few months. In our review we shall consult widely and deeply. I am consulting my hon. Friends.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said that the Conservative party had promoted 43 schemes. My only explanation for his comment is that he cannot count beyond 43. Many more schemes have been proposed by my hon. Friends and I am giving them serious consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves) is right when he says that the principle that everybody should pay is widely accepted. If the Opposition had listened to the Nick Ross phone-in this morning they would have heard that principle advocated time and again. Labour is in great peril if it gives up the principle that everybody should make a contribution to the cost of local government, because that principle is widely accepted.
  It is already clear in this round of community charge setting that once again Conservative local authorities will set the lowest charges and provide the most efficient government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Bowis) illustrated so well. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Hayward) said that he is left with two layers of loony authorities imposing desperately high charges on the people of Kingswood and Bristol.
  Labour authorities such as Ipswich are budgeting to spend £65 a head over their standard spending assessment and that extra money will have to be paid by ordinary people. By contrast, the Conservative authority in Runnymede will spend £47 a head below its SSA. The Conservative authority of Medina in the Isle of Wight is cutting its community charge in half for the coming year. Labour authorities have exhibited the most staggering cynicism because they have increased their charges for the coming year to what my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea described as the highest level that they can get away with, to the very level at which they know they would be capped if they went a pound over. Cumbria is budgeting only £1,000 below its cap level. It is cynically getting every penny that it can out of the community charge payer.
  Mr. Graham: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Portillo: No. The hon. Gentleman did not speak in the debate.
  I am pleased to say that the community charge reduction scheme will provide some help for community charge payers.
  I can tell the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) that his community charge payers living in a half average rateable value property will be better off by £429 per couple. That is the sort of help that we shall provide. My hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire, East (Mr. MacKay) said that his constituents would be up to £250 better off. Even in the constituency of Bootle in the local authority of Sefton the reduction for people on half average rateable value will be £352 per couple.
  Mr. Bruce Grocott: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Portillo: No, because the hon. Gentleman did not speak in the debate.
  Those are enormous decreases in the community charge to be set next year.
  The Ribble Valley by-election has been mentioned in the debate. I remind the House that a couple living in that constituency in a property of half average rateable value will have £415 taken off their community charge.
  Mr. Grocott: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Portillo: No, because the hon. Gentleman was not here and did not take part in the debate.
  That is real help for the people who need it and will go to those who suffered most from the introduction of the community charge because they had low rateable values.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Portillo: I am sorry, I am not giving way.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. This has been a good-natured debate. Let us have the last four minutes of it in good order.
  Mr. Portillo: I now come to non-payment, a subject of great interest to the general public. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Sir W. Shelton) spoke eloquently about the inefficiency of the borough of Lambeth in collecting the community charge. He reminded us that 39,000 bills had not been sent out in August and that 13,000 had not been sent out in November. The leader of that council refuses to pay the community charge and, apparently, the Leader of the Opposition now thinks that the borough of Lambeth needs to be sorted out. Is it any surprise that the charge has not been collected and that other people are being asked to pay the difference?
  The Opposition have paid lip service to the concept that people should pay their community charge. If they are in favour of that, why is it that 28 Labour Members and thousands of Labour councillors do not pay and advocate non-payment? My hon. Friends have noticed how the Opposition are prepared to deal ruthlessly with those who step out of line on the Gulf. People have been sacked in droves from the Opposition Front Bench and relegated to the Back Benches. When it comes to non-payment of the community charge and people breaking the law and urging others to do so, what does the Labour party do? How many Labour Members have had the Whip withdrawn or any sanctions imposed? The answer is that the Opposition are not concerned about that.
  Since the introduction of the community charge, Labour has shown an astonishing degree of insincerity. Labour Members have spoken about unfairness and about the difficulties that some people have in paying, but in practice Labour authorities have heaped up the charge upon people. As I have said, they have set the charge at the level that they can get away with. Again this year they are increasing the charge to the very limit over which they would be capped.
  The Opposition have derided the community charge reduction scheme and have refused point blank to join in the review of local government finance being conducted by the Government. They have failed to set out a clear alternative. Indeed, they have struggled hard to come up with an alternative so obscure that it cannot be analysed or
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  pinned upon them. Their entire struggle has been to find something too obscure for the British public to understand.
  The Opposition have not only failed to live up to what we have a right to expect of an Opposition, but have shown clearly that they lack the political maturity ever to form a Government. For that reason, I call on my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the amendment.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 229, Noes 325.

  Division No. 69]

  [7 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Dobson, Frank

  Adams, Mrs. Irene (Paisley, N.)

  Doran, Frank

  Allen, Graham

  Douglas, Dick

  Anderson, Donald

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Eadie, Alexander

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Ashton, Joe

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Fatchett, Derek

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Barron, Kevin

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Battle, John

  Fisher, Mark

  Beckett, Margaret

  Flynn, Paul

  Beith, A. J.

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Bell, Stuart

  Foster, Derek

  Bellotti, David

  Foulkes, George

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Fraser, John

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

  Fyfe, Maria

  Benton, Joseph

  Galbraith, Sam

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Blair, Tony

  George, Bruce

  Blunkett, David

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Boateng, Paul

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Boyes, Roland

  Gordon, Mildred

  Bradley, Keith

  Gould, Bryan

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Graham, Thomas

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Grocott, Bruce

  Buckley, George J.

  Hardy, Peter

  Caborn, Richard

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Callaghan, Jim

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Canavan, Dennis

  Hinchliffe, David

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Cartwright, John

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Home Robertson, John

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Clay, Bob

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Clelland, David

  Howells, Geraint

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Cohen, Harry

  Hoyle, Doug

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Corbett, Robin

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Cousins, Jim

  Illsley, Eric

  Cox, Tom

  Ingram, Adam

  Crowther, Stan

  Janner, Greville

  Cryer, Bob

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Cummings, John

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Darling, Alistair

  Kennedy, Charles

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Kilfedder, James

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

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

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Dewar, Donald

  Lambie, David

  Dixon, Don

  Lamond, James

  201

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Leighton, Ron

  Reid, Dr John

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Richardson, Jo

  Lewis, Terry

  Robertson, George

  Litherland, Robert

  Rogers, Allan

  Livingstone, Ken

  Rooker, Jeff

  Livsey, Richard

  Rooney, Terence

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Rowlands, Ted

  Loyden, Eddie

  Ruddock, Joan

  McAllion, John

  Salmond, Alex

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Sedgemore, Brian

  McCartney, Ian

  Sheerman, Barry

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  McFall, John

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Short, Clare

  McKelvey, William

  Sillars, Jim

  McLeish, Henry

  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

  Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

  Marek, Dr John

  Snape, Peter

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Soley, Clive

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Martlew, Eric

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Meacher, Michael

  Strang, Gavin

  Meale, Alan

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Michael, Alun

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Trimble, David

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Turner, Dennis

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Vaz, Keith

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Wallace, James

  Mullin, Chris

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Murphy, Paul

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Nellist, Dave

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Wigley, Dafydd

  O'Brien, William

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  O'Hara, Edward

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Wilson, Brian

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Winnick, David

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Patchett, Terry

  Worthington, Tony

  Pendry, Tom

  Wray, Jimmy

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Mr. Frank Haynes and Mr. Ken Eastham.

  Radice, Giles

  Randall, Stuart

  NOES

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Alexander, Richard

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Allason, Rupert

  Body, Sir Richard

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Amess, David

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Amos, Alan

  Boswell, Tim

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bottomley, Peter

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Ashby, David

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Bowis, John

  Atkins, Robert

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Atkinson, David

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Brazier, Julian

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Bright, Graham

  Batiste, Spencer

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

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

  Bellingham, Henry

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Bendall, Vivian

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Benyon, W.

  Burns, Simon

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Butler, Chris

  202

  Butterfill, John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hayes, Jerry

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hayward, Robert

  Cash, William

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Chapman, Sydney

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Chope, Christopher

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Churchill, Mr

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

  Hill, James

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hind, Kenneth

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Holt, Richard

  Colvin, Michael

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Conway, Derek

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

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Couchman, James

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Cran, James

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Critchley, Julian

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Hunter, Andrew

  Curry, David

  Irvine, Michael

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

  Irving, Sir Charles

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Jack, Michael

  Day, Stephen

  Janman, Tim

  Devlin, Tim

  Jessel, Toby

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Dicks, Terry

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Dover, Den

  Key, Robert

  Dunn, Bob

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Eggar, Tim

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Knapman, Roger

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Evennett, David

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Knowles, Michael

  Fallon, Michael

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Favell, Tony

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Latham, Michael

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Forman, Nigel

  Lilley, Peter

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Forth, Eric

  Lord, Michael

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Franks, Cecil

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Freeman, Roger

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  French, Douglas

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Fry, Peter

  Maclean, David

  Gale, Roger

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Gardiner, Sir George

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Gill, Christopher

  Madel, David

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Malins, Humfrey

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Mans, Keith

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Maples, John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Marland, Paul

  Gorst, John

  Marlow, Tony

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Greenway, Harry (Eating N)

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Gregory, Conal

  Mates, Michael

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Grist, Ian

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Ground, Patrick

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Grylls, Michael

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Hague, William

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Hannam, John

  Moore, Rt Hon John

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

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Harris, David

  Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  203

  Moss, Malcolm

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Neale, Sir Gerrard

  Shersby, Michael

  Needham, Richard

  Sims, Roger

  Nelson, Anthony

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Speed, Keith

  Norris, Steve

  Speller, Tony

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Page, Richard

  Squire, Robin

  Paice, James

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Patnick, Irvine

  Steen, Anthony

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Stern, Michael

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Stevens, Lewis

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Pawsey, James

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Stokes, Sir John

  Portillo, Michael

  Sumberg, David

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Summerson, Hugo

  Price, Sir David

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Redwood, John

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Riddick, Graham

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Thorne, Neil

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Rost, Peter

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Rowe, Andrew

  Tracey, Richard

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Mrs Angela

  Tredinnick, David

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Trippier, David

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Trotter, Neville

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Viggers, Peter

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Shelton, Sir William

  Walden, George

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  204

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

  Wilshire, David

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Ward, John

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Warren, Kenneth

  Wood, Timothy

  Watts, John

  Yeo, Tim

  Wells, Bowen

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Whitney, Ray

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Mr. John M. Taylor and Mr. Tom Sackville.

  Wilkinson, John

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House welcomes the Government's thorough review of the functions, structure and finance of local government; notes that the Government has provided for a substantial increase in Aggregate External Finance for 1991–92; and welcomes the introduction of the Community Charge Reduction Scheme which will provide £1·7 billion extra help in England for those former rate payers, the elderly and the disabled who have faced the biggest increases in their contributions to the cost of local services.
  7.14 pm
  Mr. Gavin Strang: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is clear that, since the Prime Minister answered questions this afternoon, an important rift has developed between the position of the United States and Britain towards the Soviet peace initiative and that of a number of other major members of the coalition. As it is hardly possible to exaggerate the seriousness of the situation, may I ask the Government through you, Mr. Speaker, to make a statement later this evening?
  Mr. Speaker: That is not my responsibility, but I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the hon. Gentleman's comments.

  Manufacturing Industry
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. As a large number of hon. Members wish to participate in the debate, it would be helpful if the Front-Bench spokesmen would trim their speeches and if Back Benchers would limit their speeches to about eight minutes each. Then I think that every hon. Member who wished to be called would be.
  7.16 pm
  Mr. Gordon Brown: I beg to move,
  That this House condemns Her Majesty's Government for creating a recession which has led to falling output, falling investment and rising unemployment; deplores the damage that the recession in inflicting on Britain's manufacturing base and all regions of the country; and calls on the Government to prepare a budget for industry and adopt the policies for training, technology and the regions that will build a stronger industrial base.
  The motion contains three urgent proposals which will determine the size and success of British manufacturing. The first, is our proposal for a budget containing investment incentives targeted on manufacturing industry. The second is our demand for an industrial policy for training and technology, and the third is our call for balanced economic growth through a modern regional policy.
  Our argument is that manufacturing matters, that even our service sector depends ultimately on modern manufacturing strength and that the real challenge facing Britain is not to replace manufacturing by services, as some Ministers have argued, but to upgrade our manufacturing industry to make it, once again, the most modern in Europe.
  But let us be clear about the extent of the crisis that we face. As Thursday's figures showed, manufacturing output has now fallen £5 billion, a catastrophic loss of production unique in western Europe. Manufacturing employment is now falling below 5 million people to its lowest point in our history as an industrial economy this century—30 per cent. of our manufacturing employment gone for ever under the Government. Manufacturing investment has registered one of its steepest declines since figures were first recorded—a 15 per cent. fall during recent months. Even manufacturing exports are now falling.
  Can the Secretary of State name another country in the EC where manufacturing employment, investment, industrial output and exports are now falling at one and the same time? Can he name one country in the EC which is simultaneously cutting its industry and training budgets?
  This is a British recession, created by mistakes made first at 11 Downing street and now being compounded by mismanagement at No. 10. Unemployment is up by 53,800 in London and the south-east since the Prime Minister took over in November; unemployment is up by 73,000 in the south as a whole; unemployment is up by 43,000 in the north and the midlands. The Prime Minister, who boasted of a classless society and opportunity for all, has presided over a 125,000 increase in unemployment even before he has completed his first 100 days as Prime Minister.
  This is the Government who told us that they were creating real jobs, lasting jobs, jobs in new areas, jobs even in new industries. The truth is that they are now creating real unemployment, lasting unemployment, unemployment in new areas and unemployment even in new industries.
  Mr. Tim Devlin: What does the hon. Gentleman say to Dr. John Bridge, chairman of the Northern Development Company, who says that this recession is different from those in the past because it is hitting the north last rather than first, and that that is because the diversification and change in the industrial structure in the north of England which has taken place under this Government has strengthened its ability to withstand the shocks of the international market in the future?
  Mr. Brown: Is it any consolation for people in the north who are losing their jobs—thousands are now losing their jobs—that they were the last to be hit by recession? The hon. Gentleman has simply admitted the fact that the north is suffering a recession. The unique feature of the recession is that it has hit north and south, high-tech and traditional industry, manufacturing and services, offices and factories. If the hon. Gentleman will not face up to it, I believe that a verdict will be passed on him soon by his electorate.
  Let us remember what we have been told by Ministers. It was not just that the Prime Minister, when Chief Secretary, told us that we have an economic miracle at present where Germany had only the economic miracle of the past. As late as June 1990 he was boasting of what he called an astonishing economic transformation. What about the Trade and Industry Secretary in those heady days of the Budget of spring 1988? What did he say? He said that the supply side of the economy had been transformed, and that we were on top of the world league both in manufacturing industry and in growth. He is nodding. What of the Under-Secretary of State? What did he say in 1988? In his bid for office he said that the 1988 Budget was the last goodbye to the low-growth economy of the 1970s.
  Mr. Quentin Davies: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that, if we had a Labour Government, they would abolish the trade cycle and that we would no longer have recessions? Is he aware that in the 1980s we had the longest boom this century?
  Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman would do well to listen to some of his constituents. As I calculate it, his constituency has experienced a rise in unemployment of 26 per cent. over the last year.
  Mr. Davies indicated dissent.
  Mr. Brown: He denies it.
  Mr. Davies: The rise of which the hon. Gentleman is speaking is a rise from 3 to 4 per cent. It was a rise from an extremely low base. Once again, he is confusing the House with illusory statistics.
  Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman will have to face his electorate one day. May I remind him of what he said to his electorate in 1987:
  "Interest rates, vital to every home-owner and every family in business—we have brought them down…Let's continue to keep inflation down."
  That was just before the Government doubled it, and doubled it again. [Interruption.] Hon. Members are expressing astonishment. It was Conservatives who told us that they had abolished the economic cycle. They gave us

  207
  the impression that the economic cycle was a thing of the past. It was Conservative Ministers who said that we were on a self-propelling plateau of growth.
  Let us examine what is happening round the country. The president of the Engineering Employers Federation says:
  "The country will crash into the buffers".
  He also says that the Government seem hell bent on moving towards a peasant economy. Why? Because policies have been based on a short-term fix. Let us consider what other business men are saying. Mr. Keith Goodman, of Leonard Curtis, says:
  "It is a blood bath. This year is going to be horrendous, far worse than 1990."
  What about Mr. Taylor, managing director of Britain's biggest machine tool producer:
  "I feel bitter about this economic cycle. Industry has had to foot the bill."
  Companies are going bankrupt not because they are overmanned, overcommitted, overmanaged, overunionised or overcommitted to obsolete technologies or products. The companies that are now being lost in hundreds are fit, well-managed companies in the forefront of new technology. They are not going bankrupt because of fundamental failings of the work force or of management, because of a lack of will to sell and to survive, or because of a lack of dynamism or ingenuity, but because they have been weighed down and overburdened by the highest interest rates in western Europe, twice what they were three years ago. Interest payments are a £30 billion burden on British industry; in 1979 they were £6 billion. Interest rates have been too high for too long, at too great a cost to too many companies.
  Mr. William Cash: Has the hon. Gentleman looked at the unemployment figures which came out this afternoon? Has he also observed that the 17 constituencies which have the highest unemployment rates are Labour constituencies? However, many of them have a net increase in employment.
  Mr. Brown: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been for the last 11 years. Unemployment is higher in the constituencies of all my hon. Friends than it was in 1979, and in most cases it is more than 50 per cent. higher. If the hon. Gentleman will not face up to the fact that unemployment is rising not only in Labour constituencies but in Conservative constituencies, I fear for his future even as a Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Keith Mans: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that excessive wage claims lead to high unemployment?
  Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to have been here during the last few years. Of course, wages have an influence, but everybody knows that companies are going bankrupt because they have faced high interest rates for the last two and a half years, and that those high interest rates have eventually pushed them under.
  Mr. Patrick Nicholls rose—
  Mr. Brown: I am not giving way. I gave way to the hon. Gentleman twice in the last debate when he clearly did not know what was happening.
  Mr. Frank Haynes: Is my hon. Friend aware that he is so good at his job that the central control office of the Conservative party has told all the Conservative Members to rough him up?
  Mr. Brown: I, too, have read a newspaper report, but I wish to keep to the subject.
  Several Hon. Members rose —
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. Many people, including me, would like to hear the debate.
  Mr. Brown: The interventions are so incompetent that they will make no difference to the case that I am putting forward.
  Mr. Phillip Oppenheim rose—
  Mr. Brown: I am not giving way. Mr. Speaker made it clear at the beginning of the debate that I should limit the number of interventions so as to allow other hon. Members to make their contributions. Unfortunately," on this occasion that is what I will have to do.
  Let us examine what has happened to manufacturing since 1979. Since 1979 production in manufacturing has increased by 22 per cent. in Germany, by 20 per cent. in Italy, by 19 per cent. in Spain, by 30 per cent. in the Netherlands, by 37 per cent. in America, by 57 per cent. in Japan but by only 7 per cent. in Britain. Production in mechanical engineering is down by 5 per cent., in metals by 9 per cent., in textiles by 26 per cent. and in man-made fibres by 35 per cent. Britain's manufacturing economy has fallen behind France; during the lifetime of the Government it has fallen behind Italy and it is falling to the size of Brazil.
  Mr. Anthony Coombs rose—
  Mr. Brown: I am not giving way.
  The old west Germany now exports two and a half times as many manufactured goods as Britain. Imports of computers have increased by 500 per cent. since 1979, of electronics by 161 per cent., and of precision and optical instruments by 297 per cent. In a debate on manufacturing the single fact that damns the record of the Government is that manufacturing output at home has increased by 7 per cent. while manufacturing imports have increased by 236 per cent.
  What of investment for the future? Italy has increased its manufacturing investment by 30 per cent., Netherlands by 50 per cent., France by 57 per cent., Germany by 60 per cent., and countries such as Luxembourg, Belgium and Ireland by more than 100 per cent. Britain has increased it by it total of 5 per cent. only—and that has fallen as we debated these matters during the past few weeks.
  The Government say that the prize at the end of this recession is an inflation figure comparable to that in Italy, Germany and France. The truth is that the price we will pay for this recession is a permanent reduction of industrial capacity, taking us down far below the levels of France and Italy—falling, I am afraid, to the levels of Brazil.
  What have Ministers done about these issues? They were warned in 1984 by the Trade and Industry Select Committee that the Government must take further
  "action to prevent the…decline of the UK's manufacturing base".

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  In 1985 the Government were warned by the House of Lords, in a much-reported document, about the disastrous consequences of letting manufacturing decline. In 1986, the former Cabinet Minister, who is now a Cabinet Minister again, the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), made a plea that manufacturing should be taken seriously with his call for an industry and a regional policy. In 1987 the Department of Trade and Industry Select Committee called for a strategy, particularly for the new industries in information technology.
  In 1988, the Government's own Advisory Committee on Science and Technology recommended action on Opto electronics and yet the Government did nothing. The CBI warned that we faced the prospect of falling behind, and now the CBI is calling for a technology policy. The Advisory Committee on Science and Technology is calling for new measures to help growing firms. The Policy Studies Institute is worried about the Government's failure to take the long-term seriously and still the Government do nothing. What have they done over the past few weeks? The only thing that they have done is publish the autumn statement with their proposals for investment by the Department of Trade and Industry in the future. Planned investment in collaborative research is to be cut by 35 per cent.—
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Peter Lilley): The hon. Gentleman said that the CBI was critical of some technological policy. Is he aware of the press release that it has issued today, responding to some measures that I have announced in the past few weeks? It states:
  "This is just what we wanted, and goes a long way towards meeting the recommendations designed to help innovative smaller firms made by the CBI last year".
  Mr. Brown: It is a pity that the scheme that has been reintroduced by the Minister is very similar to the scheme which was cut by his predecessor. Even the SPUR scheme—many members of the CBI feel strongly about this—is for only £10 million a year which is £30 million after three years. Cuts in research and development and cuts in the technology transfer budget are going ahead. Regional industrial incentives are being cut by 35 per cent; export services have been cut by 13 per cent. At a time when we have a huge trade imbalance, there are cuts in support for trade fairs and for the export marketing research scheme.
  The do-nothing Department is now ensuring, by its failure to act, that thousands more will soon be condemned to do nothing because of it. What alone in the DTI's budget has seen a very big increase? Only the budget of the insolvency service, whose responsibility it is to wind up the affairs of failed companies. There has been a 30 per cent. increase in the budget for the insolvency service. With productivity savings, that means that it will be able to deal with the insolvency affairs of 50 per cent. more companies in the coming year.
  At a time when Britain's industry needs support for training, for technology, and for investment, what is the best that the Department of Trade and Industry can offer the companies of Britain? A bigger, better, and more efficient burial service for companies.
  Trust Government Ministers to find the only part of their budget that deals with the demise of companies and increase it, while denying funds for everything else. The
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  Secretary of State is like a clergyman presiding over a crumbling congregation, no longer officiating at baptisms or marriages, only at funerals—[Interruption.]
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I would be obliged if hon. Members would not comment from sedentary positions. If they are seeking to intervene, then they should do so, but such comments do not improve the standard of debates in this House.
  Mr. Brown: What does the Conservative party, say when the Labour party voices the concerns of manufacturing industry? I have here a document, issued by the Conservative party entitled—and it does seem an irony now—"The Revival of British Industry" in which it said:
  "An abiding feature of the Labour party's industrial policy is its obsession with manufacturing industry".
  It goes on to characterise the Labour party's view as "this outdated attitude". Is it outdated to say that we should do our best to succeed in an area which employs more than 20 per cent. of our work force, and is responsible for 80 per cent. of our visible exports? Is it an obsession to say that manufacturing matters? Do they say that in Germany, France or in Italy? Do they talk about people being obsessed or outdated when they voice the concerns of manufacturing industry?
  Is not it the case that, in every area where the Government should have enabled industry to succeed, the Department of Trade and Industry has done absolutely nothing? Without putting in place the technology transfer network that we have proposed, and without creating the one-stop small business service, which is essential if small businesses are to develop in this country—
  Mr. Lilley: Is the hon. Gentleman unaware that there are 12 regional technology centres providing precisely the technological transfer service that he recommends? It already exists.
  Mr. Brown: I am not only aware of its existence; I am also aware that the Government are cutting the budget for technology transfer centres.
  Let us consider what the Government have taken away. They have abandoned the micro-electronics applications project, they have abandoned MAP training, they have abandoned the efficient ship programme and the resources from the sea programme—
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman said, sotto voce, that I had cut the innovation budget. That is up by 19 per cent. in real terms.
  Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman should listen to what I said, which was that the Government had cut the technology transfer budget.
  Mr. Lilley: That has been doubled.
  Mr. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman should consult the public expenditure White Paper, issued by his Department last Tuesday. He will find that the technology transfer budget has been cut by 2 per cent. Perhaps Ministers are no longer told what cuts are taking place in their own Departments.
  What of the regions? Britain needs a regional policy, in the interest not only of the north but of the south. It is in the interests of the whole economy, because it creates balanced economic growth, without which this country cannot succeed. At least the Minister cannot deny the strength of what is happening in the regions because of

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  cuts made by his Department. He has cut the value of regional incentives by nearly 40 per cent. The Department has spent £9 million on regional enterprise grants, which were to be the shining light of his Department and on which £42 million was to have been spent in the past two years—it has under-spent by £33 million which is almost 75 per cent. of the budget.
  Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Brown: No.
  Mr. Nicholls: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Is it a point of order, or a point of annoyance?
  Mr. Nicholls: It is a point of order. The Chair always protects the right of Back Benchers in the House so that we can join in debates. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) is refusing to give way—my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) had to point that out in the last debate in which the hon. Gentleman came to the Dispatch Box. You reprove us, quite understandably, for making sedentary interventions, but the hon. Gentleman will not give way to standing interventions.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. If an hon. Member refuses to give way, I have to protect him if he has the Floor. I would do exactly the same if the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) had the Floor.
  Mr. Brown: I recall giving way on about 14 occasions in the last debate, including twice to the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), and I regretted it afterwards because he did not know what we were talking about during that debate.
  Let us consider what is happening in the north-west of the country, which is vital to our manufacturing future and yet 290,000 jobs have been lost there during the period of this Government. It is obvious that we should create a regional development agency for the area. We need regional incentives that are targeted on technology and training. We need to build a modern technology transfer network that is first rate and not underfunded. We need a proper company service for small businesses. However, Ministers persist in doing absolutely nothing.
  During the last few weeks I have looked at what has been written by the No Turning Back group. The Secretary of State is a member of that group. Moreover, the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary of State responsible for regional policy are also members of the group. What message are they sending out to the north-west, to the regions and to the electors of Ribble Valley? According to a publication entitled "Industrial and Regional Policy"—a document about Europe, though it ventures into other areas, as ideologues are often wont to do—they say:
  "Neither Government nor the European Community can create real jobs. They can only arbitrarily shift opportunities from the naturally successful part of the economy to the naturally ailing. There is no clearer illustration of this than the so-called regional policy."
  Those are not the ravings of a Young Conservatives fringe meeting. They are the stated views of the No Turning Back group which only a few months ago published that document. It went on:
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  "The money might…have created economic activity and jobs for which there was a demand rather than the phoney activities sustained by Government."
  Now we know the real views of the Under-Secretary of State, who is responsible for the regions, as well as the real views of the Minister of State, who was a co-author of the document, and of the Secretary of State, who, as a Government Minister, was unable to sign it, but who clearly is very much in touch with the views represented by that group.
  Germany and Italy invest twice as much in the regions as we do. In France there is a regional technology organisation of considerable stature. Japan has invested in technopolies to safeguard the future of its industries. Japan does not consider, as Ministers in this Government apparently do, that regional policies represent a phoney activity. It does not want its regions to be ailing parts of the economy; it believes that a sound regional policy can make a difference to the overall economy. However, what do Government Ministers who are members of the No Turning Back group say? According to the document, they say that
  "If national governments choose to spend money on providing special forms of assistance, it should be their own, not Europe's. Countries which choose to do so will pay a price by handicapping successful industries … Even the massive training and start-up schemes initiated by all European Governments, including our own, can be questioned."
  That is an argument not just against a regional policy but also against a training policy and a small business policy.
  Are those Ministers who signed the document and who support the group saying that there is no case whatsoever for any form of regional industrial policy in this country and that there is no case for assisting balanced economic growth throughout the country? If that is what they say, they should tell the voters of Ribble Valley and all the voters in the north-west. They will never convince the regions that a policy of opportunity for all, which is what a regional policy ought to be, should be replaced by the No Turning Back group's policy, which is based on a free-for-all.
  The Government ought to prepare a budget for industry that includes incentives for industry and puts industry—
  Mr. Nicholls: How much would it cost?
  Mr. Brown: The Government ought to put industry before the top rate tax cuts that have dominated this Government's philosophy since 1988, when the hon. Member for Teignbridge supported a Government who throughout the last three years have given £8 billion to those in the top rate tax bracket. That money could have been better used for other purposes. Nevertheless, they have questioned our public spending policy.
  Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Brown: They have spent—
  Mr. Nicholls: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Roger King: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You may have noticed

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  that the digital clocks have stuck at 5.17. The hon. Gentleman is making a long speech, but it is not quite as long as that. If we have to use the analogue clocks at either end of the Chamber, will you make a request that the television lights should be turned down? It is a little difficult to see the clocks because of the reflection of the lights on the glass covers.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: This is a very short debate. I think that anyone with common sense will want the House to make progress.
  Mr. King rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. That was not a point of order.
  Mr. David Shaw: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Could you please ensure that the Vote Office has adequate supplies of the annual report—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The Vote Office has all the papers that are necessary for the debate.
  Mr. Shaw rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Brown: If Conservative Members do not want to hear about manufacturing industry and its future, we shall certainly make sure that the country hears about it.
  I was talking about the claims that the Conservatives made about the difference that their 1988 Budget, and successive Budgets, would make to the fortunes of industry, particularly manufacturing industry. In 1988 the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that the Budget would powerfully reinforce the measures that had revitalised our economy during the last eight years and that it would bring us prosperity, generate jobs and restore national pride. The Minister who is now in charge of regional policy said that words such as "historic" and "radical" were not enough—that words such as "progressive" and "exciting" summed up a Budget on which he warmly commended the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  We were told at the time that the top rate tax cuts announced in the Budget would transform British industry. We were also told that they would propel us irreversibly towards a new phase of endlessly renewable prosperity. We were told that the top rate tax cuts would stop tax evasion, raise charity donations, cut the emigration of top scientists and engineers, enhance the performance of top management in industry and, by the trickle-down mechanism, make even the poor less poor. What has happened since those claims were made in 1988? As is the way with false prospectuses, nothing is quite what it seems. Donations from the rich have fallen, tax evasion has continued, poverty has soared, scientists—as we saw this week—are leaving this country in record numbers.
  Mr. Nicholls rose—
  Mr. Brown: What of the biggest and most important economic goal of all—that British industry would be galvanised into making new and effective efforts? Where is the evidence for the cost effectiveness of handing out £10 billion of public money in tax cuts by the end of this financial year?
  Mr. Nicholls rose—
  Mr. Brown: What value for money has been achieved for the British taxpayer and what difference has it made to British industry?
  Mr. Nicholls: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman is making various claims. Are we not entitled to give an answer?
  Madam Deputy Speaker: If there is time, I hope to be able to call the hon. Gentleman to answer those claims.
  Mr. Brown: What evidence is there for the cost effectiveness of the 1988 Budget? I have just read a study published in the past few days. Only 1 per cent. of the beneficiaries of top rate tax cuts, according to the study, claimed that, as a result of the hand-outs that they received, they had worked harder. Almost as many conceded that after receiving the tax cuts they had decided to work less hard. In a study specifically of accountants—men in suits, not fast-lane speculators; accountants whose job is to be responsible about money—did they save, invest, give to charity? Twenty-five per cent. said that they spent more, 13 per cent. simply went on more holidays and, after two years of tax cuts, 10 per cent. had decided to retire early.
  This has been the result of the £10,000 million to be given away by April 1992, yet the same money could have financed investment in skills and technology; it is being thrown away in a consumer boom, in holidays and in early retirement. The Government tell us that they are the efficient and responsible managers of the economy. If that is what was intended at that weekend in Chevening in January 1988, attended by the then Chief Secretary, now Prime Minister, by the then Financial Secretary, now Chancellor, and by the then Economic Secretary, now Trade and Industry Secretary, and if all these are the effects of that £8 billion give-away so far, that weekend must surely go down as the most expensive in British history.
  The weekend, the first gathering of the men of Chevening, was not a one-off event. The three—Chancellor, Trade and Industry Secretary and Prime Minister in their new roles—met again in January 1989 to plan another Budget, and when it was clear that what they had discussed in 1988 had gone wrong they took further action and interest rates went up again. They met again in January 1990, when it was clear that what they had discussed had gone wrong again. They decided to compound their previous offences, so the economy has been pushed into recession. These are the men who, after failing in the past and creating the problems that we now face, have the audacity to tell us that they can solve the problems of the future.
  It would be more convenient for the Trade and Industry Secretary if he could have moved straight from the City to his job at the DTI; it would be more convenient for the Prime Minister if he had moved from his position as social security Minister before 1987 to Prime Minister with no intervening period of economic responsibility, but the truth is that the present first Lord of the Treasury was also very recently the second Lord and before that the Chief Secretary. For three years the three talked and acted as if manufacturing industry did not matter—as if the trade deficit was of no consequence, as if a policy for industry was some sort of outdated, Marxist conspiracy. For three

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  years their actions were entirely consistent with their words. How can they expect now to have any credibility when they tell us, in contrast to everything they said and did before, that now somehow manufacturing matters, that somehow industry is a matter of close concern and that somehow the trade deficit is something that they recognise to be a problem?
  They cannot change their story, cover their tracks, deny responsibility or minimise the consequences of what they have done to manufacturing industry. We know where they were, what they said and what they did, and we know what has happened to British industry as a result. As their own Department of Industry inspectors would have it, they are not fit and proper persons to run an economy.
  As is now clear, Britain needs a new policy for industry, and that will require a new Government. We need a policy for industry to bridge the training gap with our competitors by setting high-quality standards and targets in a national strategy locally delivered, with a guarantee that all young people can enjoy training and all employers undertake it. We need a strategy to bridge the technology gap by encouraging companies to invest in civil research, encouraging more small firms to do more in near market research and by encouraging technology transfer in each region in a high-class scheme, so that even the smallest businesses have access to new technology as fast as possible. We need a policy to bridge the regional gap by creating regional development agencies and a new technology service in the regions—policies which we have proposed and will develop in our industry policy document, to be published next week.
  Here we have a Government whose Prime Minister promised us a classless society and opportunities for all. They are guilty of unfairness and incompetence, injustice and inefficiency. Britain needs a society that is built on social justice and on economic prosperity, where growth is both sustained and shared. For that, people will have to look to Labour.
  7.54 pm
  The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Peter Lilley): What a tour de force! Almost every fact that can be checked was wrong. Almost every policy that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) attributed to me was that of another group, laid out in a document that I neither wrote nor signed; and he brought forth not a single policy of his own of which any details were available.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East poses as a friend—
  Mr. Gordon Brown: Just on one of the many proposals that I put forward, what is the Secretary of State's objection to regional development agencies in England?
  Mr. Lilley: The fact is that they already exist.
  Mr. Brown: Will the Secretary of State, who seems to be an expert on these matters regional, tell us where these regional development agencies exist in Britain?
  Mr. Lilley: We have a budget of £4 million devoted to them every year. They cover a variety of regions.
  Mr. Brown: Does the Secretary of State agree that there are regional development agencies in Scotland and in Wales—the one in Scotland is to be renamed Scottish
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  Enterprise—but that at the moment there are no regional development agencies similar to those in England? If he does not know that, he is not fit to be Trade Secretary.
  Mr. Lilley: I am perfectly aware that the regional development agencies that exist do not have the full powers and budgets of those in the regions.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East three times repeated that we should introduce regional technology centres. They already exist. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East poses as a friend of manufacturing industry, but he has never had a single good word to say about the achievements of British industry in the past decade. Yet everyone actually involved in manufacturing knows that industry has been transformed since the 1970s. Every manager I meet knows that productivity has been transformed. Every employee I meet knows that industrial relations have been transformed. Every customer, particularly overseas customers, that I meet recognises that the quality of British products and the speed and reliability of their delivery have changed out of all recognition.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East described the past eleven and a half years as "a complete failure". Most people in business regard that as an ignorant insult. The Opposition may wish to return to the overmanned, unmanageable, strike-ridden, loss-making, state-dominated industry of the Labour 1970s—but no one else does.
  It is very much the hon. Member's style to denigrate what he pretends to befriend. He claims to be the friend of manufacturing but rubbishes its achievements. He claims to be a friend of Scotland but constantly runs down his country's performance. He claims to like the market but constantly harps on its failures, excesses and shortcomings. I suppose that I should take his personal criticisms of me as just an overture of friendship.
  The transformation in individual firms shows up in the performance of entire industries. Let us take the motor car industry, for example. During the 1960s and 1970s it received every kind of help that Labour Governments know how to give. They reorganised it, subsidised it, regionalised it, nationalised it and unionised it practically out of existence, until output was halved. Yet last week Hamish McRae, writing in The Independent said:
  "Amid the recessionary gloom, some cheer: one British industry is undergoing an utter renaissance. Within the next few years it will be in overall balance of trade surplus for the first time since the 1950s… it is the automotive industry, for so long the lame duck of British manufacturing… Export production over the six months to end-January was up 90 per cent. over the same period a year ago."
  That is the consequence of eleven and a half years of the policies that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East described as "a complete failure."
  As for manufacturing as a whole, the most important change of all is the turn-around in manufacturing productivity growth. In the 1960s we were bottom of the major industrial countries league, at two-thirds the average growth of productivity of the rest. In the 1970s, we were bottom again, and had slipped to half the average. Yet in the 1980s we saw the fastest rise in manufacturing productivity—faster even than that in Japan and more than twice as fast as that in Germany.
  Of immense long-term significance has been the secular recovery in profitability in the latter half of the 1980s, to the best levels for nearly 20 years. How significant,

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  therefore, that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East did not even utter the word "profits". It is profits—not Government subsidies, penalties or cajoling—that are the key to improved investment, more research and development and better training. Profits make spending on those activities both possible and attractive. Since 1979, business investment has risen by 50 per cent.—again faster than in both France and Germany. Manufacturing investment is as high a proportion of value added in this country as it is in Germany and a higher proportion than it is in the United States of America.
  In today's markets, it is not just quantity but quality that counts. My Department has led the way in encouraging total quality management systems. The British standard established in 1979 has effectively become the European and international standard. British companies are way out in front in gaining certification for quality. Already, 12,000 have done so. That compares with just 200 in France; and in Germany the process is only just getting off the ground. Does the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East think that that is evidence of a complete failure of industrial policy? What an insult to 12,000 high-quality companies.
  The growing competitiveness of British goods is demonstrated above all by the rise in exports—a rise of more than 50 per cent. over the past decade. Let us not forget that Britain exports 20 per cent. more per head than do the Japanese.
  The Labour party has opposed and criticised almost every measure that we have introduced to help and encourage British business.
  Mr. Tony Worthington: If we are so successful, why is it that we cannot afford to let the economy grow because our exports will be dwarfed by our imports?
  Mr. Lilley: The reason why we have to have a tough period of tight monetary policy is to get inflation down, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.
  Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Is not the money supply now firmly under control? Is not the Government's target of M0 between 0 per cent. and 5 per cent. per annum? Is not it rising at a little over 2 per cent? Is not the problem today that we have excessively high interest rates because we are in the ERM?
  Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend is right to point out that the money supply is within its target. I am not sure why he objects to that or to the measures that have brought it about.
  As I was saying, the Labour party has opposed and criticised almost every measure that we have introduced to help and encourage British business. When we cut corporation tax to one of the lowest rates in any of the industrialised countries, the Labour party opposed it. When we tackled the excessive union powers to which the Labour party's trade union paymasters were attached, Labour Members opposed every reform. When we returned 42 nationalised industries—many of which had cost taxpayers billions of pounds in subsidies—to the private sector, the Labour party opposed every single
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  denationalisation. Nowadays, Labour Members claim that they accept virtually all of the changes that they have opposed so vehemently over the years.
  Mr. Richard Caborn: The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the return to the private sector of publicly owned industries. Industry has to be helped with its electricity bills. The electricity bill of United Engineering Steels in my constituency—it is not a small company—is to rise by about 30 per cent. or £12 million. It was paying out about £50 million for electricity. That company has pointed out that that figure is 17 per cent. above what the French pay and 10 per cent. above what the Italians pay. It has been making strong representations because such an increase represents hundreds of jobs lost in the industries to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred, whose productivity has been increased once more and which have good industrial relations but which are now being crippled by an increase of about 30 per cent. in electricity charges.
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman knows that overall tariffs came down and that individual large users are in a position to negotiate better deals if they wish.
  Nowadays, the Labour party claims that it accepts all the changes that we have introduced and that it opposed. Can anyone doubt, however, that if Labour got back into power, it would tax and regulate, and renationalise, British industry as it has always done? British industry certainly does not need friends like that.
  I know that the present recession is painful, although this time manufacturing is bearing proportionately less of the burden than in past recessions, and services are bearing rather more. The defeat of inflation has to be our overriding priority. The very severity of the present measures means that inflation is likely to come down all the more rapidly.
  Mr. Giles Radice: The Minister may have seen the latest CBI report, which shows that manufacturing investment is going to fall very sharply; indeed, it is already falling. What do the Government propose to do about that?
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman will hear shortly of some measures that I am introducing, which have been announced today. [HON. MEMBERS: "What are they?"] I shall come to them shortly.
  As a result, subject to the disciplines of the exchange rate mechanism, in time, interest rates will come down further too. Output will recover and non-inflationary growth will resume. By contrast, the siren voices of Opposition Members urge us to cut interest rates prematurely and push the pound down. That would give a jolt to costs and inflationary expectations. The agony of getting inflation down would be indefinitely prolonged. Cannot Opposition Members see that?
  There is a clear choice—on the one hand, an inevitably painful recession, resulting in the prize of low inflation and a rapid return to non-inflationary growth, and, on the other, a self-defeating attempt to escape the pain, which would entrench inflation, bring back high interest rates and result in the prolonged agony of stagflation.
  The most significant thing about the speech by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East is what he did not say about inflation. He did not say that Labour would make the defeat of inflation a priority. That is all the more odd

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  because the Opposition are pretty promiscuous with their priorities. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East last week made a reduction in interest rates his top priority. On the "Today" programme during the week, he added Government investment in industry as top of his "rigorous choice of priorities".
  Tonight he has added getting output rising again, training, regional assistance and investment in the regions to his growing list. The Labour party's approach to priorities reminds me of that of the Congolese president who, to cope with discontent in his army, promoted everyone to the rank of colonel. Labour has promoted almost everything to the rank of priority.
  There is one conspicuous exception. Labour Members have not mentioned the defeat of inflation as one of their priorities. To be fair, they have never really pretended that it is a priority. We can tell that from their attitude to interest rates—whatever the level, they advocate a cut, regardless of its impact on sterling in the ERM. The House knows that they have no response to inflation—except, when it comes to it, devaluation. Labour has always been the party of devaluation: it is still, at heart, the party of devaluation. It is the party that fuels inflation rather than defeats it.
  Mr. Budgen: My right hon. Friend refers to devaluation, but devaluation does not cause inflation, does it? My right hon. Friend will agree that devaluation has an effect on some prices but not on all prices.
  Mr. Lilley: Measures that cause the weakness of the pound cause inflation.
  Mr. Alex Carlile: Are we to take it from what the right hon. Gentleman has said that the Government are ruling out completely any question of devaluation, whether under that or any other name?
  Mr. Lilley: Of course we do; of course. There is no question, having entered the exchange rate mechanism, of not sticking by the disciplines of it. [Interruption.] That is scarcely a discipline.
  Mr. Worthington: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Lilley: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once already; I shall not do so again.
  Let me deal now with the subject of innovation. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East was right to emphasise its importance—particularly for manufacturing. It is absolutely crucial. But saying that it is important is not a policy. Denigrating industry's achievements in innovation is not a policy. Saying that there is not enough research and development is not a policy.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East simply has no coherent policy on the issue. The key is to recognise that the prime source of spending on research and development must be companies themselves. In the late 1970s, when profits were squeezed to the bone and the tax rate was 52 per cent., it was small wonder that spending on research and development was pitiful. But as profits have been restored, spending on research and development has accelerated. Over the last five years for which figures are available, it rose by nearly 50 per cent. in real terms and any research and development problem that this country may have certainly does not spring from lack of spending by Government.
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  The British Government spend nearly £3 billion a year on civil research and development. That is more, as a percentage of gross domestic product, than Japan and the United States. What is more, our academic scientific research effort has been outstandingly successful. Our scientists have won more Nobel prizes than those of any other country except the United States, and 13 times as many as the Japanese.
  But, as a country, we have not until recently been successful at exploiting industrially that wealth of scientific talent. The Government have to help to bring industry and the scientific community together. One way to do so is by establishing industrial science parks alongside our universities.
  I was delighted to see that Labour's previous policy document recognised the value of science parks. But the previous Labour Government treated them with what George Brown once called "a total ignoral". There were just two science parks at universities when they came to power, and there were still only two when they departed in 1979. Today there are 39 science parks in our universities—and 22 more are planned.
  Mr. Keith Vaz: Does the Minister accept that it is not just about winning prizes? Mention has been made of the firm Bridgeport Manufacturing in Leicester, which won the Queen's award for industry in 1986. However, six months ago it had to make 100 people redundant because of Government policy. What words of comfort can the Minister offer the employees of Bridgeport Manufacturing, which now faces closure?
  Mr. Lilley: It is not just a question of winning prizes, which was my earlier point. I know that it is painful for many companies facing the current recession, but it would be far more painful to act foolishly, cut and run, and take soft options. That would mean a prolonged agony rather than a short, sharp shock.
  Smaller firms play an important part in science parks and can play a particularly impressive role in bringing new technology to the market place. Two weeks ago, I announced a new scheme, SPUR—support for products under research—which provides 30 per cent. grants up to a maximum of £150,000, for the development of new products and processes.
  Today, I have announced two further schemes to help smaller firms. One of those schemes will provide grants of up to £50,000 for expert consultants to help firms introduce modern manufacturing systems. The second scheme will help smaller firms to use local experts—from universities, polytechnics and research organisations—to solve technological problems. Together with SPUR, they will give a £50 million boost to innovation by smaller companies. That is a 25 per cent. increase in the grants available for smaller firms to encourage innovation.
  The Confederation of British Industry has welcomed those measures, saying:
  "This is just what we wanted and goes a long way towards meeting our recommendations".
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East made a number of mistakes in his speech, but the most glaring of all was his suggestion that we had cut the technology transfer budget by 22 per cent.
  Mr. Gordon Brown: I said 2 per cent.
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman is wrong either way, because the figure is on page 12 of the report.

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  [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman has the report, and that makes it all the more reprehensible that he gave a false figure. The report shows that technology transfer will almost double from £11 million to £21 million over the next year. Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw his allegation?
  Mr. Brown: The report states that, for 1991–92, £21 million will be spent and that for 1993–94, £20 million will be spent. If that is not a cut, what is? That does not take account of inflation, so the real value is being cut.
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman calls that a 2 per cent. cut, but the amount will be nearly doubled over the next year.
  Mr. Brown: The House should be aware that the forecast for the Minister's budget for 1991–92 is £21 million; for 1992–93 it is £20 million; and by 1993–94 it will be £20 million—a cut from £21 million to £20 million, and the figure stays at £20 million. The real value is cut even further
  Mr. Lilley: That illustrates the hon. Gentleman's use of statistics. For the last full year the outcome was £11 million. In the current year it is estimated to be £18 million and the budget for next year is £21 million.
  This is an Opposition day so it was a reasonable hope that we would get an opportunity to discuss Opposition policies in depth. Labour's advance publicists have been trailing for some weeks the impending publication of the party's new industry policy. We were told it was at the printers in January. Then it was being revised in early February. Then it was due to be endorsed by the National Executive yesterday, to be issued in time for this debate.
  An eager world opened its newspapers this morning hoping that news of Labour's new policies would provide light relief from news of the Gulf war—only to find no mention of any policies. Perhaps the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East can tell us what has become of them. Were they rejected by the NEC? Is the Labour party still searching for a policy? Was it afraid to expose its new policies to the rigours of a parliamentary debate that Labour Members called?
  Mr. Brown: Let us get things right. I said that the document would be issued today. Does the right hon. Gentleman not recall that I said at the end of the debate that the document would be issued on Monday?
  Mr. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman's friends in the press have been widely trailing its publication for some time and he did not bother to deny those reports. Today, he has made it clear that he will deliberately not publish the document until after today's debate. That is a contempt of Parliament. What would happen if the Government called a debate and announced that they would publish their policy document the week afterwards? Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman's speech did little to fill the gap left by the failure to publish the document.
  Whenever it comes to talking about Labour's policies the hon. Gentleman is as coy as a Victorian spinster talking about sex. He prefers to avoid the subject, refuses to discuss the interesting details and, if forced to discuss it, takes refuge in euphemisms. His speech today and previous policy documents are full of vague words about
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  partnership and co-operation, about encnuraging this, helping that, sustaining the other and supporting almost everything else. Gone is the old coarse vocabulary of socialism.
  I thought that it might help hon. Members if I gave them a glossary of Labour newspeak; culled from Labour's existing policy documents. Partnership state means corporate state, a levy means a tax, training investment contribution means another tax, help means subsidise, support means subsidise, sustain means subsidise a lame duck, encourage means compel, fairer taxes means higher taxes, close tax loopholes means higher taxes, a strategy means the absence of any policies, new strategy means ditching old policies without replacing them and social ownership means nationalisation.
  The hon. Gentleman has to revert to that code because of Beckett's rule: Labour will not make any new spending commitments "until resources allow". Therefore, it is reasonable to ask whether the plans that the hon. Gentleman claimed to present to the House this evening—for training, technology, the regions and a budget for incentives—would increase public spending. Have they been cleared by the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett)? In the hon. Gentleman's view, should those policies be implemented today or must they wait until resources allow? The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East has been keen to intervene. Can he give us the answer to any one of those questions? I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East is now even more coy than he was before. If he cannot tell us whether his policies cost anything, they cannot add up to a row of beans.
  The Labour party may have abandoned its old rhetoric and ceased to use its old socialist vocabulary, but it has not lost its old prejudices. When considering policies, it still automatically thinks in terms of extending state control over businesses and people's lives and of controlling industries through subsidies and state handouts.
  Dr. Kim Howells: I shall quote in oldspeak from the latest edition of the magazine of the National Federation of Self Employed and Small Businesses, which states:
  "Even at this late hour we call upon the Government to act with a greater degree of responsibility and thought for the future of Britain's business. There is little point in carrying out major surgery if the majority of patients die from lack of oxygen."
  That is straightforward oldspeak—what will the Secretary of State do about it?
  Mr. Lilley: The Opposition singularly fail to tell us what they propose to do in the short or long term. We have made it clear that our priority is to reduce inflation. The Opposition have not mentioned inflation and have no policies for getting rid of it. They did not spell out their policies for the longer term, but spelt out their prejudices. They still ultimately believe in picking winners, steering investment and setting priorities for British industry. Those are the sort of policies that we have seen from successive Labour Governments over the years—we have seen everything from groundnut schemes to De Lorean motor cars. Labour economics are De Lorean economics—plausible, expensive and fundamentally fraudulent. By contrast, our policy is tried and tested. It is to remove regulations and controls, reward success and enterprise by

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  cutting taxes, privatise state industries, promote competition and open markets abroad by enthusiastically supporting the European single market and the GATT free trade talks. As my announcement today demonstrates, we vigorously support industrial innovation.
  Our industrial policy has laid the foundation for British manufacturing to emerge from the recession stronger, healthier and more prosperous in the 1990s than ever before.
  8.21 pm
  Mr. Ken Eastham: There is no doubt that we are now in a deep recession. It is the second recession in 10 years. Some people call it a slump. I was thinking about the subject only this morning and decided to look at the dictionary. The definition of "recession" includes
  "A period… reduction in trade."
  The definition of "slump" was
  "a decline suddenly in value, volume or esteem."
  I believe that the word "slump" is appropriate in today's debate because we are in a grave position. Despite the claims made in 1980 and 1981 that all the sacrifices the workers had made would bring an improvement on the industrial front with prosperity for all, we have nothing. Now, 10 years later, we are in a far worse slump than we had in 1980–81.
  I am a member of the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which has prepared a survey called "Crisis at Home", published on 14 February 1991. I think hon. Members will agree that it is current and completely up to date. It analyses the job loss announcements made in February this year. The survey is divided into seven regions. The first region, Scotland, forecast job losses for February 1991 of 1,653, The second region, the north-west and north Wales, has predicted job losses of 3,461. The third region, the north-east and Yorkshire, has predicted job losses of 4,804. The fourth region, the west midlands, has predicted job losses of 7,542. The fifth region, the east midlands and east Anglia, has predicted job losses of 4,991. The sixth region, the south-west and south Wales, has predicted job losses of 3,907. The seventh region, the south-east and London, has predicted job losses of 7,330. The total of declared job losses for February 1991 is 33,688.
  Mr. Roy Beggs: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the job loss figures do not include those for Northern Ireland? It is a disgrace that, after so long, Northern Ireland employment figures are not available with those of other regions.
  Mr. Eastham: I readily agree with the hon. Gentleman. We often forget to include the dreadful Northern Ireland figures. When he replies, perhaps the Minister will spend a little time trying to explain the Government's position in relation to the whole of Britain, including Northern Ireland.
  The job losses I mentioned will be in spite of the sacrifices made by, and the co-operation of, people in industry. Employers called for flexibility and co-operation and the Government spoke about it time and again, but we now face massive job losses.
  The British Foundry Association has just completed a report, which was published in January 1991. The foundry industry is important, despite its serious problems of the past 10 years. The report stated that in 1988 the industry
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  employed 52,000 workers, many of whom now find their jobs under serious threat. Coming as I do from the engineering industry, I am conscious of the foundry industry's special problems in relation to the environment and pollution. Those problems are serious, but they could be dealt with if there were Government support.
  Countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands also have foundry industries, but they are given considerable Government support to overcome the pollution problems. My question to the Government and the Minister is: why does not British industry receive the same support as Germany, France and the Netherlands? Within the foundry industry there is also increasing competition from India, China, Poland and Turkey.
  A simple example of the day-to-day problems in the industry involves a rather humorous but important aspect of the industry—manhole covers. The current output of manhole covers in the foundry industry is 80,000 tonnes a year, but 60,000 tonnes of covers are under threat from imports from third-world countries. In 1986 only 622 tonnes of manhole covers were imported from India and China. However, in 1990 the figure increased to 12,000 tonnes worth £3·2 million. The Government must recognise that the foundry industry is vital and that it deserves valid and serious support.
  A few years ago the British machine tool industry was considered to be the world leader. Only this morning I spoke to representatives from that industry and I asked them about the current position. One representative told me that it was absolutely horrible. He told me that in December 1990 new orders for the last quarter of that year were down 31·5 per cent. in comparison to the same quarter in 1989. He put that down to interest rates, exchange rates and a lack of confidence generally in the industry. The machine tool industry is suffering as a consequence of the lack of confidence in the engineering industry generally. There is no opportunity to plan for the future.
  Last December I attended a meeting in the House with Professor Roland Smith about British Aerospace and the declaration that 3,000 jobs would soon be lost in the industry. Professor Smith outlined the grave situation facing the industry and said that there was a serious possibility that two factories would close. During the meeting he said that, with the present combination of high exchange rates, high interest rates and high inflation, not even the Archangel Gabriel could manage a business successfully. He said that, of those three factors, the exchange rate was the most serious. He said that politicians and the Government must decide whether Britain wants an aerospace industry which at present is number one in Europe. It is obvious that the Germans are waiting in the wings hoping that the Government will ultimately destroy our aerospace industry so that they can become prominent in that vital industry.
  On the industrial front nearer to home, Ferranti's Moston factory is in my constituency. The company was established in about 1906 and now 650 jobs are threatened at the factory. Earlier today the trade union representatives advised me that they no longer have craft apprentices in the company and there are no plans for them in future. There are two other Ferranti companies close to Manchester. At the Cairo mill 400 jobs are at risk, and at the Derker mill another 200 jobs are seriously threatened.

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  Workers were encouraged to buy shares in Ferranti when the shares were selling at about 70p each. Some workers spent their life savings on shares. Those shares are now valued at about 9p. As we see Ferranti tottering under this Government, it is interesting to note that the Labour Government, through the National Enterprise Board, saved Ferranti from liquidation. They revived it. After 10 hard years of this Tory Government, Ferranti is once again tottering and may collapse completely.
  There is no doubt that there is a national haemorrhage of jobs. The newspapers are full of the complete loss of confidence in commerce and industry. Indeed, when I read of bartering for goods in the high streets, I am reminded of my days in the Army. British shopping centres now seem like Arab bazaars, thanks once again to this very unsuccessful Tory Government.
  We all recall that everything was swinging during the 1980s. The yuppies used to do well. They would tank it up and buy bottles of champagne at lunchtime and tell everyone that they were so successful. However, they did not produce anything. One of my old friends who used to be a Member of this place died a few months ago. He told me that all those yuppies, spivs and wheeler-dealers in the 1980s never made anything; in fact, they did not even make a mousetrap. However, they made all the money during the 1980s. I wonder where they have gone now because they are certainly not around at the moment. They have disappeared as industry and commerce and the general industrial base of this country have collapsed.
  During the early days of the Government in 1980 and 1981 a Tory told us that the unemployed should get on their bikes. Someone else said that people should get ladders and buckets and clean windows. He said that he would clean our windows and we would clean his. We would not produce anything, but that was a solution for the unemployment problem in 1980–81. Alas, we have come full circle and we face the same problem.
  We have 300 years supply of coal, we have our own natural gas, and we are one of the world's leading oil producers, but we still cannot compete with other European countries. That is absurd. There must be something wrong in our economy if that is the position in which we, a so-called industrialised nation, find ourselves.
  It is obvious, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) said, that we must get down to producing quality goods and exporting goods. The conspiracy of not facing up to our economic position must change. There is no doubt that that will happen only with a change of Government.
  8.39 pm
  Mr. Charles Wardle: I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham) said about job losses in engineering. I hope that he accepts that the greatest threat to jobs in engineering, as to any sector of industry, is inflation.
  Whenever the House debates manufacturing, strident claims fly from one party to another about who would do what for the benefit of industry. However, when the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) spoke, he did
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  not make it clear which he regarded as the greater evil to manufacturing industry—high interest rates or high inflation. He appeared to skirt that point.
  Whether those who work at the sharp end of manufacturing industry and who have to cope with the dynamics of the market place day in and day out would set much store by what is said on these occasions is not for me to speculate on. I have no doubt that those who work in manufacturing would tell the House that there is one abiding fact of industrial life that transcends all debates about productivity, about marketing, about technology and about supply-side reforms and the rest. The single greatest contribution that any Government can make to private sector manufacturing is to contain inflation.
  The ability to keep inflation down to negligible levels allows well-run companies and highly motivated work forces to make a worthwhile contribution within the virtuous circle of price stability, low interest rates, competitiveness and a strong balance of payments. I imagine that few hon. Members would dispute the fact that the root cause of the current recession was the need to cope with an economy that overheated after the G7 countries agreed to relax controls following the 1987 stock market crash. In the debate on the Gracious Speech in November 1989, I predicted that the recession would begin in late-1990.
  In spite of a three-year boom for industry, with record levels of investment during those three years, there had to be a day of reckoning if inflation was not to run riot with all the disastrous consequences of that scenario. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer places so much emphasis on tight fiscal policy and on the need to maintain high interest rates until inflation can be seen to be falling sharply. In that regard, the exchange rate mechanism and the present sterling-deutschmark exchange rate is not a trap. It is a worthwhile discipline because the currency markets will sell sterling at the slightest hint that the Chancellor's resolve is weakening in the fight against inflation.
  By complete contrast, Opposition Members, especially the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) in a debate on the economy last week, appear to want a large cut in interest rates now, plus fiscal incentives for more capital investment and still more spent on the infrastructure. All that that would achieve would be a little instant relief for industry. There would then be a painful resurgence of inflation a little later with many more receiverships and bankruptcies, and still higher unemployment than is now in contemplation.
  In 1974, the Labour Government made the same mistake of softening their approach when it would have been wiser to impose tough disciplines in which industry could have operated. The result was capital investment allowances for more plant and machinery than was justified by market demand and tax relief on the inflationary increase in stock values which encouraged manufacturers to build merely for the warehouse shelves. It left industry in 1979 overmanned, overstocked and vulnerable to the worldwide downturn which came in 1980.
  Yet once again, Labour policies are for instant relief from the pain of recession today without any regard to the even greater setback to competitiveness and to industrial strength that would swiftly follow. If some distinguished economists and, perhaps, some of my hon. Friends have similar faith in those nostrums, I must say, with respect,

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  that there is no painless path from an inflation-ridden economy to one that emulates the German success story. The French learned that a decade ago to their cost.
  I do not dispute the uncertainty, anxiety and discomfort of the recession, which is likely to get worse in terms of company failures and of job losses before it gets better. However, things will improve most rapidly if the Chancellor sticks to his policies with a tight grip on public spending and cuts in interest rates only when inflation falls away, as it surely will this year.
  There are many problems in any recession. Perhaps none of them would have occurred this time if Britain had entered the ERM with lower inflation and lower interest rates in 1985. However, there is no point in jobbing backwards. Manufacturers might be helped if an independent Bank of England were to assume control of exchange rate policy at a full arm's length from politicians of all parties. The sterling-dollar exchange rate undoubtedly still puts British industry in a seriously uncompetitive position, but that will not change overnight either.
  Difficulties also exist in industry because too little attention was paid in the recent boom to the cash-flow requirements for tax, dividends and investment. As a result of that and of a manic taste in some quarters for takeovers financed by junk paper, industry is now far too highly geared for its own good. The bankers, whose soft lending policies helped many companies into their present financial mess, do themselves no credit by denying responsibility for helping the greedy and for ignoring the belt-and-braces fundamentals of lending against good asset cover and strong interest cover.
  Whatever the difficulties, there is only one sure way to economic recovery, and renewed growth and competitiveness for manufacturing industry. It is to stick with the Government's present policies, no matter how painful they are in the short-term, and to show the world, especially the currency markets, that we are determined to reduce inflation once and for all. On that basis, good management and properly motivated work forces will be able to combine their skills to build future prosperity.
  8.46 pm
  Mr. Alex Carlile: Like most hon. Members, I find myself from time to time, either face to face or by letter, responding to a request for advice from a young man or woman who asks me what sort of job he or she should go into. As I am a lawyer, young people often ask me about careers in the law, and in accountancy and related matters. The best advice that anyone who is asked that question can give at the moment is that a young person should become an insolvency practitioner. That is the one part of the legal and accountancy professions in which redundancies are not taking place, in which there are plenty of openings and in which high salaries are available. An insolvency practitioner administers. the affairs of failing companies and tries to realise assets. What he is really doing is presiding over the demise of industry, and over the collapse of local enterprise and the loss of jobs.
  At lunch time today, I was in one of the great department stores of this city, in Oxford street. It was empty. I went to a number of tills to pay for various articles and I did not have to wait at any of them as one would expect to do at the busiest time of a weekday. If one goes into a car sale room in any part of the country to buy
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  a new car, the state of the market is such that it is possible to obtain discounts even on cars that were sold at a premium a year or two ago. A proprietor of a business dealing in second-hand cars told me a short time ago that if one went into a garage where second-hand cars were for sale, especially large ones, one could buy them at huge discounts because the motor market was utterly depressed.
  In my constituency of Montgomery, we have experienced two major industrial problems in recent months. The most recent announcement in my area was to the effect that the Tootal tie factory in Newtown would be closed. I assure those male hon. Members who wear five different ties a week that the chances are that on at least one day they will have worn a tie made in Newtown, under whatever brand name it was sold. More than 100 jobs were to be lost in the closure. Fortunately, the Development Board for Rural Wales introduced another company and, at any rate for the time being, 50 jobs have been saved. The Tootal factory had been there for a long time and seemed as safe as any industry in the area.
  The largest manufacturing company in my constituency, the Laura Ashley group, faced considerable restructuring recently, which was rationalised only by a Japanese conglomerate taking a significant shareholding in the company. The other part of the Laura Ashley rescue plan, apart from the injection of Japanese capital, was simple—stop manufacturing clothing in the United Kingdom and make the articles abroad, though not elsewhere in the European Community. Factories have been closed not only in Wales but elsewhere in the Community, and the company is now manufacturing goods in Hungary. Soon it could be manufacturing them in Poland, or elsewhere. I know that that is excellent for the economies of east and central Europe, but it shows a malaise in British industry.
  As the Secretary of State suggested, industry has reformed itself in many ways, and that is to be welcomed. Manufacturing processes have been reformed in a way that has made them more efficient, and industrial relations have been transformed, with archaic practices being expunged from British industry. I acknowledge the part that the Government have played in that.
  That having been achieved, those running industry are now saying, "We have done what we were asked to do. We have swallowed the medicine over the years. Why are we now suffering yet another recession? What more are we supposed to do to meet the requirements placed on us by the Government? After all, the Government assured us that their policies were right."
  Industry is not helped when it sees, as has happened in this debate, a Minister and the Front-Bench spokesman of the Labour party cooking the books as they spoke. An exchange that occurred earlier about the technology transfer budget should be revealing to the great British public. The Conservative party says that when something goes down, it has gone up, whereas the Labour party says that when something goes up, it has gone down, and they are both wrong—[Interruption.] They cook the books in such a way that their efforts are about as sophisticated as the cookery involved in a hard-boiled egg.
  Both sides should be telling the truth. British industry is entitled to be told that part of Government policy has been to raise the technology transfer budget, but, for reasons which I hope will be explained by the Minister later in the debate, having raised it—presumably because they thought it needed to be raised—they then decided to

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  cut it back by £1 million. It seems an extraordinary state of affairs that we cannot have straight speaking on such matters.
  It is meretricious for the Government to say that their policy is working. If it were working, we would not have both high inflation and a slump in manufacturing output and employment. It would be more forgivable if we were watching a Government sticking either to Adam Smith or Maynard Keynes, to some principle. Instead, we see the Government sticking to sticking plaster.
  Today we had an announcement about some small programmes simply because we are having a debate in the House on trade and industry. A little extra technological help is to be given to small companies. I wonder why that announcement was made today. Last week we had a debate on the economy, and on the morning of that debate an announcement was made of a reduction of 0·5 per cent. in interest rates. Why was it made on that day? On the eve of the Conservative party conference last year there was an announcement of a reduction in interest rates. I wonder why it was made on that day.
  That is not policy. It is sticking plaster, and industrialists realise it. They have no confidence in a Government who use that approach and who seem bereft of clear policy. I suspect that something similar will occur in the coming few weeks. The Budget is next month, and we shall witness at least a significant cut in interest rates and a prospective cut in local taxation, not for the sake of sound, structured, well argued policy, but because an election is coming up, and it will occur probably sooner rather than later.
  Massive interventionism will not work any more than sticking plaster. I hope that the Labour party will not subject us, as one might suspect from what has been said in the debate, to an economic policy which will make us recall what happened to companies such as the Rootes group in the 1960s and De Lorean subsequently.
  It is not fair to blame the market place. Germany, Italy, France and all our other competitors in the European Community work in the market place, but they are not affected to anything like the same extent by the depression and malaise that are affecting British industry. We need a more ambitious approach by Government to the future of British industry.
  Mr. Budgen: What does that mean?
  Mr. Cathie: There is plenty of which to be proud in British industry. As has been said, we have one of the most inventive scientific work forces in the world, but unfortunately, as people see money being taken out of science and technology, they are going abroad. We recently debated the Science and Engineering Research Council. It is clear that the cuts that were discussed during that debate will lead to a new brain drain of our brightest and best young PhDs who should be here to develop British industry for the future.
  Of course, the Government have a part to play in industrial policy. It is not enough to stand by and simply let things happen on a free-for-all basis. The Government's role is, in part, to do those things that industry cannot do for itself. That means providing a stable macro-economic environment, especially with regard to inflation, interest rates and the exchange rate. The Government can
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  intervene by ensuring that competition policy—I mean both pro and anti-competition policy, as appropriate—is enforced rigorously, nationally and internationally, and especially in Europe.
  The Government also have a role to play in influencing the way in which the City of London operates. I do not share the Labour party's knee-jerk criticism of bankers, stockbrokers and insurance underwriters as I think that they do a valuable job in earning foreign exchange and in ensuring that the United Kingdom is at least a major financial market. The financial market earns good and meritorious money for this country. However, I do criticise the way in which the City attempts to make its money in connection with venture capital. There is a need for a much more well-devised venture capital environment in this country. City merchant bankers spend much of their time doing nothing much more than churning fees. The takeover and merger booms that we have experienced recently are not beneficial to the efficient performance of manufacturing industry, but they are beneficial to fee-earning in the City of London. The Government should go to the City and say, "Spend a bit less of your time trying to change the structure of British industry and a bit more of your time trying to put venture capital into British industry to develop its continuing growth and success."
  The Government should also tackle many other policy areas. They should remedy the flaw in the 1984 corporation tax reforms, which has resulted in corporate tax bills increasing with inflation. In our view, they should support the move to a single European currency. They should reduce the bureaucracy of Government Departments dealing with taxation. They should increase investment in the transport infrastructure.
  British manufacturers are not asking the Government to do their job for them; they are not asking for hand-outs. They want a Government who recognise their economic importance and who are prepared to play their part.
  9.2 pm
  Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Before becoming a Member of the House, I spent many happy days in opposition to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), and I used to admire him in those days. However, I did not find his speech this evening as brisk, detailed or compelling as some of his speeches that I heard before we were elected to this House. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to rest his argument tonight mainly on vague generalities.
  However, there was something much sadder about the speech of the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham), who spoke most movingly about the recession in his constituency. He seemed to imply that the Government had wished for such a recession. There is, of course, an intellectual vacuity at the centre of this debate, because it is distorted and darkened by the agreement between the two Front Benches about entry into the exchange rate mechanism. The attachment of a fixed exchange rate is the crucial factor that has brought this country and our manufacturing industry to its present state. The hon. Member for Blackley rightly said that we had a great boom between 1986 and 1988, that we are now correcting that and that that correction is unpleasant. However, we must ask why we had that boom. Why was it so excessive? The answer is at least in part because we

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  were then informal members of the exchange rate mechanism. We were shadowing the deutschmark and, as a result and for domestic reasons, our interest rates were much too low.
  There were other reasons, such as an over-correction of the stock exchange fall in October 1987. But the principal reason was the shadowing of the deutschmark. Why are monetary conditions too tight now? Why is manufacturing feeling such an excessive squeeze? It is because we are constrained by being formal members of the exchange rate mechanism now and we cannot reduce our interest rates as quickly as we would wish.
  The Labour party, desiring so much to appear middle class and respectable and believing that to appear European is to appear respectable, has lost all intellectual rigour and cannot explain that, having changed its position, it has made as big a mistake as the Government have made in entering a fixed exchange rate mechanism.
  But there is also a great deal that is ironic in this mock debate between the two Front-Bench teams in which each complains about the level of subsidy and distortion that will occur in the future. What will happen if we stick to the exchange rate mechanism? I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman)—such a noble exponent of the exchange rate mechanism—come into the Chamber. If we enter the next stage of economic and monetary union, it will not be until 1 January 1994 when we shall enter a system of irrevocably locked exchange rates. A great deal of instability can occur between now and 1 January 1994 because ours is such a big, important and much-traded currency to enter the mechanism and the process of waiting is inherently unstable.
  Let us assume for the sake of argument that we are stuck for some time in the fixed exchange rate mechanism. What will happen? Let us consider the distortion that will spread throughout the economy. At present we have a pay policy in the private sector which is being run by illegal exhortation. The Government keep attempting to persuade private employers that they should pay less. Yet we have the irony that the Government have offered to pay their employees pay increases of between 8 and 12 per cent. per annum.
  We saw the whole process of distortion in the economy given a respectability by my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) who suggested in a recent debate that we should have some form of formal pay policy. But it will not stop there, because, of course, when my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister finds that we have the same rate of inflation as the other European countries, he may find that the speculators, for other reasons, still put pressure on the value of the pound as against the deutschmark.
  So we shall find that the old arguments about import substitution and encouraging exporters come along. We shall be back into the old round of supporting one lot of industry or another and one lot of subsidies or another. When he opened the debate, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State talked about the grants and subsidies that the present Government are giving to manufacturing. All that will become much worse if we stick to the fixed exchange rate mechanism.
  A floating exchange rate is not merely a symbol of a free economy. It is a necessity of a free economy. If we have a fixed exchange rate, it will work its distortion throughout every element of the economy. We shall have to have
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  subsidies and distortions everywhere. It will be damaging to British manufacturing industry and it will distort manufacturing industry. When we return to floating exchange rates, we shall find that manufacturing industry is in a weakened condition, as, indeed, it was in 1979. It will be quite unable to stand up to the competition that inevitably comes with a return to floating exchange rates. It is a great tragedy that there is no proper debate about that in the House.
  In order to appear respectable, middle class and European, the Opposition adopted the policy of supporting the ERM. That was a great mistake. They should remember the humiliations of poor Mr. Wilson when he tried to defend a fixed exchange rate. Similar humiliations will come the way of this Government.
  9.10 pm
  Mr. Robert Litherland: The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry said that manufacturing has been transformed. I suppose that is one way to put it. We in the north-west would say that it has been decimated. Since the industrial revolution the north-west has played a vital role in our country's economy. Manchester and its conurbation were once thriving, vibrant areas offering employment in heavy and light industrial engineering, in chemicals, wire manufacturing and textiles. Name it, and the north-west could provide it. All that has changed with the collapse of manufacturing in our area.
  Firms with household names and international reputations vanished overnight. Workers were thrown on the streets and the factory gates were slammed in their faces. Firms closed for ever. Week after week in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, companies were closed. Some factories that had provided jobs for workers' fathers, grandfathers and even great-grandfathers ceased production. One firm that had been in existence for more than 200 years finally succumbed and went under. Most of those firms were stripped of all their assets and the machinery was sold to the Chinese and others. The area was deprived of its dignity and the consequences for workers' lives were disastrous. Workers who derived a living, however meagre, were deprived of the opportunity to use their skills to earn that living. They were let down and demoralised.
  These issues have been debated time and again in the Chamber, and now when I consider speaking in such a debate I have difficulty in finding a major labour-intensive company in my constituency. Most such companies are now mere memories in the form of derelict, half-demolished buildings. According to the Government, all was not lost. They have had schemes to retrain and revitalise the north-west. At least, that is how the story goes. High-sounding words such as competitiveness, confidence and cohesion were bandied about, but they meant little to people who were still out of work. My constituency has the second highest unemployment rate in the country, topped only by the constituency of Liverpool, Riverside, which, if my geography serves me right, is also in the north-west.
  Workers jumped with joy, full of ecstasy, when they heard that his grace the Duke of Westminster was to assist in solving their problems. Here was a lad who knew what poverty meant. Fantastic; all that we need now is a fairy godmother. We in the north-west ask ourselves which is the myth and which is the reality. Is there or has there been

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  a resurgence of bringing prosperity to the region? Have the Government given additional resources and facilities to industry in the north-west in order to regenerate the area?
  The one industry that always gives an indication and is a barometer on which to judge economic viability is the construction industry. A trade inquiry report published this month by the Building Employers Confederation warns of a deepening recession and shows a sharp fall in output. It says that the slowdown is affecting all regions, and that will send icy shivers down the spine of every construction worker and small building business in the north-west, because they know from experience that our region will be greatly affected by any downturn. The report says that the likely consequences of the recession are
  "the first major decline in building output since…1982 the sharpest deterioration in new orders in a single trading quarter since…1980
  falling tender prices and wafer thin margins
  rapidly rising unemployment".
  It estimates that 150,000 jobs will be lost and that training in the industry will inevitably suffer. The report also shows that manpower, whether skilled or unskilled, is readily available. Materials are in good supply. There are no undue worries about finding carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, builders or other workers. In other words, the operatives, the skills and the materials are available, but the economic climate to enable all these human and material resources to be put to good use does not exist.
  According to the Building Employers Confederation, the Government's commitment to maintaining the value of sterling and their reluctance to cut interest rates are leading to a bitter and deep recession. The building employers say that a cut of 1 or 2 per cent. in interest rates would be most unlikely to prevent a fall in building industry output this year. The prospect of the gloom ahead is not lessened by the CBI's suggestion that the demand for factories and warehouses will remain depressed throughout the year. And this comes from Tory Government friends—the very people who put money into the Tory coffers at election times.
  Where is the revitalisation to meet the needs of the people in the north-west? When I refer to the needs of the people of the north-west, I sincerely mean their real needs. The north-west business leadership team tells us that it is committed to the long-term prosperity and well-being of the region. I do not for one moment doubt that group's good intentions, but long-term prosperity means little or nothing to a worker who has been issued with his or her redundancy notice. It is always the same story: light at the end of the tunnel, a cloud with a silver lining, jam tomorrow. Meanwhile, the cupboard remains bare for the majority of people in the north-west.
  It is a sick society that has the necessary work force, skills and materials, yet is not allowed to build homes, hospitals, schools, roads and bridges to meet the needs of its people. The Government have repeatedly failed the north-west. The present recession can be placed firmly on the doorstep of No. 10 Downing street. The Prime Minister, in his former role as Chancellor of the Exchequer, was instrumental in creating the mess that we have today. At the weekend he was up in the north-west, clutching at straws, hoping to salvage seats. What a forlorn hope. For him, Iancashire is already lost. It is
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  strange that we never see a Prime Minister or a Chancellor visiting factories that are about to close, despite the fact that they would be most welcome in such places.
  The north-west has had more than its share of unemployment, more than its share of bad housing, more than its share of poor environment, more than its share of ill health and poverty. After 12 years of Conservative government, we have homeless people on the streets of Manchester and an escalation in violent crime. We have had more than our share of deprivation. The north-west is asking when it will get its share of the promised prosperity. I do not see that happening under the present Government. Only a change of Government can bring prosperity to the north-west.
  9.18 pm
  Mr. Graham Riddick: The speech by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) was somewhat instructive to Government Members. He took between 30 and 35 minutes to reach the part relating to the policies of the Labour party. He then took one, perhaps two, minutes to describe those policies. There were no costings or details, but we were given enough of the flavour of what the Labour party believes in to demonstrate that it is still stuck to the old dogmatic, interventionist policies of the past.
  We have heard Opposition Members going on about the regions. A relatively encouraging headline in the Yorkshire Post recently suggested that Yorkshire industry is doing better in the current recession than it has done hitherto. The CBI's recent quarterly report shows that business confidence in Yorkshire is more buoyant than anywhere else in the nation. That is a positive approach. It suggests that industry in the north is now more soundly based than it has been in the past and that the region no longer relies on the old smoke-stack industries.
  Of course I recognise that great difficulties face many firms in the north of England because of the present high interest rates. But we must realise that interest rates are high in order to beat inflation. The prospects for Britain are good. Inflation will come down, and come down rapidly, this year, and interest rates will follow. It is instructive to see how the stock market is behaving. The stock market tends to take a six-to-nine-months view of prospects, and at the moment it is booming. That is a positive reflection of future trends.
  During the 1980s we had consistent economic growth for eight years. That growth was brought about because we had low inflation, low taxation, minimum Government intervention and minimum red tape and bureaucracy. I have no doubt that British business men and entrepreneurs are as innovative as any in the world and are now able and willing to invest and compete in the modern world, but clearly they need a consistent, stable economic climate. They also need free trade throughout the world. Therefore, I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to ensure that there is a successful outcome to the GATT negotiations in Brussels.
  There is no doubt that British industry is going through a difficult time, but British companies are in much better shape today to withstand the current difficulties and to prepare for the upturn. We must be careful not to talk ourselves into a state of doom and gloom. Today we have seen that the Opposition like to talk down Britain and British industry as much as possible.

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  In recent days I have had some evidence that things are not too bad. The future holds some positive things in store. Last week I met some executives from Vauxhall Motors. One told me that Vauxhall factories are working flat out and have massively increased car exports to the EC. This morning I went to a British textile exhibition at Olympia and I was heartened by the surprisingly robust and confident nature of the people I met there. I heard of the exporting efforts being made by many textile firms. I met one tie manufacturer who had just appointed seven agents in Italy.
  Some good news has been reported recently in the Yorkshire Post. A headline says:
  "Japanese create 400 textile jobs".
  The Japanese firm Toray is investing £50 million in a new factory in Mansfield. We have recently had the news that the Wakefield Shirt group of companies, best known for its Double Two brand, is taking on people. That is in the textile industry, one of the industries we are told is clown and out. There is good news. In my constituency I have seen a brand new textile factory built in recent years. No Government subsidy or regional support was required. Yet that factory, producing polypropylene fibres, is one of the most modern in Europe.
  There is good news in other parts of the country as well. The good people of Ribble Valley should be aware of the good news in the north-west. Investment in manufacturing has doubled during the 1980s. Companies like Glaxo, Pilkingtons, Shell Chemicals and General Motors have all made big investments in the north-west. The number of businesses has increased by over 20 per cent. Trafford Park in Manchester has continued to revive. Companies such as Kellogg and Proctor and Gamble, my old firm, are investing in the north-west. That is all good news.
  I have no doubt that the electors in Ribble Valley will recognise that it has been the sound, consistent economic policies of the Conservative Government throughout the 1980s which have resulted in that investment going into the north-west. When they go to the polls on 7 March, they will send back a Conservative Member, most probably with an increased majority, or certainly a majority as big as that achieved in the general election. In the meantime, I am confident that we will pull out of the current difficulties and will see economic growth taking off once again. That will happen only under this Conservative Government.
  9.26 pm
  Mrs. Irene Adams: I listened with great interest to the Secretary of State telling us how the Conservative party had transformed industry. I do not know about transforming industry, but it has certainly transformed my constituency. It was once a highly industrialised constituency. When the Government came to power in 1979, the cotton mills in Paisley employed 10,000 highly skilled women—spinners, doffers and tenters. They travelled widely, taking not only the products but their skills all around the world. They taught other people those skills.
  The first recession of the Government caused that industry to fail. The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick) told us about seven jobs in Italy connected with the textile industry. Some of the 10,000 women who are now unemployed in my constituency and who "have Giro, can travel," would be interested in those seven jobs.
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  It is not just the thread industry which has been affected. We had a large male population who were heavily involved in engineering. We built ships that sailed the world. We do not do that any more. What the Government, the friend of industry, have given us in their place are fast food chains. We now make hamburgers instead of ships. They have also given us security guards and contract cleaners at the princely wage of £1·20 an hour. That is what they are asking the skilled engineers and the skilled textile workers to do.
  Mr. Ian McCartney: In the last few days I came across a case in the north-west of a young disabled woman who was offered a job so long as she agreed to work the first six weeks without wages. At the end of the six weeks this young blind girl would be taken on at the princely sum of about £2 an hour for a 45-hour week, and she would have to help provide the special adaption for the equipment that she would use. That is reality. [Interruption.]
  Mrs. Adams: Yes. Perhaps Conservative Members found that funny. I certainly did not.
  One of the great difficulties is that, because we have lost these work forces through redundancies, we have missed a rung on the evolutionary ladder of converting old skills to fit new technologies. Because of the lack of continuity in industry, and the lack of Government foresight, the next generation has to start from scratch, learning new skills without a firm knowledge of the old.
  What have the Government done? They have lost us more and more jobs. However, let us not run away with the idea that merely the cotton industry was affected, or industries which were failing. The latest victim in my constituency was Howdens at Renfrew. Howdens had been in production for 130 years, and was in the forefront of design and manufacture of energy, tunnelling and other precision products. Howdens was a name synonymous with advanced technology throughout the world. Its Renfrew plant was a centre of engineering excellence unique in Europe. The plant and the work force had been able to perform in markets for which there is sure growth—manufacturing equipment and kit for the greening of power stations.
  Howden's Renfrew plant had a bright and long-term future. It was in the process of negotiating contracts worth £20 million, but difficulties occurred when the United Nations trade embargo was put in place last August, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Howdens was in the middle of building a huge power station in Iraq. Those difficulties should have been short term. If the Government had not been locked in the dogma of the past and if we had a Government willing to enter into partnership with industry, we would still have 500 jobs of engineering excellence in Renfrew, and all the subsidiary employment which backs up such jobs.
  One of the first speeches that I heard when I came to the House was made by the Secretary of State for Defence. He said that he did not think that sanctions could work in the Gulf. He did not think that sanctions had ever been viable. I wish that he had told that to the Howdens work force last August, when they were prepared to sacrifice their future for those sanctions.
  That is only part of the story for Howdens in Renfrew. Such was the uniqueness of the work force's skills and its technology, no other companies in the whole of Britain

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  now carry out the work that was carried out there. Contracts are pending in Britain for tunnelling equipment that will have to be placed elsewhere because Howdens is not there to carry out the work. That is the direct result of Government policy, a Government bereft of ideas, which could not bridge the gap in an emergency; a Government who failed to recognise short-term difficulty and did not know the difference between that and long-term investment in the future; and a Government too dogmatic to recognise that interest rates were too high and that we needed a Budget for investment in the future, and the capability to enter into partnership with innovative industries, such as Howdens, in a bid to encourage the research and development that could bring long-term prosperity to the company. That could bring jobs to the skilled work force, who deserve our loyalty, and to Britain's long-term security as an industrial nation.
  9.32 pm
  Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: We have heard a lot about doom and gloom from most of the speakers in the debate tonight, but industry is not all gloom and despair, especially in West Yorkshire, where it is already planning for the future. Times are difficult. Yes, interest rates need to fall, but investment in manufacturing is still taking place and business confidence in Yorshire is more buoyant, as investment levels prove.
  A £15 million project, with 100 new jobs, was recently announced in Leeds. Double Two Shirts in Wakefield is investing and providing 68 new jobs. Maitland Menswear in Leeds is investing £4·5 million, creating an extra 40 jobs and guaranteeing that about 300 jobs will continue. Spring Ram plc at Birstall is making multi-million pound investments at its site, and is about to settle terms for another new factory there which will eventually create 300 new jobs, we hope by the end of the year.
  All that is not altogether gloom and despair. It is something which we welcome in Yorkshire as we are a great manufacturing county, and manufacturing will continue. That does not mean that we ought not to encourage the Government to bring down interest rates as soon as possible.
  We have heard about the lack of investment in training. There is great investment in training throughout the country, particularly in Yorkshire. The Confederation of British Wool Textiles has a marvellous training programme. Recently it conducted an award ceremony. Apart from investing in the training of young people, it invests in the training of those members of the work force who are aged between 25 and 35. It now offers opportunties for training and qualifications to many people who, through no fault of their own, left school at an early age with very few qualifications. It is a tremendously important scheme. Supervisors can be promoted because they have been offered training.
  There is great investment in the training of engineers. T. S. Harrisons, an engineering company in my constituency, has a tremendous training scheme for young people. It takes on apprentices every year and trains them in all the different aspects of its work. Its training machines and its trainees are as important to the company as its
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  exports. Recently it started to export to Japan. This country, particularly Yorkshire, can export to Japan. Orders are also coming to the company from Russia.
  I have provided a thumbnail sketch of money that is being invested not just for today but because those who run our manufacturing companies are confident about the future of this country. Indeed, they are so confident that they are investing vast sums of money in manufacturing and in new jobs.
  9.37 pm
  Dr. Kim Howells: Many hon. Members have referred to the transformation of British industry during the past 10 years. There has been a transformation, including one in my constituency. The pain caused by the contraction of industries such as coal has often resulted in the creation of new industries, which we welcome. They have provided a basis for optimism in my area.
  We must, however, be careful about how highly we regard the new industries. Good work has been done by the Welsh Development Agency and the Scottish Development Agency, though I understand that the SDA is being dismantled. Their good work has resulted in inward investment by the Japanese, the Germans and the Americans. It is very much to be welcomed. All too often, however, such investment can result in an assembly line economy, not in research and development centres or in the highly trained work force that this country needs if it is to compete with security. We shall soon be challenged by great companies such as Siemens in Munich and Philips in the Netherlands. I am confident that they will want to invest here, but we must ensure that their investment does not lead to the United Kingdom becoming only an assembly line economy.
  The regions must be self-sufficient so that they can determine the shape of our economy. They must be able to invest in and work on new products. We must therefore take into account the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown). We must invest in infrastructure and training. That will cost money. We cannot pretend that such expenditure can be avoided. We must think about our priorities. I am not ashamed to say that if we need to invest to ensure that our industries are dynamic and flexible and have the work forces that they need to meet the challenges after 1992, we must do so. If we do not, we shall become an assembly line nation. The United Kingdom will then be vulnerable to the cyclical trends that dog our economy now.
  I hope that the Minister will take that very seriously. I do not think that we are battling over that one: it is a question of how we do it. If we are battling, I am afraid that the Government are even more stupid than I thought.
  Mr. Tony Lloyd rose—
  Mr. McCartney: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd). It is a matter of equity, Mr. Speaker. Last week I and hon. Members on both sides sat through a debate for three hours and were not called. An apology was made to us.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. What is the point of order? The hon. Gentleman should have this out with his Front Bench, not with the Chair.
  Mr. McCartney: Hon. Members who sit throughout the debate should be given precedence in speaking, yet others who have come in and out seem to be called. I have sat through six hours over the past fortnight—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can put the hon. Gentleman out of his misery. I do call hon. Members with equity. The hon. Member has been called no fewer than four times so far in this Session, and on one of those occasions he spoke for over 30 minutes. That is bound to be taken into account by the occupants of the Chair.
  9.40 pm
  Mr. Tony Lloyd: Perhaps I can follow my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) who asked if the Government really were more stupid than he had thought. The kind of complacency that we heard this afternoon from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is sadly typical of what we have come to expect from the Government who are so out of touch with what industry demands as to mean that the future of manufacturing is not in safe hands.
  Perhaps I may quote briefly from Peter Brighton, the director-general of the Engineering Employers Federation, who said a few days ago that Britain was moving
  "hell bent towards a peasant economy … There had better be an improvement before long, or this country will crash into the buffers."
  I hope that the Minister will respond directly to the Engineering Employers Federation.
  I hope that he will also respond to the Financial Times which said in a recent editorial:
  "The UK is probably in the midst of the second worst recession since the Second World War."
  No prizes for guessing which was the worst recession.
  The only thing that I am not clear about is whether this is the second Thatcherite recession or the first Major recession. There is no running away from the fact that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the present Chancellor, and the present Prime Minister in particular, were the authors of the problems that led to the recession and so were the authors of the recession.
  It does not bode well when the Chancellor in his speech on the autumn statement and the Secretary of State earlier on in this debate made a great issue of the Government's desire to tackle inflation as their way of overcoming the nation's difficulty, the implication being that it is either inflation or interest rates. The reality is that we have high interest rates and high inflation. The Government have given us no choice, but rather, the worst of both worlds.
  Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark rose—
  Mr. Lloyd: I am sorry, the hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me. I am afraid that I cannot help him on this occasion because I have very little time.
  When the Chancellor tells us that inflation is central to the Government's policy, let me quote from the director general of the CBI who said:
  "The 10·9 per cent. increase in the UBR next year is yet more bad news for those concerned with the fight against inflation. It will add some £1 billion to business costs next year without any improvement in local authority services or performance. This is precisely the kind of inflationary own goal that should be avoided. The Government cannot expect to be taken seriously if it fails to practise what it preaches."
  Very shortly we shall enter 1992 and the whole process that stems from it. The Government are cutting down in all
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  the areas that might assist us in that process. They are cutting the training budget, assistance to regions and assistance to manufacturing. We are facing the opening of the channel tunnel, but the Government have obstinately refused to invest in infrastructure that would allow the manufacturing sector in the north of England, Scotland and Wales to take advantage of the tunnel. Look at what the French and Germans are doing. Any idea that the Government put across, as they try to do, that somehow Britain is in the midst of a little blip like our competitor nations is not true.
  Britain has a unique position in western Europe—a unique recession that can be laid at the door of the Government. We cannot produce any statistics from the past 11 years to suggest that manufacturing has been well treated by the present regime. For example, my own region has lost about 300,000 jobs in manufacturing and those jobs have not come back in services. I am glad to see that the Secretary of State is back in his place; he should listen carefully to my figures. I have told the House how many jobs we have lost in my region, but the same rules can be applied to Scotland and to most of the north. The lost jobs have simply not been compensated for in the services industry. The economy has been run for one region alone—the south-east—at the expense of the rest of the country.
  Conservative Members quoted the recent CBI quarterly survey, which is entirely pessimistic in respect of many of the regions. Not many minutes ago, it was quoted by the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick), who said that the CBI's survey was good news for Yorkshire. Let me tell the House what the survey said about Yorkshire. It said that, although against the national trend business optimism fell by less in January, on balance, respondents were still heavily pessimistic about the business situation as compared with a year ago.
  Mr. Tony Blair: That is the good news.
  Mr. Lloyd: That, as my hon. Friend says, is the good news.
  Let me refer to the north-west. The hon. Member for Colne Valley referred to Ribble Valley. Let me tell the House about the prospects for manufacturing investment in the Ribble valley. According to the CBI's survey,
  "Investment intentions point to rapid falls in planned capital expenditure on both buildings and plant and machinery."
  That is the so-called good news that the Secretary of State wants to persuade the country is just round the corner. Is it good news given that, between the third quarter of 1989 and the third quarter of 1990, manufacturing investment in Great Britain as a whole fell by 8 per cent., that in the autumn statement the Government predicted a further 7 per cent. fall and that the CBI is now talking about a 16 per cent. fall in manufacturing investment?
  The Secretary of State had the gall—I hope that he will correct me if I am wrong—to claim that Britain's growth in manufacturing investment compared favourably with that in France or Germany. The Secretary of State does not indicate whether I misquote him or not. In no year throughout the 1980s was manufacturing investment, as a percentage of GNP, anything like that in France or Germany—either when the Prime Minister was Chancellor or when he was in any of his other roles. Manufacturing investment in Britain, both in real terms and in percentage terms, fell well below that put in by our competitors.
  Mr. Lilley: What I said was that the share of value added reinvested by manufacturing is the same in this country as it is in Germany and higher than it is in America.
  Mr. Lloyd: Let me simply place on record the fact that the percentage of GNP invested by the Germans this year will be massively higher than the percentage of GNP invested by the British, and that is on a much higher GNP base. That is why, under this Government, we have fallen behind the Germans and the French and why we have continued to fall behind other countries. We have even fallen behind the Italians.
  What are the consequences for regions such as my own—the north-west? We still bear the scars of unemployment from the first recession that the Government caused in the region. We have not recovered. That is especially true of the inner cities. As has been said, the constituency with the highest unemployment rate in Great Britain is in Liverpool. The second highest rate of unemployment is in the Manchester, Central constituency. Our young people and our communities suffer from increased crime rates, from the drugs problem, from unemployment and from poverty. That is what the Government have bequeathed to the regions of Britain.
  We have listened intently to what the Secretary of State had to say. We looked for significant and real commitment to policies that would result in an increase in research and development spending and for any suggestion that the Government do not intend to cut the training budget and that they intend to ensure that the British work force is as highly trained as any in the world. We heard no such commitment and nothing positive to suggest that the Government are serious about offering a future to manufacturing industry. For that reason, whether the Prime Minister runs in June or leaves a general election until later, the public, when faced with the reality of the decline of the British economy, will turn to the Labour party for a policy that will revive our society.
  9.50 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Edward Leigh): When I saw that the Opposition were to invite the hon. Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) to sum up for them, I was hoping to hear something about the training levy that figured so largely in a previous Labour party document. Like so many Labour party policies, it seems to have disappeared into a black hole and there has been no mention of it.
  I shall be asking later about Labour party policy, but first I shall reply to some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the north-west. He did not mention the fact that, during the 1980s, manufacturing GDP in the north-west increased by a staggering 76 per cent. and the north-west is now second only to the south-east in terms of manufacturing GDP and investment.
  We welcome this opportunity to discuss all economic matters in their widest sense. How right that is, because manufacturing industry cannot and should not be seen in isolation. We have set out to make fundamental reforms that benefit all sectors of the economy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) said, our reforms have, over the past decade, released new, previously untapped energies in the nation. That is what supply-side economics are all about.
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  For the benefit of Labour Members, I shall list some of the reforms: the tax regime facing companies and their customers; trade union legislation resulting in a sea change in attitudes; competition; the return of swathes of industry to private hands; reducing burdens of red tape; stripping out distorting controls and subsidies. All that has given us eight years in which average growth has exceeded the 3 per cent. previously thought to be attainable only by our competitors. None of our major European competitors has been able to match our manufacturers' record in productivity and profitability.
  Dr. Kim Howells: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Leigh: I shall give way in a moment but I have only 10 minutes in which to speak.
  The Opposition have never mentioned that success. That is to be expected, because our policies lie square behind it. Starved of bad news for eight successive years of economic growth, they greet the current downturn with ill-conceived glee and all the self-righteous canting denunciation that only the reformed sinner can muster. They pretend to care about manufacturing industry, but they see it simply as knocking copy for the next Supply day debate.
  By all means, let Labour Members attack us, but let them stop talking down British industry. Let British industry get on with the job.
  Mr. Allen McKay: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Leigh: I shall give way in a minute—sit down.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that I say that—the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) must sit down.
  Mr. Leigh: I acknowledge that the present difficulties are serious and that the policies are painful. It is impossible to be in my job and not recognise that industry is suffering from high interest rates. But, in turn, the Opposition should acknowledge that the downturn has a strong cyclical element. They should acknowledge, too, that the greatest threat to industry is inflation. I think that those were the very words used by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Wardle).
  We have heard nothing tonight from the Opposition. They have not revealed how they aim to cure inflation without curbing demand. Let us recognise, too, that as inflation comes down, recovery will be under way within the framework of the policies that we have created and through which so much has already been achieved.
  If the Opposition will not take my word for it, let them consider an area in the Department of Trade and Industry for which I am responsible—inward investment. This country is the No. 1 choice for inward investors world wide. Some 40 per cent. of total inward investment in the EEC comes through this country. France is next after this country, but it accounted for only 14·4 per cent. Two thirds of all American direct investment comes to this country. That is a British success story and a success story of this Government.
  What are Labour's policies and plans for British industry? Because the Opposition cannot abide the transformation of British industry over a decade, their view of British industry is necessarily like that of an old-fashioned camera—narrow, unfocused and thumb-onlens. To the extent that their vision is focused, it is focused

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  on short-term difficulties rather than on long-term achievements. To the extent that their policies are evident, they involve the facile call for interest rate cuts that greet every turn of the economic cycle.
  If we had listened to the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands., East (Mr. Smith) every time he called for interest rate cuts, inflation would now be roaring out of control. As always, the Opposition's immediate policies comprise the quick fix and the opportunist which are ideal for newspaper headlines today, but good for nothing except fish and chip wrapping paper tomorrow.
  The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) sees short termism everywhere except where it is most apparent—under his own nose. His answer for short termism in industry is short termism by Government—interest rate cuts and cash handouts.
  I want to ask the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East four questions and I will give way to him if he wants to intervene. I have asked these questions in the four Trade and Industry debates over the past month, but he has refused to intervene. He ducked the questions. With total investment in the British economy now running at £100 billion a year, would a Labour Government be prepared to waste money coaxing investment over and above what the market provides and deems necessary? Do the Opposition deny that they will have to commit upwards of £10 billion a year? I will give way to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East if he can explain his policies for the future of British industry. I have asked that vital question on many occasions, but he refuses to answer it.
  Dr. Kim Howells: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Leigh: I will not give way to the monkey, but I will give way to the organ grinder.
  Secondly, what funding will be available to the national investment bank, to British technology enterprise and to the regional development agencies? I will give way to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East if he will answer those simple questions.
  My third question relates to the old National Enterprise Board to which we decided to give a mercy killing last week after a long period of hibernation. It was not referred to by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East. It could borrow up to £750 million. Did it fail because it could borrow too much or too little? Should we do more or less? How much will British technology enterprise be able to borrow? I will give way to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East if he will answer that simple question.
  Finally, how does all that square with Beckett's law? The hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) has said:
  "What we are promising is an increase for pensioners and … child benefit. Everything else that is regarded as a desirable aim is also listed, quite clearly and specifically, as something that we hope to do as resources allow."—[Official Report, 13 February 1990; Vol. 167, c. 179.]
  There are my four questions and there have been four silences. We have heard no answers because if the Opposition were to answer, they would quite simply give the game away. We know that the presentation is different and the slogans have been put away. In their place are vague aspirations and empty promises. However, the reality is the same. It is the same mish-mash of state corporatism.
  The Labour party has nothing to offer but more controls, more subsidies and more quangos. As the
  244
  Minister responsible for consumer affairs, I would take a dim view of a shopkeeper who would not price what he displays and would not display what he really wanted to sell.
  The Government will stand firm. We will not resort to quick fixes or to the opportunism of Opposition Members. We and the British people know that Labour's policies are misconceived, misguided, mistitled and missing. Let them falter; we will not fail.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 221, Noes 334.

  Division No. 70]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Dixon, Don

  Adams, Mrs. Irene (Paisley, N.)

  Dobson, Frank

  Allen, Graham

  Doran, Frank

  Anderson, Donald

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

  Eadie, Alexander

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Eastham, Ken

  Ashton, Joe

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

  Barron, Kevin

  Fatchett, Derek

  Battle, John

  Faulds, Andrew

  Beckett, Margaret

  Fearn, Ronald

  Beith, A. J.

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Bell, Stuart

  Fisher, Mark

  Bellotti, David

  Flynn, Paul

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

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

  Foster, Derek

  Benton, Joseph

  Foulkes, George

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Fraser, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Fyfe, Maria

  Blair, Tony

  Galbraith, Sam

  Blunkett, David

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  Boateng, Paul

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Boyes, Roland

  George, Bruce

  Bradley, Keith

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Gordon, Mildred

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Graham, Thomas

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Buckley, George J.

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Caborn, Richard

  Grocott, Bruce

  Callaghan, Jim

  Hardy, Peter

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Haynes, Frank

  Canavan, Dennis

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

  Cartwright, John

  Hinchliffe, David

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Clay, Bob

  Home Robertson, John

  Clelland, David

  Hood, Jimmy

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Cohen, Harry

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Howells, Geraint

  Corbett, Robin

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Hoyle, Doug

  Cousins, Jim

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Cox, Tom

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Crowther, Stan

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Cryer, Bob

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Cummings, John

  Illsley, Eric

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Ingram, Adam

  Dalyell, Tarn

  Janner, Greville

  Darling, Alistair

  Johnston, Sir Russell

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

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

  Kennedy, Charles

  Dewar, Donald

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  245

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Lambie, David

  Radice, Giles

  Lamond, James

  Randall, Stuart

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Leighton, Ron

  Reid, Dr John

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Richardson, Jo

  Lewis, Terry

  Robertson, George

  Litherland, Robert

  Rogers, Allan

  Livingstone, Ken

  Rooker, Jeff

  Livsey, Richard

  Rooney, Terence

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Rowlands, Ted

  Loyden, Eddie

  Ruddock, Joan

  McAllion, John

  Salmond, Alex

  McCartney, Ian

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Sheerman, Barry

  McFall, John

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  McKelvey, William

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  McLeish, Henry

  Short, Clare

  McMaster, Gordon

  Skinner, Dennis

  McNamara, Kevin

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  McWilliam, John

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

  Madden, Max

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

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  Marek, Dr John

  Snape, Peter

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  Soley, Clive

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Spearing, Nigel

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

  Martlew, Eric

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Meacher, Michael

  Strang, Gavin

  Meale, Alan

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Michael, Alun

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Turner, Dennis

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Vaz, Keith

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Walley, Joan

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Mullin, Chris

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Murphy, Paul

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Nellist, Dave

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Wilson, Brian

  O'Brien, William

  Winnick, David

  O'Hara, Edward

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  O'Neill, Martin

  Worthington, Tony

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Wray, Jimmy

  Parry, Robert

  Patchett, Terry

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Pendry, Tom

  Mr. Allen McKay and Mr. Thomas McAvoy.

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Alexander, Richard

  Body, Sir Richard

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Allason, Rupert

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Boswell, Tim

  Amess, David

  Bottomley, Peter

  Amos, Alan

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Arbuthnot, James

  Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  Bowis, John

  Ashby, David

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Atkins, Robert

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Atkinson, David

  Brazier, Julian

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Bright, Graham

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Baldry, Tony

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

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Batiste, Spencer

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Bellingham, Henry

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Bendall, Vivian

  Burns, Simon

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Butler, Chris

  Benyon, W.

  Butterfill, John

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  246

  Carrington, Matthew

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Cash, William

  Hayes, Jerry

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Chapman, Sydney

  Hayward, Robert

  Chope, Christopher

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Churchill, Mr

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Hill, James

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Hind, Kenneth

  Colvin, Michael

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Conway, Derek

  Holt, Richard

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

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

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Cormack, Patrick

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Couchman, James

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Cran, James

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Critchley, Julian

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

  Curry, David

  Hunter, Andrew

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

  Irvine, Michael

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Irving, Sir Charles

  Day, Stephen

  Jack, Michael

  Devlin, Tim

  Janman, Tim

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Jessel, Toby

  Dicks, Terry

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Dover, Den

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Dunn, Bob

  Key, Robert

  Durant, Sir Anthony

  Kilfedder, James

  Dykes, Hugh

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Evennett, David

  Knapman, Roger

  Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Fallon, Michael

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Favell, Tony

  Knowles, Michael

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Knox, David

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Latham, Michael

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Forman, Nigel

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Forth, Eric

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lilley, Peter

  Franks, Cecil

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Freeman, Roger

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  French, Douglas

  Lord, Michael

  Fry, Peter

  Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

  Gale, Roger

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Gill, Christopher

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Madel, David

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Malins, Humfrey

  Gorst, John

  Mans, Keith

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Maples, John

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Marland, Paul

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Marlow, Tony

  Gregory, Conal

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Grist, Ian

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Ground, Patrick

  Mates, Michael

  Grylls, Michael

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Hague, William

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Hannam, John

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

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

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Harris, David

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  247

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Shelton, Sir William

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

  Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Shersby, Michael

  Mudd, David

  Sims, Roger

  Neale, Sir Gerrard

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Needham, Richard

  Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Neubert, Sir Michael

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Speed, Keith

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Speller, Tony

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Norris, Steve

  Squire, Robin

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Page, Richard

  Steen, Anthony

  Paice, James

  Stern, Michael

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Stevens, Lewis

  Patnick, Irvine

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Patten, Rt Hon John

  Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Stokes, Sir John

  Pawsey, James

  Sumberg, David

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Summerson, Hugo

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Portillo, Michael

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Price, Sir David

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Rathbone, Tim

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Redwood, John

  Thorne, Neil

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Thurnham, Peter

  Riddick, Graham

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Tracey, Richard

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Tredinnick, David

  Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

  Trotter, Neville

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Rost, Peter

  Viggers, Peter

  Rowe, Andrew

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Rumbold, Rt Hon Mrs Angela

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

  Walden, George

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Waller, Gary

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Ward, John

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  248

  Warren, Kenneth

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Watts, John

  Wolfson, Mark

  Wells, Bowen

  Wood, Timothy

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Yeo, Tim

  Whitney, Ray

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Wilkinson, John

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Wilshire, David

  Mr. John M. Taylor and Mr. Tom Sackville.

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 30 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government on the policies which have transformed the performance of manufacturing industry across the country over the past decade, which remain flexible and responsive to the needs of manufacturing, which have made manufacturing better able to withstand the present downturn, and which have enhanced its prospects for the 1990s; calls on Her Majesty's Government to remain steadfast in the pursuit of these policies and in its determination to defeat inflation which imposes a serious and damaging burden on manufacturing industry; and believes that any return to the discredited policies of subsidy, intervention, state control, public ownership and bolstering of union power would undermine manufacturing industry's achievements of the past decade.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at this day's sitting, the Census (Confidentiality) Bill [Lords.] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Painick.]

  CENSUS (CONFIDENTIALITY) BILL (LORDS
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90(6) (Second Reading Committees), That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Question agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

  Mr. Derek Brown
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Patnick]
  10.15 pm
  Mr. John Carlisle: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise this matter on the Floor of the House. I wish to raise the case of Mr. Derek Brown, a constituent of mine, and the problems that he has had since a heart bypass operation in March 1988. This debate has become necessary because certain facts need to be given a public airing. Hopefully, my hon. Friend the Minister will listen with interest to a case of which I know that he has some prior knowledge. Hopefully some good may come out of this sorry saga, which I must necessarily relate to the House this evening.
  The unnecessary delays after my constituent's operation, the alleged negligence on the part of some of the staff, the misinterpretation of certain facts which were before the staff after Mr. Brown's operation and the delayed diagnosis now mean that my constituent finds himself unemployed. He had a very reasonable job. His character has become irrational and he suffers from loss of memory. He is unable to walk any distance. He needs a wheelchair so that his wife can take him to the shops. He is unable to pursue his favourite pastime, the leisure of walking. He is in constant pain daily and hourly and has to take a large number of drugs. He cannot take a bath without extreme discomfort.
  Sadly, because he has been prudent enough to save money and put it aside for his family and has his own home, he cannot qualify for legal aid, or, indeed, any form of social benefit. He cannot afford the alternative treatments that could be available to him, such as acupuncture, because his resources are limited.
  Throughout the sorry saga, Mr. Brown has been sustained and supported by his loving wife and his daughter Susan during a time which has been extremely difficult for the family. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister realises the importance and gravity of the case, which leads me to bring it to the attention of the House tonight.
  It may be of some use if I relate as briefly as possible the sorry saga of the operation and what occurred afterwards. The words of Mrs. Brown in a letter which she wrote to Mr. Plant, the chief executive of Brompton hospital, will give the House some idea of the type of malady that my constituent has suffered. She said in November 1988 of her husband Derek:
  "After attending as an out-patient for approximately eighteen months he was advised by Dr. Honey that a bypass operation would give him a better quality of life. After a four month wait he was admitted in mid February 1988 and the operation was performed by Mr. Lennox on Wednesday 17 February 1988.
  When I first saw my husband straight after the operation in Intensive Care, his condition gave me cause for concern. Although unable to talk he indicated for a pencil and paper and wrote that he had a very bad pain from the waist down. The nurse said it was just cramp and rubbing his legs would ease it. I rubbed his legs for at least an hour but he was still in pain so they informed a nearby doctor who agreed it was just cramp.
  He was then transferred to the High Dependancy Unit and by Thursday morning the pain had increased further. I was becoming concerned and expressed this to the doctor who still insisted that the pain was due to cramp; however I felt it had
  250
  to be more than cramp as he was not a person to complain. He was then put on Omnipon but the pain still persisted. By the time Mr. Lennox"—
  the consultant surgeon—
  "came to examine Derek, the pain was intense, also there was loss of feeling in both legs. I insisted on talking to Mr. Lennox as he left the ward who said that everything possible was being done; it was a case of resting and waiting. On Friday he was taken down for a CT scan and I was eventually informed by the registrar that the scan revealed that the aorta was torn, he said it had torn when they clamped during his by-pass operation. They later informed me that a consultant from St. Stephen's hospital was coming to see Derek that day. I waited until 10.40 pm but he had still not arrived and no one had the courtesy to explain his absence. Months later I discovered that his visit had been cancelled when the scan results were known.
  On Saturday I was told that Derek might be transferred to Charing Cross hospital at some point. I then asked why this could not be done immediately and was told that it was a case of waiting; for what I do not know.
  At 3 am on Sunday, 21 February, a telephone call to my room informed me that Derek was being transferred to Charing Cross straight away. When I arrived at the ward minutes later I was met with the horrifying sight of my husband in absolute agony, held down by the ward sister and two nurses. The bottom half of his body was a terrible colour, completely starved of blood and there was no doctor in attendance. Derek begged me to get someone to relieve his pain but according to the sister the maximum dosage of omnipon had been administered. After a nightmare journey by ambulance the staff of Charing Cross hospital were waiting to receive him. A CT scan and x-rays revealed blood clots everywhere. Operations were then performed to remove these and I was informed that the situation was very serious and in fact my husband may have to have both legs amputated in order to save his life. Thanks to the skill and dedication of the team led by Professor Greenhaugh this measure was not necessary.
  However, two days later Professor Greenhaugh said that he was pleased with the right leg but that the left leg was causing concern and would require a further operation. This would have to be done without a general anaesthetic and Derek's agreement. At this point I was told that, should the operation prove unsuccessful, the left leg would have to be amputated. Once again the skill of the surgeon, Mr. Lane, saved the leg.
  Many other things caused great concern during the time he was in the High Dependency Unit, including renal kidney failure, liver problems, a very low blood platelet count which necessitated two sessions on a dialysis machine. On one occasion Derek went completely out of his mind, he ripped all his drips out and tore off all his dressings which were over open wounds. He sat on a chair all day with blood running down his legs, refusing to have anyone come near him. The doctors tried to assure me that this was temporary and that this was the result of the physical and mental stress which Derek had suffered. However later that day the doctor became worried and Derek was taken for a brian scan which fortunately was clear. During the night, he thankfully reverted to his normal self. One by one most of these problems were overcome. Derck was finally transferred to a general ward where he made further progress although still in pain."
  After that he returned to Luton and Dunstable hospital, was treated in the pain unit and since has had treatment at Stoke Mandeville hospital. As I said earlier, he still suffers minute by minute from a pain that I believe was partly caused by the unnecessary delays that occurred after his operation.
  After the operation Mrs. Brown was naturally very anxious and had an interview with Mr. Lennox, the consultant surgeon, which lasted two and a half hours. Mr. Lennox said that he did not know what had happened to his patient at Charing Cross hospital a matter of hours after he had seen him at Brompton hospital. Mrs. Brown said that it was a most unhappy interview. Following that my constituent, Mrs. Brown, had several months of

  251
  correspondence with certain people, including Mrs. Hardy of Brompton hospital, Mr. Geffen, the consultant in public health medicine in North West Thames authority, Mr. Plant, the chief executive, and others. At all times all that she received was sympathy and some sort of understanding, but never an explanation of exactly what had happened to her husband.
  She called on me as her Member of Parliament and together we went to see a Dr. Braithwaite at Brompton hospital who was extremely helpful and explained to us exactly what had happened after the operation. Mrs. Brown also applied to the health commissioner for some assistance, but was told that Mr. Brown's case did not fit the aegis and responsibility of the commissioner. At the same time she went to Action for Victims of Medical Assistance, and although it offered some help, it was seemingly unable to offer anything more than sympathy.
  That result meant that I and certainly my constituent, Mrs. Brown, and her daughter felt that the matter should be aired and that a further review should take place. So we started to press for a clinical review. I regret to say that our efforts were thwarted at certain times by certain officials, who tried to make out that, were a review to take place, my constituents would not be able to take the matter to litigation should they choose to do so. I sought the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman), the present Minister's predecessor, and he was extremely helpful. Indeed, the present Minister too has been very helpful. It was confirmed that if my constituents wished to have a clinical review they could have one, and that it would not affect litigation—a course that was still in their minds.
  The clinical review took place on 17 December. I was present, together with Mrs. Brown and her daughter Susan. A promise was made at that time that the result would be made known to me and to my constituents by the end of the month. On 21 January I was informed that the results would take a few more weeks. Time was beginning to run out for the Browns. If they were to mount any form of litigation, they would have to decide before 1 March whether to issue a writ against the hospital. I suspect that there may have been in the minds of those in authority, either at North West Thames or at the Brompton, that the time for litigation was beginning to run out. In those circumstances, they might have avoided that action.
  The results of the review were given in confidence to myself and my constituents, but as this is a matter about which the House should hear, I make no apology for revealing some of that information now. Basically, the review concluded that the clinical management during the operation was satisfactory. With that, my constituents and I do not argue. However, the review criticised the long delay between the Wednesday on which the fateful operation was performed and the Sunday morning when Mr. Brown was finally taken to Charing Cross hospital. The review report says that the process took very much longer than was necessary. I believe that it took very much longer than was necessary to diagnose the condition from which my constituent was obviously suffering. Blood could not reach his legs, and the poor man was in the most terrible pain. It is a fact that the nurses and other members of staff fobbed Mrs. Brown off with the story that the problem was cramp. But the hospital should have known that that condition is very rare after an operation such as this one. I believe that, with hindsight, the diagnosis was understood to be wrong.
  252
  Throughout this time, Mr. Lennox, the consultant, was a somewhat shadowy figure. Indeed, the review report, quite rightly, levels some criticism at him for the way he acted in this case. For example, he did not himself perform the operation; it was performed by Mr. Livesey, the registrar. Only when the review had been concluded—after three years—did my constituents find out that Mr. Lennox had not taken part in the operation, although he had virtually given them the impression that he had operated. The report says that he did not remember whether he had seen the patient at any stage prior to the operation. Obviously his memory is not one of his greatest assets. The report criticises him for having said that his routine was always to be in the operating suite but that he could not remember for certain whether he was there at the time of Mr. Brown's operation. So this high-ranking consultant surgeon could not remember whether he was in attendance.
  After the operation he said that he did not see the patient until the second day, by which time, of course, Mr. Brown was in the most terrible agony. So far as Mrs. Brown was concerned, Mr. Lennox was in charge of the operation, but her attempts to talk to him were in vain. Only on the occasion of one of her visits, when a sister ran after Mr. Lennox and asked—virtually begged—him to come back and talk to Mrs. Brown, did she finally get round to speak to the man who obviously was responsible for the operation on her husband.
  The report and the events that have been described to me by my constituents give me some suspicion that Mr. Lennox displayed enormous arrogance, was totally uncommunicative to Mr. and Mrs. Brown and, sadly, showed an uncaring attitude to the case.
  Two lines of redress are open to my constituents. First, there is litigation. On my advice, my constituents have issued a writ against the Brompton hospital in order to keep within time. However, I know that that is not within my hon. Friend's responsibility and you, Mr. Speaker, would be right to pull me up on that. The other line that is open to my constituents is some form of compensation by the special health authority, and that, I think, is the line that they will take.
  It is for my constituents to decide whether to go down the legal road or to seek compensation. It is not a matter for any hon. Member and certainly not for my hon. Friend the Minister, but I want justice for my constituent whose life has been ruined, largely because of the delay which occurred after the operation. I want some form of relief for my constituent who will suffer pain for virtually the rest of his life. He is now without means of support and completely reliant on his wife and her job and, to a lesser extent, on his daughter. His wife and daughter have been incredibly supportive during a very difficult time.
  Will my hon. Friend make a fuller investigation of the facts of the case that I have presented to him, in addition to the clinical review that took place? Obviously, the review has not been satisfactory in terms of understanding the full extent of the problem that occurred at that time.
  The special health authority must accept its responsibility for what went wrong. I was rather saddened that at one meeting that I had with the chief executive of the special health authority, Mr. Plant said that if compensation was given to the Browns
  "any money granted would necessarily reduce amounts available for other patients."

  253
  That is probably one of the most disgraceful comments that has ever been made within the NHS. It was virtual blackmail, telling my constituents that money was available but should they get it others would suffer.
  I bring to the attention of the House the case of one of my constituents who is in desperate need of assistance and who has genuinely suffered through malady, mistakes, negligence and delay that occurred after the operation. No criticism is levelled at the man who performed the operation or at the Charing Cross hospital which, on finding Mr. Brown in that particular state, was marvellous. But criticism must be levelled at the Brompton hospital, at the surgeon and at those around who did not recognise the condition and, as a result, have left my constituent in a terrible state with the terrible problems that he suffers today.
  10.33 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) is an old friend and an old parliamentary hand, and he has used the procedures of the House to draw attention to one of his constituents whom he feels has not received proper treatment from the NHS. It is a classic example of the way in which Adjournment debates are intended to be used, allowing hon. Members to draw attention to inadequate performances within the public sector and to seek redress on behalf of their constituents. I congratulate my hon. Friend on that even if, in the process, he made me feel somewhat uncomfortable as the Minister responsible for the NHS.
  I begin by reciting what I hope can be regarded as common ground in the case. It is clearly common ground that the outcome of the operation performed on Mr. Brown was, to put it mildly, disappointing. The outcome was a cataclysmic decline in the expectation of the quality of life that Mr. Brown and his family had, as a result of the fact that he has lost his job, that he suffers mental stress because of the failure of the operation and that he can no longer enjoy a healthy life. In particular, he can no longer enjoy walking which he used to do. As somebody who also enjoys walking in open country, I particularly feel for that. I asked myself, as my hon. Friend was speaking, how I would have felt, faced with the fact that I would no longer be able to enjoy that pleasure as a result of a failed operation within the national health service. So it is common ground that there was a cataclysmic failure of an operation on my hon. Friend's constituent.
  I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that the regret that he feels, and obviously that Mr. Brown's family feels, at the outcome of the operation is shared by all who were involved in it. Although my hon. Friend criticised Mr. Lennox and Mr. Plant, they share that regret. The staff at the Brompton will feel particular regret and sadness that they, as people who spend their lives dedicated to a caring profession, failed in the case of Mr. Brown to fulfil the promise which the national health service offers of a return to health wherever that is possible. That much, therefore, can be regarded as uncontroversial.
  My hon. Friend, although entirely proper in his use of the Adjournment procedure, puts me in a difficulty on two counts. The details of the treatment of any patient within the national health service are confidential. The reports to
  254
  which my hon. Friend referred are headed "Confidential". It is, therefore, not open to a Minister to reply in detail, quoting from parts of a report that might present a more balanced picture to the House. So I am constrained on the one hand by confidentiality and on the other by the fact that my hon. Friend was open with the House about the allegation of negligence which stands in the background against some of the employees of the national health service and, therefore, against the national health service itself.
  I am neither a lawyer nor a medic, and I am therefore anxious in what I have to say to demonstrate that there is, as I have already said, regret on the part of all in the national health service at the outcome of the case. Clearly, I do not wish to compromise the commitment of the health service to confidentiality in dealing with its patients, or to compromise the position of the national health service if it is to find itself in the near future the defendant in a case of negligence.
  Having said all that, I think that it is of interest to the House to hear what procedures exist for addressing cases where patients are properly dissatisfied with the outcome of treatment within the national health service. As my hon. Friend has hinted, there are, broadly speaking, two ways in which a patient can pursue a case if he is not satisfied with the results of the treatment that he has received.
  First, if he believes that the national health service or doctors or clinical staff working within it have been negligent, the patient has a right, as any sufferer from the tort of negligence has, to sue the health service and to demonstrate in a court of law that its employees were negligent and that, therefore, the health service stands with a debt of damages to the damaged patient. That is not a matter for me and not something which is properly debatable in the House.
  Secondly, and standing separately from the possibility of redress through litigation, the patient can seek administrative review of the way in which the case was treated by the national health service through the clinical complaints procedure. The clinical complaints procedure goes through several stages. The third stage, the last stage of which has already been gone through in Mr. Brown's case, provides for an independent professional review. In that case, the regional medical officer will want to be satisfied that the complaint is of a substantial nature, but is unlikely to be the subject of more formal investigation by the authority or of legal action before it initiates the process. Two independent consultants, working in the appropriate field and at least in a comparable setting but in a different region, review the case. The review is in the nature of a second opinion, and that will have been explained to the complainant.
  The reviewers will submit a confidential report of their findings to the regional medical officer, who will decide how much of the clinical content of their report is reflected in the final letter to the complainant, which is sent to the officer who commissions the review. That is the end of the clinical complaints procedure. Mr. Brown's case has gone through that independent professional review.
  As I made clear in my letter to my hon. Friend last June, the object of the clinical complaints procedure is to resolve the complainant's anxieties about the treatment that a patient has received, or to make any necessary recommendations to the health authority, or to individual staff concerned, if it seems possible that a similar situation could occur in the future.

  255
  The purpose is not to consider questions of compensation—as has been made clear to my hon. Friend and to his constituent at all stages of the clinical complaints procedure.
  A key stage in the clinical complaints procedure is a review of the case by independent doctors. The aim of that review is to provide a fresh, professional opinion on the clinical handling of the case. If, in the opinion of the independent doctors, their review is taking in areas outside their expertise, or more appropriate to a court, they may halt the proceedings and report their findings to the regional medical officer.
  The clinical complaints procedure is intended to deal with complaints of a substantial nature but which are not, prima facie, likely to lead to litigation. If at the time a complaint is made the complainant made it clear that he intended to pursue litigation, there would be no point in the health authority starting a procedure which would later be superseded by the courts.
  That is the context of the question whether the clinical complaints procedure baulks a later resort to litigation. There is no suggestion—and there should never be—that by going through an administrative procedure a citizen forswears his right to litigation. That is not the position. The health service seeks to establish that there is not a clear intention, at the beginning of the administrative procedure, to resort to litigation. My hon. Friend and his constituent made that statement at the beginning of the administrative procedure that I have been talking about. My hon. Friend was concerned about the delay in the completion of the procedure, but I give him an absolute assurance that the delay was not in any way designed to baulk the 1 March date that he mentioned. Indeed, the
  256
  handling of the clinical review was not out of line with the time that such procedures normally take. If anything, it was on the short side of average. The regional health authority stands discharged of any charge that it was attempting to baulk my hon. Friend's constituent's right to litigation.
  I must comment in passing upon my hon. Friend's suggestion that the fact that Mr. Lennox did not perform surgery on my hon. Friend's constituent was in some sense unusual. It is a perfectly normal procedure in the national health service. Doctors who are well advanced in their training perform operations, subject to the overall clinical management of a consultant who may not be in the theatre at the time the operation is performed. That is a well-established part of training in the NHS.
  My hon. Friend then sought to raise the question of a claim for compensation against Brompton outside the context of negligence litigation. No health authority, including Brompton, is able to agree to make a compensation payment when there is no likely prospect of a claim for compensation being successful. In this context, compensation is paid against the possibility of an action for negligence. No health authority is able to pay compensation that is divorced from the principle of negligence. That is precisely the principle that the House reaffirmed by a very large majority in a debate on 1 February. The House has reaffirmed its view that compensation should be paid only when negligence can be proved. If that is my hon. Friend's case, his redress lies in the courts, not in this House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at fifteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

ENERGY

  Electricity
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what was the amount of electricity generated in the United Kingdom in each of the last five years; what proportion was generated from(a) coal, (b) oil, (c) gas, (d) nuclear and (e) renewable energy sources; and what proportion of the electricity from each of these sources was (1) generated and (2) consumed in (i) Scotland, (ii) England, (iii) Wales and (iv) Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The amount of electricity generated by the major generating companies in the United Kingdom in each of the past five years was as follows:

  Percentage share by country of fuels used2

  Fuel3

  Coal

  Oil4

  Nuclear

  Renewable energy sources5

  per cent.

  per cent.

  per cent.

  per cent.

  1986

  Scotland

  6

  12

  22

  95

  England and Wales

  94

  65

  78

  5

  Northern Ireland

  0

  22

  0

  0

  1987

  Scotland

  7

  7

  22

  94

  England and Wales

  92

  65

  78

  6

  Northern Ireland

  1

  27

  0

  0

  1988

  Scotland

  6

  20

  23

  95

  England and Wales

  94

  53

  77

  5

  Northern Ireland

  0

  27

  0

  0

  1989

  Scotland

  5

  6

  26

  95

  England and Wales

  94

  71

  74

  5

  Northern Ireland

  1

  23

  0

  0

  The amount of gas used to generate electricity accounted for less than 0·1 per cent. of the total.

  The proportion of United Kingdom electricity sales in Scotland, England Wales, and Northern Ireland was as follows. Data for 1990 are not yet available.

  per cent.2

  Sales of electricity6

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  Scotland

  10

  10

  10

  10

  England

  82

  82

  82

  82

  Wales7

  6

  6

  6

  6

  Northern Ireland

  2

  2

  2

  2

  Sales of electricity cannot be linked to fuels used in generation.
  70

  Electricity generated1

  Year

  GWH

  1986

  282,272

  1987

  282,696

  1988

  288,543

  1989

  292,911

  1990

  2299,712

  2estimate

  The proportion of electricity generated by the major generating companies in the United Kingdom from coal, oil, gas, nuclear and renewable sources was:

  Percentage share of fuel used in electricity generation2

  Fuel3

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  Coal

  72

  76

  72

  69

  70

  Oil4

  9

  7

  8

  8

  10

  Nuclear

  17

  16

  18

  21

  19

  Renewable energy sources5

  2

  2

  2

  2

  2

  The amount of gas used to generate electricity accounted for less than 0·1 per cent. of the total.

  The proportion of electricity generated by the major generating companies in the United Kingdom from each of the previous sources in Scotland, England Wales, and Northern Ireland for 1986 to 1989 was as follows. Data for England and Wales are not available separately and data for 1990 are not yet available.

  (1) Information published in Energy Trends Table 15 and in Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (1990 Table 53). Coverage is for the major generating companies in the United Kingdom formerly comprising the public supply system: National Power, PowerGen, Nuclear Electric, National Grid Company, Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro, Scottish Nuclear, Northern Ireland Electricity Service, Midlands Electricity and South Western Electricity.

  (2) Due to rounding the sum of the constituent percentage may not equal 100.

  (3) Information published in Energy Trends Table 16 and in Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (1990 Table 49). Coverage is for the major generating companies in the United Kingdom formerly comprising the public supply system (see note 1).

  (4) Includes oil used in gas turbines and diesel plant, for lighting up coal fired boilers, and Orimulsion.
  71
  (5) Includes natural flow hydro, wind and refuse-derived fuel.

  (6) Information published in Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics (1990 Table 58).

  (7) Relates to sales in Wales by MANWEB and South Wales Electricity.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Solicitors
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will describe the current arrangements for senior solicitors to become judges in respect of(a) the procedures that are followed when solicitors put themselves forward as potential candidates for judicial office and (b) the measures he is taking to invite solicitors to apply for judicial office; and if he will make a statement on future proposals in this area.

  The Attorney-General
  The Lord Chancellor's general policy is that before being considered for a full-time judicial post a candidate must first have served in a part-time capacity for long enough to establish his or her competence and suitability. Those wishing to become judges usually serve initially as assistant recorders or deputy district judges. All applicants are considered on their merits, having regard to the numbers of appointments required.

  Views are sought from those able to comment on an applicant's practice, professional standing and other qualities. Interviews are also held.

  Applications from suitably qualified solicitors for judicial appointment are welcomed. The Lord Chancellor has taken steps to encourage more solicitors to put themselves forward for consideration. Such measures include continuing discussion with the Law Society, public speeches, meetings with solicitors' groups and the publication and wide distribution of a booklet explaining the judicial appointments system. In 1988 a special pilot scheme was set up, involving senior solicitors on local review committees, with the aim of testing a further method for identifying solicitors for potential appointment: the results of this scheme are currently being evaluated.

  Innocent Dissemination
  Mr. John Garrett
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on his consultations on the Faulks committee's proposal that the defence of innocent dissemination should be available to printers.

  The Attorney-General
  In a consultation paper published in July 1990 the Lord Chancellor invited views on whether the defence of innocent dissemination should be made available to printers. The Lord Chancellor is now concluding his consideration of the responses received and hopes to make a statement in the near future.

  Bailiffs
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Attorney-General what representations he has received calling for bailiffs to be certificated; what plans he has to introduce legislation making such a requirement; and if he will make a statement.

  The Attorney-General
  The recently published National Consumer Council report on private bailiffs recommended that the Community Charges (Administration and 72
  Enforcement) Regulations 1989 be amended to require all bailiffs to be certificated. That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

  The Government have no plans at present to introduce legislation requiring all bailiffs to be certificated.

  Leybucht Bay
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Attorney-General when he expects the decision to be reached by the European Court of Justice on the Leybucht bay case: European Commission v. the Federal Republic of Germany.

  The Attorney-General
  The Advocate General gave his opinion in ECJ Case C57/89 Commission v. Germany on 5 December 1990, and it is expected that the European Court of Justice will deliver its judgment on 28 February 1991.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Refugees
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions have taken place with other European Community states about a common approach to refugees.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Asylum policy has been discussed in a wide range of meetings at both ministerial and official level between member states of the European Community. The Dublin convention, signed by 11 member states last June, seeks to clarify responsibilities for considering individual asylum cases.

  Racial Equality
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he last met the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend met the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality on Thursday 14 February to discuss current issues affecting community relations.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what resources at 1990 prices have been allocated by the Government to the Commission for Racial Equality for each year since its creation.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The information is as follows:

  Actual grant (£)

  At 1989–90 prices (£)

  1977–781>

  3,150,000

  8,172,266

  1978–79

  4,900,000

  11,464,938

  1979–80

  5,900,000

  11,831,234

  1980–81

  7,000,000

  11,862,396

  1981–82

  7,475,000

  11,552,073

  1982–83

  8,287,000

  11,957,462

  1983–84

  8,629,000

  11,900,591

  1984–85

  9,359,000

  12,283,441

  1985–86

  9,447,322

  11,759,029

  1986–87

  10,583,000

  12,737,251

  1987–88

  10,845,000

  12,378,300 "

  1988–89

  11,256,000

  11,973,449

  1989–90

  11,805,000

  11,805,000

  1990–912

  13,512,400

  12,511,481

  73
  1Part.

  2Based on latest GDP deflator available in November 1990.

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many magistrates there are in Britain; and of these how many are(a) black, (b) Asian and (c) women.

  The Attorney-General
  I have been asked to reply.

  As at 1 January 1991 there were 29,062 lay magistrates in England and Wales. Of these, 12,964 were women. Records are not kept of the racial origins of magistrates. However, surveys in 1987 indicated that 528 were members of an ethnic minority and an informal count since has shown that the number of such appointments has exceeded the proportion in the population age groups from which appointments are normally made.

  Animal Experiments
  Mr. Lawrence
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what information he has on the numbers of, or trend in, the numbers of animal experiments since the implementation of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The number of scientific procedures performed on living animals since the introduction of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 is given in table 23 of "Statistics of Scientific Procedures on Living Animals, Great Britain I989"—Cm. 1152—a copy of which is in the Library. The table shows that the use of living animals in scientific procedures has been declining steadily for many years. The 1986 Act has given further impetus to this encouraging trend.

  The Gulf
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many meetings he has had with representatives of the Asian community in Britain to discuss the Gulf war; and if he will list the organisations concerned.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend recently attended the annual banquet of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. A visit to the Glasgow central mosque, planned for 18 January, had to be postponed and rearranged for a date in May. However, I met representatives of the United Kingdom action committee on Islamic affairs on 23 January. Such meetings reflect continuing contacts at ministerial and official level.

  North Yorkshire Police
  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many additional uniformed police officers, excluding special constables, have been authorised to be added to the strength of the North Yorkshire police in each year from 1975 to 1990.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  It is not possible to distinguish between increases in uniformed and non-uniformed police officers as such information is not held centrally. The establishment of the North Yorkshire police has been increased in the following years between 1975 and 1990:74

  Year

  Police Posts

  1975

  111

  1979

  40

  1989

  15

  1990

  25

  The police authority did not request establishment increases in the years 1980–81 to 1987–88 inclusive.

  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many crimes were(a) recorded and (b) detected by North Yorkshire police in each year from 1975 to 1990.

  Mr. John Patten
  The requested information for 1975–1989 is published in the annual reports of the chief constable of North Yorkshire for the years 1976, 1978 and 1989. Copies of these publications are available in the Library. Statistics for 1990 are not yet available.

  Electoral Registers
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list by parliamentary constituency the number of electors listed in the draft electoral register for 1991–92 and the number listed in the register for 1990–91.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Figures on the number of electors included in draft electoral registers for England and Wales are not held centrally. Figures on the number of local government electors included in the register for 1991–92 will be published by the Office of Population Censuses arid Surveys in the spring; parliamentary constituency electorates will be published in the summer in the OPCS annual reference volume on electoral statistics. Figures relating to the electoral register for 1990–91 were published in the last year's annual reference volume, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Immigration
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the average cost in 1990–91 of processing each application for(a) registration as a British citizen, (b) naturalisation on grounds of marriage and (c) other naturalisation;

  (2) what is the average cost in 1990–91 of processing applications for (a) registration as a British citizen, (b) naturalisation on the grounds of marriage and (c) other naturalisations where the application is withdrawn or abandoned.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The average cost of processing applications in each of these categories during the period April 1990-January 1991 is shown in the table. Average cost of withdrawn applications is not computed separately:

  Category of application

  Average cost of processing

  Successful

  Unsuccessful

  £

  £

  Registration

  79·51

  58·00

  Naturalisation of a person married to a British citizen

  143·95

  135·95

  Naturalisation on grounds of residence in the United Kingdom

  175·50

  140·16

  Iraqi Nationals
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is his estimate of the number, to the latest available date, or Iraqi nationals and other nationals, required to register under the Immigration (Variation of Leave) Order 1991, who, to date, have failed to register; what are the requirements of registration; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) how many Iraqi nationals are currently registered with the police; what fee is charged for registration; and how many such registrations since the coming into force of the Immigration (Variation of Leave) Order 1991 have been made.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  On 21 January 1991, a total of 3,484 Iraqi nationals were registered with the police. Information is not yet available centrally showing the number who have registered since coming into force of the Immigration (Variation of Leave) Order 1991 which required all Iraqi nationals with a limited leave to enter or remain in the United Kingdom to register with the police. The requirements of registration are to supply within seven days of the requirement being imposed certain details to the police, such as name, date of birth, address, together with a recent photograph and to keep the police informed of changes in circumstances. The fee for registration is currently £36.

  Metropolitan Police
  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what will be the total cost to public funds of the Metropolitan police in 1991–92; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  As police authority for the metropolis, I have approved estimates which provide for net revenue expenditure of £1,415·167 million in 1991–92. There will be a cash limit on current expenditure of £1,370·423 million. Capital expenditure is subject to separate control.

  I have also approved the issue of a precept of £123·74 per head of relevant population for Metropolitan police purposes. This is not the sum levied on individual community charge payers, but will be levied on local authorities' collection funds which include income from revenue support grant and national non-domestic rates as well as the community charge.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Sports Facilities
  Mr. Higgins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has on sports facilities provided by local authorities at community charge payers' expense which are not being used because contracts for their operation have not been put out to tender.

  Mr. Atkins
  I am unaware of any cases where local authority sports facilities are not being used because contracts for their management have not been put out to tender. SI 1990 No. 1564 specifies that competition in the management of sports and leisure facilities should be phased in by steps from 1 January 1992 to 1 January 1993.
  76
  Mr. Higgins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether it is his policy that contracts for the operation and maintenance of sports facilities provided by local authorities must be put out to tender if there is no possibility that the revenue from them will cover costs.

  Mr. Atkins
  The Government are introducing compulsory competitive tendering in the management of local authority sports facilities because they believe it will result in better value for money from local authority expenditure.

  Data Protection Act
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has made an estimate of the total cost of registration of all schools under the Data Protection Act; and whether he has any plans to increase grants in order to cover these costs.

  Mr. Fallon
  No information is available on the extent to which schools make use of personal data held on computer which would make registration necessary.

  West Midlands (Minister's Visit)
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what official engagements were undertaken by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) during his visit to the west midlands on 30 January.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  As sponsor Minister for the Birmingham city action team and the East Birmingham task force, I visited the Hodge Hill access centre, based at Hodge Hill girls' school in Birmingham, and attended a special meeting of the Birmingham city action team at the Birmingham area office of the Employment services in New street. In the afternoon, I visited Coventry polytechnic, particularly the department of health sciences and the department of mechanical engineering and held meetings with academics and students.

  Teachers (North Yorkshire)
  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the full-time equivalent number of teachers employed in North Yorkshire secondary schools in each year from 1974 to 1990, in each of the following subject areas(a) English, (b) mathematics, (c) physics, (d) chemistry, (f) technology, (g) history, (h) geography, (i) economics, (j) French, (k) German, (l) Spanish, (m) Italian, (n) Russian, (o) other modern languages, (p) religious education, (q) art, (r) music and (s) physical education.

  Mr. Fallon
  Information on the deployment of teachers within individual local authorities is not centrally available.

  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many(a) heads and deputy heads and (b) other teachers in North Yorkshire infant and primary schools, and North Yorkshire secondary schools, have (i) left the profession, (ii) sought early retirement and (iii) taken early retirement in each year from 1974 to 1990.

  Mr. Fallon
  The table gives information on teachers leaving the profession and those retiring before age 60, for
  77
  the years 1985–86 to 1987–88. Information for earlier years

  Full-time teachers in maintained schools in North Yorkshire

  Number leaving teaching

  Number retiring before 60

  Heads and deputies

  Other teachers

  Heads and deputies

  Other teachers

  Nursery and primary Year to 31 March

  1986

  4

  49

  18

  37

  1987

  8

  52

  22

  31

  1988

  5

  42

  17

  22

  Secondary Year to 31 March

  1986

  0

  108

  7

  72

  1987

  0

  100

  7

  43

  1988

  1

  106

  2

  35

  Note: "Leaving teaching" excludes those who were barred, died or moved into service in special or further education or in independent schools. Some of those leaving may have since returned to teaching.

  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the full-time equivalent number of teachers employed in(a) North Yorkshire infant and primary schools, and (b) North Yorkshire secondary schools in each year from 1974 to 1990.

  Mr. Fallon
  The number of full-time equivalent qualified teachers employed within maintained primary and secondary schools in North Yorkshire were as follows:

  January each year

  Primary1 schools

  Secondary2 schools

  1975

  2,661

  2,805

  1976

  2,718

  2,945

  1977

  2,744

  3,059

  1978

  2,727

  3,126

  1979

  2,698

  3,160

  1980

  2,648

  3,219

  1981

  2,529

  3,197

  1982

  2,402

  3,178

  1983

  2,304

  3,205

  1984

  2,282

  3,197

  1985

  2,271

  3,073

  1986

  2,274

  3,017

  1987

  2,322

  2,938

  1988

  2,356

  2,852

  1989

  2,411

  2,814

  1990

  2,450

  2,795

  1 All types of primary school including infant schools.

  2 Includes middle schools deemed secondary.

  Data for 1974 are not readily available.

  ILEA
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his estimate of staff numbers in his Department involved in full or part-time work arising from abolition of the Inner London education authority.

  Mr. Fallon
  The DES has an inner London unit with 14 staff. Most of the work of the unit is in connection with schools in the new inner London education authorities. There is however still some residual business arising from the abolition of ILEA.
  78
  is not readily available, and for later years is not yet available. The number of teachers seeking early retirement is not centrally available.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his current estimate of the financial and staff savings arising from the abolition of ILEA; and when the figures were last assessed.

  Mr. Fallon
  There are already encouraging signs that many of the new inner London LEAs are seeking to increase efficiency in their education service; it is too early to assess precise savings.

  Special Schools
  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) if he will list, for those local authorities for which numbers are available for the latest date available, how many pupils with statements of special educational needs are recorded as attending maintained special schools under arrangements made by the authority;

  (2) if he will list, for those local authorities for which numbers are available, and for the latest date available, how many pupils with special educational needs are recorded as attending non-maintained special schools and independent schools under arrangements made by the authority.

  Mr. Fallon
  The number of pupils in maintained special schools, non-maintained special schools and the number of pupils with statements of special educational needs in independent schools in each local education authority in England in January 1990 is given in the table.

  Pupils with statements of special educational needs January 1990

  Special schools1

  Independent schools

  Maintained

  Non-maintained

  City

  0

  0

  0

  Camden

  421

  0

  1

  Greenwich

  744

  0

  0

  Hackney

  663

  0

  4

  Hammersmith

  481

  0

  2

  Islington

  336

  0

  0

  Kensington and Chelsea

  98

  0

  1

  Lambeth

  958

  0

  0

  Lewisham

  505

  0

  1

  Southwark

  578

  0

  0

  Tower Hamlets

  484

  0

  0

  79

  Special schools1

  Independent schools

  Maintained

  Non-maintained

  Wandsworth

  740

  0

  3

  Westminster

  219

  0

  21

  Barking

  190

  0

  0

  Barnet

  345

  0

  26

  Bexley

  268

  0

  0

  Brent

  372

  0

  0

  Bromley

  384

  43

  3

  Croydon

  488

  0

  12

  Ealing

  442

  0

  37

  Enfield

  416

  0

  1

  Haringey

  329

  0

  0

  Harrow

  245

  0

  1

  Havering

  268

  0

  0

  Hillingdon

  381

  101

  0

  Hounslow

  495

  0

  0

  Kingston upon Thames

  255

  0

  0

  Merton

  254

  0

  0

  Newham

  479

  0

  0

  Redbridge

  409

  16

  69

  Richmond upon Thames

  177

  0

  0

  Sutton

  299

  0

  67

  Waltham Forest

  755

  0

  0

  Birmingham

  2,864

  56

  12

  Coventry

  860

  0

  1

  Dudley

  546

  0

  0

  Sandwell

  889

  0

  0

  Solihull

  246

  0

  2

  Walsall

  577

  0

  0

  Wolverhampton

  501

  0

  0

  Knowsley

  668

  0

  0

  Liverpool

  1,560

  155

  0

  St. Helens

  479

  0

  99

  Sefton

  452

  178

  122

  Wirral

  790

  83

  0

  Bolton

  456

  41

  0

  Bury

  285

  0

  1

  Manchester

  1,731

  0

  0

  Oldham

  627

  0

  0

  Rochdale

  540

  0

  0

  Salford

  666

  0

  1

  Stockport

  397

  322

  7

  Tameside

  417

  0

  0

  Trafford

  389

  0

  0

  Wigan

  795

  0

  0

  Barnsley

  220

  0

  0

  Doncaster

  731

  317

  129

  Rotherham

  613

  0

  32

  Sheffield

  868

  0

  0

  Bradford

  965

  0

  0

  Calderdale

  232

  87

  33

  Kirklees

  652

  39

  0

  Leeds

  1,132

  200

  22

  Wakefield

  635

  0

  1

  Gateshead

  415

  0

  0

  Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  638

  153

  5

  North Tyneside

  425

  137

  0

  South Tyneside

  305

  0

  0

  Sunderland

  644

  0

  53

  Isles of Stilly

  0

  0

  0

  Avon

  2,047

  0

  225

  Bedfordshire

  1,123

  0

  1

  Berkshire

  1,497

  240

  58

  Buckinghamshire

  1,512

  0

  68

  80

  Special schools1

  Independent schools

  Maintained

  Non-maintained

  Cambridgeshire

  1,035

  0

  88

  Cheshire

  1,430

  173

  1

  Cleveland

  1,379

  0

  1

  Cornwall

  313

  0

  34

  Cumbria

  425

  0

  334

  Derbyshire

  1,453

  136

  271

  Devon

  1,713

  348

  458

  Dorset

  1,117

  86

  148

  Durham

  1,010

  0

  2

  East Sussex

  1,361

  445

  377

  Essex

  2,592

  168

  112

  Gloucestershire

  1,241

  67

  89

  Hampshire

  3,820

  287

  415

  Hereford and Worcester

  1,326

  164

  242

  Hertfordshire

  1,907

  67

  85

  Humberside

  1,269

  0

  0

  Isle of Wight

  273

  47

  0

  Kent

  3,346

  483

  174

  Lancashire

  3,238

  192

  25

  Leicestershire

  1,114

  0

  61

  Lincolnshire

  1,163

  0

  64

  Norfolk

  884

  0

  215

  North Yorshire

  1,067

  209

  15

  Northamptonshire

  1,169

  32

  65

  Northumberland

  542

  0

  50

  Nottinghamshire

  2,156

  79

  40

  Oxfordshire

  820

  141

  50

  Shropshire

  611

  89

  177

  Somerset

  592

  62

  252

  Staffordshire

  2,001

  0

  164

  Suffolk

  747

  0

  111

  Surrey

  1,775

  638

  92

  Warwickshire

  1,383

  0

  10

  West Sussex

  1,214

  101

  254

  Wiltshire

  698

  62

  26

  England

  93,051

  6,244

  5,623

  1 All pupils in special schools.

  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will place responses to his circular regarding the application of local management of schools in the Library; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Fallon
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: It is not our normal practice to publish responses to consultation on draft circulars. We are considering the responses carefully and will take full account of them in drawing up the final version of the circular.

  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps his Department is taking to monitor the effect of(a) retention of funds for special needs by the local education authority in the LMS formula and (b) delegation of special needs funds to maintained schools in the LMS formula.

  Mr. Fallon
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: We are monitoring and reviewing all aspects of the effects of local management—with the help of LEAs, the local authority and head teacher associations, and Her Majesty's inspectorate. Close attention will be paid to the effects of different ways of managing provision for pupils with special educational needs within the context of LMS—local management of schools.

  Ms. Armstrong
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what account he has taken
  81
  regarding the responsibilities of local education authorities under the Education Act 1981, when considering the application of LMS to (a) special schools and (b) children with special needs in mainstream education.

  Mr. Fallon
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: Circular 7/88, which guided the preparation of LMS schemes for mainstream schools, stated that the Secretary of State expected LEAs to include within schemes provision for taking into account pupils with special needs as defined under the 1981 Act, including both pupils with and without statements made under that Act. Where provision for pupils with statements of special needs is delegated to schools under schemes of local management, the Secretary of State expects to see LEAs place conditions on governors of schools with delegated budgets, binding them to deliver the provision required by the statements.

  My right hon. and learned Friend is currently consulting on proposals to extend local management to special schools.

  Sport and Physical Education
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he will publish the interim report of the working group on sport and physical education in the national curriculum.

  Mr. Atkins
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply my right hon. and learned Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) on 18 February,Official Report, column 23.

  School Premises
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science on what date the public consultation stage of the review of the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981 will commence; what time scale has been decided for the completion of the consultation stage; and if he will list the organisations invited to take part in the public consultation.

  Mr. Fallon
  We expect consultation to begin within the next week. Comments will be invited by Friday 22 March. We shall be writing to the following organisations:

  Local Authority Associations:

  Association of Metropolitan Authorities

  Association of County Councils

  Local Education Authorities

  Chief Education Officers—England

  School Governors

  National Association of Governors and Managers

  GM Schools

  Grant Maintained Schools Trust

  City Technology Colleges

  CTC Trust

  Religious Bodies

  Catholic Education Council

  General Synod of the Church of England

  London Board of Jewish Religious Education

  Methodist Church Division of Education and Youth

  Teachers Associations

  National Union of Teachers

  Secondary Heads Association

  82

  Professional Association of Teachers

  National Association of School Masters/Union of Women Teachers

  National Association of Head Teachers

  Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association

  Special Educational Needs

  Local Authority Social Services Departments

  Centre for Studies of Integration in Education

  National Council for Special Education

  Royal National Institute for the Blind

  Royal National Institute for the Deaf

  The Spastics Society

  Special Educational Needs National Advisory Council

  National Association of Independent and Non-Maintained Special Schools

  Local Authority Professional Associations

  Society of Education Officers

  Society of Chief Architects in Local Authorities (SCALA)

  Association of Heads of County Property Departments

  Society of Chief Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

  Society of Chief Building Surveyors

  Ethnic Minority Organisations

  Afro-Caribbean Teachers Association

  Asian Teachers Association

  British Association of Muslims

  Board of Deputies of British Jews Education Office

  Federation of Bangladeshi Associations

  Caribbean Teachers Association

  Greek Cypriot Teachers Association

  National Association of Hindu Associations

  National Muslim Education Council for U.K.

  Sikh Education Council

  Standing Conference of Asian Organisations U.K.

  The Islamic Academy

  The Council of Mosques: U.K. and Eire

  The Islamic School Trust

  Muslim Educational Trust

  Muslim Educational Services

  Muslim Education Co-ordinating Council U.K.

  Other

  The Chartered Institute of Building

  National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations

  Association of Community Councils in Rural England (ACRE)

  Organisations maintaining non-maintained special schools

  Royal National Institute for the Blind

  Barnardo's

  National Children's Home

  The Shaftesbury Society

  Invalid Children's Aid Nationwide

  Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Essex)

  Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Merseyside)

  The English Province of the Daughters of the Cross

  The Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul

  Order of the Dominicans

  Royal London Society for the Blind

  Christian Service Union

  Boys' and Girls' Welfare Society

  The Royal Eastern Counties Schools Ltd.

  Mind

  Henshaw's Society for the Blind

  The Birmingham Royal Institute for the Blind

  The Smith Foundation

  The Royal Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton

  Other bodies

  Local authority social services departments

  Other organisations or individuals are of course welcome to write to the Department offering their views. The Welsh Office will, I understand, be consulting separately with organisations in Wales within the same time scale.

HEALTH

  Hospital Food Purchases
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total cost of food purchased by NHS hospitals in each region in the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Information derived from the annual accounts of regional and district health authorities in England is shown in the table.

  Revenue expenditure on Hospital and Community Health Services (HCHS)—Provisions—1989–90

  Region

  £000 (cash)

  Northern

  14,487

  Yorkshire

  15,718

  Trent

  17,945

  East Anglian

  8,566

  North West Thames

  14,784

  North East Thames

  19,886

  South East Thames

  15,917

  South West Thames

  13,676

  Wessex

  11,527

  Oxford

  8,668

  South Western

  12,950

  West Midlands

  21,548

  Mersey

  10,805

  North Western

  18,596

  Regions total

  205,073

  Notes:

  1. The expenditure relates to provisions purchased for patients and staff and is incurred predominately in hospitals; elements included for other services covered by HCHS—for example, community health—are not separately identifiable in the annual accounts.

  2. The table excludes expenditure by the special health authorities for the London postgraduate teaching hospitals. Expenditure incurred by regional and district health authorities under contract catering arrangements, totalling some £14·1 million in 1989–90, is similarly excluded.

  Departmental Achievements
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the principal achievements of his Department since June 1987.

  Mr. Waldegrave
  The principal achievement since June 1987 has been the enactment of the reforms of the health service set out in the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. The reforms build on the fundamental principles of the national health service and on the achievements of the last 40 years, to secure the best possible use of the record level of resources now available for health care and to give patients, wherever they live in the United Kingdom, better health care and greater choice of services. Improved organisation and management of the national health service through clearer definition of responsibility between those purchasing health services in line with the needs of their local population and those providing and managing those services will be key elements.

  The national health service has made a positive response and welcomed the greater devolution and delegation of responsibility. Fifty-seven hospital trusts have already been announced and will come into effect from next April along with a substantial number of general practitioner fund holders. Considerable interest has been
  84
  expressed by others wishing to follow in subsequent waves. These changes mean putting quality and responsiveness to the patient at the top of the agenda.

  Since 1987, and throughout their period of office, the Government have remained firmly committed to the national health service as a service free to all regardless of means and funded primarily from central taxation. Gross United Kingdom spending has increased from £21·8 billion in 1987–88 to a level of planned expenditure of £32·6 billion in 1991–92. United Kingdom per capita expenditure on the health service will have risen from £383 in 1987–88 to £567.

  The numbers of patients receiving treatment has continued to rise each year. Targets set in 1986 for cataracts and bone marrow transplants have been met and the target for hip replacements is close to being achieved. There has been a 23 per cent. increase in the total number of heart and lung transplants and a 72 per cent. increase in the number of liver transplants.

  Besides the increases in the number of direct care staff, doctors and nurses are better paid. The Government have responded positively to the recommendations made by the respective independent review bodies. Last December, broad agreement was reached with the medical profession to reduce to 72 hours per week the long hours worked by junior hospital doctors in hard-pressed posts.

  The NHS and Community Care Act 1990, also provides the framework for the development of domiciliary day and respite services to enable people to live in their own homes wherever feasible and sensible. This programme will have a phased introduction to avoid overburdening the agencies involved.

  Since 1987, the Government have placed particular emphasis on the importance of health promotion and disease prevention. In 1990, immunisation and vaccination targets were set under the terms of the new contract for GPs. These have already led to improvements, particularly in the inner city areas where rates were generally low. Since 1988 all English health authorities have had a computerised call and recall system for cervical cancer screening. All women aged between 20 and 64 are expected to be brought into the programme by 1993. The first nationwide breast cancer screening programme in the European Community has been established, and important initiatives have been taken on teenage smoking, alcohol misuse, drug misuse, diet, food safety and coronary heart disease. In January 1988, the world summit of Ministers of Health was held in London, to look at programmes for combating the spread of AIDS. More than £10 million has been made available annually to health authorities and voluntary organisations to continue this work. Further progress has been made towards the WHO European region's 38 "Health For All" targets with many of those relating to health trends, lifestyles and healthy environment having been achieved. With the support of the leading health professions, the Government expect to produce a consultative document in the early part of 1991, which will form the first stages of a health strategy for England and provide the means for measuring improved health outcomes.

  Other developments since June 1987 include the improved approach to child care practice under the Children Act 1989. Close working between magistrates courts, the higher courts and local authorities with the need for understanding new court processes will be

  85
  important factors. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 addresses the complex legal and ethical issues surrounding embryos and embryo research.

  Newmarket Hospital
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health when he expects to receive the Eastern regional health authority's proposals to run down Newmarket hospital to a community facility.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The West Suffolk district health authority is currently consulting widely on the future of Newmarket hospital. The consultation period will end on 28 February. The district health authority will then make proposals to the East Anglian regional health authority. The regional health authority will consider these findings within the wider context of its proposed strategy for acute services in the south western part of the region. If the scheme preferred by the region and the district is formally opposed it will be referred to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

  The Gulf
  Ms. Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his estimate of the cost to the NHS arising from increased prescription of tranquilisers to those service men and women and their families who are suffering from trauma, stress and long-term mental illness consequent upon the war in the Gulf.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  There is no information available on which to base any such estimate.

  Ms. Primarolo
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if the Chief Medical Officer is proposing to issue guidance to general practitioners in regard to the treatment of servicemen and women and their families suffering from trauma, stress and long-term mental illness following upon war in the Gulf with regard to the cost implications and avilability of psychotherapeutic treatment and drug-based treatment.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Chief Medical Officer does not intend to issue guidance on what is a clinical matter. General practitioners regularly deal with people suffering from stress and mental illness using psychotherapeutic methods and drug treatment. Previous major incidents have given an increased understanding of the approaches which are most helpful.

  Service men and women will be treated primarily by the services medical organisations. Families will in the main receive care from their general practitioners, in the usual way under national health service arrangements.

  NHS Hospitals (Re-admissions)
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make it his policy to collect central data of the number of patients in England and Wales who, having been discharged from national health service hospitals, required subsequent hospitalisation for(a) the same complaint or (b) a different but related complaint.

  Mr. Dorrell
  There are no plans to do so. Decisions about discharge are a matter for clinical judgment. Such decisions will be informed by medical audit but not by central collection of data.

  Food Hygiene Regulations
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether Scotland will be exempted from the Food Hygiene (Amendment) Regulations 1990; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Food Hygiene (Amendment) Regulations 1990 apply to England and Wales only. Separate food hygiene regulations apply in Scotland, and amendments are under consideration in the Scottish Office.

  Haemophilia
  Mr. Bellotti
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans the bio products laboratory has to import unlicensed high purity Factor VIII products from abroad for the treatment of haemophilia A patients; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The bio products laboratory—BPL—is responding to the demand from clinicians for high purity Factor VIII made from plasma provided by United Kingdom unpaid voluntary donors as recommended in World Health Organisation and EC guidelines. It has licensed the appropriate manufacturing technology and is modifying its production facility to manufacture the product locally. For a limited period while those modifications are carried out, and in the interest of meeting the demands as quickly as possible, the BPL has contracted Kabi of Sweden to undertake part of the manufacturing process from an intermediate material supplied by the BPL. This work will be undertaken under the supervision of BPL staff.

  The BPL is not at present covered by the licensing requirements of the Medicines Act because of Crown immunity. However, some of its products and facilities are already so licensed and it will be seeking licences for other products, including high purity Factor VIII, under the arrangements leading to the removal of Crown immunity. For many years the BPL has been inspected by the medicines inspectorate and its product have been tested by the National Institute of Biological Standards and Control, as are similar licensed pharmaceutical products.

  Mr. Bellotti
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent guidelines he has issued with regard to treatment of haemophilia A patients; and what representations he has received.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Several representations have been received concerning the use of high purity factor VIII for the treatment of haemophilia A patients. The Department has not issued guidance on this matter; decisions whether this treatment is appropriate for individual patients rest with the clinicians within the arrangements and protocols set locally for determining priorities among patient services, including prescribing costs.

  NHS Trusts
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the estimated level of(a) capital repayments, (b) interest payments, and (c) public dividend payments by national health service trusts to the Treasury in 1991–92.

  Mr. Dorrell
  We estimate that the level of capital repayments and interest payments to be made by NHS
  87
  trusts in 1991–92 will be £70·2 million and £189 million respectively. Dividends payable on public dividend capital will not normally be declared or paid until after the end of the financial year once audited accounts are received.

  Depreciation
  Mr. Robin Cook
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health by how much hospital and community health services revenue plans have been enhanced in 1991–92 to meet the provision in national health service trust prices for depreciation.

  Mr. Dorrell
  HCHS revenue plans have been enhanced by £164 million in the 1991–92 financial year to take account of depreciation provided for in NHS trust prices.

  Junior Doctors
  Mr. Terry Davis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what reduction has taken place in the number of junior hospital doctors with a rota commitment greater than 1:3 in the west midlands region since 18 January 1989.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  This information is not held centrally. The hon. Member may wish to contact the chairman of the West Midlands regional health authority for details.

  Hormone Drugs
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what timetable, agency and funding has been agreed for his Department's survey into the use and misuse of hormone drugs; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Government have decided in principle that a survey should be carried out into the prevalence of the misuse of steroid drugs. We are urgently considering the best way to take the survey forward. We hope to be able to give further details shortly and I will write to the hon. Member when these are available.

  Food Poisoning, Preston
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he is investigating the source of the outbreak of food poisoning caused by E. coli in the Preston area; what other action he is taking in respect of this; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  This outbreak is the subject of ongoing investigation by the public health laboratory service. The Department's Chief Medical Officer has issued a statement about the need for beefburgers and similar minced meat products to be thoroughly cooked before they are eaten. All local authority environmental health departments were notified of the outbreak and asked, through the Department's hazard warning system, to remind food businesses of the need to ensure beefburgers are properly cooked. Both the CMO's statement and the hazard warning notice have been placed in the Library.

  The Government will consider the need for additional action in the light of the PHLS findings on the outbreak and other cases of human illness due to E.coli 0157 phage type 31 (variant) which have been reported around the country.

  Women in the National Health Service
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether he has any plans to encourage job sharing in the NHS;

  (2) what plans he has to ensure that full use is made of women's contributions to the NHS; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) how many women work in the NHS.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  [holding answer 8 February 1991]: The latest available information, which relates to 1989, indicates that there were 770,300 women working in the national health service in England, representing 76·6 per cent. of the total work force. We are firmly committed to ensuring that the best possible use is made of their valuable contribution.

  We take every opportunity to stress to health authorities the importance of flexible working arrangements, including job sharing, which allow women to successfully combine their family responsibilities with those of working in the NHS.

  To encourage authorities in the development of good personnel policies and practices which enable them to recruit and retain the services of women staff, we have endorsed a wide range of initiatives, including:
  Publication of a comprehensive guidance manual and summary report sent to all health authorities by the national steering group on equal opportunities for women in the NHS.
  Many health authorities operate their own independent day nursery and holiday play schemes, while others have entered into collaborative arrangements with separate organisations.
  Launch of two new schemes in December last year for "Keeping in Touch" and "Getting Back to Practice" to replace an existing dentists' retainer scheme, enabling dentists who take career breaks from their practices to keep up to date with their skills and experience.
  The introduction of a maternity payments scheme for general dental practitioners who intend to return to general practice after having a child.
  Publication in January this year of the report and recommendations of a special departmental working group on "Women Doctors and their Careers" aimed at promoting greater equality of opportunity for women in the medical profession.
  Publication of a special report by the Department's social services inspectorate "Women in Social Services—A Neglected Resource" giving guidance on how social services departments can benefit from making full use of womens skills and experience.
  Launch of a new scheme providing special leave arrangements for a range of family and domestic needs, agreed in January this year between NHS management and staff representatives. This scheme complements one agreed in July last year under which authorities may grant career breaks.
  Departmental funding for a number of projects aimed at encouraging the return of nursing, health visiting and midwifery staff to the NHS.

  Additionally, the new GP contract recognises explicitly that women GPs often want to combine a career in general practice with bringing up their family. It does so by formally introducing new opportunities to work part time and to job share. We have also removed the list size criterion for a locum allowance while a woman GP is absent from the practice having a baby—so the practice will not lose out while she is away.

  Implementation of some of these schemes is a matter for the individual employing authorities. We shall continue to seek ways of encouraging them to effect improvements where necessary.

PRIME MINISTER

  Senior Civil Servants (Degrees)
  Mr. Page
  To ask the Prime Minister how many permanent secretaries have engineering, science or mathematics degrees; and what percentage that is of the total.

  The Prime Minister
  Four permanent secretaries—12 per cent. of the total—have degrees in these subjects. Two have science degrees and two have mathematics degrees. There are in addition a further 12 permanent secretaries—35 per cent. of the total—with social science degrees, including economics and statistics, and one with a professional accountancy qualification.

  Mr. Page
  To ask the Prime Minister how many under-secretaries have engineering, science or mathematics degrees; and what percentage that is of the total.

  The Prime Minister
  This information is not held centrally and could not be obtained without disproportionate cost.

  Defence Quality Assurance Unit
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will seek to co-ordinate the activities of the Departments of Environment, Trade and Industry and Transport with regard to the proposed relocation of the Ministry of Defence quality assurance unit to Stockton on Tees.

  The Prime Minister
  The Ministry of Defence has been in contact with the Departments mentioned during the course of their studies into the relocation of the directorate general defence quality assurance.

  Ministerial Advisers
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Prime Minister how many political advisers to Ministers are currently employed in the civil service; in which Departments they work; and on what grades they are paid.

  The Prime Minister
  There are currently 26 special advisers to Ministers employed in the civil service. The number in each Department is as follows:

  Number

  Cabinet Office (including No. 10)

  6

  Department of the Environment

  4

  Foreign and Commonwealth Office

  2

  Department of Health

  2

  Her Majesty's Treasury

  2

  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

  1

  Department of Education and Science

  1

  Department of Energy

  1

  Department of Employment

  1

  Home Office

  1

  Lord President of the Council

  1

  Scottish Office

  1

  Department of Social Security

  1

  Department of Trade and Industry

  1

  Department of Transport

  1

  90
  Special advisers are not graded and are not therefore paid on civil service salary scales. They are normally paid on a special advisers salary spine comprising 30 points, as follows:

  Scale point

  Salary (inclusive)

  30

  54,184

  29

  52,100

  28

  50,096

  27

  48,924

  26

  47,757

  25

  46,264

  24

  44,771

  23

  42,731

  22

  41,144

  21

  39,563

  20

  37,908

  19

  36,239

  18

  34,571

  17

  32,909

  16

  30,927

  15

  29,667

  14

  28,664

  13

  27,666

  12

  26,617

  11

  25,660

  10

  24,873

  9

  23,771

  8

  22,931

  7

  22,185

  6

  21,449

  5

  20,697

  4

  19,595

  3

  18,925

  2

  18,353

  1

  17,280

  The two most senior special advisers are paid personal salaries above the spine limit of £54,184. It is not our practice to reveal the salary of any adviser, as it is negotiated individually in relation to previous earnings and is, therefore, confidential.

  Greater London Council
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Prime Minister which departments of state are still carrying out functions and responsibilities arising from the abolition of the GLC.

  The Prime Minister
  The Home Office, the Department of the Environment, the Department of Transport and the Office of Arts and Libraries.

WALES

  Mental Illness
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many mental illness hospital beds were available in Wales in 1978, 1982, 1986, and during each of the last three years.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Information on mental illness beds and other psychiatric beds, excluding mental handicap, is given in the table:
  91

  Average daily available NHS hospital beds

  Specialty

  1978

  1982

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989–90

  Mental illness

  5,352·4

  4,526·7

  4,200·4

  3,956·1

  3,808·9

  2,586·1

  Child and adolescent psychiatry

  84·0

  69·0

  62·1

  61·0

  61·0

  75·0

  Forensic psychiatry

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  9·5

  Old age psychiatry

  189·0

  298·0

  468·2

  488·5

  525·7

  1,473·4

  Total of above

  5,625·4

  4,893·7

  4,730·7

  4,505·6

  4,395·6

  4,144·0

  A487, Gwynedd
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the outcome of his feasibility study undertaken for his Department, by Gwynedd county council, on possible options for improving the A487 road in the vicinity of Penygroes and Llanllyfni, and of providing a bypass for these two villages; and what is the expected time scale of these improvement schemes.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The study report on the A487 trunk road from Caerau to Pont Seiont, which includes Penygroes and Llanllyfni has not yet been received by the Welsh Office. However the outcome of preliminary consideration of the case for road improvements will be covered in a supplement to "Roads in Wales", to be published next week.

  South Wales Traffic Study
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the remit for the south Wales area traffic study; what is its estimated cost; who is undertaking it; when it will be completed; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The study is a review of traffic patterns over most of the south Wales trunk road network. It identifies sections likely to exceed their recommended traffic flow levels in the foreseeable future and evaluates possible solutions. It was undertaken by JMP Consultants Ltd in association with Veryard and Partners for £350,000. Their summary report was submitted last December and it is currently receiving careful consideration. No public statement is likely before the spring.

  Roads
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he proposes to issue the revised supplement on "Roads in Wales"; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  We plan to publish a 1991 supplement to "Roads in Wales" on 25 February.

  Castle Cement Works
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will indicate the action he has taken since the announcement of redundancies at the Castle cement works, Clwyd.

  Mr. David Hunt
  As the hon. Gentleman knows from my reply of 15 January, the Welsh Development Agency is taking these redundancies into account in planning its activities. The agency's small firms service have been in Castle Cement recently advising people who are considering self-employment and will continue to play an active role in helping those made redundant.

  Brymbo Steelworks
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will indicate the action he has taken since the announcement of redundancies at the Brymbo steelworks, Clwyd.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Since United Engineering Steels' announcement on the 14 May 1990 that Brymbo steelworks was to close, I have met, on several occasions, all the parties involved to discuss the future of the steelworks.

  At my request, the Welsh Development Agency made extensive, worldwide efforts, throughout last summer to find a buyer for the site who would continue steelmaking in some form without success.

  The Welsh Development Agency is still in consultation with United Engineering Steels over possible future uses for the site.

  On 30 October 1990, I announced a support package designed to mitigate the effects of the steelworks closure on the area. The package entails the government matching United Engineering Steel's contribution of £260,000 to the North East Wales training enterprise council pound for pound; an extra urban programme grant of £0·5 million this financial year, as well as the revenue appointment of a Brymbo village liaison and advice worker for three years, and an extra £0·5 million for Wrexham Maelor borough council for its Redwither project as part of its 1991–92 credit approvals announced on 10 December. In addition, the Welsh Development Agency has commenced work on £5·5 million programme of works based at the Wrexham industrial estate which should create job opportunities for 500 people. European regional development fund aid of £2,229,345 has been granted towards projects in the Wrexham travel-to-work area under the Clwyd integrated development operational programme.

  I will be meeting again the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) and representatives of the county and district councils later this week to review the situation and I will be taking further action as and when I consider it necessary.

  Clwyd Furniture Industry
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will indicate the measures he proposes in Clwyd consequent upon the announcement of redundancies in the furniture industry.

  Mr. David Hunt
  These job losses are very much regretted. The Welsh Development Agency takes all job losses into account in planning its future activities and reviews its plans in the light of continuing developments.

  Glendale Company
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement of the action he has taken consequent upon the placing of the Glendale company in the hands of the receiver.
  93
  Mr. David Hunt
  While the company is in the hands of the receiver it would be inappropriate for me to intervene. I have however asked the WDA to alert possible purchasers and both the agency and the Welsh Office stand ready to give every possible assistance to any potential purchaser.

  Effluent
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report a list of the trade effluent consents that have been granted for the discharge of pesticide waste to sewers, giving for each, the eight figure Ordnance Survey grid reference number for the point of discharge.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  This information is not held centrally. Copies of trade effluent consents are available for public inspection at the offices of the sewerage undertaker.

  Drinking Water
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report the information available to his Department on the incidence of faecal material in drinking water.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Water undertakers are required by the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 1989 (SI 1989 No. 1147) to record on a public register the results of the analysis of samples taken. In addition the chief inspector of the drinking water inspectorate will publish in the summer a full report upon the quality of drinking water supplied in England and Wales during 1990.

  Wetlands
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list those estuaries and wetlands with nature conservation protection designations, currently facing urban/recreational or industrial development proposals.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The information is not held centrally. The Nature Conservancy Council must be consulted about all development proposals in sites of special scientific interest and has undertaken a review of the nature conservation interests of the estuaries of Great Britain. I understand that the full report is due to be published on 25 March 1991.

  Cardiff Bay Development Corporation
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the duties he has prescribed for the Cardiff Bay development corporation in the field of vocational training.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Neither I nor my predecessors have prescribed duties for Cardiff Bay development corporation in the field of vocational training. The corporation has, however, been actively involved in the development of a training initiative in co-operation with local authorities and government agencies, with the full support of the Wales TUC and CBI. The initiative will provide training opportunities for unemployed local people so that they can benefit from the regeneration of the area.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he has had any consultations with the chairman of the 94
  Cardiff Bay Development Corporation regarding the setting up of a centre of excellence in the vocational training field at Cardiff bay.

  Mr. David Hunt
  I have had no such consultations. My officials were, however, involved in discussions with officers of the corporation about its involvement in the development of a centre of excellence for vocational training within the bay area. These discussions took place in the context of the normal project approval arrangements for the corporation.

  Local Plans
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report a list of those local authorities in Wales that have no local plan.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  No local plans have been placed on deposit or adopted in the areas of the following local authorities:

  Alyn and Deeside district council

  Carmarthen district council

  Ceredigion district council

  Glyndwr district council

  Montgomeryshire district council

  Neath borough council

  Preseli Pembrokeshire district council

  South Pembrokeshire district council

  Vocational Courses
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will provide transitional funding assistance to vocational part-time courses at higher education colleges due to be directly funded after April 1992.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to my reply of 11 February 1991.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Fair Employment
  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many companies have been prosecuted to date in Northern Ireland for failing to make monitoring returns to the Fair Employment Commission.

  Mr. Needham
  Fifteen.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland whether he will seek to ensure that small companies in Northern Ireland are not threatened with disqualification by the Fair Employment Commission following minor breaches of the fair employment legislation.

  Mr. Needham
  It is for the Fair Employment Commission to decide how to use its power under the fair employment legislation, including when to take action against those who fail to comply with its provisions.

  Mr. Beggs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many companies have been prosecuted to date after making a late return of monitoring records to the Fair Employment Commission.

  Mr. Needham
  Of the 15 concerns that were pbhzcuted for failing to make a monitoring return to the commission within the prescribed time, 14 made a late return before the hearing in the magistrates court.

  Hazardous Waste
  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what regulations or guidelines govern the transportation of hazardous waste into and within Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Needham
  Incoming consignments of hazardous waste must conform with the Transfrontier Shipment of Hazardous Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1989 which govern the import of hazardous waste from outside the United Kingdom into Northern Ireland for disposal. Controls on the disposal of hazardous waste within Northern Ireland are provided by the Pollution Control (Special Waste) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1981.

  The transport of hazardous cargoes by sea is regulated by the Merchant Shipping (Dangerous Goods and Marine Pollutants) Regulations 1990 and the Merchant Shipping (Control of Pollution by Noxious Liquid Substances in Bulk) Regulations 1987 as amended in 1990.

  The transport of dangerous substances by road within Northern Ireland is regulated by the Dangerous Substances (Conveyance by Road in Road Tankers and Tank Containers) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1988 and the Road Traffic (Carriage of Dangerous Substances in Packages etc) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1988 as amended in 1990.

  The following Great Britain documents have been approved for use in Northern Ireland in relation to the transport by road of dangerous substances:

  1. Approved Code of Practice—Operational Provisions of the Road Traffic (Carriage of Dangerous Substances in Packages etc.) Regulations 1986. ISBN 0 11 883898 9.

  2. Approved Code of Practice—Operational Provisions of the Dangerous Substances (Conveyance by Road in Road Tankers and Tank Containers) Regulations 1981. ISBN 0 11 883728 1.

  3. Approved Code of Practice—Classification and Labelling of Dangerous Substances for Conveyance by Road in Tankers, Tank Containers and Packages (Revision 1). ISBN 0 11 885518 2.

  4. Approved Code of Practice—Road Tanker Testing. ISBN 0 11 883811 3.

  5. Authorised and Approved List—Approved substance identification numbers, emergency action codes and classifications for dangerous substances conveyed in road tankers and tank containers. (Third edition) ISBN 0 11 885477 1.

  Further guidance is contained in:—

  1. Health and Safety booklet HS(G)26—Transport of dangerous substances in tank containers. ISBN 0 11 883843 1.

  2. A guide to the Road Traffic (Carriage of Dangerous Substances in Packages etc.) Regulations 1986. Booklet HS(R)24 ISBN 0 11 883899 7.

  Mr. Hume
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what routes for the transportation of hazardous waste to Maydown have been identified in the context of the proposed siting of a hazardous waste incinerator at Du Pont's Maydown complex.

  Mr. Needham
  No routes for the transportation of hazardous waste to Maydown have been identified in the context of a proposal to site an incinerator for the disposal of toxic waste at Du Pont (UK) Limited, Maydown, Co. Londonderry.

  Petrol Prices
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the average retail price of petrol at the pumps(a) on 16 January and (b) currently.
  96
  Mr. Needham
  At 16 January four-star leaded petrol was 45·4p per litre and unleaded was 42·4p per litre. Currently they are 43·7p and 40·7p per litre respectively.

  Environmental Improvement Schemes
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will give details of the environmental improvement schemes(a) carried out and (b) under consideration, to date, by the Department of Environment, Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Needham
  To provide details of individual works completed or contemplated would involve disproportionate cost. Details of the expenditure for the 1988–89 and 1989–90 financial years, the expected outturn for 1990–91 and programmed expenditure for 1991–92 under the three main categories of bodies involved in environmental improvement schemes are as follows:

  Year

  Departmental schemes

  Voluntary sector schemes

  District councils and other public bodies

  Total

  '000s

  '000s

  '000s

  '000s

  1988–89

  2,164

  118

  1,995

  4,277

  1989–90

  4,210

  198

  2,431

  6,839

  1990–91

  2,904

  199

  1,785

  4,888

  1991–92

  3,796

  132

  1,155

  5,083

  Total

  13,074

  647

  7,366

  21,087

  A breakdown of individual bodies within the three categories is listed:

  Environmental Improvement Schemes

    Bodies which have received environmental improvement grants within the three categories of eligibility
    Category and Organisation/Division
    Departmental

    Belfast development office

    Belfast action teams

    Roads service

    Planning divisions

    Londonderry development office

    Voluntary Sector

    Better Belfast

    Conservation Volunteers

    NI Amenity Council

    Connswater environmental committee

    Ligoniel Improvement Association

    Rathcoole community group

    Belfast civic trust

    District Councils and Public Bodies

    Belfast city council

    Castlereagh borough council

    Newtownabbey borough council

    NI railways

    Northern Ireland Housing Executive

    Derry city council

  Deaf Schoolchildren
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many children from Northern Ireland are at present receiving grant aid from the Department of Education, Northern Ireland, to attend specialist schools for the deaf in the Republic of Ireland.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Twenty-three children from Northern Ireland presently attend specialist schools for the deaf in the Republic of Ireland and have their costs met by education and library boards, with the approval of the Department of Education, Northern Ireland.

  Common Agricultural Policy Payments
  Mr. Denzil Davies
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much the total payments received by the agricultural industry in Northern Ireland were under the common agricultural policy in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Hanley
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: Total expenditure in the United Kingdom under the common agricultural policy in the last three years was:

  £ million

  1987–88

  1,611·1

  1988–89

  1,362·9

  1989–90

  1,230·5

  Although it is possible to identify some of the payments which have been made to the agricultural industry in Northern Ireland—details of which are held in the Northern Ireland Appropriation Accounts 1987–88, 1989–90—it is not possible to disaggregate all United Kingdom common agricultural policy expenditure in this way.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Low-energy Light Bulbs
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to encourage the use of low-energy light bulbs in his Department's offices and other buildings.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Throughout the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including the Overseas Development Administration, high-efficiency tubes are being installed under a rolling maintenance programme. Standard light bulbs are being replaced wherever possible by compact fluorescent tubes.

  Soviet Union
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations have been made in respect of Mikhail Ziskind of Leningrad and Demitri Yakubovsky of Kiev who have been unsuccessfully applying to leave the Soviet Union.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We can certainly raise these cases with the Soviet authorities. We have details of the case of Mr. Yakubovsky, but in order to make our representations most effective we shall need further details of Mr. Ziskind's case.

  UN Security Council
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan of 8 February,Official Report, columns 280–81, if he will give the dates of United Nations Security Council meetings held since 16 January at which the situation in the Gulf was discussed.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Nations Security Council met in informal consultations to discuss the situation in the Gulf on 17, 22, 24, 28, 30 and 31 January; and on 6, 8 and 13 February.
  98
  The council held a formal session on 13 February at which it was decided talks should take place in private. On the 14, 15 and 16 February the council met in closed session and will resume discussions on 19 February.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proposals were put forward by the United Kingdom at the most recent meeting of the Security Council of the United Nations; and how they were received.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: At the meeting of the Security Council on 14 February, the United Kingdom representative proposed that in accordance with rule 48 of the provisional rules of procedure, the council should meet in private session to discuss the Gulf crisis. The British proposal was adopted by 9 votes in favour two against—Cuba and Yemen—and four abstentions. The council met in closed session on 14, 15 and 16 February and will resume discussions on 19 February.

  Iraq
  Mrs. Mahon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will place in the Library details, including copies of any letters, of the Iraqi offer to withdraw from Kuwait as discussed by United States officials on 2 January.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We are aware of no discussion by United States officials on 2 January of an Iraqi offer to withdraw from Kuwait.

  Mr. Brian Angel
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information, in addition to that referred to in his answer of 3 July 1990,Official Report, column 381, he has received about the outcome of the investigation conducted by Zimbabwean authorities into the murder in Harare of Mr. Brian Angel.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The British high commission in Harare has received a copy of the police report on the death of Mr. Brian Angel. An inquest is due to be held in Harare on 1 March 1991. We expect that the police report will form part of the evidence presented at the inquest. A member of the British high commission will be present as an observer.

  Antarctica
  Mr. Mallon
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what measures he will take to prevent any mineral mining in Antarctica.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  The United Kingdom will take no unilateral action concerning mineral activities in Antarctica. We believe that decisions on such activities must be agreed by consensus amongst the Antarctic treaty consultative parties before they are implemented. A consensus on mineral activity has yet to be achieved. However, at the XIth special consultative meeting in Chile in November, the Antarctic treaty parties renewed their agreement to a voluntary restraint on mineral activity in the absence of any formal agreement. The United Kingdom will abide by this voluntary restraint.

  Conventional Forces in Europe
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on progress being made on negotiations on the reductions of conventional forces in Europe.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The first plenary meeting of the resumed CFE follow-on negotiations took place on 14 February. NATO and other delegations underlined the problems created for the follow-on negotiations by doubts over the Soviet Union's intention to comply with certain provisions of the CFE treaty. No new proposals were tabled.

  Iran
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on the meeting between the Minister of State and the Iranian chargé d'affaires in London on 12 February; what assurances were given about possible Iranian assistance to bring about the release of Mr. Roger Cooper and also of the British hostages held by Arab terrorists in Lebanon; and what response was made to the allegations made by Mr. Khare Qani relating to the fairness of a trial of an Iranian citizen in Britain.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Iranian chargé told me that Iran continued to do its best to secure the release of the hostages in Lebanon. I pressed for but received no assurances about Mr. Roger Cooper. It would be improper for me to comment on the trial to which my hon. Friend refers, as it is still before the court.

  Romania
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list those voluntary organisations giving aid to Romania, of which his office is aware.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Since I wrote to the hon. Member on 16 January enclosing a list of British voluntary organisations giving aid to Romania—a copy of which is available in the Library—we have added to the list three more: Caring for Life International, Feed The Children, and Romanian Children's Aid. I shall write to my hon. Friend with full details.

  Cash Limits
  Mr. Moss
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he proposes to make any further changes in his Department's diplomatic wing cash limits for 1990–91.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Subject to parliamentary approval of the late spring supplementary estimate the cash limit for class II, Vote 2—other external relations-will increase by £2,500,000 from £187,421,000 to £189,921,000. This is to take account of a contribution to the International Committee of the Red Cross for its humanitarian work in the Gulf. This increase is within the forecast outturn for the planning total published in the statistical supplement to the 1990 autumn statement.

TRANSPORT

  Heathrow Airport
  Mr. Wilshire
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to(a) shorten the hours when night-flight restrictions apply at Heathrow airport and (b) to increase the night-flight quota.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  No.

  Traffic Commissioners
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will state the numbers of staff of the metropolitan and south eastern traffic commissioners, respectively, and the number he expects to staff the proposed south eastern and metropolitan traffic commissioners; how many posts will be eliminated over the range of their functions; and if he will give a breakdown of the expected sum of annual saving in public expenditure.

  Mr. Chope
  There are 96·5 and 77 complemented staff posts respectively in the metropolitan and south eastern traffic area offices. The planned complement for the new combined south eastern and metropolitan traffic area office is 68 staff. This will reflect the transfer of work between traffic area offices in London, Eastbourne, Bristol and Cambridge. It will also take account of the transfer of staff and responsibility for road traffic enforcement to the Vehicle Inspectorate executive agency on 1 April 1991, and also the transfer of responsibility for vocational driver licensing to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency—DVLA—on the same date.

  The savings arising from the redistribution of work in the TAOs should amount to about £650,000 per year of which some £380,000 comes from the closure of the metropolitan traffic area office.

  Trunk Roads, Hereford
  Mr. Colin Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of total traffic is formed by trunk road through traffic on the western side of the Hereford ring road south of the A49/A438 roundabout.

  Mr. Chope
  Approximately 13 per cent., based on 1986 traffic surveys.

  Mr. Colin Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the current annual spending on maintenance of the trunk road in Hereford that is proposed to be de-trunked; whether he has been asked by Hereford and Worcester county council to undertake any repairs found necessary to the Greyfriars bridge before it is de-trunked; and whether it is his policy that any sum thus incurred will be included in the total cost to his Department of the Hereford bypass for economic evaluation purposes.

  Mr. Chope
  It is not possible to identify separately details of current expenditure on maintenance for particular lengths of A49 and A465 within Hereford and Worcester proposed for detrunking. Discussions with the Hereford and Worcester county council on the need for repairs to Greyfriars bridge prior to proposed detrunking are yet to be held.
  101
  Repairs will be necessary to Greyfriars bridge at some stage and investigations are currently underway to assess the extent of works required. Such costs do not form part of the cost of the Hereford bypass.

  Mr. Colin Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the additional distance between the A49 (north) and the A465 (south) using the proposed bypass as against using the present inner ring road.

  Mr. Chope
  Approximately 6·1 km or 3·7 miles.

  Mr. Cohn Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what proportion of traffic on the proposed Hereford bypass between the A4103 and A438 and between the A438 and B4399 Holme Lecy road would be trunk road through traffic.

  Mr. Chope
  The details are as follows:

  Average annual daily flows projected

  1986

  1990

  1995

  2010

  A49(N)—A49(S)

  1,020

  1,300–1,350

  1,400–1,550

  1,800–2,250

  A49(N)—A465(S)

  810

  1,000–1,050

  1,150–1,250

  1,450–1,700

  Separate estimates for the morning peak hour are not readily available.

  Vehicle Registration
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will arrange for all relevant vehicle registration or licence application forms to carry a statement informing applicants of the items of personal data that will be transferred to the new police national computer; whether he has any estimate of the cost of redesigning such forms so that future reprints carry such a statement; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  The DVLA registrations under the Data Protection Act 1984 indicate that details from both the vehicle and driver registers are given to the police. Copies of the registrations are freely available from the Data Protection Registrar. There is no requirement under the Data Protection Act to include additional references on application forms to inform individuals and, at present, the DVLA has no plans to do so.

  Traffic Penalties
  Mr. Batiste
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he proposes to take to ensure that penalties for the offence of failure to provide information under the Road Traffic Bill take account of the different circumstances of companies and individuals.

  Mr. Chope
  Companies should have the same responsibility to provide information about drivers alleged to be guilty of road traffic offences as a private individual and it is right that a negligent director or other officer should share in that responsibility. Licence endorsement is not appropriate, however, where the connection with driving is remote. I shall today be tabling an amendment at the Report stage of the Road Traffic Bill to provide that in these cases the penalty should be restricted to a financial penalty.
  102

  Approximate proportion of trunk road through traffic

  Low growth Per cent.

  High growth Per cent.

  (i) Between A4103 and A438

  22

  24

  (ii) Between A438 and B4399

  25

  27

  The proportion of total through traffic on these sections of the bypass is expected to be approximately 30 per cent. of total flow.

  Mr. Colin Shepherd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list in the Official Report the volume of trunk road through traffic passing through Hereford in 1986 and 1990 and projected for the years 1995 and 2010 between (a) the A49 (north) and the A49 (south) and (b) the A49 (north) and the A465 (south) for the whole day and for the morning peak hour.

  Mr. Chope
  Using the results from the 1986 surveys and the current range of national traffic growth predictions the details are as follows:

  Motor Sports
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what measures he proposes to take to respond to concerns about the effects of the new serious driving offences in the Road Traffic Bill on the organisation of motor sports.

  Mr. Chope
  I am very much aware of the importance of the motor sports industry nationally and of the need to ensure that sporting events which take place off the road are not jeopardised by the risk that the manner of driving might be judged by criteria more appropriate to driving on the public highway. I shall today be tabling amendments to deal with this point at the Report stage of the Road Traffic Bill.

  GLC
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his estimate of staff numbers in his Department involved in full or part-time work arising from responsibilities transferred from the Greater London Council.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Department assumed the powers of the former Greater London council in respect of 70 miles of roads which are now trunk roads. The Department deals with 215 miles of trunk roads in London. It is not practicable to estimate the number of staff whose work involves the ex-GLC roads. On abolition of the GLC the Department also assumed responsibility for traffic signals and urban traffic control and for running the Woolwich ferry. The Corporation of the City of London acts as the Department's agents for the former and the London borough of Greenwich for the latter, and employ the staff involved.

  Transport Commissioners
  Mr. Bellotti
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will give consideration to moving the Transport Commissioners to Eastbourne.

  Mr. Chope
  The traffic commissioner for the present south eastern traffic area is already based in Eastbourne. Under the reorganisation of the traffic areas, which will take effect on 1 June 1991, the traffic commissioner will assume responsibility for the new south eastern and metropolitan traffic area, which will comprise London, Sussex, Surrey and Kent. He will continue to be based in Eastbourne.

  Network SouthEast
  Mr. Speed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the current constraints on investment in respect of the investment proposals by British Rail to introduce the Networker 471 train on Kent coast lines in Network SouthEast.

  Mr. Freeman
  Proposals for the introduction of class 471 Networkers on Kent coast routes are still being assessed by British Rail and my Department has not yet received a detailed investment submission. I understand that British Rail is examining whether the project might be brought forward in the light of other investment priorities and its overall financial situation.

  Station Platforms
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) whether he will call for a report from the railways inspectorate on the number of stations in British Rail north-east region that do not meet new regulations on platform length; and whether he will make a statement;

  (2) whether he will defer any deadline for closure of stations which do not meet the new regulations on platform length in order to allow British Railway to meet new standards.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: British Rail has no plans to close stations on safety grounds. There are no new regulations on platform length but Her Majesty's railway inspectorate, has asked British Rail to consider a strategy for improving platforms which fall short of the long-established safety standards. Discussion between British Rail and the inspectorate will be resumed when British Rail has identified the stations in need of improvement and quantified the cost of remedial work.

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he will provide the additional funding needed to bring stations up to the standard on platform length specified in the new regulations.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: British Rail is quantifying the work that would be needed to make all existing stations comply with the standard. Only when this study is complete will it be possible for British Rail, in consultation with Her Majesty's railway inspectorate and the Department, to develop a strategy for any necessary station improvements. Overall safety expenditure on the subsidised railway will be supported by means of the public service obligation grant in the normal way.

  Airline Companies
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he is making to the US Secretary of State for Transportation about his refusal to accept British Airways reduction of fares on flights to the United States of America; if he will discuss this with the other members of the European Community; and whether any counter-measures are being taken against US airlines flying to Britain.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State made it clear immediately after British Airways' fares proposals were turned down that he was surprised at the decision, particularly since it would disadvantage customers. He urged the US authorities to reconsider but we have just learnt that they are not prepared to do so. We are considering with those involved how best to respond. In the meantime British Airways have put alternative proposals to the US authorities. There are no plans for formal discussions with other members of the European Community.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Severe Weather Payments
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the limit of savings a person can have to qualify for the emergency cold weather payment.

  Mr. Scott
  Savings over £500—£1,000 for people aged 60 or over—are taken into account on a pound-for-pound basis.

  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many persons received severe weather payments in the week beginning 4 February in each of the weather station areas; how many were(a) pensioners, (b) disabled persons, (c) families with young children, and (d) other groups; what was the total cost to the Exchequer; and what plans he has to ease the eligibility condition requiring a temperature for seven consecutive days on average below 0 deg. C in further weeks beyond the first when this condition was lifted.

  Mr. Scott
  Information is not yet available regarding the number of cold weather payments made in the week beginning 4 February. With regard to the temperature criterion for eligibility, I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) on 15 February at column 630.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether a child with asthma over the age of five years in a family receiving income support, but receiving no invalidity or other additional benefits, is entitled to cold weather payments.

  Mr. Scott
  Cold weather payments are payable to people in receipt of income support, who either have a child under five or whose benefit includes a pensioner or disability premium. Savings over £500—or £1,000 for people aged 60 and over—are taken into account. A family with a child with asthma over the age of five years would be eligible for a cold weather payment if these conditions are satisfied.

  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security for what reason the Berwick upon Tweed offices
  105
  of his Department indicated to claimants on 14 February that it did not have instructions enabling it to approve payments of severe weather allowance and did not know when such instructions would be received.

  Mr. Scott
  Instructions concerning the recent changes were issued to all local offices on 8 February and 14 February. Berwick upon Tweed office has confirmed that the first payments under those instructions were made on 14 February.

  Departmental Staff
  Mr. O'Hara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will give the number of liable relative officers at present in his Department; and if he will give a breakdown of their civil service grades and their location in England and Wales.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information is not readily available in the format requested and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Residential Homes
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to make the report drawn up by Price Waterhouse surveying residential and nursing borne running costs more generally available to interested parties and the general public.

  Miss Widdecombe
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State placed copies of the report in the Library on 24 October last year and officials of the Department have made copies widely available to major interested organisations which are welcome to copy the report to their members.

  Backdated Claims
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many backdated claims for social security have been received since April 1988 in England and Wales.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information is not held centrally and could be obtained only at the disproportionate cost.

  National Insurance
  Mr. Battle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, pursuant to the reply to the hon. Member for Leeds, West on 6 February,Official Report, column 191, if he will show the main changes to national insurance benefits and the savings or expenditure which accrued from each change since 1979 showing the cumulative effect at 1991 prices.

  Mr. Jack
  Calculating the cumulative cost over a period of years of the changes listed in my earlier reply would require a detailed year-by-year analysis of many factors, including movements in expenditure on benefits, in prices and earnings indices, and in additional pension and occupational and personal pension entitlements. This calculation could be undertaken only at disproportionate cost.

  Retirement Pensions
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will estimate the net additional cost of increasing the basic retirement pension for a single person 106
  by £5 per week and for a married couple by £8 per week more than the planned uprating for April 1991 assuming (a) no corresponding increase in means-tested benefits and (b) a corresponding increase in means-tested benefits.

  Miss Widdecombe
  [holding answer 21 January 1991]: The net additional cost of increasing the basic retirement pension in this way would (a) around £1·6 billion with no corresponding increase in income-related benefits and (b) around £2·5 billion with such a corresponding increase.

ENVIRONMENT

  Rating Valuation
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish, by valuation office, the number of appeals received relating to rating valuation assessments under the uniform business rate; from what date he expects the first appeals to be held at the North Yorkshire tribunal; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  The table shows the number of proposals by ratepayers to alter their 1990 rating assessments, to insert new entries in the rating list and to alter assessments which have been revised by the valuation officer for each valuation office in England in respect of the period from 1 April to 31 December 1990.

  The North Yorkshire valuation and community charge tribunal is currently completing hearings of residual appeals against the 1973 valuation list. It expects to commence hearings of appeals against the 1990 rating list from May.

  Numbers of proposals received for alteration of 1990 rating lists

  Office

  (1)

  (2)

  (3)

  Alnwick

  3,429

  1

  195

  Aylesbury

  6,323

  1

  82

  Barking

  2,703

  2

  36

  Barnet

  3,041

  1

  7

  Barnstaple

  2,603

  32

  183

  Basingstoke

  4,406

  —

  96

  Bath

  2,774

  2

  9

  Bedford

  4,477

  —

  52

  Birmingham

  13,745

  22

  44

  Bolton

  4,376

  2

  112

  Boston

  2,746

  22

  60

  Bournemouth

  5,646

  66

  55

  Bradford

  5,442

  2

  102

  Brighton

  5,893

  12

  51

  Bristol

  6,612

  13

  102

  Bromley

  6,835

  10

  44

  Burnley

  5,750

  1

  70

  Cambridge

  4,654

  6

  75

  Camden

  5,433

  11

  16

  Carlisle

  3,736

  276

  37

  Chatham

  3,972

  —

  142

  Chelmsford

  6,920

  —

  11

  Chester

  4,692

  2

  23

  City of London

  10,099

  5

  448

  Colchester

  6,344

  32

  55

  Coventry

  4,751

  —

  61

  Crewe

  4,559

  —

  45

  Darlington

  4,153

  1

  62

  Derby

  4,472

  —

  88

  Doncaster

  4,490

  —

  45

  Dorchester

  3,045

  248

  40

  Durham

  3,523

  —

  29

  Ealing

  5,068

  6

  69

  Eastbourne

  3,381

  2

  52

  Enfield

  4,438

  1

  63

  Exeter

  5,465

  186

  89

  Folkestone

  4,153

  67

  47

  107

  Office

  (1)

  (2)

  (3)

  Gloucester

  5,361

  25

  229

  Greenwich

  5,276

  4

  42

  Grimsby

  2,467

  2

  129

  Guildford

  5,310

  —

  29

  Halifax

  5,916

  —

  188

  Hammersmith

  5,235

  13

  29

  Harrogate

  4,465

  2

  123

  Harrow

  4,661

  1

  116

  Hull

  4,861

  15

  140

  Ipswich

  4,669

  109

  23

  Islington

  6,660

  46

  79

  Kensington & Chelsea

  4484

  8

  45

  Kidderminster

  5,709

  —

  132

  Lambeth

  2,854

  9

  23

  Lancaster

  6,286

  29

  44

  Leeds

  8,941

  —

  88

  Leicester

  4,645

  —

  45

  Lichfield

  5,630

  2

  42

  Lincoln

  3,402

  —

  78

  Liverpool

  10,083

  1

  80

  London Support Unit

  6,333

  12

  77

  Loughborough

  3,484

  5

  25

  Manchester

  7,655

  11

  116

  Mansfield

  3,269

  —

  55

  Matlock

  3,695

  16

  51

  Merton

  4,656

  4

  113

  Middlesbrough

  7,634

  1

  74

  Newcastle

  7,288

  7

  22

  Northampton

  5,254

  —

  36

  Norwich

  6,782

  18

  157

  Nottingham

  5,164

  —

  69

  Oxford

  7,111

  20

  26

  Peterborough

  5,491

  19

  128

  Plymouth

  3,815

  325

  28

  Portsmouth

  4,956

  77

  72

  Preston

  4,596

  1

  90

  Reading

  7,602

  —

  146

  Redbridge

  3,530

  —

  21

  Reigate

  6,078

  1

  117

  Richmond-upon-Thames

  3,447

  6

  110

  Rochdale

  4,188

  4

  22

  St. Albans

  5,518

  2

  199

  St. Austell

  5,498

  1,826

  70

  Salford

  5,500

  —

  31

  Sandwell

  3,833

  2

  46

  Sheffield

  5,947

  —

  53

  Shrewsbury

  4,202

  6

  60

  Southampton

  6,581

  2

  147

  Southwark

  3,603

  1

  21

  Stevenage

  5,245

  —

  49

  Stockport

  4,316

  8

  16

  Stoke-on-Trent

  5,691

  1

  29

  Sunderland

  7,530

  14

  351

  Swindon

  3,596

  4

  34

  Taunton

  4,642

  5

  129

  Tower Hamlets

  3,549

  —

  59

  Tunbridge Wells

  5,105

  3

  159

  Ulverston

  3,637

  476

  26

  Wakefield

  5,263

  —

  99

  Warrington

  6,315

  —

  145

  Warwick

  4,554

  12

  140

  Westminster

  15,503

  47

  85

  Wolverhampton

  4,919

  5

  41

  Worcester

  6,071

  —

  123

  Worthing

  5,104

  52

  106

  York

  5,224

  216

  74

  Central List

  17

  —

  —

  1Proposals made against the 1990 rating lists.

  2Proposals to insert a new entry into the 1990 rating lists.

  3 Proposals made against VO notices to alter the 1990 rating lists.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if, as a matter of urgency, he will contact the Lambeth health authority to discuss the use of the South 108
  London hospital for women as a hostel for homeless people on the streets of London; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  I understand that the health authority is unable to make the hospital available for use by homeless people, or for other purposes, mainly because ownership of part of the site is at present the subject of an unresolved legal dispute. The Government have funded the provision of 700 additional bed spaces in emergency shelters in London during the very cold weather of the past 10 days. Most of the shelters have been full, but some still have a few spaces for rough sleepers to use. We are providing £96 million over three years to provide sufficient accommodation in hostel places and longer-term housing to ensure that it is unnecessary for anyone to sleep rough.

  Community Charge
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his statement on the community charge reduction scheme, how this affects the provision of compensating grant to help make up loss of revenue from United States air force personnel who previously paid rates but are exempt from the community charge.

  Mr. Portillo
  The statement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the community charge reduction scheme does not affect the payment of grant to local authorities in respect of members of the United States air force who are exempt from the community charge.

  Mr. Critchley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he intends to reimburse local authorities for community charge income forgone from service personnel normally resident in their areas who have been posted to the Gulf; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  We propose to introduce a scheme under section 146 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 to compensate local authorities for the income forgone where service personnel normally resident in their area have been posted to the Gulf.

  Under the proposed scheme, a special grant will be paid to local authorities in respect of service personnel who have ceased to be liable for the personal community charge because they have been posted to the Gulf. The grant will be paid if the income lost to the authority amounts to more than 0·25 per cent. of the total income from personal community charges for the period. Grant will be payable on the excess above this threshold, but will assume that the charge set by the authority was equal to the community charge for standard spending. Grant will be paid for the period beginning on 1 January 1991.

  It will not be possible to calculate the full amount of the grant, or the precise amounts to be paid to individual charging authorities, until the duration of the absences of service personnel is known. When those details are available a report will be laid before the House setting out the purpose of the grant, the amount to be paid to each authority and an explanation of how the amounts were calculated

  The Department of the Environment is writing today to notify local authorities of the proposed scheme. The local authority associations are being invited to join in urgent discussions on the arrangements in detail. Local authorities should take these proposals into account when drawing up their budgets and setting their community charges for 1991–92.
  109
  My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland intend to make similar arrangements for local authorities in Wales and Scotland.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many cases are currently before the courts as a result of failure to pay the community charge; and if he will estimate the costs involved in pursuing those who fail to pay their community charge.

  Mr. Key
  Information on community charge cases currently before the courts is not held centrally. Figures are not available for the costs of community charge enforcement.

  Rent Arrears
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the number of public sector tenants in arrears with their rent in each district of Northamptonshire; and if he will give it as a percentage of all tenants in each authority.

  Mr. Yeo
  The available information about the numbers of local authority tenants in arrears with their rent in Northamptonshire is in the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy publication, "Housing Rents Statistics at April 1990", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Date

  PPG9

  Regional Guidance for the South East

  February 1989

  PPG10

  Strategic Guidance for the West Midlands

  September 1988

  PPG11

  Strategic Guidance for Merseyside

  October 1988

  RPG1

  Strategic Guidance for Tyne and Wear

  June 1989

  RPG2

  Strategic Guidance for West Yorkshire

  September 1989

  RPG3

  Strategic Guidance for London

  September 1989

  RPG4

  Strategic Guidance for Greater Manchester

  December 1989

  RPG5

  Strategic Guidance for South Yorkshire

  December 1989

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many staff in his Department are involved in drawing up and issuing planning policy guidance notes.

  Mr. Yeo
  There are some 30 staff in the Department's development plans and development control policy divisions who will have some involvement with drawing up or issuing planning policy guidance notes from time to time. Staff in other policy divisions may also be involved, depending upon the subject of the note.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment who he consults before issuing planning policy guidance notes.

  Mr. Yeo
  It is departmental policy to seek the views of a wide range of national bodies, including, for example, local authority associations, professional bodies and conservation and amenity groups, when issuing draft planning policy guidance notes for public consultation. They are publicised and are available to anybody on request.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many planning policy guidance notes have been issued since 1985; and at what cost.

  Mr. Yeo
  The planning policy guidance note (PPG) series was introduced in 1988. There are currently 16 titles.

  Nine Elms
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent representations he has received about the land occupied by the former Nine Elms cold store.

  Mr. Yeo
  No representations have been received. Since 1988 my Department has had five letters, all from one individual, asking whether there are any current proposals to develop the site.

  Planning Policy
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a further statement on the strategic guidance which he gives to local planning authorities in former metropolitan counties.

  Sir George Young
  The Secretary of State has given strategic guidance for London and all the former metropolitan county areas to assist the London borough and metropolitan district councils in the preparation of their unitary development plans. The strategic guidance has been published in Department of the Environment planning policy guidance notes (PPGs) and regional policy guidance notes (RPGs) as follows:

  Three give regional planning guidance, more recent regional planning guidance can be found in the regional planning guidance (RPG) series begun in 1989 which now has five titles. The total publication cost to the Department is £49,509 for the 16 PPGs and £11,553 for the five separate RPGs.

  Local Authority Companies
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report a list of the local authority-controlled and local authority-influenced companies, indentifying each by name.

  Mr. Portillo
  Part V of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, which establishes these definitions, is not yet in force. Even when it is, my Department has no plans to collect this information.

  Planning Enforcement
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many staff in his Department deal with planning enforcement; and at what cost.

  Mr. Yeo
  The numbers of staff and estimated expenditure, including overheads, for the current financial year are as follows:

  Policy issues arising under Part VII of the Town and Country

  Planning Act 1990

  111
  1·25 staff units: £49,500

  Processing and deciding appeals to the Secretary of State under section 174 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990
  92 staff units: £2·5 million

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the local authorities in England and Wales and the estimated cost of planning enforcement in each.

  Mr. Yeo
  This information is not available centrally. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy compiles annual planning and development statistics. At present, planning enforcement costs are aggregated within estimates of total expenditure on development control by planning authorities. For 1991–92, the institute will be requesting authorities to show estimates of enforcement expenditure separately.

  EC Directives
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) under what circumstances his Department would decline to exercise the power of derogation from EC directives which had been granted; and if he will set out those circumstances;

  (2) if he will make a statement on his understanding of the difference between the power of derogation from EC directives and the implementation of derogation from EC directives.

  Mr. Baldry
  We exercise the right to seek and apply derogations from environmental directives when necessary and justified. We would seek a derogation only where we foresaw a clear possibility that it would need to be used.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Caborn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the amounts in cash terms for the York city council area(a) received from non-domestic rates in 1989–90, (b) due to be paid in uniform business rate in 1990–91 and in 1991–92 and (c) due from the non-domestic rate pool to York as a receiving authority in 1990–91 and in 1991–92.

  Mr. Key
  The information for York city council is as follows:

  Year

  £ million

  (a) Receipts from non-domestic rates

  1989–90

  18·3

  (b) Estimated receipts from non-domestic rates in

  1990–91

  16·6

  1991–92

  21·7

  (c) Receipts from non-domestic rate pool in

  1990–91

  23·1

  1991–92

  27·7

  Figures for receipts of non-domestic rates in 1989–90 and the following years are not on a comparable basis because of extensive changes to the system of local government finance.

  Mrs. Peacock
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the standard spending assessment for highways for Kirklees metropolitan council for 1991–92: and what it was for 1990–91.
  112
  Mr. Key
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: The standard spending assessment for highway maintenance for Kirklees metropolitan council is £14·767 million for 1991–92. In 1990–91 it was £13·583 million.

  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his reply of 1 February,Official Report, column 662, if he will outline why the proposed capital financing element of the standard spending assessment for Stoke-on-Trent was reduced by £407,000.

  Mr. Portillo
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: The final capital financing SSA was £406,568 lower than the provisional figure issued at the time of consultation as a result of using later estimates of credit approvals for Stoke-on-Trent and all other authorities.

  Mr. Rooker
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement showing how the central Government increase of 23 per cent. in the standard spending assessment for personal social services is affected by the national inflation factor of 9 per cent. in the poll tax capping rules.

  Mr. Key
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: The increase in the standard spending assessments for personal social services reflects the Government's view of the amount of spending which is appropriate taking account of the pressures facing local authorities from service developments, demographic pressures and inflation and of what the country can afford. Under the intended criteria for charge capping, no authority would be capped if it spends at or below its SSA. The intended criteria do not depend on any "national inflation factor".

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the effects of the community charge on private tenants' housing costs.

  Mr. Key
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: No such information is available.

  County Hall, London
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what offers have been received by his Department and the London residuary body for the purchase or rental of county hall, London SE1.

  Mr. Key
  Such matters are for the London residuary body and prospective purchasers. No offers have been received by the Department.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review his decision not to allow the London residuary body to consider the use of county hall, London SE1 for public sector purposes.

  Mr. Key
  It is the task of the London residuary body to dispose of surplus property. County hall is surplus. The residuary body is free to consider any means of disposal consistent with its obligation to London's community charge payers.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will consider the use of county hall, London SEI for temporary accommodation of the homeless.

  Mr. Yeo
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave yesterday to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen),Official Report, Vol. 186, column 2.

  Greater London Council
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his current estimate of the financial and staff savings arising from the abolition of the GLC; and when the figures were last assessed.

  Mr. Key
  It was estimated in 1987 that some 6,300 posts had been saved immediately following abolition of the GLC and the metropolitan county councils. The projected long-term annual savings were of some £100 million per annum resulting from staff reductions. Because of the difficulty in disaggregating data relating to functions inherited by successor authorities it is not practicable to produce revised estimates.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list all the functions and responsibilities currently undertaken by the City of London as a result of GLC abolition.

  Mr. Key
  Apart from those which fell to London boroughs and the City of London at GLC abolition, responsibilities which have since been transferred by the London residuary body to the City are those in relation to Hampstead Heath and ex-GLC and ex-LRB records.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of staff numbers in his Department involved in full or part-time work arising from responsibilities transferred from the GLC.

  Mr. Key
  No functions were transferred directly from the GLC to the Department of the Environment, but the Department has sponsorship responsibilities for certain bodies with functions arising wholly or partly from the abolition of the GLC. The equivalent of eight full-time staff are estimated to work on these matters.

  Estuaries and Wetlands
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list those estuaries and wetlands covered by sites of special scientific interest or other nature conservation designations, which are threatened by development proposals.

  Mr. Baldry
  The information is not held centrally. The Nature Conservancy Council is, however, required to be consulted about all development proposals in sites of special scientific interest. The NCC has undertaken a review of the nature conservation interests of the estuaries of Great Britain. I understand that the full report is due to be published on 25 March.

  Vacant Houses
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the number of houses and flats which have been unoccupied for a period longer than six months for each London borough.

  Mr. Yeo
  Local authorities report the number of their dwellings which have been vacant for over six months but not more than one year and the number that have been vacant for over one year in their annual housing investment programme returns (HIP1). The latest available figures are for 1 April 1990 and appear in "1990 HIP1 All Items Print," in columns A178 (over six months but not more than one year) and A188 (over one year). A copy of the document is in the Library.

  House Condition Survey
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether the forthcoming English house condition survey will include a study of insulation levels and the potential for energy conservation and fuel-efficient heating in the housing stock.

  Sir George Young
  Yes.

  Gulf Oil Slicks
  Dr. Hampson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a further statment on environmental impact studies by the Natural Environment Research Council related to the Gulf oil spill.

  Mr. Heseltine
  Two studies have been carried out by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to assist international efforts which are under way to minimise the environmental damage caused by the deliberate release of oil into the Gulf by Iraq. The first study, an assessment of the biological effects of the oil spill on the ecosystem of the Gulf, including its marine wildlife, has been sent to the relevant Government Agencies in Saudi Arabia and in the other Gulf states. The report includes a brief assessment of response options and makes recommendations.

  The second study carried out by NERC is concerned with modelling the movement, dispersion, evaporation and solution of the oil released, using tidal and weather data.

  I am today placing copies of both the report and a description of the modelling work completed by the NERC in the Library and I am also arranging for this to be presented to the appropriate authorities in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.

  Drinking Water
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish in the Official Report the information available to his Department on the incidence of faecal material in drinking water; and if he will indicate any significant regional variations in such incidence.

  Mr. Baldry
  The chief drinking water inspector will publish, in the summer, a full report on the quality of drinking water supplied by water companies in England and Wales during 1990

  Vacant Land
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has as to the amount of vacant, dormant, derelict, unused and underused land owned by each Government Department.

  Sir George Young
  [holding answer 14 February 1991]: Holdings of unused and underused land in England at 31 March 1990, the latest available date, as reported by the Departments concerned, are shown in the table. Information about health authorities' land is not available. No unused or underused land is held by any other major Departments.

  Individual departments are responsible for monitoring and managing their own property holdings. The rationalisation of holdings, the disposal of surplus land and the improvement of systems are encouraged through the public expenditure survey discussions and in other ways.
  115

  Unused and underused land held by Departments

  Acres

  Ministry of Defence

  2,527

  Department of the Environment

  164

  Home Office

  299

  HM Land Registry

  18

  Lord Chancellor's Department

  9

  Department of Transport

  1,606

  Local Government Review
  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish the job titles and grades, in full-time equivalents, of staff working on his local government review, including and identifying staff seconded from other Government Departments; and if he will calculate the annual cost of this exercise.

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: A team was established within the Department in December 1990 to undertake a thorough review of local government functions, structure and finance. The review team is headed by a grade 4 (director) supported by 22 staff, made of the following grades:

  Four at grade 5 (assistant secretary)

  Five at grade 7 (principal)

  One higher executive officer (development)

  Three higher executive officers

  Two executive officers

  One senior personal secretary

  Two administrative officers

  Four personal secretaries

  Of these staff, one grade 5 and one grade 7 are seconded from the Department of Social Security.

  Annual expenditure by the review team is estimated at some £1 million, which breaks down broadly as follows:

  £

  Basic salary costs

  616,000

  Other costs

  391,000

  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if any external work has been commissioned for his review of local government; and if any external advisers have been appointed to the review.

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: I have not appointed external advisers or commissioned external work in connection with the review. We are, however, consulting widely about the review and have made clear our desire to discuss the issues with local government and opposition parties and our willingness to consider views put to us by individuals and organisations outside Government.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Namibia
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will offer aid programmes to help deal with the high rates of maternal death, disability and miscarriage suffered by Namibian women.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The Namibian Government plan to develop a primary health care system which will place much greater emphasis on maternal health. We have 116
  offered to assist in a project to train primary health care trainers, currently being designed by the Ministry of Health with the assistance of Oxfam UK. We are exploring the scope to provide further help in this sector.

  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will offer special aid to the Government of Namibia to set up institutional retraining programmes for procedures in dealing with cases of murder, rape, and assault of Namibian women.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The objective of our current assistance to the Namibian police service is to enable it to respond more effectively to the needs of all sections of the community. Training courses developed by British police advisers, in which local civil and women's rights organisations participate, reflect this objective.

  Tamils
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what aid is being made available by Her Majesty's Government to assist Tamil refugees fleeing from persecution in Sri Lanka and India.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Help is available in a number of ways. We are providing technical co-operation grants totalling £4 million over three years in support of Save the Children Fund and Oxfam projects in the north and east of Sri Lanka, much of whose effort is directed to refugee relief.

  We have also provided emergency relief totalling £445,000 through UNICEF, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross for their programmes in Sri Lanka.

  Forest Charter
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what progress is being made on the forest charter for UN conference on environment and development, as outlined in the speech of the Minister for Overseas Development to the World Wide Fund for Nature on 11 December.

  Mrs. Chalker
  A world forest charter remains one of the options for UNCED in 1992, but the international community has yet to agree for which international forest instruments to aim and in what forum negotiations should proceed. We hope that progress will be made at the second meeting of the UNCED preparatory committee, 15 March to 5 April, in Geneva.

  Botswana
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has on the income of commercial cattle farmers in Botswana derived from the beef protocol of the Lomé agreements.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Under the provisions of the Lome convention, Botswana receives a quota of 18,916 tonnes of beef exports per annum to the community. It is not possible to estimate the effects of these exports on the incomes of the cattle farmers.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance is given by his Department to the Botswana authorities in achieving ecologically sound development.
  117
  Mrs. Chalker
  We ensure that all projects with which we are involved are environmentally sound in line with procedures laid down in our environmental appraisal manual. We also provide direct assistance to help the Government of Botswana in this area, for example by helping to fund the Government of Botswana's deputy director of wildlife.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) how many staff members from the ODA are working in Botswana;

  (2) if he will specify the position and responsibility of all ODA staff and consultants funded by the ODA currently working in Botswana;

  (3) how many ODA staff and consultants funded by the ODA are currently seconded to the Botswana authorities.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The following positions in Botswana are held by staff fully or partly funded by ODA:

  Ministry of Agriculture

  1 Deputy director—veterinary Services

  6 Senior veterinary officers

  1 Veterinary research officer

  2 Agricultural research officers

  1 Weed research officer

  1 Agricultural economist

  Ministry of Education

  1 Principal—Botswana polytechnic

  1 Head of department science

  1 Head of department electrical engineering

  1 Head of department civil engineering

  1 Head of department vocational training

  4 Lecturers—technical education

  1 Lecturer—civil engineering

  2 Lecturers—mechanical engineering

  1 Lecturer—mathematics

  1 Lecturer—telecommunications

  1 Lecturer—electrical engineering

  1 Lecturer—computing

  1 Lecturer—science

  3 Headmasters

  3 Deputy headmasters

  1 Curriculum development officer

  1 Inservice maths teacher trainer

  4 Inservice technical education teacher trainers

  3 Inservice English teacher trainers

  1 Finance officer

  1 Scientific instruments technician

  Ministry of Health

  1 Orthopaedic surgeon

  1 Specialist physician

  1 Gynaecologist

  2 Nurse tutors

  1 Paediatrician

  Ministry of Finance

  3 Computer programmers

  2 Training officers

  1 Finance officer

  1 Customs officer

  1 Internal auditor

  1 Statistician

  Ministry of Lands and Local Government

  1 Director—department of wildlife

  3 Senior surveyors

  1 Senior lands use planning officer

  3 Senior lands officers

  Ministry of Works & Communications

  1 Director

  1 Deputy director—roads department

  3 Senior roads engineers

  1 Quantity surveyor

  2 Architects

  1 Senior mechanical engineer

  118

  1 Electrical engineer

  1 Mechanical engineer

  1 Design technician

  Ministry of mineral resources and water affairs

  1 Hydrological engineer

  2 Hydrogeologists

  1 Water engineer

  1 Geologist

  1 Economist

  1 Finance officer

  Police and legal assistance

  3 Assistant Police Commissioners

  1 Assistant Registrar

  1 Privy state counsel

  Computer bureau

  1 Micro-computer specialist

  1 Training specialist

  University of Botswana

  1 Professor of Biology

  1 Chemistry Lecturer

  1 Engineering Lecturer

  1 Computer services manager

  Consultants

  "Makoro Ltd."

  2 Consultants assisting in the preparation of National Development Plan 7

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in which projects in respect of dredging the Boro river ODA staff members or consultants have been involved.

  Mrs. Chalker
  None.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (1) what ODA staff or consultants working in Botswana have been involved in developing plans to cull elephants in that country;

  (2) in what projects relating to buffalo control ODA staff members or consultants have been involved in northern Botswana;

  (3) if any ODA staff or consultants have been involved in developing plans for the disposal of elephant ivory; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The deputy director of wildlife in Botswana is employed by the Government of Botswana. His post is partially funded by the ODA, but we have no power of direction over policies adopted by the Government of Botswana. The department of wildlife covers all aspects of wildlife planning and management in Botswana.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has regarding veterinary advice given to the Botswana authorities by the United Kingdom and the EC regarding the need to construct a steel fence in the Okavango delta in Botswana.

  Mrs. Chalker
  None. The alignment of fences surrounding parts of the Okavango delta has been determined by the Government of Botswana themselves, following close consultation between the interested Government departments including the department of wildlife, and the department of animal health, and with local communities. Great care has been taken to minimise the impact on wildlife.
  119
  While neither the ODA nor the EC has provided veterinary advice on the need to construct fences, the ODA part-funds members of staff in the departments of wildlife and of animal health.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what advice was given by the Overseas Development Administration or EC aid agencies in respect of the case for, or environmental impact of, the construction of a steel fence in the Okavango delta in Botswana.

  Mrs. Chalker
  None.

  South African Development Bank
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the Overseas Development Administration works with the South African Development Bank in promoting economic and social enhancement projects in southern Africa; if he will publish examples of the activities in which both these agencies have been and are jointly engaged; and what information he has on links between German, Dutch and French Governments' overseas development agencies and the South African Development Bank.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what contact and co-operation currently exists between the Overseas Development Administration and the Development Bank of South Africa.

  Mrs. Chalker
  My officials from ODA have held discussions with those from the Development Bank of Southern Africa on a number of occasions. The two organisations have not engaged in any joint activities. We do not have information readily available on links between the Development Bank of Southern Africa and other overseas development organisations.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Stationery
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will list the number and quantities of chlorine-free and recycled paper products bought for the use of the House in 1990.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The number and quantities of recycled paper products bought for the use of the House in 1990 by HMSO were:

  Quantity

  Pre-paid white envelopes

  (23–146)

  250,000

  Pre-paid buff envelopes

  (HC 130)

  322,500

  Pre-paid buff envelopes

  (HC 131)

  66,000

  Various buff stock envelopes

  1—

  Compliment slips

  20,000

  Printed memos

  (HC 91B)

  3,000

  Printed memos

  (HC 92B)

  3,000

  Printed memos

  (HC 93B)

  3,000

  A4 die-stamped letterheadings

  (19–116)

  250,000

  A4 typing topsheets

  (19–30)

  30,000

  A5 typing topsheets

  (HC 66)

  20,000

  File covers

  (6–59 and 6–56)

  l—

  Ruled writing paper

  (18–165)

  1—

  Toilet tissue

  (13–22 and 13–34)

  1—

  1 Quantities of these items are not available without incurring disproportionate cost.

  120
  Because of the unknown origins of waste materials used for recycled papers, it is not possible to give accurate guidance on the presence of chlorine in the listed products.

  European Organisations
  Sir Geoffrey Finsberg
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what decisions have been reached concerning the improvement of communications facilities between the House, the Western European Union and the Council of Europe.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: The Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) last week approved in principle the provision to Members of free postage and telephone calls to certain European institutions.

  These will largely comprise the main institutions of the European Community, but, as I have already indicated in correspondence with my hon. Friend, it is intended that direct dialling facilities should also be made available from the start to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg and the assembly of the Western European Union in Paris, and it is my hope that the new postage arrangements will similarly extend to these institutions.

  Subject to the approval of the House of Commons Commission, which has financial responsibility for the provision of postal and telephone services, it is hoped that the new arrangements can be brought into effect early in the next financial year. A further announcement will be made in due course.

SCOTLAND

  Jordanhill College
  Mr. Sillars
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will show the number of places available at Jordanhill College of Education for the BEd degree course in the present academic year and for next year.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  In the current academic session there are 671 funded places in the primary BEd course at Jordanhill college of education. In session 1991–92 the number of funded places will rise to 711.

  House Revaluation
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what arrangements he intends to make for 1991–92 to continue phasing in the effects of the 1990 revaluation.

  Mr. Lang
  We are committed to limiting annual increases in non-domestic rate bills resulting from revaluation to a maximum of 20 per cent. in real terms, and to only 15 per cent. for those ratepayers occupying properties with rateable values of less than £10,000. These arrangements will continue, but I intend to provide additional protection next year in the case of part-residential properties such as small hotels and guest houses with rateable values of less than £10,000. The increase in notional rateable values for these properties in 1991–92 will be limited to 10 per cent.

  In order to maintain the level of non-domestic rate income to authorities this year we arranged to limit decreases in non-domestic rate bills resulting from revaluation to 11·5 per cent. in real terms, and to 16·5 per

  121
  cent. for those ratepayers occupying properties with rateable values of less than £10,000. The limits for those who benefited from the revaluation will reduce by a further 11·5 per cent. and 16·5 per cent. in real terms in 1991–92.

  These changes will be set out in regulations which I shall lay before Parliament in the near future. The regulations will prescribe the multipliers to be applied to the rateable values of properties in the valuation roll on 31 March 1990 to determine the upper and lower notional rateable values for the purpose of calculating non-domestic rate bills for 1991–92. The multipliers for the upper limits will be 1·936 for properties with rateable values as at 1 April 1990 of £10,000 or more, 1·778 for those with rateable values of less than £10,000 and 1·701 for part-residential properties with values of less than £10,000. The multipliers for the lower limits will be 1·052 for properties with rateable values as at 1 April 1990 of £10,000 or more and 0·937 for those properties with values of less than £10,000.

  Assisted Places
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has decided on the level of fee remission grant which will be available to parents under the assisted places scheme in school session 1991–92.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  My right hon. Friend is making £8·492 million available for fee remission in 1991–92. As in 1990–91, 59 schools across Scotland will participate in the scheme. The funding now available should increase the number of pupils benefiting towards the planned level of about 3,000 by the end of the session.

  Local Health Councils
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to ensure that members of local health councils fully reflect the views of the community they serve.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: Health boards have been advised to ensure that council members are drawn from throughout their area and that selection is made after consultation with all appropriate bodies.

  Health Records
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total sum paid by the Scottish Home and Health Department to the firm GPASS for computerising health centre records; and how many general practitioners and how many sites are covered by the work done.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  GPASS is an NHS-managed and funded computerised administration system for general practitioners and is in direct competition with commercial suppliers of GP computer systems. The cost of developing and maintaining the system is therefore commercially confidential and it would be inappropriate to divulge this information. The latest figures available indicate the GPASS software is used by 2,212 GPs in 622 practices which equates to nearly 66 per cent. of GPs and 55 per cent. of practices in Scotland.

THE ARTS

  School Libraries
  Mr. Flannery
  To ask the Minister for the Arts what plans he has to update his survey into school libraries

  Mr. Renton
  School libraries are the responsibility of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.

  "School Libraries: the Foundations of the Curriculum" was a report of a working party set up by the Library and Information Services Council for England to consider the future of school library services. There are no plans to update this, but the council maintains a regular interest in school libraries and associated services.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  New Forest
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what restrictions are placed on the holding of cash collections in the New Forest by Forestry Commission byelaws; and under what circumstances and by what authority these byelaws may be waived.

  Mr. Curry
  The Forestry Commission byelaws do not place any restrictions on the holding of cash collections in the New Forest.

  Battery Farms
  Mr. Ron Davies
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many battery hen farms were visited by his Department's veterinary inspectors in each of the last five years; and what other efforts are made by his Department to monitor compliance with the code of recommendations for the welfare of domestic fowl.

  Mr. Maclean
  The information requested could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Officers of the state veterinary service monitor welfare whenever they visit livestock farms and will advise farmers on the welfare codes whenever necessary.

  Tobacco
  Mr. Teddy Taylor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the total sum devoted by the EC to tobacco production in the most recent annual period for which figures are available; and how much was expended by the community in the storage and export of such EC produced tobacco.

  Mr. Curry
  I refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave him on 11 February,Official Report, col. 376.

  Low-energy Light Bulbs
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he is taking to encourage the use of low-energy light bulbs in his Department's offices and other buildings.

  Mr. Curry
  As part of the Department's campaign to save energy by all practical means, more energy-efficient lighting has been installed in our regional office at Reading
  123
  and is currently being installed in the headquarter offices in Whitehall and Whitehall place and in the central science laboratory at Slough. In other locations similar measures are under consideration and these will be carried forward wherever practicable.

  Botswana (Beef Imports)
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much beef on average is imported into the United Kingdom from Botswana each year.

  Mr. Curry
  Imports into the United Kingdom of fresh, chilled and frozen beef and veal from Botswana over the most recent three years for which figures are available are as follows:

  (tonnes product weight)

  Year

  Quantity

  1989

  4,848

  1988

  2,600

  1987

  2,499

  Source: Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.

  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information he has on the import by the EC of beef from Botswana

  Mr. Curry
  Under the Lomé convention the Community provides a reduced levy annual import quota for 18,916 tonnes of beef from Botswana. In the last three years for which figures are available the following quantities of beef have been imported into the Community:

  Tonnes

  1989

  9·988

  1988

  6·118

  1987

  8·322

  Source: Eurostat.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Income Tax
  Mr. David Shaw
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest forecast collection of receipts from the higher rate of income tax in 1990–91; and what was the comparable figure for the collection of receipts from the higher rates of income tax in 1978–79.

  Mr. Maude
  In 1978–79 income tax liability at the higher rate was about 9 per cent. of total income tax liability. In 1990–91 it is estimated that liability at the higher rate will be about 20 per cent. of total liability.

  TESSAs
  Mr. French
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many financial institutions known to him have introduced tax-exempt special savings accounts.

  Mr. Maude
  A total of 150 so far.

  Mr. French
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the level of savings deposited in tax-exempt special savings accounts.

  Mr. Maude
  It is too early to make a firm estimate.

  Banks (Loans to Employees)
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he has concerning the number of employees who currently receive loans at non-commercial rates from employers in the banking and financial sectors.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: I have no firm data on the number of banking and financial sector employees currently receiving cheap loans from their employers.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the influence on the effectiveness of his interest rate policy of the current policy of many banks in making reduced-rate loans to their employees.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: I have made no such assessment.

  Reduced-rate Mortgages
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he would make of the annual value to an employee with an average-sized mortgage on his home of a reduced-rate 5 per cent. loan from his employer compared to a similar employee borrowing a similar amount at commercial rates.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: The value for 1990–91 for a basic rate taxpayer is just over £2,000 after taking account of mortgage interest tax relief.

  Reduced-rate Loans
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has any plans to treat reduced-rate employee loans as a taxable perk; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: The benefit of interest free or cheap loans provided for employees by employers is already taxable as a benefit-in-kind.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he makes of the potential revenue to the Exchequer if reduced-rate employee loans were treated for tax purposes in a similar manner to company cars.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 15 February 1991]: The estimated yield for 1990–91 from the existing tax charge on loans made to employees by their employers is £65 million.

  Married Women's Income Tax
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the annual income tax payable under the new arrangements by married women with a gross daily income of(a) £0·5 million, (b) £1 million and (c) £1·8 million.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: If all the income were subject to tax and the only relief available were the personal allowance, the income tax liability for 1990–91 would be:

  (a) £72,995,693

  (b) £145,995,693

  (c) £262,795,693

  Wine Imports
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the quantity of wine imported into Britain from non-EC countries, giving the country, and also the import levy paid for each of the last five years.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: Wine from non-EC countries has not been liable to import levy during the last five years although an import duty may be payable.

  I regret that the detailed breakdown which the hon. Member requests would be available only at disproportionate cost. But the "Overseas Trade Accounts", copies of which are in the Library, show that the total quantities of wine imported from non-EC countries in each of the last five years were as follows:

  Imports of Wine from Non-EC Countries

  Year

  Quantity

  Value

  (Tonnes)

  (Litres)

  (£000s)

  1986

  54,183

  47,992,883

  31,245

  1987

  66,014

  56,942,130

  41,361

  1988

  74,302

  63,360,450

  59,037

  1989

  78,316

  67,262,938

  68,427

  1990

  94,883

  79,006,661

  89,054

EMPLOYMENT

  Disabled People
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many employers employed at least five per cent. of their workforce from people who are registered as disabled in 1990 in(a) the United Kingdom, (b) Scotland, (c) Strathclyde region and (d) Renfrew district.

  Mr. Jackson
  The information requested is not collected centrally. It could be obtained—in respect of employers in Scotland, Strathclyde region, Renfrew district and separately in Great Britain and Northern Ireland—only at disproportionate cost.

  Mr. Ashley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the names of all the organisations which submitted a response to the consultative document, "Employment and Training for People with Disabilities".

  Mr. Jackson
  My Department has received responses from 333 organisations. My noble Friend Lord Ullswater will write to the right hon. Member with a list of the organisations and place a copy of his reply in both Libraries.

  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what measures he intends to introduce to allow people with disabilities to participate fully in the work force.

  Mr. Jackson
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: My Department already operates an extensive range of measures designed to help people with disabilities to participate fully in the workplace. These services and schemes were recently reviewed, following which we invited comments on a number of issues and proposals from a wide range of interested parties. We are presently considering responses to these consultations and will decide what changes to the existing measures are required in the light of comments received.

  Fit-for-Work Awards
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many fit-for-work awards were given to employers in the last year in(a) the United Kingdom, (b) Scotland, (c) Strathclyde region and (d) Renfrew district.

  Mr. Jackson
  Questions on operational matters in the Employment Service executive agency are the responsibility of Mike Fogden, the agency's chief executive, to whom I have referred this question for reply.

  Public Sector Pay
  Mr. Higgins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the public sector pay negotiations he expects to be concluded in the next six months.

  Mr. Forth
  The timing of the conclusion of public sector pay negotiations is a matter for the employing organisations and the unions concerned.

  Euratom
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when and where European Community directives 80/836 Euratom and 84/467 Have been implemented in United Kingdom law.

  Mr. Forth
  European Council directive 80/836/ Euratom, as amended by European Council directive 84/647/Euratom, was implemented in the United Kingdom in 1985. The bulk of the requirements were covered by the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1985 and supporting approved code of practice. The residual requirements were covered by existing legislation:

  The Radioactive Substances Act 1960.

  The Food Act 1984.

  The Medicines (Administration of Radioactive Substances) Regulations 1978.

  Vocational Training
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what consultations he has had with the chairman of South Glamorgan TEC regarding the setting up of a centre of excellence in the vocational training field in Cardiff.

  Mr. Jackson
  My department has had no consultations with the chairman of the South Glamorgan TEC about the establishment of such a centre.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will institute a study jointly with South Glamorgan TEC into the most convenient location or locations for vocational training activities dependent on public funds.

  Mr. Jackson
  TECs contract with my Department to meet the training needs of their local communities. It is for the TEC and their providers to determine the most convenient locations for training.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what duties training and enterprise councils have in the field of urban regeneration.
  127
  Mr. Jackson
  TECs contract with my Department to meet the training and enterprise needs of their local communities, including urban areas where relevant.

  Astra Training Services
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what consultations he has had with the chairman of the South Glamorgan TEC concerning the cessation of Astra Training Services activities at the skill centre, Western avenue, Galbalfa, Cardiff, and any alternative arrangements to accommodate Astra at premises owned by Cardiff Bay development corporation.

  Mr. Jackson
  I have had no such consultations.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Paper Industry
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will make it his policy to restrict the import of chlorine-bleached pulp into the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Leigh
  Pulp mills in Sweden are going over to other methods of bleaching and those in north America are refining their methods to produce much lower levels of dioxins. United Kingdom industry is voluntarily going over as quickly as possible to wood pulp bleached by other methods, or to unbleached pulp. So there is no need to restrict imports.

  Trust Ports
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list and place in the Library copies of all the reports which his Department's marketing initiative has requested relating to trust ports, including that by GP Wild International Ltd. in February 1990.

  Mr. Leigh
  No. All consultants' reports produced as a result of projects carried out under my Department's consultancy initiatives scheme are commercially confidential in nature. It would not be appropriate therefore for me to list or place in the Library copies of such reports.

  1851 Exhibition
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when the holder of his office last attended a meeting of the royal commissioners for the exhibition of 1851

  Mr. Leigh
  According to the royal commissioners' records, neither the current Secretary of State for Trade and Industry nor the holder of his office has attended commissioners' meetings in the past five years.

  Software Directive
  Miss Emma Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he will reconsider the proposed language of the EC software directive to ensure that legitimate activities, hitherto legal under United Kingdom law, do not become inadvertently violative of copyright;

  (2) what work his Department has undertaken to study the legislative implications in the United Kingdom of the draft EC software directive.
  128
  Mr. Leigh
  My Department has kept legislative implications continually under review during negotiations on the directive. The Department's 'assessment of those implications was set out in the explanatory memorandum submitted to the Scrutiny Committee on 20 November 1990. The directive will require member states to give copyright protection to computer programs as literary works, which is already the case in the United Kingdom. The protection affordable and the legality of current activities will not change to any significant degree.

  Bottled Gas
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he will publish in the Official Report the percentage increase in the price of bottled gas since the beginning of the Gulf crisis;

  (2) what representations he has received regarding recent changes in the price of bottled gas.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department does not collect information on price changes for bottled gas. I have received a number of representations about increases in the price of liquefied petroleum gas following recent developments in the Gulf. Copies of all correspondence received have been passed to the Director General of Fair Trading who is making some inquiries into recent changes in the price of LPG. His purpose is to establish whether action is warranted under the competition legislation.

  Low-energy Light Bulbs
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what steps he is taking to encourage the use of low-energy light bulbs in his Department's offices and other buildings.

  Mr. Leigh
  The Department's energy efficiency unit is tasked with promoting energy efficiency awareness in all the Department's accommodation management teams, including awareness of the benefits to be gained from energy-efficient lighting.

  The Department incorporates energy-efficient lighting schemes in all its building modernisation projects.

  FIMBRA
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has any plans to review the role, responsibilities and funding of FIMBRA.

  Mr. Redwood
  These are matters for the Securities and Investments Board.

  Insolvency
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many directors were disqualified under the Insolvency Act 1986 during each of the years 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990, respectively; and how many individual and how many corporate insolvencies there were in each of those years.

  Mr. Redwood
  There are no provisions in the Insolvency Act 1986 which disqualify directors but every individual who is declared bankrupt by the courts is prohibited from acting in the management of a company for the duration of the bankruptcy, usually three years.

  There were provisions relating to director disqualification in the Insolvency Act 1985 and the Companies Act

  129
  1985. However, these were consolidated into the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. The number of directors disqualified under these Acts and the number of individual and corporate insolvencies from 1987 to 1990 are as follows:

  Corporate insolvencies

  Individual insolvencies

  Disqualification orders

  1987

  15,030

  7,427

  193

  1988

  14,226

  8,507

  333

  1989

  16,305

  9,365

  352

  1990

  23,630

  13,987

  382

  There were 561 disqualification applications against directors awaiting hearing by the courts as at 31 December 1990.

  Kuwait (Reconstruction)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the 168 firms mentioned in his letter to hon. Members on 12 February concerning the reconstruction of Kuwait; and if he will explain the basis on which these firms have been selected.

  Mr. Lilley
  Details of these companies are set out in the prospectus on "Restructuring Kuwait", copies of which are in the Library of the House. They were selected as providing good examples of United Kingdom industry's experience and capabilities in the areas likely to be of greatest importance for the reconstruction of Kuwait, in close consultation with the six Government-industry sectoral sub-groups which are co-ordinating the United Kingdom's proposals. The prospectus recognises that there are many other British companies capable of assisting Kuwait.

  Major Shareholdings Directive
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he expects to publish a consultative document on implementation of the EEC major shareholdings directive.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department has today published a consultative document on proposals for implementing the EC directive on the information to be published when a major shareholding in a listed company is acquired or disposed of. Copies are being placed in the Library. The closing date for comments on the proposals is 15 April.

  Citizens Advice Bureaux
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the funding over the next three years of DTI grant in aid to the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and Citizens Advice Scotland.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 11 February 1991]: Details of the DTI grant in aid to NACAB and CAS for the next three years are not available. Expenditure plans for 1991–92 will be published next month in the supply estimates.

  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when he last met representatives of the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux to discuss Department of Trade and Industry grant in aid.
  130
  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 11 February 1991]: Ministers from my Department meet NACAB from time to time to discuss matters of mutual concern, including funding. The last such meeting was on 11 October when the then Minister for Consumer Affairs, Lord Hesketh, met the chairman and some of the members of the NACAB council.

  Secondment of Staff
  Mr. Tom Clarke
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many secondments there are in his Department from(a) the Confederation of British Industry and (b) the Trades Union Congress.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 11 February 1991]: None.

  Export Credits
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what were the total amounts of the cover provided, and expenditure incurred, by the insurance services division of the ECGD and what proportion of these sums relates to the export of services through the years 1983 to 1990.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 12 February 1991]: In the financial years 1983–84 to 1989–90, ECGD insurance services covered short-term exports worth £82·5 billion of which 1·6 per cent. related to the export of services.

  ECGD's published annual trading accounts include an analysis of the costs of operating ECGD as a whole but do not separately identify the costs of operating the insurance services group.

  EC Consumer Policy
  Mr. Wray
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress the Council of Ministers and the European Commission have made in securing common policies at EC level to protect consumer interests.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 12 February 1991]: The Government's White Papers on developments in the European Community, which are published every six months, list measures which have been agreed by the Council of Ministers. A Council resolution on future priorities for relaunching consumer protection policy was adopted in November 1989. Draft directives on general safety, unfair terms in consumer contracts and liability for services have been submitted to the Council by the Commission.

  Inward Investment
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his best estimate of the percentage of United Kingdom inward investment projects going to(a) Wales, (b) Scotland and (c) the northern region of England as measured by jobs promised in the period (i) April to October 1989, (ii) October to March 1989–90 and (iii) April to October 1990.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 14 February 1991]: The table sets out the number of investment decisions known to the Invest in Britain Bureau for the periods 1 April 1989 to 30 September 1989, 1 October 1989 to 31 March 1990 and 1 April to 30 September 1989 and the jobs anticipated for each of the regions specified as a proportion of total inward investment known for the United Kingdom during those periods.
  131
  The decisions recorded include the establishment of new business, expansion or acquisition of an existing business and involvement in joint venture. The figures are

  Inward Investment decisions and expected new jobs from April 1989—October 1990, broken down into 6 month periods for Wales, Scotland and North East England as a proportion of the total

  Wales

  Scotland

  North East

  Total numbers of

  Projects

  Jobs

  Projects

  Jobs

  Projects

  Jobs

  Projects

  Jobs

  1 April to 30 September 1989

  12·4

  15·6

  10·6

  19·2

  10·6

  15·9

  161

  17,030

  1 October 1989 to 31 March 1990

  22·8

  7·6

  9·3

  29·0

  9·8

  6·4

  193

  15,661

  1 April to 30 September 1990

  16·9

  9·5

  10·4

  31·8

  13·0

  8·9

  154

  12,028

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is his best estimate of the percentage of United Kingdom inward investment projects going to(a) Wales, (b) Scotland and (c) the northern region of England as measured by capital investment in the period (i) April to October 1989, (ii) October to March 1989–90 and (iii) April to October 1990.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 14 February 1991]: The information requested by the hon. Gentleman is unavailable.

  Departmental Purchases
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what proportion of(a) the furniture and (b) office equipment and computers purchased by his Department since 1979 was made in the United Kingdom; and what is his Department's policy towards purchasing foreign goods where a British supplier is available.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: Details of the British-made proportion of DTI purchases since 1979 in the categories listed are not maintained centrally.

  The Government's policy is that Departments should base all procurement of goods and services on value for money, including quality (or fitness for purpose) and delivery against price. In accordance with that policy, goods and services are acquired by competition unless there are convincing reasons to the contrary. Under EC rules, and the GATT Government procurement agreement where appropriate, my Department is obliged to award relevant contracts in accordance with prescribed procedures aimed at avoiding discrimination on grounds of nationality.

  Bankruptcies
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list the bankruptcies or receiverships in industry, by sector, specifying in particular coal mining, ship building, iron and steel, and agriculture, for each year from 1979 until the latest available date.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: The available information on company insolvencies in England and Wales and in Scotland is published in the annual reports on companies; that on personal insolvencies in England and Wales is in the annual report on bankruptcy up to 1987, and for 1988 and 1989 in the annual report on insolvencies. Copies of these publications are available in the Library of the House of Commons.
  132
  based on information provided by the companies themselves at the time of the investment and take no account of subsequent developments.

  Consumer Protection
  Mr. Nigel Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will give figures for forecast outturn for 1990–91 and planned expenditure for 1991–92 to 1993–94 for(a) consumer and investor protection, including separately (i) nationalised industries consumer councils, (ii) miscellaneous consumer protection and advisory services, (iii) investor protection and (b) regulation of trade and consumer protection grants in aid including separately, (1) the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux and the Scottish Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, (2) consumer groups councils and (3) the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 18 February 1991]: For each of the services mentioned, the forecast outturn for 1990–91 was reflected in the winter supplementary estimate for class IV vote 2, and planned provision for 1991–92 will be set out in the supply estimates to be published in March. The Department's overall plans for expenditure on statutory and regulatory work, including technological support, and consumer protection are set out in "The Government's Expenditure Plans 1991–92 to 1993–94: Trade and Industry" (Cm. 1504).

DEFENCE

  The Gulf
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the development of and support given to groups assisting the families of those serving in the Gulf.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The services have a well-established structure which combines the work of official and voluntary organisations in the support of personnel and their families. Since deployment to the Gulf began, steps have been taken to provide increased welfare support to families and we are particularly grateful for the many offers of help we have had from groups and individual people. We have encouraged the establishment of local Gulf support groups and contact points for them have been set up in the Ministry of Defence.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are his estimates of the cost of replacing equipment lost in the Gulf war to date.

  Mr. Tom King
  To date the value of equipment lost and ammunition consumed since hositilities began is approaching £250 million. No decisions have yet been taken on the replacement of lost equipment.
  133
  Mr. Parry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has on the level of civilian casualties in the Gulf war.

  Mr. Tom King
  Allied policy is to attack only military targets and facilities supporting Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. Great care is being taken to minimise the risk of injuring civilians and we greatly regret any that occur. Iraq has made various claims, but we have no way of checking them.

  Mr. Mullin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his latest estimate for the cost of the British contribution to the Gulf operation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Tom King
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) earlier today.

  Mr. Litherland
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps he has taken to monitor radioactive fallout following air strikes on nuclear installations in Iraq.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) on 29 January, at column 504. We have no evidence of any release of radioactivity from Iraq's nuclear installations.

  Mrs. Fyfe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his latest estimate of the number of persons killed on both sides in the Gulf war.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Members for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey) and for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) on 18 February at column 62.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will review his "Options for Change" proposals in the light of experiences in the Gulf conflict.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Gulf conflict does not invalidate the work done so far on "Options for Change", which reflects the need to retain the capability to react to such emergencies. However, we will ensure that lessons learnt in the Gulf are incorporated in our planning.

  Mr. Speed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to deploy fixed-wing naval aircraft in the Gulf.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Ministry of Defence has no plans at present to deploy fixed-wing naval aircraft to the Gulf.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many qualified plastic surgeons are available in the middle east to deal with burns and soft tissue injuries.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  It is not our practice to give details of support provision for the Gulf operation. Sufficient plastic surgery facilities are available in theatre to deal with burns and soft tissue injuries before medical evacuation of casualties to the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) whether the tour of duty of television correspondents currently with British troops in the Gulf has been extended;
  134
  (2) whether he will publish a table showing the proposed dates of rotation for television correspondents attached to allied troops in the Gulf.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Ministry of Defence has not established a fixed programme for rotation of TV correspondents attached to British units in the Gulf.

  Atomic Weapons Establishment
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received recently about the Government's proposed contractorisation of AWE.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Recently I have received a number of written questions from right hon. and hon. Members which have, in the main, raised various concerns, in particular the future of pensions and other conditions of service for AWE personnel. There have also been similar letters from individual members of the AWE staff.

  Brawdy Defence Establishment
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he would make a statement on the future of the defence establishment at Brawdy in Dyfed.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  We are continuing to examine the scope for rationalisation across the range of defence activities. Any decisions will be announced in the normal way.

  Defence Review
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether any further progress has been made in his Department's review of Britain's defence commitments.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State indicated on 21 January,Official Report, column 103, we are continuing to study the proposals in "Options for Change" which were announced last July. We intend to proceed with rationalisation and other support changes where these do not affect our efforts in the Gulf.

  The Gulf conflict does not invalidate the approach we took last summer, which foresaw the need to retain the capability to react to such emergencies. However, the lessons learnt in the Gulf will be incorporated in our planning in due course.

  Holy Loch Base
  Mr. Andrew Welsh
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a further statement on the reduction of United States navy personnel at the Holy Loch submarine base at Faslane.

  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a further statement on the reduction of United States navy personnel at the Holy Loch submarine base at Faslane.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence said on 5 February, the United States navy will, by the end of this year, no longer have a requirement for its submarine support facility at the Holy Loch and this facility will therefore close. The exact
  135
  date of closure has yet to be determined, but is likely to be some time in 1992. The Royal Navy base at Faslane is unaffected by the United States decision to withdraw from the Holy Loch.

  European Co-operation
  Mr. Dunn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to meet the Secretary General of NATO to discuss European co-operation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend has regular meetings with the Secretary-General of NATO. Their next scheduled meeting is in the spring. A range of defence issues will be discussed.

  Staff Relocation
  Mr. Holt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence on how many occasions in the past five years Defence Department Ministers have made parliamentary statements concerning the relocation of MOD staff subsequently to renege on the promises given.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  None. Of course, during the planning stages all relocation proposals are kept under review to ensure that they continue to meet the requirement to be operationally and economically viable.

  Departmental Achievements
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the principal achievements of his Department since June 1987.

  Mr. Tom King
  The Ministry of Defence has continued its work, in concert with other Government Departments, to sustain national security, principally through a resolute commitment to the North Atlantic alliance. We have played a full part in NATO's response to changing security circumstances in Europe, as outlined in the London declaration of July 1990.

  We are looking at "Options for Change" in our own armed forces to reflect the improved security situation in Europe, which should allow us to maintain strong defences with lower levels of armed forces.

  Following Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Kuwait, British forces are now engaged in the international effort to secure Iraqi withdrawal and to restore international peace and security in the area, in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions.

  We have supported and contributed to NATO's efforts to establish closer relations with the Soviet Union and the countries of eastern Europe, and have been actively engaged in European arms control talks. We have worked to strengthen the European pillar of the alliance, and through our chairmanship of the independent European programme group have helped to promote closer European co-operation in defence.

  We continue to seek greater efficiency in the management of defence and are implementing a number of
  136
  programmes to safeguard and build upon the Department's generally good record of protecting the natural environment.

  British Aerospace plc
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what conditions Her Majesty's Government places on its contracts with British Aerospace plc concerning the locations where consequential manufacturing and employment occurs.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  As a general rule, my Department does not, in its contracts with British Aerospace or any other company, stipulate where work is to be carried out.

  Ceremonies
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current estimated annual cost of ceremonial horses and soldiers in the defence budget; what percentage of the whole budget this represents; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Members of the Household Division and King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery are required to perform both military and ceremonial duties and therefore it is not possible, without disproportionate effort and cost, to separately identify the personnel costs of each of these roles. However, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment and King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery have approximately 400 horses which are used for ceremonial duties at an estimated cost of £0·47 million for financial year 1990–91. This represents 0·0022 per cent. of the defence budget.

  Iraqi Nationals
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the status of Iraqi nationals held at Roleston; and by what authority they are held there.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Iraqi nationals at Rollestone are considered to be members of the Iraqi armed forces and, as such, are being held in accordance with the provisions of the 1949 Geneva convention relating to prisoners of war.

  British Airways Tristars
  Mr. Speed
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions his Department is having with British Airways about purchasing its redundant Tristar aircraft.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  None.

  HMS Endurance
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether HMS Endurance will end active duty at the end of her current cruise.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No such decision has been taken.

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chelmsford.

Lord Laing of Dunphail
Sir Hector Laing, Knight, having been created Baron Laing of Dunphail, of Dunphail in the District of Moray, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne and the Lord Prior.
Baroness James of Holland Park
Phyllis Dorothy James, Mrs. White, OBE, having been created Baroness James of Holland Park, of Southwold in the County of Suffolk, for life—Was, in her robes, introduced between the Baroness Blatch and the Lord Butterfield.

Radiation Sickness Treatments: Funding
2.58 p.m.
Lord Hunter of Newington Lord Hunter of Newington asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will make financial provision for new treatments for radiation sickness.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper): My Lords, the Government have consistently increased resources to the National Health Service, and escalating costs reflect the fact that new treatments are taken into account. Sickness as a result of radiation is encountered during some radiotherapy treatments. We are aware that several new products are emerging but there are also well-established drug regimes to cope with many of the cases.
Lord Hunter of Newington: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Do the Government think that there should be a procedure in these matters which is known to the medical profession and to the patients? It is evident that in recent months there has been a great deal of publicity on the subject and such a procedure might be important. Will the Minister say whether there is a role here for the Director of Research and Development?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we have taken the view that decisions on patient services must be taken at a local level. One of the main principles of the White Paper, Working for Patients, is that decisions about patient services should be taken locally in the light of local assessment of health care needs. Any form of central fund for drugs, advice about drugs or any central prescription on drugs would pre-empt local decisions. It may well be that there is a role here for the newly appointed Director of Research and Development.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, are the Government satisfied that the medical research ethics committees across the country take proper account of possible extra radiation to which patients may be subjected, beyond that which their normal treatment would require?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, my noble friend asks a most important question. There is no doubt that local ethical committees are a suitable vehicle for taking extra radiation into account. I shall investigate how widespread the practice is.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, bearing in mind how disturbing radiation sickness can be—the Minister's noble friend mentioned that—will the Minister give the House any information she has about any new treatments that are being developed? I heard recently that an interesting development was taking place at the Christie Hospital. Will the Minister give an assurance that no treatments will be held up for financial reasons?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, new anti-emetic drugs have recently been licensed, or are still undergoing clinical trials. One example is Ondansetron which vats first marketed in April and May 1990. That drug treats the side effects of radio-therapy treatment. Another drug is Granisetron which has been developed to combat similar symptoms. That drug is still undergoing clinical trials.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, on the basis that it is still a characteristic of the National Health Service to refuse to accept any governmental or outside interference as regards clinical advice and the prescriptions recommended by qualified medical or consultant practitioners, will the Minister say whether, in the event of a new form of treatment being clinically recommended, the Government reserve the right to withhold financial provision for that treatment, or to tolerate local or regional interference in a clinical decision?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I believe the noble Lord agreed with me that these are matters for local rather than central prescription. I repeat that individual doctors are free to prescribe what they consider to be the most appropriate drugs for their patients, taking account of local arrangements and protocols drawn up by the hospital committee of senior doctors and managers which is accountable for health care priorities in a particular district. This is a matter for clinical judgment.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, are we to take it from that reply that, in making a prescription for a particular treatment, a clinical practitioner must take into account—I use the Minister's own words—non-clinical, managerial or financial advice?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, there are a wide number of considerations to be taken into account.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, do the Government maintain a constant vigilance over new industrial processes to monitor whether increased radiation is being emitted from them? Would the Government take any necessary measures to try to keep such radiation to an absolute minimum?
Baroness Hooper: Yes, my Lords.

Channel Tunnel: Safety
3.5 p.m.
Lord Underhill Lord Underhill asked Her Majesty's Government:
What reports they have received from the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority on the commissioning and completion by Eurotunnel of the essential safety tests proposed in Annex C of the authority's March 1990 report Non-segregation of drivers and passengers from their vehicles.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, construction and operation of the Channel Tunnel are supervised by an intergovernmental commission on behalf of the UK and French Governments. I understand that although safety authority reports have yet to be received, tests of the shuttle wagon's smoke extraction and purging systems during loading have been carried out. Eurotunnel plans to undertake fire detection and suppression tests in the next few months. Other tests, studies and analyses will be undertaken as design and construction progress and realistic test conditions become available.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. But does he appreciate that the report of the safety authority to the intergovernmental commission was published as far back as March 1990? Is there any reason why the report of the tests has not already been submitted? Will the Minister give the House an assurance that the tests have been carried out and that the report will be widely published? Many people such as myself who were in favour of the Channel Tunnel project have been concerned about segregation.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, as I indicated in my original Answer, tests have been carried out. Further tests will need to be carried out. As the noble Lord said, the safety authority has published one annual report and will soon publish another. I can assure the House that all the considerations that the safety authority lists will need to be taken into account.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, I apologise for rising again. However, does that mean that certain matters are proceeding now, even though these essential tests have not been completed?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the tests are an ongoing matter. Further tests are required and they will have to be carried out.
Lord Teviot: My Lords, as regards the segregation of passengers, I believe it is much better that people accompany their vehicles. The Swiss have followed that policy for a long time, and they are known for their safety consciousness.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the segregation of passengers has been extensively debated. During debates on the Bill both Houses accepted that non-segregation would have to be further considered by the safety authority as design developed, and that is what is happening.
Viscount Cross: My Lords, in view of the fact that concern has been expressed both in and outside the House on non-segregation, will my noble friend consider segregation for the first year of the operation of the Channel Tunnel and then review the situation?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: No, my Lords.

Hill Farmers: Compensation
3.8 p.m.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard Viscount Massereene and Ferrard asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking to prevent hardship among Scottish hill farmers following the fall in the price of store lambs by over 50 per cent. since 1989.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, on 12th February the Government announced an increase in hill livestock compensatory allowances. This will provide a welcome boost of £7 million to Scottish hill farmers. In addition sheep farmers in the hills and uplands will benefit from the green pound devaluation agreed last year which has raised the guide price for sheepmeat by over 12 per cent. from January this year and from the new supplement of 4 ecu payable with the sheep annual premium from this summer to farmers in the less favoured areas.
Viscount Massereene and Ferrard: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that satisfactory Answer. I have been away for a while and I did not realise that that was the situation. I hope I may ask my noble friend a question although I have not given him prior notice of it. Therefore I do not expect him to answer me. I wish to draw attention to the prices that butchers are now charging for lamb. I believe that the public are being overcharged. There was a slump in 1989–90 in the price of lamb. However, butchers are charging the public the same price now as they did before the slump.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I fully understand the point that my noble friend has made. I am aware that there is substantial concern that the retail market has not lowered the price charged to the consumer in line with that being paid to the hill farmer. The retail sector is a very competitive market and reacts to market forces.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, while the Government's proposals are extremely welcome, will they bear in mind that they do not make up for what has happened to small farmers in the past year or two? Have they noticed that many people in this country who do far less for the economy than small farmers have received salary and wage increases far in excess of inflation? Are the Government aware that small farmers last year suffered an increase in costs of at least 15 per cent. and a decrease in the prices they receive for their products of at least 15 per cent.?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am aware of the situation in the hills and the uplands and the islands. The Government have not been sitting on their hands and doing nothing. Apart from the increase in the HLCA payments, we raised the level of the suckler

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cow premium to its maximum amount in the LFAs. We also brought forward payment of the sheep annual premium. To cap that, since April last year £270 million has been spent on intervention in the beef price. We are all concerned about the hill farmer, and the Government are doing their bit.
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, on the question of competition and the consumer, competition does not seem to be working. Does the Minister's department have any mechanism for recording prices paid by the consumer? Is there any mechanism by which the hill farmer can be made aware that he should perhaps get more money from the consumer and should hold out until he gets it? Is the Minister aware that many of the consumers are big buyers and are monopolistic?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I do not accept that most people believe that the retail sector is essentially monopolistic. I am very glad to tell the House that the NFU in Scotland is launching a quality lamb assured scheme on the farm which will raise the quality of lamb sold to the consumer. The scheme will provide exactly what the consumer wants and will almost certainly attract a premium price. That will be of direct benefit to the hill farmer.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I apologise for taking the noble Lord marginally outside his brief, but is he aware that hill and sheep farmers in Wales have suffered considerably over the past two years? Will the benefits which are now to come to Scottish sheep farmers also accrue to Welsh sheep farmers?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the hill livestock compensatory allowance scheme is a UK measure for the less favoured areas, which include a large part of Wales.
Lord Parry: My Lords, the House will hear that with great relief. Is the Minister aware that the difficulties faced by hill farmers in Wales have been compounded not only by the common agricultural policy of the EC but by the specific problem arising from the very heavy fall out from Chernobyl? Is he aware that that has affected the income of sheep farmers on the small hill farms of Wales specifically over the same period as they have suffered from the general economic decline?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I am aware of that. Some farms in Scotland have also been affected. Compensation was provided and as each year goes by the problem decreases.

The Postal Code
3.16 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford Lord Nugent of Guildford asked Her Majesty's Government:
What plans the Post Office has to complete universal application of the postal code.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Hesketh): My Lords, this is an operational matter for the Post Office. However, I understand that the post-coding of every address in
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the United Kingdom was completed in 1974. I understand that the level of post-code usage for mail posted in the United Kingdom has now risen to 79.9 per cent.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that report on progress. However, is he aware that the use of the postal code is a great labour saver in the laborious business of postal sorting and that therefore the gap between 79 per cent. and 100 per cent. usage needs to be closed as soon as possible? Does he agree that it could be closed by including the postal code in all telephone books? Can my noble friend say why the Post Office did not arrange for the new telephone books which we have all just received to include postal codes?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I was under the impression that the telephone books carried postal codes. If my noble friend is correct I shall certainly inquire into the matter and communicate with him immediately. Under the 1969 Act the Post Office has a statutory duty to accept all reasonable demands for a letter service in the United Kingdom, which does not include the postal code. In the United Kingdom it is possible to obtain postal codes from Crown Post Offices and public libraries. However, that is not a facility that is available for foreign mall coming into the United Kingdom and the Post Office will have to retain the ability to accept non-post-coded mail for that part of its business.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, although his answer provides an explanation, it gives no comfort to postal users —which is all of us—who have to pay more and more every year for stamps?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I fully appreciate the concern of my noble friend, particularly as the postal code—unlike postal codes in many other countries which direct mail only to a post office—is designed to achieve a division of mail by automatic sorting into the area of a postman's round. He is thus correct to say that we should have the most efficient postal delivery system in the world.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, in view of the cost advantages which accrue to the Post Office when the postal code is used in terms of speed of handling, is the noble Lord prepared to consider a lower price for postage stamps for all those in the United Kingdom who use the postal code?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am afraid that I am not in the position of power which the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, suggests. However, I shall certainly bring his suggestion to the attention of the chairman of the Post Office.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the millions of people who address their envelopes by hand and laboriously add the postal code do so only to have it rejected by the sorting machines, which do not accept handwritten postal codes? Can he say when that anomaly is likely to be corrected?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am filled with trepidation at taking issue with my noble friend, but I believe that the sorting machines accept handwritten postal codes.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, can the noble Lord give the House an idea of the average delay in delivery of first-class letters which are not post-coded compared with those which are post-coded?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the figures which I have do not distinguish between post-coded and non-post-coded mail. However, I am sure that your Lordships will be encouraged to know that the most recent figures show that there has been an overall improvement of 3.6 per cent. in the effectiveness of the delivery of first-class mail.
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes, has sown great confusion in my mind? Is it not worthwhile putting the post code on an envelope if one is writing the address by hand?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am under the impression that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, is correct in thinking that all of your Lordships will benefit in terms of both speed of delivery and receipt of documents if they place the postal code upon their missives.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is it not a question of the clarity of the noble Lords' handwriting?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I wrote my own postal code on the top of my brief. I can read it and I hope very much that a machine could also read it.
Lady Saltoun of Abernethy: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I once addressed a letter to a Member of your Lordships' House by hand, writing on the envelope only his name and the postal code, and the letter arrived first thing the following morning?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I think that it would be fair to describe that as a ringing endorsement of the code.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the Post Office intends to continue putting on its stamps a number rather than a price? At the moment it is very confusing when posting letters abroad or sending parcels. Does he agree that it would be much simpler if the price were known?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I feel that this question is slightly wide of the Question which stands on the Order Paper.

Planning and Compensation Bill [H.L.]
3.20 p.m.
Report received.
Lord Norrie Lord Norrie moved Amendment No. 1:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Assessment of environmental effects
.—(1) The Secretary of State may make regulations for the purposes of requiring the assessment of the likely significant effects on the environment of any development for which planning permission is required under the provisions of the principal Act.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1) regulations may—

(a) specify classes of development for which an assessment of the likely significant effects on the environment shall or may be required;

(b) specify the information which shall be supplied with any application for planning permission for which assessment is required;

(c) specify procedures to be followed in connection with the assessment.

(3) Regulations under subsections (1) and (2) above may be made—

(a) for the purposes of ensuring the implementation of any obligations of the United Kingdom under the Community Treaties or international agreement to which the United Kingdom is for the time being a party; or

(b) as the Secretary of State considers necessary to ensure that where a development is likely to have significant effects on the environment planning permission shall not be granted unless those effects have been taken into consideration.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, before I explain the purpose of the amendment, I should like to thank my noble friend Lady Blatch for her courtesy and willingness to agree to meet the noble Lords, Lord Nathan, Lord Renton and myself before the Committee and Report stages of the Bill.
Environmental assessment—or EA—was one of the points discussed. I know that the noble Baroness appreciates a number of our anxieties about it and I hope that she will be in a position to respond positively today to this amendment. Following her helpful comments at Committee stage, I brought forward this limited amendment to deal specifically with the problem of development projects which fall outside the scope of the European directive on environmental assessment. Even though the total number of projects is fairly small, this is still a very important issue.
The directive on EA is at present implemented in the United Kingdom through regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972. While they implement the directive so far as concerns town and country planning projects, they are restricted purely to those projects listed in the directive. Not surprisingly, the directive does not contain a comprehensive list of projects which might have significant effects on the environment. I have already raised in Committee the example of potable or drinking water treatment plants which do not appear on the lists, although waste water treatment plants do appear.
There will inevitably be some classes of project which are likely to have a significant impact on the environment but have, for whatever reason, been omitted from the directive. Therefore it is important that the Secretary of State for the Environment should have the power to require an environmental assessment for such projects. Under the present

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regulations, he has no power to require such an EA. The Secretary of State needs such powers under primary legislation.
Article 13 of the directive allows member states to lay down stricter rules for environmental assessment if they so wish. It is not just drinking water treatment plants which evade the system. At present the Government are unable to require EAs for inland and freshwater fish farms because of a mistranslation in the directive which resulted in the English version referring to salmon instead of salmon in fish farms, which would have included trout. If there were provision in primary legislation, the Secretary of State could require EA for trout farms as originally anticipated by the directive. Without such a power we have to wait for years for amendment of the directive by the European Commission.
There are other ambiguities in the definitions of the projects listed which could be clarified by the Government if EA appeared in primary legislation. For instance, what is an urban development project? It is not always clear whether that includes a project such as a major housing development in a rural area, yet there is no other appropriate category into which that apparently falls.
The new clause would achieve three main objectives. The first would plug the loophole through which slip some categories of project by allowing the Secretary of State to specify the classes of development for which an EA shall or may be required. The second objective would allow the Secretary of State to apply EA to classes of project which may come to light in the future as having significant effects on the environment. It is surely right that the Government should have that discretion. At present they are quite powerless to rectify anomalies or ambiguities. The third objective relates to a matter of particular concern; namely, that the planning legislation is at present incomplete without such an amendment.
I believe that the Government and this House recognise the important role that EA has to play in our planning system. That is now widely accepted, yet not one reference to EA is to be found in any of the planning statutes. This Bill is the best opportunity that we now have to correct that situation.
This clause does not set onerous duties on the Government. It will not create burdens or delay for developers. It will not create a bureaucratic nightmare. It will ensure that EA is given its proper place in legislation and that those projects which are likely to have significant effects on the environment can be subjected to an assessment of what those effects are likely to be. We all agree on the value of EA and that it should be firmly placed in primary legislation. This amendment would go some small way to achieve that. I beg to move.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, perhaps I may just make a short intervention about the directive from the Community which relates to salmon and the salmonids. I wonder whether my noble friend can
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assure the House that there was in point of fact a mistake in translation and it was not intended that trout farmers should be left out.
Lord Nathan: My Lords, I support this amendment for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie. It might be regarded as quixotic for so central an element in any planning regime to be introduced into English law under the European Communities Act and not in any way be in the planning legislation. One might be entitled to ask why that is so.
I was a member of the environmental subcommittee—Sub-committee G of the Select Committee on the European Communities of your Lordships' House—at the time that this directive was under consideration. We were in a very small minority perhaps among your Lordships—certainly among the population as a whole—in thinking that environmental assessment would be most warmly welcomed as one of the instruments by which planning could be made effective. There was objection on the ground that we had much the best planning legislation in the European Community. Why therefore should we submit to having imposed upon us in this country a novel idea which advanced us not at all?
I believe that it was because of that general feeling of opposition to the notion of environmental assessment that the measure was hived off as a regulation under the European Communities Act rather than put in the planning legislation. Since then there has been a radical change of view. In relation to the total number of environmental statements that are made, quite large numbers of them in full form are made voluntarily. It was felt by the developer—a year or two ago it was the Coal Board or the National Grid; whichever organisation it is will do it voluntarily —that it was a way of getting across what the environmental impact would be and thus to acquire public support and the support of the appropriate authorities.
I suggest that the mood has entirely changed. Environmental assessment is now regarded as a prime element in the planning regime. That may have been helped by increasing concern about environmental matters. It is now even more extraordinary that there should be no provision for environmental assessment in our planning legislation. For the very reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, regarding defects, in my humble opinion the amendment should be strongly supported.
Baroness Nicol: My Lords, we on these Benches also strongly support the amendment. At present there is no room for further development of environmental assessment within the United Kingdom's regulations under the EC legislation. We can implement only the strict letter of the directive. If we accept—as I am sure we all now do—the spirit of the directive we must have powers for a flexible approach.
There is little that I can add to the comprehensive cover of the subject by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie. The wording of the directive is sometimes ambiguous. We cannot foresee all the possible pressures that may

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arise in the future. I believe that the amendment is necessary. I hope that the noble Baroness will have had second thoughts since the Committee stage.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, once again I congratulate my noble friend for putting environmental assessment at the top of our agenda for debates on this Bill.
My noble friend's amendment would extend the coverage of the existing environmental assessment provisions to projects which could have significant adverse environmental effects but which are not included in Annexes I or II to European Communities Directive 85/337. I have some sympathy with this objective. There could be some projects not covered by the directive which are likely to have environmental effects so that if they were so covered they would have to be subject to the environmental assessment requirements of the directive. But the question remains whether this Bill should make any provision for such projects to be subject to EA if approval for them is sought through the planning system.
As I said during the Committee stage debate, the planning system has for many years provided a very effective means for ensuring that all material considerations, including environmental ones, are taken into account in the decision-making process. In view of this, and in view of the very full coverage of the European Community directive, this amendment would clearly have only a modest effect and there is certainly a case to be made for arguing that an extension to the number of projects which need to be subject to EA is therefore unnecessary. A further consideration is that we should perhaps move forward together with the rest of the Community in this field —though I acknowledge that the directive itself specifically authorises member states,
"to lay down stricter rules regarding scope and procedure when assessing environmental effects".
The case for an extension to coverage of the environmental assessment provisions is therefore not an open-and-shut one but it is certainly a case that requires consideration. I can assure my noble friend that we are giving urgent thought to this proposal. It requires consultation with a number of other government departments and that is one reason why I am unable to give a definitive response one way or the other today.
I was asked a specific question by my noble friend Lord Radnor. With reference to "salmon" and "salmonids", I should not like to comment on the history of the differences between the texts of the directive. However, the Government have accepted the view of the agriculture committee of another place that it would accept an amendment of the English text that brought it into line by including "salmonids".
To conclude, we are still studying the amendment. I should like to be able to say that we shall have a reply on the point of principle by the time of the Bill's Third Reading in this House, but that would be an optimistic timetable. We should certainly not be able to introduce an amendment of our own before the
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Committee stage in another place. However, by then we shall have a response. With that assurance, I hope that my noble friend will not press his amendment.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for that very encouraging response. I am pleased to hear that the Government are deliberating on the principles of the amendment. I understand their difficulty with the timetable. However, if the noble Baroness can put forward an amendment at Third Reading, that would be acceptable. It may be a matter that we can discuss after Report stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Nathan Lord Nathan moved Amendment No. 2:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Council of Environmental Assessment
.—(1) The Secretary of State shall have power to appoint a Council of Environmental Assessment.
(2) The Council of Environmental Assessment shall have the following functions:

(a) to monitor and review the quality of all environmental statements;

(b) to provide information on the quality of environmental statements to the relevant authority;

(c) to assist the relevant authority and promoter of any scheme requiring submission of an environmental statement in identifying the principal impacts likely to result from the scheme and the methodologies to assess the magnitude and significance of such impacts prior to preparation of the environmental statement;

(d) to establish methodologies and standards for assessing the magnitude and significance of all types of environmental impacts.

(3) The Council of Environmental Assessment shall have power to recover the costs incurred in fulfilling the functions referred to under paragraphs (b) and (c) of subsection (2) above from the promoter of the relevant scheme.
(4) In this section—
"environmental statement" means a statement prepared under the Town and Country Planning (Assessment of Environmental Effects) Regulations 1988, No. 1199;
"relevant authority" means the body to whom it falls to determine a planning application or proposed planning application in relation to the relevant scheme.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment arises from the helpful reaction of the Minister to certain remarks that I made at Committee stage. I was prompted by those remarks to put it forward, whether or not she intended that.
The regulations relating to environmental assessment have been in existence in this country for a short time. They cover a comparatively small area of activity. There is therefore not a great deal of experience with regard to the preparation of environmental statements. Nor is there much experience in how to analyse those which have been prepared. It is with those points in mind that the amendment is put forward.
First, it is clearly necessary that methods of preparing environmental statements are considered and agreed. A good deal of work in this context has been undertaken at Manchester University. Among others, Professor Chris Wood has been prominent in

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that work. However, it is important to have an authoritative statement on how such statements should be prepared and a body to review the quality of the statements prepared.
Local authorities have had little or no experience of handling such statements because the developments which require those statements have not taken place within their territories. The purpose of such a review would not be to second-guess the conclusions reached in the statement but to ensure that the manner in which the statement was prepared was comprehensive and appropriate in all ways; and that it assists in identifying the principal environmental effects of the development in question. The purpose of the council and the amendment is to achieve those goals.
The Minister may be unable to agree with the amendment. However, I hope that she will give it further consideration and will bring forward suggestions at a later stage of the Bill. If that were so, it would be extremely helpful to those concerned in these fields if the noble Baroness could inform your Lordships' House whether the Department of the Environment is considering preparation of full and sufficient guidance notes for environmental statements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, referred at Committee stage to a booklet. However, that is less than adequate for the purpose. A substantial document is required to which developers and local authorities responsible for considering statements can look for guidance.
Developments which come under departments and are not regulated by the planning regime—for instance, transport, electricity, and so on—would apply the same criteria to environmental assessment as those which the department of the noble Baroness applies. I hope that in general the planning regime is applied by other departments as it is applied by the Department of the Environment. If the noble Baroness can give those assurances, that will be of great benefit to your Lordships' House.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I wish to support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Nathan. In Committee my all-embracing EA amendment included a similar proposal for some sort of council or office of environmental assessment. The noble Lord has spoken already of the problems of poor quality and lack of information and guidance available to developers and local authorities. At that stage, the Minister recognised that there were real problems as regards EA quality control at present.
I appreciate that the Government may not wish to go down the road of establishing a new quango. However, in Committee I suggested that a useful start could he made by establishing a small unit of officials within the Department of the Environment in order to ensure that there is a form of monitoring or review of environmental assessments and statements. There needs to be a mechanism or procedure to ensure the highest quality of assessments.
I agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Nathan. I hope that the Government will apply
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any changes to quality procedures across other departments because EA applies to projects beyond the scope of this Bill. As the Government recognised, all departments have their own so-called green problems. It is not only the Department of the Environment which should be concerned about this matter but also the departments responsible for energy, transport, and agriculture. The newly appointed "green" Ministers should be making EA a key priority.
I look forward to hearing my noble friend's response. I hope that she can provide us with some encouragement as to how the Government intend to pursue EA quality control. An EA is completely invalid if it is not carried out properly.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, explained, his purpose is to provide a mechanism for ensuring that environmental statements are of adequate quality. He has drawn the attention of the House to a commission which has such a function, for example, in the Netherlands. As I explained during the Committee stage, we agree the need to ensure that environmental statements are useful documents. However, we do not believe that establishing a separate body is the right way to achieve that in this country. It would add to what is already a complex procedure, while diverting attention from the central purpose of the procedure which is to enable an informed decision to be made on the application for planning permission. I outlined various measures that can be taken to improve the quality of environmental statements, including self-help by EA practitioners through bodies such as the recently established Institute of Environmental Assessment of which the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, is president.
The Government's action in this field, which was set out in the White Paper This Common Inheritance, is to commission studies which will lead to the preparation of guidance on how to prepare an environmental statement and on how to evaluate environmental information. We expect to invite tenders for the first of these studies in the next few weeks. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will not press his amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Nathan, asked about other government departments and my noble friend Lord Norrie mentioned the importance of other government departments. He asked whether they should keep in line with the Department of the Environment on environmental assessment issues. He gave me a good deal of notice of that point, but I hope he is not expecting a very detailed answer since EA applies to such a wide range of activities for which many different departments have responsibility. It is of course the responsibility of the government as a whole to ensure that European directives are implemented, but the details of the implementation are the responsibility of individual departments. In practice my department has taken the lead on the EA directive and keeps in close touch with the others. The schedule setting out the information which must be included in an environmental statement is, for example, in the same terms in all the regulations implementing the

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directive. On the other hand some departments, notably the Department of Transport, have practical experience in undertaking EA which is valuable to us.
I assure my noble friend Lord Norrie and the noble Lord, Lord Nathan, that we believe that the quality of the assessments will be very important. That point is well noted and taken on board. However, I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will not press the amendment.
3.45 p.m.
Baroness White: My Lords, perhaps the Minister will refer to the statement of intent contained in this amendment. Surely she agrees that this is purely an enabling amendment. There is no compulsion on the Secretary of State to appoint a council for the purpose. However, when all the studies in which the department is going to engage are before us, it may be desirable to have an enabling power in the Bill because primary legislation on these matters does not come before us very often. What harm is there in having an enabling power? The amendment merely states:
"The Secretary of State shall have power to appoint a Council".
He is not obliged to.
Baroness Match: My Lords, the last thing that the Government want to do is to mislead anybody or falsely raise expectations. I have made it quite clear that the Government see no need for a separate quango to achieve this objective. It is important that the quality of the assessments is of a high standard. Therefore, we wish to go down the road of guidance in order to make sure that the people involved with the assessments are those who have the responsibility for producing them and that they should not be overseen by a separate body.
Lord Nathan: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. As regards the responsibility of government, her response is much to be welcomed. It would have been nice to have had a very firm statement. On the other hand, the difficulty of securing the agreement of all relevant departments on matters of this kind within the time available would, I recognise, be almost impossible. However, I am grateful for the positive approach to the problems which I raised. For that reason, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 3:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("General duty of enforcement
. A local planing authority shall exercise its powers so as to ensure compliance with planning controls in its area.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, we acknowledge that the Government are taking measures in this Bill to increase the respect for planning controls and, indeed, to assist enforcement procedures. Surely, effective enforcement is the foundation of an effective planning system. One cannot get away from that. There is little point in detailed forward plans being prepared, whether of a general or detailed kind, and having control procedures, and so on, if the remedies
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enable people to cock a snook at the whole planning system. In those circumstances, we should be enacting a dead letter.
The CPRE takes the view—and we are indebted to it for the very full way in which it has enabled us to consider the case—that a general duty placed on local authorities to ensure compliance with planning controls is fundamental to the proper operation of the system. This new clause would achieve that in short and simple terms.
A survey of enforcement practice was summarised in the Carnwath Report. That survey found that 75 per cent. to 80 per cent. of the enforcement actions which took place were initiated not by planning authorities but by members of the public, including various councils and local interest groups. That surely confirms that a major problem exists in regard to the current arrangements. It also reveals the reluctance of local authorities to take action to secure compliance with their planning controls. We suggest that the amendment would strengthen the resolve of local authorities and improve their bargaining position with those developers who may have it in mind to breach the controls or depart from the details of the planning consents given.
The Carnwath Report stated that negotiations are obviously desirable but they will often be more effective if they are combined with strong legal action in reserve. We must be careful that we do not make ourselves vulnerable to the suggestion in the Carnwath Report that until now there existed a lawbreakers' charter. Public confidence is needed. The public want to be assured that the environment is protected and that lawfully made decisions are effectively in force. That general duty would provide a stronger legal basis than exists at the moment to ensure that local authorities take the necessary action. I beg to move.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I speak in favour of the amendment. All the welcome provisions of the Bill to strengthen and improve enforcement procedures will count for nothing if local authorities choose not to use them when faced with a breach of control. The amendment will ensure that they make better use of the Bill's provisions.
During the Committee stage of the Bill my noble friend on the Front Bench said that it was not powers but more law that was required and that it was for the planning officers to use the powers at their disposal. I believe that most of us agree with that statement. A general duty would provide a strict legal basis to ensure that local authorities take that action. It would not mean that they had to enforce against every trivial breach of control. In the long run it would help to create a new climate for the planning system in which both local authorities and developers showed it respect. That can only be good for all of us in our efforts to protect the environment.
I hope my noble friend can indicate that she expects higher standards from local authorities once the Bill is enacted. Firm guidance regarding how local authorities should behave is an essential part of the Bill's new

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provisions. However, it needs to be backed by the power of the law, and it is on that basis that I support the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we on this side of the House also support the amendment. It proposes to bring all local authorities into best practice by ensuring that they all require compliance with planning controls.
At the Committee stage the Minister rightly valued "flexibility", "discretion" and "common sense". However she feared that the amendment would make the planning process rigid and inflexible. I believe that that was the reason given for rejecting the amendment. I hope that after studying the Committee stage debate she will agree that that is not the case.
The values of flexibility and discretion should surely apply to the making of the planning judgment but not to making the planning judgment stick. All people must obey the law. As with traffic offences, one may receive a verbal reprimand from the police officer or be charged. The officer does not turn a blind eye and allow the car to speed on. Without the amendment the Bill is, at best, an invitation to lethargy by some local authorities and at worst could possibly lead to a bending of the law by others.
People rightly ask why they should obey the law, seek planning permission and pay fees when others knowingly do not and get away with it. I repeat that it does not mean that most breaches will be dealt with other than by negotiation, as now. If the Minister were to accept the amendment a clear message would be signalled that there would be no blind eyes. The Minister said at Committee stage that many breaches are settled quite informally. Precisely so; the point is that trey are settled and not ignored.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I understand the reasons why my noble friends regard their amendment as sufficiently important to move it again today. I listened very carefully to all that was said in the debate on 17th January on Amendment No. 2 and to what has been said today. The Government sympathise with the spirit of the amendment but we remain unpersuaded that Parliament should impose on planning authorities a potentially onerous general duty of enforcement or compliance.
Planning control should be administered flexibly, at the discretion of each local planning authority, subject to ministerial guidance on planning control policy. That approach enables each planning authority to tailor its response to a breach of control to suit the particlar circumstances. Many suspected breaches of control are settled informally, by discussion between the owner or occupier of the land and the planning authority's enforcement officer, without even a formal report to the planning committee.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, used that as a criticism. I believe it is a strength of the system and that kind of flexibility means that informal negotiation is always preferable to the heavy hand of the law. It represents an efficient and cost-effective use of scarce local authority resources.
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If Parliament imposed a general duty of enforcement or compliance on all planning authorities, many of them would feel under a duty to take some formal enforcement action against all except the most trivial breaches of control. There would be a tendency to bureaucratic formality, with more frequent and needless references to planning committees. That would be administratively expensive and time-consuming. There is no guarantee that the process would result in better quality or quicker enforcement action than at present.
The present enforcement regime, as it will be when amended by Clauses 1 to 11 of the Bill—which it is important are accepted as a package—can achieve a reasonable balance between the desirability of fostering acceptable development, even if it has been carried out without prior planning permission and has to be authorised retrospectively, and the need to maintain effective control over development which is plainly unacceptable.
We are concerned about the consequences of an increased emphasis on "compliance". That would conflict with the Government's de-regulatory approach to inessential controls over businesses, especially small businesses. Some planning authorities might come under great pressure to take formal enforcement action, even when discussion would resolve a planning control problem satisfactorily. We are conscious that, on average, most planning authorities now resolve 19 out of 20 practical enforcement problems without any formal enforcement action.
Nevertheless, I want to be helpful to my noble friends and to other noble Lords who have supported them. I suggest that their understandable concern may be met by appropriate policy guidance to all planning authorities about the way in which Parliament expects them to use their enforcement powers. While the enforcement regime will remain discretionary, we should emphasise that planning authorities are expected to use the full range of powers given to them by Parliament when in their judgment as the planning authority for their area formal enforcement action is the right course. With the backing of firm guidance on these lines, planning authorities would be left in no doubt about Parliament's intentions.
We also intend to ensure that in due course the results of the amendments to the enforcement provisions proposed in the Bill are reviewed. If guidance is given on these lines in a Department of the Environment circular, which I undertake that we shall issue following enactment of the Bill, I hope my noble friends will accept that their purpose will be substantially achieved and conclude that they need not press the amendment.
I hear phrases ringing in my ears not only from Second Reading but from the three days of Committee, and no doubt they will be repeated in what is left of the remaining stages of the Bill. My noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Norrie, and other noble Lords who support the Bill, must take on trust what I am promising, that something must change as a result of the Bill. Clearly if nothing

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changes all that we are doing will be in vain. They say that it is not the rhetoric; it is not what I say; it is not what is written in these pages; it is going to be what happens on the ground. I believe that we shall see changes, and I hope that these amendments will not be pressed.
4 p.m.
Lord Renton: My Lords, although I thank my noble friend for that reply, I must say that I am disappointed in it. I feel very doubtful about the arguments she has used.
Bearing in mind that the Bill has to go through another place, I think that this is a matter to which the Government should give further thought. In giving that further thought, will my noble friend bear in mind that, on what she has said so clearly, we should be reaching a situation which already exists; that is, of one local authority having a high degree of enforcement and another having a lower degree of enforcement, and sometimes developers deciding that they will operate in the area of the more favourable local authority? It is not right that Parliament should appear to be enacting laws in the full consciousness that they will not be evenly enforced. That is the situation which we are reaching.
However, I unusually feel—that is, it is not a usual attitude—that, although I trust your Lordships when voting, and voting against the Government and overruling the Government, in order to obtain the right solution, on this matter, where there has to be a degree of co-operation between the Government and local authorities, it would be unwise to attempt to reach a solution flying in the face of government advice.
That is the only reason why I am not going to ask your Lordships to divide. Normally I do not hesitate to ask for a Division, and sometimes it is successful and very often not. But having said that, I hope that my noble friend will bear this in mind in further consideration of the matter. We really must be careful not to appear to be enacting a dead letter here and there and not to appear to be having an uneven enforcement of the law. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 3, line 5, at end insert:
("(4A) A person guilty of a second offence under subsection (2) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale, and to a fine not exceeding level 5 for every subsequent offence under that subsection thereafter.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I should like to move Amendment No. 4 and speak to Amendments Nos. 30, 34 and 77. I would suggest that these are all fairly straightforward amendments which have in common the request to raise the level of fines, particularly for repeated planning offences.
Amendment No. 4 would raise a fine for a second offence to Level 4, and subsequently to Level 5 for an
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offence against a planning contravention notice. Amendment No. 30 would offer higher fines for breach of an enforcement order. Amendment No. 34 would do the same for stop notices, and Amendment No. 77 would raise the fine from Level 3 to Level 5 for the offence of knowingly giving false information.
I hope that the Minister will look kindly on these amendments because at Committee stage, when we were discussing Amendment No. 96, the Minister accepted the substance of those points and kindly agreed to come back. Given that this is consistent with other legislation, particularly the Town and Country Planning Act, I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept the amendments.
Baroness Blatch: Amendment No. 4 concerns the level of the maximum penalty in respect of further offences, under the proposed new Section 171D, for non-compliance with a planning contravention notice.
The maximum penalty specified for a first offence under subsection (1), at Level 3 on the standard scale (currently £400), rather than at Level 5, is deliberate. A planning contravention notice may be served only where the planning authority suspects—it is no more than a suspicion in some cases—that a breach of planning control may have occurred. There may prove to be no breach, or it may be very minor, or there may be no planning objection to it. The notice may require only a minor item of information, such as the date when the alleged activity first occurred. It will invariably be served at a preliminary stage in the authority's consideration of the matter, well before it has resolved whether to take formal enforcement action. In these circumstances, we think that Level 3 is about right.
Within the maximum amount Parliament specifies for the offence, it is in the court's discretion to decide on the seriousness of the particular offence and the circumstances of the individual. A second or subsequent offence is not necessarily more heinous. It is a repetition of the same offence. It is then open to the court to impose a higher fine on the second or subsequent occasion within the same maximum. We consider it is inappropriate and unnecessary to provide a progressive scale of penalties for the same offence. I hope the noble Baroness will not press her amendment.
Amendment No. 30 concerns the level of fine to be imposed by the courts in respect of second and subsequent offences under subsection (6) of the proposed new Section 179 of the 1990 Act. Its effect would be to require the court to impose successively higher fines within the maximum of £20,000 provided under subsection (8)(a) on summary conviction. We assume that the amendment applies only on summary conviction.
We resist this amendment because it would effectively remove the court's discretion to have regard to the seriousness of the further offence, perhaps in circumstances where the individual concerned may already have complied partially with the requirements of the enforcement notice since the first conviction, and to the personal circumstances of the offender.

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In determining the amount of any fine, the courts would be required by the new subsection (9) to have regard to the financial benefit accruing to the convict ed person in consequence of any offence under Section 179, including a further offence. So the longer a person fails to comply with an enforcement notice, the more he is likely to be penalised in any event, without the requirement which the amendment seeks to impose on the discretion of magistrates. We should perhaps remember that, in their sentencing practice, magistrates will usually know the local situation better than most other people and will take it into account.
We believe that the new exceptional maximum penalty in subsection (8)(a) will indicate to the courts the potential seriousness with which Parliament regards these offences, and that sentences will fit the offence in every case. I hope I have persuaded the noble Baroness not to press this amendment, but I am looking at her face across the Dispatch Box and I am not absolutely certain that I have done so.
Amendment No. 34 concerns the proposed new Section 187(1A). It seeks to impose the same restriction on the discretion of the courts of summary jurisdiction to fines in respect of repeated offences of contravening the prohibition in a stop notice, as in the noble Baroness's earlier Amendment No. 30 for the comparable offence of failing to comply with an enforcement notice.
We must resist the amendment for similar reasons to those I have already given. I hope that the noble Baroness will not press it. Finally, the Government are content to accept Amendment No. 77 which will align the penalties provided in planning legislation for three offences of a very similar nature. My noble and learned friend Lord Fraser is considering amending Clause 37 to mirror this decision in Scottish legislation.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that very full and helpful reply. Obviously, we are delighted that the Government have felt able to accept Amendment No. 77. However, I am not persuaded by her argument associated with Amendments Nos. 4, 30 and 34. I emphasise that these amendments seek to raise the ceiling of fines that may —not must—be levied by magistrates. To use the Minister's own phrase, magistrates know the local situation. Indeed they would take that into account. This offers the magistrates the capacity to raise the ceiling of the fine where they deem it appropriate, using precisely the local knowledge that the Minister has inferred they possess.
Secondly, I had hoped that most noble Lords would have accepted the principle that where an offence is repeated the penalty should be increased. That is standard procedure in civil law, and standard procedure for traffic offences onwards, as a form of deterrence. I regret that the Minister has felt unable to accept that repetition merits higher penalties, which applies in most other areas of the law, and that she does not accept that these amendments would increase the discretion of magistrates in imposing an
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appropriate fine as the penalty. In the light of what the Minister said it would be unwise to press the amendment. I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 5:
Page 3, line 22, leave out ("fourteen") and insert ("twenty-eight").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as the clause stands, a person who fails to comply with a notice within 14 days will be guilty of an offence. Under Section 330 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 a planning authority may request information on the ownership, occupation and use of land. Section 330 allows 21 days for compliance with such a request. The proposed contravention notice would require the person notified to provide more information than the Section 330 provision but would allow less time—only 14 days instead of 21—in which to gather the information.
The contravention notice would require details of any planning permissions or conditions relating to the use of the premises in question. For instance, it might require the person on whom the notice is served to obtain and examine documents which may be in the hands of his solicitor. Fourteen days gives insufficient time for such information to be compiled. I apologise to my noble friend Lord Coleraine for saying that solicitors are not always the most speedy and hasty people. Nor, I hasten to add, should they be, because they must be careful, as opposed to farmers who are not.
Even if the Government elaborate on the reasonable excuse plea that I mentioned in Committee, the time limit of 28 days would help to avoid the unnecessary use of such an excuse. It would also avoid taking up the court's time in proving that it was a reasonable excuse. I beg to move.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I support the amendment, which seems eminently reasonable. Fourteen days is a short period of time in which to undertake the work that my noble friend has mentioned. I hope that the Minister will agree to it.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I too support my noble friend as I did in respect of a similar amendment tabled in Committee. I was delighted to read in the Marshalled List that in Amendment No. 6 the Government have accepted his wise advice that it shall be a defence against a prosecution for failure to comply with a planning contravention notice for the accused to prove that he had reasonable excuse for failing to comply.
I anticipate that the Minister may cite that change as a reason for opposing the amendment that we are now considering. If so, she will no doubt say that no one need worry about the period of 14 days because it will be a defence for the accused to say that his failure to meet the requirement was reasonable. I suggest that removing the two specific defences originally in the Bill and making reasonable excuse a full defence in no way alters the desirability of extending the period for compliance from 14 to 28 days. It is not right and it brings the law into disrepute to provide for a time

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limit. In a substantial number of cases it is unlikely to be reasonable. In fact, clearly in many cases it will be unreasonable. It is no answer for the Minister to say, as she did in Committee:
"while I understand my noble friend's reasons for proposing a longer period, it would build into this new contravention notice procedure the kind of delay that we are determined to avoid".—[Official Report, 17/1/91; col. 1305.]
Apart from the fact that I doubt whether it would do any such thing, one cannot defend an unreasonable period for compliance with a statutory requirement by saying that, if prosecuted, the accused can show that he acted reasonably. No one should be put in jeopardy of being criminalised in that way.
Equally, it is no answer to say, as the Minister said, that planning authorities will have a discretion not to prosecute unreasonably and that they should exercise their discretion. Of course that is correct but it is no answer to someone who receives a notice but who in order to comply must obtain information from a third party. Nor is it an answer to someone who learns while on holiday that a notice has been served on him and is told that unless he replies within 14 days he will, without reasonable excuse, put himself in jeopardy of facing criminal proceedings. He should not be left to the mercies of an official of a planning authority.
My noble friend referred to the period of 21 days set out in Section 330 of the 1990 Act. It appears from the Carnwath Report that the precedent being used for the 14 days' notice is to be found in Section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, the headnote of which reads,
"Power of local authorities to obtain particulars of persons interested in land".
The information that may be required under a notice under Section 16 of the 1976 Act is less extensive taken overall. The requirements of the section are less stringent than the requirements of the planning contravention notice.
In addition, the period of 14 days which is to be given is not 14 days, full stop; it is a minimum period of notice. Surely it would be fair to assume that the minimum period for compliance with the notice will be given only when it is clear to the local authority that the information can properly and easily be provided within that period. In fact I believe that the only occasion on which a local authority might give a minimum of 14 days notice will be when it is asking the owner of the land for confirmation of who the owner is. That is information which the local authority will have already but will wish to have in writing so that it is not involved in proving the matter in any later proceedings. I hope that on reflection my noble friend will accept the amendment.
4.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendment No. 5 would extend from 14 to 28 days the period within which the recipient of the new planning contravention notice must comply with any requirement of the notice if he is not to be liable to prosecution for an offence under Section 171D(1). As I said in response to the similar Amendment No. 8 tabled in Committee, the
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period chosen was recommended by Mr. Carnwath in his report Enforcing Planning Control. It is the same period as is provided in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976. We are not aware of any practical enforcement problem in that provision.
I must disappoint my noble friend Lord Coleraine because I am about to say what he advised me not to say. We accept that it is a relatively short period but in subsection (3) there is a reasonable defence for failing to comply with it for those with a genuine reason. Where it can be proved, that applies to people who take extended holidays, who cannot be found, who are on business trips or who are indisposed. It is vital that this preliminary stage of the planning control process should not have in-built delay beyond the essential minimum if planning authorities are to be able to investigate suspected breaches of planning control efficiently and to act quickly to remedy or prevent them.
My noble friend Lord Stanley made a comparison with Section 330 of the 1990 Act. The planning contravention notice is intended to concentrate the recipient's mind rapidly. For that reason we have provided only 14 days. We must be sure that planning authorities can use the procedure effectively, especially when they suspect a serious breach and have no information for deciding whether to take formal enforcement action. I hope that my noble friends will not press the amendment but will give the new procedure a trial period with the 14-day limit.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, that was an unsatisfactory answer. The Minister gave almost the same answer as she gave in Committee. Apparently, we are expected slavishly to follow the Carnwath Report when it suits my noble friend on the Front Bench but not to follow it when it does not suit her. On this occasion it does not suit me but obviously A suits her.
As my noble friend has said, the 14-day limit is extremely short. We are in great danger of criminalising—that is a horrible word and a horrible action to take—a person for doing very little. Should we really do that? My noble friend Lord Coleraine is far better versed in the law than I am, and he thinks that we should not. I believe that your Lordships should think not, too. In this case I do not see that speed will be increased. I cannot understand the point made by my noble friend on the Front Bench about Section 330 being less onerous. I am inclined to press the amendment, but on this occasion I shall not. I shall leave the matter for my noble friend to have second thoughts. I might well raise the issue again at Third Reading if the House feels so inclined. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 3, leave out lines 33 to 38 and insert ("that he had a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with the requirement.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 6 addresses the concern expressed by my noble friend Lord Stanley when he moved his Amendment

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No. 11 during Committee stage of the Bill. What my noble friend said is recorded at col. 1303 of the Official Report, of the Committee's proceedings on 17th January. His concern then was that the two alternative defences provided by new Section 171D(3) of the 1990 Act against prosecution for a failure to comply with a requirement of a planning contravention notice were insufficient, particularly in view of the relatively short 14-day response period specified in new Section 171D(1). His amendment proposed that a person prosecuted should be able to plead that he has a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with the requirements of a notice.
We have examined my noble friend's suggestion very carefully and have concluded that there is considerable force in it. As I said in Committee, we must not weaken the effect of the new planning contravention notice to the point where planning authorities are reluctant to use it. Nevertheless, there is a balance to be struck between the interest of the planning authority in being able to operate an efficient and effective procedure and fairness to the recipient of a notice who is genuinely prevented from complying with its requirements. The government amendment attempts to strike a fairer balance between these conflicting interests.
The effect of Amendment No. 6 is to omit the entirety of paragraphs (a) and (b) in subsection (3) of new Section 171D, which currently provide the alternative defences. In their place we propose to substitute a single defence that the person charged,
"had a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with the requirement".
This defence subsumes the two current defences and yet is wider in scope. Amendment No. 9 to Clause 27, makes a corresponding amendment to the new Section 83D(3) of the Scottish Act.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Stanley for raising this issue in his usual courteous way. I hope he agrees that the amendments deal satisfactorily with the problem, and that your Lordships will find them acceptable.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend very much for that concession. I still say that a delay of 28 days instead of 14 days would avoid a great many problems and also save a great deal of court time. As my noble friend has been so courteous to me I suppose that she will not be surprised to learn, now that she has given me this amendment, that I might well want more and come back at Third Reading to the issue of 28 days.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes moved Amendment No. 7:
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
Commencement of development in breach of planning control
( ".After section 171 D of the principal Act (as inserted by section 1 of this Act) there is inserted—
"Commencement of development in breach of planning control.
171E.—(1) A person who unlawfully initiates or carries out development, well knowing that such conduct is in breach of planning control, shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £20,000.
(3) In determining the amount of any fine to be imposed on a person convicted of any offence under this section, the Court shall in particular have regard to any financial benefit which has accrued or appears likely to accrue to him in consequence of the offence.
(4) In this section "initiates" shall be construed in accordance with section 56(1)." ").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment is changed slightly from the one that I brought forward at the Committee stage. For the benefit of noble Lords here today but who were not present then, and who have not read Hansard, I shall briefly comment.
At present it is illegal to place an advertising notice on a building. However, it is not illegal to erect a building of any number of storeys and to place an advertising notice on it. That is no offence. It is illegal to cut down a tree which is covered by a preservation order. To do something which may have a very adverse effect on other people and also be contrary to planning control, is not illegal. Therefore, the purpose of this amendment is to create a criminal offence in cases where there has been a blatant disregard of planning laws.
When we debated this subject at an earlier stage concern was expressed that we might be catching the little person who unknowingly did something wrong. We all wanted to avoid that. Therefore, we have re-worded Section 1 to cover that category. The intention is to make it clear that only people who well know that their actions are contrary to planning policy and planning control will be guilty of an offence. I believe that the new draft of Section 1 is appropriate.
I have a letter from my noble friend the Minister dated 15th February, but it was received only today. In that letter she says many things which I believe to be so contradictory that I must briefly run through them. For example, she said that to differentiate between large and small criminals it would be necessary to have detailed categorisation. At another sitting of the Committee I was abroad but I read in Hansard that my noble friend said that the department would be issuing policy guidance on these matters. I believe that it would be very simple to issue policy guidance to cover the categories in which a prosecution should be brought and where it should not. I do not believe that the matter would be nearly as complicated as my noble friend suggests.
She said that if the district planning officers would like to submit a revised proposal concerning guidance the department would look at it carefully. It would be excellent if there were to be liaison between them and the department. The department should think these matters through and then come forward with guidance to the district councils and the planning authorities. If that can be done through consultation, so much the better. My noble friend continued by saying that the Government remain unpersuaded that criminalisation is an essential component of the enforcement package. That is where we disagree

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because I believe it is an essential part. It is the deterrent effect which will be extremely valuable. The re-wording of this amendment is such as to make it clear that we do not intend to have widespread prosecution of people for very minor matters.
The next argument put forward by my noble friend in her letter is that criminalisation is not included in the Carnwath package and that it would be harmful to reconsider this matter because it might mean that we were re-examining the entire package. I cannot go along with that proposition when I see that the amendments tabled by the Government, which we have already discussed, are almost a book in themselves. This Bill has been amended so many times that I am not sure that it bears much resemblance to the original. We have re-examined almost the entire package. Therefore, I cannot accept my noble friend's argument.
The next page of my noble friend's letter is even more contradictory. She speaks about an imprecise offence and that it might be too difficult to prove. She pointed out that the offence would be hard to prove and that it had to be proved beyond possible doubt. I understood at Committee stage that that is what we were looking for—that is, an offence which would have to be beyond reasonable doubt but which could not be easily proved. The aim of this amendment is not to catch a person who has committed one minor wrong on one occasion; it is to catch the regular and persistent offender who blatantly does what he likes and totally ignores planning law.
I cannot reconcile the Minister's comments in one paragraph of her letter that the measure is too strong and then to go on to say that it is not strong or clear enough. I do not think the matter can be accepted both ways: it has to be one way or the other. I notice that we shall debate Amendments Nos. 7 and 8 together. The latter amendment is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey. Of course I go along with the bits of his amendment that are the same as mine, and I suppose that that will not surprise him, but I do not go along with some of his other subsections. For example, in Amendment No. 8 I do not agree with subsection (4) because he limits it to just particular categories. I do not believe there should be one law for people who live in nice areas and another for those who live in bad areas. I therefore believe that it should apply to everyone.
I disagree with the noble Lord's next subsection even more strongly. This is the one about,
"development within the curtilage of a single dwellinghouse".
The word "curtilage" means not just in your own house but your grounds, and if you have a garage you can build something on top of the garage. It might be a terrible infringement on the people around. It could be that you have a barn in your grounds, and you can instantly go ahead and do something to it, whereas there are strict planning controls over the conversion of barns into dwellings, and people like to see that the character of the property is retained. Again that is giving carte blanche for a person to get away with an
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awful lot by saying that it is their own dwellinghouse and that they wanted to further their enjoyment of it. I do not go along with that subsection.
I think that subsection (6) is good, except that I would want to see added to it "the Secretary of State". It is excellent that local authorities could be the only ones to enforce it, and you could not have the situation that my noble friend the Minister referred to where neighbours would be bringing cases against neighbours. It is right that it should go through the planning authorities, but there are some planning authorities—I know that my noble opponent from past days in the Greater London Council will know full well what I mean—and certain boroughs in London that do not take their duties as seriously as one would wish and therefore might not be prevailed upon to do something. It is necessary to protect the person living in such an area by including the Secretary of State in this power.
4.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Baroness would allow me? She has made an interesting and worthwhile point. I assume that what she means is "a local planning authority or the Secretary of State" rather than "and the Secretary of State"?
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. It would be a case of last resort that you would be able to apply to the Secretary of State if your own planning authority could not be moved to consider even what was a case. Then again the Secretary of State would have the discretion to look at it and see whether he thought it was an appropriate case. No, it would be quite unwieldy if you asked for both.
I like very much the noble Lord's subsection (7), because it is clear about what constitutes a defence. I took out of my amendment at the previous stage the subsection where I said what did not constitute an offence. I took it out because I did not like the negative attitude of what did not constitute an offence. This is much more practical and it sets out what constitutes an offence.
Although I do not agree with the comments that my noble friend the Minister has made, I know that she has viewed this matter seriously and considered it. Therefore my suggestion to her is that the Government should look again at putting together my Amendment No. 7 and the noble Lord's Amendment No. 8, taking the good bits out of each and leaving out the controversial bits that we do not agree with. Although the noble Lord must agree with my amendment because all of my subsections are incorporated in his amendment, it is just that he is going much further.
However, I should like to think that the Minister would look at this again. I would hope that this matter would not need to be pressed to a Division, but public concern on the issue is great. Since the Committee stage debate I have had so many letters that I think that people feel strongly and this must not be underestimated. I beg to move.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: My Lords, I obviously support Amendment No. 7, which carries my name. I was distressed to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, the negative response that she has had by letter from the Minister. I have not had one. I think I should have done, but there we are.
I do not want to go over all of the ground we went over at Committee stage. This question of criminalisation was thoroughly gone into. Some Members of this House sort of recoiled in horror at the very word. I would just remind them again that a whole range of much less heinous offences carry this criminalisation taint, if you want to use that emotive word. I have just been reminded of two more in addition to the ones we quoted in Committee. I understand that it is a criminal offence to disturb a bat and a criminal offence to kill an adder. Therefore, do not let us be frightened of the word.
What we are asking is that effective enforcement powers should be placed in the hands of planning authorities, and indeed of the people as a whole, to ensure that the deliberate contravention of planning law shall not go unpunished. I should have thought that that was a principle that would have found a sympathetic response in this House, because we care very much for the sanctity of law and we want it to be upheld. We want it to be something that is held in profound and wide respect, but we know that some people are just laughing at it, and owing to the inadequacy of the current enforcement powers are getting away with it.
There was what seemed to be a plausible argument advanced while we were discussing this earlier. This was that we were told that the Home Office did not like the creation of any offence for which there was not a defence. Well, I find that rather uniquely applied in this case. But all right, accepting that the Home Office really was serious and had a point, we looked at it and we took legal advice. Amendment No. 7, as redrafted, deliberately and effectively met this point by the inclusion of the words "well knowing". So some innocent person who did not know would not be caught.
But according to the letter that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, received, that argument is not relevant any mere, and a whole lot more has been produced —that it is too complex or it is too this or too that. I am afraid that we are left with the obvious deduction that the Government do not want to act at all. They do not wish effectively to strengthen the enforcement powers because they have left themselves with no meaningful argument.
I think that Amendment No. 8 in the name of my good friend Lord McIntosh is not as good as Amendment No. 7. I think that secretly he might admit that it is not. But perhaps he has more faith than I have in the possibility of convincing this Government to do something if one waters it down enough. I do not think they want to. I do not think they intend to. If they did, they would take the simple amendment, Amendment No. 7, which again I repeat is the sort of legislation that the district planning
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officers, who are at the sharp end of this enforcement business, want. I repeat that we have had legal advice that it would meet the Home Office's initial complaint.
I hope, therefore, that the House will demonstrate tonight our intention to ensure that there is respect for planning law. We are going to show the criminals who are evading the law that they will no longer be able to do so by finding loopholes in the present complex legislation. Carnwath was certainly an improvement, but the people who have to operate the planning laws say that it does not go far enough. Behind this amendment are the people who are in the front line. They really know all about the tricks used by the evaders; and they want to be in a position whereby they can carry out their job properly. I hope that Members of the House will express their support for Amendment No. 7.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I support the amendment. I cannot pretend to speak with the same authority as the noble Baronesses, Lady Castle of Blackburn and Lady Gardner of Parkes. Surely it would be absolutely daft, now that we have the Planning and Compensation Bill before us—much of which we approve of —not to deal with one of the most serious problems which is at present faced by local authorities and planning officers. In my view it would be quite absurd not to write a provision into the Bill which would enable the authorities to prosecute those who are blatantly breaching our planning laws.
By virtue of the last amendment, and in response to a request made by the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, it is now written into the Bill that a person would have a defence for non-compliance if he had a "reasonable excuse". What is the difference between those words and those contained in Amendment No. 7; namely, "well knowing". Of course, the wording could be changed a little, but surely it covers the same area. If someone quite accidently breaches the planning law I do not believe that anyone in his right mind would want to prosecute. We want to catch those people who break the law knowingly and purposely. In my view it would be ridiculous not to tackle the problem now.
I have received a copy of the Minister's letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for which I am grateful. As a spokesman for one of the Opposition parties I am also grateful for the other information that we have received during the passage of the Bill. However, I am not very impressed with the second paragraph of the letter which states that district planning officers are trying to find some wording to cover minor or technical breaches. However, should they manage to do so there is no promise in the letter that such wording would be accepted.
I believe that Amendment No. 7 is preferable. I agree with the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, about subsection (7) of Amendment No. 8. I believe that it would cover the area about which we are concerned; that is, if the Government Front Bench agree that something along those lines would prove acceptable. I very much hope

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that the Government will not continue to oppose the amendment, but if they do I sincerely hope that the noble Baroness will test the opinion of the House.
4.45 p.m.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: My Lords, I intervened briefly—but not, I think, very succinctly having read the report in Hansard—in the last discussion on the matter. It is understandable that local authorities should be concerned about the problem and that they should want a new criminal offence to be instituted. However, on reflection, and after having spoken to many people who are involved in planning procedures, I believe that it is important for us to remember the basis upon which the whole structure of our planning system is built. It is all about local people reconciling the interests of one group of people with another.
I refer to the interests of the developer and those of the local inhabitants. Such interests must be reconciled and attempts must be made to try to arrive at an agreement which meets the requirements of the local people. In Committee my noble friend Lady Blatch said that such arrangements, if made, would be inclined to set one person against another in connection with relatively small matters such as the creation of a window in a particular building, and so on.
In introducing Amendment No. 7, my noble friend Lady Gardner of Parkes said that the categorisation of buildings was an acceptable idea. She said that this could be covered in guidance and that therefore difficulties would not arise as regards small developments. However, if it is not possible to introduce categories in important issues, surely it is not possible to do so in connection with minor ones. My noble friend said that you can only categorise in guidance. Therefore her argument does not seem to me to be a good one.
The main problem about creating a criminal offence is that the same standard would have to be applied across the country. In other words, you would have to try to equalize the way the planning system is operated. That is not the basis upon which our planning system is built. The idea is that it should be a local decision and, of course, there would be variations. I accept that there are variations in the strictness applied to the enforcement of planning decisions. I believe that this should be so. The public know what is going on and they are perfectly prepared to tell their councillors if they believe that they are in the wrong. In my view it would be a great pity to pursue the matter of criminalisation. I believe that the Carnwath Report is not far off the point. The Government have now incorporated it in the Bill and I believe that we should stick to it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, and my noble friend Lady Castle of Blackburn are wrong in the view that there has been no movement at all in the Government's attitude. From reading the Hansard report of the Committee stage debate, I believe that
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there is a good deal of common ground in what we are all trying to achieve. It is fairly evident to everyone that there are flagrant breaches of planning controls by people who know perfectly well what they are doing and who use every trick in the book to delay enforcement of planning controls when they know that they are in breach of them. The booklet issued by the District Planning Officers' Society is very clear evidence of that fact. Indeed, I do not believe that anyone has contradicted it in any way.
The difficulty—and this is recognised by everyone in the House—is twofold. First, we must decide what is a flagrant breach and what is a minor breach for which immediate criminal action would be inappropriate. Secondly, we must decide the more basic issue, upon which I am, perhaps, alone in my view in the House. I refer to the fact that some of us believe that we should not be adding an offence to criminal law unless it is absolutely necessary. I accept what my noble friend Lady Castle said about adders and bats. She put forward a good case. However, the fact that the extension of criminal law has gone too far in other areas is not an argument for extending it yet further. It is like the argument—which I do not accept—that because the Security Council has failed to implement Resolution 242 it has no right to seek to impose Resolutions 660 and 678. I take the view that if the Security Council arrives at the conclusion that it will enforce the United Nations Charter, however late it may be, it is worth trying to support it. If we put ourselves forward as legislators against avoidable extensions of criminal law, however badly we may have behaved in the past, I believe that it is worth trying to continue to achieve that aim.
I have been persuaded that there is a half-way house, although some people may feel that three-quarters of it is on one side or the other. I have been persuaded that my objection to an extension of the criminal law could and should be overcome provided that we limit sufficiently the occasions upon which criminalisation takes place. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that my subsections (4), (5), (6) and (7) are not extensions of the principle she seeks to obtain by her amendment, but are restrictions, because we take her point about "unlawfully initiates" and "well knowing". We accept what she says about the penalty for the offence. We accept with pleasure the provision contained in her subsection (3) that the penalty should relate to the financial benefit which may arise from the breach of planning law.
However, we say that in order to identify and isolate, consistently throughout the country—I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy, on this matter—flagrant breaches, we should seek to restrict the application of criminal penalties. We should perhaps do so by putting no more than a foot in the door: by isolating conservation areas, areas of outstanding natural beauty, SSSIs, national parks and so on, and including, please note,
"Such other areas as may be specified by the Secretary of State".

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If a pro vision along those lines can be shown to work, it could be extended later, if necessary, by the Secretary of State. We seek to identify and exclude what might be called minor breaches such as:
"development within the curtilage of a single dwelling house".
The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, believes that that may be going too far because there may be breaches by individual householders. I do not deny that. My subsection (5) (i) deals with the complaint made by government that disputes involving something like a window or a minor piece of development could become matters for the criminal law. In subsection (5) (ii) we seek to exclude breaches of conditions on the grounds that they are already dealt with by a summary breach of condition notice. Subsection (6) eliminates private prosecutions. I entirely accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, that the words "or the Secretary of State" should be included. Subsection (7) is an attempt, which I am pleased to know that the noble Baroness welcomes, to ensure that there is a defence of someone not being aware, having taken reasonable steps to find out, that the development was in breach of planning consent.
I accept that none of those provisions is perfect. They are a compromise. I accept that whatever we do on the face of the Bill, we shall still need policy guidance. The Minister said in Committee that there would be policy guidance. To secure comparable treatment throughout the country, it will be necessary for the Government to help local authorities identify flagrant breaches—for example, acts done with a deliberate intention to start or to carry on with a breach —to identify cases where developers are trying merely to make money at the expense of the planning laws; to identify as a flagrant breach a lack of co-operation with a local planning authority; and to identify cases where a developer is proceeding despite evident local public distress at the breach of planning law. I do not deny that some of that will have to appear in policy guidance from the Government.
However, in so far as it is humanly possible, we have sought to make it difficult—let me put it that way —for the Government to resist making progress. We did not make progress in Committee. I wish to satisfy those realistic district and metropolitan borough planning officers who want more powers and yet do not want them to be universally applicable. I want to help them to show that such powers can and should be used responsibly. I hope that out of this discussion will come Government agreement to some combination of the two amendments. In that, I am at one with the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, started by putting forward some good arguments as to why we should not bring criminalisation into this part of the Bill. Yet he then went on to say that he was quite happy to turn someone in the country into a criminal provided that in a town such a person was not a criminal. It is ridiculous to suggest that the amendments should apply to green belts, rural areas and other such places but not everywhere. The confusion that appears to
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exist makes it clear that it would not be practical or sensible to bring these provisions into force. They would end up being harsh to those who do not deserve the harshness and would not have a proper impact in the areas where the noble Lord suggests they should have an effect.
I do not accept that all the planning officers want to see a change. The planning officers in the North West to whom I have spoken are not in favour of further criminalisation. They are more than happy with the present enforcement arrangements laid down in the Bill. I hope that the Government will resist both amendments.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I believe that I have been misrepresented as having set country against town. One of the categories included in my amendment is conservation areas. They apply especially to towns. I have no intention of distinguishing between country and town. My amendment would not have that effect.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, that is the way I read it.
The Earl of Selkirk: My Lords, in subsection (4) the noble Lord lists a number of places, but what about places outside that list? They would seem to be unimportant. Let us take a quarry, for example. There are many other such places which are used for industrial purposes—for example, to product coal or quarry for hard stones. People will say that they do not matter because they are not included in the list. We should be making a sharp distinction between things that matter and things that do not matter. It would be naturally assumed that anything that is not on the list does not matter.
SSSIs are included in the list. Few people know how to behave when they are in the middle of a SSSI. I happen to have one next to my house. It is a golf course. I bet that most of the golfers do not have a clue about the rules relating to a SSSI. We must he careful, because the great body of people who live in the country know the rules and obey them carefully. They know that cattle must not be let into a cornfield or pigs into a potato patch because they will eat the crops. To try to include too much definition will arouse antagonism.
We all want to achieve the same, but to do so we must reach agreement. We must make people understand that the country in which we live is beautiful. The great body of people know that. There are occasions to the contrary, I agree. We must be careful not to push this matter too far. We might cause a great deal of unnecessary antagonism if we do so. Whatever else happens, subsection (4) must be removed. We do not want to mix up these provisions too closely with the penal law. That would be out of place. We are doing something which the great body of people fully understands.
5 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I was a little surprised to hear that the noble Baroness, Lady Castle, had not received a copy of the letter that has been mentioned,

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but I have just been told that it was an error on the part of my department. I unreservedly apologise to her. The letter was in response to an approach to my department made by my noble friend Lady Gardner. Copies were sent to all who spoke in the debate, but I am afraid that there was an omission and I am very sorry about it. I believe that a letter was sent to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh.
Perhaps I may also clarify one other point about guidance made by my noble friend and others in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, got it wrong; policy guidance has great force for planning authorities. They must have regard to policy guidance which is the next strongest advice that a department can give after regulations. The degree to which a local authority has had regard to the guidance can become a material part of the evidence at the inquiry. However, policy guidance has no force whatever if we are dealing with criminal offences which are a different matter. Therefore policy guidance would not become relevant.
With these two amendments we resume the discussion of the merits of "criminalisation" of unlawful development. It is true and has to be said that only a minority of people deliberately defy planning control. I shall explain later in my response why we believe that the Government's carefully considered approach, based on the recommendations in the Carnwath Report, is preferable.
I recommend that people read the section in the Carnwath Report; it is a persuasive argument against this measure of criminalisation. I shall deal first with the proposals in the two amendments: one by my noble friend Lady Gardner and the other by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh.
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me advance notice of her revised version of one of the earlier amendments which she tabled at Committee stage. It has enabled us to study her proposal carefully and I can assure her that while she has been in foreign parts we have spent a good deal of time desperately trying to come closer to what I know, after what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said, we all wish to see on the issue.
I recognise that my noble friend had sought to take account of some of the objections to her earlier amendment. Nevertheless, we still consider that there are two serious objections to the way in which the proposed amendment is drafted. First, we think that the reference to,
"A person who unlawfully initiates or carries out development"
provides an unsatisfactory basis for a criminal offence. Anyone who is to be at risk of prosecution for a criminal offence should be enabled to understand clearly where the boundary of criminality will be crossed. We do not think that the amendment passes this test.
The concept of development in planning law is a complex one. It is based on Section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990; but the statutory definition is complicated by much judicial authority and by subordinate legislation (the General
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Development Order), which provides for a wide range of permitted development. These factors make it genuinely difficult at times to know with certainty what development is lawful and what is in breach of planning control. I believe that that point was made just now by my noble friend.
Even experienced planning and legal practitioners sometimes find it difficult to say whether what has taken place is unlawful development. I take my noble friend's point that she is concerned with the flagrant or blatant offence, where there is little doubt that a breach of control has occurred. But that is not the relevant point in considering her amendment. In our judgment, what is proposed is an insufficiently precise offence for the purpose of criminal law.
Secondly, we have serious misgivings about the expression in Subsection (1) of the proposed new Section 171E,
"well knowing that such conduct is in breach of planning control".
We think this will place too onerous a burden on the prosecuting authority in any criminal proceedings. My noble friend will know that the standard of proof in criminal cases is proof beyond reasonable doubt. If we have understood her proposal correctly, the planning authority (or anyone else bringing a prosecution in the magistrates' court for the proposed offence) would have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant's understanding of planning law was such that he well knew his conduct was in breach of planning control. Therefore, I am not sure whether it is wise to place on planning authorities the burden of proving to magistrates that a defendant "well knew" that the development he carried out was in breach of control. If that is my noble friend's intention, the result may possibly be a high failure rate in prosecutions for an offence on these lines.
Turning now to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, I recognise that he has sought to respond to some of the Government's objections to criminalisation by limiting the scope of his proposal in subsections (4) and (5) of his version of Section 171E, by providing, in subsection (6), for prosecution proceedings to be brought only by, or on behalf of, the local planning authority; and by introducing a defence against prosecution in subsection (7).
Nevertheless, I have to say that we see three strong objections to the noble Lord's amendment. First, it is too complicated to provide a satisfactory basis for a criminal offence. This is particularly true of the provisions in subsections (4) and (5) which introduce such planning concepts as,
"areas of high landscape value"
and
"development within the curtilage of a single dwellinghouse incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse as such".
While these terms mean something to planning practitioners, they will mean little or nothing to people who may be put at risk of prosecution for this offence.
Secondly, we doubt whether it would be apt to confine the offence provisions to the designated areas specified in subsection (4). The fact is that equally

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flagrant breaches of planning control occur in places where there is no protection from one of these designations. That point was made by my noble friend Lord Wade. If unlawful development were to be made a criminal offence, people living in non-designated areas might well think that they should also be protected. The pressure on the Secretary of State to specify many other areas, in accordance with the power in the proposed subsection (4), might be hard to resist.
Thirdly, designated areas inevitably involve drawing boundary lines on maps. The result is that people who are just outside those boundaries often experience great dissatisfaction. This is particularly true of the boundaries of conservation areas. Where, for example, the boundary of a conservation area is drawn along the line of a street, why should people living on the wrong side of the street be deprived of the presumed benefits of criminalisation which the people living the right side of the street would obtain? In the Government's view, these disadvantages make the noble Lord's revised version of criminalisation unacceptable in practice. My noble friend Lord Wade made the point clearly that if those areas that are not designated do not, as he suggests, enjoy benefits of criminalisation, it is creating a two-tiered approach to the issue. My response to these amendments inevitably appears negative. However, I want to conclude by emphasising again that the Government's response in the Bill to unlawful development is comprehensive and extremely positive. I remind noble Lords of its main features.
First, we are giving planning authorities better powers of investigation by means of the planning contravention notice and improved rights of entry. Secondly, we are introducing the new breach of condition notice, so that planning authorities can deal quickly and more effectively with breaches of planning conditions. Thirdly, we are making enforcement notices easier to use and more efficient in operation. Fourthly, we are providing for stop notices to prohibit residential caravan sites, which result in some of the most serious complaints about unlawful development. Fifthly, we are enabling planning authorities to seek an injunction in order to curb the activities of the most serious contravenors of planning control. These are the people with whom the District Planning Officers' Society are so concerned. Sixthly, we are increasing the maximum summary penalty for an enforcement notice or stop notice offence from £2,000 to £20,000, and providing for any financial benefit to be taken into account in imposing a penalty for one of these offences.
These powers will, in our view, enable all planning authorities who use them resolutely and effectively to maintain control over the most serious planning contraventions. We do not think that criminalisation need be added to them.
Finally, criminalisation will not of itself remedy the harmful effect of unlawful development. Remedial action will usually still be essential. That means issuing an enforcement notice which can require steps to be taken within a specified compliance period. What criminalisation could very well produce, if it were
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enacted, is two parallel enforcement systems. On one approach, the planning authority might initiate a summary prosecution. But it would also need to issue an enforcement notice in order to remedy the damage which had occurred. So, while the magistrates are hearing the prosecution's case, the Secretary of State might also be dealing with an enforcement appeal.
Even if the magistrates then fine the contravenor, a remedy for the harmful results of his contravention must await the outcome of the enforcement appeal.
Criminalisation will certainly not make for good administration and we are not persuaded that it will contribute anything worthwhile to the fundamental purpose of enforcement which is to provide a speedy and effective remedy for the harm caused by breaches of planning control. I hope that these amendments will be not be pressed.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, since I have no right of reply to the debate, perhaps I may say this through her to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner. I was so appalled by the travesty of the reply that we have just heard from the Minister to my amendment that if the noble Baroness wishes to put her amendment to the House, I shall advise my friends to support it.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I have listened carefully to what my noble friend the Minister has said and to the various points made by different speakers. I feel that the comments that have been made show that a degree of confusion exists on this issue. My noble friend Lady Carnegy of Lour talked about reconciling all interests and not creating a situation where one person is set against another. That is precisely why we have proposed the amendment in this form. It would not deal with minor breaches. It would only catch a person who knew well that he was doing wrong.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, referred to areas of special interest. Whether one considers those areas are enlarging or shrinking depends on which side one is on. We need to make this abuse a criminal offence to ensure maximum protection for all those people who may be adversely affected by the activities of a few outlaws. To clarify the situation for the noble Lord, Lord Wade, and in reply to the point made by my noble friend the Minister, I should say that I am not suggesting divisions whereby one side of a road has one law, and the other side of the road has another. I am suggesting that the same protection should apply to everyone. Therefore, I agree with the Minister that the proposed subsection (4) in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is not acceptable.
Some of the Minister's comments were totally at variance with those made by other Members of the House. The noble Earl, Lord Selkirk, said that the body of people fully understood what they were allowed to do. I can see that the noble Earl genuinely believes that that is the case. However, many people have no idea exactly what they can or cannot do with planning permission. The people who know full well what they can do and what they can get away with are the very cowboys that we are out to catch by this

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amendment. The proposed subsection (7) of the amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, covers the person who does not understand what he can and cannot do. If a person can prove that he has submitted a written application and has made efforts to find out whether planning permission was required, that would constitute a defence. Therefore that problem is covered by the noble Lord's amendment. It is important to have that right of inquiry and to be able to submit that as a defence.
I did not understand the Minister's comments when she referred to a measure which we all wish to see. I thought we all wanted to see cowboys brought to account. I understood that the Minister agreed with the principle of what we are talking about. However, then she referred to the proposed subsections (4) and (5) of the amendment standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. I did not understand what the Minister's final position was, except that she did not agree with the amendment. I ask the Minister —I realise the Minister would need to ask the leave of the House to do this—to clarify her comments. Is she prepared to consider this kind of amendment in a modified form which would combine the proposed subsection (7) of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, with the amendment standing in my name?
The proposed subsection (6) of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, could be amended to include a reference to the Secretary of State. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, agreed that that would be a desirable change. The proposed subsection (7) of the noble Lord's amendment provides a clearly set out defence to cover anyone who had attempted to obtain an answer in writing. Will the Minister tell me whether she is prepared to reconsider this matter between now and the next stage of the Bill? If she can confirm that that is the case, we should give her the opportunity to reconsider the matter. The House would welcome more time to reconsider the matter.
If, however, there is no question whatsoever of reconsidering the amendment, that is a different matter. I cannot accept that the provision would not represent another efficient weapon in the armoury of a planning authority. It constitutes a deterrent and it would make people think twice about their actions.
As regards whether a person's intentions are too difficult to prove, I should say that the words "well knowing" that appear in my amendment were drafted by a Law Lord. That Law Lord discussed the matter with a Criminal Law Lord. The latter person considered the words "well knowing" to be very much in accordance with criminal law. He said the words were fully understood in criminal law cases.
I do not for a moment consider myself to be an authority on this matter. However, the people I have consulted are authorities on the matter and they believe the wording would cause no problems in a criminal court. From my limited experience as a magistrate, I believe that cases are based upon legal principles. Apparently there is a well established
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precedent for the words "well knowing". I am reluctant to divide the House on this issue as this matter is close to agreement. I hope the Minister will reconsider it. Again I ask her to comment on whether the Government are prepared to consider the matter further. If that is not the case, I shall regretfully have to divide the House and, if necessary, return with the amendment on Third Reading.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I should say that when we discussed this matter in Committee, I said that if we take the system as it is at the moment, we are still talking about relatively few instances where there is serious abuse of the system. I also said at that time that we hoped that when this raft of measures was in place—I refer to many of the measures that I have mentioned in responding to these amendments—the cases of blatant abuse would become even rarer.
The noble Baroness also asked me to comment on the advice given to her by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, on the wording of her amendment. We have spent a long time considering the amendment. The point that was brought home to me during that consideration was that in most of the cases that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brightman, referred to, the process of trying to determine bad or known intentions is a precise science. A number of people have pointed out that planning is not a precise science. Often planning is a matter of interpretation and it contains many grey areas. Indeed the Association of Metropolitan Authorities made that point when it gave evidence for the Carnwath Report. Therefore we believe that that point would cause difficulties.
However, the point that brings us all together is that we still believe that even under the new system there will always be a small group of people who will continue to abuse the system. We have tried hard to find a form of words to cover the situation. We have considered the words used by my noble friend Lady Gardner and we have looked for words ourselves. However, I am afraid that we have come up with nothing. I would be raising expectations unnecessarily if I said we could fruitfully spend even more time looking at a form of words that would meet everyone's aspirations. We see so much that is wrong with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, that clearly it would not be acceptable. In response to my noble friend's amendment I should say that we believe that when all the measures are in place this matter will almost cease to be an issue.
Baroness Castle of Blackburn: My Lords, with the leave of the House I wish to say a few words as I am a signatory to the amendment. I wish to make my position clear.
Noble Lords: Order!
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the noble Baroness is out of order. I remind her that we are on Report.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, the comments that my noble friend has just made confused me even further. She has admitted that

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people will continue to abuse the system no matter what provisions are introduced by the Government. Therefore it appears that the position will remain the same and the abuse will be just as bad as before. The noble Baroness said that there would only be a few cases of blatant abuse. We all know there will only be a few such cases. That is the position now. If she is convinced, however, that those cases of abuse will remain, I am even more convinced that such abuse should become a criminal offence. One cannot ignore the effect that one person's actions in disregarding all planning controls may have on friends, neighbours and even visitors to an area.
The point about "well knowing" is intended to make the position clear. Someone may start a development without planning permission. If a planning official goes along and says, "You require planning permission for that development", and the developer does not apply for planning permission, he is certainly "well knowing" that planning permission is required. It would surely not be very difficult to establish that that person was continuing with what they were doing even after having been told that it was in breach of the planning law.
I had hoped that we would find a solution to the matter, and I regret that I shall have to press the amendment.
5.20 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 7) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 81; Not-Contents, 130.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Ardwick, L.

Hunt, L.

Aylestone, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Birk, B.

Jay, L.

Blackstonce, B.

Jeger, B.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Kirkhill, L.

Carter, L.

Knollys, V.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Lockwood, B.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Longford, E.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Cornwallis, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

David, B.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Meston, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Monk Bretton, L.

Ennals, L.

Monson, L.

Falkland, V.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Gallacher, L.

Nathan, L.

Galpern, L.

Nicol, B.

Gardner of Parkes, B. [Teller.]

Ogmore, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Peston, L.

Grantchester, L.

Phillips, B.

Grey, E.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Hanworth, V.

Prys-Davies, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Raglan, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Rea, L.

Hayter, L.

Rochester, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Ross of Newport, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Sainsbury, L.

Hooson, L,.

Serota, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Shepherd, L.

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Stedman, B.

Whaddon, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

White, B.

Strabolgi, L.

Wigoder, L.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Winstanley, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Winterbottom, L.

Underhill, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Long, V.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Lothian, M.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Allerton, L.

Lyell, L.

Ampthill, L.

Lytton, E.

Arran, E.

McAlpine of West Green, L.

Astor, V.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Auckland, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Barber, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Bauer, L.

Mancroft, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Manton, L.

Belstead, L.

Margadale, L.

Bessborough, E.

Merrivale, L.

Blatch, B.

Mersey, V.

Blyth, L.

Milverton, L.

Boardman, L.

Mottistone, L.

Borthwick, L.

Mountevans, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Munster, E.

Caithness, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Nelson, E.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Nelson of Stafford, L.

Carnarvon, E.

Newall, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Norrie, L.

Carnock, L.

Onslow, E.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Clanwilliam, E.

Orkney, E.

Coleraine, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Oxfuird, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Craigavon, V.

Pender, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L

Dilhorne, V.

Quinton, L.

Eden of Winton, L.

Radnor, E.

Elles, B.

Reay, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Renton, L.

Elphinstone, L.

Renwick, L.

Elton, L.

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Faithfull, B.

Rodney, L.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Saint Albans, D.

Fortescue, E.

Salisbury, M.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Selkirk, E.

Gibson-Watt, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Gisborough, L.

Somerset, D.

Gray of Contin, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Greenway, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Strange, B.

Haddington, E.

Strathcarron, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Strathmore and Kinghome, E.

Haslam, L.

Sudeley, L.

Henley, L.

Swinfen, L.

Hives, L.

Teviot, L.

Holderness, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Hood, V.

Trefgarne, L.

Hooper, B.

Trumpington, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Waddington, L.

Ingrow, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Wigram, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Wise, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Wyatt of Weeford, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Wynford, L.

Lawrence, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.28 p.m.
[Amendment No. 8 not moved.]
Clause 27 [Planning contravention notices]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 33, line 45, leave out paragraphs (a) and (b) and insert ("that he had a reasonable excuse for failing to comply with the requirement.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 9 was spoken to with Amendment No. 6. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2[Enforcement of conditions]:
Lord Meston Lord Meston moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 4, line 16, after ("operations") insert ("or caused or permitted the operations to be carried out").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 10 is concerned with the new Section 187A introduced by Clause 2 of the Bill. That new section provides for the service of a notice if conditions to which planning permission is subject are not complied with. The notice is to be served on someone described as the "person responsible". There does not appear to be a right of appeal against the service of the notice. Furthermore an offence is created if the notice itself is not complied with. It is therefore likely that the words of the new section will be strictly construed by the courts. It is important therefore that the notice is or can be served on the person who is truly responsible for what is going on or for what is not going on.
As drafted, Section 187A describes the person responsible as:
"any person … who is carrying out or has carried out the operations".
That would certainly include the contractor doing the work which is giving offence, but it might well stop there and go no further. Presumably it ought to include—clearly it seemed to include—the owner or developer who in fact is responsible. Indeed, the person responsible may be someone who has already sold on and he may try to use that as an excuse.
Comparison with the provisions for service of a stop notice is of use in this context. The provisions of Section 183 of the principal Act are far wider. A stop notice can be served on any person who appears to have an interest in the land as well as anyone who appears to be engaged in any activity. If the person responsible is wrongly identified by the local planning authority, the objective of the new section will fail and problems will be created.
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that the notice is aimed at the right target. I beg to move.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie): My Lords, we appreciate the intention that lies behind this amendment. If the person who is really responsible for a breach of condition against which the breach of condition notice is directed is the owner or occupier of the land who has perhaps ordered a builder, as his agent, to carry out the operations, it will seem harsh that the agent, who assumes that he is acting lawfully in carrying out the owner's or occupier's instructions, should be at risk of committing an offence. However,
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if the amendment is apt for operations being carried out on land, it should also be apt for the case where an agent is using the land in breach of a condition at the instance of the owner or occupier.
I would wish to take more time to study the purpose and effect of the noble Lord's amendment. My noble friend Lady Blatch will write to him as soon as possible about the Government's intentions. If we conclude that an amendment is necessary, arrangements will be made to table it at a later stage of the Bill. With that brief explanation and assurance, I hope that the noble Lord will not feel the necessity to press his amendment.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the indication. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3 [Injunctions restraining breaches of planning control]:
Viscount Astor Viscount Astor moved Amendment No. 11:
Page 5, line 24, leave out ("they think") and insert ("the court thinks").
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this amendment addresses the concern about a drafting point in Clause 3 of the Bill which the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, expressed at Committee stage. We have taken advice on this point and the amendment that we now propose is to substitute the words "the court thinks" for the words "they think" in line 24 on page 5.
I am grateful to the noble Viscount for raising the matter and hope that he and other noble Lords will find this amendment acceptable.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 4 [Time limits on enforcement action]:
Lord Meston Lord Meston moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 6, line 29, after ("that") insert ("further").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is a matter purely of drafting which I hope that the Government may think desirable if not essential. The new Sections 171A and 171B will provide for time limits on enforcement action. The proposed Section 171B(1) provides that:
"no enforcement action may be taken after … four years".
However, there is provision in Section 171B(4) (b) which allows the clock to be stopped and indeed put back if enforcement action is taken in the four-year period and further action is necessary in the ensuing four years.
It has been represented to me that as drafted the proposed subsection is somewhat obscure. Perhaps it is unfair to describe it as obscure but it is not easy to understand. It is important that it should be expressed with some clarity because it is concerned with time limits for lawful action. The subsection with which this amendment is concerned contains the expression "further enforcement action" and later uses the words "enforcement action". It refers also to "that action". The expression "that action" is meant, I think, to refer to the further action. In an attempt to add some clarity to a somewhat confusing provision, I beg to move this amendment.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, again the noble Lord's helpful intention in moving this amendment is understood but I am bound to say that we consider that the additional word would be superfluous in interpreting the subsection. If he looks at the words "that action" in line 29, he will see that it quite clearly refers to the words "further enforcement action" in line 27. We do not think that additional words are needed for the avoidance of doubt. He may disagree somewhat but if he reconsiders the matter and looks again at the words in line 29, tying them up with line 27, perhaps he will accept that he does not need to press his amendment.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I certainly do not want to press the amendment and do not seek to add superfluous words. I am sure that the meaning is quite clear to the noble and learned Lord. It is tolerably clear to me. However, it may not be clear to those who are not lawyers and need to look at the provisions quickly in order to see what can or cannot be done. However, I do not feel strongly enough to press the matter further. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 [Enforcement notices]:
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 13:
Page 6, line 40, leave out from beginning to end of line 1 on page 7 and insert:

(" (1) 'Where it appears to the local planning authority that there has been a breach of planning control they may—

(a) issue a notice (in this Act referred to as an "enforcement notice"); or

(b) require an application for a certificate of lawful use or development to be submitted by the owner or occupier of the land, or the person who has carried cut operations on the land or used it for any purpose, as provided in section 191.

(2) If following an application made under subsection (1) (b) a local authority issues a certificate then no fee shall be payable under regulations made by virtue of section 303.

(3) If an application made under subsection (1) (b) is refused a local authority may require an application for planning permission to be submitted under the provisions of section 62.

(4) Any application made under subsection (3) shall incur a fee five times that payable for an application submitted under the provisions of section 62 under regulations made by virtue of section 303.

(5) Where an enforcement notice is issued it shall be served—").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 24 and 25. The amendment deals with the issue of retrospective planning permission. We discussed this matter at Committee stage and I hope that the Minister may have been persuaded by the arguments and discussion that took place. At the moment the only tool that local authorities have for bringing unauthorised activity under planning control is the enforcement notice, which is basically a quasi-punitive procedure.
With this amendment we are, if I may coin a phrase, seeking a lighter touch for those uses which are also acceptable and so far are unauthorised but which
452
would have obtained planning permission had it been sought in a proper way. At Committee stage we approached this issue by proposing, where appropriate, the grant of retrospective planning permission. At that time the Minister put forward two arguments. First, it was argued that to accept that amendment would bypass the issue of whether a breach of planning control had taken place in the first instance. Secondly, she argued that this provision would remove proper scrutiny from the system, especially where conditions might be attached and also the right of appeal.
On reflection I do not think that we are persuaded by either of those arguments. To grant retrospective planning permission presumes proper scrutiny, and the right of appeal which the Minister suggested would be withheld—a right of appeal about being granted what you were seeking to obtain in the first place—seems an improbable right. If it were an issue of conditions, the local authority would in any case not go along the tracks of retrospective planning permission but almost certainly would seek an enforcement notice. The problem outlined by the Minister would therefore not have arisen.
However, in the light of the Minister's concerns, I suggest that the Government may consider the substance of that amendment but in a different garb, offering local authorities the additional tools not only of an enforcement notice but, where they suspect a planning offence, the power to require an application for a certificate of lawful use. If that application is refused after proper scrutiny, the local authority can require planning permission in the usual way with a more substantial fee attached, as Amendment No. 25 suggests.
At present certificates of lawful use can be triggered only by the appellant. The amendment allows the local authority to bring a certificate of lawful use into play as a way of legitimising retrospectively a use on land or property. I hope that the Minister finds the amendment acceptable.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, is the noble Baroness expecting me to respond to Amendments Nos. 13, 24 and 25?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, yes.
5.45 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendment No. 13 to Section 172 of the 1990 Act is intended to provide planning authorities with two alternative procedures for dealing with what appears to them to be a breach of planning control. They would be able to issue an enforcement notice or require the submission of an application for the new certificate of lawful use or development. If a certificate is refused, the planning authority would be able to require an application for planning permission to be submitted to them, which would incur five times the normal planning application fee.
While we appreciate that the noble Baroness's amendment carefully seeks to overcome our objections to her Amendment No. 24 at Committee stage, there are still serious objections to this revised

453
proposal. First, it is important that in considering whether to issue an enforcement notice or require the submission of an application the planning authority should be required to consider whether it is "expedient" to do so, having regard to the provisions of the development plan and to any other material planning considerations. This obligation has existed in the Town and Country Planning Acts and has survived the test of time since 1947. Without that obligation appellants would lose an important ground for costs to be awarded in their favour where the planning authority has acted "unreasonably".
There are more fundamental objections to the noble Baroness's amendment. A common reason for developers to proceed without seeking a specific grant of planning permission is that, rightly or wrongly, they genuinely believe that what they are doing already has planning permission, either by virtue of a specific permission granted on an earlier application, or by virtue of the "permitted development rights" in the general development order; or they think they have deemed permission, or that no development requiring permission is involved. If the developer is right, there can be no justification for the planning authority to have the power to demand the submission of an application which may be unnecessary, even if the fee is refunded for a successful application. Other costs are involved; for example, the cost of employing a professional representative to submit and support the application or the time taken to deal with it personally. These costs can be a serious burden on a small business or private individual of limited means. They would often not be recovered.
The majority of developers do not carry out unlawful development deliberately or blatantly. Those who genuinely believe that they do not need planning permission or further permission for what they are doing, many with a perfectly arguable case, should not in our view be penalised subsequently if they are later proved wrong—perhaps on a complex point of planning law—by the imposition of a higher than normal fee.
If the planning authority is reasonably sure that a breach has occurred which it considers undesirable on the land in whole or in part for planning reasons, the right course is resolute enforcement action to secure its control or cessation. If a breach has occurred which it can live with, it should not be tempted to burden the already stretched planning system with an application which is a mere formality in order to obtain a fee. For those reasons I hope that the noble Baroness will not press Amendment No. 13.
The first amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, Amendment No. 24, concerns Section 175 of the 1990 Act. Its apparent intention is to provide that, where an appeal against an enforcement notice is made on any of the three remaining grounds (e), (f) or (g) in Section 174(2), the enforcement notice will nevertheless take effect on the date specified in the notice under Section 173(6). That means that the compliance period or periods specified in the notice under Section 173(7) for taking the
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required steps will run from that specified date, despite the fact that an appeal against the notice on grounds (e), (f) or (g) may still be outstanding.
While we appreciate that the success of an appeal on all or any of the grounds (e), (f) or (g) may not necessarily result in the notice being quashed—so that it may eventually have to be complied with—there are still serious objections to this amendment. A successful appeal on grounds (f) or (g) will result in the notice being varied in its requirements or compliance period, or both, depending on the merits. If this amendment were accepted, the original, almost invariably more onerous, requirements would have been complied with, however unreasonable, within a compliance period that was also subsequently found to have been unreasonable. An appellant is entitled to assume that his appeal on any ground may succeed and to act accordingly in the meantime. He should not be expected to comply with the notice until an appeal challenging its terms is determined. A developer could well find at the end of the appeal process that he has done more, and more quickly, than could reasonably be demanded of him to remedy what may be a relatively minor breach of planning control, perhaps carried out inadvertently in the first place.
Whether or not ground (a) in Section 174(2) has been pleaded, the "deemed application" for planning permission under Section 177(5) potentially arises in every appeal. It will be considered whenever the correct application fee has been paid. The grant of permission in these circumstances would make the requirement of the notice ineffective (by virtue of Section 180 of the 1990 Act); and where the notice had already been complied with, by virtue of this amendment, a great deal of costly work may have been carried out unnecessarily. The question of possible compensation might also arise.

Finally, the first Amendment No. 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, seems to imply that grounds (e), (f) and (g) are scarcely proper grounds of appeal. I hope that that is not his intention and that he will recognise the injustice which his amendment could cause. I invite him not to pursue it.
The second of the noble Lord's amendments, Amendment No. 25 concerns Section 177(5) of the 1990 Act. It provides that the fee payable for the "deemed application" for planning permission for the development to which the enforcement notice relates shall be five times the normal planning application fee where the enforcement notice appeal is made on grounds (a), (d), (e), (f) or (g) in Section 174(2) but the same as the normal planning application fee where the enforcement appeal is on grounds (b) or (c).
We can see no justification for an automatically larger fee to be paid where grounds (a), (d), (e), (f) or (g) are pleaded because the fact is that not all enforcement appellants are deliberate or persistent contravenors of planning control. It would not be practicable to identify and penalise the few who are. For the same reason, no such penalty is imposed now, or sought, on those who seek retrospective planning permission under Section 63 of the 1990 Act without enforcement notice having been served upon them.

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My department's practical experience of processing enforcement appeals is that many inexperienced or inarticulate appellants, even where they have professional representation, get their initial grounds of appeal muddled. It is not always possible to sort out exactly which grounds are most appropriate at the early procedural stages of appeals. It is often only when evidence is produced to one of our planning inspectors at a local inquiry that the correct grounds of appeal are finally ascertained and developed in argument. There is therefore no justification for this attempt to distinguish certain appeal grounds for fees purposes and applying a penalty to them.
Finally, Amendment No. 25 may well encourage the submission of an appeal on one or both of the grounds which are not proposed in the amendment to attract the larger deemed application fee. Experienced practitioners will be able to produce plausible arguments to support such grounds in order to avoid both the higher fee and a successful application by the council for its costs as a result of "unreasonable" behaviour in pursuing an unsubstantiated ground. In any event, the deemed application has to be considered, even if grounds (0 and (g) succeed and grounds (b) to (e) do not result in the notice being quashed, provided the correct fee has been paid.
Because of the difficulties inherent in the amendment, the fact that its purpose could easily be circumvented and the possibility of unfairness to indivichals, I hope that the amendments will not be pressed.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that full and detailed reply. I wish to read her comments about Amendments Nos. 24 and 25 and, alter reflection, decide whether she has the substance of the case or whether we wish to return to it. I am still not persuaded by the Minister's comments in respect of Amendment No. 13. I am sure that she is right in saying that usually developers proceed because they believe that they have planning permission or, alternatively, that they do not need it.
Let us remind ourselves of the situation under the Bill. At present if a development does not have planning permission—where it is unauthorised—the local authority can bring only an enforcement notice against it. If the developer is unsure about the status of the development he can seek a lawful use certificate which will clarify the planning status of the land. However, the local authority cannot instigate such procedures which lead to a lawful use certificate; that is a less punitive way of seeking to establish the development status of the land. Amendment No. 13 would merely allow local authorities to have that extra tool and, therefore, a lighter touch when dealing with innocent continuing usages which have not come within the planning system.
It is a matter of anxiety. A local authority such as my own —that is Norwich—receives seven or eight inquiries per week about whether an activity is unauthorised and if so whether it needs planning consent. That procedure requiring a lawful use certificate would allow it to respond to such inquiries without bringing on board the heavy guns of an
456
enforcement notice. Instead, the Minister suggested that local authoritites should opt for stringent enforcement. That suggestion would be more consistent had the Minister supported the earlier amendment moved by her noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Norrie, with the support of Members on this side of the House, making enforcement a general duty of local authorities. Having not made it a general duty but now to call on local authorities to be stringent in their enforcement is a little curious.
I must accept the Minister's reply and do not believe that it is sensible to pursue the matter to a Division at this stage. However, it is unwise of the Government not to allow local authorities to have a tool which is more innocent and less onerous than the enforcement notice presently enshrined in the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 14:
Page 8, leave out lines 5 to 7 and insert ("at the end of which any steps are required to have been taken or any activities are required to have ceased and may specify different periods for different steps or activities; and, where different periods apply to different steps or activities, references in this Part to the period for compliance with an enforcement notice, in relation to any step or activity, are to the period at the end of which the step is required to have been taken or the activity is required to have ceased.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 17. These amendments are intended to improve the operation of the provisions of subsection (7) of Section 173 of the 1990 Act and the corresponding Scottish provisions which require an enforcement notice to specify the period within which any steps are required to be taken or any activities are required to cease. It will also enable the planning authority to specify different periods for different purposes. This period is generally known as the "compliance period". Its fundamental importance to the enforcement regime is that, once the compliance period has expired and any required step has not been taken or any activity has not ceased, there is a contravention of the enforcement notice. The planning authority may then decide to prosecute for an offence (under Section 179 of the 1990 Act) or take the remedial steps (using its power in Section 178 of the Act). There is thus an important connection to be made between Section 173(7) and Sections 178 and 179; and also with Section 183 which enables a stop notice to be served in certain circumstances before the expiry of the compliance period.
On further re-examination of the provisions of Section 173(7), as now drafted in Clause 5, and the Scottish provisions in Clause 34, we have been advised that more detailed provisions are necessary so as to remove any doubt that the planning authority may specify a different compliance period, if it considers it apt to do so, for any requirement that remedial steps shall be taken or specified activities shall cease.
The revised version of Section 173(7) also makes it clear, by the introduction of the words:

"references in this part to the period for compliance with an enforcement notice"

457
that where the period for compliance is mentioned elsewhere in Part VII of the 1990 Act the intention is to refer to each compliance period in cases where an enforcement notice specifies more than one period. For example, as regards an illegal residential caravan site, the use of the land might be required to cease after a six-month compliance period while the period for removing hardstandings and access roads on the site might be nine months. An offence would occur after six months if the caravan site use had not ceased and after nine months if the hardstandings and access roads had not been removed.
Finally, the use of the words:
"the activity is required to have ceased",
at the end of the amendment puts beyond doubt the intention that any activity in breach of planning control must have ceased permanently by the end of the compliance period.
Although the amendments are rather lengthy, this is a useful tidying-up of these provisions. It is necessary to make the compliance period concept function satisfactorily in every foreseeable circumstance. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 15:
Page 8, line 23, leave out ("of this Act").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a drafting amendment to leave out the words "of this Act" after the words "under section 63", in subsection (9) of the new Section 173, which is in Clause 5 at line 23 on page 8. As this new section, when enacted, will be read as part of the 1990 Act, there is no need to include the words "of this Act". I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch: moved Amendment No. 16:
Page 8, line 26, leave out from ("may") to end of line 27 and insert ("—

(a) withdraw an enforcement notice issued by them; or

(b) waive or relax any requirement of such a notice and, in particular, may extend any period specified in accordance with section 173(7).

(1A) The powers conferred by subsection (1) may be exercised whether or not the notice has taken effect.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 16A, 18 and 19.
These amendments result from a re-examination of the procedure in the new Section 173A of the 1990 Act, which is inserted into the Act by Clause 5, for the local planning authority to withdraw an enforcement notice. This re-examination of Section 173A was prompted by the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, when he moved Amendment No. 27B in Committee. The noble Lord's point, reported at col. 1333 of the Official Report for 17th January, concerned the withdrawal of a notice whose purpose is spent.
We have concluded that the new section, and the corresponding Scottish provisions, can be considerably simplified while at the same time they achieve the main purpose of one of the relatively minor recommendations of the Carnwath Report; that was
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to enable the planning authority to withdraw an enforcement notice when it serves no useful purpose. We have also recognised that the consultation procedure provided by subsection (5) of new Section 173 will not work in practice when the planning authority wish to waive or to relax any requirement in an enforcement notice urgently. In that event, the notice period of 21 days provided by paragraph (b) in subsection (5) of Section 173A and the corresponding Scottish provisions would make it impracticable to waive or relax a requirement as quickly as the authority might wish.
What we propose is to amend subsection (1) so that the words:
"withdraw an enforcement notice at any time before it takes effect",
are omitted and the words in paragraphs (a) and (b) of the amendments are substituted for them, together with the new subsection (1A) in the amendments. This will give the planning authority a flexible power to withdraw an enforcement notice; or to waive or to relax any requirement of the notice; or to extend the compliance period whenever the authority considers it appropriate. Following those amendments, subsection (2) of Section 173A is to be retained because it is clearly right that the planning authority should notify people who are likely to be interested in the withdrawal or relaxation of the notice.
After subsection (2), we propose to omit subsections (3), (4), (5) and (6) in their entirety as being rather burdensome and, in one respect which I have already explained, impracticable to operate in some cases. We believe that these changes will achieve the result which the Carnwath Report sought; namely, to give planning authorities the power to withdraw a notice after it has taken effect while also maintaining the notification procedure in subsection (2). I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
6 p.m.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 16A:
Page 8, line 33, leave out from beginning to ("The") in line 9 on page 9.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 30 [Enforcement notices]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 38, leave out lines 8 to 10 and insert ("at the end of which any steps are required to have been taken or any activities are required to have ceased and may specify different periods for different steps or activities; and, where different periods apply to different steps or activities, references in this Part of this Act to the period for compliance with an enforcement notice, in relation to any step or activity, are to the period at the end of which the step is required to have been taken or the activity is required to have ceased.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have spoken to this amendment with Amendment No. 14. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 18:
Page 38, line 29, leave out from ("may") to end of line 30 and insert ("—

(a) withdraw an enforcement notice issued by them; or

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(b) waive or relax any requirement of such a notice and, in particular, may extend any period specified in accordance with section 84AA(7) of this Act.

(1A) The powers conferred by subsection (1) may be exercised whether or not the notice has taken effect.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have spoken to this amendment with Amendment No. 16. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 19:
Page 38, line 36, leave out from beginning to ("The") in line 15 on page 39.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 6 [Appeal against enforcement notice]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 9, line 33, leave out from ("notice") to end of line 34 and insert ("in accordance with section 173(7)").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 29. These amendments are consequential on Amendments Nos. 14 and 17. The effect of the amendments is to provide a revised text for ground (g) in Section 174(2) of the 1990 Act, which is the last of the seven grounds of appeal against an enforcement notice. As proposed in the amendment, the amended ground (g) would provide:
"that any period specified in the notice in accordance with section 173(7) falls short of what should reasonably be allowed",
with corresponding amendments to the Scottish provisions.
In dealing with Amendments Nos. 14 and 17, I explained that a different compliance period may be appropriate for each of a number of different steps required by an enforcement notice, or for the cessation of specified activities. Where the planning authority specifies more than one compliance period in an enforcement notice, it is clearly right that an appellant should be enabled to appeal, under ground (g), against each compliance period in the notice, if he thinks it falls short of what should reasonably be allowed. This result is achieved by the amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Serota): My Lords, in calling this amendment I should point out to the House that if it is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments Nos. 22 to 24.
Lord Coleraine Lord Coleraine moved Amendment No. 21:
Page 9, line 44, leave out from beginning to end of line 5 on page 10.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speak also to my Amendments Nos. 26 and 28 and to government Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 27. Clause 6 deals with appeals against enforcement notices. As printed, the Bill provides that the leave of the court is required for an appeal to the High Court from a decision by the Secretary of State upholding an enforcement notice issued by a planning authority. The Bill goes on to provide that after the decision of the Secretary of State, the enforcement notice comes into effect unless the High Court orders otherwise.
In Committee I moved an amendment which pointed to the unfairness which would result if the
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enforcement notice came into effect and was subsequently quashed. The wretched landowner might suffer considerable loss by having the lawful use of his land curtailed. My amendment provided that in such cases compensation should be paid.
In reply, the Minister expressed sympathy for the case which I was making and I withdrew my amendment for further consideration.
Amendments Nos. 21 and 26 in my name provide for the effect of an enforcement notice to he suspended if leave to appeal to the High Court is granted. Government Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 27 have the same general effect but go further and provide that the court may order the enforcement notice to have effect in whole or in part pending the final determination.
At this stage it seems to me that in such a case compensation should be paid if the enforcement notice is eventually quashed. My Amendment No. 28 provides for that. Since then I have heard from the Minister and she tells me that her amendments have the effect which my Committee amendment—the compensation amendment—sought to achieve. I do not expect to speak further about Amendment No. 28. Before I decide what to do on Amendment No. 21, I should like to hear my noble friend's explanation of her amendments. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, government Amendments Nos. 22, 23 and 27 address the anxiety expressed by my noble friend Lord Coleraine when he moved his Amendment No. 32 during Committee stage of the Bill. My noble friend was concerned with the situation where under Section 289 of the 1990 Act the effect of an enforcement notice is no longer to be suspended by the submission of a further appeal to the High Court against the decision of the Secretary of State or planning inspector at first instance on an enforcement appeal.
He pointed out that when an appeal to the court under Section 289 succeeds, so that the decision at first instance is remitted to the Secretary of State by the court, and the eventual result is that the enforcement notice is quashed, the appellant would suffer financially if his business or other activity was prevented from operating during the process of the litigation and any redetermination of the enforcement appeal decision.
My noble friend's Amendment No. 32 proposed to deal with this problem by providing for compensation to be paid for any damage or loss incurred by the appellant as a result of his having to comply with an enforcement notice which had taken effect.

We have considered my noble friend's point very carefully and officials have discussed it with representatives of the Law Society. Our conclusion is that the problem can be dealt with equally satisfactorily without providing for any compensatory payment. In any event it would be difficult, as my noble friend recognised in his Amendment No. 32 in Committee, to decide who should make any compensatory payment in these circumstances.
Instead, we propose that when an appeal to the High Court, or Court of Appeal, under Section 289 of

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the 1990 Act, is given leave to proceed, the effect of the enforcement notice will remain suspended by virtue of the appeal under Section 289. This result is achieved by these three rather complicated amendments, which I shall explain.
The first two amendments would leave out the new subsection (4) which is proposed to be included in Section 175 of the 1990 Act, as it appears in lines 1 to 5 on page 10 of the Bill. In place of the proposed new subsection (4), the existing subsection (4) of Section 175 would be amended to provide that:
"Where an appeal is brought under Section 174 the enforcement notice shall, subject to any order under Section 289(4A), be of no effect pending the final determination or withdrawal of the appeal".
The effect of these amendments is that, unless the High Court or the Court of Appeal makes any order to the contrary, under the new Section 289(4A), the enforcement notice will remain suspended by an appeal under Section 289 of the 1990 Act. Consequently, somebody who would otherwise have been prevented by an effective enforcement notice from carrying on any business or other activities will no longer be prevented.
The third of these three amendments deals with the situation in the new Section 289(4A) of the 1990 Act, where the court may order that an enforcement notice shall be of no effect, or shall have effect as may be specified in the order, pending the final determination of the appeal.
This amendment is consequential on the first two amendments. Its effect is to reverse the present provision in Section 289(4A), so that the court would be enabled to order that the enforcement notice shall "have effect, or have effect to such extent" as may be specified in the order. This leaves open the possibility that, although the enforcement notice would normally be suspended, the court might order that it should have effect if there were some exceptional reason to justify making an order. In that event, we are advised that the court would usually grant such an order only on conditions. One condition would normally require the planning authority to give an undertaking in damages to the appellant. This would deal with the situation where the appellant incurred financial loss.
I appreciate the intention of my noble friend's three amendments, about which he has courteously written to me. As I have explained, we do not think the provision for compensation, in his Amendment No. 28 is appropriate if the effect of the enforcement notice remains suspended by the further appeal to the court. It is a procedurally complicated matter. However, I hope that my noble friend will now conclude that his justifiable anxiety is met by the government amendment and that he need not press Amendment No. 21.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I am encouraged by what my noble friend said. Although I shall wish to seek advice and may wish to return to the matter at a later stage or have it raised in another place, my first impression is that my noble friend has satisfied me and provided a formula which will satisfy the Law Society.
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I should like to raise one further point with my noble friend. It may be possible for her to give me an answer today. The problem with the government amendments, as she made clear, is that it is not apparent, and will not be apparent on the face of the Bill, what the amendments are achieving. The clause dealing with the application to the High Court has been amended so that the court can bring the enforcement notice into effect in whole or in part. Anyone reading that clause would not immediately realise that if the planning authority obtained the permission it would normally have to give an undertaking in damages.
Planning lawyers are not always litigation lawyers. The average planning lawyer seeing the clause as it is proposed would take an unduly dismal view of what might happen if he went to court and appealed. On the other hand, the local planning authority, seeing the wording of the clause, may feel that the matter was all cut and dried; that if it went ahead and asked for the enforcement notice to be brought into effect all would be all right.
Perhaps there is some way in which that could be made quite clear so that all those who have to deal with the clause know where they stand. I have in mind the possibility of a note in the Supreme Court Practice. Alternatively and preferably, perhaps my noble friend would consider in due course further amending subsection (4) (a) by providing at the end:
"and the court may make it a condition of the making of such an order that the party obtaining the order gives an undertaking in damages to the other party".
I do not know whether or not that is possible, but I feel that in some way it should be made clear that what the Minister says will happen does happen.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, with the leave of the House perhaps I may say that I have been asked to consider the points raised by my noble friend Lord Coleraine. He gives an interesting interpretation of the amendments and goes on to make a suggestion. I promise to give careful consideration to all that he has said. I hope that the House will accept the government amendments on this occasion, and if we feel that it is necessary to amend to make further clarification, we shall return to the matter at Third Reading.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her remarks. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment No. 21.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 22:
Page 9, line 44, leave out ("For") and insert ("In").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees: My Lords, in calling Amendment No. 23 I should point out to the House that if the amendment is agreed to I cannot call Amendment No. 24.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 9, line 45, leave out from ("appeals)") to end of line 5 on page 10 and insert ("after "shall" there is inserted "subject to any order under section 289(4A)"").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 24 to 26 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 27:
Page 10, line 24, leave out ("be of no effect, or shall have such effect") and insert ("have effect, or have effect to such extent").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 28 not moved.]
Clause 31 [Appeal against enforcement notice]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 29:
Page 39, line 43, leave out from ("notice") to end of line 44 and insert ("in accordance with section 84AA(7) of this Act").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 29 was spoken to with Amendment No. 20. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 8 [Offence where enforcement notice not complied with]:
[Amendment No. 30 not moved.]
Clause 33 [Offence where enforcement notice not complied with]:
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 40, line 42, leave out ("is the occupier of or has") and insert ("has control of or").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 31 I shall speak also to Amendment No. 32. They amend Clause 33 for Scotland and parallel government amendments made at Committee stage to the corresponding clause for England and Wales, Clause 8. They are essential drafting changes.
I should like also to give notice of my intention to bring forward at Third Reading other minor and consequential amendments which will be necessary either to parallel provisions already made for England and Wales or essential drafting changes to the Scottish legislation. For example, the Law Society of Scotland has drawn my attention to two minor amendments which are necessary for the correct operation of the Land Compensation (Scotland) Act 1973. Amendments to Schedule 15 of the Bill will be made as appropriate. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendment No.32:
Page 40, line 45, at end insert ("or cause or permit such an activity to be carried on").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 9 [Stop notices]:
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendment No.33:
Page 13, line 2, leave out ("of this Act").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, this is a drafting amendment. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 34 not moved.]
Clause 10 [Certificate of lawful use or development]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 15, line 35, leave out ("of this Act").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this is a drafting amendment to leave out the words, "of this Act" in the new subsection (1) of new Section 193 of the 1990 Act, which is in Clause 10 on pages 15 and 16. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 11 [Rights of entry for enforcement purposes]:
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 17, line 18, at end insert ("or any other land").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 36 I shall speak also to amendments through to Amendment No. 41, and Amendments Nos. 49 to 54.
The purpose of these amendments to subsections (1) and (2) of the new Section 196A, which Clause 11 inserts into the 1990 Act, and to subsections (1) and (2) of the new Section 91A of the Scottish Act, is to implement fully Recommendation No. 1 in the Carnwath report, dealing with improved rights of entry on to land for local planning authorities. That recommendation suggested that the right of entry should be,
"for the purposes of investigating any alleged breach on that land or on immediately adjoining land".
We now believe that it is right to give effect to what lies behind the latter part of that recommendation but would not restrict it to the language used of, "immediately adjoining land". The need to enter other land where it is not being suggested that the breach is occurring, is most likely to arise when what is apparently taking place in breach of control cannot properly be investigated by going on to the land where it is considered that the breach may be occurring. For example, part of the land may be thickly wooded or buildings may conceal what is happening from an observer who goes on to the main area of land where the breach is taking place. These amendments are intended to overcome that practical difficulty.
The power of entry in Section 196A is subject at all times to the planning authority having,
"reasonable grounds for entering the land then for the purpose in question".
We are not proposing a general right of' entry to land adjoining that in which the planning authority may be interested. There must be a justification and reasonable grounds for entering the land for an enforcement purpose. Authority in writing is required and the right of entry must be exercised at a reasonable time.
I hope noble Lords will agree that this is a necessary addition to planning authorities' right to enter land, and that they will accept the amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendments Nos. 37 to 41:

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Page 17, line 21, at end insert ("in relation to the land or any other land").
Page 17, line 23, at end insert ("in relation to the land or any other land").
Page 17, line 26, at end insert ("in relation to the land or any other land").
Page 17, line 27, leave out ("the land then").
Page 17, line 32, leave out ("in respect of the land") and insert ("in relation to the land or any other land, if there are reasonable grounds for entering for that purpose.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 42:
Page 17, line 35, leave out ("any building used as").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 42, I should like also to speak to Amendment No. 43. Those of your Lordships who were present at Committee stage will recall that there was quite a lengthy discussion about the right of entry in relation to dwellinghouses. The Bill provides, quite rightly, that there should be more restricted right of entry to dwellinghouses by planning enforcement officers than there is to non-residential premises. A problem arises, which was identified at Committee stage, when premises are both residential and non-residential, that is, to distinguish between those premises which are mainly residential—such as a dwellinghouse with a workshop attached to it, for example—where clearly the residential considerations and the 24-hours' notice ought to be applied, and those where the residential use is quite incidental such as a factory, a workshop, a store or a warehouse which happens to have a caretaker's flat attached to it. It seemed to us that in the second case, where the residential use is incidental, access to the nonresidential part of those premises ought to be on the same basis as that for any other commerical or industrial premises.
Thus we are proposing in Amendment No. 43, which is the substantive amendment, that:
"nothing in this subsection shall restrict the reasonable exercise by an authorised person of the right of access under this section to any part of a building in which such a dwellinghouse may be situated, not being part of the dwellinghouse".
If the purpose of entry by an enforcement officer is to deal with a machine or a bank of machines which is causing a substantial nuisance to neighbours, for example, and the building happens to have a residential flat attached to it, then it would be only too easy for the occupier to remove the machine within 24 hours, receive the enforcement officer with a beaming smile, and when he went away to put back the machine. That does not seem to be the right way to proceed, and it certainly does not seem to be a right way to distinguish between one commercial or industrial premises and another.
The new amendments adequately safeguard the rights of people living in their own homes and at the same time close a potential loophole for nonresidential premises. I beg to move.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, these two amendments effectively resume the discussion that we
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had on Amendments Nos. 69 and 70 tabled by the noble Lord at the Committee stage of the Bill. We have considered the noble Lord's point very carefully. We accept the principle of what he proposes; namely, that the 24-hours' notice requirement should apply only to the portion of the building which is used for the purpose of a dwellinghouse. However, we conclude that this result is already achieved by the provisions of Section 196A(4) as now drafted in Clause 11.
This is a little complicated, but I hope the noble Lord will bear with me. The interpretation derives from the definition of the term "building", which is to be found in Section 336(1) of the 1990 Act. That subsection provides that
"'building' includes any structure or erection, or any part of a building, as so defined, but does not include any plant or machinery comprised in a building;".
The vital point is that, when the word "building" is used anywhere in the 1990 Act, it means also any part of a building, by virtue of the definition to which I referred.
If that definition is then applied to the new provisions of Section 196A(4) the effect is that admission to any building, or any part of a building, used as a dwellinghouse shall not be demanded as of right unless the 24-hours' advance notification has been given to the occupier of the building. In the noble Lord's example, the occupier of the part of the building which is being used as a dwellinghouse in an industrial unit will be the caretaker to whom he referred. But his fear that the right of entry would not be available without advance notice to the nonresidential part of the building is not borne out in the light of the definition to which I have referred. It would be a requirement for the planning authority to notify the occupier of that part of the building which is being used for dwellinghouse purposes if they wished to enter it. However, the advance notice requirement would not apply to the main part which is not so occupied.
I hope that the noble Lord has managed to follow that with reference to the 1990 Act. I appreciate that he may wish to consider what I have had to say. I am certainly reassured that, while we agree with what he had to say, what he proposes is unnecessary.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord. I thought that I had every subsection of the 1990 Act at my fingertips. I am sorry to find that I am wrong in that. Incidentally, I am bound to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, that she accused me in an earlier amendment of being obscure when I spoke of a dwellinghouse and a curtilage. If she thinks that my Amendment No. 8 was obscure in relation to the explanation which has just been given, she is being selective in her perception.
I am happy to accept the assurance of the noble and learned Lord that the point of my amendments is covered. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 43 not moved.]
Lord Meston Lord Meston moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 18, line 21, at end insert ("and state the grounds on which entry has been authorised.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 44, I speak also to Amendment No. 110A which stands in my name. In so doing, I accept that for completeness I should also have put down an amendment to paragraph 9 of Schedule 2, which has a similar topic—that is to say, rights of entry. It is correct, as has been pointed out to me, that I should also have considered an amendment to the possibly overlapping rights of entry which are contained in Section 324(1) (c) of the principal Act. With those reservations, I pursue Amendment No. 44.
The amendments are concerned with powers of entry given by the Bill. At Committee stage it was said that the powers of entry are of fairly substantial width and fiat we should always look particularly carefully at any proposal to give an official power to enter private property.
As drafted, the rights of entry given by the Bill quite correctly require the official concerned to have reasonable grounds for wanting to enter the property, and require him also to have proper authorisation to do so. Each of the subsections with which I am concerned obliges the official to produce evidence of his authority before entering if required to do so. But he is not obliged to state the grounds on which his authority has been based. I suggest to your Lordships that, if requested by someone having a reasonable basis for knowing why entry is required, the official should be obliged to say why he is there. It is not onerous for the official concerned. It is perfectly fair and proper from the point of view of the person being asked to give entry. It is less likely that that person will be obstructive and therefore put himself at risk of committing a criminal offence if he knows and has the right to know. For those reasons I beg to move.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, the effect of these two amendments would be to require a person authorised to enter land under the relevant provisions to state the grounds on which such entry had been authorised or, in the case of the latter clause, Clause 19, to state the purpose of entry. It would elaborate the existing provision that such a person shall, if required, produce evidence of his authority before entering the land.
I recognise the intention behind the noble Lord's amendments. I should like to consider the matter further and return to it at a later date. There is a possibility that there are two stages to this rather than one. Any person duly authorised in writing may be an official of the planning authority and he is always duly authorised. I am not quite clear whether the noble Lord is suggesting that there should be a separate authorisation on every occasion on which there is a right of entry to any particular premises. I understand what he is driving at. If he is prepared to withdraw the amendment we shall certainly look at the point again.
Lord Meston: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that indication. I had hoped that the answer might have been that the
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authorisation which the official is obliged to present stated on the face of it the grounds on which the authorisation had been granted. That might be a simple way round the matter except possibly in the case of illiterate people or those who cannot read the English language. In that case some other device would have to be thought of. I am simply concerned that people who are obliged to afford entry to officials have the right to know why they have been authorised to enter. It is no more and no less than that. Based on the indication given by the noble and learned Lord, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 18, line 31, after ("land") insert ("or property").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, as discussed at Committee stage, this clause places a statutory obligation on the local planning authority to compensate any person interested in the land if it is damaged when the right of entry is exercised. However, there is no statutory right to compensation for damage to property—for example, to livestock or machinery. At Committee stage my noble and learned friend stated that the statutory right to compensation where damage has been caused to land has been included because a claim for damage to land in common law could be defeated by the defence of an authority carrying out its statutory duty.
However, the Government state that such a defence would not be available in the case of damage to property other than land. Therefore no statutory provision for compensation need be included since a claim for damages in common law could and would be successful. However, in practice it would be burdensome for the farmer to pursue through the courts what might be a relatively small amount of money. It would involve a greater risk of delay in settlement of the case. I feel that it would be much easier to deal with a claim for damages both for land and property by applying to the relevant local authority. Damage can be caused relatively easily by those not versed in farming matters—for example, when sheep are disturbed during lambing.
This amendment involves no public expense if local planning authority officers enter the land with care. It safeguards the legitimate interests of the farmer. Moreover, the amendment makes it simpler for the local authority to deal with any claim itself rather than waste its time and that of the farmer in pursuing the matter through the courts. That was recognised in Section 112 of the Water Resources Act 1963 and the Gas Act 1965. I am more than happy to read out the relevant passages if my noble and learned friend wants me to. If that measure applies to those Acts, why not to this Bill? I await my noble and learned friend's answer with interest unless he is minded to accept my amendment. I beg to move.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, it seems entirely logical that property should be protected in the same way as land. One tries to imagine an authorised person entering a farm. It is quite difficult to imagine how one could damage the land unless one used a bulldozer, an

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enormous tractor or something else of that kind. However, damage to property can happen easily and perhaps accidentally. The delays in courts and the trouble of going to common law will be a quite unreasonable burden to place on someone whose property has been damaged in this way. I hope that my noble and learned friend will accept the amendment.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I do not come out of my trench with my hands entirely up. After my noble friend's reference to the Water Resources Act 1963 and the Gas Act 1965, I must concede that he has something of a point. I should like to consider the matter further in the light of what he has said. Although he has made specific reference to the problem of the farmer, I am sure that he appreciates that if any change is made it would clearly apply on a broader basis than that. I hope that my noble friend will accept from me that my noble friend Lady Blatch will be writing to him in the near future on the matter, and will not press the amendment.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble and learned friend for those remarks. He will find that the relevant passage is in subsection (8). I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendment No.46:
Page 18, line 34, leave out ("person") and insert ("authority").
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 47, 57 and 58. The first amendment substitutes the word "authority" for "person" in order to make it clear that it is from the planning authority that any person whose land is damaged in the exercise of the right of entry may seek a compensatory payment in respect of that damage. The second amendment adds the words:
"or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State",
at the end of subsection (3). These additional words make it clear that when it is the Secretary of State who has authorised the right of entry to land for enforcement purposes, it is from him that any compensatory payment for damage may be recovered. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie Lord Fraser of Carmyllie moved Amendment No.47:
Page 18, line 34, at end insert ("or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Norrie Lord Norrie moved Amendment No. 48:
After Clause 11, insert the following new clause:
("General environmental duty
. It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State and local planning authorities in discharging any of their functions under this Act to exercise their powers, so far as may be consistent with their functions under any other legislation, so as to—
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(a) further the conservation and enhancement of natural beauty and the conservation of flora, fauna and geological and physiographical features of special interest and the protection of sites, buildings and objects of architectural, historic or archaeological interest; and

(b) further the conservation and efficient use of energy and natural resources.").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving this amendment I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 73, 166, 169, 177, 179 and 188. This is a most important series of amendments. Without ignoring the economic and social considerations, they would place the environment firmly at the heart of the planning system. It is strange that there are so few references to the environment in primary planning legislation. The planning system is such an important tool of environment management that I would have expected to see a clearer framework of environmental responsibilities. There is plenty of government policy guidance and some secondary legislation on planning in the environment. The legislative backing is patchy and wholly inadequate at such an important time in the development of environmental policy.
Amendment No. 48 places a clear environmental duty on local planning authorities and the Secretary of State. I have likened it to the duty of stewardship which formed such a central part of the environment White Paper. The House will recall a similar amendment tabled at Committee stage. This amendment differs in at least one very important way. It ensures that environmental considerations are furthered only in so far as they do not conflict with local authority responsibilities in other legislation. Using wording based on the Water Act 1989 ensures that economic and social responsibilities are not forgotten.
Amendment No. 73 goes even further towards recognising economic and social concerns, and it would ensure better use of planning conditions to reduce damaging environmental impacts, but only after the planning permission has been granted. This also picks up a point made by my noble friend Lord Wade at Committee stage, when he said that we could not put a ring fence around issues such as the environment, although all developments should be treated sympathetically from an environmental point of view. I just hope that this amendment might achieve the results that my noble friend seeks.
Once we have decided that development should go ahead, I am sure that there is widespread support for ensuring that it does as little harm as possible to the countryside or to wildlife. It would, for example, mean that a new housing development might be accompanied by conditions to protect an important piece of marshland or some important trees, or that a new industrial site had a slightly longer access road to it in order to avoid a valued copse. Industry is already going to great lengths to show respect for the environment, and this amendment would encourage that trend. I hope that it can receive widespread support.
I now turn to Amendments 166, 169, 177, 179 and 188. They are slightly different in nature from

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Amendment No. 73, which brought the environment in at the end of the planning process. By contrast these amendments place it at the beginning when development plan policies are being drawn up. The Government have already recognised the importance of development plan policies in the conservation of natural beauty and amenity, and these amendments take matters one step further.
They place a requirement on local authorities to examine the way energy and other natural resources are being used in their area and then draw up policies to encourage their conservation. The Government have already recognised that local authorities should have particular regard to the conservation of energy as an issue in development plans, and this was actually published in the environment White Paper. This amendment could help turn it into reality.
The planning system could have a significant impact on our use of energy and of other natural resources if we allowed it so to do. Decisions over the pattern of new housing developments, the location of new shopping facilities in high streets or on the edge of towns and the mix of industry and housing all have a major impact on the generation of traffic and the energy that we use. Similarly, new developments all have impacts on scarce water or mineral resources which should be considered before development plans are drawn up.
I suggest that the conservation of energy is at least as fundamental an issue as the management of traffic, and yet we find that traffic is already in the legislation. If we are to begin to tackle some of the important environmental problems now facing us, we shall have to use all the weapons at our disposal, and the planning system is one of the most important in our armoury. I urge support for this series of amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Wade of Chorlton: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for referring to the fact that this is something that ought to receive much more sympathy from me, and I certainly understand what he is trying to achieve with the amendment. I am a great believer that development, particularly in rural areas, should be undertaken with as much sympathy and under standing of their environment as possible. Even so, I feel that these amendments, although much better than the previous ones, could still have a bad effect. particularly at this time. The effect of these amendments would be much greater on the rural economy than in any other part of our country.
In that respect we are going to have to go through considerable changes in the rural economy in the next few y ears. It is important that we do not bring legislation in through this Bill that might prevent the economic changes that will be necessary. Those who are elected representatives in these matters now have a big responsibility. It is laid down in legislation, and they have all accepted it, that they have a wide variety of responsibilities which they need to take into account. It would not be acceptable, particularly at this stage, to impose further conditions that the planners have to consider when they try to cope with the economic changes that will take place particularly
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in the rural economy and the rural communities. Therefore, I feel that it would not be right to accept this amendment.
I know that the Government are trying at some stage in their amendments to go towards the proposals that my noble friend is making. I hope that these will be acceptable and will go some way towards asking the planning authorities, having given permission and having considered all the economic factors that have to be taken into account in a development, then to try to insist upon building in the best possible environmental facilities. At the same lime it has to be done in such a way that the development is viable.
In presenting a number of the amendments relating to the environment it is easy for some of us—we all do this—to look out of our windows and see what we would like to see without thinking about the economic impact that many developments have on those who do not have the advantage of the views that we might enjoy. In looking at this planning legislation we have to see that it provides more wealth and opportunity for many parts of our country which have not yet had those opportunities.
Although I can appreciate the views of noble Lords where there has been intense development over a short period of time, it would be wrong of us to bring forward legislation that might prevent the further development that is so necessary in some parts of the country. Therefore, I cannot support these amendments even though I have considerable sympathy for what they are trying to achieve.
6.45 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my name appears on Amendments Nos. 169 and 177 in this group, and my Amendment No. 189 has also been grouped with these. I follow on with some interest but some puzzlement the noble Lord, Lord Wade. If he is saying that our planning system ought to be geared to give advantage to economic development where that is desirable and compatible with the environment, then I entirely agree with him. But if he draws the conclusion from that that this Bill and other planning legislation should be drawn relatively strictly to confine itself to land use rather than to other economic and environmental issues, then I think he is behind the times. I think that those times have gone.
The planning system that has developed over the past 45 years or so in this country started originally simply as a land-use planning system. I t was based on the concept of zoning, with the theory—at least this was the theory of the Labour Government of 1945 to 1951—that, if you controlled the use of land, that would give you the control that you needed to secure that sustainable development (and I am using words now with hindsight which Lewis Silkin would never have thought of) could take place. I think that planning law has already gone a good way beyond that.
Part 1 of unitary development plans, of structure plans and of local plans already requires local authorities and planning authorities to carry out surveys in which they consider the economic

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characteristics as well as the physical characteristics of the area. It is already a necessary part of our thinking about land-use planning that we should consider the economic effects on the people living in the area. It is a short step from that to take advantage of the environmental pressure which is on all of us, and which is recognised by the Government's White Paper and indeed by policy documents from all the major parties, and to accede to, and agree with, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, in moving Amendment No. 48. Therefore, in a sense, the battle for considering the environment when dealing with planning legislation is already won and we do not need to return to that issue.
I welcome the fact that, in addition, Amendments Nos. 169 and 177 make specific reference to,
"the consumption and distribution of energy and natural resources".
That is a natural concomitant of considering other aspects of the environment and the economy. If we plan the development of our countryside and our cities in such a way as not to take account of energy consumption and the need for energy conservation, we shall only be doing a partial job.
Finally, I turn to Amendment No. 189 which is rightly included in this group. It covers the issues of,
"transport, recreational and social infrastructure",
with the significant addition that this is considered,
"in advance of developments or changes of use of land".
That is an extremely important additional aspect of the use of development plans. In our view, it is essential that we should not be adapting the backwards theory of enterprise zones, and of the Isle of Dogs more generally, to other parts of the country. Much development has been encouraged on the basis that if you allow increases in land value to take priority, then somehow all the other considerations —that is, the social, the physical, the transport infrastructure, and so on—will follow. However, experience of those enterprise zones and urban development corporations which have taken that view and substituted land value planning for land use planning has been, to say the least, unfortunate. What is happening now is that you have to chase after the developers in order to provide the infrastructure. The cost in public money is certainly no less than it otherwise might have been, but the cost involved as a result of disruption and bad planning is very much greater.
I urge the House not only to accept the amendments tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Norrie, and others, but also, with particular force, to accept Amendment No. 189 which calls for the provision of,
"transport, recreational and social infrastructure"
and refers to the need to have those considerations in the right order so as to provide the infrastructure before irrevocable commitments are made to developments which would call into question the need for such infrastructure.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, I do not believe that any of us could object to the heading of the proposed new clause which refers to a "General environmental duty". I support the proposal. However, it seems to me that we are so carried away with environmental issues that we sometimes become slightly mixed up in our views. I am always most concerned when I see sites of special scientific interest and areas of green belt which really seem to me to be landfill sites because they are full of discarded rubbish or have something on them which is so awful that they are nothing but an eyesore. Yet, despite that, there is a blanket attitude which states that such sites are an environmental issue and that therefore no development can be permitted to take place on them. I am very much in favour of keeping our large environmental patches in good condition. However, I also believe that we must take a realistic view in terms of development in relation to such areas. I do hope that that point of view will be considered.
I have another concern in respect of the general duties which are under consideration. It seems to me that, in personal attitudes towards planning law, everything is all right if it is happening in your area, but nothing is all right if it is happening in mine. That is a problem which we must bear in mind. In my view the concept of a general environmental duty is an important one.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I must first apologise to my noble friend Lord Norrie for having missed his introduction to Amendment No. 48. In fact I was attending a meeting in another part of your Lordships' House as I did not expect this very important group of amendments to be dealt with quite so soon. In my opinion we are now dealing with the most important group of amendments which has been put forward at this stage, as indeed was the case in Committee.
After we debated the matter at some length in Committee, my noble friend Lady Blatch kindly suggested that some of us should meet with her and her officials for further discussion. Therefore, along with some officials from the CPRE, several of us attended a meeting with her. I am most grateful to her for the way in which she tried to get as near to us as she could on the matter. However, she was not able to go quite so far as we strongly believe the Government should.
Surely it is acknowledged—even by my noble friend Lord Wade of Chorlton—that one of the main purposes of the planning system is to ensure that consideration is given to the protection of the environment when development takes place. With every year that passes, more and more anxiety is expressed about the conservation of the environment in our beautiful but very overcrowded and rapidly developing country.
It is not as though we are asking for anything extraordinary or indeed new. I say that because, as we pointed out on previous occasions, almost exactly the same words as those proposed were used in the Electricity Act 1957. Moreover, the same words were repeated in the Countryside Act, in the water and electricity privatisation Acts, and in other measures. I

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find it difficult to understand why, when it is such a necessary piece of dovetailing, we should omit this provision from our planning legislation. I support my noble friend Lord Norrie in that I believe there should be a "General environmental duty", as referred to in the Proposed new clause.
I should like briefly to refer to some of the other amendments in this group. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, was very brief in his introduction; indeed, if I could be equally as brief I should be very proud. His amendments cover a good deal of ground. I should like first to refer to Amendment No. 73 which is tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Norrie and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham. The amendment states:
"Where a local planning authority propose to grant planning permission",
under the circumstances referred to,
"they shall ensure, so far as possible"—
that is not an absolute obligation—
"that any authorisation includes such conditions as are required to mitigate any adverse effect which the proposal may have on the natural beauty of the countryside",
and so on. I should like to draw attention to the moderation of the phraseology. It is acknowledged that there may be an "adverse effect" because of the development. The fact that that condition is acknowledged should appeal to my noble friend Lord Wade. The development takes place just the same, but with the condition that the "adverse effect" shall be mitigated. Is that not sensible, reasonable and fair to all concerned?
Perhaps I may now refer to Amendments Nos. 166 to 169 which is a most interesting group of amendments. Here we have tried—I am not sure how successfully—to go in a direction which we hope and believe my noble friend Lady Blatch will welcome.
I note that in Amendment No. 170, which we welcome, my noble friend goes in the same direction. It is fair to say that if that amendment were accepted, Amendment No. 166 would not then be necessary.
Amendments Nos. 177 to 179, which are also amendments to Schedule 3, deal with structure plans and local development plans. I welcome Amendment No. 178. All that my noble friend has omitted is the conservation of energy and natural resources which we ha% e included in our amendment. There is nothing much between us there. We are going some way in the same direction.
As for the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, I agree, and I have nothing to add. Those are famous judicial words. However, I return to the fundamental point, which is made in Amendment No. 48. It is a cause which I hope we shall not lose. There will be grave anxiety if the Government, who are environmentally pretentious and conscious, doing their best, fail to acknowledge that, overall, the planning system must be tested by its effect upon the environment and the other matters
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mentioned in the amendment. I hope that we shall receive a more sympathetic response than we have previously.
7 p.m.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I am suspicious about some of the amendments, especially Amendments Nos. 48, 73, 166 and 179, for the reasons given by my noble friend Lord Wade. I also feel that there is a touch of "nimbyism" in some of the amendments, as was intimated by my noble friend Lady Gardner. I understand what my noble friend Lord Renton is saying about having regard to the environment; but I fear that some of the amendments might merely encourage extreme greenism. "Extreme greenism" (if I may call it that) is counter-productive to the environment and its preservation. I hope that my noble friend will resist the amendments.
Baroness David: My Lords, I support this series of amendments, especially the one tabled by my noble friend Lord McIntosh. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, spoke with great passion about it and I sympathise with him. The anxieties of the three noble Lords opposite who were critical of the amendments are unnecessary. As politicians, we must put our faith in the environment and tell the public that we are going to do something about it. If we do not accept something like this series of amendments, it will be a great shame and will harm us overall.
The Government have gone a considerable way towards meeting the requests made in Committee. I hope that there can be a further meeting in which the matter can be tidied up before Third Reading. I should have thought that that was within the bounds of possibility. There is a meeting of minds and it would not take much to bring them completely together.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, all these amendments deal in one way or another with the protection of the environment and I am aware that noble Lords of all political persuasions, as the noble Baroness, Lady David, has just said, share the Government's desire to see that aim furthered. Our debate today is about the best way in which that can be done. Government Amendments Nos. 170, 178 and 187 are intended to give effect, in a slightly different form, to those put forward in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol. They provide for specific reference to be made in primary legislation to the inclusion of measures for the conservation of the natural beauty and amenity of the land when local planning authorities formulate policies and proposals for unitary development plans, structure plans and local plans.
The amendments honour the undertaking that I gave in Committee to table amendments designed to have substantially the same effect as those proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, and I commend them to noble Lords. I turn now to Amendments Nos. 166, 169, 177, 179 and 188. Like the Government amendments I have just described, that group of amendments deals with the content of development plans. These amendments are superficially attractive,

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but I believe that they are unnecessary, and would tend to confuse rather than clarify the legislative framework for development planning.
Two of them relate to the duty placed on planning authorities by the existing legislation to
"keep under review the matters which may be expected to affect the development of their area or the planning of its development".
That duty, as at present drafted, required authorities to have regard to matters such as the principal physical and economic characteristics of their area; the size, composition and distribution of its population; and the communications, transport system and traffic. There is power for the Secretary of State to add to that list by order.
Those matters are all clearly and directly related to land use. There is an important distinction between the physical and demographic characteristics of an area, with which those surveys are concerned, and matters relating to the consumption and distribution of energy and natural resources. The latter would go much wider.
The same difficulties arise in relation to the content of plans. We want development plans, and the survey work which precedes them, to focus clearly on the development and use of land. The effect of these amendments would be to extend the scope of the plans into issues of conservation and resource management which are not solely land use issues. We do not see structure plans as some form of environmental corporate plan.
I should stress that the Government are not opposed to the underlying thought that planning authorities should have regard to the implications of land use planning policies for the consumption of natural resources and the conservation of energy, but that is an area where responsibilities are much better spelt out by way of guidance rather than in primary legislation. Schedule 3 makes it clear that authorities will be expected to have regard to current national policies in preparing their development plans. It is therefore open to the Secretary of State to issue guidance on matters such as the relationship between land use planning and energy conservation, and require planning authorities to have regard to it.
To give one instance, we have recently launched a major research project with the Department of Transport on the relationship between land use planning, transport patterns and energy consumption. When that research project is completed in the spring of next year, we may well want to issue new policy guidance to planning authorities on the relationship between land use patterns and energy consumption.
There is little if anything between us on the underlying principle, and the objectives which planning authorities should have in mind in preparing their plans. As I have already explained, we have accepted the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, that there should be a specific reference in the legislation to "the natural beauty and amenity of the land"—because that is of direct relevance to policies for land use and development. That is reflected in the
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Government amendments, but, as I said, these amendments, as drafted, go much wider and would tend to blur rather than focus authorities' responsibilities.
Amendment No. 48 has the widest scope of all the amendments in the group. It would require local planning authorities and the Secretary of State to further the conservation, enhancement and protection of a specific range of environmental considerations, so far as is consistent with other duties, before reaching their decisions on planning matters. The Government's view is that the amendment is unnecessary. Further, it is positively undesirable. It would upset the balance that the planning system has to strike between all the aspects of land use which need to be considered whenever my right honourable friend the Secretary of State or local planning authorities exercise their powers under the planning Acts.
A similar amendment was tabled at Committee stage by my noble friends Lord Norrie and Lord Renton. I explained then that the local planning authorities are already required to take into account all the issues mentioned in the amendment. When dealing with planning applications, the authorities must, by virtue of Section 70(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, have regard to the material provisions of the development plan which will include policies on environmental matters and all other material considerations. My noble friends' amendment lists a number of considerations which are frequently material to planning applications. There is already therefore a statutory duty to take them into account.
This general requirement is reinforced by a number of specific provisions. Section 11 of the Countryside Act 1968 requires authorities to,
"have regard to the desirability of conserving the natural beauty and amenity of the countryside".
Department of the Environment Circular 27 of 1987 explains that this covers the conservation of flora, fauna and geological and physiographical features. These issues are therefore already protected.
Similarly, buildings of special architectural or historic interest, conservation areas and ancient monuments are already protected by provisions in the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979. These are supplemented by detailed guidance in Department of the Environment Circular 8 of 1987 and the department's planning policy guidance note 16, which explain how the powers should be used and draw attention to the relevant policy considerations.
The Government are far from resistant to making the planning system greener where this may be done appropriately. Our agreement at Committee stage to the principle of the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Nicol, is evidence of that. Our own policy guidance already gives weight to environmental considerations, and we shall continue to update it to ensure that the latest thinking on these matters is taken into account. As was said in the environment White Paper last September, we intend

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to review all existing planning policy guidance to ensure that it fully reflects the Government's commitment to protect the environment.
This amendment would go much further. It would raise the protection of the natural environment above all other issues. It would mean that a local planning authority or my right honourable friend could approve a development without fear of having the decision overturned only if it or he could show that it would positively enhance the environment. If an otherwise desirable development were likely to damage the natural world, a local planning authority would feel obliged to refuse permission for it. This is an impractical proposition. In the real world, and in planning law as it stands, all the issues must be weighed against each other. Considerable weight must be given to environmental issues. That is clear and accepted. But it would be misconceived to legislate so that conservation should always outweigh any other consideration.
These points were well supported by my noble friends Lord Wade, Lord Stanley and Lady Gardner. My noble friend Lord Renton referred to clauses similar to the one in his amendment which had been included in previous Acts, notably the Electricity Act 1989, and I believe he mentioned the Water Act of 1989.
Lord Renton: The countryside Act.
Baroness Blatch: Yes, the countryside Act.
However, there is a difference. In those cases we were seeking to regulate private concerns, which would otherwise have proposed whatever developments were appropriate in their own best commercial interests. But in this measure we are dealing not with the developer but with the decision-maker. Moreover with a decision-maker which is an elected authority, democratically accountable, with statutory duties under the planning Acts. We are not seeking to impose restraint but to ensure balance. That is a different situation.
Lord Renton: My Lords, before the noble Baroness continues, if she is inclined to rely upon what has gone before and is making a distinction from it, she should bear in mind that the same provisions exist in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Agriculture Act 1986. It cannot be said that those were merely imposing obligations on the private interests or on, for example, quangos. They were of general application.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I referred to the recent privatisation measures, but I take the point that my noble friend makes. Again, the distinction is that those duties put on the organisations mentioned by my noble friend involve a primary duty. The Countryside Commission, for example, has a primary duty to concern itself with the environment as it affects the countryside. The same applies to the other organisations. Here we are discussing planning authorities dealing with planning applications from a whole range of people which have to take into account and balance social, economic and environmental factors. The only
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point that divides us concerns giving supremacy to environmental factors over and above any other consideration. The efforts and commitment of the Government to making sure that this world is a better place as a result of the planning measures is, I hope, beyond doubt.
I wish to inform the House of the views of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Noble Lords will know that this is not an organisation populated by ruthless developers. The institute generally takes a keen interest in promoting the protection of the environment. However, in a recent letter to my department it states:
"In the Institute's view it would be wholly inequitable to place protection of the existing and natural environment above concerns relating to the human environment. To do so would produce a planning system whose overriding purpose was to resist change. The planning system should, however, be concerned to assess the needs for development along with the case for protection and conservation in reaching decisions that best reflect society's competing and conflicting demands on the use of land.
The Institute would therefore encourage the Department not to seek to place such an overriding and narrow environmental duty on planning authorities. Rather authorities should be advised that such concerns must be considered along with the wider social and economic issues. As indicated by Baroness Blatch this approach is best promoted through planning policy guidance rather than seeking to impose an overriding environmental duty".
At Committee stage I undertook to consider this topic further in discussion with my noble friends. They met me and we had a useful talk although we agreed to disagree on the point. My officials have also canvassed the views of a number of responsible organisations. We have found one body, the Association of District Councils, whose official supported my noble friend's amendment, in addition of course to the CPRE. But I have a list of organisations—as well as the RTPI—whose representatives opposed a general environmental duty: the RICS, the CBI, the Housebuilders' Federation, the District Planning Officers' Society, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities and the Association of County Councils. These are reputable, responsible bodies with much experience of the planning system.
I understand and sympathise with the objectives of my noble friends who have tabled this amendment. If it were necessary or appropriate I should support it, but the fact remains that it is neither of those things. It would introduce a wholly undesirable imbalance into the considerations that local planning authorities and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State have to take into account, and could very well present a major obstruction to necessary and desirable development. I therefore hope that my noble friends will agree to withdraw Amendment No. 48.
Amendment No. 73 would require local planning authorities, when granting planning permission, to impose conditions mitigating the effect of a development on the environment. This amendment is open to similar objections to those which I described in relation to Amendment No. 48. It would give too much weight to one element of the planning system, albeit an important one, perhaps at the expense of others.

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The Government's general policy on the use of conditions is that they should be imposed only where they are both necessary and reasonable, as well as enforceable, precise and relevant to planning and to the development to be permitted. More specific advice on the use of conditions is given in the Department of the Environment's Circular 27 of 1987. This says:
"In some cases, it may be desirable to attach to a planning permission any conditions which are necessary to minimise the impact on wildlife or physical features; it is particularly important to take steps necessary to prevent valuable geological formations which are important for education and research from being obscured by dumping or tipping, or where they appear as coastal outcrops, if possible from the effects of damage by coastal protection schemes".
The Government have already gone some way to address the issues that concern the noble Lords. However, if we went as far as the noble Lords wished, we would put the whole system out of kilter. I hope that this amendment will not be sustained.
I now turn to Amendment No. 189. There is, I believe, little between us on the policy—the need for development plans to take fully into account the implications which they have for investment in infrastructure. I entirely agree that it is most unsatisfactory if this planning is not done, and development takes place without adequate roads, schools or whatever. The planning authority should have regard to the likely availability of resources in drawing up its proposals, and plans should take account of the policies of the various implementing agencies. Local planning authorities should ensure that, when preparing and reviewing plans, there is sufficient consultation with providers of infrastructure. This will enable the suppliers of infrastructure to take account of the likely future scale and location of new development in drawing up their investment strategies. I agree with the noble Lord that the more these issues are sorted out at the stage of preparing the local plan, the less likely it is that they will prove contentious when individual development proposals come forward.
Our disagreement with the noble Lord is really on the technicality of whether it is right and appropriate to add these rather specific words to what is otherwise a very general description of the content of a local plan. If this particular matter is to be mentioned why should we not mention others, for instance, land for industrial use, shopping centres or open space?
All of these matters are already addressed in guidance issued by the Secretary of State to authorities in drawing up their development plan policies and proposals. We consider that it would not be appropriate for the current broad definition of a local plan in new Section 36 to become a long list of matters to be included in a plan. We agree on the policy, but we consider that the point made in this amendment is a matter for the Secretary of State's guidance to local authorities on the content of their local plans. In the light of my explanation, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
I apologise for the length of my remarks on this group of amendments. But to sum up, I want to stress
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to your Lordships that the Government will continue to listen carefully to all proposals for the protection of the environment. Wherever possible we shall accept them, as we have done in proposing the Government amendments in the group. However, I am afraid that, although we understand and sympathise with the other amendments, we do not believe that they fit workably with the principles of English planning law. I therefore hope that noble Lords will not press them.
Baroness David: My Lords, I should have said that, in the absence of my noble friend Lady Nicol, I wish to thank the Minister for tabling Amendments Nos. 170, 178 and 187. I know that my noble friend Lady Nicol would wish me to thank the Minister for tabling those amendments.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, we have discussed this group of amendments for some 44 minutes. I am grateful to my noble friend for taking so much time and trouble in replying to the amendments. However, I am slightly disappointed in that I cannot discern any changes in the position at the moment. We shall read Hansard and perhaps my noble friend will be prepared to discuss the matter with us again before the next stage. The prime movers of the amendment may wish to return to the matter at a later stage of the Bill. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned until 8.30 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Ministerial and Other Pensions and Salaries Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.
[The Sitting was suspended from 7.23 to 8.30 p.m.]

Planning and Compensation Bill [H.L.]
Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
Lord Moran Lord Moran moved Amendment No. 48A:
After Clause 11, insert the following new clause:
"Meaning of development: fish farming in England and Wales
. After section 55(3) (b) of the principal Act (meaning of "development" and "new development") there is inserted—
"(c) the use of any buildings or other land or the carrying out of building, engineering or other operations in, on, over, or under land for the purposes of breeding or rearing fish or shellfish is not development for the purposes of agriculture, and in this paragraph "land" includes any land covered by water and extending seawards to the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured."").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 48A which deals with fish farming in England and Wales I should also like to speak to Amendment No. 58A which deals with fish farming in Scotland.
At Committee stage a number of noble Lords expressed a wish to see greater control over fish

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farming, reflecting a widespread desire by many of the bodies concerned outside this House. The response of the Government was disappointing. They have not so far been prepared to go further than to say that building or engineering works for the purposes of fish farming within national parks should cease to enjoy permitted development rights. They have not been prepared to contemplate a similar extension of control outside the national parks—although I believe that that already applies throughout Scotland—the bringing of the use of buildings or land for fish farming itself within planning control, or the extension of planning control into coastal waters.
The amendments are designed to bring the use itself in inland or coastal waters within the definition of development. I should also like to see the permitted development rights for structures and buildings withdrawn outside as well as inside national parks. I understand that that would not involve any amendment to the primary legislation; merely a revision of the general development order.
The amendments are intended to cover the main points about fish farming raised at previous stages of the Bill. They apply both to fin fish farming—for example, salmon and trout farms—and to shellfish culture. They would apply to put-and-take shell fisheries in estuaries, for example, new proposals for oyster beds, mussel rafts or racks for culturing the alien Manila clam. They would not apply to traditional fishing of naturally occurring stocks.
The amendments are intended to apply to floating structures such as rafts and cages typical of certain operations. Those are the structures over land referred to in the amendment. The land in question is taken to include land covered by water as defined in Schedule 1 of the Interpretation Act 1978. The definition of land is further qualified so as to include land covered by internal waters, namely land in marine areas out to the baselines from which the territorial sea is drawn. Those thoroughly practical lines follow the low watermark along most open coasts. Moreover, in embayments, firths, inlets and estuaries baselines are drawn from point to point between headlands. Those are the areas—our bays, lochs and estuaries—where fish farming proposals are so controversial in environmental terms.
At an earlier stage of the Bill (at col. 1366 of Hansard for 17th January) the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, expressed the Government's view that a similar amendment would alter the longstanding definition of agriculture. What is wrong with altering a longstanding definition in law? It is surely the business of this House and of the legislature as a whole to alter definitions in law if that is appropriate whether or not they are longstanding.
It is a mistake to regard the culture of captive fish or shellfish as agriculture. The Oxford Dictionary defines agriculture as the science or practice of cultivating the soil or rearing animals. It defines aquaculture as the cultivation of plants or breeding of animal, in water. That is what fish farming is.
I was surprised that the Government suggested at an earlier stage of the Bill that there was insufficient evidence of difficulties to warrant the across-the-board
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introduction of planning controls over fish farming, as the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate said on 29th January (at col. 649 of Hansard). All fish farms create water pollution problems and the risk of pathogens or parasites affecting wild fish populations. There are rivers and freshwater lakes where they are certainly unwelcome in environmental terms. That last point has already been partially conceded by the Government in their acceptance of the recommendation of the Agriculture Select Committee in another place that permitted development rights for fish farming in national parks should be withdrawn.
The amendments seek to withdraw that right across the board. That is a course which is fully supported in England and Wales by the Association of County Councils, the National Rivers Authority, the County Planning Officers Society and the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. The amendments simply give planning authorities the right to consider individual proposals.
In the case of Scotland, covered by Amendment No. 58A, objections to the recent large number of salmon farming ventures have included intrusion into areas valued for their landscape quality, seabed pollution with waste food and fecal material, chemical pollution, the escape of farmed fish spoiling the quality of local rod fisheries and causing genetic pollution of wild stock (a matter about which the Atlantic Salmon Trust is extremely worried because the escaped fish interbreed with wild fish) and the adverse impact on public highways.
The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has called for full planning control over all aspects of fish farming. That call is backed by Scottish Wildlife and Countryside Link which represents all the principal voluntary wildlife conservation bodies in Scotland and by the Atlantic Salmon Trust.
It is not enough for the Government to suggest that consultation procedures have been tightened up by the Crown Estate Commissioners in respect of seabed leases for coastal fish farms. The time has surely come for the full measure of town and country planning legislation to apply both above and below the low water mark and in respect of floating structures.
There is a further point that I should like to mention, of which I have given the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate notice. The Atlantic Salmon Trust was surprised to see the noble and learned Lord's statement in this House on 29th January (at col. 651 of Hansard). He said that he was clarifying the position in Scotland about freshwater fish farms and planning. As the trust understand it, that is not the situation because it was sent a consultative document on the 13th December (PGB/3/6). Appendix B, page 2, paragraph 10 seems to suggest that freshwater fish farms are covered in Scotland. That is an area about which there appears to be confusion. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate will be able to clear up the matter.
On the wildlife aspect, floating mussel rafts can be located in areas where they are a positive invitation to large numbers of eider duck, which is a protected species. That causes problems. Seeded oyster beds on

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or about dead low water and adjacent to sites of special scientific interest can also create ecological problems. I am told that there have been considerable problems about whether and by whom these activities are regulated. The harbour commissioners say that it has nothing to do with them. They say, "Have a word with the MAFF fishery people". MAFF and DAFS say that it is not a matter for their offices but the operation is authorised by the Sea Fisheries Committee and the Crown Estate Commissioners. The Sea Fisheries Committee says that it is ultra vires on nature conservation grounds to refuse authority for any new put-and-take clam enterprise and the Crown Estate Commissioners say that they have an overriding duty to maximise rental incomes from sea bed leases.
All that points to the overriding need to have proper planning control over the multifarious enterprises of fish farming. That is precisely what the two amendments tabled in my name and the name of the noble Baroness, Lady David, seek to do. I beg to move.
8.45 p.m.
Baroness David: My Lords, my name is on the amendment and I should like to support it wholeheartedly. The RSPB has been in favour of these amendments. The CPRE is also strongly in favour and the ACC, which gave a rather ambiguous briefing at Committee stage, has now decided that it became completely muddled about the whole issue and is totally in favour of planning controls over fish farms.
The noble Lord, Lord Moran, put the case extremely well and I agree with everything that he said. He mentioned the adverse impact on public highways. I certainly can tell the House of a personal experience that I had in Scotland. I was going along one of the single track roads in Argyll. There was an appalling smell and I could not imagine where it was coming from. We stopped, looked in the boot of the car to see whether there was some dead animal or fish there. Not at all. We went a little farther along the road and suddenly saw a quantity of dead salmon lying at the side of the road. We had been following a truck which was taking dead fish from one of the fish farms. The net that was supposed to encase them had not quite done so and some of the fish had slipped out. It was a real public health hazard.
I strongly believe that there should be planning laws which control the location of such farms. I understand now that in fact far too many of them have arrived on the scene and that they are quite a hazard. There is a danger of fish escaping and mixing with the wild salmon, so spoiling the pure breed or whatever it is called. I hope that this time the Minister will not give the rather unsatisfactory answer that we had last time and that he can tell us something rather more positive.
The Earl of Radnor: My Lords, I should like to take a completely opposite line to that taken by those who propose this amendment. I must confess my interest as, I hope, an environmentally friendly fish farmer. I came to your Lordships' House around 1970. Since then in various enactments fish have been designated
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as agricultural or farm animals and fish farms as farms —under a rating Bill in point of fact. Until now there has been a gradual and steady move towards fish farming being accepted as farming. Whatever the noble Lord, Lord Moran, says, suddenly to turn all that on its head would seem to be completely illogical.
There are many points that I should like to cover. I shall be as brief as I can. First, there is pollution. I must admit straightaway that I cannot speak too much about fish farming or salmon farms in Scotland. I can only tell the noble Baroness the story when I first started fish farming 22 years ago. On the whole fish die in large quantities when they are very small. One day I complained that there was a fraction of a bucketful of little fellows and my manager said, "Well, my Lord, if you kept 2½ million racehorses, surely you would expect to find a few dead ones every morning". That is a fact of life, which goes right through farming and looking after stock.
However, we undergo strict controls from the NRA. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Crickhowell is not in his place because I should have been interested to hear what he said about planning and whether in fact he was as keen as the noble Lord opposite said. The NRA imposes very stringent rules, both quantitative and qualitative, which cover incoming and outgoing water. So much so that in talking of inland farms I would say that it is improbable that there could be many more inland trout farms in England. Therefore perhaps noble Lords are beating against something that does not exist.
So far as concerns the salmon farms in Scotland, I should like to tell another tale. I was up at Artaunish three or four years ago and I visited my first and in fact only cage farm. I walked on to the place, said that I was a fish farmer, that I had never seen a salmon farm and asked if I could look round. I was very impressed. It seemed to be very well run. I had come from Committee D (or some such committee) and said, "This is not very popular down in the department; nor is forestry". The manager said, "That is most unfortunate because those are the only two things that there are to do here".
The point that I am trying to make is that there are other values as well as environmental ones. After all, people are part of the environment. In point of fact the fish farming enterprise in Scotland is considered by the Highlands and Islands Development Board as one of the jewels in its crown.
I revert to the inland farms and personalise the matter by speaking of my own farm—again, I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Crickhowell is not present. Like some people I like to boast that mine is the largest farm on one site in the whole of the British Isles; but I do not think it is true. I have been under a microscope for 22 years, especially recently. I have developed and learned and I believe that I have an extremely clean farm. Every so many weeks—every fortnight I think—I am tested in the way that has been described. I can tell noble Lords that about 50 per cent. of the time I send away the river cleaner than it came in. I am talking of suspended solids, which is the

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visual sight of dirtiness. I believe that on three occasions I sent it on with more oxygen, which is remarkable.
Now that we have all begun to be told to have air-lines, oxygenation plants and so on, digital count-outs of flow can be taken every second whenever the person comes round to look at the farm. I do not think that we want to go away with the idea that Nye are filthying up the rivers of England. My stretch of the Hampshire Avon is sometimes better than it is at its source.
It is a small but successful industry. There are about 700 inland trout farms in England and Scotland. To put those farms under the constraints suggested—I anticipate a small number would be involved—will kill any further development in this area. Although a small industry, one has to consider the gross domestic product. Every little counts, especially these days. Diversification of farming and country enterprises has been pushed very hard.
There is little more to say. I have made my points. I sincerely hope that the amendment will be resisted. The second speech that I made in your Lordships' Chamber was in a Wednesday debate. The debate about fish farming was led by Lady Emmet of Amberley. In those days fish farming was everyone's favourite subject; we were cheered almost to the echo. I made the point then that not only is the fish a small animal, which therefore requires a small packing station, and buildings which are relatively unobtrusive, but also they are virtually below ground level. In order to view my fish farm I indulge in expensive aerial photography. I take a number of parties around my fish farm. I show such photographs to those people because if one walks around one cannot view the fish farm. Why does one need planning for something that one cannot see? It seems a little ridiculous. I hope my noble friend will not agree to the amendment.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I speak in favour of the Atlantis, salmon. It must be one of God's most athletic creatures. It swims hundreds of miles through the Atlantic from its native river to the waters surrounding Iceland and back again to its native river. If one puts that creature in a cage, violently disrupting its natural way of life, one will set in train unforeseen problems. I welcome every possible measure of control on this unnatural exercise. I support the amendment.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, before my noble friend answers, as I said at Committee, I am not sure what the noble Lord, Lord Moran, intends to achieve I cannot see that his amendment will achieve anything other than what is already achieved by the regulations now in force.
I speak now to the noble Baroness, Lady David. The amendment would not resolve the problem of the dead fish which no doubt she saw on the road to Artaunish.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I doubt whether there is a fishing hotel in Scotland where the difficult problem of the genetic strain of the Atlantic salmon being damaged by possible interbreeding with salmon which have escaped from fish farms is not
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discussed lightly. I have no expertise. I cannot say to what extent that extraordinary genetic strain which allows salmon to move from Greenland waters to the rivers of Scotland will be altered. However, whatever may be the truth of the matter, it seems a little beyond the planning issues which confront us in the Bill.
Amendment No. 48A seeks in effect to establish full planning control over inland and marine fish farming in England and Wales. The operative wording is the same as Amendment No. 58A, which concerns fish farming in Scotland. In effect it raises four issues: permitted development rights; floating structures in inland waters, such as tanks and cages; the use of land for fish farming; and marine fish farming.
In Scotland, as I believe those who have already contributed to the debate will appreciate, there are no permitted development rights for fish farming. In England and Wales the Government have already announced that they will withdraw permitted development rights for fish farming in the national parks. I appreciate that the noble Lord feels that that decision does not go far enough. However, as I indicated when the matter was last discussed—and the noble Lord seems very familiar with the issue—the Agriculture Select Committee in another place, following its detailed study of fish farming last year, recommended greater planning control in the national parks but did not recommend that it should be extended elsewhere. It noted in its report that,
"Almost all controversial fish farming developments in England and Wales have taken place in national parks".
It concluded that,
"outside national parks, no further controls are required at this stage".
I can only repeat that the Government agree with that conclusion. Like the Select Committee, we are not aware of any evidence that would justify changes to the planning regime outside national parks. However, if we are wrong on that matter, and if the Government should at some time in the future come to a different conclusion and decide that there should be an extension of such controls, I emphasise to the noble Lord that permitted development rights could be withdrawn by means of secondary legislation. Thus it is not critical that this matter be addressed at this time when we are dealing with primary legislation.
Floating structures—which are widely used in fish farming activities—would normally be exempt from planning control both in England, Wales and Scotland, being simply attached to the land by a mooring rope or chain. Floating structures which involve an engineering operation to fix them to the land are subject to planning control. It was on that matter that the Atlantic Salmon Trust considered that what I stated previously was confusing and far from clarified the position. The position is clear although it may not be satisfactory enough for those concerned with the point.
We have given further consideration to the topic. We recognise that floating fish tanks and cages can have a considerable visual impact. For that reason we are minded to introduce an amendment to the Bill at a later stage to bring them within the definition of

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development where they are not already within it. As I indicated, in some circumstances they undoubtedly will be. We envisage introducing permitted development rights in England and Wales outside national parks at the same time. Thus floating fish tanks and cages in Scotland and the national parks would be subject to full planning control.
The third issue raised by Amendment No. 48A is the use of land for fish farming. Section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 excludes "the use of land for the purposes of agriculture" from the definition of development. Hence the use of land for keeping fish intended for human consumption does not come within the scope of development. Withdrawing permitted development rights for fish farming in national parks, and bringing floating tanks and cages there within the definition of development, would for practical purposes achieve a similar result there to that which the amendment seeks in relation to the use of land.
Amendment No. 48A also concerns marine fish farming. Noble Lords and noble Baronesses who have contributed to the debate will appreciate that when we speak of marine fish farming we are almost entirely addressing a Scottish issue. The amendment appears to follow from one put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Ross, at Committee stage. As I explained then, the Government agreed with the Agriculture Select Committee in another place in promoting an evolutionary approach to marine fish farming. I explained the improvements made in the Crown estate commissioners consultation procedures. I appreciate that that improvement is considered to be as yet insufficient. Nevertheless there have been those improvements. As I also explained there has been an advisory committee set up to advise on contentious cases.
Marine fish farming in Scotland is not an uncontrolled industry. The Scottish Department of Agriculture and Fisheries has a statutory responsibility under the Diseases of Fish Acts of 1937 and 1983. For example, navigational consents must be sought from the Department of Transport. As a commissioner of Northern Lights I am aware that they are not always so well observed by fish farms. Nevertheless, controls are in place which ought to be observed. Vocational control is exercised by the Crown Estate Commissioners with the improvements in its procedures that I have outlined.
Further controls under the planning system would place a significant new burden on local authorities which do not have the relevant expertise. That would impose a further consent procedure on the developer. As I have emphasised, we would prefer an evolutionary approach. Against that background we do not consider that anything further is required. We shall be withdrawing permitted development rights for fish farming in national parks and have in mind action on floating structures.
I appreciate that this debate is important. As was indicated by my noble friend Lord Radnor, perhaps speaking from a lonely position, there are differing views on what must be introduced to achieve the right
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balance. However, I hope that, in view of my comments, noble Lords who moved the amendments will consider that they can be withdrawn.
9 p.m.
Lord Moran: My Lords, I shall first comment on the points raised by the noble Earl, Lord Radnor. He spoke as though we were proposing to shut down fish farming. That is far from the truth. He said that the industry might be killed should my amendments be accepted. That is far from what I had in mind. Fish farming is important in many parts of the country, notably in Scotland. It plays an important part in the economy and provides employment in areas where there is little other work to be found. In tabling the amendments we suggest only that fish farming enterprises should be subjected to the scrutiny of the planning procedure. After all, there is in that procedure a presumption in favour of developments. If the amendments were accepted there would be no danger of killing off the industry.
The noble Lord, Lord Stanley, asked what the amendments sought to do. Earlier I tried to explain their purpose. It is an effort to achieve a tidy and comprehensive scheme for putting all forms of fish farming under the scrutiny of the planning mechanism. The noble Lord suggested that existing regulation was satisfactory but I gave examples of the confusion that is encountered by those concerned. I suggested that the regulation is in a muddle and that it is desirable that it should be tidied up.
I am grateful to the Minister for his comments. I regret that he is unable to accept what I believed to be a tidy and clean-cut solution to the problem. However, I am encouraged by his remarks that some of the problems might be addressed by secondary legislation and that others might be addressed by an amendment to be brought forward by the Government.
As regards the genetic point that the Minister made about wild salmon, I must point out that scientists have discovered that there is a different genetic strain in almost every river. In some cases there are two or three genetic strains in the same river but running up different tributaries. The problem that has interested many of us who are interested in Atlantic salmon has been the escape of farmed fish which interbreed with wild salmon, as has been shown by experiments and observations. That may cause a corruption of the genetic purity of those strains which have existed for millions of years and it may land us with irreversible problems.
I am grateful to the Minister for the care with which he considered the two amendments. In the light of his remarks it is desirable that we should withdraw them and I beg leave to do so.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 36 [Rights of entry]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 49 to 54:
Page 46, line 33, at end insert ("or any other land").
Page 46, line 36, at end insert ("in relation to the land or any other land").

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Page 46, line 38, at end insert ("in relation to the land or any other land").
Page 46, line 41, at end insert ("in relation to the land or any other land").
Page 46, line 42, leave out ("the land then").
Page 46, line 47, leave out ("in respect of the land") and insert ("in relation to the land or any other land, if there are reasonable grounds for entering for that purpose.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, these amendments were spoken to with Amendment No. 56. I beg to move.
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 55:
Page 47, line 8, leave out ("justice of the peace") and insert ("Sheriff").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, apologises to the House for his absence. On his behalf I wish to move Amendment No. 55 and speak to Amendments Nos. 56, 118, 119, 157 and 158. Their meaning is self-evident and their significance is obvious. I understand that the Government are minded to accept them and I hope that that will be sufficient to persuade your Lordships to accept them. I beg to move.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for moving the amendments in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael. They are intended to provide an additional safeguard for those in respect of whose land a warrant granting a right of entry is sought. We have given careful consideration to the matter, which has been discussed with the Law Society of Scotland. We have concluded that there is merit in the argument advanced in the amendments. While I do not accept them, I undertake to bring forward government amendments on Third Reading so that warrants may be obtainable in Scotland only from the sheriff and not from justices. I hope that, with that undertaking, the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am happy to do that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 56 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 57 and 58:
Page 47, line 47, leave out ("person") and insert ("authority").
Page 47, line 47, at end insert ("or, as the case may be, the Secretary of State").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendments Nos. 58A and 59 not moved.]
Clause 12 [Planning obligations]:
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 60:
Page 19, line 17, leave out ("or otherwise") and insert ("with the authority").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, this amendment refers to the vexed question of planning gain—the old Section 52 or the new Section 106. As was made clear in Committee, on this side of the House we have very strong objections to this aspect of
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the clause for two broad sweeps of reasons. First, by introducing unilateral planning obligations in place of the old negotiating agreements, this clause will reduce local authorities' negotiating strength. On the one hand, developers can offer too little community gain to offset the disadvantages of, for example, noise or traffic congestion. Equally, developers can offer too much in the hope of speedily buying a planning consent. After all, planning gain is sometimes pressed on local authorities and is not always extracted by them.
The second objection is that local authorities must enforce planning undertakings to which they are not party, which they may not want and which their community may not need. For example, developers may offer open space which may not be necessary if the area is already well endowed with open space and which in any event would generate additional maintenance costs for local authorities. I do not believe that it is acceptable to say that that could be required by the Secretary of State as a lump sum deposit for future maintenance needs. Alternatively, a developer may offer additional car parking which the local authority may not want because of the traffic implications. It would prefer perhaps a subway to link a retail development through to a high street as a more suitable planning gain for the community.
At present the new Section 106s are about negotiation and trade. I suggest that local authorities —certainly not developers or the Secretary of State —are in a position to judge what is in the best interests of the local community and what it can afford. All local authority associations, including the Conservative-led Association of County Councils and the Association of District Councils, are opposed to this clause, as are the National Housing and Town Planning Council and all the voluntary organisations of which I am aware.
Although I suspect that the Minister is too courteous to do so, she may say, "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" However, if local authorities can be trusted with development plans without recourse to the Secretary of State and if the Minister—and I quote an earlier comment from her—wishes them to possess more stringent enforcement powers on the one hand and to exercise greater discretion on planning on the other, why should it be assumed that those same local authorities are not appropriate guardians of the public interest as regards planning agreements?
On this side, we insist that the clause tilts the balance too far in favour of the developer's interest. We hope that our amendment rectifies that imbalance. I ask noble Lords to remember that this is not about a private battle between a developer on the one hand and a local authority on the other but about a developer on the one hand—a private interest—and a local authority as trustee for its community's well being on the other.
Of course developers favour unilateral planning obligations. Perhaps I may say, "They would, wouldn't they?" However, their arguments are worth looking at more closely because in Committee the major argument of the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, in

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favour of unilateral planning obligations was that he thought that they may overcome delay in the planning process. I believe that this was his sole argument adduced in support of the Minister's position.
The noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, rightly complained that only between 55 per cent. and 65 per cent. of applications are dealt with by local authorities in less than eight weeks. He complained, again rightly, of the 30 weeks plus which it takes on average for the DoE to turn round an appeal. However, I emphasise to your Lordships that those delays, regrettable though they are, are not occasioned by the failure to reach agreement under Section 106. For example, if one looks at the percentage of permissions granted in local authorities, the highest percentage is usually for offices, factories and commercial developments and the lowest, which therefore generates appeals, is for residential development, usually, though not always, because the developer is proposing housing which is too intensive for the site.
Many of the applications on which local authorities fail to determine within eight weeks are those offering planning gain. Certainly the planning gain applications tend to be those that take longer than eight weeks precisely because they are the large, complex and substantial developments which generate the planning gain and which by definition require elaborate consultation with a whole range of interested parties. That cannot properly and faithfully be carried through in the eight-week period. Your Lordships will recall that that was an issue raised in Committee when we discussed twin tracking. Delays are occurring within local authorities, primarily due to the growing pressure on their workload caused by appeals at a time when they are constrained by financial resources and cannot appoint more staff. However, I remind the House that the real delays in the planning process occur within the Department of the Environment.
In my own authority in Norwich, I was checking the figures. Last year the Department of the Environment took 23 weeks to turn around all appeals, written as well as oral. This year that period has slipped to 28 weeks. That is a far greater deterioration in the service than anything the local authority is offering to developers within our community. The national average is higher still. It is 30 weeks plus, though I understand that perhaps 20 weeks of that may be due to difficulty in finding inquiry dates.
If the Secretary of State is given a further function —that is, the determination of unilateral obligations —the workload, and therefore the delays at the DoE end, will mount. It is at the DoE end that the largest bottlenecks are already being experienced. The number of appeals is rising by 30 per cent. a year. It will rise faster still with the inducement offered to developers to side-step negotiated agreements and go for a "take it or leave it" unilateral agreement. Is that what the Minister wants?
I emphasise that provisions such as Section 52 or the new Section 106 are not the source of delays, and
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therefore that that argument is not valid. There is little evidence of abuse by recalcitrant local authorities failing to meet a developer's reasonable bargaining position. In those rare circumstances where there may be a recalcitrant local authority, the existing formulation available to the Secretary of State that he is "minded to allow" is the effective way forward, and we should build on that. We would willingly, with the local authority associations, discuss that with the Minister if she were so minded.
At Committee stage the Minister said that the clause,
"was not a developer's charter but rather a mechanism to enable a log jam to be broken".
I contest that. It is a developer's charter. It is not the cause of the local authority log jam. It will add to the DoE log jam, which is where the delays in the appeal process and the delays to developers already occur. We need an escalating process. We do not need a "take it or leave it" agreement, but a way in which, at a reasonable point in time, should planning negotiations have broken down, the unilateral agreement may come in as a last resort. It should not be a parallel alternative for developers to use and abuse the planning system.
I have been referring to Amendment No. 60. Perhaps the House will allow me to speak briefly to Amendment No. 65. It suggests that if the Government are not minded to accept our amendment —and I hope that they will reconsider their views on that—given unilateral planning obligations and therefore that local authorities are unable properly to protect the public interest (which is what Clause 12 signals), then it is important to increase the rights of other interested parties who may and should be stakeholders in the decision.
Amendment No. 65 proposes a register of planning obligations and ensures that those planning obligations run with the land. That amendment at least may soften some of the worst effects of Clause 12 as it stands unamended. I beg to move.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, has made a very good case against unilateral obligations. However, she has not finally convinced me. I realise that a vast body of opinion —the local authorities, the AMA, the ADC, the Countryside Commission and CPRE, among others—do not like the idea that in certain—I believe limited—circumstances, the Secretary of State can overrule the local planning authority.
The problem is that I have been a practitioner. I was a chartered surveyor and in 1966 was involved in the Isle of Wight with a substantial property company attempting to bring some sense into a redevelopment in the centre of Newport. The opposition from the local shopkeepers at the time was staggering. Amazing things were said and the whole project fell apart. Twenty-five years later the people of Newport are asking why it was not proceeded with that at the time; it would have solved many of our traffic problems.
More recently, when I left the other place, I returned to the island at the advanced age of over 60

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and set up a commercial department because I was so anxious to attract investment into the island from substantial developers. There were always the kind of cheapjack people who would buy a small piece of land, try to secure planning consent, then sell it off, but they are no good to anybody. There was an opportunity at that time to bring in one or two of the much larger property companies which were interested in doing something about updating the leisure facilities and some of the shopping facilities and amenities of that sort. It is impossible to describe the ridiculous opposition that was aroused. I have to say that it came from a Tory authority. It did not want the company to go into Newport; it wanted it to go into Ryde.
There is no question that the public desperately wanted a competitor supermarket. The debate revolved around the old cattle market site. Fortunately, the company, which was a subsidiary of P&O, stuck to its guns. The result has been that the football club now has a new ground, a new stand, a practice ground and £150,000 in the bank. The local church has a new church hall, and there is a Safeway supermarket with a petrol station, which has had a great effect on the price of petrol in that part of the island. Everybody thinks it is marvellous. However, that scheme did not go through because the local authority wanted it but because in the end the authority was forced to let it through. In the end it sacked the chief executive, who had done all the work, and sacked his successor too.
At one time that property company was going to pull out. I think there would have been a fallback situation if the company could have gone to the Minister and said "We can show"—and we fought an election on this particular issue, and we won. I am not trying to be party political. I have to say that the local authority, which was run by some of my own people, was not very bright or supportive either. I could tell many stories, but perhaps I should not. I have a great regard for Tesco's and Mr. McLauren, who helped me enormously in a battle I had in trying to bring down petrol prices by 20p a gallon. I guaranteed to him that it would go through the local authority, which was Liberal controlled. It went through by one vote. I was on tenterhooks over that.
There are unfortunate cases. I entirely agree that this is a last-ditch fallback position, and matters should not get to that state. The Minister is nodding her head. I totally support Amendment No. 65, and I have certain amendments coming up which are on the same lines. However, I have seen perfectly good property companies turned away. We could have had a Marks and Spencer in the Isle of Wight. They were coming, but they are not there now and they will not come, all because of stupidity. Therefore, a fallback is needed.
I am a great supporter of local government. I believe that we have to reconstruct local government. There will be a debate on that next week. If we can get local planning back to what I believe it should be—I have raised this on a number of occasions in this House—I am totally with the noble Baroness. I want to see Birmingham, Southampton, Portsmouth, important cities, taking their own decisions. I do not
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want them to have to ask the Secretary of State or central government to make up their minds for them. I want to see a complete rejuvenation of local government. This Government is responsible for the appalling state that local government is now in. Nobody in his right mind who is any good wants to serve on a local authority these days because local government has no power to do anything and it cannot spend any money. New councillors join with the best ideas and go away disillusioned after four years. I think the noble Lord, Lord Dean, might half agree with me about that. You get these Poujadist types who dictate to the planning officer what he shall say or do. Some of those officers have had a very rough time over the past four years.
I am sorry to delay the House, but I see this provision, which I have been attacked for supporting, as a necessary fallback situation. However, I want it to be clearly explained that it is purely a fallback. It must be clearly demonstrated that there is public support for what the development company has in mind and that it is really as a result of bloody-mindedness on the part of the local authority that it is not going ahead.
Local authorities cannot force development companies to go where they do not want to go. They will not go where there is no return for them. Certainly, in the constituency which I represented it was extremely difficult to get investment and, when it came from the right source, it was very important that it should be used in the right place. It is tragic, because a large number of ridiculous schemes were promoted three or four years ago, all of which have gone up the spout and the firms have gone bust. We have only rarely got the kind of development company with backing behind it which is so desperately needed. I am sure the Minister will appreciate that if such cases fall to him to decide. I believe that the measure is right and I support it, but I cannot support Amendment No. 60.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, I cannot follow the Isle of Wight saga. I have to be very careful not to rehearse matters in your Lordships' House which I have dealt with professionally. Nevertheless, there is a generality here that I can discuss. Had this amendment been moved not by the noble Baroness from Norwich —a city which is wholly blameless in this matter—but by her noble friend front the Greater London Council, she would know that since 1974 there have been powers to enter into unilateral declarations under Section 16 of the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act of that year.
My views about this amendment are very mixed. I have read the discussion paper and the debate in Committee in this House. I see that there can be situations where planning gain is put forward and rehearsed unilaterally, if necessary at appeal, so that the developer promises things which otherwise would not be obtainable. The difficulty is that one has to go back to the roots of this piece of legislation. I shall not go on for very long. Your Lordships will not remember that the whole matter started in Leicester Square with the enforceability of negative covenants which ran with the land. That was then picked up by pre-war planning legislation and it has been with us

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ever since. It was contained in Section 37 of the 1947 Act: it then became Section 52 when the legislation was consolidated. Then, in addition to the negative covenants which ran with the land—namely, "thou shalt not do this or that"—there were added provisions which enabled people to enter into positive covenants to the effect that "thou shalt do this or that; thou shalt pay money; thou shalt provide parks and open spaces" and this, that and the other.
That has been built on over the years. I ask my noble friend Lady Blatch whether the Government have considered the question of enforceability. It is done through the courts. It is comparatively easy to go to court to enforce a negative covenant because you obtain an injunction to say that whoever it is shall not do whatever it is they promise not to do. However, when it comes to positive covenants to pay money to provide facilities, then you have to go to the court and get it to provide a mandatory injunction to pay money or to do other positive acts.
That is not very easy. The courts do not take to this procedure very kindly. It is a discretionary remedy in any case. It is extremely difficult to enforce the injunction if the party concerned does not comply with the order of the court. My only solution is that we shall have to have Section 106 amended as it is in Clause 12 of the Bill. The Government should look again at the question of enforceability by the local planning authorities.
At Committee stage I noticed particularly that there was a rejection of any suggestion that there should be recourse to the court without putting down money in advance to meet the possibility of having to pay damages if the injunction were obtained. That was rejected by the Government. This provision is very unattractive for local authorities. Many of them have not got a great deal of money with which to enforce these measures. I think that this provision should go ahead. The corollary is that the Government should look at the way in which the matter is picked up after the developer has entered unilaterally into these agreements and then has failed to pursue them. There is no way in which this can be done tonight, and it is no use my noble friend going off and seeking the pigeon post. The fact of the matter is that that is where the whole thing will break down.
I do not think that there has been all that much experience in the Greater London Council area because I have looked into this. But if this is to go ahead as a major venture, I believe that the Government ought to look again at those fragile foundations in the Chancery Division upon which the whole thing is based. That said, I am afraid that I would oppose the noble Baroness, because I think that this is now irrevocable and we need to go somewhere else in order to make sure that it works better.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I do not propose to follow my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross in his dissertation on the enforceability of covenants, but, as your Lordships will know, I accept that the proposals
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in this clause are a worthwhile effort to resolve a difficulty that faces developers and planners together. I do not think that it was right for the noble Baroness to spend so much time calling the Department of the Environment pot black as opposed to the planning authorities in terms of delay. I do not think that that is the real point at issue here.
It is not sufficient for the Minister to be put in a position where he says that he is minded to allow, and then it goes back to the planning authority and the same thing happens again. That is a position that arises from time to time, and it is right for the Government to try to get out of it. The clause is a worthwhile attempt to do so, although, as your Lordships will know, I am certainly not entirely happy with the way it is drafted, and the way it seems to concentrate on unilateral undertakings rather than on planning agreements. It is unduly restrictive. However, I think it is a clause worth pursuing, and I hope that if the noble Baroness pursues her amendment the House will reject it.
I have to confess that I was not listening very carefully to what the noble Baroness said about Amendment No. 65. It is one in which I am interested and for which I feel sympathy, and I hope that my noble friend will have a good answer to what was said. I am not absolutely certain whether the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, was, in her very short speech, addressing that amendment or another one. If she was, I apologise to her.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendment No. 60, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, but spoken to by the noble Baroness, is effectively a wrecking amendment, for it would remove from Clause 12 one of the main reforms the Government are seeking to introduce—enabling a planning obligation to be created by an undertaking as well as by agreement with the local planning authority. The Government believe that this is a well-considered reform. It was the subject of full public consultation in 1989 and was supported by the majority of 186 respondents who commented on it, including the Association of County Councils, the RIBA, the RICS, the Local Government and Planning Bar Association, the CBI and the Housebuilders Federation.
The Government view is that creating an obligation by undertaking is an alternative to doing so by agreement, not a replacement. We made this plain in our 1989 consultation paper and will reiterate the point in policy guidance. The ability to enter a planning obligation by means of an undertaking is an additional arrow in the quiver of a developer faced with a recalcitrant local authority which might either be holding out for excessive and unreasonable gain or be so unwilling to contemplate granting permission that it will not discuss how to overcome its planning objections. Plainly, developers and authorities are likely to prefer to negotiate a reasonable agreement if they can, rather than going to the expense and delay of an appeal. But, where only an appeal can break the deadlock, an undertaking may help resolve matters.
At present, if there is a planning objection to a development proposal which only a planning

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agreement can remedy, but the local authority is unwilling to reach such an agreement, the developer is stuck. He may go to appeal and the inspector may decide that he is minded to grant permission, subject to completion of an agreement. But if the local authority remains obdurate the developer is no further forward. My noble friend Lord Coleraine made the point that going back to the authority for a second time, and perhaps a third time, simply does not move matters forward.
Enabling the developer to create an obligation by means of an undertaking clears the way through that impasse. Such an undertaking, where relevant to the proposed development, will be a material consideration at appeal and the inspector will therefore take account of it in determining the appeal. I see that my noble friend wishes to intervene. I am happy for him to do so.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, is it also a material consideration if the terms of the proposed undertaking are in part acceptable to the local planning authority but in some other respects are wholly unacceptable so that there could well be not a planning gain but in total a planning loss? Will that situation also be taken into consideration?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I do not see any obligation, even a unilateral one, being approved if it would result in a net loss to a local authority. Where there is partial agreement there will be a blockage. If agreement cannot be reached in whole or in part, a time comes when the applicant simply has to obtain a determination. Under the present system there is no mechanism for such a determination. That is the issue with which this part of the clause deals. Undertakings will, we expect, be couched in terms promising to do or not to do certain things once planning permission is granted. Once the grant of permission is issued, the developer will be bound to carry out the terms of his undertaking. I shall return later to that point as it was raised by my noble friend Lord Colville. But no other party, including the planning authority, can have obligations imposed on it except by agreement.
I now turn to Amendment No. 65, which is also tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. The amendment muddies the waters because it would create two types of planning obligation. The first would be entered into by agreement with the local planning authority. The second type would be entered into by "undertaking" and would include as parties anyone whose interests in the land are or might be affected by the obligation.
I believe that to have two separate regimes for planning obligations is in principle undesirable and that the additional requirement of obligations entered into by "undertaking" is unnecessary and confusing. Under new Section 106 a person can only bind his own interest in land and those of his successors in title; for example, a tenant cannot bind his landlord. There is no difference on this point between the 1990 Act and Clause 12. If the intention of the amendment is that a further person's interest is to be bound, then that
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person will already have to be a party to the planning obligation. Again, there is no difference between the new provisions and the 1990 Act.
I shall deal now with the specific points which were raised during the course of the debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, laid considerable blame on the Department of the Environment for delays in planning appeals. I should point out that all the delay is not necessarily due to the DoE. Better inquiry procedures have helped to cut delays by fixing inquiries to meet the wishes of the applicant and the planning authority. Very often the delay has much to do with ensuring that the wishes of the applicant or planning authority are met. There has been a huge increase in the number of appeals and there is improved inspector productivity. Moreover, now that the number of appeals is falling, the backlog is being reduced. Unilateral undertakings are not about reducing time on appeal, which was another point raised during the course of the debate; they are about obtaining the right planning answer when an authority is unwilling for whatever reason to enter into an agreement.
My noble friend Lord Colville raised the point about enforceability. I know that he feels strongly on the matter. There is specific provision made in the new Section 106(5) to allow the authority to enter the land to undertake the works if the developer fails to meet his obligations; and, indeed, the authority may also recover its costs in so doing.
In introducing the amendment, the noble Baroness mentioned a number of factors which she felt were important and which needed to be taken into account. I should point out that the relevance of all the factors she mentioned would have to be taken into account by the Secretary of State. They would form part of the appeal. No doubt the local authority would want the Secretary of State to know to what extent they had tried to reach agreement. It would be for the applicant to prove that he had gone as far as he could towards satisfying the local authority.
The point about the Secretary of State being merely "minded to allow" is not good enough. The noble Lord, Lord Ross, gave ample evidence to show that there comes a point in a minority of applications where the clause will be important. The issues are complicated. I have endeavoured to clarify them as best I can. I hope that the noble Baroness will be prepared to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, but I am extremely unhappy about it. This is the clause about which the Opposition have most reservations. Perhaps I may pick up some of the points made by noble Lords in their helpful contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, chastised me for—I believe his phrase was "calling the pot black"—criticising the DOE for delays. As your Lordships will appreciate, I focused on that argument because in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Sainsbury, used the argument about delay as the primary reason for favouring unilateral planning agreements. It was almost the sole argument advanced

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in Committee. Associated with it were some examples of the costs the delay caused the private sector, in particular. They were strong arguments.
In my opening remarks on the amendment, I was trying to establish that that was a false correlation because delays would not be reduced were unilateral planning obligations to be accepted by your Lordships. On the contrary, by imposing additional work upon the Secretary of State the situation might be worsened. That may not be the case. I hope for everyone's sake that it is not, but it is a reasonable fear.
Secondly, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, helpfully pressed the Government as to how they would ensure that government-imposed unilateral planning obligations would stick. That is a point that we shall want to pursue with the local authority associations before Third Reading. It was useful to have the Minister's response to that comment.
The Minister said that the unilateral planning obligations were not so much meant to overcome delay as to offer the right planning answer when the local authority was unwilling to enter into an agreement. That is the very issue between us. The whole argument from this side of the House is that it is the local authority which has drawn up the development plan, which is being entrusted to enforce planning notices and use its discretion, which through its elected members is accountable for its planning decisions to its constituency, which has detailed knowledge of the local community and which knows what is in the best local interest. Surely therefore it is the local authority that can best interpret what is the "right planning answer". To say that it opposes what the developer is offering does not mean to say that it is wrong and the developer is right. The local authority may well be right—not always—to be recalcitrant when the developer seeks to offer too much or too little by way of planning gain. If the responsibility moves from the local authority to the Secretary of State, we move away from planning by policy to planning by appeal. That is not healthy.
The question boils down to a debate about what the unilateral planning agreements may turn out to be and whether they will replace Section 106 negotiated agreements, whether, as the Minister says, they will be an alternative or whether, as the noble Lord, Lord Ross, said, they will be a fall-back provision. There would probably be little between us if we could devise some arrangement by which they would be a fall back.
There may be rare exceptions when the provisions are necessary as a fall back. That is why a phrase such as "minded to allow" or "referral back" for a defined period of time to seek agreement might be one possibility. As the legislation stands, the agreements will not be. The Minister says that they are an alternative, virtually twintracking, but they are not. I fear they will be largely a replacement for the existing provisions under Section 106. As noble Lords will recall, the reason is that these developments will mostly not be concluded within the eight week period. Therefore, the developer will have the option of going to appeal on grounds of non-determination after the
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eight weeks, offering a take-it or leave-it unilateral planning obligation. It is precisely because of that tight timetable in which to deal with the application that problems will arise. It will encourage the developer to go for the replacement unilateral planning obligation rather than an alternative, a fallback or a negotiated obligation.
However, at this time of night I should not get far if I divided the House. If it were earlier, I would press the matter because I feel strongly that this is the single most misguided aspect of the Bill. At the end of the day it may cause the public good to be sold out, with the community interest, in the fallacious expectation that the developer and the Secretary of State between them will have a better sense of the community good and the public interest than the local authority elected to represent the public. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport Lord Ross of Newport moved Amendment No. 61:
Page 19, line 25, at end insert:
("(d) containing such incidental and consequential provisions (including financial provisions) as appear to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of the planning application,").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord Meston whose wife is indisposed. He asked me to move the amendments in his name on the Marshalled List. I beg to move Amendment No. 61 and at the same time to speak to Amendment No. 62.
The proposed new Section 106 omits the provision in the existing Section 106(2) in the 1990 Act which allows agreements to contain,
"such incidental and consequential provisions (including financial ones as appear … to be necessary or expedient for the purposes of the agreement".
This provision is commonly used to enable the developer at his expense to carry out work on land adjoining a development site which is owned by other people. An example would be to improve and plant trees on the verges of access roads which may belong to the local authority. I suggest under Amendment No. 61 that such a provision should be included in the proposed Section 106(1). That is what the amendment seeks to do.
Amendment No. 62 covers the situation where there is concern about the open-ended nature of the proposed Section 106 (1) (d) which will or could encourage some local authorities to seek payments which are not directly related to the development. The Minister may be aware of such possibilities. I therefore suggest that it would be worth while amending Section 106(1) (d) to emphasise that any payments should be for matters directly arising from the development, as I believe the existing guidance notes on Section 52 make clear. That is the reason for the second amendment. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendment No. 61 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Meston, would restore in broad terms what is now Section 106(2) of the 1990 Act. That subsection is, I believe, much

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inferior to the new Section 106 which Clause 12 will insert. The new section is widely but clearly drawn. It specifically enables the developer to make financial contributions while allowing for obligations to be conditional. I do not think the amendment is needed. Indeed it might confuse the issue.
The noble Lord argued for his amendment that it would enable developers to carry out works on land outside their ownership or control, for example landscaping on council-owned land. I see no reason why developers should not offer to do this if they wish, but such activities cannot constitute either a planning agreement under the present law or a planning obligation under the new provisions, because the developer would lack the requisite interest in the land concerned. It would be quite inappropriate for a personal obligation such as this to run with the land which is the subject of the development proposal or to bind successors in title.
I have rather more sympathy for the noble Lord's Amendment No. 62. Many people would agree with the general principle that, where under Section 106 a developer pays a financial contribution to a local planning authority to enable works to be carried out, the size of sum payable should be determined by the cost of works undertaken by the authority as a direct consequence of the development. Indeed that reflects the longstanding policy of the Government that contributions by the developer, whether in cash or kind, should be reasonable in scale as well as in kind. But I do see snags with making this a general, statutory rule. The provisions as they stand are technical and complex but allow for some flexibility. The amendment would, I believe, lead to endless arguments about precisely which elements of the works were to be attributed to the development proposal and about how their exact cost was to be determined. Details such as this are best left to the parties.
I am also concerned that the meaning of this amendment is not clear. To require money to be spent within a predetermined period begs the question how that period shall be decided. The most logical approach would be for this to be set out in the obligation itself, and again this is best left for the parties involved. I believe that both these amendments are unnecessary, and I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw them.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her detailed response to those amendments. I am sure that my noble friend will carefully read that response. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 62 not moved.]
Lord Coleraine Lord Coleraine moved Amendment No. 63:
Page 19, line 45, after ("(7) (d)") insert ("and subject to any condition to the contrary in the planning obligation").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, in Committee I moved an amendment to make it clear that the parties to a planning obligation may agree between them that any burden on the developer as original covenantor
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should be extinguished once he disposes of his interest in the land. In reply my noble friend the Minister said that the clause as drafted made the amendment unnecessary because subsection (2) of new Section 106 already allows obligations to be entered into with conditions.
Since that time I have taken further advice. I return to this matter because I am not entirely happy with the drafting of the clause, or with the reply given by my noble friend. It is true that new Section 106(2) (a) will provide that,
A planning obligation may be unconditional or subject to conditions".
Were it not for the following subsection (3), I would accept that the planning obligation might contain a condition that the obligation should cease when the original covenantor parts with his interest in the land. However, I am not sure that I would even go so far as that. New Section 106(3) provides that,
"A planning obligation is enforceable by the authority identified in accordance with subsection (7) (d) against the person entering into the obligation".
There appears to be a distinct conflict between the words of subsection (3) and those of subsection (2) (a). I prefer subsection (3) which provides that the planning obligation is enforceable against the original covenantor. If it were only to be enforced against the covenantor while he owns the land, that provision should appear in subsection (3). My amendment seeks to remedy that. I shall be interested to hear my noble friend's remarks as she is aware of the continuing uncertainty that exists in this regard on the part of the Law Society and myself. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, Amendment No. 63, in the name of my noble friend Lord Coleraine would enable a planning obligation to provide that it should not be enforceable by the local planning authority, either against the original covenantor or any successor to him.
As I said in Committee, new Section 106, as we have drafted it, would allow a condition to be inserted in the obligation which would extinguish any burdens on the developer as original covenantor once he disposed of his interest in the land. So I see no problem with that. But this amendment goes a good deal further, for it would allow obligations to be created that the local planning authority could not enforce against anyone. We do not consider this desirable; the whole raison d'être of a planning obligation is that it is enforceable. In particular, I do not think it would be right to allow obligations to be created by unilateral undertaking that the authority could not enforce.
I hope that my noble friend will find that argument persuasive and will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Coleraine: My Lords, I shall withdraw the amendment but I do not find the argument persuasive. The suggestion that a developer would give a unilateral undertaking that could not be enforced by anyone and that the Secretary of State would grant planning permission on the basis of that undertaking is ludicrous. I do not believe that the planning authority would enter into an agreement that could not be enforced.

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I wonder whether my noble friend really understands what we are trying to achieve with this amendment. However, I shall consider what she said. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 64:
Page 20, line 18, at end insert:
("(6A) Any person who wilfully obstructs a person acting in the exercise of a power under subsection (5) (a) shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 64 strengthens the enforcement provisions for planning obligations in new Section 106(5) by creating an offence of wilful obstruction, punishable by a fine. The maximum of the scale is at present £400. That is consistent with the enforcement powers in Section 33 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982 on which new Section 106(5) and (6) is modelled. I hope that noble Lords will welcome this further buttressing of the enforcement provisions.
I should also like to speak to Amendments Nos. 66 to 69, 228, 246, 279 and 281. Amendment No. 66 is a technical drafting amendment designed to make it crystal clear that only a local planning authority may enforce a planning obligation.
Amendment No. 67 fulfils the commitment I made at Committee stage to consider amending the Bill to make specific provision for planning obligations to be modified or discharged with the consent of the parties. The provision in new Sections 106A and 106B was not intended to be exclusive but I am advised that it is far from clear that it is not. Accordingly, the amendment would allow the parties to vary a planning obligation by mutual agreement, for example to correct an error on the face of the instrument concerned or because of an unexpected turn of events that made some or all of its provisions no longer relevant.
Amendments Nos. 68 and 69 go together. They enlarge the scope of the regulations which the Secretary of State may make under new Section 106A(7) so that he may prescribe, for example, how and in what way a local planning authority's determination is to be notified to the applicant.
Amendment No. 228 is also connected with the modification and discharge provisions in Clause 12 of the Bill. This amendment reduces the scope of Section 33 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1982. That provision has been used in the past in addition to or instead of Section 106 of the 1990 Act. The reason for this was that it was unclear whether Section 106 allowed for the creation of positive covenants which ran with the land and bound successors in title. The reforms we are making in Clause 12 should make it no longer necessary to use Section 33 in that way.
Our concern was that local planning authorities might continue to use Section 33 as an alternative to Section 106, which would enable them to bypass the modification and discharge provisions. That would
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undermine one of the main reforms which Clause 12 introduces and the amendment tackles that potential difficulty.
Amendment No. 246 is a technical amendment to paragraph 20 of Schedule 1 to the 1990 Act, updating it in the light of Clause 12 of the Bill.
Amendments Nos. 279 and 281 appear much more significant than they are. They are consequential amendments. Their length is attributable to the need to spell out separately the English and Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland provisions so as to avoid having different texts of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 in different parts of the country. That is also why the amendment appears in the body of the Bill and not in a schedule.
I commend to the House Amendments Nos. 64, 66 to 69, 228, 246, 279 and 281.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 65 not moved.]
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendments Nos. 66 to 69:
Page 20, line 27, after first ("the") insert ("local planning").
Page 20, line 40, at beginning insert:
("(1) A planning obligation may not be modified or discharged except—

(a) by agreement between the authority by whom the obligation is enforceable and the person or persons against whom the obligation is enforceable; or

(b) in accordance with this section and section 106B.

(1A) An agreement falling within subsection (1) (a) shall not be entered into except by an instrument executed as a deed.
(1B)").
Page 21, line 34, leave out ("and").
Page 21, line 37, at end insert ("and
(d) the notices to be given to applicants of determinations under subsection (4).").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
[Amendment No. 70 not moved.]
10 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport Lord Ross of Newport moved Amendment No. 71:
Page 22, line 19, at end insert:
Period for representations.
106C. A local planning authority shall not enter into an obligation by agreement before the end of the period of 21 days beginning with the date that a proposed obligation was placed on the register kept under section 69; and shall take into account any representation relating to the planning obligation received in the 21 day period".").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall be brief. This amendment deals with consultation on planning obligations. Its purpose is to require local authorities proposing to enter into an agreement by obligation to give consideration to any public comments made within 21 days of the details of the proposed obligation being placed on the register before entering into the agreement. This amendment is a slightly different version of the amendment that I moved at Committee stage.
Amendment No. 74 would require a local planning authority to place details of any planning application proposed to be associated with planning applications

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on the public register of planning applications. I hope very much that this rather simplified form will meet with a favourable response from the Government. I beg to move.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, I looked at this matter. We have been discussing the question of delays. These obligations are a matter of negotiation, but I am not sure at what stage the local planning authority is supposed to lay the text before the consultees. If this is a continuing process there will not be anything that it can put out to consultation until perhaps the last stage and, if there is an appeal, after it has been submitted to the Secretary of State.
I simply do not understand how this provision is supposed to work because I do not know the text upon which anybody is supposed to be consulted.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Colville makes an important point. However, the Government are entirely sympathetic to the noble Lord's objective. We all agree that the general public should be able to find out about obligations entered into when they are, as is usual, associated with the grant of planning permission. However, I am not convinced that these amendments are necessary or that they achieve their objective.
Planning obligations are local land charges. Every district or borough council is required by statute to keep a register of local land charges, to which any member of the general public has the right of access on the payment of the requisite fee. The register is available in every town hall and on it can be seen the entries, including planning obligations, for every
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parcel of land. This register is not the same as the land register—and must not be confused with it—which contains details of the title relating to land registered under the Law of Property Act 1925 and which I agree is less readily accessible to members of the public. I believe that Clause 12 as it stands makes satisfactory provision for the public to find out about planning obligations and that it is unnecessary also to include them on the planning register.
I also believe that the mechanism provided by these amendments would be ineffective. First, it covers only planning obligations entered into by agreement. Although we expect that the vast majority of obligations will be entered into in this way, the public should have the same rights of access to obligations created by undertaking—as indeed they will have under the clause as it stands. Secondly, the inclusion of obligations proposed to be entered into on the planning register is inappropriate. The planning register contains factual information about applications made and the way in which they are determined. It should not contain material about agreements that may never actually be entered into, as is clearly the intention of these amendments.
I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw this amendment.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, this is not a debate about the land register. I am grateful for the Minister's acceptance of the fact that that is not a very satisfactory way for the public to find out what is going on. I shall study what she said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 72:
After Clause 12, insert the following new clause:
"Right to appeal against planning decisions
. After section 78 of the principal Act there is inserted—
"Right to appeal against planning decisions.
78A.—(1) Where a local planning authority grant an application for planning permission for development under section 70 (determination of applications: general considerations) or section 316 (application of certain provisions to local authorities), as amended by section 17 of this Act, which would materially conflict with or prejudice the implementation of any of the policies or general proposals of the development plan any person who has made representations to the local planning authority and who has reason to believe that the development plan has been substantially disregarded may by notice appeal to the Secretary of State stating the grounds on which it is made.
(2) Any appeal under this section shall be made by notice served within such time and manner as may be prescribed by a development order under section 59 of the principal Act.
(3) The time prescribed for such a notice must not be more than 28 days from the date of notification of decision.
(4) Where the Secretary of State is of the opinion that the grounds of an appeal are clearly without substance he may serve a notice on the person summarily dismissing the appeal." ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this amendment seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 12. It would grant a right of appeal against planning decisions in very limited circumstances. On this occasion we merely say that there should be a right for third parties who have made representations to the planning authority—in other words, objectors—to appeal against a decision to grant planning permission for a development which materially conflicts with or prejudices the development plan where they believe that the plan has been substantially disregarded. Then the appeal would have to be made within 28 days of the date of the decision and would be subject to the Secretary of State's right summarily to dismiss it if he thinks that it is without substance.
At Committee stage we had a series of amendments granting rights of appeal in different circumstances. I moved one which dealt with the question of departure from the development plan. My noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate gave some good reasons for not giving a general right of appeal.
In col. 572 of the Official Report on 29th January, the Lord Advocate stated:
"From time to time there are changes of circumstances which were not envisaged when the plan was first drawn up; sometimes the plan is out of date"—
that is by the time the case is heard—
"and sometimes, although the proposed development conflicts with the plan, the harm to the plan's objectives is clearly outweighed by the benefits of the proposed development. In any of these circumstances it may be right for an authority to grant permission contrary to the plan's provisions".
However, he then added:
"The plan must not be disregarded of course, but taking the plan into account is not the same as a slavish following of it".
If noble Lords look carefully at the wording of the new clause they will see that it limits the right of appeal to those cases where there is a material conflict with the policies or general proposals of the development plan.
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Also the person making the representations and wishing to appeal must have reason to believe that the development plan has been substantially disregarded.
That is a different situation from the one which we considered at Committee stage. I remind noble Lords that in the third schedule, which is governed by Clause 22 which introduces it, the Government are putting forward much stronger provisions relating to structure plans and local development plans. If those provisions are to be effective, surely we should avoid the grant of planning permission where there is a material conflict.
At this late hour I do not wish to labour the matter. However, we feel that in order that the Government's provisions may be credible and effective, and for local people who feel strongly about the conflict that has arisen, there should be a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. I beg to move.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I speak in support of the amendment. The Government have expressed anxiety that the amendment opens the floodgates to a wave of new appeals. I understand that concern. That is why the amendment is so tightly worded. A right of appeal would be available only to question developments which substantially conflict with the development plan. It would be available only to people who had commented on planning applications. It would be available only when they have reason to believe that the development plan has been substantially disregarded.
As a further check, the Secretary of State could dismiss frivolous appeals. He would have the power to award costs against those who pursued them. It would ensure a power to review bad decisions in favour of developments which conflict with publicly agreed plans. But it would not create unnecessary delays in the system. At present when developers have an automatic right of appeal only 4 per cent. of all applications go to appeal. Without the effective use of call-in powers to deal with major departure applications, a third party right of appeal is a vital element of a planning system which wants to command public respect. For that reason I support the amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, we too support the amendment. We did not speak to it in Committee because we hoped that the then Amendment No. 147, moved by the noble Lords, Lord Norris and Lord Renton, would be acceptable to the Government. It would have given primary regard to the development plan. Development plans have been adopted after widespread public consultation, thereby embodying and mapping a community's forward look. We had hoped that, had the Government accepted the amendment in Committee, the probability of appeals based on grounds that the local authority was in breach of a development plan would ipso facto have been less likely. Local authorities would have had to given primary regard to it. Equally, had the amendment been accepted, so would the belief that local authorities were acting as community trustees.

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As a result of the Government refusing to accept that amendment, Members on this side of the House wish to be conjoined with Amendment No. 72. At present third parties have a right to appeal against the refusal of planning permission. However, they do not have a right to appeal against the granting of planning permission. The amendment is limited and tightly drafted. It will apply only to cases which significantly challenge the development plan. In 1986 the fifth report of the Environment Committee of the House of Commons repeated that the basic purpose of planning was not to resolve disputes between private proprietary rights of individuals, because that is a matter of common law and adversarial principles, but to resolve private rights and the wider community good, of which the local authority is trustee.
The presumption is that the wider public good is embodied in the development plan. Granting a planning permission significantly contrary to that development plan must at least raise questions about where the community good lies. It is a question that should be scrutinised on appeal. If the local authority will not do so, third parties must. For that reason we support the amendment.
Viscount Colville of Culross: My Lords, I hope that if the noble Baroness's party ever comes to power she will pursue this issue because it will be a bonanza for those who practise at the planning Bar and in the various professions. I do not understand what she is supporting. My noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Norrie will not thank me for my comments. Who will determine whether there has been a substantial disregard? It is true that in subsection (4) the Secretary of State can dismiss a matter that is plainly vexatious but the benefit of the doubt will have to be given. The practice will be that, instead of having the system of material departures which are determined by the local planning authority—and I had thought that the noble Baroness would support the local planning authority in being able to detect what is a material departure —or by judicial review if the authority is wrong, we shall have an open-ended system. Anyone will be able to say, "No, there has been a substantial disregard and we shall appeal to the Secretary of State unless it is vexatious". I welcome the provision and should like to see it in legislation. However, I do not believe that my noble friend will support it.
Lord Renton: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend Lord Colville would care to be reminded that in Committee the noble and learned Lord, Lord Roskill, said:
"judicial review is not an adequate remedy in these circumstances. It will only succeed where planning permission is unlawful or where it has been granted perversely".— [Official Report, 29/1/91; col. 568]
To that extent I am afraid that my noble friend must acknowledge that his argument cannot be sustained.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Colville appreciates, the Government are not persuaded that this type of right of appeal to a third party should be given.
However, my noble friend Lord Renton is quite
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right to highlight that the Government have stressed repeatedly the importance of development plans. As my noble friend rightly points out, Schedule 3 is very important in that regard. If the plan is up-to-date, clear and relevant, it will be a very important element in local authorities' development control decisions. However, the Government do not wish local planning authorities to follow plans blindly, without taking account of all the other material considerations.
Important though it is, the development plan can never be a set of immutable rules. I have said before but it bears repetition that there are often changes of circumstances not envisaged when the plan was prepared. The plan may be out of date. Most importantly, although a proposed development may conflict with the plan, the benefits of the proposed development may clearly outweigh the harm it would do to the plan's objectives. In each of these cases an authority may properly grant permission apparently contrary to the plan's provisions.
I was going to avoid the use of the word "bonanza". However, the new clause would increase the number of decisions taken by the Secretary of State rather than by elected local authorities. The Government believe that as many planning decisions as possible should be taken locally. The Secretary of State and his planning inspectors are at present responsible for the grant of just 4 per cent. of permissions. The Government do not wish to see their role extended in the way which is now proposed.
Perhaps I may deal briefly with the practical effect of this clause. About one in five planning applications is refused; fewer than one in three of those goes to appeal. Appeals are currently running at around 30,000 per year. The Planning Inspectorate has succeeded in greatly increasing the numbers of appeals decided in recent years in response to the even larger increase in the number of appeals submitted. However, if this amendment were approved there would be a completely new opportunity to appeal against the four applications in five which result in a grant of permission. If only one tenth of these went to appeal, the number of appeals being received by the Planning Inspectorate would double overnight. If this new clause became law the appeals system would be swamped or operate to the significant benefit of those practising in that legal field.
I do not propose to leave the matter there because I appreciate that my noble friends and the noble Baroness, in supporting this amendment, have looked at the matter and, in the way in which they have approached it, have sought to minimise its effect.
The original amendment tabled in Committee included some restrictions; the present amendment has strengthened these. The new right of appeal is confined to those applications where the development plan has been overturned. However, I fear that many potential third party appellants will do all they can to see some implied contradiction between the plan and a permission to which they object. I appreciate also that the Secretary of State is to be allowed summarily to dismiss an appeal which is "clearly without substance". However, it seems to me that in trying to

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arrive at such a judgment without hearing any of the parties or in any way considering the matter, the Secretary of State is likely to reach a decision that the appeal should at least be heard. If that happens, then we must expect a very significant increase in the number of appeals.
I appreciate that this is an issue which caused considerable strength of opinion. However, perhaps I may repeat that the Environment Select Committee in another place concluded in 1986 that it would not be appropriate for third parties to have the right of appeal against the grant of planning permission. We agree with that conclusion, which follows from the need for local choice, certainty and efficiency in the planning system. Although there has been the further restriction of what has been proposed in comparison to that which we considered at Committee stage, I regret to say to my noble friend that I cannot accept the amendment.
Lord Renton: My Lords, perhaps I may first express my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and also to my noble friend Lord Norrie for their support. I express my gratitude also for the intervention by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross—with whose remarks I greatly disagree. I shall deal with his arguments first. He asks who will decide these matters. Obviously they will be decided by the Secretary of State on the hearing of an appeal. Like any person hearing an appeal he must decide the main issues.
My noble friend says that the amendment would create a legislative bonanza. Surely he will accept that every time we grant a new right to the citizen it potentially gives work to our profession. However, that is not a good reason for refusing a right if that right should be given. It is part of the job of our profession to help people to assert their rights. If I may say so, I do not believe that because it would give work to the profession it is therefore something which should not be done. That would be a novel idea and totally out of keeping with the traditions of our profession.
Perhaps I may say with great respect—and we all have great respect for him—that the arguments put forward by my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate would have been very forceful in regard to the amendment moved in Committee. But he went into the fear of detail. We have avoided detail. We particularly confined the right of appeal on this occasion to material conflict with policies or general proposals of the development plan. To say that that will lead to the department being swamped with appeals is not only statistically imaginary but statistically improbable. There will be generalities and, as has been rightly said, the local authorities will be anxious not to conflict with their development plans. Therefore the number of appeals will be very small, simply because great care will be taken. But in those cases where there has been a departure from and material conflict with the general proposals of the development plan, the matter should not be allowed to rest. There should be a right of appeal.
I find the answer given disappointing. However, at
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this late hour I shall not ask the House to divide. The Government should seriously consider the matter further. If the answer we have been given was given on departmental advice, then the Ministers should challenge that advice. That is what they are there for. We may return to the matter. In those circumstances I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 73 and 74 not moved.]
Clause 13 [Notice etc. of applications for planning permission]:
Lord Norrie Lord Norrie moved Amendment No. 75:
Page 23, line 23, at end insert:
("(1A) A development order shall make provision requiring a local planning authority to serve on anyone with a notifiable interest in neighbouring land a copy of any application for planning permission and a notice stating where and when they make representations.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 75 is identical to an amendment tabled at Committee stage. At that time I was disappointed by the Government's reply. People living on or having an interest in land affected by a planning application next door should be made aware of that application. That is a basic requirement of the planning system.
Provisions already exist in Scotland for developers to notify neighbours. Perhaps my noble friend can tell me why Scotland is different from England and Wales. It cannot be because of population density. Strathclyde is as densely populated as the South East; and mid-Wales is as sparsely populated as much of the Highlands. If neighbourhood notification is good enough for the Scots, why is it not good enough for us? Perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Fraser, would like to answer that.
I cannot accept that the problem is one of definition. The terms "interested parties" and "neighbouring land" are already defined in Scottish legislation; and it cannot be beyond the ingenuity of our parliamentary draftsmen to do the same for the rest of us.
Problems with neighbourhood notification underlie much of the public's dissatisfaction with the planning system. The local ombudsmen who receive the brunt of complaints support the aims of the amendment. I understand that about 75 per cent. of local authorities already undertake some notification of planning applications on a voluntary basis, and I am greatly encouraged by that. But what are the Government going to do about the other 25 per cent.? A basic standard of publicity should be available to everybody. I hope that my noble friend will be able to indicate in her reply what the Government's expectations are of local authorities, and how she is going to deal with the 25 per cent. of authorities who do not see fit to involve their public in planning applications.
We need a set of minimum standards to be established, as proposed in the amendment. Otherwise, the public will miss an opportunity to comment on planning applications even as they are submitted. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur: My Lords, having listened to my noble friend Lord Norrie, I have to say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that I very much agree with everything the noble Lord has said. It is not for me to promote the fact that many aspects of Scottish legislation appear to be rather superior to some aspects of English legislation. It seems to be quite extraordinary to disallow comments from those who might have an interest and live on neighbouring land. Living as I do in Scotland, I can vouch for the fact that to be able to comment is a huge advantage.
It is not clear from what has been said why my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate and my noble friend Lady Blatch should feel that what my noble friend has suggested is anything other than admirable common sense. I very much hope that they will accept the amendment.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I should like to support the amendment. In fact, my name is on it. What surprises me is that it is not already part of the law. If the planning system is to work fairly, it is a necessary protection for all neighbouring landowners when there is a proposed development that they should be given the opportunity of objecting. To make quite sure that they know about the application, they should be notified if they have a notifiable interest. It is common sense; it is fairness. It is very surprising that this is not already part of the law.
Lord Stodart of Leaston: My Lords, it is very depressing to find on many occasions Members of the Government if not admitting at least implying that sometimes the law of Scotland is superior to England. Perhaps I should not say this, but there are not very many items in which the Scots can or would wish to claim to be totally superior to the English—at least, not perhaps after Saturday at Twickenham—but on many occasions in my political life in both Houses I have seen situations in which it was generally admitted that the Scottish legal system was superior to the English one.
Yet because it was inconvenient it was desirable that the Scots should pull down the flag and fall in with the English system. It is a great pity that on this particular occasion, if, as has been said, we have an admirable system in Scotland, there should be resistance because the provision does not suit those South of the Border.
10.30 p.m.
Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, I shall speak briefly merely to create a balance and to show that the Scots on this side of the House join with the Scots on the Government Benches in hoping that England shall have this benefit just as we have had.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I must reiterate the view that I expressed at Committee stage. The amendment tabled by my noble friends Lord Renton and Lord Norrie would impose a considerable additional statutory burden on local planning authorities. The effect of their amendment would be rather different from the law in Scotland. The amendment would require the local authority to notify, whereas in
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Scotland the applicant is required to notify those with a notifiable interest in neighbouring land. That is an important difference.
It has been alleged that the absence of a statutory duty to notify neighbours in England and Wales causes numerous complaints to the local ombudsman. The figures I have do not bear that out. In 1989–90, 628,000 planning applications were submitted to local authorities in England. In the same period the local ombudsman received 758 complaints relating to neighbour notification and consultation. That is equivalent to about 0·126 per cent. of all applications. Only some 15 per cent. of those complaints were in fact investigated by the local ombudsman.
My department has issued guidance to local authorities about publicity for planning applications in Circular 22/88. That circular advises that it is not necessary for all planning applications to be advertised. It went on to say that the purpose of advertisement is to invite comment on the effect of proposed development on the interests and amenity of the general public, but the interests of individual property owners are taken into account only in so far as they are relevant to land use planning considerations.
The Government firmly believe that Circular 22/88 remains appropriate and relevant. Nevertheless I am ready and willing to consider what further guidance the department might issue, particularly in the light of the views which have been expressed by the noble Lords. I hope that they are listening to that. Such guidance might, for example, be stronger in urging the desirability of publicising development proposals to the minority of authorities which do not notify neighbours as a matter of course. However, the Government remain of the view that authorities should not be required to adopt a system against their will. I hope that my noble friends will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench, who has made a very good point about the applicant who is required to serve the notice. As I understand it, my noble friend is going to look further into this matter. At this late hour I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Stanley of Alderley Lord Stanley of Alderley moved Amendment No. 76:
Page 23, line 23, at end insert:
("(1A) Notice under subsection (1) of this section shall be given to any person (other than the applicant) who at the beginning of the period of twenty-one days ending with the date of the application was—

(a) the owner of; or

(b) the tenant of any agricultural holding any part of which was comprised in,

the land to which the application relates.
(1B) Where a notice of an application for planning permission has been given under subsection
(1A) above, the local planning authority—

(a) in determining the application, shall take into account any representations relating to it which are made to them before the end of such period as may be prescribed, by any person who satisfies them that he is an owner

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of any land to which the agricultural holding any part of which is comprised in that land; and

(b) shall give notice of their decision to every person who has made representations which they were required to take into account in accordance with paragraph (a).").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall not repeat the points I made in Committee on why your Lordships should accept this amendment. I shall just point out the difference between my case and that of the Government which was raised at Committee and in discussions since then. First, the Government have accepted a similar amendment and conceded it as regards Scotland concerning Clause 37 of the Bill. Why is Scotland to be treated differently from England and Wales? Secondly, my noble friend Lord Astor said on 29th January at col. 578 of Hansard, that my amendment would make it complicated for applicants. That is not so. Applicants never study the Act; they merely study the guidance notes which will be the same whether the amendment is on the statute book or in the proposed regulation in the general development order. That last, of course, is subject to the Minister's whim. I have to repeat that the provision to notify all owners to which this clause refers is essential to farm tenants who could lose their livelihood and home. Such a provision should not be governed by regulation, and this was accepted by Parliament in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and this Bill should not overrule Parliament's wish.
There is no difference whatever between what this amendment sets out to achieve and what my noble friend on the Front Bench spelt out in Committee. But—and it is a but—my amendment would spell it out on the face of the Bill in line with the long-standing provision in Section 66 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (in fact, it goes right back to 1947), whereas I only have my noble friend's assurance which is to be found in Hansard of 29th January. Much more important than that, any future Minister could change these provisions by regulation for, as my noble friend Lord Astor said at column 578, my amendment would:
"safeguard against any potential future change by whim."
Yet my noble friend opposed it. Pray why? All I want in these amendments is a safeguard against a future Minister waking up one morning and changing rules by regulation that Parliament had decided otherwise—by in fact behaving like Henry VIII, or perhaps, in my family's case, Henry VII. I beg to move.
Lord Renton: My Lords, I am happy not only to support my noble friend but to assure him that, from the point of view of legislative technicality, he is not behaving like Henry VIII. Our accusation against that late, lamented monarch does not arise in the circumstances that I think my noble friend has in mind, but in circumstances where a Minister, or the Crown, is given power to amend an Act of Parliament, and that does not arise here.
I wonder whether my noble friend would be so good—and I would gladly give way if he is able to
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—as to remind us (because I must confess that I have not worked this back through the principal Act) who has the obligation to give the notice under this new Section 65, which also arises under my noble friend's amendment. I assume that it is the local authority that has to give the notice. If that is his recollection, I should be grateful if he could indicate it.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I shall do so in summing up.
Lord Monk Bretton: My Lords, I should like to say just a few words in support of the amendment of my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley. One aspect of this that is important is that it is the Government's intention - and governments have been pretty successful about this in recent years, I am glad to say - to make efforts to speed up the planning process.
Of course, the tenant farmer is often a small business man and he is not in a position to have a highly professional watching brief kept on his interests. If he is not notified in the way suggested by the amendment, he may miss out and fare pretty badly as a result. There is no doubting the fact that, with the increasing speed at which the process will take place, the issue will become more significant in the future than it has been in the past. That I why I believe that the amendment is of considerable importance.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, although we differ about the appropriate legislative means for achieving such notification, I can assure noble Lords that the Government agree completely with my noble friend Lord Stanley that such notification is important and that we must continue to provide for it.
I acknowledged in Committee that a requirement in primary legislation represents the maximum safeguard against any potential future change. I was making a point which has universal application and which, if it were followed to its logical conclusion, would fundamentally alter the balance between primary and secondary legislation.
I accept that many applicants for planning permission rely on a combination of guidance notes, booklets and ad hoc advice rather than direct reference to the legislation. Nevertheless, I believe that there is sufficient uncertainty and confusion, even in local planning authorities, about the procedures for notification and publicity of planning applications to justify the proposals embodied in Clause 13.
I can assure noble Lords that Clause 13 is not a Trojan Horse concealing any government intention to ride roughshod over the interests of owners or tenants or to damage their position when a planning application is made. The Government continue to believe that secondary legislation (which is subject to parliamentary scrutiny) is appropriate. The relevant secondary legislation is the Town and Country Planning (General Development) Order. It is subject to the negative resolution procedure which provides for the order to be laid before both Houses for 40 days. At any time during that period, a Prayer may be laid against the order which would oblige the Government to find time for it to be debated.

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We feel that the latter is the appropriate place for all notification, consultation and publicity requirements to be prescribed. I acknowledge the fact that Clause 13 differs from the parallel provision tabled by my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate which includes a specific reference to notifying owners and agricultural tenants. There are technical reasons flowing, from the historical basis of the Scottish legislation for this difference in approach. In view of the persuasive case put forward by my noble friend Lord Stanley, the Government are prepared to consider the matter. In the light of that undertaking, I hope that he will not pursue the amendments.
Perhaps I may now answer the question raised by my noble friend Lord Renton about who gives notice to the owners and the agricultural tenant at present. Under the 1990 Act, the applicant is required to notify owners and the agricultural tenants.
Lord Renton: I am much obliged.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I must say that I am most disappointed in my noble friend because I too knew the answer to that question. Nevertheless, I thank him for it. It is, indeed, the responsibility of the applicant and is covered by Section 66 of the 1990 Act. I am afraid that I cut my brief down to size due to the lateness of the hour. All I can say at this stage is that this is an important point. It is not something which should be implemented by regulation. We are talking about tenants, houses and homes, which are not a matter for secondary legislation. I believe that it has been or, the statute book since 1947—my noble friend will correct me if I am wrong—and we should not, therefore, throw it out with the bath water.
So far as concerns the negative resolution procedure, I wonder whether my noble friend is really suggesting that we turn down such orders in the future. I do not think that my noble kinsman the Chief Whip would be very pleased if we were to do so. Nevertheless, I am most grateful for my noble friend's concession that he will look again at the matter. In my view, it requires either a change in the Scottish legislation - which I am sure my noble and learned friend would like - or the implementation of the proposal in the amendment. In any event, both pieces of legislation must be in line with one another. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
10.45 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 77:
Page 23, line 48, leave out ("3") and insert ("5").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the amendment was spoken to with Amendment No. 4. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 78 not moved.]
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick moved Amendment No. 79:
Page 24, line 8, leave out ("may") and insert ("shall").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 80. We seem to be saying that the law on this issue in Scotland is rather better than the
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law in England. Amendment No. 79 relates to publicity for planning applications. The CPRE supports the amendment, which provides that local planning authorities must notify neighbours of planning applications. I understand that a similar amendment was moved in Committee by the noble Lords, Lord Norrie and Lord Renton. There is currently no statutory duty upon local authorities in England and Wales to notify neighbours, whereas in Scotland developers are required to do so as part of the planning application. The term "notifiable interest in neighbouring land" is already defined in Scottish legislation.
The lack of a statutory duty in England and Wales has resulted in a series of ad hoc discretionary arrangements for notifying the public of planning applications. In some local authorities, the publicity is excellent while in others it is non-existent. The opportunities to become involved in the planning system vary greatly depending upon where people live. The fact that 75 per cent. of local authorities undertake some form of notification means that 25 per cent. of people are without the most basic requirement necessary to ensure that form of public participation in the planning process.
The local government ombudsman is on record as supporting the CPRE's view in a letter dated 21st November 1990, which states:
"We have always favoured the implementation of proper neighbourhood consultation, and accordingly we sympathise with the efforts to make it a legal obligation to notify neighbours of development proposals".
The Government rejected the amendment in Committee on the grounds that it would place a considerable administrative burden on local planning authorities when existing arrangements work well and provide a fair and appropriate balance. No satisfactory explanation was given as to why the Government took a different view about Scotland. The CPRE agrees with the view of the local government ombudsman that the Government's assessment is false. Without compulsory notification, the public will find themselves excluded from the planning process in respect of applications that might affect them directly as soon as they are submitted.
On Amendment No. 80, the CPRE also supports an amendment which would lay down a minimum statutory period of 28 days for public consultation on the planning application. That would formalise a code of practice, agreed in 1980 through the National Development Forum with the DoE, the local authority associations and a wide range of conservation bodies, which required that 28 days' should be allowed for consultation. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, was the noble Lord speaking to Amendment No. 75?
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, no. I was speaking to Amendments Nos. 79 and 80.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, Amendment No. 75 was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Norrie.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, a great deal of what the noble Lord said seemed to apply to Amendment No. 75. However, we can give an answer.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the effect of Amendments Nos. 79 and 80 would be to continue to provide in primary legislation for a specified period during which representations can be received by a local planning authority about a planning application. Those representations must then be taken into account in determining that application. A period of 21 days is at present prescribed in the 1990 Act in respect of representations received in relation to "bad neighbour" development, or from owners or agricultural tenants in relation to any development proposal. Clause 13 paves the way for such requirements to be prescribed in subordinate legislation. This will allow the provisions to be presented more clearly. It will achieve greater flexibility to reflect different requirements and circumstances. The Government therefore oppose these amendments, which seek to retain a more rigid regime in primary legislation.
The Government also oppose the proposed extension by one week of the period for submitting representations. I recognise that local authorities are not always ready to determine planning applications only three weeks after receiving them, and that in practice authorities will take account of representations received after that initial period. Nevertheless, I consider that 21 days imposes a reasonable, yet necessary, discipline for third parties proposing to comment on a planning application. I believe it appropriately reconciles the need to enable interested parties to make known their views with the need for prompt decisions. Accordingly, I hope that the noble Lord will agree not to pursue these amendments.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. He will not be surprised if I am not enthusiastic about his comments. However, he said that what we wished could be achieved by regulations. Members of your Lordships' House and the people involved will have to watch the situation under the regulations carefully. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 80 not moved.]
Clause 14 [Power of local planning authority to decline to determine applications]:
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 81:
Page 24, line 37, at end insert:
("(1A) A local planning authority may decline to determine an application for planning permission for development of any land (referred to in this subsection as "the second application") if and so long as a similar application is the subject of an appeal in accordance with section 78 which remains to be determined under section 79 and, in the event of such appeal being dismissed by the Secretary of State, for the purposes of subsection (1) (a) the second application shall be deemed to have been received on the day following the date of such dismissal.").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I wish to move Amendment No. 81 and speak to Amendment No. 82. Your Lordships will see that Amendment No. 81 is broadly similar to the twin-tracking Amendment No. 102 at Committee stage where we sought to end the practice under which developers submitted two applications and appealed on one after eight weeks on the grounds of non-determination.
At Committee stage, the Minister and noble Lords opposite were kind enough to share our anxiety and recognise the problem that to permit appeals after eight weeks for substantial and complex developments requiring elaborate consultation was somewhat unreasonable. That amendment sought to ensure that appeals followed rather than paralleled an application with all the pressure on the planning system that it generated.
However, on reflection the Minister still felt that eight weeks was sufficient before the appeal procedure began. I shall not repeat the earlier discussion about the relative pressures on local authorities compared with those on the DoE and the time that the DoE may take to determine its application. Nonetheless, that problem remains.
Amendment No. 81, coming at Report stage, steps back a little and addresses the problem from the other side. Where an application has gone to appeal, the local authority is freed from the responsibility of determining a second and subsequent application. It still produces a single track, even if the move to appeal has been unduly and unreasonably speedy in our eyes, rather than the twin tracks and double workload that were the source of concern both then and now.
I recommend the amendment to your Lordships on three grounds. First, unlike the amendment moved at Committee stage, it should meet the Minister's anxiety that local authorities will not be allowed a leisurely approach in determining planning inquiries and applications—something that I understand and to a degree share. Secondly, this amendment will meet the local authorities' concern about overload on the system which creates the very delays which generated the problem of twin-tracking in the first place. Thirdly, I suggest that this amendment should be acceptable to the developers' interest because there is no infringement of their right to appeal, or delay on appeal. I hope that, with those additional grounds, this amendment, unlike the one tabled in Committee, may find favour with the Minister.
I wish also to speak to Amendment No. 82, which is a more modest amendment. At the moment if a second application is made within 28 days, only one-quarter of the fees have to be paid. There is therefore a positive financial encouragement for repetitive applications and twin-tracking. This amendment would allow local authorities to charge full fees up to a maximum of double the initial fee. That would at least allow fees to be somewhat more commensurate with the workload generated.
This is a probing amendment, but not solely because of the lateness of the hour. The normal way of dealing with fees is by regulation. I hope that the Minister will indicate the Government's views on this matter. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords Amendment No. 81 would outlaw twin-tracking, a tactical device used by applicants with the aim of extracting swifter decisions from local planning authorities. Two applications are submitted simultaneously. After eight weeks the developer lodges an appeal against non-determination of one, while leaving the other in the local planning authority's jurisdiction.
In Committee I explained the Government's view of twin-tracking. We accept that it has undesirable side-effects. It can confuse and frustrate residents and councillors. It can cause problems for local authorities' planning departments, which must prepare for an appeal while continuing to consider an identical application. It also results in appeals being submitted and then withdrawn, which wastes some of the planning inspectorate's resources. However, this difficulty should be reduced by Clause 15 of the Bill, which allows my right honourable friend to dismiss appeals delayed unduly by the appellant.
But twin-tracking does have its advantages. It is important that applicants should continue to have the remedy of an appeal against non-determination to ensure that their proposal can be decided within a reasonable time. Twin-tracking is useful, in that it allows some choice to remain at the local level, and further negotiation even after the submission of an appeal It also provides some discipline on local authorities to consider applications speedily. On balance, we would like to see the use of this practice decline, but it would be wrong to achieve that by undermining important freedoms.
The planning system already significantly limits the individual's freedom to develop his property. We should not take lightly the step of further restraining that freedom. Twin-tracking is not an abuse of the planning system; it is a legitimate approach, although one with some unfortunate side-effects.
Twin-tracking is a symptom of the endemic delay in the planning system. As I said in Committee, the Government would like to see use of the practice decline. But that is best done not by outlawing the symptom but by removing the cause. If local authorities determined applications more speedily, twin-tracking would not be a problem. I am glad to see that the speed of determination of applications is now beginning to improve, but much more could be done. The Government will continue to press local planning authorities to improve their performance; we look forward in particular to the results of a study of development control which we understand the Audit Commission is proposing to undertake.
For the reasons I have described, the Government do not agree that twin-tracking should be outlawed. We therefore oppose Amendment No. 81. But we recognise that the practice does place extra demands on local planning authorities' resources. For this reason I am attracted by the argument of the noble Baroness that it is anomalous to give a 75 per cent. discount on the fee for duplicate planning applications. However, I should like to give careful consideration to the level at which the fees should be set. On 14th December 1990 my department announced that it would consult on the possibility of
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simplifying the fee structure. I can assure the noble Baroness that her anxieties will be taken fully on board in that exercise. I think that would be the appropriate context in which to consider this issue further, rather than on the face of the statute. I therefore do not wish to accept Amendment No. 82 of the noble Baroness. But I hope she will agree to withdraw it in the light of the assurance I have given that the points which she made will be taken into account.
11 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister's reply regarding Amendment No. 82. Like her, I should be delighted if we could move away from the present loss-leader approach to twin-tracking fees. Therefore, if the Minister could respond by means of regulations, we should be delighted. On those grounds, we shall withdraw the amendment.
In the case of Amendment No. 81, I had an uneasy feeling that the Minister was speaking to the amendment as drafted for Committee stage rather than this amendment, since she suggested that we were seeking to outlaw the principle of twin-tracking. The Minister herself put the case against twin-tracking very well. Like noble Lords on this side of the House, she would like to see it diminish. However, she suggested the amendment would outlaw twin-tracking.
The amendment does not undermine the freedom of the developer to appeal. The developer's right to appeal is fully protected and his position is not prejudiced. However, the amendment frees the local authority from continuing to determine an application when another application for appeal is already with the Secretary of State. That is a rather different position from the amendment which was moved at Committee stage, and I felt that the Minister was speaking to that earlier amendment.
The Minister said that the problem of twin-tracking might be addressed by Clause 15 under which the Secretary of State can dismiss appeals where there is undue delay. That is not the problem. It is not a question of appeals being unduly delayed; the problem of twin-tracking is generated where appeals are too speedy.
Given the late hour, I shall withdraw the amendment tonight, but I ask the Minister to be kind enough to reflect on the difference between the amendment tabled at Committee stage and the amendment tabled at Report stage. This amendment does not undermine the developer's rights but it limits the twin-tracking burden on the local authority. I hope that the Minister will feel able to come back to us and meet with us on the issue at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 82 not moved.]
Lord Renton Lord Renton moved Amendment No. 83:
After Clause 14, insert the following new clause:
("Unresolved objections to development orders
. After section 74(1) of the principal Act there is inserted—
"(1A) Any development order made under this section shall specify that a local planning authority shall not grant planning permission for an application to which there is an unresolved objection from the Nature Conservancy Council, the Countryside Commission, the Countryside Council for Wales, the National Rivers Authority, English Heritage, or the County Council for the area in which the land to which the application relates is situated, unless they have notified the Secretary of State of the application for planning permission, along with a statement of the issues involved, and either—

(a) a period of twenty-eight days has expired, beginning with the date of the notification, without the Secretary of State having directed the reference of the application to him or given notice that he requires extra time to consider whether to require reference of the application to him; or

(b) the Secretary of State has notified the authority that he does not intend to require the reference of the application to him".").

The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 83 is similar to an amendment that I moved at Committee stage. The discussion on that occasion resulted in a most interesting and encouraging statement from my noble friend Lady Blatch about what the Government intended to do to ensure that the advice given to the Secretary of State by the various quangos was dealt with by him when necessary if there was a conflict between the quangos and a planning application. It is a question of when the Secretary of State should call the matter in.
In view of what transpired in Committee, your Lordships may be surprised that my noble friend Lord Norrie and I should move another amendment on similar lines at this stage. We do so in the light of what my noble friend said and in order to help the Secretary of State to resolve the conflicts I have mentioned and to ensure that he is given the chance to resolve them.
The amendment is worded quite differently from the amendment that was moved at Committee stage. The new amendment does not fetter the discretion of the Secretary of State in any way. It simply requires a pending planning application to be referred to him, not necessarily for his final decision but merely to enable him to decide whether he should call it in. In other words, he is given the opportunity of calling it in. We feel that it is an opportunity that should not be missed.
The effect would be to ensure that he was made aware of the controversial nature of any planning applications where his advisory quangos were concerned and when choosing whether or not to call them in. It would have the beneficial result that major objections on national conservation grounds could not go unnoticed.
I should point out that this amendment is supported by the National Rivers Authority, the Nature Conservancy Council and English Heritage. I am not in a position to say whether it is supported by the other bodies mentioned. But so far as concerns county councils, perhaps I may just say that the amendment returns to county councils some of the
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powers that were lost to them in 1980. They were powers to implement the policies of their own structure plans. One would have thought that it was a good thing that they should be given such powers. We feel that it is right that where there is an unresolved objection made by a county council the Secretary of State should be notified of it and given the chance to call it in just as he should be given the chance to call in unresolved objections made by the statutory bodies which have to advise him on conservation matters.
This amendment is put forward in the light of what my noble friend Lady Blatch said very fully at Committee stage which gave us such encouragement. We are merely trying to be helpful. I beg to move.
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment No. 83. My noble friend Lord Renton has just reminded us that a number of members of the Committee and the Government expressed concern about the way in which the earlier amendment might fetter the discretion of the Secretary of State. They felt that it should be his decision whether applications should be called in. This amendment meets that criticism. It simply requires a copy of the offending planning application and a summary of the key issues to be put before the Secretary of State. He would then have 28 days in which to decide whether to call it in.
I hope that noble Lords will see that positive steps have been taken to change this amendment. The Secretary of State now has total discretion. What is more, there is no need for minor applications to bother him unless the quangos believe that they raise important matters of national interest.
The benefits of this amendment are obvious. It ensures that the Secretary of State is at least aware of the facts surrounding controversial applications before they are allowed to proceed and that he is given a formal opportunity to consider them with a view to recalling them. The result will be better protection for the countryside, a reduction in the rate of loss of SSSIs, less damage to our AON Bs and structure plans which could not so easily be overridden by rogue decisions at district level. I support this amendment.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment No. 86 which is linked with Amendment No. 83. I very much support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Renton. Mine is a slightly more limited variation and only covers objections from the Nature Conservancy Council. It deals specifically with the problems relating to SSSIs.
The amendment would set up a procedure which should be followed when a local planning authority intends to grant planning permission for an application which affects an SSSI and where there is an outstanding objection from the Nature Conservancy Council. Specified details must then be sent to the Secretary of State, who has 28 days—and can extend the period if he so desires by notice—in which to consider whether he will call in the application for determination by him. Otherwise the local planning authority can go ahead and grant permission.

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The current practice is for consideration to be given to call-in only where the Secretary of State is made aware of a planning application before the grant of permission is made by a local authority. Even then, as we well know, some weighty representations have to be made; and in good time.
The amendment has three advantages over the current position. First, it sounds an unmistakable note of caution to the applicant. However, careful forethought may be needed to avoid conflict involving intervention by the Secretary of State. It focuses the attention of the local authorities more firmly on SSSIs and their conservation worthiness. It provides a system of positive vetting whereby steps cannot be taken innocently or injudiciously by a local planning authority which can in circumstances lead to action against the Government in an international forum or litigation in the European Court of Justice.
A case at present arises at Cardiff where European legislation may have some effect. Surplus material excavated from a road construction project is being dumped on an SSSI. It is alleged that that dumping exceeds the area for which consent was granted. Both the NCC and the RSPB have objected to the extension of tipping over the previously approved line. The RSPB has taken initial steps to register with the European Commission a complaint alleging infringement of both the European Community wild birds and environmental assessment directives. We understand that the applicant has announced his intention to apply for further consents over larger areas of the SSSI. I am aware that the subject was debated to some extent in another place last evening.
I am always nervous to mention any issue relating to Scotland. However, I am told that the amendment seeks to capture the essence of subordinate legislation already in place in Scotland, and resorted to for explicit guidance purposes. Such legislation is better in Scotland than in England and Wales. That often happens to be the case. Why can not we have the same position in England and Wales? I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we greatly value the advice and expert knowledge of conservation and heritage bodies. We recognise also the vital role that county councils play in the planning system. Even so I believe that, if agreed, the amendment would still place those bodies in a privileged position which other bodies which also give authorities expert advice would rightly resent.
Secondly, the conservation and heritage bodies have a specific role to play in the planning system and particular interests to foster. But a decision to hold up a planning application in this way should be taken in a rather broader context. The delay and cost involved in doing this caused to the developer, the planning authority and the Secretary of State do need to be justified in the public interest.
Thirdly, requiring the Secretary of State to scrutinise a large number of additional applications will of necessity mean him interfering with local authority jurisdiction to some extent. This is something which I believe we should not do unless it
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is absolutely necessary, and nothing that noble Lords have said today has convinced me to change my mind. I hope that this amendment will he withdrawn.
Amendment No. 86 resembles Amendment No. 83, but is specifically directed at areas of special scientific interest. It seeks to prevent a local planning authority, for a period of 28 days, from granting planning permission for a development which affects a site of special scientific interest and is the subject of an unresolved objection from the Nature Conservancy Council. During this period the Secretary of State would have the opportunity to consider whether to call in the application for his own determination, in the light of particulars provided by the local planning authority.
Amendment No. 83 would put on a statutory basis the existing arrangements for the Nature Conservancy Council to request call-in. DoE Circular 27/87 (Welsh Office Circular 52/87) states that, if a local planning authority
"is minded to grant permission for development against NCC advice, it is important for the NCC to be informed so that it may consider whether to ask the relevant Secretary of State to call in the application".
We have no evidence that these arrangements are working badly—and nothing that has been said in the course of the debate has provided any evidence.
The Government are firmly committed to the conservation of the natural heritage and are preparing a draft planning policy guidance note on nature conservation and planning for public consultation.
SSSIs are a key part of the nature conservation framework. The Government wish to ensure that their value is taken fully into account in the operation of the town and country planning system. We intend to issue a consultation paper next month on development control in SSSIs, proposing additional safeguards. As I informed noble Lords at the Committee stage, we are considering making more explicit the criteria relating to the call-in of planning applications affecting SSSIs.
The Government take the protection of SSSIs very seriously. We shall shortly be bringing forward proposals for public consultation. In view of this, and the existing arrangements in DoE Circular 27/87 for the Nature Conservancy Council to request call-in, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Renton: My Lords, on this occasion my noble friend has succeeded in convincing me and I am grateful. Although we tried to hook the Government by putting forward this amendment, my noble friend has pointed out that on grounds of delay and cost it is not necessary and might cause delay and cost. For those reasons I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
11.15 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 84:
After Clause 14, insert the following new clause:
("Notice of appeal
. After section 78(4) of the principal Act there is inserted—
"(4A) Notice of any appeal made under this section shall be served on any person named in a certificate

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issued for the purposes of sections 66 or 67, or to any person who has made representations to the authority on the application for planning permission." ").
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I too hope to convince the Minister. I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 85 and suspect that they have been listed in the wrong order on the Marshalled List. They are a modest pair of amendments which we can all support. Amendment No. 85 proposes that local authorities be required to notify interested parties and those who have commented on planning applications of the outcome of their decision. Amendment No. 84 applies the same principle to appeals. They are about openness, public accountability, courtesy and also a few other virtues. I hope that in that context the Minister will find them acceptable. I beg to move.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, the effect of Amendment No. 85, which should come before Amendment No. 84, would be to increase the number of people who must be notified of the outcome of planning applications. At present the 1990 Act requires local planning authorities to give notice of a decision to any owners or agricultural tenant who made representations about the application which were required to be taken into account in reaching that decision. Additional notification is at the discretion of the local planning authority.
Noble Lords will know that the Government are committed to streamline the procedures and requirements for publicising planning applications. Accordingly, Clause 13 makes provision for a development order to require a local planning authority to give any person whose representations have been taken into account such notice as may be prescribed of its decision. In undertaking this simplification the Government do not intend to make any substantial change to the present notification requirements.
The amendment would require that planning decisions be notified to any owner or tenant who, despite having been notified of the application by right, nevertheless elected not to make representations. It appears to us to be a wasteful use of resources to notify people who have not expressed any interest, even when invited to do so.
It would be equally poor value for money to notify all third parties who had made representations. In many cases where a planning application has generated significant local controversy the decision of the local planning authority will be well publicised in the local press. In some cases individual notification of all those who made representations would represent a considerable burden on local planning authorities which might even be faced with the task of contacting individually every signatory to a petition as well as those who expressed support for the application.
Amendment No. 84 seeks to introduce parallel notification requirements where a planning appeal is made to the Secretary of State. I am happy to assure the noble Baroness that such requirements are already effectively in place. Under the regulations which govern the procedure for appeals determined by
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written representations the local planning authority must notify all of those referred to in the amendment that an appeal has been submitted.
A similar procedure is followed for cases heard at public inquiry. The Planning Inspectorate writes to the local planning authority and asks it to inform all those interested in the case that an inquiry is to be held. Although this arrangement is voluntary, we have received no evidence to suggest that it is inadequate. With that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will appreciate that Amendment No. 84 is unnecessary.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord for that very helpful reply. I was not aware of the situation which he described as regards Amendment No. 84. However, given that assurance and description, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
I am slightly less persuaded by his response to Amendment No. 85 because, even if a potentially interested party has not responded, nevertheless, it may be affected by a decision. Therefore, I believe that we should be on the side of openness of information and spreading that information to affected parties.
I thought that in his reply the noble and learned Lord was making rather too much of the work involved for the local authority. In consideration of who should be notified, this amendment seeks to bring the weaker local authorities up to the best practice of the better authorities. It may be that the same objective can be met by planning guidance. However, I hope that the Minister will accept that this issue is about openness and consultation, because that is how planning decisions are legitimised. In the context of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 85 not moved.]
Lord Ross of Newport Lord Ross of Newport had given notice of his intention to move Amendment No. 86:
After Clause 14, insert the following new clause:
("Determination of applications affecting SSSIs
. After section 76 of the principal Act there is inserted—
"Determination of applications affecting SSSIs.
76A—.(1) Where a local planning authority propose to grant planning permission for a development which affects an area of special scientific interest in respect of which the Nature Conservancy Council has objected to the grant of such permission or recommended conditions which the authority do not propose to attach to the planning permission, and has not withdrawn that objection or recommendation, they shall submit to the Secretary of State the following particulars

(a) a copy of the application for planning permission and of such plans and supporting documents relevant to it and taken into account by the authority;

(b) details of any representations made to the authority about the proposed development together with the comments of the authority on them; and

(c) the reasons of the authority for proposing to grant planning permission.

(2) Subject to subsection (3), a local planning authority shall not grant planning permission for a development to which this section applies before the

531
expiry of a period of 28 days beginning with the date notified to them by the Secretary of State as the date of receipt by him of the particulars specified in subsection (1).
(3) The Secretary of State may, at any time during the period specified in subsection (2), notify the local planning authority that a longer or shorter period shall be substituted for that period.
(4) If on the expiry of the period referred to in subsection (2) of (as the case may be) notified under subsection (3) the local planning authority have not received from the Secretary of State a direction under section 77 (reference of applications to Secretary of State) the authority may proceed to determine the application.
(5) In this section—
"area of special scientific interest" means an area in relation to which a notification given, or having effect as if given under section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (areas of special scientific interest) for the time being has effect."").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I welcomed the Minister's comments about the need to protect SSSIs in relation to the forthcoming discussion document. However, I was rather surprised that she is unaware that the situation is causing anxiety to the NCC. I believe that it is.
[Amendment No. 86 not moved.]
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick moved Amendment No. 87:
After Clause 15, insert the following new clause:
"Time limit for appearance
. In section 79(2) of the principal Act there shall be inserted at the end ", provided that such an appearance shall not take place for at least 14 days after the date on which the appearance is notified to the person requesting it".").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the purpose of this amendment is to provide a minimum period between the date on which a public inquiry or hearing is called and the date on which it takes place. The inquiry procedure rules set out guidelines for the conduct of public inquiries. They include clear advice on how to avoid delays and inefficiency, including efforts to ensure that there is not an enormous delay between the lodging of an appeal and the date on which an inquiry is held.
While that is clearly sensible, there is no equivalent rule which provides a minimum period before which an inquiry is held. The National Housing and Town Planning Council considers that that is necessary because, if the time period is too short, the parties will not have time to prepare for it. That is a particular problem for third parties which have no opportunity to affect the date on which the inquiry is held although the developer and local authority must agree to it if possible.
Sometimes it is possible for an inquiry to take place at unexpectedly short notice. That can happen if, for example, another appeal is withdrawn and an inspector becomes available at short notice. That can cause problems. I have details of an inquiry called at extremely short notice. The inspector reported that some local people had had only 36 hours' notice of the inquiry. The site notice referring to an inquiry was put up on the Friday referring to the public inquiry for the following Wednesday. That surely is not sufficient
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time. A number of residents complained to the local authority that they were unable to attend the inquiry at such short notice. In any event there was little time for third parties to assemble their cases.
The inspector proceeded with the inquiry but agreed to accept subsequent written representations. While that made the best of a bad job, it prevented those unable to attend the inquiry from either cross-examining others or being cross-examined themselves. The purposes of the inquiry were to some extent lost, and the final decision was no doubt delayed to take account of any written representation received during the subsequent four weeks. It would have been better to postpone the inquiry. Justice may or may not have been done, but it was not seen to have been done, which is an important aspect of planning procedures.
The amendment proposes that primary legislation should contain the provision that a two-week minimum period be set aside after the calling of an inquiry until the inquiry takes place. There is a question of whether this is suitable for primary legislation or whether it would be better placed in the inquiry procedure rules. While the National Housing and Town Planning Council would settle for the rules, it believes that primary legislation would he more reliable.
Precedent is to be found in Section 66(6) of the principal Act which ensures that persons affected by planning applications have a guaranteed 21-day period following their notification of the application within which the local planning authority is barred from reaching a decision. That gives people time to assemble their comments and submit them to the authority. If that is sensible for planning applications, which it is, is it not sensible also for comparable limitations to be introduced for planning appeals? I beg to move.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I have listened to what the noble Lord has had to say but I do not see the need for the amendment. I do not entirely understand what the difficulty is. As I understand the position, under the inquiry procedure rules for planning appeals the Secretary of State is required to give at least 28 days' notice of an inquiry to those entitled to appear at it. Moreover, a number of procedures have to be undertaken before that notice can be given. An inquiry cannot normally commence until several months after the initial request to be heard.
Informal hearings are governed by a code of practice rather than statutory rules, but that similarly provides that at least 28 days' notice of arrangements will be given. In the circumstances the amendment is wholly unnecessary. I did not understand how the specific example given by the noble Lord could come about. However, I shall examine the matter to see what arose in that connection and either I or my noble friend Lady Blatch will write to him.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. I am sure that the National Housing and Town Planning Council will have

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concrete evidence of the situation that it came across. I shall attempt to obtain more details and write to the Minister. On that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey: moved Amendment No. 88:
After Clause 16, insert the following new clause:
("Control over agricultural and forestry buildings and roads
. After section 59(3) of the principal Act (development orders) there is inserted—
"(4) No development order may grant permission for the erection of a building or the formation of a private way for purposes of agriculture or forestry." ").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I see one farmer on the opposite Benches and one farmer on my own Benches, and therefore I dare to rise to move Amendment No. 88. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Stanley, is far too tired to resist the overwhelming case which exists for the amendment.
The planning control of farm buildings is an anomaly which has been part of our planning legislation for almost 50 years, and is none the better for that. On the face of it there is no reason why agricultural buildings should have any other exemption from planning control than, for example, industrial or commercial buildings.
The rapid conversion of an agricultural building into something which is not agricultural after permission has been obtained has been a feature of our countryside ever since planning controls were set up, or even before that. It is not as if this was a matter on which the Government had not agreed in principle that something had to be done. The trouble is that the Government have not agreed that enough should be done to deal with the very real problem.
It is a problem that intrusive buildings are erected in the countryside without due regard for the appearance of the countryside. It is a problem that buildings erected for agricultural purposes turn out in the end to be residential accommodation. It is a problem that barns can be built in an intrusive way, or cowsheds can turn out to have dormer windows, or that small agricultural plots can turn out to carry huge sheds. It has always been a problem on the fringe that stables, which are really a commercial use rather than an agricultural use, achieve exemption which other commercial activities do not.
The Government's acceptance that something is wrong does not go very far. They have agreed to extend the threshold size below which permitted development rights are not available from 0.4 hectares to 5 hectares, but my understanding is that only 0.6 per cent. of farm holdings in England are in units of less than 5 hectares, so this is going to be a minimal exemption. They have also agreed to extend to the whole country the notification arrangements that apply in national parks.
That may sound satisfactory, but in practice a survey which has been carried out by CPRE of the national parks has revealed that the notification arrangements are quite unsatisfactory, and seven out
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of the nine national parks authorities have expressed the view that they would prefer to see full planning control rather than the notification arrangements which exist at present in the national parks.
It is not even as if the notification arrangements save time. In over 50 per cent. of all notifications there were negotiations which took just as long as planning controls and did not have the same force of law or the same effect. For that reason, a very large number of bodies concerned with the countryside - the Countryside Commission, the Association of District Councils, the District Planning Officers Society, the National Housing and Town Planning Council, and the Ramblers' Association - all agree that full planning control should be applied to agricultural buildings. I hope that the House will agree. I beg to move.
11.30 p.m.
Lord Gibson-Watt: My Lords, I rise to oppose this amendment, largely on the forestry side. The Government are faced with a mare's nest if they try to tackle planning control over forestry buildings and forestry roads. What is a forestry building? Is it the sort of shelter which is put up for foresters to do their work in, something quite small and temporary? What is a forestry road? Is it where an owner takes out a bulldozer and makes a ride for the extraction of his trees?
This matter is far more complicated than the mover of the amendment, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, makes out. I know there has been controversy in this sphere, but I very much hope that the Government will not agree to the amendment.
Lord Stanley of Alderley: My Lords, I should be disappointing the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, if I did not rise to his bait. He is exaggerating about the double-glazed cowhouses that he has seen. I have not seen one. When he next does so, perhaps he will take me to see it. In all seriousness, many agricultural buildings are very beautiful. If my memory serves me right, His Royal Highness spends a great deal of his time in trying to preserve our barns, and good luck to him. We shall see similar events in the future. On a personal note, I am not particularly happy that the planning controls will make them any better. Neither my male nor my female ancestors would have been able to produce Longleat or Sheffield Park if they had the planning controls that we have today. I hope that my noble friend will resist this amendment.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, we have shown that we are prepared to introduce new, closely-targeted controls where this is necessary to deal with specific problems. Most recently, we have proposed a system of prior notification which would enable local planning authorities to control the siting, design and external appearance of farm and forestry buildings erected under the general development order. We have invited views on including farm and forestry roads in such a system. And we have proposed raising substantially the minimum area of agricultural land attracting permitted development rights under the

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general development order, from 0·4 hectares to five hectares, with special provision for genuine units below the new threshold.
The proposed notification system would build on arrangements currently operating in the national parks. It would represent a major change offering significant amenity benefits. At present local authorities outside national park areas are not consulted about permitted development, so they do not normally have an opportunity to give even informal views and advice. If our proposals were adopted, they would have the right to require details of siting, design and external appearance for their prior approval. We have had some 400 responses to the consultation exercise which closed last month. We are considering them very carefully. It is too early to say what our final conclusions will be.
I want to return now to a point which the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, raised when he introduced the parallel amendment at Committee stage. He said he was particularly concerned about the abuse of the permitted development rights for agricultural buildings to construct buildings that were not farm buildings but were in effect residential. To qualify for permitted development rights under the general development order a building must be
"designed for the purposes of agriculture",
and must be
"reasonably necessary for the purposes of agriculture"
within the agricultural unit concerned. These are significant safeguards. Under a notification system the local planning authority would, for the first time outside national parks, have to be notified of all new farm building proposals for which a planning application was not made. This would substantially aid enforcement. The enforcement provisions in the Bill would also assist.
Our proposals to introduce prior notification and raise the minimum area of agricultural land qualifying for permitted development rights would be a significant extension of planning controls over agricultural and forestry development. We are not in favour of a complete withdrawal of permitted development rights, which would place major new burdens on the agriculture and forestry industries at a time when aggregate income for agriculture is at its lowest since 1945. But as I have said, we shall be considering the responses very carefully before we take final decisions in the light of the consultation. I hope that the amendment will not be pressed.
The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, quoted the CPRE as having evidence to say that the notification system in national parks was not working. I have to tell him that we have just received a very detailed report of a research project which does not support that claim. The report has not yet been published, but it will be very soon. Then the noble Lord will see the CPRE evidence invalidated. He will be quite surprised at the evidence that we have to offer. I hope that this amendment will be withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the Minister will hardly expect me to roll over and wave
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my paws in the air at evidence which she is unable to produce. She will hardly expect me to anticipate evidence that I have not seen and which she had not yet been able to analyse. I am able to produce my evidence. The CPRE has carried out a survey of the national parks' authorities. Only two of them, Snowdonia and the Yorkshire Dales, believe that the notification process is adequate to the purpose. I do not think that the House will allow me to give chapter and verse of the answers received from the authorities representing the Broads, Dartmoor, Exmoor, North Yorkshire Moors and Northumberland. Those are the answers that I have in front of me. They all believe that the notification process is inadequate. If they are the ones who have been having to implement it, it is difficult to see on what basis the Minister feels confident in extending it to the rest of the country and claiming that it is a successful experiment which will meet the needs of the case.
I am bound to say that all the Minister has done in response to my amendment is to say that she has not got an answer yet. If she has not got an answer yet, then all that means is that the Government are going to be faced with this amendment continuously until they have an adequate answer, or at least an answer that they can attempt to put to Parliament. With that threat, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Ross of Newport Lord Ross of Newport moved Amendment No. 89:
After Clause 16, insert the following new clause:
("Development permitted under interim development orders
After section 105 of the principal Act there is inserted—
Development permitted under interim development orders.
105A.—(1) Where any development is authorised by virtue of a permission granted on an application made under an interim development order between 21 July 1943 and before 1 July 1948 and that permission is still valid the person entitled to the benefit of that permission shall, within one year of the date of entry into force of this provision, send a copy of the permission to the local planning authority or authorities in whose area or areas that permission will have effect.
(2) Within fourteen months from the date of entry into force of this provision every local planning authority shall establish a register of permissions in their area granted under interim development orders and that are still valid.
(3) Provision may be made by regulations or a development order for prescribing the information about the permissions that is to be entered on the register.
(4) It shall be the duty of a local planning authority to secure that the register established under subsection (2) above is open to public inspection free of charge at all reasonable hours and to afford members of the public reasonable facilities for obtaining from the authority, on payment of reasonable charges, copies of entries in the register.
(5) Any person who is entitled to the benefit of a permission of which he has sent a copy to the authority may notify the authority within three months of the date of establishing the register that his permission has been omitted from it and on receiving such notification it shall be the duty of the authority to enter that permission in the register.
(6) Within two years of the date of entry into force of this provision any permission granted on application under an interim development order between July 21

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1943 and July 1 1948 that is not entered on the register established under subsection (2) above shall cease to have effect.
(7) Where a permission has ceased to have effect by virtue of subsection (6) above no compensation under the provisions of this Act shall be payable to the person entitled to the benefit of it.
(8) Entries on the register established under subsection (2) above shall also be entered on the register established under section 69 of the principal Act.").
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 89 which appears in my name on the Marshalled List. It deals with the interim development orders and particularly with gravel extraction. This matter was raised in Committee by the noble Lord, Lord Moran, the noble Baroness, Lady David, and by myself, and there may well have been others. I am sorry, I have not fully checked up. In response to what was said then I, and no doubt other Members of this House, received substantial information from the British Aggregate Construction Materials Industries. I must say that one had to take note of what it sent to us.
Obviously one cannot just produce amendments in this House which create problems for the construction industry and some of its assets. But it came up with a suggestion that I hope the Government might feel is sensible. Perhaps I have been a bit too generous in what we tabled. I asked our legal adviser to table a suitable amendment to cover what was suggested in the information from the aggregate people, and I hope that he has made a good job of it.
The fact is that we do not know how many IDOs still exist. Both the Department of the Environment and the county councils have attempted to carry out surveys to identify how many remain valid with potential for either continuation of quarrying or reopening of workings. Neither, I am told, has managed to complete a full survey because the counties have incomplete records of them as a result, in particular, of the 1974 reorganisation of local government.
Because there is so much doubt about the scale of IDOs still extant and the consequences of taking action could be so serious for the quarrying industry, BACMI—that is the shortened term for the organisation—believes it would be wrong to amend the legislation until the scale of the problem has been fully identified or until the Department of the Environment review of the workings of the 1981 Act has been completed.
In the short term BACMI supports the proposal made to it by the County Planning Officers Society that provision should be made in this legislation for a system of compulsory registration of IDOs rather on the lines of the commons registration system. That actually seems to have gone rather wrong, but never mind, I will leave that alone. The provision could take the form of a requirement to register all IDOs and their extent within two years, after which any unregistered IDOs would be lost. This would have the advantage of allowing a full assessment of the scale of the problem before decisions were taken on what needs to be done.
I felt that that was not an unfair approach, and therefore that is what the amendment which I now move attempts to do. I would hope that, in view of the fact that it is the aggregates organisation itself which is prepared to accept this and the planning officers themselves who suggested it, the Government will take it on board.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 98 and 99 tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady David have been grouped with the amendment just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. These are very serious matters and I believe that a full answer is required to the arguments put forward by the British Aggregate Construction Materials Industries. However, in view of the agreement which we have reached about the close of Business this evening, I do not believe that those arguments can be properly explained in 30 seconds flat. I propose, therefore, to ungroup my amendments from the amendment now before us so that it can be dealt with more speedily.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble and learned friend the Lord Advocate said in Committee that the Government were considering whether action should be taken to deal with IDO permissions in advance of the findings of our more general review of the existing powers available to mineral planning authorities for revoking or modifying minerals permissions generally and that we hoped to announce our conclusions before the Bill has completed its passage. It is not a simple matter. Minerals are an important national resource and the country needs to maintain a steady supply. However, as we made clear in the environment White Paper, it is necessary to strike a careful balance between the interests of amenity and the need to exploit the resource. Mineral operators must take account of best environmental practice and aim to be good neighbours. We are aware that increasingly the industry accepts its responsibility to work sites in an environmentally sensitive manner and to restore land once working has ceased. Nevertheless, the Government believe that it is inequitable that the extent and terms of permissions which have been in existence for close to 50 years are not recorded and that householders and others may have been disadvantaged by this lack of knowledge.
We shall therefore bring forward amendments during the passage of the Bill to provide that, unless the holder of an IDO permission applies to the appropriate mineral planning authority within six months from Royal Assent for the permission to be registered, the permission will cease to have effect. We shall of course consult on the detail of what we have in mind, including the appropriate time period for registration.
However, we recognise that registration in itself will not deal with the problems of the lack of conditions attached to such permissions. Residential and other development may have been built on or near IDO permission areas; similarly, parts of IDO sites may have been designated as sites of special scientific interest or of other environmental importance—without knowledge of the fact that the permission

539
existed or the terms of the conditions attached to it. The Government are, therefore, considering whether to require that applications for registration of IDO permissions are accompanied by schemes of operating, restoration and, where appropriate, aftercare conditions for the approval of the mineral planning authority.
The Government take the view that it would be sensible to use the opportunity of registration to apply conditions and believe that responsible operators would share that view. Applicants would be able to appeal to the Secretary of State against refusal or the imposition of unreasonable conditions by the authority. We shall be issuing a short consultation paper on our proposals in the next few days and will consider the response before taking a firm decision. The question of the impact of the proposals on the compensation rights of operators will be covered in the consultation exercise. In view of that explanation, I hope, that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ross of Newport: My Lords, I can hardly moan about that because I actually suggested a period
540
of one year and the Government have proposed six months. It is a step in the right direction. I welcome what has been said, but I shall obviously want to study it. Judging by the glares which I am receiving from Members on the Opposition Front Bench, it is possible that I have been slightly over-generous in my response. It would seem that the Government are on the right side of the Opposition for once. I am grateful for the Minister's reply. I believe that we are all delighted by the fact that the Government are taking notice of what is a most difficult situation; indeed, some landowners are in an appalling situation. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned at eleven minutes before midnight.

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