Sitting of 26 March 1991

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

    Apprentices
    Mr. Holt: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many indentured apprentices were registered on 1 January each year for the past 20 years.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Jackson): The labour force survey showed that there were 352,000 apprentices in Great Britain in spring 1990 compared with 367,000 in spring 1979 when the data were first collected, but it must be recognised that apprenticeships are only part of the system of delivering vocational training. Youth training, for example, currently provides training for 350,000 young people, compared with only 6,000 in 1979. Most of these are in addition to the number of apprentices.
    Mr. Holt: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. I am pleased that so many apprentices are still indentured in Britain, contrary to the generally held view that the numbers have declined rapidly. I commend to my hon. Friend the furniture industry for its new and imaginative scheme for trainees in that industry, in which skill has a pre-eminent position. Would not it be even better if we reviewed the way in which education and training are still divided unnaturally by the school leaving age of 16? That would allow even more young people to take advantage of the excellent training available in the furniture industry.
    Mr. Jackson: I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the furniture industry on what sounds an excellent scheme. I hope to have an opportunity to see something of it at first hand. The whole House is beginning to recognise the success of youth training. It has brought into training hundreds of thousands of young people who would not previously have been trained. That is surely a fact that can be accepted. Youth training is improving the quality of training by shifting the focus from the time served to the acquisition of relevant competences, and it is delivering qualifications. According to the latest figures, 69 per cent. of those who complete youth training acquire qualifications. That is an impressive result.
    Mr. Beggs: Would the Under-Secretary of State like to comment on the observation that is made from time to time that our European partners devote much more of their national resources to education and training? Perhaps he would comment on how we stand in the league table.
    Mr. Jackson: International comparisons are complex and difficult, but comparisons show that, on the education side, we are one of the high spenders, and that, on the training side, the Government are one of the highest spenders. It is not true that we invest less than other countries in education and training. There may be questions about the effectiveness with which, in the past, we have invested in education and training. We are pursuing that matter actively. When answering my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt), I should have added that we are looking into a review such as he suggested. Only last Thursday, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science announced a White Paper on the subject.
    Mr. Latham: Is my hon. Friend aware that if he wants to have a reasonable number of apprentices in the construction industry, he will have to keep the Construction Industry Training Board as a statutory organisation, whether he wants it or not?
    Mr. Jackson: As my hon. Friend knows, only the other day we debated an order on the levy for the Construction Industry Training Board. We are continuing to sustain the board. We had a rather equivocal debate with the Opposition, in which I believe my hon. Friend took part.
    Mr. Fatchett: Will the Minister confirm that the number of apprenticeships in manufacturing industries in Britain has declined by two thirds during the lifetime of the Government? Is not that further evidence of the skills gap between Britain and other countries and further confirmation of the point made last week by the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he admitted that Britain still lags behind our competitors in the participation of school leavers in both education and training? Were not the Secretary of State's words simply a condemnation of the Government's record and an indication of their failure in both education and training?
    Mr. Jackson: The proportion of our young people who stay on in full-time education beyond 16 is relatively low, but it has improved substantially since the Labour party was last in office. I simply cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not have a breakdown of apprentices by sector of manufacturing industry. I shall certainly look into that and come back to the hon. Gentleman. Over the past 10 years there has been a phenomenal increase in the productivity of manufacturing industry. That must be taken into account.

    Training and Enterprise Councils
    Mr. Cran: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many training and enterprise councils are now fully operational; and how many more will be so in the next two years.
    The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Howard): Excellent progress is being made in setting up training and enterprise councils. All 82 TECs in England and Wales are now in place, with 51 fully operational. I expect a further 20 or so to become operational on 2 April and the remainder later this year, nearly two years ahead of schedule.
    Mr. Cran: The Government have certainly demonstrated their commitment to training, as is evidenced by the

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    fact that the training budget has increased two and a half times in real terms since the time of the last Labour Government. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the employer has the primary responsibility for training, and may we be assured that there will be no dilution in the employer role from the point of view of the leadership of TECs? Will my right hon. and learned Friend take every opportunity to tackle the minority of employers who continue to think that training is expendable in a downturn, which is exactly the opposite of the view that is taken by our competitors?
    Mr. Howard: I agree with my hon. Friend about the crucial role played by employers in training. Employers are currently investing more than £20 billion in training. We recognise the importance of their role in the lead that we have given them in training and enterprise councils. I am not sure that my hon. Friend need be quite so pessimistic about the current intentions of employers. Latest surveys estimate that between four and six times as many employers intend to maintain or increase their investment in training as intend to reduce it.
    Mr. John Evans: Will the Secretary of State accept from me, who served his time in a five-year apprenticeship as a fitter and turner, that the present methods of youth training have absolutely nothing in common with what the young people in this country used to receive in the days of proper apprenticeships? Is he aware that the figures that the Under-Secretary of State gave in answer to a supplementary question on Question I had nothing to do with indentured apprentices because the indenturing of apprentices has virtually disappeared from Great Britain?
    Mr. Howard: Youth training is, for the most part, far superior to the kind of training to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Youth training is not simply a question of time serving. It is increasingly a question of gaining qualifications, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said when dealing with Question 1—[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) will tell the House from the Opposition Front Bench whether the kind of reaction that we are seeing from his hon. Friends behind him to youth training represents the official position of the Labour party.
    Mr. Franks: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware of the announcement last week of up to 5,500 job losses in the shipyards at Barrow. That followed the announcement of 2,000 job losses at the end of last year. Will he consider what initiatives his Department can take, particularly by way of extra funding for Cumbria, TEC, with emphasis on training and retraining?
    Mr. Howard: I know that my hon. Friend is working very hard indeed to help his constituents. He has asked for a meeting with me and I look forward to seeing him in the near future and to discussing with him the ways in which we can help.
    Mr. Blair: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman now admit, as he must, that not only is he presiding over the fastest rising unemployment anywhere in western Europe but that in last week's Budget he secured not a penny piece more for the training and enterprise councils, which face massive cuts in training for the unemployed? What went wrong with his Budget submission? Did he never ask for more money or was it that, when he did, he
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    was told that throwing a lifeline to the Tory party over the poll tax mattered more than giving hope to the unemployed whom the Tories have created?
    Mr. Howard: I fear that the hon. Gentleman has a little more to learn about Budgets and their relationship with public expenditure. The Budget announced an important tax relief on training, which I would have hoped, if Opposition Members were serious about training, they would warmly welcome, in addition to the £120 million extra for employment training which I announced the last time I answered questions in the House.
    Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: May we be assured that chambers of commerce are being adequately consulted in the work context?
    Mr. Howard: Yes. For the most part, chambers of commerce are working closely with training and enterprise councils. They have an important role to play. Indeed, in many cases the people who are in the lead in running training and enterprise councils come from the chamber of commerce movement.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Hardy: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people residing in the employment areas of South Yorkshire are in full-time employment; what proportion of the population this figure represents; and what is the national average.
    Mr. Jackson: Information on employment according to the place of residence of the employees can only be obtained, for local areas, from the 1981 census of population. Data according to the place of work are available from the census of employment. In September 1987 there were 325,000 employees in full-time employment in the county of South Yorkshire, who represented 54·4 per cent. of the estimated work force and compared with a figure of 59·7 per cent. for Great Britain as a whole.
    Mr. Hardy: Do not those statistics reveal the farce of the Government's calculations that show that South Yorkshire is more well-to-do than even the richest areas of south-east England? Does the Minister accept that our position has gravely deteriorated since the 1981 census? Will he therefore ensure that, for areas such as South Yorkshire, information obtained from the 1991 census will be fed into the Government's calculations with great urgency?
    Mr. Jackson: I think that I can offer the hon. Gentleman some reassurance. I regret that the level of full-time employment in his constituency is below the national average. However, there has been not a deterioration but a sharp improvement in employment levels in South Yorkshire and Wentworth in the late 1980s. I ask the hon. Gentleman to study carefully the figures in the 1989 census of employment, which will be published early next month and will show an appreciable improvement in full-time employment over that period.

    British Nuclear Fuels
    Mr. Nigel Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has had any discussions with BNFL on health and safety in the workplace.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Eric Forth): No, but officials from the Health and Safety Executive are in regular communication with BNFL on health and safety matters in discharging their normal regulatory functions.
    Mr. Griffiths: If the Government are so sure about the health and safety record, why do not they encourage BNFL to go for on-site storage and reprocessing, rather than letting highly toxic nuclear fuels travel through my constituency in the heart of Edinburgh on their way from Torness?
    Mr. Forth: The answer is simple. The Health and Safety Executive has responsibility for safety levels at sites such as BNFL and others, through the nuclear installations inspectorate, and I am satisfied that it discharges its responsibility to the full. The record of safety at nuclear sites fully bears that out. Responsibility for transporting materials of whatever kind from one place to another comes under the Department of Transport and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will pursue his inquiries with that Department.

    Tourism
    Mr. Butterfill: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps are being made by his Department to stimulate tourism.
    Mr. Howard: In recognition of the present difficulties facing the industry, £800,000 has been made available to the English tourist board for a major marketing campaign starting this month, and the British Tourist Authority will receive an extra £800,000 in 1991–92 to promote Britain overseas. I am visiting north America in the week commencing 7 April to help boost interest there in Britain as a place to visit.
    Mr. Butterfill: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that, the last time we had problems with terrorism and people in the United States were deterred from visiting this country, a number of initiatives were taken in the United States, including meetings with my right hon. and learned Friend's counterpart in the United States. Will he meet his counterpart when he visits the United States and assure us that everything will be done to return Brawn to a healthy state of tourism, particularly from that country?
    Mr. Howard: 1 can certainly give my hon. Friend those assurances. I shall do all I can to remind Americans that they will be very welcome here. We expect many of them to visit in the months ahead.
    Mr. Ashton: While the Government are proud to give £800,000 to tourism how much has been taken out of tourism with the increase in VAT to 17½ per cent., which was announced last week'? Surely that step will encourage many thousands more people to take their holidays in Benidorm instead of Bournemouth and will be a devastating blow to the tourist industry in Britain.
    Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman cannot seriously expect different rules to apply to the tourist industry and to other industries. If he or any other Opposition Member suggests that local government contributions to local government services should be reduced—as we think they should be—but not financed through VAT, perhaps they will say how they would finance them.
    Mr. Hill: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of how fast Southampton is advancing in the tourist market? What help is his Department giving us and what facilities will be available for new areas of tourism such as the port of Southampton, the ocean village, marinas and many other facilities in the area?
    Mr. Howard: I am aware of the many attractions of Southampton. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Southern tourist board is doing what it can to draw Southampton's tourist attractions to the attention of potential visitors.
    Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the Secretary of State admit to the House that the £800,000 that he announced is not new money, but money that was already destined to go to tourism? As he was invited to do by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton), will the Secretary of State accept that the industry reckons that the £800,000 that he claims to be making available bears scant comparison with the £300 million that the industry will lose due to the VAT change? The industry makes that comparison because it knows that the Government are not prepared to do anything for it.
    Mr. Howard: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's figures for one moment. I note that he repeats the question asked by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) without dealing with the essential point underlying that question, which I put to him and invited him and his colleagues to answer.
    Mr. Simon Coombs: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the new money that he has made available will be widely welcomed in the industry? Has he heard the news that £1 billion is the current estimate of the loss to airlines alone around the world as a result of the Gulf war and the recession? Therefore, will he give the House an assurance that he will continue to monitor carefully the effect of those events on tourism in Britain, and the benefit to it of the money that he has made available, to ensure that the industry survives for the next few months?
    Mr. Howard: I can certainly give that assurance. I am working closely with the British Tourist Authority so that we do all that we can to encourage the industry and to encourage more people to come to Britain to enjoy all the attractions that we have to offer.

    Factory Inspectors
    Mr. Cryer: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the current number of factory inspectors in post.
    Mr. Forth: On 1 March 1991, 632·5 factory inspectors were in post in the Health and Safety Executive, an increase of 7 per cent. since 1988. Details of further planned increases in inspectors will be published late in May or June in the Health and Safety Commission's plan of work for 1991–92 and beyond, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State has now received for his approval.
    Mr. Cryer: Does the Minister agree with the director-general of the Health and Safety Executive who. when giving evidence to the Select Committee on Employment, said that there were far too many serious

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    accidents in industry? Does not that mean that we should employ more factory inspectors? Will the Minister consider the fact that, many years ago, it was possible for factory inspectors to go round seeking out unregistered premises? That service has gone by the board under the Tory Government. As a result, one young man was killed in a plastic baling machine at an unregistered premises and a self-employed worker, taking part in the Conservative's enterprise culture, bought a defective baling machine, into which he fell while it was on unregistered premises, and was killed. Does not the Minister think it time that the Government took more time to prevent such accidents from occurring? That means employing more factory inspectors and devoting more time to seeking out the cowboys in unregistered premises.
    Mr. Forth: I agree with the hon. Gentleman's first point. There are always too many accidents. That is common ground—at least I hope it is. I part company with the hon. Gentleman over his simplistic analysis whereby he assumes that the number of inspectors in post—which is increasing and scheduled to increase further—is necessarily connected with the number of accidents. Through a careful plan of work, the Health and Safety Executive ensures that its resources are carefully targeted in sectors where accidents are most likely to take place.
    I am strongly aware of the problem about unregistered premises, as is the Health and Safety Executive. There are pilot projects in place to identify how many unregistered premises there are and how best to tackle the problem. The hon. Gentleman's portrayal of complacency and inaction over the problem is totally inaccurate.

    National Vocational Qualifications
    Mr. Moss: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the implementation of national vocational qualifications.
    Mr. Howard: The Government are fully committed to the far-reaching reform of vocational qualifications being carried out by the National Council for Vocational Qualifications under the leadership of Sir Bryan Nicholson. The council has been set the target of completing the framework of reformed qualifications to cover 80 per cent. of the working population by the end of 1992.
    Mr. Moss: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that national vocational qualifications offer working people of all ages the chance to have their existing skills recognised and set clear targets for their future training needs? Does he also agree that such skills can be attained only if we set standards of training that are as good as those of our European competitors?
    Mr. Howard: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The standard of training and the qualifications go together. I hope that many people will take advantage of the tax relief in the Budget to exploit the opportunities that are available in order to provide better training to achieve these qualifications.
    Mr. Leighton: We must hope that the country makes progress in these important matters. How shall we know whether we are making progress unless there are clear targets and figures to be achieved? What steps is the Department of Employment taking to set national targets
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    and time scales so that we can check whether we are making progress and, if not, so that we can take the essential remedial action?
    Mr. Howard: I have set the National Council for Vocational Qualifications a very clear target of covering 80 per cent. of the work force with the relevant qualifications by the end of next year. In terms of other targets I look forward to the results of the work that the CBI, in association with other bodies, is carrying out. When that work is complete, we shall consider how best to move forward on the basis of targets specifically related to responsibilities, so that those who are set the targets are able to achieve them.

    Trade Unions
    Mr. Michael Brown: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the statutory requirements presently relating to employers' recognition of trade unions.
    Mr. Forth: The last Labour Government's compulsory recognition law was objectionable in principle and unworkable in practice. It was repealed in 1980 following representations from the independent Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. As a result, employers are now free to decide for themselves, in the light of their own particular circumstances and the needs of their business, whether to recognise a trade union, or any particular trade union.
    Mr. Brown: I am glad to hear that reply. Is my hon. Friend aware of a recent document from the Trades Union Congress which shows that if a single shop steward on a shop floor decides that 40 per cent. of the employees want to have a trade union recognised, on his word it should be recognised? I hope that my hon. Friend can give the absolute assurance that that will be totally resisted because it would result in complete ill will and anarchy on the shop floor.
    Mr. Forth: My hon. Friend illustrates very well the extent to which the TUC simply wants to turn back the clock and the extent to which the Labour party is in the clutches of the trade union movement. I think that I can give my hon. Friend an absolute assurance that there will be no turning back on this issue.

    School-Industry Compacts
    Mr. Ian Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many employers are involved with school-industry compacts.
    Mr. Jackson: More than 8,000 employers are actively involved in school-industry compacts, guaranteeing about 25,000 jobs with training for school leavers.
    Mr. Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that this scheme covers 78,000 young people? Does he also agree that it is important for industry to continue to play its role by encouraging children to have some influence on their own education and to play a wider role in the community and in industry? Will my hon. Friend give further encouragement to the scheme, which effectively means that by meeting pre-agreed targets young people are guaranteed a job at the end of tuition?
    Mr. Jackson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The growth of the compact movement is one of the great hopes for the future and has been one of the great successes of the late 1980s. It started in 1988 and 85,000 young people—not 78,000—are covered by compact arrangements. The first cohort of l6-year-olds will enter further education or jobs in the summer. There is tremendous enthusiasm among employers and I have seen at first hand the enthusiasm of young people who are benefiting from the compact guarantee. It is an excellent development.
    Dr. Reid: While we all welcome the fostering of legal and beneficial contacts between children, employers and industry, does the Minister agree that illegal contracts between children and employers are serious? To estimate how seriously the Minister regards this, will he tell us how many under-age children are illegally employed in this country?
    Mr. Jackson: I am afraid that I do not have that information to hand, but I shall look into the matter and come back to the hon. Gentleman. This is an important issue, although it does not arise directly out of the question about compacts. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the House to listen quietly to questions and not to carry on private conversations, especially below the Gangway.

    Strikes
    Mr. Wilshire: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many working days have been lost to strikes during the last 12 months; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Howard: One and a half million working days were lost as a result of strikes in the 12 months ended January 1991. This is less than an eighth of the annual average in the 1970s, and is the lowest 12-month total since 1953. The number of stoppages recorded in January is the lowest for this month since 1929.
    Mr. Wilshire: Is not this enormously welcome decrease in the number of strikes largely due to the powers of the courts to sequester the assets of trade unions that break the law? Would not abandoning these powers lead to a massive increase in the number of strikes? Will my right hon. and learned Friend condemn the Labour party's proposals to give these powers back to unions and to undermine the courts?
    Mr. Howard: 1 agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that someone will rise from the Labour Front Bench and congratulate the Government on the success of our measures to reduce the number of strikes—something which has benefited our country. My hon. Friend is also right to point to the disastrous consequences that would flow from the Labour party's strikers' charter.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Instead of being unbelievably smug about what the Government have done, the Secretary of State should be more concerned about factories that are closing completely, because that is causing far more distress in industry and among workers. When Question Time is over, will the Secretary of State find time to go downstairs and talk to the representatives of the 2,000
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    British Aerospace workers from Kingston—members of the work force in the constituency of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—who are about to lose their jobs?
    Mr. Howard: I cannot believe that even the hon. Gentleman thinks that an increase in the number of strikes will help to save jobs. He might be better employed having a word with his Front-Bench defence spokesman, whose £9 billion worth of defence cuts would make the difficulties now faced by the defence industry seem as nothing.

    Textiles
    Mr. Vaz: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a further statement on job losses in the textile industry.
    Mr. Jackson: The number of employees in the textile industry fell by 14,000 or 7 per cent. in the year to January 1991.
    Mr. Vaz: Do not those figures show the Minister that the industry is in deep crisis? Is he aware that the textile industry loses one job every 60 minutes because of the Government's policies? When will the Minister get off his backside and instead of watching over the destruction of the industry do something to protect it and provide jobs?
    Mr. Jackson: Contrary to the hon. Gentleman's supposition, Governments do not provide jobs—the market does. The hon. Gentleman's picture of the performance of the textile industry, for which he claims to speak, is grotesquely wrong. He talks about a grave crisis, but in the year 1989–90 United Kingdom exports of clothing and textiles rose by 14 per cent., from £3·9 billion to £4·4 billion. That does not look to me like an industry in deep crisis.
    Mr. Ashby: Will my hon. Friend accept that in north-west Leicestershire we have a textile industry and despite losing 6,000 jobs when the mines closed we now have 1,200 more jobs than we did before closure? Furthermore, our textile industry is not complaining about job losses because parts of it are extremely buoyant.
    Mr. Jackson: It is an important industry, more than 400,000 people work in it, and it makes a great contribution to the national and international economy. My hon. Friend's emphasis, rather than that of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), is correct.
    Ms. Walley: If the Minister thinks that the textile industry is so important, will he speak to the Office of Fair Trading about the hostile bid being made for Tootal? Does he share my concern that, if that hostile bid goes through, upwards of 200 people in my constituency, working at Slimma in Tunstall could be made redundant because there are no employment guarantees?
    Mr. Jackson: That is obviously a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry, but I shall make sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has his attention drawn to the hon. Lady's question.

    Training and Enterprise Councils
    Mrs. Maureen Hicks: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what assessment has been made of the effect of TECs on voluntary training organisations.
    Mr. Howard: It is up to every training and enterprise council to decide which providers to contract with. I am satisfied that TECs will give voluntary organisations every opportunity to bid for the training that is required in their local areas.
    Mrs. Hicks: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that when training and enterprise councils are considering the suitability of training organisations, the most important criterion is that that organisation should be able to provide quality training? If there are unsuccessful training organisations, can we please ensure that trainees currently undergoing training in them are transferred to others and that we always keep uppermost in our mind the training needs of those with special difficulties?
    Mr. Howard: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Quality training is the supreme objective of training and enterprise councils. It is very important to ensure that if a provider's contract is not renewed the trainees continue to be catered for. That is something that the training and enterprise councils are achieving.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Following the question asked by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Hicks), will the Secretary of State have a look at the prospects for Apex, the ex-offenders' organisation which has been carrying out a unique training programme countrywide but is threatened, certainly in the south-east of England and in south-east London, with the imminent withdrawal of its funding? Will the Minister consider whether such organisations ought to be given special status when the general budget allocation is being made or whether, if necessary, additional funding to minimise the effects of the 37 per cent. reduction in funding that is about to decimate organisations such as Apex, Microtech and the rest?
    Mr. Howard: There is no question of withdrawing funding from an organisation in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. Each training and enterprise council is reviewing the training needs in its area and deciding how training can best and most effectively be provided. I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that objective.
    Mr. John Greenway: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the North Yorkshire training and enterprise council, which is located in my constituency, has been a very great success? Will he join me in congratulating Colin Shepherd and his team of industrialists on the tremendous amount of voluntary work that they have done to help make the training and enterprise council a success in North Yorkshire? Does he agree that local industrialists, working with the training and enterprise councils, can best decide what are the training needs of a particular area? When does my right hon. and learned Friend expect to review the needs of the training and enterprise councils?
    Mr. Howard: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am happy to pay tribute to Colin Shepherd and to the rest of the board of the North Yorkshire training and enterprise council. By working closely with the local education authority, they have achieved particular success in promoting education-business partnerships in North Yorkshire. I entirely welcome that initiative.
    Mr. McLeish: Will the Secretary of State accept that his response to a serious issue has been shocking and complacent? Will not he accept that 80,000 places have been cut from employment training, that £300 million has been cut from the budget and that we have the fastest rising rate of unemployment in Europe? Why does he not take the issue seriously? Is he unwilling or unable to reverse the scandalous breakdown of special needs provision in Britain?
    Mr. Howard: As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, because we have made it clear time after time, we believe in looking at the individual needs of unemployed people, helping them back into work as quickly as possible and making sure that the widest range of help is available to them. That is why we are providing up to 100,000 extra opportunities next year by means of job clubs and the job interview guarantee scheme so that all unemployed people have the maximum help available to them to get back into work as quickly as possible.

    Technical and Vocational Education Initiative
    Sir Anthony Durant: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many school pupils and students are currently benefiting from the technical and vocational education initiative.
    Mr. Jackson: In the 1990–91 academic year, some 848,000 young people aged 14 to 18 in full-time education in Great Britain are benefiting from TVEI.
    Sir Anthony Durant: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government are allocating £900 million over 10 years for the TVEI scheme and that that is over and above the general education budget? Will he also agree that technical training is very important to this country for its future in the world?
    Mr. Jackson: I can certainly confirm my hon. Friend's statement. The Government have committed £900 million of new money over 10 years, and TVEI now extends to 80 per cent. of our schools and colleges. Furthermore, there have already been great achievements. For example, science qualifications at GCSE have risen from 41 per cent. in 1987 to 53 per cent. in 1988, and the number of pupils studying science and technology has doubled. We have carried out a survey that shows that 84 per cent. of TVEI students say that they benefit from TVEI, although when the scheme was launched the Leader of the Opposition described it as being fit only for hewers of wood and drawers of water.

    Manufacturing Industry (Hours of Work)
    Mr. Grocott: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has any plans to introduce legislation to reduce the hours of work of people in manufacturing industry to the average levels of the European Community.
    Mr. Forth: There are no plans to introduce legislation to reduce working hours.
    Mr. Grocott: Will the Minister confirm that workers in manufacturing industry in Britain work an average of 44 hours a week—the longest working hours of any of the 12 countries in the Common Market? Will he take this opportunity to congratulate those trade unions that are

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    leading campaigns towards a shorter working week, and will he tell us when the Government will finally adopt a policy of manufacturing investment that will give people in industry the tools to do their jobs?
    Mr. Forth: The answer is no on all counts. First, the hon. Gentleman is typically wrong in his facts. The information I have is that the hours worked in manufacturing here in the United Kingdom are very much in line with those of our major competitors in the European Community. Secondly, if the hon. Gentleman thinks that trade unions contribute to productivity, competitiveness and employment in Britain by seeking to force down working hours arbitrarily, he lives in a different world from most real people. The hon. Gentleman's question well illustrates the extent to which the Opposition are totally out of touch with the needs of the United Kingdom in the 1990s.

    Tourism
    Mr. Franks: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what arrangements exist for the recovery of moneys allocated under section 4 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969 by the English tourist board where projects receiving such moneys are closed shortly after final payments are made.
    Mr. Forth: The English—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the House to listen to Employment Questions.
    Mr. Forth: The English tourist board may require the recipient of a grant made under section 4 to repay some or all of it if any of the conditions have been breached. The conditions apply for 10 years from the date of the final payment of the grant. In particular, a repayment may be sought if the recipient ceases business, for whatever reason.
    Mr. Franks: The Minister will be aware of the tremendous efforts that were made three years ago to secure for the Furness maritime museum a grant of £294,000—the largest grant for a single project. The Minister will also be aware of the circumstances that have prompted my question to him. Will he therefore communicate to Barrow district council the answer that he has given me this afternoon?
    Mr. Forth: I pay tribute to the role that my hon. Friend has played in the very important project that he mentioned. I wish that project well, but I must repeat to my hon. Friend and to all involved in the project that it is the duty of the English tourist board to seek to recover any public moneys that may have been spent on such a project. No one involved in such a project, be it the local authority or anyone else, should imagine that if the project ceases they can walk away with the public money involved. Our duty is to the taxpayer and we want to make sure that the moneys are recovered where appropriate.

    Amble Office
    Mr. Beith: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received about the closure of the Amble office of the Employment Service.
    Mr. Jackson: Six representations have been made to my right hon. and learned Friend, to me and to the Employment Service chief executive about the closure of Amble. These include two representations made by the hon. Member on the subject. The remaining representations were made by the two local councils concerned. All representations were taken into account in deciding the future of the Employment Service office in Amble.
    Mr. Beith: Does the Minister realise that Amble has consistently had one of the highest unemployment rates in Northumberland and that jobless people there deserve help on the spot, not miles away in Alnwick? Will he make it clear to the executive agency—the Employment Service—that levels of unemployment and levels of need ought to be a factor in the siting of offices?
    Mr. Jackson: Obviously it is an important factor. In saying that, I speak as a Member who has had two closures in his constituency. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has visited the new integrated office at Alnwick. If he has, he will have seen what a superior service is being provided only nine miles from Amble where, at the last count, there were 377 unemployed people and the office was very small. We believe that we can provide a better service at Alnwick.

    Training and Enterprise Councils
    Mr. John Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what assessment he has made of the success so far of the training and enterprise council initiative.
    Mr. Howard: I am delighted with the progress that has been made by training and enterprise councils. The North Yorkshire training and enterprise council, which covers my hon. Friend's constituency, is in the forefront of the TEC movement, and I know that the board welcomes my hon. Friend's close interest in its activities.
    Mr. Greenway: Further to my right hon. and learned Friend's reply, may I ask whether he recalls that it was the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) who said that in setting up training and enterprise councils the Government were proceeding far too fast? Will my right hon. and learned Friend bear in mind that there are now 60 times more training places for young people than there were under the Labour Government?
    Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Conservative Members have grown used to seeing the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) shuffle uneasily in his seat whenever the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) are quoted at him.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Oppenheim: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    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.
    Mr. Oppenheim: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the decision substantially to lower community charge levels is

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    very welcome indeed? Does he not find it somewhat strange that the very people who, in the past, complained of lack of consultation about local government are now whining that the Government are being indecisive in doing just that, especially as the chief whiners are members of a party who for the past 12 years have shillied and shallied, dillied and dallied, without coming up with a single workable policy of their own?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend puts his point very crisply. It is fair to say that the Labour party has spent 12 years reviewing its policies and fudging its principles. On local government, we have come further in three months than the Labour party has in all that time.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister recall that his predecessor used to describe the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) as "unassailable"? What word would the Prime Minister use to describe the right hon. Gentleman today?
    The Prime Minister: It may be the fate of Prime Ministers to be assailed by the unassailable, but my right hon. Friend is quite wrong to suggest that we ought not to have consultation on such an important matter. It is important to get the right decisions and to ensure that people are carried with those decisions. This is a critically important matter, and the consultation is necessary. We shall carry it out speedily, and then decide.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is not "perceptive" the best word to describe the contribution of the right hon. Member for Blaby to the consultation? Does the Prime Minister agree that the right hon. Gentleman was perceptive in his warning that the Government are trying to inflict "son of poll tax", and even more perceptive in his view that the Prime Minister cannot choose and therefore should not govern?
    The Prime Minister: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken again. With regard to decision-taking, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) will himself confirm that in the past few weeks a number of decisions have been taken that he would have wished to take in recent years but neglected to take.
    Mr. Higgins: Is my right hon. Friend—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is difficult to hear.
    Mr. Higgins: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he is absolutely right to carry out further consultation before deciding on the replacement for the community charge? Personally, I have always believed that the best solution is to switch all the cost of local government expenditure to the central Exchequer, and I set out the reasons in my speech yesterday. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) at last agrees, but, in doing so, is it not wholly inconsistent of him then to object to the measure that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has taken to transfer the burden from the community charge to VAT? That is a move in the right direction.
    The Prime Minister: I understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes. We are setting out our alternative proposals in the consultation document. My right hon. Friend mentions inconsistency. He may care to bear in mind that the Labour party has set new standards of inconsistency day after day by one moment complaining that the level of local taxation is too high and the next moment whining about the level of value added tax.
    Mr. Ashdown: Will the Prime Minister now answer the question posed by the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) yesterday? In his replacement for the poll tax, which is to be the larger element, the personal charge or the property tax, or has he not been able to choose?
    The Prime Minister: It is interesting that the right hon. Gentleman of all people in the House should believe in decision before consultation.
    Mr. Ralph Howell: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his bold and courageous decision to abolish the community charge and, in particular, to replace it with extra VAT. As 2½ per cent. extra VAT will solve half the problem, why will not 5 per cent. solve the whole problem?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has consistently advocated that course, and it is accurate so far as the statistical method of collecting the money is concerned, but there are important principles at stake about people contributing directly towards the cost of local government services.
    Mr. Wareing: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Wareing: When the Prime Minister visits his constituency he is no doubt in a position to tell his constituents that next year their poll tax will be lower, albeit because the Government have increased taxation by £4·25 billion to pay for that reduction. Knowing how decisive the Prime Minister likes to be, will he be able to advise his constituents on the level of the poll tax in Huntingdon in 1992–93?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman clearly does not know very much about Huntingdon's expenditure pattern next year, and neither at this moment do I. Therefore, the answer cannot be given. The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that we have taken £140 off the community charge headline level. Do he and his party agree with that or oppose it?
    Mr. Allason: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the publication on Friday of the security service commissioners' report for 1989–90. Does he accept that 55 of the complaints considered by the commissioners were vexatious and frivolous and, if so, will he consider extending the scope of the security commissioners' powers to cover periods before the introduction of the Security Service Act 1989?
    The Prime Minister: I have no immediate plans to consider that, but I will examine the matter in the light of my hon. Friend's comments.
    Mr. McFall: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. McFall: Has the Prime Minister any idea whether the poorest and most vulnerable members of society will still have to pay 20 per cent. of the total under the new system, and whether there will be a register for the poll tax element? If he does not know the answer, who does? Should we refer to his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to

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    the Secretary of State for the Environment, to the Secretary of State for Scotland or, indeed, to the Secretary of State for Wales? To which of those competing voices in the Prime Minister's Cabinet should we listen?
    The Prime Minister: What the hon. Gentleman must listen to is what is said in the document that we shall be publishing.
    Mr. Hind: Is my right hon. Friend aware—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. There seems to be something of a holiday atmosphere in the Chamber today.
    Mr. Hind: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the calculations made by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which suggest not only that the community charge will be lower in the forthcoming financial year but that the new tax that he proposes—on the basis of the amount that will have to be collected—will also be lower? As my right hon. Friend no doubt knows, those projections are available. Perhaps he can persuade the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) to tell the House what the average family living in a semi-detached house would pay under Labour's system.
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has raised an interesting point. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), however, has not the slightest idea how his system would work, and not the slightest idea of what the tax levels would be.
    Mr. Darling: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Darling: The right hon. Gentleman keeps referring to his consultation document. As it is due to be published in about two weeks' time, he must have some idea what is in it. Can he tell us how much the Government will contribute to council spending next year, and will he confirm that the poll tax element of the new tax may be higher in Scotland than in England?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is correct in one respect—I have a very clear idea what will go into the document, but he will have to wait until it is published.
    Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Thurnham: When my right hon. Friend meets President Iliescu of Romania next month, will he refer to the desperate plight of the Romanian orphans and ask the president to give the maximum assistance to British couples who are cleared to adopt such children, notwithstanding the lack of support from the Opposition spokesman on children?
    The Prime Minister: I shall certainly be happy to do that. We are committed to helping British couples who wish to adopt Romanian children, and we are keen to ensure that the appropriate procedures are adopted as speedily as possible. A team of Home Office and Department of Health officials visited Bucharest in
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    November 1990 to discuss further how to co-ordinate help to that end, and we are in regular contact with the Romanian authorities.
    Mr. Loyden: Will the Prime Minister today take the opportunity to consult his right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and convey to him the great distress caused by his decision not to open an inquiry into the sinking of MV Derbyshire? The bereaved families have been treated with scant regard by the Secretary of State, who sent me a six-line letter about the matter. He knows about the campaign that has been mounted on behalf of those families. I appeal to the Prime Minister to ensure that his right hon. and learned Friend reconsiders his decision.
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows from what my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State said the other day, the chief inspector's published report does not warrant a reopening of the court of formal investigation. The position is perfectly clear, and the hon. Gentleman is aware of it.
    Mr. John Marshall: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Marshall: In the course of his busy day, will my right hon. Friend consider the proposals of some people for public expenditure to be increased by £26 billion? Does he agree that such a course could result only in higher taxes, higher prices and higher inflation? Does he also agree that the British people want to build on the successes of the 1980s, rather than returning to the dismal days of the 1970s?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has made a good point. The Opposition do not themselves know the cost of their own policies. Their shadow Budget does not add up. Even when they propose to increase child benefit, they forget to include the poor by clawing it back. Their shadow Budget has barely an accurate figure in it.
    Mr. Foulkes: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 26 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Foulkes: Can the Prime Minister explain why, under the proposals of the Secretary of State for Education and Science, children in state schools will not be able to study history after 1970 whereas—[Interruption.] I know that the Government have been dithering about it.
    Hon. Members: Consulting.
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Foulkes: In private schools, to which the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet send their children in this so-called classless society, pupils will be able to study history up to the present day.
    The Prime Minister: If the hon. Gentleman had read the documentation more carefully, he would know that he is wrong. There is no ban on history after the 1970s. The hon. Gentleman is confusing what may be studied with the official curriculum.

Northern Ireland (Political Talks)
Mr. Speaker: Before the Secretary of State starts, may I ask hon. Members who are not remaining for this important statement to leave quietly and without conversation?
3.30 pm
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Peter Brooke): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about political development in Northern Ireland.
I am pleased to be able to inform the House that, following extensive discussions with the main constitutional parties in Northern Ireland—the Alliance party of Northern Ireland, the Social Democratic and Labour party, the Ulster Democratic Unionist party and the Ulster Unionist party—and with the Irish Government, a basis for formal political talks now exists. I frankly acknowledge to the House that this would not have been possible without the good will and determination of the Northern Ireland parties and the helpful and constructive approach taken by the Irish Government. The stated positions of all these parties are well known. Her Majesty's Government reaffirms their position that Northern Ireland's present status as a part of the United Kingdom will not change without the consent of a majority of its people.
The endeavour on which we have all agreed to embark is an ambitious one. We are setting out to achieve a new beginning for relationships within Northern Ireland, within the island of Ireland and betweeen the peoples of these islands. While a successful outcome cannot be guaranteed in advance, I am confident that all the potential participants are committed to a forward-looking and constructive approach. For their part, the two signatories of the Anglo-Irish Agreement—the British and Irish Governments—have made it clear that they would be prepared to consider a new and more broadly based agreement or structure if such an agreement can be arrived at through direct discussion and negotiation between all the parties concerned.
To allow an opportunity for such a wider political dialogue, the two Governments have agreed not to hold a meeting of the Anglo-Irish Conference between two pre-specified dates. All the parties concerned will make use of this interval for intensive discussions to seek the new and more broadly based agreement which I have just described.
As the conference will not be meeting between the specified dates, the secretariat at Maryfield will accordingly not be required for that period to discharge its normal role of servicing conference meetings provided for in article 3 of the Agreement.
It is accepted that discussions must focus on three main relationships: those within Northern Ireland, including the relationship between any new institutions there and the Westminster Parliament; among the people of the island of Ireland; and between the two Governments. It is common ground between all the parties that hope of achieving a new and more broadly based agreement rests on finding a way to give adequate expression to the totality of the relationships I have mentioned.
Talks will accordingly take place in three strands corresponding respectively to the three relationships.
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Some arrangements will be needed for liaison between the different strands of these complex discussions. All the Northern Ireland parties will participate actively and directly in the north-south discussions. The Unionist parties have made it clear that they wish their participation in those talks to be formally associated with my presence and that they will regard themselves as members of the United Kingdom team. It is accepted by all those involved that, to make full use of the interval between meetings of the conference to achieve an overall agreement satisfactory to all, it will be necessary to have launched all three sets of discussions within weeks of each other.
A first step towards getting related discussions under way in all three strands will be the opening, as soon as possible, of substantive talks between the parties in Northern Ireland under my chairmanship. These will commence with a round of bilateral meetings before moving on, as soon as possible, into plenary sessions. It has been agreed by all the participants that before long, when, after consultation, I judge that an appropriate point has been reached, I will propose formally that the other two strands should be launched. My judgment as to timing will be governed by the fact that all involved have agreed that the three sets of discussions will be under way within weeks of each other.
The internal talks, like the talks in the other strands, will follow a demanding and intensive schedule. In order to ensure a full airing of the issues, it will be open to each of the parties to raise any aspect of these relationships, including constitutional issues, or any other matter which it considers relevant. All concerned have assured me that they will participate in good faith and will make every effort to achieve progress.
It is accepted by all the parties that nothing will be finally agreed in any strand until everything is agreed in the talks as a whole and that confidentiality will be maintained thereunto. However, in the final analysis, the outcome will need to be acceptable to the people.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: In thanking the right hon. Gentleman for his statement, may I take the opportunity to congratulate him on his determination and tenacity, which have been vital in securing the agreement that he has just announced? We are also grateful for the imagination and flexibility displayed by the political parties in Northern Ireland and by the Irish Government. We hope very much that those qualities will still be on display throughout the substantive negotiations which are about to begin.
Today's statement is only the beginning of a process that we all desire will lead to an agreement that will be acceptable throughout the island of Ireland. We are at an historic moment. There is now a window of opportunity, when possibilities for a political settlement are open in a way that has not been possible for decades. We know that all the participants recognise their responsibility because they would not otherwise have come so far. They carry on their shoulders the hopes and wishes of all sections of the people of Ireland, north and south, and of this island. The people will not lightly forgive their elected representatives if, over the next few weeks, they do not live up to the spirit and letter of the statement that has been agreed today. We have confidence that they will.
The Opposition fully support the participants in their endeavours to bring about a lasting agreement which will resolve the dissensions between Unionists and nationalists,

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between the two parts of Ireland and between Britain and Ireland. Again, the right hon. Gentleman deserves the thanks of every hon. Member for his statement today.
Mr. Brooke: I thank the hon. Gentleman very warmly for his opening and closing remarks. I join him in paying tribute to those who have participated with me in the conversations so far and I join him in his hopes for the future. He is correct to say that this is a moment of opportunity for us all. I am reassured by the amount of common ground that we have been able to establish in the talks so far and I hope that it will continue. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the support that the Opposition have rendered throughout the process.
Mr. James Molyneaux: I thank the Secretary of State for giving us the text of the statement some 12 days ago, because it enabled us to study it, and to obtain written clarification and a record of understandings.
May I endorse the statement, which is similar to the draft agreed with us last summer, but which the Secretary of State was not permitted by Mr. Collins to deliver to the House? Does he share my regret that the intervening nine months have been unnecessarily wasted?
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I especially endorse the phrase "confidentiality will be maintained" until the talks have concluded? Does he share my view that those of us who will be expected to play key roles must not jeopardise all that has been achieved so far by negotiating over the air in radio chat shows?
Finally, would the Secretary of State be kind enough to pass on my thanks to the news industry for letting me in on the secret that the statement would be made today and not tomorrow as previously arranged?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he said. In the course of the past nine months, we have been able to secure a greater convergence of all the parties which then made it possible for the statement, which I proposed 12 days ago, to be accepted. I entirely endorse what the right hon. Gentleman said about confidentiality. I would as little expect to meet the right hon. Gentleman on a chat show as I think he would expect to meet me.
As to the date of the statement, all of us were grateful to the participants in the talks that they were able to give us an answer yesterday rather than today. We felt it better that the statement should be made as early as possible.
Mr. Edward Heath: Will my right hon. Friend accept my warmest congratulations on his achievements in bringing the parties of both north and south together in what can be the most worthwhile and productive effort since the Sunningdale agreement was abandoned in 1974 by the Labour Government?
My right hon. Friend says that one group wants to be considered as part of Her Majesty's Government's team, and may I express the hope that that does not in any way give them the right of veto over what Her Majesty's Government's representatives believe to be right in the interests of all the parties, north and south? Perhaps I might also add in passing that my right hon. Friend's achievement shows that consultation can, at times, be extremely worth while and productive? [Laughter.]
Is not the best way in which we can help our right hon. Friend in his endeavours to refrain from attacking any
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group in Ireland, north or south, if things happen to go wrong? What my right hon. Friend is trying to do is to deal with the problems of the past 400 years. Those of us who have had an active part in that effort in the past know that, despite the best intentions, things can at times go wrong. There is no point in attacking the other side of the House in those circumstances.
Mr. Brooke: I thank my right hon. Friend for his opening remarks.
My right hon. Friend's first question related to one of the groups of participants regarding themselves as what I described as the United Kingdom team rather than the team of Her Majesty's Government. My right hon. Friend is correct to think that Her Majesty's Government would not be prohibited or precluded from any observations of their own by the style in which others would be joining them in the second strand of talks.
To secure widely acceptable arrangements, we are determined that we should maintain unanimity throughout the process in terms of agreement at the various stages. Anyone will have the right to say, at some stage, that they wish to withdraw, but I very much hope that they will not feel the need to do so.
As to consultation, I realise that that is a theme of other events that are occurring elsewhere. Having been through a recent experience of such consultation, all I can say is that I do not recommend 15 months of it.
I agree, of course, with my right hon. Friend that, when dealing with problems whose roots lie in the centuries, it is sensible not to be engaged in criticism of other parties.
Sir David Steel: May I join in the tributes that have justifiably been paid to the Secretary of State on his great patience and on his achievement on getting all the horses into the starting gate at the beginning of this necessarily long-drawn-out procedure? It would also be right to express gratitude to the people of Northern Ireland, who have consistently sought a new beginning and pressed their political parties to come to the point now reached.
The right hon. Gentleman will understand that, to those on this Bench, the references to the triangular relationship have a certain portentous historic ring. However, the people throughout Ireland should know that all of us in this House and throughout Britain will pray that their endeavours succeed in bringing peace and tranquility to their attractive land and peoples.
Mr. Brooke: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks, and I totally endorse what he said in terms of gratitude to the people of Northern Ireland. When one considers what the people of Northern Ireland have been through in the past 20 years—if one extrapolated the deaths to these islands as a whole, that would represent 100,000 dead—their social cohesiveness has been most remarkable and I pay tribute to it.
Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that successive Secretaries of State have not been over-popular in the Province? However, special tribute needs to be paid to him, and I am sure that all my colleagues in this House would want to endorse that. He dealt with these matters in honesty, and with uprightness and great openness, and that was appreciated by all concerned. We did not agree with all he

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said and neither did he agree with all that we said, but we met one another on that basis and I think that the people of Northern Ireland and my colleagues would want me to put that on record here today.
Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that the people of Northern Ireland will be greatly relieved that the vast majority of them who voted that talks should take place when three conditions had been met, are glad that those conditions have now been met: first, that we should all seek an alternative to and a replacement for the Anglo-Irish Agreement; secondly, that the Anglo-Irish Conference should not meet while these negotiations are going on; and thirdly, that the secretariat as outlined in the agreement will not be needed if the conference is not operating.
Will the right hon. Gentleman also take it from me that the people of Northern Ireland are now relieved that the Government and the House can see the wisdom of what the overwhelming majority of people in the Province voted for? Will he confirm that the statement that he made to the House today—which is most important to the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland—that Northern Ireland will remain an integral part of the United Kingdom as long as its citizens so desire, also confirms what he said in the House on 5 July 1990:
"Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom in national and international law … By virtue of its constitution, the Republic of Ireland has, since 1937 also claimed sovereignty over Northern Ireland. We do not accept or recognise that claim, which has no basis in our law or, equally important, in international law."—[Official Report, 5 July 1990; Vol. 175, c. 1140.]
Mr. Speaker: Briefly, please.
Rev. Ian Paisley: I beg, Sir, your indulgence. We are discussing a statement which is vital to the people of Northern Ireland. We only have a short time and it is important that that matter be put to the Secretary of State. I know about the difficulties of trying to put questions on a statement.
Does the Secretary of State agree that the gate into the field has been opened, but that there is a lot of hard ploughing in front of us all and that there is no need for people to go on chat shows or public shows in the media to try practice scores? It would be better to get the participants around the table as soon as possible and to get down to the real business before us.
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said and for the openness with which our conversations have been conducted. I pay equal tribute to him for the directness with which he has said a series of things to me. In the spirit of our conversations, I can say that I genuinely enjoyed them. As to the conditions to which he referred having been met, I also want to pay tribute to the contribution made in that element of the process by others besides the Unionist parties to ensure that the wording appropriately met the concerns of all parties.
Of course I stand by the remarks that I made on 5 July. They are on the record, Finally, in response to the hon. Gentleman's comments about the open gate into the field, and at the risk of mixing the metaphor, I am conscious that the role of sheepdog will have to be continued.
Mr. John Hume: May I join other hon. Members in welcoming the Secretary of State's statement, which is long overdue? Like others, I express my appreciation of the integrity, dedication and honesty with which he has approached these talks during the past 15 months. Although there have been many obstacles and hiccups along the way, I should also like to pay tribute to the Irish Government and to the leaders of the two Unionist parties. Although there are many difficulties, it is fair to say that all parties approached the talks positively and constructively. I hope that the same spirit is brought to bear on the many obstacles that lie ahead.
I am particularly pleased that all the relationships that are at the heart of the problem are now on the table for discussion, because otherwise we will not solve anything. It is important to note that no agreement can be reached unless agreement is reached on all the conflicting relationships that lie at the heart of the problem. The challenge that faces us is historic and I hope that the spirit that has governed the approach to the talks will continue into the talks themselves.
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said and welcome the spirit in which his party and the Irish Government took part in our conversations. I should like to include my hon. Friend the Minister of State in the kind remarks that have been addressed to me, because he has been engaged in the negotiations and conversations for even longer that I have. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the closing passage of my statement stated:
"It is accepted by all the parties that nothing will be finally agreeed in any strand until everything is agreed in the talks as a whole".
Mr. Peter Temple-Morris: My right hon. Friend and his team are to be congratulated on their patience and tenacity during the past 15 months. Does he agree that what we are hopefully about is achieving an end to violence by making that violence increasingly irrelevant? Does he further agree that, in so doing, an awful lot of political sacred cows must be faced up to on both sides—on the one hand, there is the Irish constitution element of this matter and, on the other hand, there must be some acknowledgement of the working and practice of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which I think has done its job admirably?
Mr. Brooke: I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said, and confirm that, as I said in my statement, the agenda that we shall be addressing will be open and that we shall he able to address those points. Although the central purpose of our talks is the advancement of constitutional democracy in Northern Ireland, and the relationship with the Republic of Ireland, I hope that, in that process, we shall also be exercising pressure on the terrorists.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: I welcome the statement. As one of the Secretary of State's predecessors, I believe that the right hon. Gentleman richly deserves the praise that is coming from all quarters. Not the least reason for my welcome is that, unlike Sunningdale and the Convention, the right hon. Gentleman has managed to get all sides of the Unionist political parties together, which has not happened before, and which may be an augur of success when they talk to the SDLP.

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I turn now to the three strands of the statement, which referred, I believe, to "within Northern Ireland", "between the people of these islands" and "between the two Governments". I understand one and three, but what does the second mean? What will they be discussing?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks, not least because of the perspective and historical connection that he brings to these affairs. The specific passage in my statement read:
"It is accepted that discussions must focus on three main relationships: those within Northern Ireland, including the relationship between any new institution there and the Westminster Parliament; among the people of the island of Ireland; and between the two Governments."
We shall therefore be looking beyond the first strand at what might be future arrangements between those arrangements that we establish in Northern Ireland and the Government of the Republic.
Mr. James Kilfedder: I also pay tribute to the consummate skill and perseverence of the Secretary of State. Is he aware that there will be a great groundswell of good will—certainly in North Down—about the talks which may lead to reconciliation, stability and progress in Northern Ireland? Does he also agree that there is a need for people in the Irish Republic to visit Northern Ireland, where they will find that the people are not ogres but are hospitable, kindly, generous and friendly?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. He will know as a result of recent research that, of those who live in the Republic of Ireland who have visited Northern Ireland, 98 per cent. have said that they would wish to return. For myself, I hope that we can increase the number who visit for the first time.
Mr. David Trimble: I particularly welcome the final sentence in the statement, in which the Secretary of State said that the outcome of any talks would have to be acceptable to the people, unlike the failed Sunningdale initiative, when an attempt was made to ignore the ballot box. Does not the Secretary of State agree that one difficulty that lies ahead is the prospect of an election which would not just interrupt the timetable but might cause problems over matters of substance?
Will it not be difficult to have serious discussions about future democratic institutions for Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom when it is the policy of the alternative Government to manipulate Northern Ireland out of the Kingdom? Would not the best contribution of Her Majesty's Opposition to the process be to make it absolutely clear that they respect, and will entirely respect, the right of the people of Northern Ireland to determine their future?
Mr. Brooke: Of course I recognise that the shadow of a general election casts inself upon these events. It is on the whole unlikely—I choose my words carefully—that a general election might occur during the period of the talks themselves. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."] No greater significance should be read into that than that anyone who spends his life in the island of Ireland becomes quite a good betting man in the process.
On the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, it would be wholly inappropriate for me to make any comment on behalf of the Opposition. For myself, I do not see the fact of the general election potentially interfering with the process on which we are engaged.
Mr. Peter Robinson (Belfast, East): I join other right hon. and hon. Members in paying tribute to the Secretary of State, and I congratulate him on the skill that he has brought to bear on the process. I ask him not to be put off by the North Down Conservatives, who say that he is wasting his time. Will he have a word for them and for others in the Province who are negative about the process? Does he recognise, as I do, that the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland wish the Secretary of State well with the process? They want to see peace and political stability in the Province.
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question about the time scale and the time frame in which the talks will take place? In his statement he did not say what length of time would be involved. If the period were to be 10 or 12 weeks, considerable progress could have been made when the time came to an end. Will the Secretary of State build in sufficient flexibility to ensure that whatever progress has been made is not wasted?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks. As to his comments about my party colleagues in North Down, Dr. Kennedy made some remarks yesterday morning and I had a meeting with him yesterday afternoon. I believe—but it is a matter of taste—that it might have been better if those events had taken place in reverse order.
As to the question about timing, I think that the amount of time which we have for the talks will concentrate everybody's mind. I am grateful for the commitment which has been made for them occurring intensively. It has been common ground among us all in the progress that we have made so far that we should conduct ourselves in such a way that we can hold the progress we are making and not run the risk of going backwards.
Mr. Stuart Bell: Will not the Secretary of State agree that there was never a way of striking through the Gordian knot of conflicting constitutional interests in Northern Ireland and that the only way to proceed was to seek to unravel the knot? The Secretary of State seems to have done that with prudence and patience. Does he agree that the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which is now about five years old, has concentrated the minds of all the parties in Northern Ireland and that one of the most significant statements that he has made is that the Government of the Republic of Ireland and our Government are now prepared to accept a more broadly based agreement? Does he accept that there has been a constitutional crisis at the heart of the difficulties in Northern Ireland since the agreement was signed, but that that crisis is now over and a time of opportunity now exists?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the manner in which his question was framed. All of us who took part in the conversations during the past 15 months realised the nature of the opportunity that was available to us. I have paid tribute before, but I do so again, to the fact that we have been able to converge and people have embraced the view of others in reaching the position that we are in today, which is acceptable to all. I hope that that process will continue when we begin substantive talks.
Several Hon. Members rose ——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have to have regard to the subsequent business, before the House, which, as the House knows, is a guillotine motion. We also have a ten-minute Bill. I shall call six more Members—three from each side—and then we shall move on.
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: My right hon. Friend will know that I have long believed that political stability could return to the Province only by creating a measure of self-government there. Therefore, I welcome what he has said today and pay my own tribute to him for his persistence and patience and his long-suffering approach to this difficult problem. However, it seems to me that the first of the three requirements is the most important—namely, to create self-government in the Province. Will my right hon. Friend give plenty of time for that part of his scheme to be achieved, rather than rushing forward or, indeed, putting any pressure on the parties to move forward to the other two strands? May I also——
Mr. Speaker: Briefly, please.
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson: How does my right hon. Friend intend to have public participation in assenting to what may be agreed?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I hope that we shall have sufficient time for all the strands of the talks to be explored. If everyone is to be asked to consider a complete package at the end of the talks, it is only right that the constituent parts should all have been adequately discussed. We all have an open mind about how we would engage in public participation but the concept exists in the statement.
Mr. John D. Taylor: The Unionists sent the Government a letter in August 1985 suggesting talks between the parties of Northern Ireland, the London Government and the Dublin Government, a suggestion which was promptly rejected by the then Prime Minister without consultation. Since then, an Anglo-Irish Agreement has been imposed and we have had six wasted years. Does the Secretary of State recognise that there is every reason for a general welcome on these Benches for his statement to the House this afternoon?
Is the Secretary of State aware that only two parties in Northern Ireland have expressed opposition to his proposals—Provisional Sinn Fein and the Conservative party? As the Leader of the Conservative party in Northern Ireland has dismissed the Secretary of State's statement as "a meaningless charade", can he say whether the Conservative party in Northern Ireland will be invited to take part in the internal talks that he proposes?
Mr. Brooke: Of course I am conscious of what has happened in Northern Ireland, not only in the past 20 years and the past six years but for a much longer period. It has already been said in the House today that there is a widespread belief that we have a particular opportunity at this time.
As to the views of Dr. Kennedy, the prospective parliamentary candidate in North Down, I had the opportunity of verifying rather more precisely when I saw him yesteday evening what he had meant by his earlier remarks.
Mr. Barry Porter: May I add my modest congratulations to the Secretary of State on what he has done? In his statement, he rightly reiterated the
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concern and right of the northern Irish people to remain in the United Kingdom for as long as they wish to do so. But there was an apparent contradiction, although I accept that I may have got it wrong.
My right hon. Friend said that constitutional issues could be raised at any time during the talks. I hope and trust that that means constitutional issues within the framework of the United Kingdom and of the Province. Perhaps he will confirm that. Will he also confirm that, in his view, a jolly good practice for the conversations and negotiations would be for the two Unionist seats on the Anglo-Irish parliamentary tier now to be taken up?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. It is not for me to provide a trailer of the subjects that might be raised by individual parties in the process, but a number of people have mentioned to me confidentially issues that they would wish to raise, and others have said that they are expecting to need to listen during the course of the conversations to observations on just those subjects. I said in my statement that those might range fairly widely, and I think that it will not be a single party that will be bringing contentious issues to the table.
Mr. Seamus Mallon: Does the Secretary of State agree that there is a world of difference between agreeing to talk as we have done and talking to agree, as we are about to do? Does he accept that no one should underestimate the difficulties that face all the parties in the negotiations, difficulties that have plagued us for so long? Does he further agree that it is absolutely essential that the political process can and does deliver and that it is clearly seen by all that the only way to tackle intractable problems is through dialogue and negotiations—in other words, through the democratic political process?
Mr. Brooke: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he said and especially for what he said in his concluding remarks. I do not think that any of us who have been engaged in the conversations so far and who will be engaged in the talks underestimate for a moment the difficulties that we shall have. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make it clear that the democratic way is the way to resolve these matters.
Mr. James Couchman: It would be otiose of me to add to the plaudits that have come to my right hon. Friend for his statement. Apart from the caveat that Northern Ireland will remain a part of the United Kingdom for so long as the majority desire it, may I ask him whether any other areas are out of bounds? Can he say more about the terms of reference of the discussions?
Mr. Brooke: I do not think it would be helpful of me to do that, not least because we have not yet had the opportunity—and will not have until the talks start—to get into the bilateral talks with the individual Northern Ireland parties. But I made it clear in my statement that the opportunity to raise matters that people felt were relevant went widely. As I said, more than one party has indicated that there are particular subjects that they would wish to bring to the discussions.
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: In complimenting the Secretary of State on his patience and resourcefulness, may I also pay tribute to all the parties who are coming to the talks? Does the right hon.

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Gentleman agree that some of them will now have to work hard in their constituencies because, as the talks move from the first to the second strand, certain issues, notably power sharing and the Irish dimension, are certain to appear on the agenda, and if they do not appear in the final outcome, that will probably strike a majority of the Members of this House as exceedingly strange?
Mr. Brooke: I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to all those who, by their contributions, have got us this far—and I do not want: to exaggerate the scale of the progress that we have made.
From the conversations that we have had so far, I think that all parties are conscious of the constituencies and electorates that stand behind them. They all have essential interests about which they have been concerned in framing the basis for those talks. That benefits the process because, as parliamentarians and democrats, we understand the problems and positions of other people who are taking part in the talks. The convergence that has enabled today's statement to be made has been assisted by the willingness of different parties to contribute to helping others who are taking part.

Young Persons (Alcohol Abuse) Etc.
4.10 pm
Mr. Jimmy Hood: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make illegal: the consumption of alcohol by young presons under the age of 18 years, and the permitting of such consumption; to empower local authorities to prohibit consumption of alcohol in designated areas; and for connected purposes.
This is the third Bill that I have presented to Parliament seeking to solve the serious social problems caused by alcohol abuse, especially among young children. For too long, society and Parliament have ignored the problem. My previous Bill sought to restrict the sale of alcohol to young persons in supermarkets and off-sale outlets. I managed to get the Bill through all its stages in the House but, unfortunately, it ran out of time in another place, where a few Lords and Baronesses chose to kill it for reasons better known to themselves and to the retail consortium that lobbied them to do so.
Clydesdale is one of the largest constituencies in the United Kingdom. It is a good example of "big is beautiful". Thirty miles of the River Clyde run through it, and we have scenery that would rival any part of the world. However, we also have a blight, which affects not only Clydesdale but can be found in any part of the United Kingdom. It concerns young children—often victims of alcohol abuse—walking our streets and falling victim to alcoholism. Inevitably, they fall into criminality which can, all too often, easily include drug abuse.
I first became aware of the problem through my surgery work when an elderly woman came to see me and said that she was frightened to go out of her home after 6 pm. Gangs of drunken youths were terrorising her little housing estate, and pensioners were prisoners in their own homes. I then researched the problem of alcohol abuse, particularly the under-age problem, and was alarmed by my findings.
First, let me explain what I mean by under-age drinking. I am not just talking about the sly pint of beer or half-pint of lager that is drunk in the back room of a pub or disco by 16 and 17-year-olds. Rather, I am talking about the 12 to 13-year-old girls and boys who become hooked on hard booze and stalk the streets at night getting involved in petty social misbehaviour and progressing to serious alcohol-dependent problems that inevitably lead to serious crimes.
A constituent came to see me, breaking her heart about her 16-year-old son who was a high achiever at school and was set for university. He became trapped in a web of alcohol abuse, dropped out of school and got into trouble with the police. He now faces the serious consequences of missing out on his education, and the legacy of a criminal record—a life wasted, all because of alcohol abuse at a young and tender age.
Throughout the past week, the head teacher of Harelees primary school in my constituency has been phoning and writing to me, and the chairman of the school board has been seeking my help, because the school has been vandalised and has been the subject of arson attacks. Everyone knows that those acts were probably carried out by kids under the influence of alcohol. When I am asked what the police are doing about the problem, regrettably I have to say, "Not enough"—or, in the phrase of the magician Paul Daniels, "Not a lot."

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Strathclyde police force is the second largest in the United Kingdom; second only to the London Metropolitan force. In 1990, only 68 kids were charged with consuming alcohol under age. Strathclyde covers half of Scotland, but there were only 68 prosecutions for under-age drinking, which would seem to tell us that there is not a problem.
My police division takes in my Clydesdale constituency and the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) and for East Kilbride (Mr. Ingram). It covers an area of 700 square miles and has a population of more than 250,000. In 1990, two youngsters were charge with under-age drinking.
I contrast that with the numbers of convictions for other crimes in the Strathclyde police area. My district has the highest levels of offences of being drunk and incapable, for which there were 592 prosecutions. For petty assaults there were 18,013 prosecutions, for serious assault there were 300 prosecutions. There were 2,865 prosecutions for thefts of motor vehicles, and for vandalism there were a breathtaking 3,634. Everyone knows that all those crimes are largely alcohol-related, either directly or indirectly, but the figures do not show the number of convictions in each category involving young boys and girls. The fact that those statistics are not kept says more about the apathy of society towards the problem.
The question that I am repeatedly asked is why, if society deems it bad for children to drink alcohol in pubs and other licensed premises, the law turns a blind eye to them drinking outside the pub door, in our streets and play parks. I do not say that prohibition is an easy option—it is not. I do not kid myself that making it an offence to drink under the age of 18 will make the problem go away.
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Education is important, but we must legislate to address the problem, and back it up with education on the dangers of alcohol and the need for a sensible approach towards introducing teenagers to responsible drinking within social disciplines.
I have seen too many lives wasted, too many families broken up and too many communities terrorised because of drink. The Bill attempts to save hundreds of thousands of young lives of kids who will achieve better things for themselves. It will provide freedom from the evils of alcohol abuse. Alcoholism does not respect social boundaries. The Bill is an important measure to help pull young people back from the abyss of despair. It will give councils the powers to designate non-drinking areas, take alcohol off the streets and out of our children's play areas. Pensioners will feel safer in their homes and children will be able to play in the streets and play parks. The Bill seeks to take alcoholism off the street. It will help both the abuser and the abused, and I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Jimmy Hood, Mr. Alan Meale, Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. James Wallace, Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Mr. Tom Clarke, Mr. Adam Ingram, Mr. John McAllion, Mr. Michael J. Martin, Mr. Thomas Graham, Mr. Jimmy Wray and Mr. George Robertson.

Young Persons (Alcohol Abuse) Etc.
  YOUNG PERSONS (ALCOHOL ABUSE) ETC.
  Mr. Jimmy Hood accordingly presented a Bill to make illegal the consumption of alcohol by young persons under the age of 18 years, and the permitting of such consumption; to empower local authorities to prohibit consumption of alcohol in designated areas; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26 April and to be printed. [Bill 124.]

Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill (Allocation of Time)
Mr. Speaker: We now come to the Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill (Allocation of Time) motion. I call the Leader of the House.
Mr. A. J. Beith: On a point of order Mr. Speaker. Could you indicate whether you have selected our amendments?
Mr. Speaker: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I should have announced that I have indeed selected amendment (a) in the name of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and his hon. Friends.
4.20 Pm
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor): I beg to move,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill—
Mr. Beith: Can the Leader of the House say what attempt he made to secure the agreement of all the parties that the Bill should proceed quickly, and whether he was given any indication that no such consent would be given by any party in the House?
Mr. MacGregor: To be fair, I must tell hon. Members that it was our decision because we felt that it was essential to get the Bill through before the start of the new financial year. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that he agrees with the Bill and is willing to see it go through quickly, I am delighted. To get it through this week, it is necessary to take the steps that I propose, and I shall shortly say more about that. The proposed legislation is short, specific and confined to the one purpose that I have outlined. It does not need prolonged debate. Clearly, there are good reasons in favour of the procedure that I propose.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: Could my right hon. Friend identify any Bill in the history of this Parliament, or any Parliament, that has been guillotined before its Second Reading?
Mr. MacGregor: I am clearly anticipating questions that will be asked, because I shall shortly come to that issue.
The Bill is short and straightforward. It fulfils the commitment made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor last Tuesday to reduce the burden of paying for local services that currently falls on local taxpayers. Our objective is to change the balance between local and national taxpayers, and this short Bill will enable us to do that by two means. I shall not go into detail because that is clearly for Second Reading.
Firstly, the Bill provides for community charges for 1991–92 to be reduced by £140, or to zero where the charge set is less than that figure, on the day after the Bill is enacted. Secondly, it provides for grant to be repaid to authorities in compensation for charge income forgone and to meet any extra administrative costs. Until charge

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payers receive a charge bill reflecting the reduced charges, their liability to pay any 1991–92 charges will be suspended.
Mr. Dick Douglas (Dumfermline, West): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I thought that the Leader of the House would give reasons for the guillotine motion rather than make a Second Reading speech. If we are on Second Reading, we should be told.
Mr. Speaker: I have heard nothing that is out of order. The hon. Gentleman could put a question to the Leader of the House about what he is saying, but it is not out of order.
Mr. MacGregor: Obviously, the hon. Gentleman is not listening, because I have given reasons for the need for speed in getting the legislation through. I am sorry if I put the reasons so succinctly that the hon. Gentleman did not take them on board. There are two straightforward reasons. One is to get the arrangements in place before the start of the financial year, because that is what local authorities want, and the second is to get the community charge reduction through to community charge payers. As I have said, it is a short Bill and we shall go into its detail on Second Reading.
Mr. Douglas: We have all read the Bill and we know that it is the Save our Skins (Tory Government) Bill. If that is all that the right hon. Gentleman can say in favour of a guillotine motion, he should just sit down.
Mr. MacGregor: I shall sit down before long, because it is clear what this is all about. The Bill is simple and that is why I can justify it fairly shortly.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Before the right hon. Gentleman tries to convince the House that there will be a £140 reduction for every poll tax payer, and before we get to Second Reading or the Committee stage, let us get some facts straight. The £140 will go to those who are not getting transitional relief, those who have to pay more than the 20 per cent. minimum and some others in between. The net result is that the poorest among poll tax payers will not get a £140 reduction. The money will go only to those at the top end of the income scale. The Leader of the House should stop saying that everyone will get a £140 reduction, because that is not so.
Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman tempts me to explore matters that should be considered on Second Reading. I shall try to avoid the temptation, or at least to deal with it briefly. The whole point of the community charge reduction scheme is clear and simple. It is to deal with the increase in the community charge. However, if that £140 makes the increase disappear, one cannot pay the same amount of money twice.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment made clear in his statement last Thursday, the Government are revising the profile of payment from the non-domestic rates pool to ensure that these proposals have no significant effect on authorities' cash flow. That is the purpose of the Bill, which is straightforward and short. The time that we are giving to debate the Bill, in addition to the time made available in the Budget debates, is surely adequate for such a short and straightforward Bill.
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I come now to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). The House will be aware that there are several precedents for taking all stages of a Bill in one day.
Mr. Beith: Not with a guillotine.
Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman is again anticipating what I am about to say. Examples are the Finance (Income Tax Reliefs) Bill, which went through on 17 November 1977, and the Pensioners Payments Bill, which went through on 13 November 1978. I accept that they were not guillotined, partly because there was general agreement about their purposes. Judging by the lack of a vote on the money resolution last night, there may be agreement today. I do not know, but if not, I nevertheless rest my case on the points that I have already made about the urgency of getting the arrangements in place. That urgency, and the desirability of the Bill from the point of view both of community charge payers and of local authorities, justify the procedure.
Mr. Dave Nellist: It may be that not much in the timetable motion divides the Leader of the House and me. I try to learn while I am here, and precedents can be very useful. If I agree to support the right hon. Gentleman today, will he give me a guarantee that, under a future Labour Government, if I introduce a Bill, to go through in one day, to abolish the House of Lords or to give a Labour Secretary of State for Trade and Industry widespread powers to nationalise any company that he wants to nationalise provided that we have a one-and-a-half-hour debate at 10.30 pm, he will do then what he wants us to do now?
Mr. MacGregor: I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is now learning from this place. The question that he raises is not only hypothetical but unrealistic. It is hard to believe that there will be a future Labour Government, and even harder to believe that the hon. Gentleman will be in a position to introduce such measures. I shall give no such guarantee. Unlike the measures that the hon. Gentleman suggested, the Bill is short and simple. If there turns out to be agreement on the Bill, the procedure will be right for the reason that I keep stressing—the need to get the arrangements in place quickly.
Mr. Jeff Rooker: The Leader of the House referred to the money resolution debate last night, the Official Report of which is not yet available. As there is for every late-night debate, there is in the Library a copy of Hansard's transcript of the unpublished proceedings. Unlike the statement in the Vote Office from the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, Hansard's transcript shows clearly that the Minister repeated, two paragraphs apart and on two different pages, so it could not have been a slip of the tongue, that only 8 million people will benefit from the community charge reduction scheme. Before the debate continues, we should have a full transcript, taken down by the Hansard Reporters, of that 45-minute debate rather than only what the Minister chooses to put in his statement in the Vote Office.
Mr. MacGregor: I understand that, in last night's debate, my hon. Friend said that he thought that that

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would be the figure and that if he was wrong he would produce the right figure today. That is a Second Reading point, and I am sure that it will be debated then.
The way in which we propose to deal with the Bill is, I believe, for the general convenience of the House, and it is procedurally in order. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will be anxious to ensure a properly constructed and constructive debate. I have concluded that, all things considered, taking into account the need to get the Bill through Parliament before the end of this week and the need to have an orderly debate, a timetable motion is the most sensible way forward.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: My right hon. Friend said that he would deal with the precedent point. Is he saying that there is a precedent for guillotining a Bill before it has had its Second Reading, or is he saying that there is no precedent? My right hon. Friend ought to outline more clearly, if he says that there is no precedent, why he thinks it right to mount such a monumental attack on the right of hon. Members to discuss a measure and to hold true to their electorate by properly discussing it.
Mr. MacGregor: Let me make it absolutely clear to my hon. Friend that I thought that I had done so. It is necessary to get the Bill through both Houses of Parliament by the end of this week, for the reasons that I have already given. There is not a great deal of time to complete the process. That is why we are proceeding with a timetable motion. At the end of the debate it will be for the House to judge whether the objectives involved in the procedure, and the procedure itself, are right. My hon. Friend referred to the general public. I believe that they will accept the argument that it is highly desirable that the community charge reduction scheme—and the £140 reduction—should be in place in time for the next financial year. If my hon. Friend agrees with that objective—this, I believe, is the only way we can achieve it—I hope that we shall have his support in the Division Lobby.
Mr. Harry Barnes: Apart from the Second Reading problems, 43 amendments have been selected for discussion. The Bill was published at 8.40 pm on Thursday and we had only half an hour on Friday to table unstarred amendments. In different circumstances, more amendments might have been tabled. There will be a great deal of argument and discussion on Second Reading; the Bill will not be generally accepted. The argument and discussion led to the tabling of the starred amendments. Why have the Government not provided the House with a decent opportunity to debate this measure, including the amendments that are to be debated in Committee?
Mr. MacGregor: I certainly hope that we shall do that. I said on Thursday during business questions that this is a short Bill and that I hoped that those who are interested in doing so would move with speed to table amendments. That they have done. The selected amendments, including starred amendments, are being taken in nine groups.
It may be for the convenience of the House if I explain briefly what the different sections of the timetable motion achieve. There will be three hours allowed for Second Reading, counting from the time at which Second Reading gets under way. The remaining stages of the Bill will then
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be completed seven hours after the commencement of Second Reading or, if earlier, at 2.30 am. The effect of this will be that, if the Second Reading runs for the full three hours, there will be four hours for the remaining stages. There will be the usual provisions for disposing of outstanding questions when the knife falls at the end of the day.
Paragraph 9 of the motion provides for Commons consideration of Lords amendments to be completed in one hour. Other sections deal with further messages from the Lords. The question that the Lords message is to be considered must be put without debate, and one hour will then be allowed for dealing with the message.
This afternoon, I have to chair a meeting of the Services Committee that is to deal with a number of important issues affecting the House. I hope that the House will forgive me if I and my hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "Who?"]—the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). I hope that we shall be forgiven if for a short time we go and deal with one or two matters that are of importance to the House. However, I shall certainly ensure that all the points made during the brief period that I am away are relayed to me, and I hope to be able to respond to those points that need to be dealt with.
Dr. John Cunningham: Just before the Leader of the House moves on from the timetable motion, can he tell us whether the Government intend to table any manuscript amendments on Report?
Mr. MacGregor: I understand that the answer is no.
I believe that local authorities and charge payers will wish Parliament to pass this legislation quickly so that they know where they stand before the start of the new financial year. That is why it is right that the Bill should be taken through all its stages in both Houses with all speed.
4.34 pm
Dr. John Cunningham: The House faces a familiar scene. Once more, a Tory Government are making a fiasco of local Government finance. Yet again a guillotine motion is enforced as, in a panic, the Government intend to use between £4 billion and £5 billion of taxpayers' money in a doomed attempt to buy off the widespread and implacable people's opposition to the poll tax—a tax which should never have been introduced in the first place. Not only was the poll tax unprecedented: the way it was handled in the House was unprecedented, as is the way in which the Leader of the House is proposing to deal with the business today. It is an unenviable record for any Government.
Three years ago, in the face of all the evidence and in the teeth of virtually universal opposition, the Government guillotined the poll tax in. Now the same discredited bunch who forced that grotesquely unfair, inefficient and capricious tax on Parliament and people want to be rid of it. They guillotined it in and now they want to guillotine it out—no wonder Disraeli described the Tory party as organised hypocrisy.
One thing is clear: the Government do not care about proper scrutiny of public money, if they ever did. They are prepared to enforce unprecedented procedures on the House of Commons. No other Government of any party have treated a Bill of this nature in such peremptory fashion.
Mr. Beith: Or any Bill.
Dr. Cunningham: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is right—no other Government have treated any Bill in this way. It is a disgrace to Parliamentary democracy.
For the Government, this is not the time for care, scrutiny or good administration. As so often, for them it is the time to put the Tory party first. This is a save the Tories' skins Bill, and the 14th fundamental change in local Government finance that they have produced. They have got it wrong time after time, and we have no confidence in their ability to get it right this time.
The Leader of the House asks us to accept a motion to force the Bill through in a single sitting. The sole aim of the Bill is to fix poll tax levels for one year—it is not so much an expedient from the Government as government by expedient.
It is instructive to reflect on just a few of the things that supporters of the poll tax had to say about it in a similar debate three years ago. On Third Reading, the present Secretary of State for Employment, then Minister for Local Government, said:
"It is reform that will be good for local communities, good for local government and good for the people of this country."—[Official Report, 25 April 1988; Vol. 132, c. 149.]
In a Department of the Environment press release on 13 January 1988, he said:
"The majority of households will in fact gain from these proposals."
He said that he was heartened by the support that he was receiving during his nationwide tour promoting the poll tax proposals. Last October, his successor, who was the Chamber until a few moments ago, claimed at the Tory party conference that
"poll tax would turn out to be a vote winner".
But he did not say for whom—so much for the Government's monumental misjudgment.
Last November, the Minister for Local Government said of the poll tax review:
"That review is now complete."—[Official Report,14 November 1990; Vol. 180, c. 568.]
Yet here we are again. As the Government stumbled on into a quagmire of their own arrogance and incompetence, the scrappers' hero from Henley, whom I am pleased to see in his place, appeared to challenge the orthodox Tory view. The Government fell apart, and the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) fell into the abyss. On one side was the "scrap the poll tax" gang, led by the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). On the other side was the Tory party equivalent of the flat earth society, searching for a champion. They sent for "Gentleman John", in gumboil retreat in Huntingdon at the time.
The exchanges at that time, too, make interesting reading. The Secretary of State for the Environment, now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is reported in The Guardian of 16 November 1990 as having said:
"A poll tax review does not necessarily solve some rather difficult problems. Perhaps Michael has some way of coping with these problems which he has not yet told us about."
The then Chancellor of the Exchequer, now the Prime Minister, said:
"Resources pre-empted by shifting education spending to central government could not be spent on health, pensions, defence or other problem claims on the public purse."
He went on:
"I don't know what we will have to do, and neither does anyone else."
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Dithering had set in. We saw it again at Question Time today. The Prime Minister has become the political equivalent of Mavis Riley of "Coronation Street" fame who, when faced with a difficult question, unfailingly replies, "Oh, I don't really know."
Last Thursday, we were told that the poll tax was dead. Or was it? The monster had been decapitated, only to reappear, like the Hydra, with three heads—the property poll tax with a VAT surcharge into the bargain. Once more the Government pretended to be united. But soft,
"the isle is full of noises"
—and a lot of them are coming from the direction of Blaby. The right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) denounced the new proposals as "son of poll tax", and made it clear, as we do, that those who cannot choose cannot govern. When the right hon. Member for Finchley was forced out, we all knew that there would be a power vacuum. It is now clear that there is a policy vacuum too. The Government have lost their way and, in the words of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blaby, they are using consultation as a substitute for government.
The Government are not only dithering about the poll tax. In every policy area, they seem positively transfixed—trapped like startled rabbits in the headlights of an oncoming car—with one hand on the redundant ideology of the past 12 years while the other desperately clutches at any strand of Labour policy it can possibly grab.
Mr. Tony Favell: The hon. Gentleman accuses the Government of dithering, but that is precisely the opposite of what the Government are doing. They are seeking to transfer £4·25 billion from the national Exchequer to local government as fast as possible. We shall be here for a long time today. If, by some mischance, the Labour party were to form the next Government, would it claw back that £4·25 billion? We should like to know now.
Dr. Cunningham: We shall inherit the tax base that the Tory Government bequeath to us when they are defeated.
In a passing imitation of Senator Joe Biden, the Prime Minister superficially parrots the language of Labour's programme for the 1990s, but he dare not endorse the reality of our policies, including the complete abolition of poll tax, because to do so would be to tear his Government and his party apart. The simple fact is that the Prime Minister is a man who does not have the faintest idea where he is going—like this proposed legislation. Bounced from pillar to post by a Chancellor who says that poll tax stays and an Environment Secretary who says that it goes, the Prime Minister can almost be forgiven for appearing increasingly indecisive. He does not know what he believes in any more. Like Mr. Micawber, he simply hopes that something will turn up.
The problem for Britain is that weak, indecisive government is no way to solve the damaging consequences of the poll tax, or the recession, or any of the other problems that Britain faces today. In contrast, people want to see a programme for the 1990s which presents opportunity rather than the opportunism that is so clear in every action of the present Government, and no more clear than in the proposals before the House today.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hunt): The hon. Gentleman should throw his notes away and make a proper speech.
Dr. Cunningham: The people will throw the right hon. Gentleman's Government away at the first opportunity.
The best way to reduce poll tax bills is to get rid of the poll tax. We should be debating this Bill, which has been cobbled together in an attempt to cover the embarrassment of Conservative Members in the Chamber today, who almost without exception voted for every dot and comma of the poll tax—every line, every sentence, every clause. Today, they are gathered to con the taxpayer, to use the taxpayer's money in an attempt to bail themselves out. What has happened to the famous saying that Governments do not have money, that it is the people's money?
Even at this late stage, we are offering to co-operate with the Government in the complete abolition of the poll tax. A Bill to abolish it could be guided through the House even more quickly, I suspect, than this one. There are plenty of Tories who, given the chance, would vote for the end of the poll tax—lock, stock and barrel. The Bill is just a one-year buy-off a kind of "live now, pay later" Bill. It does not guarantee that the poll tax will go—indeed, it guarantees that the poll tax will probably be in place at least until 1993–94. Tonight, Conservative Members will vote to keep the poll tax in place, for their constituents and for the people of Britain, for at least another two years. Let no one be in any doubt about that. Under this Bill, billions of pounds of our money are being used to bail out a discredited Government. So far as we can tell, far from removing many of the anomalies, the Bill will create a whole new class of losers—many of them people on the lowest incomes, and facing the toughest financial circumstances.
If the Bill were the subject of a two-day debate, rather than a debate lasting just a few hours, it would still be a disgraceful attempt to con the people of this country. It demonstrates beyond any doubt that the Government are devoid of principle. It certainly should not have been presented to the House in this manner, and there is no way we can accept the timetable motion.
4.48 pm
Mr. David Wilshire: Although I am one of the Members who supported the introduction of the community charge legislation, I want to make it absolutely clear that I believe that both this Bill and the guillotine motion are not only necessary but desirable. The Bill strikes me as necessary because the British people have made it clear that they consider community charges to be too high. The guillotine motion is necessary because the British people have made it clear that they want action now—not next month or next year—to bring those charges down.
Mr. Brian Wilson: For the guidance of the House and to refresh the memory of some Opposition Members, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he was a member of the Committee which considered the Local Government Finance Bill? Even by the standards of Conservative members of that Committee, he was one of those most active in sneering at and denigrating every attempt by Opposition Members to point out the error of his ways. Perhaps he should start by apologising for that.
Mr. Wilshire: I have already made it clear where I stood. I did serve on that Committee. I did believe in what
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I was doing. I see nothing to apologise for, because the principles that we were seeking to achieve were right. It is what has happened since that has led me to change my mind. Therefore, I do not apologise for serving on that Committee, and I am happy to make sure that the record is clear.
The Bill is desirable, because it lifts the excessive and unfair burden on local taxpayers, and the guillotine motion is desirable because it is the only way that I and the Government can see to give relief from 1 April 1991. Any other way would result in relief being given from April 1992, and that would be to ignore the message of the British people.
It is important to put the Bill and the guillotine motion in their proper context.
Mr. Tony Banks: In the dustbin.
Mr. Wilshire: If the Labour party put the Bill and the guillotine motion in the dustbin, it would deny £140 help per head to people in six days' time. If that is the Labour party's policy, let that be made clear.
Dr. Cunningham: In the interests of greater accuracy, the hon. Gentleman had better accept, because it is true, that the Bill does not guarantee £140 off each person's bill. That is a complete fallacy, and the hon. Gentleman should not repeat it, because it will simply mislead and bitterly disappoint millions of people. As the hon. Gentleman was one of those who railroaded poll tax through the House, voted for the guillotine and said how wonderful the tax would be, does he not think that a little humility would not come amiss?
Mr. Wilshire: If I were to respond to that in the detail that it requires, Mr. Speaker, you would call me to order, because I would be making a Second Reading speech. However, I shall be delighted to respond if I catch your eye later. For the time being, let me concentrate on making sure that we put the Bill and the guillotine motion into their proper context.
What we are discussing now and what we shall be discussing for the rest of the day is not part of the fundamental review of local government. It has nothing to do with boundaries, services or local democracy; nor has it anything to do with the replacement of the community charge. The hon. Gentleman was wrong to suggest that we are now guillotining out the community charge. What we are doing is guillotining in help for people while the Government and the House take their time to work out the best way forward.
We are dealing with an interim measure, and we need to be clear about that. This is an interim measure while the Government and the country rightly take their time to work their way through the fundamental review and find the best possible replacement. But while we are taking time to get it right, the public are demanding action now and the Bill, and the guillotine motion will provide that instant action.
It is also important to understand why an interim approach at this stage is correct. As I have just said, the main review will take time, and it must be comprehensive. Even if Opposition Members, or even my hon. Friends, wanted to rush through a permanent replacement, that could not be done in six days.

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The hon. Member for Copeland said that the best way to reduce the bills was to get rid of the community charge now. That just shows how little the Labour party understands about the reality of local government finance. There is no way in which we can come up with an entirely new system, even one such as the Opposition's, which has no details, in six days.
We also need to understand why the timing of the Bill and the guillotine motion could not have been different. They could not have been sooner, and they certainly could not have been later. If we had tried to discuss the matter sooner, we would have been discussing an increase in grant ahead of a Budget, and Opposition Members would correctly have asked us where we would get the money from, which would have been to pre-empt a Budget.
Anyone who knows anything about finance will know that a Budget cannot be brought forward by two or three weeks at the drop of a hat. I can imagine the noises that we would hear from Opposition Members if we brought in two Budgets—one to deal with the community charge and another a few weeks later. The blood pressure of Opposition Members would have been wondrous to behold. There was no way that it could be done sooner and there certainly is no way that it could be done later. There are six days left before the start of the new financial year.
Mr. Wilson: If those Budgets caused as much hilarity and entertainment on the Opposition Benches as the latest Budget, the Government could bring in as many Budgets as they wanted.
Mr. Wilshire: I am trying to work out whether I should laugh at that. I think that it was meant to be funny, but I cannot quite see how.
Mr. Richard Holt: My hon. Friend will remember that this Government have brought in one Budget a year. The previous Labour Government brought in Budget after Budget after Budget so that industry and commerce did not know where they were, and nor did the ordinary people, from one week to the next.
Mr. Wilshire: That is correct. The point that my hon. Friend did not make is that that succession of Budgets was no laughing matter.
The other reason why this measure could not have been introduced later is that not only do councils need to understand where they are as quickly as possible, but the community charge payers need to be able to pay their bills as quickly as possible. Unlike some Labour Members, the overwhelming majority of the British people want to pay their bills and do not like to duck out and break the law.
We also need to understand in a little more detail why immediate action and the guillotine motion are necessary.
Mr. Tony Banks: Because the Government are panicking.
Mr. Wilshire: It is not because we are panicking. That just goes to show that Opposition Members simply do not understand. The hon. Gentleman is wrong. It is not because we are panicking; it is because the community charges are too high. They must come down now, and this is the only way to bring them down. It might help if the hon. Gentleman understood in some detail why those charges are too high. He will expect me to say that it is because of the overspending of quite a few councils, and he knows better than I which councils those are and why. But
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we must also be clear that community charges are too high because of the switch in funding that has taken place in recent years.
I see great evidence that the capping rules have begun to bring councils to heel. There is growing evidence that capping works and that the overspending of councils is coming under control.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is it not a fact that the Government have taken about £58 billion from local government since 1979? It is right that the hon. Gentleman should observe that fact and see that clearly as the reason why so much pressure has been put on local government services. It has taken him a long time to realise that, but we are grateful that at long last it has dawned on him.
Mr. Wilshire: I and my right hon. and hon. Friends have always been truthful in describing the situation. I hope that, from time to time, the hon. Gentleman will admit the shortcomings of Labour councils. Whenever I hear him talk, he simply apologises for them.
Capping has dealt with the first of those two reasons why the charges are too high. We have begun to rein in the excessive spending of councils, especially Labour councils. The point made by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) is fair. Resources have been switched; I am not denying that. I am saying that we must do something about it, and that is the purpose of the Bill. The guillotine motion means that we can do something about it in the next six days, rather than at some time in the future. The position reinforces the need for the guillotine.
Mr. Martin Flannery: It would be a little more seemly if the hon. Gentleman showed an iota of humility. The fact is that a Conservative Government have perpetrated a terrible crime against the British people, and have been caught. The people's anger is rising: meanwhile, the Government are acting as though there were a war on and they were about to rush troops to some place where killing was about to start—Northern Ireland, perhaps. A Government must be desperate when they must resort to such unseemly tactics to rush through legislation. Such action is normally taken—if the word "normally" is appropriate—when a war is imminent, or already taking place.
Mr. Wilshire: That is fairly colourful language. I do not want to be drawn into the question of Northern Ireland, and I do not think that Northern Ireland Members are particularly interested in the community charge, as it does not apply to them.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of crimes against the people. I am doing my best to prevent the Labour party from perpetrating crimes against the British public by becoming the Government. That is why I do not apologise for what I have said, and why I am not prepared to accept criticisms from the Opposition.
Why do Opposition Members oppose what we are doing? Some have cited "parliamentary purity", but I do not buy that: it strikes me as a smokescreen. As it happens, I favour guillotine motions for all Bills: discussion would be much more orderly, and we would make some progress. Let me tell hon. Members who speak of parliamentary purity that Standing Orders that made it impossible for the House to take instant action when necessary would be

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stupid. There is always a time and a place when such action is needed, and even this place must have means of taking it.
Opposition Members have a second reason for opposing the motion. They want to slow the pace: they want to prevent us from giving people extra help in 1991–92. I can only speculate about why. It would not help the Labour party at all if the Government——
Dr. Cunningham: Let me stop the hon. Gentleman before he puts another falsehood on the record. There is not a shred of truth in anything that he has just said. It is perfectly clear that we do not want to prevent people's poll tax bills from being reduced.
Mr. Wilshire: Then what is all the fuss about? I really must read the hon. Gentleman's speech in Hansard. I think that every other phrase suggested that he did not agree with what we are about today.
Mr. John Battle rose——
Mr. Rooker rose ߞ—
Mr. Wilshire: They are all at it now. Let us start with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker).
Mr. Rooker: We are doing the job that we were elected and are paid to do—scrutinising legislation, not acting as a rubber stamp. Most of us will be satisfied if we are given the answer to one simple question. We are willing to spend the rest of the day on that, which is why we do not accept the guillotine motion. We want to know exactly how many people will not have £140 knocked off their poll tax bills. We want to know their distribution in the population, and in which regions the gainers and the losers live. Such information would be available in the normal course of parliamentary scrutiny. Given adequate time, it would be provided during a Committee stage or in a written answer.
Mr. Wilshire: The hon. Gentleman tempts me to make a Second Reading speech. That is another reason why I should like to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker: I should love to be able to answer his question.
Only one point in the hon. Gentleman's intervention struck me as relevant to a guillotine motion debate: his point about using "the rest of the day". My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has already dealt with that. It is a simple matter. The time that is being made available is more than adequate for even the most conscientious parliamentarian to deal with the issues that are at stake. The hon. Gentleman really should sort himself out.
The reason why some hon. Members do not want people to be helped in 1991–92 is that they want to fight the local election by pointing the finger at the Government for not listening. But we are listening, and we are acting. By May this year, people will understand that they are paying lower community charges. Labour Members are trying to change the stakes in their own favour.
Mr. Battle: Conservative Members are trying to perpetuate the illusion that everyone will receive a rebate of £140. The truth is that the Bill will rub out some people's transitional relief altogether, with the result that they will pay more poll tax rather than less. When
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Conservative Members face up to that, perhaps we shall be able to have a proper debate on the details of the Bill. Without knowing the details, how can we discuss it?
Mr. Wilshire: Let me express for the third time my wish to be called on Second Reading, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is the only way in which I can deal with such an outburst.
The third reason for Opposition Members' objection to the guillotine motion is, I suspect, that some wish to prevent the Bill from reaching the statute book.
Mr. Bruce Grocott: Who?
Mr. Wilshire: I should love to give way again to hear Labour Members say that they do not object to our reducing community charge bills. Obviously they do object, if they are not prepared to confirm that. If the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) meant by his sedentary intervention that he was in favour of a reduction in bills from 1 April, he has no choice but to support the guillotine motion and the Bill. Even his half-baked solution—a return to the old rating system—simply cannot be enacted and put into operation by council treasurers in six days.
Mr. Grocott: The hon. Gentleman must be bitterly regretting his failure to take my advice when I spoke from the Dispatch Box against the guillotine on Second Reading of the Local Government Finance Bill in 1987. As he, along with most of his hon. Friends, failed to take my advice on that crucial occasion, I despair of his ever listening to it in the future.
Mr. Wilshire: That is fair comment, but it gives me a fourth reason for wanting you to call me again, Mr. Deputy Speaker: it would provide us with more entertainment. All we are doing is stacking up reasons.
Labour Members mistakenly see the guillotine motion as a means of embarrassing the Government. It will not do that; the only people likely to be embarrassed by what Labour Members are saying are Labour Members themselves. All the bluster that they can come up with will not disguise the fact that they have no alternative solution. They do not know what they would do. As I have said, the hon. Member for Copeland could not put the rating system back in place in six days.
If I remember rightly, the hon. Member for Copeland said that a "one-year buy-off" was about to be enacted. Bringing back the rating system would be the one-year buy-off, because the Opposition say that they want to do that for a year. It is they who should be embarrassed. They are the people who are being caught out with no policies, and who are seeking to maximise mayhem among community charge payers and councils by going for a one-year fix before returning to whatever they think they may do in future. There is a great deal more that I and others would like to say, but that will be for Second Reading. If I catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall make those points then.
I support the Bill, and have no difficulty in supporting the guillotine motion. The public have made it crystal clear that they want action to reduce the community charge now. We have a listening Government, who, having listened, have found a way to solve the problem within six days. Even if we have reservations—as I have made it clear in the past—about the long-term review or about any of the details, that is no reason not to support the Bill and the

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guillotine motion. They are interim measures, which give us the chance to get the review into better shape before we act on it.
Swift and decisive action is needed, and the Government are being swift and decisive. The message that has emerged from the debate on the guillotine motion is that the Opposition's stupid claims about a dithering Government are untrue. I hope that the Opposition eat their words.
5.10 pm
Mr. Michael Foot: The essential part of the debate happened at the beginning. It was the question put by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) to the Leader of the House about whether there was a precedent for a guillotine motion to be introduced without any effort having been made to see whether there could be consultation with the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman had to answer that there was no precedent at all. I should have thought that, even on that basis, the Government would have had second thoughts—especially when we remember that one of the reasons why the House and the country are in such an appalling mess over the poll tax is that the previous poll tax legislation was also guillotined. Had it not been guillotined, there would have been a much lengthier debate.
I remember the speeches made by my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). If the debates had continued, I do not say that we could have altered the Bill completely, but it might have been a different story. The House would at least have been given a proper chance to debate. It is staggering that a Government who have got into such hopeless confusion by rushing the previous legislation through should insist now on rushing this measure through in an even more headlong and improper fashion.
The Leader of the House had no excuse for proposing to the House what he has proposed today, especially in view of his reply to the spokesman for the Liberal party. When there is agreement between different parties, despite the fury that may accompany the background to a measure, it is a normal process for the Government to say that they want to push legislation through for special reasons—for example, the matter of the timetable, or to help local authorities. It is normal for the Government in those circumstances—when they want to push through legislation quickly—to get the co-operation of the House. They are not entitled to push it through by dictation, especially if it causes so much trouble for themselves and for the country. The Leader of the House made it clear that no effort had been made, so we must assume that the Government preferred to do it that way.
On Budget day there seemed to be some rejoicing about the Government's proposals. Some hon. Members thought that they were a good idea for everyone——
Mr. Jacques Arnold rose——
Mr. Foot: I shall just make this point, and then I shall give way.
A report of what was said about the guillotine motion states that most hon. Members condemned it although some liked the proposals. It may have been the hon.
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Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), who has just given us such a high constitutional view of the matter, who prompted The Independent to report:
"Most Conservatives, however, were delighted at what they hope will prove a short-term solution to the political death trap of the poll tax."
A Conservative Member was reported as saying:
"I don't give a damn about the propriety … All I'm interested in is the money."
It seems that Thatcherism is not dead—the whole gospel is there.
Mr. Wilshire: I am not sure whether I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman thought that I could have said that, but I should make it clear that it was not me.
Mr. Foot: Who are the other claimants? I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold).
Mr. Arnold: For the benefit of the House, will the right hon. Gentleman cast his mind back to 20 July 1976? As Leader of the House, he proposed not one, not two, not three, not even four but five guillotine motions. Can he tell us what the atmosphere was like in the House on that occasion?
Mr. Tony Banks: That is Labour productivity for you.
Mr. Foot: I have attended many more debates than most of the youngsters on the Tory Benches put together. I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what happened on that occasion. During a debate with the previous Leader of the House about the five guillotine motions that I introduced—I say this to the present Leader of the House—I said that, if the House would like a full debate on the five issues and the problems involved, or what mandate we had from the electorate—[Interruption.] All were in our manifesto—[Interruption.] I am talking to the Leader of the House, not to the hangers-on. I said that, if the Leader of the House would like a debate on the five motions, I should be happy to agree, because it might save time and prevent interruptions by people who had not studied the issues.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: I have listened to the speeches made by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) on every guillotine motion since I entered the House in 1987. He is being uncharacteristically ungenerous today. On a previous occasion, he said that the reason why he backed the five guillotine motions, although he has spoken against every such motion that the Government have introduced since they have been in power, was that he agreed with the policies. That is what he said before. Instead of torturing himself by speaking on each guillotine motion—I suppose it is out of a sense of frustration and guilt—is it not time that he stopped being guilty and retired?
Mr. Foot: I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, but he did not make the best use of his opportunity.
The best way to solve the problem—and I should be happy to fall in with it—is to approach the Leader of the House and ask for a debate on all general questions. I should then do my best to allay the hon. Gentleman's fears.
Mr. Rooker: Surely there is a difference between my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) introducing guillotine motions to push through

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manifesto commitments and today's motion which reneges on the manifesto on which the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) entered the House in 1987.
Mr. Foot: As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) says, there is a slight difference, although I am not sure that the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) could see it.
I have always advised people to look at the list of names on the back page of the Bill. The list reads as follows:
"Presented by Mr. Secretary Heseltine, supported by the Prime Minister Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer Mr. Secretary Hunt, Mr. Secretary Lang, Mr. Michael Portillo and Mr. Robert Key."
The list does not include the Leader of the House, or the name of the person in whose interests the Bill has been introduced—the chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), who has not put his name to the Bill.
The right hon. Member for Heseltine—[Laughter.]—well, that is what he is; he sticks to that principle more than he does to Henley, has not turned up today to help with the guillotine on his own Bill. He may have a good excuse, but I remember a previous occasion, when the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine)—I would rather say this to his face than behind his back, but I cannot say it to his face as he is not here—as Secretary of State for Defence, introduced a Bill to privatise Devonport dockyard. It was a scandalous Bill because Devonport dockyard had been properly nationalised and serving the country since the days of Queen Elizabeth I. The right hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill to privatise the dockyard. He was so discourteous to the House—a frequent habit, as we can see today—that he did not come here to introduce the Bill himself but sent along an underling. I do not remember the underling's name—it was Lamont, or something like that—but it was a person who had no distinction in terms of speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Defence except that, like Nelson, he had a black eye. We did not get very far on that occasion.
It would be most improper for us to proceed with the Bill without it having a proper name. We cannot get the figures right because, as the Secretary of State for the Environment has shown, the Government do not have the foggiest idea about the figures. Let us see whether we can get the name right. I have a few suggestions, such as the "Heseltine Horror". What about that? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] No, it is not very good. What about the "Major Mite"? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] No, that is not much better. Let us see whether we can get something better than that. What about the "Lamont Lemon"? I invite hon. Members later in the debate to see what they can do themselves. I am an old-fashioned kind of chap. For the sake of auld lang syne, I still like to use the phrase that the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) used. She called the poll tax her "flagship", so the Bill should be called the "Flagship Tax Bill".
If hon. Members wish to complain about that, they should consider the other Members who should be here to defend the Bill. The right hon. Member for Bath, the spokesman for Conservative central office, should be here defending the Bill. Perhaps he has not yet recovered from the saturnalia at Southport. Of all the grim and grisly events of the past 10 or 15 years, the encounter at Southport must have been almost the worse.
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I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman has not come to the House today as he should have done. I am so old that I can hardly tell the difference between the Pattens, the Patties, the Patsies and the others. I cannot imagine how you tell the difference between them, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At least one of them should have had his name on the Bill. Until one of those right hon. Members puts his name to the Bill, and until we have an explanation from them, I shall consider the Bill to be an even bigger fraud than it appears on the face of it.
Yesterday, we had a most interesting contribution to the discussion from the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson). I am reminded of one of the most extraordinary aspects of the whole affair—if I malign any hon. Member, I am sure that he will jump to his feet and put me right—when I look at the Government Front Bench and a little further afield and see those who were sacked at various intervals. I challenged the right hon. Member for Blaby on the matter. My comments may be a great deal more popular with the Government today than they were yesterday, as the Government are not entirely pleased with the right hon. Gentleman.
Despite all the commotion about the tax, about its horrors, iniquities and injustices, and about the injury that it will do the Government, not one Conservative Member has plucked up courage to resign over the issue of the poll tax. When I put the argument to him yesterday, the right hon. Member for Blaby said that I could not accuse him of not resigning. However, he did not resign over the poll tax, but over the intrusion of Professor Walters into his own private or public life—whichever it was—which he thought was a more important question than the principle of the poll tax. Not one Conservative Member, on the Front or Back Benches, can say that he put principle before personal interest on the great question of the poll tax. They were all afraid of the previous Prime Minister and bowed to her. It is because of that long, craven performance that the House and the country face this terrible problem.
If the right hon. Member for Blaby bothered to turn up occasionally when he is not making a speech in the House, he might bounce to his feet now and say, "Those of us at the Treasury were working against the tax." I suppose that the right hon. Gentleman would try to give some reflected glory to the present Prime Minister on that basis. The Treasury was supposed to be against the tax and was supposed to be working all the time to try to do something about it. As I said previously, some Conservatives claim to have been doing good by stealth. The rest is on record, and that record will destroy the Government.
5.27 pm
Mr. Tony Marlow: I should think that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are probably as puzzled as I am after the previous speech. Who would have thought that the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) was the progenitor of the mother of all guillotines? He had support from his hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) who, in his usual sotto voce way, said that the great benefit of what the right hon. Gentleman had done all those years ago was productivity, that the Labour party does not believe in one guillotine at a time, but in five or even more at a time. We know where they stand.

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I do not like the Opposition. I am sure that that feeling is reciprocated. There is nothing personal about it. They are a splendid group of men and women to a person. I just do not like their political style. Let me explain. I remember recently, after one of those many boring, boorish television occasions, the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown), in his usual political style of Laurence Olivier playing Richard III, busily manufacturing statistics, mauling facts and finding, as only he can, the worst in everything. One of my constituents said to me, "Don't worry, Mr. M. he is only a cross-eyed moaner." The trouble is that all of them on the Opposition Benches are cross-eyed moaners. They know that the Bill is necessary, but they are moaning about it. Everyone knows that the rates were wrong, that they were grossly unfair and had to go—or should I say, everybody knew?
The Opposition believed that, by waving a wand and stitching in the word "fair" before "rates", they would miraculously become fair. Lewis Carroll would have been proud of them. The Opposition cannot cope with the fact that no Government before this one have had the guts and tenacity to deal with the problems of local government finance. The Bill is part of that vital and important process.
The community charge was, in many respects, a good answer to the problem. Those who voted for extravagance paid extravagantly. Everyone had to pay something. There was a small problem, but with the successful launch of the community charge, that problem would have been overcome easily. We all accept that the community charge is bureaucratic, but with a successful launch, its benefits would have outweighed the disadvantages. The key was a successful launch, but that did not happen, and that is why we are where we are now.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) was a remarkable person—[Interruption.]—is a remarkable person. She was the finest peacetime Prime Minister of this century. Without her premiership, this country would have been heading for the political knacker's yard.
Mr. Tony Banks rose——
Mr. Marlow: I shall not give way; I am short of time because others have gone on for a long time. The hon. Gentleman has had his go, but I am sure that he will have plenty of time to have another go later, when I shall not stand in his way. On this occasion, however, if he will forgive me, I shall not give way.
Human nature took its toll, however, as it does so often. Power has its effect, even on the greatest, and the early and necessary success of my right hon. Friend's will power made her too certain and too remote. She began to lack that political beer that refreshes the parts that other beers do not reach. Her political instincts and responsiveness atrophied. It was my right hon. Friend's determination to launch the community charge, warts and all, at a time of economic difficulty that meant that it was floated at too high a level. That launch secured the sinking of the flagship, if not my right hon. Friend's downfall.
In the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), the public consequently
"has not been persuaded that the tax is fair".
Had the community charge been launched at a lower level, it would still be firing on all guns, but it was not to be. It had to go, to die, to be replaced. The hon. Member for
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Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) keeps talking about "son of poll tax", but he should realise that his fox has been shot and that the poll tax is going.
That brings me back to the Opposition—where do they stand? Apparently we dither, but we took a massive and courageous decision to reform the finances and structure of local government. We dithered when we took a clear and unambiguous decision to replace a major policy. According to the Opposition, we have dithered because, for a few weeks, we want to consult and to hear the views of others to strengthen the support for, and consequently make successful, a radical and overdue reform of a vital sector of government.
After 11 years in opposition, most parties devise a half-credible, half-worked-out and half-decent plan for local government, but not this Opposition. It is they who are the ditherers.
Where do the Opposition stand today? The Bill seeks to reduce the headline figure for community charge by £140. Are they for or against that? Those who are for it complain that it should have been done in a different way. How? Would they have pre-empted the Budget?
Mr. Battle: No.
Mr. John Maxton: Yes.
Mr. Marlow: One would, one would not. Between them there is a political line that is either naive or dishonest. Either the Labour party has been so long in opposition that it is unfit to govern or its political line is so deceitful that it should never be allowed to govern.
The Opposition criticise our new proposals, but what are they against?
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Marlow: I shall not give way, as I am about to finish.
Are the Opposition against the fact that the change relates to property valuation, or are they against the fact that the change relates to the number of people in each household? In the immortal phrase, "I believe we ought to know." The Labour party is a party of little minds with little policies and negative attitudes, a party the summit of whose ambitions is not to improve, but to delay and frustrate.
Mr. Campbell-Savours rose——
Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman is signalling that that is precisely what he wants to do. I shall not give way.
I believe that today's schedule of debate provides more than enough time for the teaspoonful of positive thought that the Opposition are likely to bring to the debate—certainly more than they deserve. I therefore support the motion.
5.35 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith: I beg to move amendment (a) to the motion, in paragraph (8) (2), at end insert—
'(e) the Question on any new Causes, new Schedules or amendments which shall have been selected for debate by Mr. Speaker or by the Chairman of the Committee;'.
As I listened to the remarks of the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) and those of the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) I began to wonder

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about the criterion for those selected, or nominated, for the job of speaking for the Government in favour of the motion. Clearly, that criterion did not cover those who want to address themselves precisely to the parliamentary consequences of tabling a motion in this form in circumstances such as this.
Those who may have spoken in those terms—for example the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery), the Chairman of the Procedure Committee—made themselves scarce as soon as they saw the direction in which the debate was going. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) made a pointed, sensible intervention earlier, and he has stuck the debate out, possibly with some embarrassment. He may yet help to carry the argument further by intervening again, or in some other way, because the motion before us is without precedent.
There is no previous occasion on which any Government of any party have sought to railroad a Bill through all its stages in the House in one day with the aid of a timetable motion. That has simply never been attempted, as nobody has dared to do it or suggest it. The occasions on which Bills have gone through all their stages in the House on one day make an interesting comparison with today's occasion: for example, the abdication crisis, which is a strange parallel to the poll tax reversal of today; the Northern Ireland crisis or an impending general election—the last thing we may contemplate today, given the state of things.
The Government did not need to get into this mess. They are in a hole and they have made a fatal mistake of carrying on digging, which one is always told not to do in such circumstances. The Government have consulted and have taken advice. We gave them some advice, and if they had taken it they would not have to do what they are doing today. The Government could have introduced a local income tax some time ago.
Even if we accept for the purposes of today's debate that the Government had a difficulty and that they wanted to take some action for the coming year to relieve the undoubtedly arduous burdens of the poll tax, it would have been possible to do so without post offices being piled high with bills and sacks of mail. It was not beyond the wisdom of the Government to advise local authorities that, because the review was continuing, it would be prudent not to send out the bills until the Secretary of State had made his announcement on Thursday. That would have covered the unexpected announcement on Tuesday in the Budget—the element of surprise.
Mr. Favell: The hon. Gentleman has spoken of piles of community charge bills, and that obviously worries anyone who is keen to cut out waste. If the hon. Gentleman intends to oppose the motion, however, he will ensure that that uncertainty continues. That will mean that more authorities will have even more mounds of bills and will lead to uncertainty for the community charge payer. Now that we have made the decision on the community charge, surely it is right simply to get on with it.
Mr. Beith: I am in favour of that, but my argument is that the motion is unnecessary and dangerous in its consequences. Conservative Members should consider some of the consequences of passing a motion of this kind, whatever the merits may appear to be at the time. Bad
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precedents are usually set by people who think that they are doing everyone good. I am sure that that view is held by Ministers and most Conservative Members, leaving aside those who are incapable of distinguishing between the politics of the issue and the substance of parliamentary procedure.
Some Conservative Members might have a thought to the parliamentary procedure, but believe that they are doing so much good that it does not matter what holes they make in the parliamentary system or what coach and horses they drive through parliamentary procedure. I hope to make them think a little before I conclude my remarks.
Having got into this mess, there is no need for the Government to destroy substantial parts of parliamentary democracy as well. Poll tax mistakes have already cost billions of pounds in transfers of money and millions of pounds in totally unnecessary expenditure of the kind that I referred to; why should they cost us significant elements of parliamentary democracy too? We are all paying a high price for other people's mistakes—mistakes for which no heads have yet rolled.
This allocation of time motion is a device to get the Government off the hook, but it is tomorrow's precedent for silencing parliamentary democracy. The Leader of the House has gone to another meeting, which may be important but is not as important as this debate. He presented a pretty weak case when trying to justify this motion. In answer to my question, he conceded that he had not made the slightest attempt to secure agreement from other parties, or even to establish whether there was any basis for such agreement.
I am interested in the right hon. Gentleman's evidence for the belief that many hon. Members will vote against the Bill and will seek to prevent it from being enacted. Whatever arguments I might wish to adduce about the greater suitability and wisdom of proceeding by way of a local income tax, I have not yet met many hon. Members who are prepared to vote in the Lobby in such a way as to deny the £140 relief to those of their constituents who will get it, or to deny the lesser relief to constituents who will get that. There seems to be a general disposition to recognise that, although the mess that the Government have made is great, relief is desperately needed.
The Leader of the House has advanced no evidence that he would have difficulty getting the Bill through the Lobbies of the House, and there is not much evidence that he would even have much difficulty getting it through debate in the House. When he talks about the urgency of the matter from the point of view of local government, I must point out that Opposition parties are as fully represented in local government as the Conservative party. We are in constant contact with treasurers, local government officers and councillors in our constituencies. We know about the difficulties that they face—indeed, we have been trying to point them out throughout the period in which the Government have added to them. We are well aware that, if legislation were not enacted this week, it would add to those already serious difficulties. Therefore, there was a clear basis for getting a Bill through this week.
Some hon. Members would advance the argument that timetables from the beginning of a Bill have positive merits and that the procedures of the House would be better if we timetabled everything from the start. That case was advanced by the Select Committee on Procedure when I was a member—the Chairman of that Committee was present during the early part of this debate.

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However, that notion was opposed by the Government and also by the Opposition Front Bench because it contained safeguards to ensure that timetabling from the beginning did not deny the right of reasonable debate on issues within a Bill to substantial groups, whether in other parties or Conservative Back-Bench Members. Therefore, it is no use the Government advancing the argument that timetabling could be a better way to do business in the House as they denied a properly safeguarded system of timetabling to the House.
The Government have tabled a motion that does not provide for adequate discussion to develop on specific amendments and for votes on individual amendments. A fair block of time will be available to us, but there is no guarantee that that time will be reasonably allocated between various subjects.
I said that there was a fair block of time, but let me qualify that. There is an amount of time—several hours—in which we can debate the Bill. However, Ministers of all people ought to know that, when one gets down to the details of the Bill, it suddenly becomes apparent that some parts need more attention than others, because mistakes are inherent in the way that it is drafted or problems may arise from it. There is no way that we shall be able to cope with those within the procedure offered to us tonight.
Interest in early amendments may well ensure that many later amendments are never considered and certainly never voted on. That is the reason for my amendment, which seeks to ensure that, in those cases where Mr. Speaker has decided that an amendment ought to be selected for debate, we can at least vote on it. The procedures of this motion ensure that the Government decide the substance of the Bill and what amendments are to be voted on because, when time runs out, the Government will choose which matters will be voted on.
That is also true of Lords amendments. We will have one hour to debate all the amendments that may be sent from another place. In the face of these procedures, their Lordships will be wise to study the Bill very carefully indeed. They may well discover errors and send back amendments. However, the Government are free to decide that an important Lords amendment will only be voted on en bloc with a series of amendments, and thus it could simply be thrown out without debate as part of a group. Frankly, if that happens, their Lordships will be fully justified in insisting on their amendments and keeping that protest going until the House takes part in a proper parliamentary procedure, which this motion precludes in the circumstances that I have described.
The amendments that we will attempt to discuss later may reveal all sorts of errors and problems in the Bill. That is what happened in the case of the poll tax. Hon. Members will remember that Conservative Members focused attention upon some of the serious problems that arose because of the lack of banding or relationship to ability to pay. Those issues were not taken seriously enough, and eventually became the subject of a guillotined debate. Even though this Bill is much shorter, it would be very surprising if some matters did not need to be discussed.
Any discussions on amendments will cover various matters, including controversial issues that hon. Members are fully entitled to mention in the context of the Bill—for example, the 20 per cent. issue. It is the belief of many Opposition Members that it is ludicrous to continue to expect people to pay 20 per cent. of the poll tax when they
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have no income from which to pay it and would not pay it on grounds of income. The Audit Commission knows that it is ludicrous, because it costs more to collect than one gets back.
That is a reasonable subject to discuss. I do not believe that we would persuade the Government about that matter, so I would not propose that we spent the entire night discussing it but it is not unreasonable that we should deal with that issue to some extent in the context of this Bill.
Another issue is the poll tax in Scotland, where it has been levied for a year longer than in England and Wales. Scotland will not get a rebate backdated to the time when the tax started there. That is another controversial issue, on which, again, I am sure that the Government will give no ground on it, but it is reasonable to mention it in discussions on the Bill.
After we have considered that type of issue, we will come to important technical matters which are less controversial but are nevertheless important—for example, the question of what local authorities will do when it will clearly cost them more to collect the reduced poll tax than they will get from collecting it. That is a reasonable problem which has arisen as a direct consequence of the Bill. Amendments have been tabled to deal with that problem but we may never reach them. Therefore, we shall never be able to sort out the problem that local authority treasurers and councillors will face should they waste charge payers' money by spending more on collecting the charge than they receive by collecting it.
Last night, in the debate on the money resolution, a Minister who once thought that the poll tax was the greatest thing since sliced bread—and has not since resigned—made a few general observations. However, they were not helpful to local authorities, which want the Bill to be properly worded.
Another example of a technical matter of some importance that we need to consider later is the position as regards standard community charges. Are they or are they not reduced by £140? If they are reduced—I see that Ministers are nodding to say so—by £140, will local authorities be reimbursed for the disproportionately greater loss to their budget that some of them will face because of that substantial reduction in standard charges? I have consulted my local authority on that matter. That type of issue has been mentioned to us and should be explored through amendments to the Bill.
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way because, as I think he knows, two of my constituents happen to have a second home in his constituency. They have written to me, and have told me that they have written to the hon. Gentleman. Will he not concede that the real villain of the piece is his district council, which misused the discretion granted and charged my constituents a double community charge for their second home? That was never intended.
Mr. Beith: Far from being "never intended", that was specifically envisaged by the Government who included provisions that would allow exactly that to happen, and local authorities all over the country did exactly that. Many of those local authorities had a predominance of Conservative members. If the hon. Gentleman or the Minister—or the Bill—is to tell all those local authorities, Conservative and others, that there will be substantially

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less income from the standard charge, that is obviously a factor that the local authorities will have to consider, but it is too late now for them to readjust their budgets if there are to be substantial changes as a result of the Bill. I simply instance that as an example of the technical problems that local authorities will want to discuss later. Some problems may emerge in the debates in another place and return to us but, again, we shall have inadequate time to debate them.
As well as the major controversial issues, on which we shall not gain any ground from the Government, Ministers must know from their own experience of legislation that some issues may arise on which they will even feel disposed to make changes. They may even feel disposed to admit that the drafting is not satisfactory, but we do not have an adequate way of dealing with those problems.
We know what the answer will be tonight. It will be, "We haven't time to change anything." However, during the next few days, the Government could certainly find the time to get the Bill into some proper order. There is no point in introducing and carrying through bad legislation.
The result of all this is a bad day for Parliament. If this was the new procedure for parliamentary debate in Poland or Czechoslovakia, the Government would be talking about withdrawing aid from those countries because they were not setting out on proper democratic processes. This is a dangerous precedent. If this is okay—if it is all right to rush this Bill through on a timetable motion, denying any opportunity of challenge and debate simply because the Government face a difficulty of their own making—why should not the Government——
Mr. Alex Salmond: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman's excellent speech, but some of us can distinctly smell burning. We hope that it is the poll tax going up in flames, but perhaps the matter could be investigated.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I shall have inquiries made.
Mr. Beith: I have always had the ambition metaphorically to set the House on fire.
If it is in order and if it is acceptable for the Government to solve a problem of their own making by this draconian extension of parliamentary practice, why should not the Government privatise British Coal in one day? Why should not a Labour Government renationalise British Telecom in one day? Why should we not set up a Scottish Parliament in one day on a guillotine motion? Why should we not introduce electoral reform in one day on a timetable or guillotine motion?
All of us would think that we would be doing no end of good by such measures—a good that would justify the abrogation of parliamentary procedure that is involved. There do not seem to be many hon. Members left who are prepared to speak up for the procedure itself and for the need for some kind of guarantee against a Government riding roughshod over the rights of hon. Members to represent their constituents.
If parliamentary democracy were not so fragile in this country, if we had a representative electoral system, we would never have had the poll tax in the first place, and none of this would be happening.
5.53 pm
Mr. Michael Latham: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has made an unusual speech in this debate, because he actually talked about the guillotine motion. The only other hon. Member to talk seriously—or perhaps I should say at length—about the guillotine motion was the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), to whom the House listened with great respect and enjoyment, first because of the magnificence of his speech—they are always magnificent—and secondly because no hon. Member knows more about guillotine motions than the right hon. Gentleman.
I remember being in opposition and sitting only a few feet from where the right hon. Gentleman is sitting and listening to him move five guillotine motions in one day. That was not the only occasion on which he moved a guillotine motion. At that time, exactly the same thoughts were in the minds of the then Opposition Members—members of the Conservative and Liberal parties—as have been advanced today by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Mr. Foot indicated dissent.
Mr. Latham: The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but we also thought that our procedures were being abused by having five guillotine motions in one day. The argument that he advanced at that time was that the Government had a mandate for it, that they were going to get their will, and that the House of Commons must respond to the procedures adopted by the Government. That argument is frequently used by Leaders of the House, because whenever there is a debate on a guillotine motion, those on the majority side of the House say, "We do not need to debate this at all. We could scrap all the debate and
The interesting thing about the speech of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is that he produced real arguments for debating the guillotine motion. He said that the time allocated was not long enough, that the motion was unreasonable and improper and that the issues could not properly be discussed in the time allocated. He also said that, if my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House had had proper consultations, there could perhaps have been an agreed measure.
The hon. Gentleman is an experienced parliamentarian, and I do not think that he can seriously suggest that it would have been possible for this Government to introduce this legislation in this form as an agreed measure, when he knows perfectly well that his party is in favour of a local income tax and that the Labour party is, in effect, in favour of returning to the rating system. Therefore, it would not be possible to have an agreed measure that could command the support also of the majority of my hon. Friends. The Government are clearly, therefore, in a difficult position.
I do not defer to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed in my admiration for the procedures of this House of which, in the past, the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent was a great custodian. I remember listening to the right hon. Gentleman day after day when he was Leader of the House, when he behaved very strongly, but nobody could doubt his devotion to the House for a moment. If any of us really thought that the House would be gravely damaged by the procedures that we are debating, as the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed implied, I do not

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believe that many of us would be prepared to support the motion. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is clearly worried about this matter, and his concerns are to be respected because he is independent-minded and clear-thinking; I pay tribute to him for that.
I am prepared to vote for the motion for one reason and one reason only—because circumstances require it. Those circumstances are that my constituents need a reduction in the poll tax, and they need it now. I am absolutely delighted that, following the excellent Budget last Tuesday, my right hon. and hon. Friends have introduced a Bill that will reduce the poll tax for many of my constituents.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman says that his constituents need that reduction now. Do they also "need" the increase of 2·5 per cent. in value added tax?
Mr. Latham: The Government are absolutely right to pay for this concession by increasing other taxes. I have publicly argued for that on many occasions——
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Do they need it equally?
Mr. Latham: Obviously, they are not likely to like it, but they will accept that it is right that public expenditure should be paid for rather than coming from further borrowing.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo: My hon. Friend's comment that his constituents want the reduction now goes to the nub of this debate and of the one that we shall be having for the rest of the night. Does he agree that the Labour party has been trying to say that it does not disapprove of the £4 billion shift, but that it would prefer it to have gone, not to his and my constituents., but to the local authorities?
Does my hon. Friend further agree, that if that sum had gone to the local authorities, they would merely have spent it and our constituents would have received exactly the same bills?
Mr. Latham: I am sure that my hon. Friend is absolutely right.
Returning to the guillotine motion, it is significant that the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) began by saying, once or twice, that the motion and the debate were a disgrace; he then talked about the Bill; said again that the whole thing was a disgrace, and then sat down. He devoted his whole speech to the Bill. What really worries the Opposition is that the Government are cutting poll tax bills now.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does not my hon. Friend agree that our hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) has got it in one? Let us take the example of the people in the London borough of Merton. They have a newly elected Labour council which has increased the demand by £136, which means that the council will have spent almost all the £140. That is an example of exactly what Labour councils do with more money.
Mr. Latham: My hon. Friend is right; that is well understood by many people and it is one reason why the Labour party's results in Wandsworth, Westminster and Ealing were so poor in the local government elections. It is also perhaps the reason why the Conservative party won
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the county council by-election in Leicester city last Thursday. I have no doubt that it will go on to do very well in the local elections in Leicester city on 2 May.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House did not put forward the motion in a spirit of enthusiasm. Of course it would have been better if we had had more time to discuss the matter. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is right to say that more time would have been desirable. However, the Government having decided, in my view absolutely rightly, in the Budget to cut the poll tax for our constituents, it is proper for the House to respond and get on with the legislation so that the poll tax can be reduced. That is what we are doing today. I believe that our procedures are here to serve the House and our constituents, not the other way round.
6 pm
Mr. Tom Clarke: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), in a thoughtful speech, referred to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have served in local government. As one such person, I should like to make the point that, if we had seen in local government the brashness, arrogance and disregard for procedure that are represented in the motion, the party responsible—whatever its complexion—would have been rejected by the electorate at the following election. No doubt that will be the case when people get the opportunity to vote nationally.
We are being asked to give the Government time—a precious commodity in the House—to deal with a measure when it is clear that not even the Government are aware what the measure is likely to mean. We are entitled to look at the road map before we decide on the route.
Because the Government believe in government in dribs and drabs, by leak, we are entitled to ask why they have got themselves into difficulties and whether more parliamentary time will decrease the difficulties or add to them. On the Government's record, the evidence is that, if we give them more scope, the difficulties will become even larger.
We heard a major leak yesterday in the shape of the speech from the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson). I do not know about his expertise in financial matters, but when he came to local government and steadfastly refused to give way, he exposed an appalling ignorance of the subject. It worried me that he, with other right hon. Members, should have had such influence on local government in the past decade. Because of the thinking of the right hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues, we face the current difficulties.
It is not enough for Conservative Members to say that we are just talking about a reduction of £140 for each poll tax payer. It is much more complicated. If we decide to allow the Government to go ahead in the pragmatic way that they are attempting to do, and have done for so long, we will ignore the picture that is staring us in the face and which the former Chancellor did not seem to recognise. He took credit for an increase of £2·6 billion in the funding of local government expenditure in 1990, but he ignored information available in the Library which shows that since 1978–79, at 1990–91 prices, the central Government contribution to local government has decreased by over £57 billion.
No structure can take such abuse and underfunding without there being local difficulties. It is not enough for

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Conservative Members to blame, as they have done for the last couple of years, Labour councils for increases in expenditure. I have never heard such slagging of councils and councillors as there has been in the last couple of years. Surely Conservative Members should have the modesty to admit that their approach to the matter and the poll tax might have had something to do with it.
Yesterday, the former Chancellor argued for even more centralisation and more reductions in the amount of total funding received by local authorities; he seemed to argue that the Treasury should have a bigger say in local government finance. Many of us are worried about it, and our worries increased today because of the question asked by the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell). We concede that his judgment has not been totally awry, but he tried to persuade the Prime Minister that instead of increasing VAT by 2·5 per cent. he should make it 5 per cent. Therein lies the difficulty—do we believe in local government, or do we not?
When we hear the arguments of the former Chancellor and some of his colleagues, are we not entitled to remind them of the Irish experiment? In 1977, Jack Lynch swept to power in the Republic of Ireland when he said he would abolish local rates. He did it, but most people in the Republic would agree that it has not recovered to this day. We remember the huge protests about increases in income tax, the farmers marching along O'Connell street, and local communities pleading with central Government to remember their needs in roads, social services and education.
It seems that some Government advisers here are determined to take education out of the local government structure. If that happens, it will be to our cost and even more to the cost of our children.
We are told that under the new Prime Minister we have a listening Government. I hope that proves to be the case, but they have not made a good start by asking for a guillotine or, despite their pledges about consultation, by telling us firmly that the new proposals will still be based on the principle of the poll tax, with a clumsy property tax. The Minister of State, Scottish Office—the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth)—has not graced us with his presence in the debate, nor has the Secretary of State for Scotland. How they can go along with the proposal after the campaign that they conducted I cannot understand.
Instead of being asked to adopt a simple guillotine for a few hours so that the Government can tidy up some unfinished business, we are faced with something much more significant——
Mr. Salmond: The hon. Gentleman referred to the absence of the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth). In fairness, I was watching that hon. Member closely during Prime Minister's questions and I have never seen an hon. Member look more ill than he did in that quarter of an hour.
Mr. Clarke: I am not an expert on medical matters and wish the hon. Member for Stirling no ill—his political deficiencies will be sufficient for us to remove him when the opportunity comes.
What we are debating tonight is much more significant than many Conservative Members have said, with the
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honourable exception of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), as one would have expected. We also hear about changes in the structure of local government, including that in Scotland. Surely, if there is to be a change in structure, we in Scotland are entitled—again, it is disgraceful that no Scottish Office Minister is here—to have a commission such as that which has been offered to England and Wales. We hear so much about consultation but such a commission is being denied the people of Scotland because our Secretary of State says that there is a consensus on these matters in Scotland.
The consensus is much wider than the Secretary of State thinks. There is, indeed, a consensus in Scotland that we should get rid of the poll tax, that we should provide reasonable local services and that the community should have a say in its area but there is a consensus about another matter, which the Secretary of State for Scotland has resisted. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) referred to it yesterday. I accept that most people want a new structure of local government in Scotland. There is an overwhelming demand for a Scottish Parliament to draw up the structure within the United Kingdom.
I do not see why the Secretary of State should say that there is a consensus for one tier of local government but ignore the consensus for a Scottish Parliament. He should bear that in mind. The right hon. Member for Blaby said yesterday that when the case for a Scottish Parliament was last debated in Scotland, it fell at the first post because the assembly that was suggested—my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) will have fond memories of the debates—did not have tax-raising powers. That was one of the reasons why in the referendum we did not obtain the 40 per cent. vote which the House demanded. Furthermore, the former Prime Minister, Lord Home, intervened during the referendum to say that a Conservative Government would make those tax-raising powers available in any case.
I believe that local government should be seen as local government. It should have the power to raise finance and it should have a reasonable relationship with central Government. Local government has been damaged in recent years. We have not so much drifted as raced towards centralisation under this Government. We have seen the introduction of competitive tendering and the abolition of the Greater London council. The presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) in the House day after day is a reminder that the abolition of the GLC was not welcome to local government or the people of London. Far too often, as part of the aggro against local government, we have seen the intervention of the laws, as though people were not entitled to make their own decisions in a local setting. On the whole, that has not been helpful.
Mr. Favell: The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on a great dilemma. What proportion of local government expenditure should come from central Government? He mentioned that if the same arrangements applied as in 1979 local government would be £57,000 million better off. What proportion of that would he like to see go to local government? How does he suggest that it should be raised?
Mr. Clarke: I am delighted to be asked that question. There was a time when local and central Government met and agreed on these matters. If that had been the case in

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recent times, we in Scotland would not have lost 12 per cent. of global rate support grant as we have done over the past 10 years. I suggest that, despite the Tory ideology on these matters, there is a case for returning to a partnership between this House and local government. It is a matter of great regret that the partnership has been lost. Instead, we have seen scepticism and mistrust. That approach is unhelpful. For that reason, I hope that the House will reject the motion before us tonight and move towards strengthening local government. In so doing, we shall also strengthen British democracy.
6.14 pm
Mr. Tony Favell: I return to the point that I was making to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke). He said that local government received £57,000 million less than it did in 1979. It is unreasonable of the Opposition not to apply themselves to the problem of where that £57,000 million should come from. I calculate that £57,000 million is roughly equivalent to 35p in the pound in income tax. Do the Opposition suggest that income tax should increase at the rate of 35p?
Mr. Rooker: The figure that my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) gave was cumulative over 12 years, so let us not have that hare running.
Mr. Favell rose——
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman did not know the facts.
Mr. Favell: I asked a perfectly reasonable question and attempted to deal with the matter. I accept the answer that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) gave. The hon. Member for Monklands, West did not say that the figure was per annum or in total. This is a debate, and it is important that we debate these matters sensibly.
There is a dilemma about what percentage of local government expenditure should come from central Government. It is not unreasonable for me to expect the Opposition to label how much they want. As the hon. member for Monklands, West said, the amount has been reduced. I asked the question—I see the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) nodding in agreement. It was my parliamentary question that identified that the average community charge now would be £152 per annum if the Government could return to the arrangements which applied in 1979. It was my question, and I have done the House a favour by asking it. I have certainly done the community charge payer a favour because the solution that the Government have proposed—a £140 reduction for each charge payer—is sensible. I am sure that in their heart of hearts Opposition Members, regardless of party, agree with just that.
Mr. Maxton: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, if the Government had been prepared to increase central Government grant to Scotland in 1985, when the Government got into the blind panic about revaluation in Scotland which produced the crazy poll tax scheme, we would not be in this position now. We would never have abolished the rates, and the Government would not be in the blind panic crisis that they are in.
Mr. Favell: That may be, It may also be that, if we had maintained the level of government grant, we would not be seeking to repeal the community charge. I fear that that is one thing about which the Opposition are worried. Once the community charge has been reduced, the people of Britain may find it is no bad thing. On the doorsteps, people have made it perfectly clear that they are worried about the level of the community charge. They say, "Mr. Favell, we have no objection to everyone contributing to the cost of local government services. We object to the level." I am not surprised. From day one, I have been worried about the level. It has affected certain members of the community badly, especially, pensioners with a small occupational pension from the gas board, British Rail or whatever, of perhaps £30 or £40 a month. I have a great deal of sympathy with such people.
I for one am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer grasped the nettle and proposed the reduction of £140. Clearly, he had the support of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I applaud what has been done. To suggest that there has been dithering over this issue by the Government is a complete travesty of the truth. It is one of the most decisive decisions to be made for a long time.
The Government went to the heart of the problem, and the answer is being implemented rapidly. For that reason, I support the motion. To delay matters now would mean local authorities not knowing the sort of bills to distribute, and that would go on while we argued the toss for weeks and perhaps months. It would be equally unrealistic to expect the community charge payer to wait, because he too must budget, just as town hall staffs do.
The Opposition parties are simply indulging in sound and fury. The fear that the Government have made a decision that should have been made a long time ago and reduce the level of the community charge. I should not be opposed to retaining the present system. There will be time for all concerned to discuss the issues involved, but at the outset we have attended to the root of the problem. That has resulted in our removing the unnecessarily, and I believe unsupportably, high bills that some members of society have received.
6.21 pm
Mr. Alex Salmond: Credit is due to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) for making an excellent speech, although I take issue with him on one point. I do not object too strongly to the parliamentary chaos that accompanies this legislation. I would rather have the chaos confronting the demise of the poll tax than the chaos resulting from its continuation.
Nor do I resent the panic on the Government Benches that was evident earlier during Prime Minister's Question Time. Any group of people who were determined to impose a poll tax on the people deserve any panic that comes their way. I caution the Government, however. Even a group of people in headlong retreat should pause and allow time to consider whether they are running away in the right direction.
It is clear, particularly from last night's money resolution, that the full implications of the £140 reduction have not been thought through by the Government. Indeed, we now know from the Minister's announcement last night that only at a very late stage did the Government

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suddenly realise that taking £140 off the headline poll tax bill would not help many people already affected by the community charge reduction scheme
It was clear from last night's announcement that the developing concern, to put it no more strongly, of people who are already feeling cheated—having been told that they will get £140 the Government were suddenly confronted with the argument that many people would get nothing—has provoked the Government into making more changes in the reduction scheme.
I appeal for more time to consider people in receipt of poll tax rebate who, under the new legislation, will not benefit from anything like the £140. If they are on the full 80 per cent. rebate, the reduction in their final poll tax bills will be very small. Compared with the enormous cost of the Budget measure that we are considering, the cost of exempting those in the 20 per cent. category—people on the lowest incomes, the poor, sick, unemployed and students—from the poll tax would be tiny.
I argue—not just in terms of principle and the general interest, because such an argument would not make much impression on the Tory party, but even on the basis of Tory self—interest that the Government should allow time for us to consider properly the amendments that stand on the Order Paper, especially those that would allow a reduction of £140 in final poll tax bills, as opposed to headline bills, which would properly help not just those in the 20 per cent. category but a good proportion of the
The panic in which the Tories find themselves was confirmed by the Prime Minister a week past Monday when he said with reasonable candour to his Back Benchers that the poll tax had become "uncollectable". Less quoted, and perhaps even more direct, were some remarks made on BBC television about two weeks ago by the hon. Member for Shipley (Sir M. Fox), the vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee, who presumably has his ear close to the ground and knows what Tory Members are thinking. He said:
"We have to listen to the people. So many of them are not paying it."
That has led to this legislation, to the chaos in parliamentary procedure and to the panic in the Tory ranks. Clearly, the poll tax has been tested to destruction.
6.25 pm
Mr. Jacques Arnold: At the heart of the whole issue which faces us is a question of timing. We are talking about the largest transfer of taxation—£4·25 billion—for 10 years. The transfer could not have been made earlier. We could not have announced such an increase in spending without announcing how the money would be found. Without doing that, there would have been a run on the pound and the markets would have thought that it was a case of unsound finance by the Government.
National taxation must be announced simultaneously with the Budget, and the Budget must be as close as possible to the start of the financial year to which it refers. So, once the announcement was made in the Budget, speed was of the essence to put the mechanics in place, and that is what the timetable motion is about. It is technically essential to the process with which we are concerned.
Urgency also arises in the need to respond to public opinion, which wants us to take the £140 off quickly, but
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we must also respond urgently to the requirements of administrators and financial controllers in individual councils, including Labour-controlled authorities.
Public opinion on the community charge is primarily an objection to the weight of the tax. Time and again we hear that all are agreed that every adult in the community should pay a share towards local government, but there is no agreement about the weight of the charge. An analogy would be a bridge with a capacity for four-tonne vehicles. One does not drive a 10-tonner across, because the bridge would break. That has happened to the community charge.
I welcome the increase of £4·25 billion in revenue support grants because they create a reduction of £140 in the bills that people would otherwise have received. The reduction is popular with the public.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman says that the weight of the matter is the size of the bill. What does he consider to be the consideration in the minds of people who live in areas where, last year, the community charge was £240 to £260 or, as in my area, £280? Why, if their figures are not weighted, are they also vigorously opposed to the poll tax?
Mr. Arnold: Because what they were led to expect was much less than the outturn figures. We could all make comparisons, as I could for Gravesham.
Why are Labour Members so opposed to this measure and to the community charge? After all, they have not been well known for opposing taxation. Indeed, the Labour party is known as the party of high taxation, and the new programme that Labour Members have been announcing, along with the promises that go with it, proves that they belong to the party of high spending and, consequently, of high taxing.
Mr. Rooker: I hate to repeat the argument, but the hon. Gentleman has never heard a Labour Member say that the Labour party's central objection to the poll tax is based on anything other than the fact that it was a flat rate tax unrelated to the ability to pay. That was repeated ad nauseam during 1987 and 1988 and was the subject of a special one-day debate in the House on the basis of the so-called Mates amendments. Our central objection to the poll tax was that it was the same rate for everyone in a local authority area. The hon. Gentleman has clearly not taken that point on board.
Mr. Arnold: The hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that the community charge is related to inability to pay because it included an enhanced rebate system, which was far more generous than the rate rebate system and coped with problems arising from the inability to pay.
The Labour party is opposed to the community charge because it enables the general public to compare councils' performances. It did away with charging so many pence in the pound on a notional 1972 rental product of a property. People could understand the community charge on the basis of so much a head for one council and so much for another. They began to compare councils and asked why some people paid £250 while those down the road in another borough paid £450. The community charge had become a comparative measure.
Mr. Beith: Should not we debate on such an occasion—it is the reason why I am so critical of the motion—the fact that the poll tax is not clear? Why else do Conservative

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councils in places such as Warwickshire and, before it changed, Harrogate, claim that high poll tax charges are not their fault?
Mr. Arnold: Because those councils need to discuss the standard spending assessment components. That does not alter the fact that the community charge has provided figures that the ordinary man in the street can understand in comparing one council with another.
The Labour party's hysterical reaction to the community charge is a desperate attempt to create a smokescreen to hide the real figures. Let us consider the charges net of the £140. Our constituents are to receive their bills shortly. In some areas, the local authority is totally under the control of one party. That is the case with districts that have Conservative unitary authorities, such as the metropolitan counties and Greater London. Others have both Conservative shire county councils and Conservative shire district councils. There are 80 such districts, with Conservative councils fully in control, and their community charge next year, net of the£140, will be, on average, £213. Only three districts have Liberal Democrat councils—at a unitary level or on both levels—and their average community charge will be £230. People must pay 8 per cent. more for the privilege of voting Liberal.
Pride of place goes to the 76 districts controlled by Labour councils, where the average charge will be £268—£55 more than the respective Conservative councils. Thus, people must pay 26 per cent. more for the privilege of voting Labour.
Whichever way we cut the mixed two-tier authorities, we find the same phenomenon. For example, the 112 shire districts under Labour county councils will have an average community charge next year of £268, whereas the 152 shire districts under Conservative county councils will charge an average charge of £226—£42 less than the Labour-controlled districts. People must bear a heavy burden if it costs them 19 per cent. more to live under a Labour-controlled county council than a Conservative-controlled one.
If we cut the figures the other way, we see that the 129 Conservative shire districts will charge an average of £227, whereas the 112 Labour-controlled shire districts will charge £274. Therefore, for the privilege of living in a Labour shire district, people will pay £47, or 21 per cent. a head more. However we consider the matter, Labour councils cost more.
The public already know that the people of Wandsworth, thanks to their Conservative council, will pay a nil community charge in the coming year.
Mr. Allen McKay: Where is the accountability in that?
Mr. Arnold: The accountability comes when, thanks to having voted for a Conservative council and swept away some 30 Labour councillors, Wandsworth residents have a better council that costs them nothing extra this year.
People also know that Conservative-controlled Westminster will charge £36. They may know that Conservative Rochester council will charge £50 and Conservative Wellingborough council will charge £129. The lowest charges in the country will be made by Conservative-controlled councils.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I take the hon. Gentleman back to the figures that he quoted for shire councils? He compared Labour and Conservative-controlled shire councils. Will he confirm that, if we compare those lists with the lists of councils that provide nursery education, we find that Labour-controlled councils make provision for nursery education whereas many Conservative-controlled councils make none. If we compare other lists on the cost of home helps, on the number of places available for elderly persons and on other public service provision, we find better and more services in Labour-controlled authorities than in the ones to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Mr. Arnold: Conservative-controlled Wandsworth council provides nursery places for every child. I come from an area controlled by Conservative Kent county council. It has been under Conservative control for 100 years and children in our urban area go to council-provided nurseries. The hon. Gentleman's argument is extremely weak.
The four lowest charges in the country are in Conservative districts. Other districts with low community charges include the borough of Tower Hamlets, which will charge £147.
Mr. Beith: Liberal Democrats.
Mr. Arnold: They may be Liberal Democrats, but they have managed their community charge only after receiving £147 a head in area protection grant and no less than £1,461 per head in revenue support grant. I wonder what kind of record that shows. I am proud to show that the sixth lowest charge is made by the Conservative-controlled borough of Gravesham, where people will pay £153—a reduction of almost a half as a result of the Bill. Those are the six councils with the lowest charges, and it is significant that there is not one Labour council among them.
Let us consider where the six highest community charges will be in the coming year in England. Would you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, be surprised to find that all six are Labour-controlled? I shall list them. Lambeth will have the highest community charge—it will be £450, even after the £140 has been taken off. Haringey will have a charge of £420, Bristol will have a charge of £384, Islington's charge will be £376, Basildon's charge will be £355 and Oxford's charge will be £344.
One might suggest that the political complexions of the councils with the six top and the six bottom levels were coincidental, but if we look around England, we see that Labour councils stick out from their respective counties like sore thumbs. In Avon, there is only one Labour-controlled district council, Bristol, which is to charge £384. All the other districts in the county of Avon will be put out charges of less than £310—nearly 20 per cent. less than the one Labour district in Avon. In the county of Cambridgeshire, there are only two Labour councils—Peterborough, where the charge is £267 and Cambridge, where it is £329. All the other districts in Cambridgeshire will charge less than £232—nearly 30 per cent. less than Cambridge city, which is Labour controlled.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend's advice about the disposition of the charges, but perhaps he will say why a guillotine is necessary and why he is not anxious about using a guillotine before the Second Reading, which is against the interests of every

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part of the House. The House should be more mindful than to rule away its rights to debate and discuss issues of importance such as he is trying to address. We should tackle the question why a guillotine is being imposed before Second Reading.
Mr. Arnold: I think that the constituents of every Member of Parliament also have rights. They have a right to have the £140 taken off their bills quickly. Funnily enough, councils, both Conservative and Labour, have rights, and we should get this measure through the House fast, with the help of the guillotine, so that they can make the necessary calculations and complete their administration.
The county of Essex has only three Labour councils—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I cannot ignore the content of the intervention of the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), and I think it would be appropriate if the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) were to try to relate his remarks more closely to the motion.
Mr. Arnold: I am relating my remarks to the urgency with which the people of Essex need to know what the community charge will be for next year so that families can budget. The purpose of the guillotine is that it enables us to proceed rapidly with the Bill so that it can be enacted and the necessary regulations may be immediately passed, so that our constituents may know what the figures are.
There are only three Labour councils in Essex—the districts of Thurrock, which will charge £266, Harlow, which will charge £309, and Basildon, which will charge £355. All the remaining Essex districts will charge less than £260—more than one quarter less.
Let us look at the county where both Opposition parties take the booby prize——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think that I can allow the hon. Gentleman to do what he appears to be doing—reciting the poll tax levels of every local authority in the country, which is quite inappropriate. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will speak to the motion or recognise that other hon. Members are waiting to take part in what is now to be a short debate.
Mr. Arnold: I am addressing myself precisely to the point covered by the guillotine motion. Our constituents throughout the country urgently wish to know where they stand financially. That is why the Bill has to move at such speed. I am trying to relate precisely the reason why our constituents wish to see their bills. The sort of comparison I am giving is highly relevant to why constituents are asking themselves why they end up with such a bill, even net of the £140, which is uniform throughout the country and which results from the Bill. Those are the sort of questions that people are asking.
The opposition to the Bill and, therefore, the guillotine motion involve the fact that councils have been unprotected. Last year, we had the safety net; this year it is the area protection grants. It is relevant to say that, of the six major recipients of area projection grants, five are Labour councils and one is a Liberal council. When they receive their bills, net of the £140, they will already have received area protection grants in excess of £100 per head.
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Opposition Members also argue that the councils to which I have referred have greater needs, which have long been reflected in the standard spending assessments on which the revenue support grants are calculated.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: Why does my hon. Friend suppose that, if the guillotine motion were lost, the Bill would necessarily be lost? I passionately support our giving the £140 to my constituents. I agree that they desperately need it, but why is it necessary to have a guillotine? That is the question that I ask my hon. Friend. I have asked it of Ministers and have still received no answer. I have not heard anybody oppose the Bill.
Mr. Arnold: My hon. Friend assumes that the Bill would be lost. The Bill would not be lost; it would be delayed. I am making the point that a delay in passing the legislation would mean a delay in passing the grant and passing the figures to the councils, which would delay producing the community charge bills. Worse than that, it would produce uncertainty for our constituents about the community charges that they will incur. Community charge levels are strongly affected by the revenue support grants that are allocated.
Today, we are considering the £140 that is to be taken off, which will feed through to bills. The consolation for all local tax payers is that the Conservative Government, led by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, has recognised the root of the financial problem for local taxpayers—basically the weight upon them. The Bill will decisively shift the balance of taxation. The House should be equally decisive and pass——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman is totally disregarding the advice that I offered him earlier. I hope that he will now relate his remarks more closely to the motion and also have regard to the interests and rights of other hon. Members.
Mr. Arnold: In summary, I am saying that, if we pass the allocation of time motion, we can pass the Bill quickly and our constituents will have £140 knocked off their bills.
6.48 pm
Mr. John Battle: Through the guillotine motion, Parliament is being subjected to the political tactics of the ramrod to force legislation through without consideration for either local government or national Government. The legislation is being blasted through the House to cover up for the social, economic and political turmoil that the poll tax has caused for the Conservative party.
The Government are seeking to maintain their image of competence. They believe that they may get away with changing the Prime Minister without consulting the people, but they cannot change the whole of local government without consulting the people or the House of Commons. That is what the guillotine motion is about—putting legislation through the House without giving it proper consideration.
Just six weeks ago we debated the Government's £1·7 billion community charge reduction scheme. The revamped scheme was announced by the Secretary of State for the Environment, who claimed in January that it would benefit 18 million charge payers. That estimate was based on what he called assumed community charge figures. They were well below the actual figures and within days it

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was proved that the Secretary of State's claims were grossly exaggerated and that the Government would make considerable savings to offset the cost of that scheme.
Just weeks later, we face more legislation to unpack and unpick earlier legislation. From the word go, the legislation has been piecemeal and half baked. The Secretary of State's recent statement was delayed because his Department could not fulfil his promise to extend help to residents of sheltered housing for the elderly and the disabled, who would not benefit from any of his existing transitional relief schemes.
In the past 13 years, there have been 125 Acts of Parliament directed at local government finance, and 13 of those Acts have specifically changed that finance. I was in local government for about 10 years and at times we could not fix a budget that would last from the beginning to the end of a financial year because the rules were changed within that year. The practical implications were that, when tenders were put out for repairing roofs, they had to be called in again because the financial arrangements had changed. As a result, local authorities found themselves in the worst of all worlds trying to repair roofs in winter.
Legislation affecting local government was passed with great haste and on guillotine motions without proper consideration for the rights of local government. Since I came to the House it has passed the Rate Support Grants Act 1987, the Local Government Finance Act 1987, the Local Government Act 1987, the Local Government Act 1988, the Local Government Finance Act 1988 and the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Debate on most of that legislation was guillotined, because most of it was based on the Government's ideological opposition to local government itself.
The Government have adopted the arrogant principle that they know better and do not need to consult before legislation is pushed through. We have seen the fiasco of the community charge. The Bill was introduced in December 1987 and had its Second Reading on 16 and 17 December of that year. There were 35 Committee sittings between 21 January and 24 March 1988 and the Bill was on Report between 18 and 26 April. Debate on Report was guillotined and the amendments could not be properly considered. There are dozens of qualifying statutory instruments which had to be introduced to amend the shoddy legislation of the poll tax.
Mr. Rooker: My hon. Friend forgot to mention another stage of the poll tax Bill. On one day in July 1988, 400 Government amendments from the House of Lords were pushed into the Bill.
Mr. Battle: My hon. Friend has a record second to none in campaigning against the detail of that legislation, but he did not get the opportunity to put detailed arguments. That is why the Government are having to unpick their legislation.
If the guillotine motion is accepted, we can move to the detail of the Bill. However, it is plain that it does not contain the kind of detail that enables Conservative Members to allege that every person in Britain will get a rebate of £140. We shall later spell out the implications of the clauses that relate to special exemptions.
The Government's purpose in pushing the legislation through is to try to reassert two things simultaneously—that everybody must pay a personal head tax and that the poll tax is related to ability to pay. They will not get away
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with that unless they can show how the poorest, who have to pay the 20 per cent. minimum, will be exempt from that. The 20 per cent. minimum payment should be abolished. Last week the Secretary of State for the Environment told us that people receive a social security rebate on that 20 per cent., but they do not, because everybody has to pay a minimum of 20 per cent.
The prevailing view of Conservative Members is that the poor got a free ride under the rates system and the Government wanted to stop that. People got rebates because their incomes were too low. If low wages and low pensions were tackled, people could pay their way and would not need rebates.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman heard me reproach a Conservative Member for straying from the motion. I hope that he will pay attention to the issue that is being debated.
Mr. Battle: Many Conservative Members are not willing to concede that everybody will not receive £140. That should be spelt out loudly and clearly at every stage of debate on the poll tax fiasco and the Government's attempt to unpick it.
Mr. John Marshall: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for you to apply the guillotine to those hon. Members who stray from the motion?
Mr. David Winnick: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the shoddiest things about the guillotine motion is that the Government seek to apply it to a Bill about which no details are known and none will be forthcoming? How many of our constituents will get a reduction of £140? The Secretary of State has no idea and, anyway, has no wish to tell the House. Many of my constituents will receive nowhere near £140. They will get about £28 to £35.
Mr. Battle: One of the difficulties about our debates is that we do not get time to study the information on which to base the arithmetic. Even transitional relief will be knocked out by the Bill.
The Government are trying to create an image of competence, but such an image cannot be sustained. In tonight's edition of the Evening Standard, Lord Hailsham says:
"The knee jerk approach has never worked for forming policy."
What more knee-jerk approach could there be than this guillotine motion? It is ramrod politics. It is not a case of poll tax mark 2 but of the poll tax not only hitting the people who pay but striking at the heart of parliamentary democracy.
6.57 pm
Mr. David Blunkett: I shall ensure that the Leader of the House has the agreed time to reply to the debate, because I do not want hon. Members to feel that he is being curtailed.
To those of us who are in favour of parliamentary reform and, on a personal note, of timetabling all legislation, this guillotine is a grave setback. Sensible timetabling should be aimed at ensuring proper debate of important issues and not at removing the very basis of such rights. That is what the debate is about: we are considering whether to take away the basic rights of

821
Parliament to debate in detail a substantial measure. It is not a measure that can be nodded through, because it has different implications for millions of people, depending on their circumstances. It is a substantive measure, and it has profound implications for the future.
I say to the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) that we are dealing not simply with a litany of poll tax levels throughout the country, but with the circumstances in which people in local government have been struggling to maintain services and to ensure that local democracy prevails. The Bill ensures that the very basis of decision-making in local government is curtailed. Instead of providing for the needs of people, we are providing for political expediency. Today and on previous occasions, Conservative Members have revealed that the proposals in the Bill are aimed at giving the Government a breathing space that will allow them to make changes to legislation that was wrongly introduced in the first place.
Three years ago, the Bill that introduced the arrangements for England and Wales was trawled for three and a half months through its Committee stage. Some of us remember it very well—I ended up in hospital with pneumonia, which was a better experience than debating the wretched measure until 2 o'clock in the morning. Some of my hon. Friends, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) and Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) have it engraved on their hearts. They lived and slept it day in and day out.
In less than seven hours, after Second Reading and the Committee stage, we shall be asked to approve the transfer from central to local government of the spending of £5·5 billion, reduced to £4·3 billion because of the community charge reduction scheme, when we have not had time to debate the key issues. Again and again, we have called for changes. We have asked the Government to restore the funds taken from local government. We asked on 17 January, when we debated the revenue support grant statement, on 23 January, on Report and Third Reading of the Community Charges (Substitute Setting) Bill, on 29 January when we debated the revenue support grant orders, on 19 February and again on 13 March when, on Opposition days, we debated the poll tax.
Mr. Brandon-Bravo: This point was raised by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and others. Apart from the arguments about the guillotine, is the hon. Gentleman saying that he would have preferred the £4 billion to be given to local authorities to spend rather than being used to bring about the objective of the Bill—a reduction of community charges by £140?
Mr. Blunkett: If, in the early hours of tomorrow morning, we manage to discuss the final stages of the Bill, the hon. Gentleman will hear constructive suggestions about how the £4·3 billion could have been used to alleviate people's pressing needs, with such help being allocated according to their financial situation rather than their voting power. We would have altered the tax handout and reduced bills according to ability to pay, rather than giving a flat rate rebate—a replica of the flat rate poll tax. We would have ensured that those who most needed relief received it.
822
The Bill is not about relief or ensuring that those with the biggest problems are given the most cash back. Like the community charge reduction scheme, it is designed to enable the Conservative party to stagger through the local elections and on to the general election. Never have so many provided so much so often for the benefit of so few. VAT is being increased to lower the poll tax, which we all said three years ago would be an electoral disaster. I recall—no doubt my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr will recall this too—that, late one night, when we were saying that the poll tax would be an albatross around the neck of the Conservative party, the message came through that the Synod of the Church of England had voted that the poll tax was unacceptable and unfair. The Conservative members of the Committee burst into laughter. It was guffaws and jokes all round, showing how indifferent and uncaring they were.
The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is correct to ask why the guillotine should be pushed through. The simple answer is that his right hon. and hon. Friends are not prepared to debate how the money should be used or how the poll tax could be altered, or to introduce a Bill that, rather than tinkering with the poll tax, would abolish it. Such a Bill could have sped through the House.
I am one of the lucky few. My poll tax in London will be abolished from 1 April because I live in Wandsworth. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Conservative Members may cheer, but I do not think that there is anything to cheer about when someone who can perfectly well pay his way is to have his dustbins emptied and his streets paved and lighted at the expense of other people elsewhere who will be trying to pay the increase in VAT that the Government are inflicting on them. The burden of providing my services will be transferred from those who can afford to pay to those who cannot. That is nothing to cheer about—it is a disgrace. It shows the way in which the Government treat accountability.
On 24 November, the Prime Minister said:
"I will tell you about the poll tax. We were bounced into it quickly because there was such a fuss about the rates in Scotland. We were bounced without thinking because of the political fuss that was made."
In opposing the guillotine motion, we are saying that the House should not be bounced. Hon. Members should not be expected to take decisions at 2.30 in the morning because the Government want to get the measure through before the Easter recess so that they can reduce bills before the local government elections. Our job is to scrutinise and debate proposed legislation in the interests of those we represent. Parliament is being denied that basic right.
The blame for the poll tax lies entirely with Conservative Members. They invented it and implemented it. The community charge reduction scheme, introduced in January, was supposed to help, with rebates for more than 18 million people. At the Ribble Valley by-election, it was discovered that the people did not think very much of that bribe. It seemed that £1·2 billion would not do, so £4·3 billion was felt to be a better bet. The people of Britain are not so foolish as to fall for that ploy. They will not be fooled into believing that paying with one hand and receiving with the other is anything but a cheap gimmick.
The Prime Minister has the cheek of the devil. Last Saturday, in his speech to the Conservative party central committee, he said:

823
"The only thing you can be sure of is that a Labour Chancellor will have his hands in your pocket more often than you will."
How could the Prime Minister say that, when he has just increased VAT by 2·5 per cent., and when, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he withdrew further resources from local government, thus helping to create the dilemma in which Conservative Members now find themselves, and which has resulted in the Bill?
The Bill is a simple, shoddy measure to save the skin of the Conservative party. Those who were hardest hit by the poll tax will gain the least, and those who have benefited most from the poll tax will gain the most from the Bill.
The Government are offering bribe after bribe. Schools are bribed to opt out, and voters are bribed to fall in, but voters will not fall for this. They may take their money; they will certainly have to pay their money, but the Conservative party will pay the price.
7.9 pm
Mr. MacGregor: I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) on his good sense in choosing to live in Wandsworth when he is in London, but he drew the wrong message from the point that he made. He suggested that the people of Wandsworth will benefit at the expense of people living in other parts of the country who will have to pay the additional value added tax. However, the people of Wandsworth will also have to pay the extra 2·5 per cent. VAT whenever they buy goods or services. The real message is that we are helping the people of Lambeth and——
Mr. Terry Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. MacGregor: No. During my opening speech I gave way to every hon. Member who asked me to do so. I do not have long to reply to the debate.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside ought to be worried about the people who live in Lambeth. They are the ones whom we are trying to help by this measure.
I apologise to the House for the fact that I had to be absent for part of the debate. As Chairman of the Services Committee, I was dealing with a number of major issues of concern to the House, including one of the most controversial relating to dogs other than guide dogs being brought into our premises. I have been given a full report of the debate. In the short time left to me, therefore, I should like to make a few points.
The right hon. Member for Blanau Gwent (Mr. Foot), the leader of the Labour party, made a great issue of the guillotine procedure. As my hon. Friends pointed out during the debate, he created an enormity of a precedent for guillotines when he introduced guillotines on five Bills in one day in 1976—the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill, the Health Services Bill, the Dock Work Regulation Bill, the Rent (Agriculture) Bill and the Education Bill. As a result, he became the arch-guillotiner. That is the answer to his point.
As to the question of a precedent, yes I acknowledge—as I have already fairly done to the House—that there are no precedents for guillotining in the way that we are doing today, but it is important to take into account the fact that in a progressive system one sometimes has to take a new step; otherwise, one never does anything unless it is based upon past precedent.
824
As I said in my opening speech, there are good reasons for using the guillotine procedure in this way. One of them, as my hon. Friends have made clear—in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham)—is that their constituents want the reduction to be included in their bills as quickly as possible. It is a simple and straightforward measure. That is why we believe it is right to get the reduction to them as quickly as possible. Moreover, local authorities need to know where they stand as they approach the new financial year. Those are the two main reasons for wishing to take the Bill through all its stages by means of guillotine.
I notice that the Opposition concentrated on the guillotine motion procedure rather than anything else, but I suspect from the remarks that I have heard during the debate that the point that I intend to make now will be true of the subsequent debates this evening. The Opposition want to concentrate and vote on this motion because they cannot make up their mind about their main policy regarding the Bill. I suspect that they will be afraid to oppose it——
Dr. Cunningham: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. MacGregor: Yes, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Dr. Cunningham: I am grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way, especially as he does not have much time to reply to the debate. He cannot get away with all this nonsense. He dictated the time that would be allocated for the guillotine motion. He did not discuss it with us. It is no use the Leader of the House blaming us for the three hours. If he had consulted us, things might have been different.
Mr. MacGregor: I shall answer the hon. Gentleman's point later, if I have time, but he misses my point, which is that, since last Tuesday's statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I have listened to all the Opposition's points on the Bill and the policy behind it and taken part in a number of television and radio debates. I have also listened to the points made—apparently on the substance of the Bill—during the debate.
What is quite clear is that the Opposition do not know what to do about their policy. They are afraid to oppose the Bill because they do not want to be seen not to be in favour of reducing the community charge. They make various noises suggesting that the way in which it is being financed is wrong, but they have never come forward with an alternative. It is because they do not know what to do that they concentrate on the speed with which we are getting the measure through. As so often happens, they looked for a smokescreen, the timetable motion, in order to hide the nakedness of their policy.
As for the point made by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) about consultation, as he recognises, we can attempt to reach agreement through the usual channels, but the timetable is very tight if we are to get the measure through this week. It would have been open to any hon. Member, as we have seen so often in the House, to use the normal procedures to ensure that the Bill did not get through this week. That is why we came to the view that the guillotine procedure, allowing plenty of time for debate, was the right way to proceed. Consequently, I

825
have to tell the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) that that, among other reasons, is why we cannot accept his amendment.
I had hoped that I had persuaded my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) of the reasons for the measures that we are taking. Let me try again. He, like me, is keen to see the Bill on the statute book by the end of the week in order—I repeat straightforwardly—to enable all community charge payers to benefit from the proposal and to enable local authorities to get ahead with the arrangements. That makes sense, since their new financial year starts next week. My hon. Friend agrees with that and is keen that it should be achieved.
I put it to him that we could not achieve it without a proper timetable for debate in the House. We need to send the Bill to the other place swiftly enough to enable it to be considered by the other place and, if necessary, to consider Lords amendments here. Bearing in mind that Friday is Good Friday and that we have the motion for the Adjournment of the House on Thursday, my hon. Friend will see that the timetable is extremely tight. Consequently, we have endeavoured to bring forward a procedure that will enable the House to deal with a short and straightforward Bill in a well considered way and constructively to debate it, thus enabling us to achieve the objective of getting it in place by the end of the week. That is the simple and straightforward reason for the procedure that I now propose. That is why I hope that the House will pass the motion, so that it can then move on to the Second Reading and other stages of the Bill.
Amendment negatived.
Main Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 318, Noes 236.

Division No. 104]

[7.17 pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Aitken, Jonathan

Bowis, John

Alexander, Richard

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Allason, Rupert

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Brazier, Julian

Amess, David

Bright, Graham

Amos, Alan

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

Arbuthnot, James

Browne, John (Winchester)

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Arnold, Sir Thomas

Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

Ashby, David

Buck, Sir Antony

Aspinwall, Jack

Budgen, Nicholas

Atkins, Robert

Burns, Simon

Atkinson, David

Burt, Alistair

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

Butler, Chris

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Butterfill, John

Baldry, Tony

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Batiste, Spencer

Carrington, Matthew

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Carttiss, Michael

Bellingham, Henry

Cash, William

Bendall, Vivian

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Benyon, W.

Chapman, Sydney

Bevan, David Gilroy

Chope, Christopher

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Colvin, Michael

Boswell, Tim

Conway, Derek

Bowden, A. (Brighton K'pto'n)

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

826

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Cope, Rt Hon John

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Cormack, Patrick

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Couchman, James

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Cran, James

Hunt, Rt Hon David

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

Jackson, Robert

Devlin, Tim

Janman, Tim

Dickens, Geoffrey

Jessel, Toby

Dicks, Terry

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Dorrell, Stephen

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

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)

Eggar, Tim

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

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Knox, David

Fishburn, John Dudley

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Fookes, Dame Janet

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Forman, Nigel

Latham, Michael

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Lawrence, Ivan

Forth, Eric

Lee, John (Pendle)

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Fox, Sir Marcus

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Franks, Cecil

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Freeman, Roger

Lightbown, David

French, Douglas

Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

Fry, Peter

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Gale, Roger

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Gardiner, Sir George

Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

Gill, Christopher

Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

McCrindle, Sir Robert

Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Goodhart, Sir Philip

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Goodlad, Alastair

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

McLoughlin, Patrick

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Madel, David

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Malins, Humfrey

Gregory, Conal

Mans, Keith

Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

Maples, John

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Marland, Paul

Grist, Ian

Marlow, Tony

Ground, Patrick

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Hague, William

Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Mates, Michael

Hampson, Dr Keith

Maude, Hon Francis

Hanley, Jeremy

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Hannam, John

Mellor, Rt Hon David

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

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Miller, Sir Hal

Harris, David

Mills, lain

Haselhurst, Alan

Miscampbell, Norman

Hayes, Jerry

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

Mitchell, Sir David

Hayward, Robert

Moate, Roger

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Monro, Sir Hector

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Moore, Rt Hon John

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

Morrison, Sir Charles

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Moss, Malcolm

Hill, James

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Hind, Kenneth

Mudd, David

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Neale, Sir Gerrard

Holt, Richard

Needham, Richard

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Nelson, Anthony

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

Neubert, Sir Michael

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

827

Nicholls, Patrick

Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Stokes, Sir John

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Summerson, Hugo

Norris, Steve

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Oppenheim, Phillip

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Page, Richard

Temple-Morris, Peter

Paice, James

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Thorne, Neil

Patnick, Irvine

Thornton, Malcolm

Patten, Rt Hon John

Thurnham, Peter

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Portillo, Michael

Tracey, Richard

Powell, William (Corby)

Tredinnick, David

Price, Sir David

Trippier, David

Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Trotter, Neville

Redwood, John

Twinn, Dr Ian

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Rhodes James, Robert

Viggers, Peter

Riddick, Graham

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

Walden, George

Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

Rost, Peter

Waller, Gary

Rumbold, Rt Hon Mrs Angela

Walters, Sir Dennis

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Ward, John

Sainsbury, Hon Tim

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Warren, Kenneth

Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

Wells, Bowen

Shaw, David (Dover)

Wheeler, Sir John

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Whitney, Ray

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Widdecombe, Ann

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Wiggin, Jerry

Shersby, Michael

Wilkinson, John

Sims, Roger

Wilshire, David

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Winterton, Nicholas

Speed, Keith

Wolfson, Mark

Speller, Tony

Wood, Timothy

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Yeo, Tim

Steen, Anthony

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Stern, Michael

Stevens, Lewis

Tellers for the Ayes:

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

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

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

NOES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Allen, Graham

Buckley, George J.

Anderson, Donald

Caborn, Richard

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Callaghan, Jim

Armstrong, Hilary

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Ashton, Joe

Canavan, Dennis

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Can, Michael

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Cartwright, John

Barron, Kevin

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Battle, John

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Beckett, Margaret

Clay, Bob

Beggs, Roy

Clelland, David

Beith, A. J.

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Bell, Stuart

Cohen, Harry

Bellotti, David

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Corbett, Robin

Benton, Joseph

Cousins, Jim

Bermingham, Gerald

Crowther, Stan

Blair, Tony

Cryer, Bob

Blunkett, David

Cummings, John

Boateng, Paul

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Boyes, Roland

Cunningham, Dr John

Bradley, Keith

Dalyell, Tam

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Darling, Alistair

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

828

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

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Dewar, Donald

McKelvey, William

Dixon, Don

McLeish, Henry

Doran, Frank

McMaster, Gordon

Douglas, Dick

McNamara, Kevin

Duffy, A. E. P.

McWilliam, John

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Madden, Max

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Maginnis, Ken

Eadie, Alexander

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Eastham, Ken

Mallon, Seamus

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Marek, Dr John

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Fatchett, Derek

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Faulds, Andrew

Martlew, Eric

Fearn, Ronald

Maxton, John

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Meacher, Michael

Fisher, Mark

Meale, Alan

Flannery, Martin

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Flynn, Paul

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Foster, Derek

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Foulkes, George

Morgan, Rhodri

Fraser, John

Morley, Elliot

Fyfe, Maria

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Galbraith, Sam

Mullin, Chris

Galloway, George

Murphy, Paul

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Nellist, Dave

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

George, Bruce

O'Brien, William

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

O'Hara, Edward

Godman, Dr Norman A.

O'Neill, Martin

Golding, Mrs Llin

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Gould, Bryan

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Graham, Thomas

Paisley, Rev Ian

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Patchett, Terry

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Pendry, Tom

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Pike, Peter L.

Grocott, Bruce

Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

Hardy, Peter

Prescott, John

Harman, Ms Harriet

Primarolo, Dawn

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Quin, Ms Joyce

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Radice, Giles

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Randall, Stuart

Henderson, Doug

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Hinchliffe, David

Reid, Dr John

Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

Richardson, Jo

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Robertson, George

Home Robertson, John

Robinson, Geoffrey

Hood, Jimmy

Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

Howells, Geraint

Rogers, Allan

Hoyle, Doug

Rooker, Jeff

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Rooney, Terence

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Ross, William (Londonderry E)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Rowlands, Ted

Hume, John

Ruddock, Joan

Illsley, Eric

Salmond, Alex

Ingram, Adam

Sedgemore, Brian

Janner, Greville

Sheerman, Barry

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Kennedy, Charles

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Short, Clare

Kirkwood, Archy

Sillars, Jim

Lambie, David

Skinner, Dennis

Lamond, James

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Leadbitter, Ted

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Leighton, Ron

Snape, Peter

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Soley, Clive

Lewis, Terry

Spearing, Nigel

Livingstone, Ken

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Steinberg, Gerry

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Stott, Roger

Loyden, Eddie

Strang, Gavin

McAllion, John

Straw, Jack

McAvoy, Thomas

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

McCrea, Rev William

Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

Macdonald, Calum A.

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

McFall, John

Trimble, David

829

Turner, Dennis

Wilson, Brian

Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

Winnick, David

Wallace, James

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Walley, Joan

Worthington, Tony

Wareing, Robert N.

Wray, Jimmy

Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Tellers for the Noes:

Wigley, Dafydd

Mr. Frank Haynes and Mr. Martyn Jones.

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the following provisions shall apply to the proceedings on the Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill—

Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill (Allocation of Time)
  Second Reading
  1. The proceedings on Second Reading shall be completed at this day's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion three hours after their commencement.
  Committee, Report and Third Reading
  2. The proceedings in Committee and on consideration and Third Reading shall be completed at this day's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion seven hours after the commencement of the proceedings on Second Reading or, if earlier, at 2.30 a.m.
  Proceedings on going into Committee
  3. When the Bill has been read a second time it shall, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of bills), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put and Mr. Speaker shall forthwith leave the chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
  Conclusion of proceedings in Committee
  4. On the conclusion of the proceedings in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question and if he reports the Bill with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill, as amended, without any Question being put.
  Order of Proceedings
  5. No Motion shall be made to alter the order in which proceedings in Committee or on consideration are taken.
  Dilatory Motions
  6. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, any proceedings on the Bill at this day's sitting shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
  Extra time
  7. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on the Bill at this day's sitting.

  Conclusion of proceedings
  8.—(1) This paragraph applies in relation to any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order at this day's sitting.
  (2) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others)—

  (a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;

  (b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill);

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  (c) the Question on any amendment or Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of any Member, if that amendment is moved or Motion is made by a Minister of the Crown;

  (d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded;

  and on a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
  (3) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (2) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
  (4) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) would, apart from this Order, stand over to Seven o'clock—

  (a) that Motion shall stand over until the conclusion of any proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time; and

  (b) the bringing to a conclusion of any proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall he postponed for a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

  Lords Amendments
  9.—(1) The proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed in one day's sitting and shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
  (2) The Question that the Lords Amendments be considered forthwith shall be put forthwith.
  (3) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with this paragraph—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  (4) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (3) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

  Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments
  10. Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
  11.—(1) The proceedings on any such further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
  (2) For the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conlusion—

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

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

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

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

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

  (3) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (2) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

  Supplemental
  12.—(1) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons.
  (2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
  13.—(1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments, on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and on the Report of such a Committee.
  (2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
  (3) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

  Supplemental orders
  14.—(1) The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
  (2) If on this day or the following day the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the time at which any proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

  Saving
  15. Nothing in this Order shall—

  prevent any proceedings to which the Order applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order; or

  prevent any business (whether on the Bill or not) from being proceeded with after the completion of all proceedings.

  Recommittal
  16.—(1) References in this Order to proceedings on consideration or proceedings on Third Reading include references to proceedings at those stages, respectively, for, on or in consequence of, recommittal.
  (2) No debate shall be permitted on any Motion to recommit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any amendment moved to the Question.

  Business Committee
  17. Standing Order No. 80 (Business Committee) shall not apply to this Order.
  The House will know that I would not move a timetable motion without very good reasons. My right hon. Friends and I believe that it is of great importance to local authorities and to all community charge payers for Parliament to pass this legislation quickly. This will ensure that the arrangements can be put in place before the start of the new financial year so that the considerable benefits, a reduction of £140 per community charge payer, can be fed through as quickly as possible. That is the main reason for the procedure that I propose.
  This procedure is very much what local authorities would wish in order to make their planning arrangements before the financial year begins. It is certainly in the interests of all community charge payers for us to move quickly on these arrangements, and it will be interesting to see whether the Opposition opposes the £140 community charge reduction, which is the main object of the Bill.

  Second Reading
  1. The proceedings on Second Reading shall be completed at this day's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion three hours after their commencement.
  Committee, Report and Third Reading
  2. The proceedings in Committee and on consideration and Third Reading shall be completed at this day's sitting and shall be brought to a conclusion seven hours after the commencement of the proceedings on Second Reading or, if earlier, at 2.30 a.m.
  Proceedings on going into Committee
  3. When the Bill has been read a second time it shall, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of bills), stand committed to a Committee of the whole House without any Question being put and Mr. Speaker shall forthwith leave the chair whether or not notice of an Instruction has been given.
  Conclusion of proceedings in Committee
  4. On the conclusion of the proceedings in Committee the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question and if he reports the Bill with amendments, the House shall proceed to consider the Bill, as amended, without any Question being put.
  Order of Proceedings
  5. No Motion shall be made to alter the order in which proceedings in Committee or on consideration are taken.
  Dilatory Motions
  6. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, any proceedings on the Bill at this day's sitting shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.
  Extra time
  7. Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to proceedings on the Bill at this day's sitting.

  Conclusion of proceedings
  8.—(1) This paragraph applies in relation to any proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order at this day's sitting.
  (2) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any proceedings which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall forthwith put the following Questions (but no others)—

  (a) any Question already proposed from the Chair;

  (b) any Question necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill);

  (c) the Question on any amendment or Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of any Member, if that amendment is moved or Motion is made by a Minister of the Crown;

  (d) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded;

  and on a Motion so made for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.
  (3) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (2) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
  (4) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 20 (Adjournment on specific and
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  important matter that should have urgent consideration) would, apart from this Order, stand over to Seven o'clock—

  (a) that Motion shall stand over until the conclusion of any proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time; and

  (b) the bringing to a conclusion of any proceedings which, under this Order, are to be brought to a conclusion after that time shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the proceedings on that Motion.

  Lords Amendments
  9.—(1) The proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments shall be completed in one day's sitting and shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
  (2) The Question that the Lords Amendments be considered forthwith shall be put forthwith.
  (3) For the purpose of bringing any proceedings to a conclusion in accordance with this paragraph—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  (4) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (3) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

  Stages subsequent to first Consideration of Lords Amendments
  10. Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the consideration forthwith of any further Message from the Lords on the Bill.
  11.—(1) The proceedings on any such further Message from the Lords shall, if not previously brought to a conclusion, be brought to a conclusion one hour after their commencement.
  (2) For the purpose of bringing those proceedings to a conclusion—

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

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

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

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

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

  (3) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (2) above shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

  Supplemental
  12.—(1) Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith the Question on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons.
  (2) A Committee appointed to draw up Reasons shall report before the conclusion of the sitting at which it is appointed.
  13.—(1) In this paragraph "the proceedings" means proceedings on Consideration of Lords Amendments, on any further Message from the Lords on the Bill, on the appointment and quorum of a Committee to draw up Reasons and on the Report of such a Committee.
  (2) Paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
  (3) No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, the proceedings shall be made except by a Minister of the Crown, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

  Supplemental orders
  14.—(1) The proceedings on any Motion made by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing, the provisions of this Order shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 14 (Exempted business) shall apply to the proceedings.
  (2) If on this day or the following day the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before the time at which any proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion under this Order, no notice shall be required of a Motion made at the next sitting by a Minister of the Crown for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

  Saving
  15. Nothing in this Order shall—

  (a) prevent any proceedings to which the Order applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order; or

  (b) prevent any business (whether on the Bill or not) from being proceeded with after the completion of all proceedings.

  Recommittal
  16.—(1) References in this Order to proceedings, on consideration or proceedings on Third Reading include references to proceedings at those stages, respectively, for, on or in consequence of, recommittal.
  (2) No debate shall be permitted on any Motion to recommit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any amendment moved to the Question.

  17. Standing Order No. 80 (Business Committee) shall not apply to this Order.

Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
7.33 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Mr. William Ross: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Bill before us purports to reduce local government taxation by £140 per head of the electorate of the United Kingdom. It does not, of course, extend to the whole kingdom. I note that, in the case of Scotland, the reduction applies separately to the regional councils and the district councils. We in Northern Ireland have a regional rate and a district rate. How are we to find out about the legislation relating to Northern Ireland? As we do not know whether the Province will be discriminated against, we are quite incapable, at this point, of forming an opinion as to whether we should support the Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): The matter to which he refers is one for the Secretary of State rather than the Chair. If the hon. Member is fortunate enough to catch my eye later, he may be able to put his question to the Secretary of State.
Mr. Heseltine: As the House knows, in 1976 the then Labour Government began to switch a growing proportion of the costs of local services on to the local ratepayer. That process was continued until last year. If, emerging from our consultation process, there is one thing on which most people agree, it is that reversal of the trend was necessary. This Bill brings about a significant reversal. It gives practical effect to the Government's decision that the central taxpayer should pay more than the local taxpayer pays.
In specific terms, that means that the bills for the coming year's charge must be reduced—but not so as to allow local authorities to indulge in another round of spending increases. Our determination is that the people should benefit. Accordingly, the Government have made a series of announcements explaining how the £4·3 billion that the Chancellor of the Exchequer provided in his Budget is to be used to help people directly. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities said last night in the debate on the money resolution, the financial memorandum to this Bill has to be read in the context of the proposals in the Bill and the proposal to change the community charge reduction scheme. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor made it clear, in winding up the Budget debate, that the £4·3 billion covers both the provisions of the Bill and the community charge reduction scheme changes. The Bill addresses the specific commitment to reduce the headline community charges set by local authorities by £140, or, when the charge is already set at less than £140, to reduce it to £0.
We estimate that, instead of an average gross community charge of £392 in England next year, the figure will be about £250. In other words, the average community charge in England will be reduced from £357 this year to £252 next year. In every local authority area, people will

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face a lower headline charge than they face this year. The equivalent figures for Scotland are £306 and £253, and those for Wales are £232 and £120.
Mr. Richard Tracey: I apologise for intervening at such an early stage in my right hon. Friend's speech, but there is a point that I am sure he will want to clear up. In today's press, there is a report that councils will be covered for the reimbursement of £140 not on the standard community charge but simply on the normal community charge. Can my right hon. Friend refute that story? It is very damaging in Westminster and in other parts of London, but I am sure that people throughout the country will be concerned.
Mr. Heseltine: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Later in my speech I will demonstrate that the suggestion to which he has referred is unfounded.
Mr. Max Madden: As the Secretary of State was in the House during the debate on the money resolution last night, he will have heard a number of hon. Members, including myself ask the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities to ensure that we would be told tonight what proportion of the £140 reduction will be enjoyed by those who are on rebate or on transitional relief. Will such people receive the whole £140, part of it, or none of it?
Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that question. I was indeed in the House last night, and I heard what my hon. Friend said. I can help the House further. If the existing rebate or reduction arrangements take an individual below the level at which he would pay the £140, we cannot make provision that would double the amount of assistance. To that extent, it is not possible, within the arrangements that we have made, to help further.
What we are trying to do in these schemes is to help people who have been particularly hard hit by the transition from the old rating system to the new community charge system. That is the purpose of the community charge reduction scheme. The new £140 reduction that the Bill provides brings the headline charge down to figures that are below or closer to the old rates the people would have paid.
My hon. Friend was asked about the number of people who would benefit from the arrangements that he was describing and he said that the figure in this current year would be about 8 million people and that he would come back to the House if he wished to add to that figure. I am pleased to take the House a stage further today, because, as a result of the arrangements that we are making and debating today, not 8 million people but 16 million people will be helped. If the House wishes to probe further these matters, which it might well wish to do, my hon. Friend will be pleased to deal with the detail when he replies to the debate.
Mr. David Blunkett: How is it then that on 17 January the figure given for those who would benefit from the new schemes was 18 million people? It was not 8 million people, as announced last night—it was 18 million people, and the Prime Minister pronounced on it himself.
Mr. Heseltine: The 8 million referred to the number of people who benefited before the £140 reduction to which the Bill relates. That figure has to be adjusted again to take account of the community charge reduction scheme additional announcements that my hon. Friend made, which takes the figure up to 16 million. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is it not a fact that those who at the moment are paying 20 per cent. of the poll tax because they are on benefit will in the end get £28 out of the Secretary of State's announcement, and that, when they have spent about £1,100 on VAT-rated goods, they will have paid out all that £28 and still have to carry on paying the extra 2·5 per cent?
Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman takes no account of the fact that many of the most essential things that such people buy are not VAT-rated in the first place. All that the hon. Gentleman shows is the wide range of schemes that already exists to help different categories of people depending on their needs.
As I explained to the House, the headline charge is, in many cases, further reduced by rebates or the community charge reduction scheme. It is only when all those calculations are made that people know what they are to pay. This year, the average net charge is about £275. Taking into account the improvements in the community charge reduction scheme announced last night, the net charge in Britain next year will be less than £175. That is significantly less than the average paid per adult in the last year of the rates.
I should stress one point on which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor laid stress in his Budget. The substantial switch of costs to the centre is not a decision for this year alone. The Government intend the new balance to be sustainable in the future.
The five-clause Bill before the House is designed to implement the first phase of our longer-term strategy. I shall not take the House through it clause by clause; suffice it to say that it extends to England, Wales and Scotland and that, if it is enacted, it will have three broad effects.
First, it will provide that the community charges which authorities have set for 1991–92 are replaced the day after the Bill's enactment by new charges which are £140 lower. Councils will not need to meet to set the new charges, but they will be treated in all respects as if they were set by authorities in the usual way. Secondly, it will suspend charge payers' liability to pay any charges for 1991–92 until they receive a bill reflecting the new charges. Thirdly, my right hon. Friends and I will be empowered to pay grants to authorities to make good the loss of income resulting from the reduction in charges and to cover authorities' additional administrative costs arising as a consequence of the Bill.
Mr. Brian Wilson: Will the Secretary of State clarify the position on the standard community charge? Will the standard community charge be a multiple of the new individual community charge? As I see the Secretary of State nod, does that mean that there will be a substantial reduction in the standard community charge for some enormous second homes?
Mr. Heseltine: If the hon. Gentleman had been here from the beginning of the debate, he would have known that my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr.

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Tracey) raised exactly that point, and it so happens that this is precisely the moment in my speech when I wish to deal with it.
There is an incorrect report in The Times this morning that councils will not be compensated for the loss of income from standard community charges. In fact, grants will be paid to compensate authorities for loss of community charge income from all charge payers—that is, personal, standard and collective charge payers alike. I welcome this opportunity which my hon. Friend has given me to set the record straight.
Mr. A. J. Beith: Does that mean that, in those authorities where the standard charge is a multiple of twice the personal charge, the authority will be reimbursed for twice the charge?
Mr. Heseltine: That is correct.
The charges that we have announced involve local authorities in rebilling. There was no alternative way of achieving our purpose. We could not have made a switch of funding of the size involved outside a proper Budget statement. The House and the wider financial community would have expected to be told how such a switch was to be financed. We could not have acted, either, until all local authorities had set their budgets. There are simply too many authorities which, if they had had any idea that there was more money coming, would have wanted to use it to increase their spending and not to help local people. We were not prepared to put up with that.
Mr. Graham Riddick: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the £140 reduction will also be available to local authorities and community charge payers next year? As Labour local authorities have been clearly setting the highest possible community charge that they can get away with this year, will my right hon. Friend confirm now that he will use his capping powers as ruthlessly as necessary to stop Labour authorities ripping off my constituents and those of all other hon. Members next year?
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I can confirm that we shall take what steps we think appropriate to prevent an explosion of local authority expenditure as a consequence of the generosity of the settlement that we have made today.
My hon. Friend's other point relates to our determination to keep the balance broadly in line. We have confirmed our intention to do that. Next year, it will probably be appropriate to do that through the aggregate exchequer finance arrangement as opposed to a specific legislative vehicle such as we are addressing today, but the upshot of it will be to preserve the balance broadly as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has described.
Mr. Dennis Turner: Will the Secretary of State also keep the balance between a poll tax in Wolverhampton next year of approximately £275 and that in Wandsworth, where charge payers will pay nothing? My constituents would like to know who will pay for the social workers and teachers in Wandsworth while my constituents, with their many social problems, will have to pay up to £300.
Mr. Heseltine: There is a simple way to meet the hon. Gentleman's objective. If he wants the community charge level of Wandsworth, all he has to do is to vote
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Conservative at the forthcoming election. I had not intended to make a divisive party point at this stage in my speech, but it is worth repeating that to vote Labour costs, on average, £50 across the country.
Mr. John Bowis: Will my right hon. Friend also point out to Opposition Members that a great deal more central Government grant per head goes to the neighbouring Labour inner-London boroughs than comes to Wandsworth? One of the benefits of the Bill that he has not yet highlighted is the extent to which people receiving income support will benefit. The 20 per cent. put into income support is 20 per cent. of the national average community charge. For every council that comes in under the national average—and the Bill will help that to happen—such people will receive considerably more in income support than 20 per cent. of the national figure, and if the council comes in at zero, the whole amount will go into their pockets.
Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend has made a number of interesting points, and has reminded me of some interesting statistics. Wandsworth—a London borough—received £1,192 per adult, and then set a community charge of £137. Tower Hamlets received £1,862 per adult, and set a charge of £287. Hackney received £1,755, and set a charge of £462. Lambeth received £1,557, and set a charge of £590. If Labour Members want me to make comparisons, let me compare Wandsworth's £1,192 with Manchester's £1,170. Manchester set a charge of £432, while Wandsworth's charge was £137. Labour Membrs should think carefully before suggesting that there is no relationship between authorities' profligate spending patterns and the fact that they are Labour-controlled.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Heseltine: I think that the House has heard enough to be convinced that the legislation is essential. We should make progress. We intend to secure the passage of the Bill and any appropriate regulations this week. We have already informed the House in detail of our intentions, and we are writing again to local authorities today, sending them copies of the draft regulations on billing and enforcement. Before the financial year begins, authorities should have all that they need to send out the revised bills. We have made it clear that we shall advance cash from non-domestic rates to compensate local authorities for the unavoidable delay in the collection of their community charge income.
I have been impressed by the determination evident in local government generally—and especially among those to whom I have spoken directly—to convey this excellent new arrangement to local people as quickly as possible. What they have told me destroys the arguments of those who say that, inevitably, no new bills will be issued before June. It would be unforgivable if local authorities now delayed issuing their bills to hide from the electorate the substantial help that the Government have given. I am confident that the great majority will want the new bills to be sent out very soon, and that that end will be achieved.
The Bill is as short as it is important. It helps people. It shifts the burden from local to central taxation. It is a constructive and decisive product of our local government review, and I commend it to the House.
7.53 pm
Mr. Bryan Gould: I do not often feel sorry for the Secretary of State for the Environment, but I confess that I felt a twinge of sympathy for him this evening. He could not quite conceal his embarrassment, which was bespoken by the brevity of his remarks in support of the Bill.
That embarrassment was partly as a result of the breathtaking cynicism of the measure that the right hon. Gentleman had to propose, and partly due to the extraordinary circumstances—an unprecedented guillotine motion. Mostly, however, it was a consequence of what the Bill, and the Secretary of State's role this evening, tell us about the right hon. Gentleman's part in the attempt to bring the poll tax fiasco to an end.
I think that the right hon. Gentleman's embarrassment stems from the fact that he is now required to present a Bill—in extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances—to implement a measure in whose formulation he really played no part. In this Government of faction and cabal, he was treated as an outsider by the Treasury-dominated group that decided that the Budget strategy should be completely distorted by the need to throw money at the poll tax problem. The Bill may be a Department of the Environment measure, but it was conceived and promoted in the Treasury—a Department that has no understanding of local government, and even less sympathy for it.
We must assume that the decision to promote the measure was made without consultation of the Secretary of State. Presumably even he would not easily have consented to legislation that would require him to stand on his head in quite so spectacular a fashion. It is, after all, less than three months since he came solemnly to the House to present his revenue support grant settlement.
That settlement was presented as the culmination of long and responsible consideration by the right hon. Gentleman. He had, he told us, made his judgment about how much of local government spending should be funded by central Government. He dismissed any suggestion that the settlement represented anything other than a prudent and accurate judgment of the amount that central Government should provide. Yet here we are, less than three months later, with the Secretary of State compelled by his Treasury colleagues to concede that his judgment was wrong—to the tune of a small matter of £4·25 billion. No wonder he seems more than a little discomfited.
Mr. David Nicholson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gould: I shall give way in due course; I want to develop this point first.
Nor can the Secretary of State get away with the excuse that he may want to make: that he inherited the revenue support grant from his predecessor, and has recast the settlement according to his own long-held ideas and principles. The settlement that he announced in January did not, after all, come out of the blue. It was very much in line with earlier settlements, which had made a point of reducing the proportion of local government finance to be funded by central Government from that inherited from the preceding Labour Government—a steady reduction over the whole period from 62 per cent. to 35 per cent.
The Minister who initiated that long, consistent and steady process of disengagement——
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gould: Let me deal first with what the Secretary of State falsely said in his opening remarks. The proportion of local government finance provided by central Government was the same at the beginning of the last Labour Administration as it was at the end: 62 per cent. There was indeed a bobble upwards in the middle to about 65 per cent., but the level remained stable throughout that Administration. The real reduction began when the Secretary of State of the day decided to initiate the process that culminated in central Government funding of only 35 per cent.
Who was that Secretary of State? Who began that process? None other than the present incumbent. The Bill that the Secretary of State has been forced to present to the House today not only runs counter to a 12-year-old pattern set by the present Government; it runs counter to the whole process launched by the right hon. Gentleman himself. There is just a little inconsistency for him to explain away.
Mr. Heseltine: I know that figures are always an embarrassment to the hon. Gentleman, but the fact is that, in 1976, the proportion was 66 per cent. It went down by about 2 per cent. a year until the present Government were elected, and, broadly speaking, it did not go down much more than that throughout the 1980s. The switch began in 1976. Can the hon. Gentleman deny that?
Mr. Gould: I note with interest—and so, I am sure, did the House—that the Secretary of State took great care not to contradict my assertion, which, for the sake of those who failed to grasp it the first time, was that the level of central Government support for local government remained stable at 62 per cent. throughout the term of that Labour Government. The real reduction began in 1979 and reached a low point of 35 per cent. in the right hon. Gentleman's revenue support grant settlement this year.
Mr. David Nicholson: The hon. Gentleman's opening diatribe completely ignores the fact that the £4 billion in the Budget, which will be enacted by this legislation, is intended to reduce the charge to charge payers, not to add to resources for higher spending. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, if the money had been made available before many local authorities had set their budgets, they would have used it to increase spending.
Mr. Gould: What I find interesting about that intervention—although it had no bearing on my argument with the Secretary of State—is that it points to an absolute and unavoidable necessity. If, by any misfortune, this Government are still running things next year, as this trick cannot be turned a second time, the only way to avoid the trap that the Secretary of State has set himself is the solution offered from his own Back Benches—universal capping. That would, in turn, require the Secretary of State to stand on his head all over again. He has gone on record time and time again as against capping and in favour of accountability yet, once again, he has contradicted himself in the space of just a couple of weeks.
Dr. Keith Hampson rose——
Mr. Gould: When the Secretary of State announced his community charge reduction scheme, he assured us that it was the last word in making the poll tax fair and workable.

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It is no doubt true that a scheme designed to win the Ribble Valley by-election looked a little less attractive and persuasive when Ribble Valley was duly lost. However, it is still a remarkable volte face for the Secretary of State to come to the House so soon to admit by implication that he was wrong and to propose what is, in effect, a general election reduction scheme. To judge by its immediate reception, the new scheme looks as certain as its predecessor to be unsuccessful in its chosen aim.
If the timing of the measure is embarrassing for, the Secretary of State, his embarrassment pales into insignificance by comparison with the upheaval that the Bill has inflicted on local government. Virtually every poll tax bill had been calculated, many had been printed and a large number had been dispatched. I have received mine, and I am sure that many hon. Members have also received theirs. The consequence of this last-minute reversal is that 35 million poll tax bills will have to be recalculated, and the millions of bills awaiting dispatch will have to be shredded. There has been nothing more damaging to the Government's reputation than the sight of bales of millions of poll tax bills waiting to be destroyed—a sight that we have seen on our television screens over the past couple of days.
What drove the Government to reverse the position to which they had adhered for 12 years and to inflict such chaos on local government'? The only conclusion that we can safely reach is that we are dealing with a Government who are in a blue funk. They are now desperate and cynical in equal measure. They are so desperate that they will clutch at desperate measures. They are ready to try to save their skin at any cost. The cost is not borne by the Government because—as they never tire of telling us—they have no money. The money that they are throwing at the poll tax problem—all £4·25 billion of it—is not theirs. It is the taxpayers' pockets that are being raided.
If there is any justice, there will be a cost to the Government, and they will pay that cost. The whole shabby and disreputable exercise will be carried through at the cost of what shreds remain of the Government's tattered reputation for competence and prudence. Are they competent? To say that they could not run a whelk stall is to insult those in my constituency who continue to run such businesses successfully. If the Government were running a public company, the shareholders would have sacked them long ago before calling in the fraud squad. If they were in local government, whose fortunes they presume to treat in such a cavalier fashion, they would certainly have been surcharged, bankrupted and disqualified.
We should not mince words. On the evidence of this passage of events, we are dealing with a bunch of craven incompetents whose only saving grace is that they are so bad even at incompetence that they have been rumbled straight away.
Are the Government a prudent Government who look after public finance? That can produce nothing but a horse laugh.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes rose——
Mr. Gould: The Government have generously agreed to cover the cost of their bungling. Even they did not dare to ask the poll tax payer to pick up the tab, but we have been given only a blithe estimate that the exercise will cost a mere trifle—just £60 million. Even that little bauble seems
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certain to be an underestimate on the basis of evidence given to me over the past few days by local authorities, which are aghast at what the Bill will mean to their costs, administration and financial position.
I should like to give some examples. Birmingham says that if—as it will be compelled to do—it must use different software, the printing and dispatch of new bills will cost £100,000 in additional administrative costs, and it will suffer a loss in cash flow of £1·25 million. Newcastle estimates £200,000 as the cost of new calculations and dispatch of bills and a further loss of £700,000 in loss of interest. Peterborough says that its administrative costs will rise by between £50,000 and £100,000 and it will lose £200,000 in interest in one month alone.
The £60 million—unacceptable though it is as the price tag of the Government's folly—will not, on that basis, go very far. I want to know, either from the Secretary of State of from his Minister of State, what calculation lies behind the blithe estimate of £60 million. On what basis was it calculated? How confident is the Secretary of State that he knows the true figure, or is it just one more example of a stab in the dark by a Government whose claims to prudent management must now be met with derision and contempt?
Mr. James Paice: The hon. Gentleman has spent 15 minutes telling us his views of the Government. Will he, at any stage, tell us why he is opposing the Bill? Is he against the idea of reducing the bills by £140? If he were to have his way and the Bill were defeated, how would he answer the accusation from charge payers that he would have cost them £140 each?
Mr. Gould: It never ceases to amaze me just how out of touch some Conservative Members are. We have here the luminaries of the Tory Back Benches, people who allegedly devote their professional lives to keeping abreast of public matters——
Mr. Geoffrey Dickens rose——
Hon. Members: A luminary?
Mr. Gould: I have not finished demolishing Tory luminaries yet.
We have here luminaries who profess to be abreast of all matters of public concern, but they do not yet know what any idiot could have read in today's newspapers. We are not opposing the Bill—we do not intend to stand in the way of a welcome reduction in the poll tax burden—but we reserve the right to explore the cynicism and disreputable nature of the Bill itself.
It must be recognised that the £60 million fleabite is of little consequence when compared to what the poll tax has already cost, and when we look at the start-up costs and the admitted additional administrative costs per year. The Minister of State is on record as conceding that it will cost £300 million additionally each year.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gould: We must look at the burden of the lower-than-forecast collection level, which runs at £1·4 billion, and at the sweeteners already announced by the Secretary of State, which amount to £5 billion or £6

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billion. We now add £4·25 billion from VAT. No wonder the Secretary of State can pretend that £60 million does not matter.
Mr. Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gould: I give way to the hon. Gentleman to reward him for simple persistence.
Mr. Hughes: The important point about the Bill, which we shall pass tonight, is that it gives us a clear idea, not only for this year, but for the future, of how many billion pounds the new scheme is designed to raise. To help us understand what the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) is saying on behalf of the Opposition, will he tell the House how many billion pounds his scheme is designed to raise? We shall then know what size of bill people will get.
Mr. Gould: The hon. Gentleman talks about the House becoming clear by the end of the debate precisely how the scheme is to work. I look forward to that clarity. My constituents in Dagenham will be keen to know precisely how many of them will get the £140 reduction that they have been promised. There has never been any mystery about our assertion. The Secretary of State may have changed his mind overnight, but we have always been clear that the balance between central and local government spending has been rigged by the Government and has gone to an extreme that even the present Administration now have to recognise must be corrected.
The£13 billion or£14 billion now thrown at the poll tax is not money that is being spent on a great national project or to improve the quality of life of the people of this country. It is money spent solely and sordidly on saving the Government's skin. Do not let me hear again Conservative Members claiming to be prudent or responsible in the management of public resources.
The irony is that, like so much else about the poll tax, the Bill does not even deliver what it promises. Only half—perhaps not even half—of those who have been promised the reduction of £140 will receive it. Those who receive rebates or who qualify under the community charge reduction scheme will find that their reductions are far less. I do not blame a Government who can make a mistake and then correct it in 24 hours—a mistake of only 100 per cent.
It was a mistake that led the Minister of State to tell us last night, less than 24 hours ago, that only 8 million people would benefit from the community charge reduction scheme. The Secretary of State corrected him today and said that the figure was 16 million. I do not blame an Administration who have such difficulty with figures for being unable to tell us precisely how many people will get the £140. Nevertheless, it is a matter of abiding interest to my constituents. They would dearly like to know the answer, and I look forward to hearing the Minister's answer later.
It is characteristic of the poll tax that those who are most certain of the benefit of the full £140 are those at the top of the income scale. The benefit is worth £274·50 to someone paying top rate income tax. Those at the bottom will benefit to the maximum of only £28, and many of them will receive even less. There is no justice in the famous flat-rate principle, which did so much to discredit the poll
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tax. The flat-rate principle allows the people of Wandsworth to pay nothing. Whatever happened to the idea that everyone should contribute something? That principle allows the people of Wandsworth to pay nothing, while others get the same £140 and still have to pay £300 a year.
Is it not typical of the Government that, when they filched billions of pounds from local government, they used it to finance income tax cuts to benefit the well-off? Now that they recognise that they have made a terrible mistake which must be corrected, and now that they have unwillingly decided that they must pay back the money, who do they expect to pay it? They expect it to be not those who benefited from income tax cuts, but the ordinary family, who are hard hit by the increase in VAT.
If the money is available, why is it not used to abolish the 20 per cent. contribution? Can the Secretary of State think of a better way? I believe that on this issue, his heart may be in the right place, but I suspect that, again, he has been outgunned by the Treasury. Is there any better way of spending the available money than to remove the misery and despair of people who are terrified by poll tax bills that they have no hope of paying because they have no income with which to pay them?
Mr. Wilson: Does my hon. Friend share my understanding of the reply that I received earlier from the Secretary of State on the flat-rate principle? Not only will the poorest people in the land receive £28 under the new scheme while the better-off obtain £140, but a very wealthy person who owns a substantial second home will obtain £420 from the scheme.
Mr. Gould: My hon. Friend is right. His intervention shows that, try as they may to wriggle off the poll tax hook, the principle of the poll tax remains to dog the Government. Wherever they go, the flat-rate principle, which the Secretary of State dare not abandon because of the uproar on the Conservative Benches, distorts everything he does in reforming the poll tax.
The real flaw in the Bill is not that it is confused, ill thought out, unfair and chaotic, but that it tries to prop up the poll tax rather than to abolish it. We could be debating today a short Bill which would ensure that this year's poll tax bills would be the last. The Government turned down our offer of co-operation on such a Bill. Instead, we have a Bill that does no more than offer a sop or a bribe, with no guarantee that it is the prelude to the abolition of a tax whose manifest and manifold deficiencies have made the distortions necessary.
The Government are so confused and divided that they cannot decide whether the poll tax is eventually to go. The right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) spoke the truth—freed from the burdens of office, he had that unaccustomed luxury on the Conservative Benches. He spoke a truth recognised by millions when he said that what is known of the proposals of the Secretary of State can properly be described as "son of poll tax". He pointed to a Government who have lost faith in their own creation, but who dare not dispatch it for good.
In the meantime, we have a shoddy, shabby and cynical Bill. It is a measure designed to mask the stench of the poll tax rather than to bury its corpse. We regard the Bill as deeply disreputable. We shall seek to amend it so that it more nearly serves the interests of the 90 per cent. of public opinion that now wants to see the back of the poll tax.

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We regard the relief offered to reduce the burden of the poll tax for some of those who have been driven to despair by its unfairness as no more than a down payment. It is a payment on account on the way to the complete abolition of that hated tax. This is the down payment, but the full price will be paid by the Tory Government at the next general election. That is where the poll tax bill will finally be paid. It is now clear that we must look to that general election and to a Labour victory before we have any chance of abolishing the poll tax.
8.18 pm
Miss Emma Nicholson: The Bill, with the other reductions that have recently been announced, will reduce the average community charge payment in England to about £170. So low now are the charges, that no one-person or two-person households will pay more than £2 more than they paid under the old rating system if they have not moved house. The strength of the Bill is that it is a small part of a far wider exercise which is designed to look throughout the local government system—not just at the payment issue or at the method of raising funds, but at services. I commend the Bill and will support it tonight.
The low level of the charge reminds one of the benefits of it. Before there are howls of disbelief from the Opposition, let me point out some of them. For the first time in the parliamentary memory of many of us, we gave the elector full knowledge of what his local authority was doing by making the elector contribute to that local authority expenditure. Putting one's hand in one's pocket—paying for a round at the bar—concentrates the mind marvellously. As a result of that change, local authority budgets were trimmed, sometimes dramatically—there can be no argument about that because that is the truth. The savings were not made in terms of the services given to those who need and deserve them, but by authorities undertaking internal cost reductions.
In my local authority, right down in the county of Devon, well known to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the electors were able to consider what was happening at county hall and in the district councils. When the community charge arrived in Devon, the economic expenditure of those authorities was low, but it was still possible for them to make large and proper expenditure cuts internally.
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: My hon. Friend may be being a little unfair to the Opposition: my experience in London is that Conservative authorities cut administration while Labour councils cut services.
Miss Nicholson: Alas, that is so. Many Conservative councils have brought in outside experts to study their budgets to find ways in which they can be trimmed internally. We should not forget the magnitude of councils. They have swelled in recent years, rather like a queen bee fed on special pollen and honey. In this case, the pollen and honey came from the taxpayer's pocket.
Mr. John Fraser: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Miss Nicholson: No, I shall continue for a little longer if I may.
It would be foolish and inaccurate for Opposition Members——
Mr. Fraser: Tell us about Somerset.
Miss Nicholson: I shall not give way.
It would be foolish and inaccurate for the Opposition to pretend, as they seek to do for the purposes of political debate, that councils are perfect organisations that never overspend and do not put 17 per cent. of their education budgets towards the cost of their staff in county hall.
Another benefit of the community charge is the reintroduction of accountability to local people. That had been lost for many years, particularly under Labour Governments. I believe that accountability is a great and continuing benefit of community charge.
Given that the community charge is so low, why do we not retain it? Many of my colleagues would like to do just that. I believe that there are two good reasons why we should not retain the community charge and I intend to demonstrate that those key weaknesses are even larger and are inherent in the alternative proposals offered by the Opposition.
The first weakness is that the system of collection is too expensive and intrusive. Even the most sophisticated official has found it extremely tempting to acquire more knowledge about the individual elector than he should have done in pursuit of his duty to collect the community charge. Some councils might be in contravention of the Data Protection Act 1984—some are before the Data Protection Registrar now. We must remember the problems of such intrusiveness when we consider the Opposition's proposals.
The second weakness of the community charge is that its gearing bore down too heavily on the individual. Some bills rose greatly, largely under Labour councils that may have been indulging in inappropriate expenditure under current guidelines. I hope that the local government review will root out that problem. It is difficult to see why a special pressure group such as black lesbians in Newcastle should be taught karate, paid for by taxpayers' money. That was unusual. Perhaps the local government review will throw light on what local government does best and where the weaknesses of the current system inhibit decision making to such a degree that it becomes so expensive that it might best be scaled down or scrapped. Despite the current low level of the community charge, I find it difficult to argue that it should be retained, although I accept that it offers good benefits.
The community charge is too difficult and expensive to collect because people move around so much. Every year, 40 per cent. of the population of Islington moves. Given the behaviour of Islington council, one is not surprised at that. If I lived in Islington, I would move as fast as possible to get away from the enormity of the indiscretions committed with local taxpayers' money.
I believe that community charge collection could have been done economically had, we had identity cards, enforcement and a single software provision from the centre. The privacy issue, however, is difficult to counter. The Labour party has complained bitterly about what the Government have suggested, but the plans proposed by the Opposition do not bear scrutiny.
The Liberal democrats have advocated a local income tax, but the Labour party has recognised that that is administratively impracticable and could produce enormous local variations. I agree with the Labour party that it would be a difficult tax to introduce. I shall not go into the detail of my arguments against that tax, as it is simply

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a non-runner because the Liberal Democrats will be unable to persuade the two large parties to adopt that policy.
The electorate should be alerted to the danger in the Labour party's plans. The Labour party is offering a mixture of ideas. It proposes a return to the old rating system, but the Opposition will not recognise that the gearing of that system bears even more heavily on the minority of the electorate than the community charge gearing. It is so atrociously unfair that it is difficult to countenance the return of that system. I find it difficult to believe, however, that the Labour party would care about that unfairness. It would probably believe that such a change would not affect its voters. It would not mind about that small minority if it felt that it could get away with it.
But the Opposition say that the new proposals must be linked with the famous words "the ability to pay". That is where the Labour party gets into difficulty. The only way in which one can focus on the ability to pay other than through the type of proposals that we have on the household tax, which are a rough and ready calculation of how many people there are in a household combined with the rebates that people may receive if they are on income support, would swiftly become unacceptable to the public once they understood what lay behind the change.
Labour's paper states that computerisation of the Inland Revenue
"offers the possibility that means tested rebates … could be replaced by an automatic calculation of liability"
and that that
"could be an important step towards a much wider reform, encompassing the benefit system as well as taxation … offering the prospect of a single tax benefit transaction between the individual and government".
With breathtaking gall, or with an innocent lack of understanding of modern technology that demonstrates the Opposition's unfitness for government—one can hardly believe that they are so naive—the paper continues by saying that the new system
"protects confidentiality and civil rights"
and
"is forward looking in terms of general taxation".
Of course, it is nothing of the sort. It is a destruction of civil rights and an utter and total destruction of individual privacy, because the only way to focus upon that famous and saleable quality, "ability to pay" is—as the Labour party document properly proposed, although it was improper as regards confidentiality and citizens' rights—by creating one large, Government-controlled computerised record on each citizen in the land. The Opposition do not know—because they do not have the knowledge and they do not even bother to find out—that the Inland Revenue is set up solely for the purpose of collecting inland revenue. It does not contain the number of one's house, where one lives, who one is, how many children one has, one's income, one's stocks and shares, what sort of car one has, and all the other bits and pieces that are needed if one is to tailor raising money for local income to what is so laughably called, "ability to pay".
Mr. David Bellotti: Is the hon. Lady aware that the PAYE system in the Inland Revenue offices contains the names, addresses and postal codes of everyone liable to pay it? If she does realise that, and as she
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quoted the phrase, "ability to pay" in her earlier comments, does she not realise that a local income tax added to the national taxation system would be easy to collect and would meet the other requirements that she mentioned earlier? Is she aware that all the required information exists and that such a proposal could be introduced within six months?
Miss Nicholson: I do not deny that such information exists on computer records—I know it does and I am well aware of those systems. I argue against a local income tax for slightly different reasons. I believe that we are too small a country for a local income tax to work. It would produce large distortions in people's movements and inequalities for people living one side of a border if there were large differences in demands for local income tax from authorities on the other side of the border. I know that the information exists, but I do not believe that local taxation is a feasible system.
Regarding the other proposals from the largest Opposition party, my comment is not that the information does not exist—indeed it does. For example, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) introduced a change in married women's income tax—which he promoted so heavily, and for which I honour him—that required matching tax points for married women with those of their husbands. Certainly the information exists. However, at the heart of the confidentiality which exists for the individual in the United Kingdom is the determination that the different systems should not be merged—the determination that tax, benefits and everything else known by Government about an individual should not be put on one computer record because then the destruction of personal confidentiality would be complete, and state control in place for ever.
If the Labour party really means what it stated in that paper about such a system offering civil rights protection and confidentiality, may I point out that, before Labour brings it in, it would have to introduce both a personal confidentiality Bill and a Bill that placed a value on information. Labour would have to introduce a sea change of legislation through the House which would take for ever and would be unique to the United Kingdom.
Thus, the Opposition may say that they can put aside the community charge—nothing is easier than to tear up an existing piece of legislation—and immediately put in its place something that is fair, is related to the ability to pay and fulfils the contradictory proposals that I have read out from their document on the community charge and local government, to do so they would in practice have to go through many years of debate and the individual would still be at large risk of Government control.
Time is needed for any genuine alterations to the complexities of local government finance. That is why I believe that the Secretary of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister have given that time properly. They have given time for their own proposals to come to fruition and for consultation and they have given time by reducing the community charge.
When we talk about mechanisms for reducing costs, I remind the House that value added tax has two large benefits which have not yet been identified. First, it is lower, as a proportion of equivalised disposable income, for retired people than for working people, so it is good for the retired and the elderly. Secondly, the United Kingdom has a total value added tax—final, private, consumption

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expenditure as an annual expenditure percentage rate—that is the second lowest in the European Community. That is because one quarter of value added taxable goods are zero-rated and, on top of that, there are exemptions. No other European Community country offers that, and it gives us the second lowest average of the entire Community.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he is critical of raising value added tax, surely cannot have looked at those figures and seen the extreme slowness with which we are pursuing our desired objective of shifting from tax on income to tax on expenditure.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is the hon. Lady aware that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to be very much in favour of bringing our VAT rates into line with the rest of Europe? In the end, that would also involve putting VAT on some essentials such as food. Does she support such a move?
Miss Nicholson: Again, I think that the former Chancellor's words may have been paraphrased inaccurately to reflect his speech. There is no possibility of bringing value added tax in line throughout Europe, because it is as varied as it is interesting. It is unique to each country. There is a 33 per cent. difference between the bottom and top band of value added tax, which would suggest that there will never be one VAT band for the Community in 1992, or whenever. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman studies again what my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby said.
Mr. Dickens: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way during her excellent speech. Does she agree that there is a certain appeal about value added tax, because the millions of foreign tourists that flood into the United Kingdom on holidays and shopping sprees will now contribute more to local government finance, as we do when we go on holiday abroad? That is important. Our system has to be fair and affordable. We are making it affordable at the moment to help people through this difficult time. Does she not agree that we shall produce a fair system?
Miss Nicholson: I agree with my hon. friend that the millions of incoming tourists will enhance our local government tax-raising capacity by spending more, especially since tourists will spend more on the sort of items that take them into the higher bands of expenditure. It is worth remembering that people have to spend £13,500 a year before the additional 2·5 per cent. would affect their expenditure. I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that tourists will contribute more.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced the Bill with his usual intellectual rigour, clarity of expression and—[Interruption.] I am fascinated that Her Majesty's Opposition, having had their own cover blown wide open by me, have not even come back on my central point of attack on their proposals—I am bound to think that the admitted deficiencies in our education system are being reflected in their lack of numeracy. Is it possible that Opposition Members have not read their own document? Is it even more possible—or even probable—that they cannot add it up?
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has shown an openness to the House and the electorate in embarking on various stages of consultation as he develops these
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matters that affect us all domestically and locally. I believe that that true consultation will be a hallmark of this Prime Minister's Administration. The electorate will welcome it, just as we welcome the Bill tonight.
8.40 pm
Mr. Dave Nellist: There is a certain pleasure in seeing the rout of the Government over the past eight days. Eight days is, indeed, a long time in politics, because it was only last Monday that the Prime Minister spoke to Tory Back Benchers, explaining that the poll tax was "uncollectable" because of the number of people not paying it and the courts being overloaded. On Tuesday, the Chancellor made his announcement about "shifting finance". On Thursday, we had a classic understatement from the Secretary of State for the Environment that "people are not persuaded" that the poll tax is fair. Last night, the right hon. Member for Blaby, (Mr. Lawson) who made one of his rare appearances in the House to collect his pocket money, told us all about "Son of Poll Tax". If the Government stay in office, we may well get what a Hammer horror producer might introduce as "Poll Tax II: Return of the Undead", so much is the poll tax still part of the thinking of the Government.
Those of us who have been most directly involved in the anti-pool tax campaign take a certain vicarious pleasure in witnessing the past eight days of Government by the headless chicken tendency. We now have an unprecedented "24-hour Bill" in the Chamber, which will pass through Parliament in just one week.
As was suggested earlier, what is happening has not passed unnoticed in my learning curve. When we have a Labour Government, I hope that Conservative Members will find no cause to complain if I venture to suggest to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that they can abolish the House of Lords in a week or introduce a "General Nationalisation of Industry Bill" in one night. Such measures could also be applied to Scotland and we could give a future Secretary of State for Trade and Industry the general power to nationalise. I advise Conservative Members that they will see in the months ahead what we have learnt tonight.
However, the real victory does not belong to tonight's debate—it belongs to the millions of people outside this place who refused to be browbeaten or intimidated and who participated in what an article in tonight's Evening Standard calls the
"most successful civil defiance campaign in living memory".
The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy has said that 14 million people have either stopped or never started paying the poll tax. On Tuesday last week "Newsnight" put the figure at 15·7 million people—I presume that Scotland has at last been included in the figures. On Monday, the Prime Minister said that the figure was 18·5 million people. That achieved what many of us were told was impossible, especially by the press. It forced the Government to make a humiliating U-turn before a general election. I have no doubt that, in drafting the Bill, the Tories had a general election in mind.
The Bill legitimises non-payment for the next three or four months. In a written answer on 19 March, the Secretary of State stated:
"The Bill will suspend the liability of charge-payers to pay any 1991–92 charges until a charge bill has been received reflecting the reduced charges."—[Official Report, 19 March 1991; Vol. 188, c. 49.]

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That answer means that people need not pay at least until May, or perhaps even until August. The Government have at last legalised non-payment.
As I have said, victory belongs to those millions of people. It is not a victory against the poll tax but, as I know from personal discussions during the past eight days, it is a catharsis for all the Government's attacks and intimidations on ordinary people in the past 12 years. I refer to their attacks on the miners and on other communities, to the hospital and school closures, to what happened at GCHQ and to other unions, and to the privatisations. The past eight days are a sweet revenge on the Government for all those past attacks.
The Bill and the Secretary of State's review will result in an alteration to the law after the challenge to that law took place outside Parliament. It was ever thus. The right of people to vote for Members of this place, the right to join a union or to take industrial action were first established outside Parliament and later legitimised by the passage of legislation or by bad laws being repealed. That is what we are seeing beginning tonight—the repeal of a bad law because of a challenge from outside Parliament.
Unlike the charges that I and others have faced from Conservative Members, there was never what was so perversely pictured by Conservative Members—there was never any intention to widen the battle or to generalise law breaking. I challenge any hon. Member to prove the opposite. Those who have not paid their poll tax or who delayed paying it have not in any way encouraged general lawlessness. They simply wanted to see the repeal of the poll tax legislation, and we are seeing the start of that tonight.
If the Bill is enacted, the reduction of £140 in bills will have been brought about by individual sacrifice. I should like to mention by name some of the people who have made sacrifices so that they are part of the record. They include Brian Wright, Pat Westmore and John Ayes. They are the three people who have gone to prison in England for not paying the poll tax—only two days ago in the case of John Aves.
Mr. Roger King: Good.
Mr. Nellist: You will notice, Madam Deputy Speaker, that a Conservative Member has said, "Good." Presumably he is the same hon. Member who voted for the Tories to change the law in November 1988 so that no one in Scotland could go to prison for being in debt. That can happen only in England and Wales.
I pay tribute also to those who lost their liberty through arrest during the past two years, most notably a year ago at Trafalgar square. I pay tribute also to my constituent, Bob Pheelan, who died outside Coventry magistrates court after being forcibly removed by the police during a poll tax hearing last year.
After what has happened and the passage of the Bill, there will be a reduction of £140 in the poll tax. But what would have happened if we had all paid or tried to pay the poll tax? Many millions of people would have had to go into debt, take their cars off the streets, cancel their holidays or deny things to the kids. We would not have had the extra transitional relief that was given in recent months, or the relief that the Government have offered to millions of families in the past 24 hours. There would have
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been no review and no climb-down. The right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) would still be ensconced in No. 10 Downing street. Those who told us that by not paying our bills we were increasing other people's poll taxes will have to realise that by not paying our bills we have reduceed everybody's poll tax by £140.
The Secretary of State has said that there is "no other way" than the way that he has chosen. He is almost resurrecting "TINA" to justify what he has done. He has said that there was "no other way" to achieve the reduction other than by raising VAT. I shall suggest another way to him in view of the answers that he and his Department have given me this week. They provided the figures to prove it. The right hon. Gentleman could have cancelled the debts of all the local authorities in this country and relieved them of more than £6,000 million a year in interest charges alone, which could have reduced the poll tax by £200 per person.
If the Secretary of State thinks that that is not possible, I refer him to the figures that he gave me on 19 March about the exact amount of local authority debt. A year ago, his Department gave me the figures on the amount of interest charges paid by local authorities each year. If the right hon. Gentleman were to cancel those debts, it would have the additional welcome effect, even for Conservative Members, of reducing every pound of rent paid by council tenants—by 27 per cent. in the shire counties and by 34 per cent. in the metropolitan authority areas. That is the percentage of rent that passes immediately out of the back door of the council buildings on debt interest charges.
Some Conservative Members may say that that policy is impossible, but they would have said that this Bill was impossible just two or three weeks ago. I must advise them, however, that debt cancellation is a regular tool of this Government. In a reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) on 13 March, the Minister showed how £15 billion-worth of debt was cancelled—£3 billion for British Telecom £1·7 billion for the new towns £4 billion for British Steel and £5 billion for the water companies—to ensure that the Government's mates in the City had a better deal on privatisation.
In a press release the Government said that the average community charge or poll tax after the Bill would be £252. If they cancelled debt they could have brought it down by a further £100 per head—in other words, to £152. They admitted on 26 February to the Tory Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) that that is what the poll tax would have been if they had kept the rate support grant at the same rate since 1979 when they took office, instead of cutting over £57 billion from local council support in the last 10 years.
Mr. William Ross rose—
Mr. Nellist: I am afraid that I cannot give way, as I know that other hon. Members want to speak.
Why are the Government in retreat? It is certainly not because they have seen the error of their ways or realised the injustice and unfairness of the poll tax. They have not even offered to reinstate the social security cuts, the axing of benefits to 16 and 17-year-olds, or the ending of housing benefit in certain areas, which has hit many of my constituents even more than the poll tax.
I vividly remember accusing the right hon. Member for Finchley for her treatment of a 33-year-old widow in Coventry who had lost £25 a week because of the axing of

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school meals for her four children and the cuts in housing benefit. Cuts in minimum wages, maternity grants and health and safety will not be restored. The difference was that, while we had to co-operate in our own robbery by going to the post office and paying over the money owed to the council, 18·5 million people not only said no, but had a framework in the Federation of Anti-Poll Tax Unions, which allowed battle to be joined and won against the Tories.
Those who said that that was impossible must realise that millions have crossed a barrier in the last 12 months. They remember what a famous American president said at his inauguration ceremony:
"the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Millions realised that, if they did not pay a civil debt, the Government would be forced into the most humiliating retreat. It will not finish now. If the Chancellor can cancel £870 million of corporation tax in a full year by reducing the tax from 35 per cent. to 33 per cent. and backdating the cut to 1 April last year, we can demand that poll tax payers who went into debt to pay to pay their poll tax should get the same alleviation from this year's bills as the Tories are prepared to give off next year's hardship.[Interruption.]The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) reminds me that people in Scotland ought to receive compensation for the previous year's poll tax.
If the Government can cancel debts for their friends in Rover, Rolls-Royce, Harland and Wolff, British Telecom, the electricity and water undertakings, and so on, they can cancel the outstanding debt of the people who are facing prosecution for not paying their poll tax. The Secretary of State has said that he will continue to enforce payment. Do Tory Members realise that that means that 18·5 million people face court proceedings? According to information given to me by the Department, as at 31 December 2·2 million people had been summonsed, 77,585 had turned up in court, and 9,785 hours of court time had been taken up.
The Prime Minister has said that the courts are overloaded. What will he say if the Government try to prosecute another 15 million people? Where will they put all the people if seizure by bailiffs and deductions from wages and benefits do not work, as will be the case? Will they send them to prison? Do they not understand that there are already 45,000 people in prisons which were built to hold 43,000? There is no way the Government could put 15 million more people in prison, and even if they could, do they not realise that it costs £380 per week to keep a person in prison? That should be compared to the amount owed in poll tax.
The position is not getting better. Only 10 days ago the Audit Commission said that in the shire counties only 82 per cent. were paying the poll tax, in the metropolitan counties 73 per cent., in outer London 77 per cent. and in inner London 66 per cent. Collection is dropping like a stone.
When the Tories had their leadership contest in November, people stopped paying because all three candidates said that they would abolish the poll tax. When the Government announced the introduction of the Bill last week, people stopped paying in droves. Let the Government ask any local authority treasurer if they want to find out what the position is. It can only get worse, because the Government are legitimising non-payment for the next three months at least.
Under the Bill, the Government will be robbing Peter to pay Paul. We are supposed to feel grateful for the increase
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in VAT. According to an article in "Economic Trends" in May 1990, the poorest 10 per cent. in the country spend 9·2 per cent. of their disposable income on VAT, compared to 5·7 per cent. for the richest 10 per cent. The Library has worked out for me that, with the increase of 2·5 per cent. in VAT, those percentages will become 10·8 and 6·6. Again, the poorest will pay so that the richest can benefit. That will not go down well.
We should have had not this Bill but a measure immediately to abolish the poll tax. I and millions of people welcomed the motion put before the House by my party on 13 March. That was the clearest statement ever that our real alternative is the abolition of the poll tax.
The Government are in retreat. On the middle east they said that there should be no ceasefire until there was agreement on all the terms. Those involved in the anti-poll tax movement should follow the Government's advice. They should seek the complete abolition of the poll tax, an amnesty for those facing court proceedings, and compensation for those who tried to pay their poll tax.
We must seek an answer to the real question put by parents today from Tory Warwickshire. I do not see any right hon. or hon. Members from Warwickshire in the Chamber. Those parents came to appeal to hon. Members not to agree to anything which would allow capping to remain or insufficient funding of local authority services. The parents told me today that in Warwickshire, which has been a Tory shire for 100 years, pre-school education is under threat and they face the closure of homes for the elderly, the closure of day centres for people with learning difficulties, and curtailment of youth services. That is not in a Labour inner-city London borough but in a Tory shire county.
The main lesson that the people have learned over the past three years in Scotland and the past two years in England and Wales, epitomised by the climb-down of the Government, is that if they struggle they can win. They can force concessions and even beat back the confident Tory Government. That knowledge will be absorbed not only on the poll tax but by those facing hospital closures. school closures, factory closures or redundancy. They will realise that if they get off their knees and stand up they can beat the Tories.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Several hon. Members are seeking to speak. I appeal for shorter speeches, so that I may call all those hon. Members.
8.58 pm
Mr. Simon Burns: I trust that the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) will forgive me if I do not follow his unreconstructed approach to life. His was the sort of speech with which the late Enver Hoxha would have been pleased, but I suspect that it would not play all that well with the Leader of the Opposition. Listening to the sheer horror of some of his ideas about what he would like a future Labour Government to enact sent shivers down the spines of not only his right hon. Friend but all my right hon. and hon. Friends on this side of the House.
I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) is not in the Chamber. I wanted to congratulate him on spinning out for 25 minutes a speech that basically said little. I knew that he was in serious

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trouble when he started recycling the jokes that he made to the House 13 days ago during the Supply day debate initiated by the Labour party on the community charge.
Only the most churlish of people will not welcome the £140 reduction in community charge bills throughout England. It is to be welcomed, because it will mean that the bill of every community charge payer in the country will be slashed. I believe—I have never made any bones about it—that the principle behind the community charge was right. I genuinely believe that everyone who uses local authority services should make some contribution to the provision of those services. Regrettably, the community charge was made unacceptable by the level of bill imposed on far too many people for the provision of those services. That is why it was necessary to produce a Bill of this nature. I congratulate my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for the Environment on the way in which they have acted to reduce people's bills. My right hon. Friends will bring genuine help to everyone in England and correspondingly in Scotland and Wales.
The Government have identified a problem which has been apparent to all—the level of community charge imposed by the vast majority of local authorities. The Government listened to the arguments and decided to take action. Several Opposition Members have criticised the fact that the Bill is proceeding through the House in one day. If we had not made it do so, we would have been criticised for not taking decisive action when it was needed.
Some Opposition Members said that we should have introduced the Bill two, three or four weeks ago. If we had done that, local authorities would have known what we intended to do before they set their community charges, and would simply have hiked up their spending to thwart the change that is bringing the benefit to people.
Mr. Wilson: As he is on the chronology of these matters, and for the benefit of those who read the debate, the hon. Gentleman will wish to place on record his proud membership of the Committee which considered the Local Government Finance Bill and the fact that he supported every dot and comma of the Bill. All the points made by the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) and all the other Tory Members who are now being held to account were spelt out to them in Committee. Will he confirm that?
Mr. Burns: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was disappointed when he left the Chamber about 15 minutes ago, because, having read the newspaper article that he wrote in a Sunday Scottish paper——
Mr. Wilson: The Independent on Sunday.
Mr. Burns: —I apologise; it was in The Independent on Sunday about six months ago about hon. Members such as me who served on that Committee and some of the comments that we made, I suspected that the hon. Gentleman would raise the matter again during this debate if I had the opportunity to speak.
I will answer his point. I reiterate what I said about three minutes ago. I make no apology for believing that everyone who uses local government services should make a financial contribution of some degree to the provision of those services.
Mr. Donald Dewar: Presumably the hon. Gentleman does not take the view that paying general taxation is sufficient, because that was rejected with contempt during the debates on the poll tax. Is he distressed by the fact that apparently we are now committed under the Government's new scheme to a household bill which will mean that there will be no legal liability for anyone but the householder? [Laughter.]
Mr. Burns: Before Opposition Members start giggling like schoolgirls, they should listen, because they may learn something.
As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) correctly said, there will be a single bill. But as far as the plan has been announced—it is only the skeleton—[Laughter.] Hang on. We know that part of the bill will be based on the value of the property and the other part will take into account the number of adults living in that property. Although the bill will go only to the household, it will contain an element that reflects the number of people living in the property, and therefore the number of people using and benefiting from the services.
The Bill will result in my constituents receiving a reduction of £140 in their community charge bills. For a household of two, there will be a reduction of £280. The community charge set in Chelmsford on 6 March was £363, a reduction on the previous year. There would have been an even greater reduction, because Essex county council came in at £49 million below SSA, but, sadly, the Liberal-controlled Chelmsford borough council again increased its spending by substantially more than its SSA. So Chelmsford was to have paid for the profligacy of that council, which will be getting its marching orders on 2 May, after which it will no longer control Chelmsford.
As the Bill will mean a reduction of £140 from the £363 that would have been charged, excluding some of the parishes in parts of my constituency, there will be a community charge of £223 per person. For two people in one house, the bill will be £446, substantially less than the average rates bill of £680 in the last year of rates.
Calculating from the community charge what the rates would have been had the old system been maintained—I understand that it would mean a 10 per cent. increase on the rates—the average rates bill in my constituency would have been £750. So the vast majority of my constituents will benefit from 1 April in the coming financial year as a result of the Bill. I shall vote wholeheartedly for the measure, because it will be in my constituents' interests.
Mr. Rooker: And in the hon. Gentleman's interests.
Mr. Burns: That is so, because my wife and I live in my constituency and will pay the community charge there. What applies to my constituents applies to me, so the hon. Gentleman's comment is self-evident. The same is true of all hon. Members who live in their constituencies.
At £446 for two community charges in my constituency, the vast majority of my constituents will be winners and will not mind making a contribution to local government finances. They objected, with reason, to the unacceptable charge of £392 in the current year, which represented £784 for two people. That caused hardship and was considered to be unfair. Let us not forget that the reduction as proposed has nothing to do with the local authority that set the charge in Chelmsford. The Government have simply taken steps to rectify the problem.

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The Government will also be helping local authorities with the bills that will be going out for the new community charge. I urge the Secretary of State for Scotland to raise with the Secretary of State for the Environment an important point concerning the sending out of those bills. Chelmsford borough council set its community charge this year on 6 March. By 20 March, within a couple of weeks, the bills had gone out to 20,000 households.
This legislation will probably be on the statute book by Thursday, when we go into recess. We have been told that instructions are being sent to local authorities to enable them to begin preparing the new bills. I assume that they will receive all the instructions and information that they need by the end of next week. If so, it is in the interests of many local authorities throughout the country to ensure that those new bills are not delivered through the letterbox before 2 May, so that they can spread confusion and misunderstanding about the community charge reductions until after polling day. That will enable them to milk that confusion for as much political advantage as possible.
Can my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland do anything, even if it means amending the Bill, to ensure that bills are delivered before polling day? Unless local authorities can show the Department of the Environment that there is a good reason why they could not be delivered, I believe that should be done.
Too many councillors and political parties are afraid of the implications of the Government's reduction of the community charge. Many hon. Members are trying to denigrate the scheme and spread confusion because they do not want people to be able to judge those implications before they cast their votes. They should be allowed to vote knowing precisely what they must pay. I hope that, notwithstanding the reassurances from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment the Government will ensure that, however people vote, they do so knowing exactly what they will pay for their local government services in the financial year 1991–92.
9.11 pm
Mr. David Bellotti: That is an extremely difficult act to follow. It is now clear that, whereas Eastbourne disposed of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) and Ribble Valley disposed of the poll tax, this Bill, which is being rushed through the House in one day, is an attempt by the Government to stop their being disposed of at the forthcoming general election.
The debate was preceded by headlines in the national press such as, "Everybody will get £140 off their poll tax bill." They will not. The press reported that because of a letter dated 19 March from the Department of the Environment to local authority chief executives, which said that there will be
"legislation to reduce the community charges set by local authorities for 1991/1992 by £140."
Local authority chief executives throughout the country who received that letter knew that it was ambiguous in the extreme, and they did not know how to respond to local inquiries. When picking up the information from the Government, the national press could do no better than translate what they thought the Government were saying. Earlier today, the Government gave more information to try to explain what they had in mind. The information given to local authorities has led to utter chaos.
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I am surprised that the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) should want poll tax bills to land on the doormats of his constituents before 2 May. Thousands of his constituents think that they will pay nothing because, previously, they paid less than £140. In reality, they will pay a great deal, and their rebates will be less.
The poorer people in our communities will be hit harder. There is little joy in the Bill for students or those on income support. I have just heard during the debate that there is rather more joy for people who own second homes. If that is the level of what the Government are trying to do to give the poor some economic relief, it would be better for those poll tax bills to arrrive on doormats before the elections on 2 May. I am surprised that Conservative Members have not received the same volume of letters as me in the past few months from people who cannot afford to pay their poll tax.
In Eastbourne, the poll tax for the coming year has been set at just over £400. The council is controlled by the local Conservatives, who, I am glad to say, will not be there much longer. However, people who have to pay a 20 per cent. contribution will receive only between £20 and £30 relief under their proposals. The relief that they want is to pay nothing. They do not have the "ability to pay", whether it be £50, £60 or £82·80.
Mr. Keith Mans: Bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman said earlier, will he encourage the chief executive of Eastbourne council to get the bills out before 2 May?
Mr. Bellotti: The chief executive of Eastbourne tried to rescue the poll tax bills from the post office and, due to co-operation from the staff, they have not been delivered. He and his staff now face the mammoth task of trying to understand the information sent out by the Department of the Environment. On television last Wednesday, the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) said that it should be an easy task, because one merely had to knock £140 off the bills. That is what he believed then, but today we know that it is not true.
Dr. Hampson: The hon. Gentleman knows that he is talking nonsense because what I said appears in the transcript. I clearly said that, for those councils that have sent out bills—only 15 per cent. have—there might be a way to ask people to make a deduction, which could be corrected afterwards, but that was not the point that the hon. Gentleman was making. It is perfectly clear to the hon. Gentleman, although he and others wished to distort it, that the £140 was to come off the figure fixed by the council, as he has just read out from the letter. Obviously. rebates and the reduction scheme apply after the figure has been fixed. He knows that, he has always done so, and he is simply trying to deceive people.
Mr. Bellotti: I am grateful for that intervention, because it clearly shows that the hon. Gentleman does not understand how the system proposed by the Government will work. If he thinks that the majority of people will be able to perform their own calculation of the rebate available after tonight's announcement, I challenge him to make his own calculation and see how long it takes.
Mr. Burns: Will the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to answer the question asked of him by my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans)?
Mr. Bellotti: I am sure that, if the hon. Member for Wyre did not like my answer, he will be able to catch your eye later, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not intend to take further interventions, because many other hon. Members wish to speak, and I have already been generous enough.
I am sure that there are hon. Members from Scotland here who wish to be called in the debate. The estimates of billing in Scotland will be even more difficult to send out to Scottish constituents than those in England, for reasons that I am sure Scottish Members will know—the timetabling of billing Scotland. I am sure that hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies will outline those problems.
It is interesting that the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities is no longer with us. In October 1990, just five months ago, he said:
"The community charge is a courageous, fair and sensible solution. Far from being a vote loser … it will be a vote winner and launch us on a fourth term."
If I had made that statement, I should want to leave the Chamber during the debate, despite my responsibilities.
The core reason for tonight's debate has been referred to. Since 1979, the Government have taken back from local authorities nearly £58 billion that they should have given. The £4·25 billion that they now propose to make available to enable local authorities to reduce the poll tax is but a mere trifle compared with the funding that should be there.
The principle of the poll tax is that everyone should pay. What about Wandsworth, where no one will pay for the services because of the high Government grant? The Bill is no more than a bus stop on the road to a new system of taxation—two taxes instead of one. Only one system of taxation will meet the needs of local communities and ensure that services are delivered. People who can afford to pay will do so, but those who cannot need not. That system is, of course, a local income tax. Such a system works in Japan and in Denmark, which is smaller than this country. It works in America and Germany, and it would work here. The Government should urgently examine a system of local income tax. Conservative Members seem to advocate the return of some form of property tax, combined with a poll tax of sorts, but that would produce burdens for millions of people.
Mr. William Ross: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Bellotti: I shall give way for the last time.
Mr. Ross: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can clear up a matter which puzzles me and, I am sure, puzzles many hon. Members. How much of local government expenditure would be met from his party's local income tax, and what would be done about the business rate?
Mr. Bellotti: Our system of local income tax is extremely easy and would mirror the systems in some of the countries that I have mentioned. The level would be about 5·5p on the standard rate of income tax. That is a Government figure that we asked for.
The Bill will make it more difficult for local authorities to collect the money they need. For example, people on income support and students, who last year could not pay the poll tax, will have to contribute next year, and that money will cost a great deal to collect. Conservative Members say that everybody should pay something towards local services. If the cost of the collection is
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greater than the sum that would be realised, should the local authority continue to pursue the collection? That is not cost-effective government or cost-effective taxation.
The Bill is designed to dig the Government out of the poll tax pit. Its effect is to draw attention to a Government who have clearly run out of steam and out of policies. They should soon be run out of office.
9.22 pm
Dr. Keith Hampson: I agree with the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) that whatever system we move to should not be based on the principle that everybody should contribute to the cost of local government. About 70 per cent. of defaulters are those who are supposed to pay 20 per cent., and it is nonsense to pretend that an increase in social benefits will be passed by the recipient to his local council. That has been proved not to be true, and we should stop pretending that it will be. We should acknowledge that, if people do not have enough money to contribute to local government, they should not be expected to do so. That principle applies to central Government taxation.
It is clear that there is to be a reduction of £140 which applies to the charge set by councils. On that there will be rebates and the benefits of the reduction scheme. The central question relates to the proportion that is to be raised locally. This scheme reduces that sum from about £12 billion to about £8 billion. That seems perfectly reasonable, because the last time that the rates were used, they raised about £8·7 billion after rebates and reliefs. That is about where it should be.
I do not understand the figures used by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who opened for the Opposition. He said that, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) was last at the Department of the Environment, the proportion of the rate support grant fell to 35 per cent. That is not true—or is true only on the basis of a peculiar calculation. I have figures from the Library showing that, in 1986, the proportion was still 54 per cent.
Despite what my right hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) may now claim, he was the man responsible for slaughtering the proportion of that grant and hence the poll tax mess we are in. It could not be said to have happened earlier, unless one works on the calculation used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson), which includes all local authority revenues, such as the housing revenue account. That is how he can say that the local proportion has gone down from 20 to 11 per cent., but one cannot then claim, as the hon. Member for Dagenham did, that it was 60-odd per cent. under Labour Governments. On the basis of that calculation, we brought the proportion steadily down to 54 per cent. Then, with the community charge, it fell significantly.
In the last financial year, the community charge raised 37 per cent. of local authority income. We have now reduced that by just over £4 billion. I believe passionately that that position should be maintained. To say that that will be the approximate contribution from now on should be the Government's first commitment in the new system, but I do not want the money to be poured out indiscriminately in the form of untargeted central grant. If a proportion of funding is to be transferred to the centre—which is what the Government are doing—it should be

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targeted on services. There should be a general Government grant, the RSG, a uniform business grant, which we already have, and an education grant.
The education service has distorted local government ever since the mid-1950s. In 1957, when we moved away from specific percentage Exchequer grants for education, all the local authority associations, all the teaching unions and the Labour party condemned the Conservative Government. They said, rightly and understandably, that it would be wrong to move to a block grant because education was too important to be considered on the same plane as refuse disposal, parks and libraries. They said that some authorities would spend money intended for education on other services, that standards across the country would he far from uniform, that there would be growing disparity in education provision and that we should not be able to deliver national priorities in education policy. They cited the fact that there was a Russian satellite going round that year to prove that technical education was important.
They were right, and we have not delivered national priorities in education. However, the same people now condemn the attempt by some of us to move to a central education grant. They claim, for some reason, that it would lead to a gigantic central bureaucracy which would deny local democracy. It did not do so then and would not do so now. It would be good for education and for local. government.
A royal commission, the Redcliffe-Maud commission, based its entire structure of local government on the optimum number of people required to run an education service. That is how far education has distorted local government. It is still distorting council budgets, accounting for 60 per cent. of a country's resources. For heaven's sake let us get back to raising locally a proper local services tax, with national services paid by national Government.
How should we fund that remainder? I have some suggestions for my right hon. and hon. Friends. We must go back to a property-based tax. Every sensible, sophisticated, modern western economy has one. The question that remains, however, is on what principles to judge the value of property. The Inland Revenue valuation service would like to revalue every house in the country as often as possible. Many more valuers would have to be recruited and they would have a lot more to do, but it would be daft and unnecessary. We do not even need to obtain modern capital valuations. We certainly do not need to do what my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby suggested—have a rolling programme over 10 years. If we did that, by the end of the process the valuations that we started with would be completely irrelevant. The process is an abstract concept. It is a theoretical, undesirable norm that is irrelevant in practice.
What matters to the people of, say, Leeds, is not whether their semi-detached houses are valued on a similar basis to semi-detached houses in Luton. What matters to them is whether semi-detached houses in Leeds relate properly to terraced houses in Leeds and big, detached houses on the edge of Leeds. I believe that we could move instantly back to a sensible categorisation of properties by using values already on the computer. They are already used for the collection of water company charges. Those values are not irrelevant and dead; they are used now. Local authorities would categorise properties within broad bands, on the basis of existing local authority valuations.
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To take Leeds as an example—I made a speech on the same issue months ago in the House—if we used the old valuations, properties valued at below £100 would be within category A. Properties valued at more than £1,000 would come into the highest category. Most of the properties in Leeds were valued at between £300 and £450. There could be a band for properties valued at between £100 and £300 and another for properties valued at between £500 and £1,000. That would stop the nonsense of properties being revalued when their owners improve them by adding a bit on, or installing central heating. We do not want individual revaluations of property. That causes enormous irritation, imposes an enormous cost and takes a great deal of time. We could move immediately to a broad assessment. Accountability would then be pinned on to local authorities.
If one revalues on a rolling basis or on an instant year basis, as happens in Scotland, householders become confused about accountability. They believe that it is the Government who have caused the increase in the value of their property, while the local authority gets the credit for lowering the poundage. However, local authorities never reduce it sufficiently to compensate people; generally they end up paying more. It is a purposeless exercise that does not solve the problem. People ought to know that they will pay less if they live in one type of house and that people with more money who live in much bigger houses will pay more.
The local council would adjust the boundaries. It is a rough and ready system, but if certain parts of a town improved while other declined, the onus would then be on the local authority to move properties into the relevant band, just as the onus would be on the local authority to change the poundage year on year and not to confuse it with revaluations. Once houses were put into categories A, B, C and D, that would be it. Each authority, whether in the south or the north, would put properties into those bands, regardless of what other authorities did, to raise the revenue they needed. That would be a straightforward system that could be introduced quickly.
The other remaining issue that my right hon. Friend must resolve is whether we take account of numbers and how that is to be done. We must state as clearly and quickly as possible that to take account, in broad terms, of the number of people who live in a house does not involve a twin-tax system. Whatever the Opposition may tell the public—that the Government intend to impose a poll tax on top of a property tax—we are not doing that. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes you are."] I do not believe we are. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will say that that is not what we are going to do. If I allow them to speak for themselves, I must be allowed to speak for myself and to suggest that we could—I trust that the consultative documents will suggest a number of options—place the charge at a level that would be the equivalent of a couple. That charge would be halved if a single person were living in a particular property.
The press have suggested that the charge would be fixed on the assumption that three people were living in a house. That could be done, a reduction being made if only two people or one person lived in the house. I should not favour such an option, because the basic number in a household is two, not three. I do not think it is worth while trying to count the numbers in households with four, five or six people. Most households do not have more than three people.

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This would be a rough and ready system which would end the abuse of the rating system—to which the Labour party would go back—under which a single person would pay the same as three or four wage earners in the house next door. It would take account of numbers in an approximate way.
If one wished to do more than that, one could impose on the owner of the house the duty to declare the numbers of people in his house, as he does for the electoral register. I would recommend to my colleagues, if they wanted to go that way, that it should be a scheme whereby the local authority would check the electoral register to see how many people were living in a house and the owner would then get the bill for two, three or four people. He or she would then decide whether to spread the burden. There are simple ways of doing that and it would not involve a separate bill for each person or keeping a separate register such as the poll tax register. There would be a single bill. It would not involve all the scrutiny, all the inspection and all the policing. I wish to goodness that we could nail this one and stop Opposition Members making nonsensical remarks about it.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: My hon. Friend just mentioned the community charge register. Does he support my contention that most of those in local authorities who have the duty of collecting local government taxes would agree with him that it is important that we do away with the concept of any separate register?
Dr. Hampson: Certainly. I totally endorse what my hon. Friend has said. I do not believe that I have seen any statement from Ministers that suggests that there is any intention of keeping a poll tax register in addition to the electoral register. I do not believe that that makes practical sense, and I trust that Ministers will not pursue that route.
Having outlined two possibilities of what we might do and suggested that, if we are to keep the percentage of central Government grant at its present level, we do so by moving and transferring services such as the bulk of education—we need not move it all, but we could certainly move 75 per cent. of it and go back to something like the system we had until 1957—we might have a balanced system that Opposition Members would feel they could support. I remind them that, when the present Leader of the Opposition was their education spokesman, he endorsed and advocated publicly on platform after platform that I was on that there should be a transfer of at least some education expenditure, so why can we not reach some compromise which Opposition Members would agree to endorse?
9.37 pm
Mr. Tony Banks: Not-withstanding anything that the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) or any of his right hon. and hon. Friends have said about the Bill, everyone in the country knows exactly what the Bill is about: it is about trying to save the Conservative Government, and it is borne out of fear and panic.
It was obvious from the very outset to Opposition Members, and to some of the more perceptive Conservative Members, that the poll tax would not work.
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It has taken a while, but gradually it has dawned on even the most stupid Conservative Members that the poll tax has become an electoral liability, and that is why they are moving so speedily to dump it. After all, nothing concentrates the minds of Members of Parliament more than the possibility of coming second or even third in their constituencies at a general election.
I am sorry that the previous Prime Minister is not in her accustomed place to listen to the debate. She viewed the poll tax as her flagship, but of course flagships are not designed to be hung around the neck. When studying the right hon. Lady's language it becomes politically interesting when for "flagship" one reads "millstone"; for "unassailable" one reads "on the way out"; for "jewel in our crown"—as the right hon. Lady referred to the GLC when it was won for the Conservative party—one reads "abolition"; and for "the iron lady" one reads "rusty old hulk now sitting in the political scrap yard waiting to be torn to pieces". I for one am no mourner as I watch that process.
Tory Members of Parliament knew that the poll tax had to go, albeit rather slowly. They would like to dump it in one day, but that is not possible. But even to dump it slowly, they had to dump the right hon. Member for Finchley rather more quickly. The poll tax represents bigotry and arrogance turned into legislation. Conservative Members went through the lobbies in support of the right hon. Member for Finchley, and now the vast majority of them are repenting.
One would expect some of them at least to have the humility to stand up and admit that they were wrong, and to apologise to local authorities and to the people, but arrogance still sits easily on them. I should like to know, indeed, whether the right hon. Member for Finchley will have the decency to apologise in this House. I suspect that she will not. In that case, she should be dragged here, nailed down to a bench and made to listen to the first ringing of the death-knell of her flagship.
I should like to know whether the right hon. Lady will vote tonight. I understand that the Government have imposed a three-line Whip. Will the right hon. Lady obey that Whip? Has she been paired?
Mr. Jacques Arnold rose——
Mr. Banks: I shall not give way.
Has the right hon. Lady been paired? Perhaps she has been paired with the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson)—who knows? They would make a very interesting couple. Or perhaps she has been paired with some other friend of the family. If she defies the three-line Whip, will she be admonished or denied her expected elevation to the upper House?
The poll tax has been a total fiasco.
Mr. Arnold rose——
Mr. Banks: I will not give way. Many hon. Members want to speak, yet Government Members have taken up ages with boring, tedious speeches. I want to get in and out as fast as possible. Let me give the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) a bit of advice: he should do likewise, both in his political life and in his private life.
The poll tax has been a fiddle from start to finish. Today again, the Secretary of State for the Environment was less than impressive. He asked who was paying for services in Wandsworth. Someone is paying. Surely it has dawned

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even on Conservative Members of Parliament that there is no such thing as a free lunch. All that the Environment Secretary could say was that, if everyone were to vote the same way as people in Wandsworth, everyone would benefit in the same way. Let us take that to its logical conclusion. If every local authority went Tory, who would pay for the local government services? It appears that no one in Wandsworth is paying.
It is costing the taxpayers of this country about £14 billion to save the Government's face. The Government have reduced local authority finance to the level of low farce. If any local authority had been responsible for the financial chaos that the Government have visited upon the people, its members would have been surcharged. Indeed, some of them would have been disqualified for many years, as happened to many decent councillors in Liverpool, Lambeth and other places, who delayed making a rate only because they wanted to protect services. The Government have reduced local authority finance to a state of chaos, yet they are still walking around and expecting us to be grateful now that they are trying to clear up the mess that they created. This is hypocrisy raised to an art form.
As for the people who will benefit from this Bill, I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall be able to catch your eye when we are dealing with some of the amendments. Many people in my constituency will not benefit from this reduction of £140. Those who are paying only 20 per cent. will get only £28. They will have to spend only about £1,100 on VAT-rated services to pay all that money back, and they will continue to pay VAT after that. The last time VAT was increased, millions of retailers increased prices by amounts considerably greater than the tax increase. This is a bad deal for many thousands of people. It is certainly bad for the 41,000 in my borough who are on benefit. Those people will receive very little as a result of the Government's munificence. The Government are trying to buy off the taxpayers.
We have an incompetent, bungling, stupid, half-witted Government, who deserve to be kicked out of office as fast as possible. They have done vast damage, not only to local government finance but to the whole machinery of local democracy and accountability. They are a bunch of ratbags, and they deserve to be booted out.
9.44 pm
Mr. Michael Spicer: The fundamental question which has lain behind this debate is whether we continue to want local government with the local democracy to which the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) referred. I am one of those who believe in continuing to press forward with attempting to have a proper system of local democracy, and there are three possible approaches.
In ascending order of merit, they are, first, to fund local government nationally, as has been suggested by various hon. Members today, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) yesterday and by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell). I think that that would be a bad idea because, however clever one is with such a funding arrangement, there would have to be a predetermined formula which would essentially have to be based on local needs decided by the Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North has come up with the suggestion of parcelling out money from the
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centre and leaving it to local government to choose how to spend the money, but the element of choice would he denied by a predetermined formula.
My one anxiety about the Bill—a point that was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby, my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North and others—is that it is a halfway point, a stepping stone, towards such a national form of local government funding. There are good reasons for worrying that this might be such a step.
On the one hand, the gearing point, which has been made several times, is that, once a position is reached where only 10 per cent. of local funding is discretionary, there is the problem that a 1 per cent. increase of expenditure on top of the existing formula would result in a 10 per cent. increase in the local discretionary funding. That would result in a situation which no Government, of whatever political persuasion, would be prepared to tolerate. This in turn would result in the perceived need for universal capping, and that would be tantamount to nationally run local government. For the sort of reason that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby put forward, there must be some anxiety that the Bill is a step in that direction, or might be in the wrong hands. That would be disturbing.
A second broad approach to local government was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson), and that is to leave the proportion funded the same but to take away some of the services. There are some logical arguments in favour of that. That would leave genuine local services which one would hope would be funded locally with maximum local discretion and accountability and that would overcome some of the problems, which undoubtedly lie in the Government's mind, about the enormous size of some items of local funding such as education.
Thirdly, there is a set of suggestions which would involve genuine local accountability. The community charge was undoubtedly such a scheme. Inefficient councils, such as Lambeth, impose severe penalties upon the people who live in their area and those people have the power, which can be developed over the years, to throw out such a council and replace it with ones like that in Westminster, which will give them the benefit of a low community charge.
Mr. George Walden: One important point is constantly elided. My hon. Friend mentioned education in passing. Education is the most costly and important responsibility of local government; whatever decision is made about it should be made not on cost accounting grounds, but on the basis of whether that decision will promote or retard the improvement in quality that is imperative to the country's future.
I am sorry to sound so pompous, but this strikes me as rather important.
Mr. Spicer: My hon. Friend has made a fair point. As he says, education is a predominant feature of local expenditure—so predominant, indeed, that it is surely reasonable to ask whether it is a genuinely local service that should be financed through a form of local taxation. I merely suggest that one way in which to preserve the balance between local funding—with genuine local accountability—and national funding, while lowering the overall bill, would be to remove education from the local budget.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: Does my hon. Friend accept that many hon. Members, possibly on both sides of the House, sincerely believe that there are genuine educational grounds for making the transfer?
Mr. Spicer: Certainly I concede that; it is an important—perhaps predominant—factor.
There is a third way of funding local government: by maintaining the democratic local accountability that goes with a system that penalises inefficient authorities, and relates what people spend to the services that are provided. I have already expressed my anxieties about the Bill. I very much hope that it will prove to be a temporary measure to enable us to maintain the fundamental principle that local democracy can survive only if local government is allowed to raise its own money, while accepting the penalties that may be involved.
I cannot see how genuine local democracy and accountability could be maintained under an exclusively property-based tax, or under a system of national funding whereby local government became simply the agent of central Government. I hope that we can retain the fundamental principle that—unashamedly—formed part of the community charge proposals, and which I have defended in my constituency and elsewhere: the desirability of a relationship between what is spent locally and what is raised locally. I hope that the Bill represents no more than a breathing space, and that we shall keep faith with what we have done in the past—although, of course, we must develop and modify past measures for the future.
I should have preferred the money that we are spending in the Bill to be devoted to helping those who are most in need. That is a good Conservative principle, which we should have espoused by developing the rebate system. I trust that the Bill will provide us with no more than an interlude during which we can build on the principles that we have already established.
9.54 pm
Mr. John Home Robertson: The hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer) was commendably candid when he said that the Bill was intended to buy time on a purely political basis. No amount of time for this legislation can save the Conservative party. If only for his own sake, he should learn the lesson of what happened to his colleagues in Scotland at the previous general election, most of whom lost their seats precisely because of the poll tax.
I welcome the fact that the burden of the poll tax will be reduced as a consequence of the Bill. I even welcome the fact that the Government are beginning to redress the balance by increasing the subvention from central to local government to a proportion similar to that which existed when the Government first came to power. However, my constituents and I will not start rejoicing until the poll tax has been abolished. Whatever else the Bill may be, it is not quite the abolition of the poll tax.
The right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) said yesterday that this would be "son of poll tax", but he was not quite right—it will be triplets. There will be a property tax, a poll tax—a substantial poll tax if the Secretary of State for Scotland has anything to do with it—and a value added tax surcharge to deal with the panic. In spite of the Bill, the poll tax will remain a substantial burden, even after the £140 reduction. My constituents who pay the full poll tax will still have to pay £402 as a consequence of the
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capricious way in which the Scottish Office distributes central Government grant among local authorities in Scotland. More important, the people on the lowest incomes in my constituency will still pay £80 towards the poll tax, which many of them cannot afford.
I vividly remember, when I received my first poll tax bill, bringing it to the House at Prime Minister's Question Time. I told the then Prime Minister that I should be £1,000 better off as a result of the poll tax, whereas the poorest people in my constituency would have to pay more. She told me that I should give my ill-gotten gains to charity, but that would not be of much assistance to the poorer people in my constituency or anywhere else.
The new formula will still mean that the poorer people will be required to pay substantially more than they can afford, partly to pay for the shortfall in local authority revenue caused by the chronic inefficiency of the poll tax, with which we have all become painfully familiar in recent months and years. It is absolutely vital that, whatever formula the Government try to devise to overcome the crisis that has befallen the poll tax, they must do the honest and fair thing for people on the lowest incomes. I understand that it would cost just £30 million to give those who qualify for the maximum rebate a 100 per cent. rebate in Scotland. That is the minimum that the Government should do to protect those people.
Ministers need not tell us that they were not warned—we told them what would happen. With my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton), I was a member of the Committee which, in the winter of 1986–87, dealt with the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill. We warned the Government then that the poll tax would be unfair and unworkable. I remember especially contrasting what Her Majesty the Queen would pay in respect of Balmoral castle—a holiday or second home—with what a pensioner living in a cottage on that estate would pay. We now have the same thing again. The Queen will be £280 better off in respect of her second home at Balmoral, while a single pensioner living in a cottage on her estate will benefit by only £28.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will realise on recollection that he should not bring the royal family into his argument.
Mr. Home Robertson: We dealt with that issue in the debate at that time. I was referring to Her Majesty's private estate rather than to her official position, but I shall move on.
I remind the Secretary of State for Scotland how he and his colleagues scoffed and sneered, and exchanged reassurances about how it would be such a grand affair for the Tory party in Scotland to have the poll tax. The Secretary of State said:
"This is an issue which has been deliberated upon and considered and reviewed in all circumstances and from all angles for a very long time, and it is now appropriate to take decisions … What the Bill proposes is a workable and viable solution to the serious problem."—[Official Report, First Scottish Standing Committee, 13 January 1987; c. 144.]
I remind the Secretary of State that, in Committee and on the Floor of the House, when we discussed the Bill on the Scottish poll tax, he voted for the poll tax no fewer than 35 times. A number of his colleagues did the same, but they cannot do so again because most of them lost their seats at the ensuing general election. Those who lost their seats included the Minister in charge of that Bill, Mr. Michael Ancram, and the Whip, Mr. Gerald Malone, who

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I understand is now in Winchester. Others who lost their seats included Mr. John Corrie, Mrs. Anna McCurley, Mr. Alexander Pollock, Mr. Barry Henderson and Mr. Michael Hirst. Even the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Albert McQuarrie, lost his seat. The only Tory survivors from that Committee were the hon. Members for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) and for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart), and the right hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang), now Secretary of State for Scotland. Yet we understand that they are still fighting to retain the principle of the poll tax. Will they never learn?
The Secretary of State still describes the poll tax as a "remarkable success story" and wants to ensure that the principle is retained in Scotland. I do not mind the Secretary of State and his dwindling band of hon. Friends from Scottish constituencies—11 down and 10 to go—behaving like political lemmings, but I do mind my constituents having to suffer as they do now under this grotesquely unfair tax, which bears no relationship to ability to pay or to access to services in different districts and regions in Scotland, and which takes no account of its chronic inefficiencies.
The Secretary of State for Scotland should face the fact that the poll tax is now in the process of self-destruction. It has been difficult enough for the poll tax to be administered up to now. Now that its death has been announced by the Secretary of State for the Environment, although he is trying to fudge the issue at the moment, what has up to now been a difficult tax to collect will become a non-starter. It will he like carrying on feeding the proverbial dead parrot.
What is required is not tinkering with the poll tax, and not palliatives like the Bill. What is required is the immediate abolition of the poll tax. The only way in which that can be done administratively—whatever the merits of the local income tax or anything else that hon. Members may wish to discuss may be—the only way to get rid of the poll tax this year is to reactivate the rating system and find ways of making it workable and acceptable. It may be worth considering other forms of taxation in due course, but we must face the fact that there is only one way to get rid of the poll tax now—to reintroduce a workable and lair property tax, and that is what we propose. The Government will not be able to get away with this shambles. I am glad that even the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer) admitted that the Bill was only a palliative and a means of buying time, but it will not buy time—the poll tax must go.
10.3 pm
Mr. Donald Dewar: We have seen some remarkable events. This morning, we learned that the Scottish National party has sacked its spokesman on the poll tax because he refuses to pay. The one point about the position of the Scottish National party that strikes me now is that, almost irrespective of what the Government produce, it will have to be backed by the Scottish National party—poll tax element and all. There are changes not only on the Opposition Benches. The Scottish Office has a new slogan. Its advice is not to pay the poll tax until the new arrangements are in place.
Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the hon. Gentleman answer a straight question? Now that nobody, not even Ministers, believes in the poll tax, will he, as shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, instruct Labour
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local authorities in Scotland to stop poinding the poor, as they are doing now, and to stop arresting benefits and stealing the goods of the sick, of the disabled and of the unemployed?
Mr. Dewar: I must confess that the hon. Gentleman's view of local democracy is strange if he thinks that it is my position to instruct those in local government. What is even more disreputable is that someone who has led people into a situation where debts have piled up so that they are no longer able to claim rebates, legal costs have accrued and they face great problems should then lecture me about the morality of the situation as he reaches for his cheque book and walks away from the problem.
If the Government's advice is that people should not pay and that we should all stop our direct debits until the new arrangements are in place, I suspect that the Secretary of State will find that the problems that that creates in terms of take-up in the next two years will be considerable.
There is always a temptation to rewrite history. In the recent statement on local government in Scotland on 21 March, the Secretary of State, when challenged about the liability of the severely mentally handicapped, suggested that the sympathetic approach that the Government had adopted to the community charge would perhaps put people's fears at rest. Those who remember the debate on Alzheimer's disease, our desperate efforts to persuade the Government to consider the problems of those suffering from that illness and the remarkable resistance of the Government to including them in the exemption scheme put up by the Secretary of State will find that charge somewhat unwise
What about the mystery of the register? Ministers are all over the place on whether there will or will not be such a register. On Thursday, the Secretary of State for the Environment told hon. Members:
"under the new system we shall not need a register." —[Official Report,21 March 1991; Vol. 188, c. 422.]
By Sunday, on television, he was telling us that there may be a register. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Scotland was telling anyone who listened that there would have to be some kind of register. On that form—it is just a symbol of the debate—it would be a surprise if the Government managed to agree on anything.
The relief scheme also constantly changes its form and substance. Transitional relief mark 1 has given way to mark 2, and now we have the community charge reduction scheme, which was altered yet again during last night's debate.
I accept that all the changes have been made in the cause of simplicity. Therefore, I was particularly interested when the Scottish Office offered a clear explanation today on how the new community charge reduction scheme will work. It offered the following formula:
"E x C— R — (E — 1 x £52)
E",
where E is the number of persons in a household, C the poll tax level for 1991–92 and R the rates bill on the property as at 31 March 89. The hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) has suggested that it would be easy for anyone to adjust their poll tax liability under the new scheme, but if that formula is the kind of simplicity and light that the Government are pushing into the world of local government finance, we shall have many questions.
We are getting into an appallingly complicated and confused situation, not on the basis of any principle, but

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on the fatal basis that Ministers are trying to take a little bit here and a little bit there. Their actions will not produce something for the public good, but they hope that that will keep the warring factions in the Conservative party quiet for a little while longer. Warring factions there are in plenty. Many Conservative Members still look to Finchley as the Jacobites once looked to France.
Undoubtedly there are many Conservatives who are unhappy about what has been announced by the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). In a recent article in the Glasgow Herald, the vice-president of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Association, faced with the prospect of a two-tax system, said that that had all the attractions of being stranded on a desert island with Esther Rantzen. Whatever his personal judgment of Esther Rantzen, he has certainly expressed his view on the two-tax system.
I do not know what that gentleman will say about the three-tax system that the Secretary of State has now produced. My advisers tell me that the tabloid press has already described that as "Hezza's hat trick". I suspect that that proposal will be unsellable and will be seen for what it is—a pathetic attempt to buy time while the escape committee continues to meet in vain to find a way out of the difficulties in which the Government find themselves.
The Bill can only be described as a form of conscience money. We accept that any relief is welcome, but we have the most fundamental objections to many of the aspects and implications of what the Government are doing.
Again and again, speakers in this debate have said that it is not everyone who will get £140 off what they have to pay or, if they pay less than that amount, will see their bill totally eliminated. However, I suspect that that fact has not been appreciated by many people. In Scotland, 800,000 people are dependent upon income support. All of them will get a maximum of £28. They are sitting at home thinking about £140, and they are going to be very bitter and disappointed.
I was very interested in what the Secretary of State for the Environment said tonight about the reduction in the headline figures. I noticed, as I am sure he has noticed, that the differential—the reduction—in England is much larger than it will be in Scotland. Considering the minutiae and how the system will impact, we are left with considerable anxieties, and with the feeling that we have been the victims of a con trick.
My constituents will certainly notice the anomaly of Wandsworth and Westminster. They do not see a triumph of accountability in that. They do not see the sacred principle that buttressed the poll tax for so long—the principle that everyone must pay something. It is really no answer for the Secretary of State to say that people should get their local authorities to reduce their charges and also their budgets. Are we going to sack home helps in hard-pressed areas of urban deprivation? Are we going to close schools? Is that the advice of the Secretary of State, who once paraded up and down the length of England, posing as the champion of deprived urban areas? Is that the advice that he is now giving?
I can only talk with detailed knowledge of the Scottish system, but that shows that there is little correlation between the size of the poll tax in the current year and grant payments made or expenditure. For example, in
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Lothian, which is a major local authority in Scotland, the poll tax is nearly the same as the notorious figure in Lambeth that we have heard so much about. However, Lothian's grant per head from the Scottish Office is the lowest of any region in Scotland, and it spends less per head than the regional average. That puts into perspective some of the simplistic deductions—I regret to say that they were almost sneers—about local government during this debate, sometimes from ministerial sources.
Later tonight, we shall consider amendments. I very much hope that the 20 per cent. rule will be abolished. Again and again, we have tried to convince the Government that it should go, but we have always been met with the argument that it had to be retained because of the principle of accountability, that sacred principle that everyone pays something—except, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) said, in Wandsworth.
I am sure that the Secretary of State will recognise the seriousness of the argument that, if one transfers a large tranche of local government expenditure to VAT, which has been picked as the most invisible of taxes for political reasons, if one proposes a scheme in which the only legal liability will fall upon the householder and no legal liability will fall upon other people who generate liability but are not responsible for it, which I should have thought was the anthithesis of accountability, it is clear that the system of accountability has gone, and with it goes the only possible reason for retaining the 20 per cent. rule.
In Scotland, that rule could go for £30 million. That sounds like a lot of money, but it is dwarfed by the waste and appalling inefficiency which has been forced upon us by the mismanagement of the Government and the inefficiency of the system.
I hope that we shall not get a stony-faced refusal to consider this matter. May I offer some helpful advice? it would greatly help the Government's credibility if they gave ground on this, as they have given ground and scuttled on so many other things after the past three or four weeks.
I finish by returning to a theme of my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould). The situation in Scotland parallels the one to which he referred in connection with the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). Over a considerable period, the Secretary of State for Scotland has taken a stringent approach to local government finance. We have had a ruthless series of cuts—a withdrawal—[Interruption.] It may not be ruthless by the standards of the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth), but it is ruthless by the standards of any reasonable or ordinary human being. The Secretary of State for Scotland has appeared as a Scrooge-like figure of probity, with the hanging face of an unsympathetic bank manager refusing an overdraft, when saying that any increase in local government spending or in central Government support for local services was anathema.
The kernel of my concern and worries is not the spirit in which the Government have approached the problem. Of course I should have liked to see a retreat and the acceptance that central Government have to make a due contribution and to maintain a proper balance in the funding of local services, but I suspect that this is the start of a process that will leave local democracy with a sterile future. We are starting a process that will mean that there

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will indeed be a huge percentage of central Government funding, but which will produce an impossible gearing effect.
In Scotland at the moment, only 13 per cent. of local government finance is raised by local government itself and is controlled by local government. The result of that huge percentage dependence on central government support will be low expenditure and deteriorating services, and that is a tragedy. The price of the increase announced in the Budget will be a straitjacket on local government and its most stringent capping by the Secretary of State for the Environment in the years ahead.
There was an interesting exchange the other day at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, at which the Secretary of State for Scotland spoke. I listened with care to his speech—as I always do—because on occasions his speeches throw up some interesting ideas. He equated control with accountability, which is a dangerous fallacy. It is not true that control arid accountability are the same thing. In many ways, they are very different.
Central Government control is now being substituted for accountability, and in that we see the essence of the death of local government. That will be seen with great sorrow in many areas of England, where local authorities have been supported by Tory councillors who have worked honourably to control the affairs of their own communities and to run them in accordance with the opinions of their electorate.
If I am right, if that is the process on which we have started, and if the Bill is part of that process, every hon. Member who has an interest in local democracy and in the right of communities to run their own affairs will have every cause for concern.
10.17 pm
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Ian Lang): There have been some interesting speeches in this debate. I thank particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) and for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) for their support. I thank also my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) for his interesting contribution to the on-going review that we shall be pursuing into other aspects of local government funding, and my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Mr. Spicer).
This is a small Bill, but it is important—not only for local authorities and for local government in general, but also as part of the broad approach to the reform of the funding, function and structure of local government that we are bringing forward in a measured and orderly way. It is most immediately and directly important because it brings an immediate benefit to the residents of local authorities throughout the country. There is no doubt about the reason and need for the Bill—it is the high spending of local councils.
The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) tried to pretend that aggregate Exchequer finance for local authorities had been cut and that only this Government have cut it as a proportion of expenditure. However, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment pointed out, cuts in aggregate Exchequer finance started from 1976 onwards under the last Labour Government. In Scotland in 1975–76, the figure was as high as 75 per cent. of local government expenditure. By the time we came to power, it had been cut by the Labour
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Government to 68–5 per cent. Certainly we have reduced it further, but the grant has gone up by 6 per cent. in real terms since 1979.
The problem is that the overall level of the local tax burden is too high. That is what we had to address in the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford pointed out. The reason is that local authorities have continued to increase their spending year after year over and above the rate of inflation.
Mr. Bob Cryer: The Minister is presenting a somewhat distorted picture. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) told us earlier in the debate that it was clear from an answer that he had received to a parliamentary question that, if the rate support grant had been maintained at the same level from 1978–79, the poll tax would be not £250 but £150.
Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman is ignoring the fact, that while local government funding in Scotland has risen by 6 per cent. in real terms, the increase in spending by local authorities has risen faster and that has caused the burden on local people. In Fife, for instance, in the five years before the community charge was introduced, expenditure rose by no less than 40 per cent. in real terms.
The hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) blamed the high poll tax levels in Edinburgh and East Lothian on the grant distribution, but that is absolute nonsense. In fact, the opposite is the case. Lothian got a higher than average increase in Government grant this year. In Edinburgh, spending has risen by no less than 70 per cent. since 1984, and staffing is up by 30 per cent.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Is it not a disgrace that Labour-controlled Fife regional council gets the Douglas Mason accolade from the architect of the poll tax, by showing clearly that, if everybody behaved like that council, the poll tax would be working?
Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman may wish to fight his private battles with others in Fife on the Floor of the House. The one contribution that we would welcome from the Scottish National party would be an apology to the people of Scotland whom it has led into severe difficulties through its non-payment campaign. The sympathy evinced by the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends for the poor in Scotland is the most sickening hypocrisy against the background of having led those people into misery and debt through the non-payment campaign.
Under the community charge, local authorities had their chance to behave responsibly and to show themselves accountable to local residents. Now, for the sake of the community charge payer, we have had to recognise that the local tax base can no longer sustain the burden that councils have been imposing upon it. That is why we have moved to increase funding from central Government and the United Kingdom taxpayer. With that comes more accountability to the taxpayer.
I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) that this is a long-term step change in the central-local taxation relationship. If local authorities find themselves under tighter control in future because of accountability to the national taxpayer being more rigorous than accountability to local residents, they can reflect on the fact that they had their chance to be more responsible in their approach.

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I am fully aware that the provisions of the Bill require local authorities to undertake important additional administrative tasks. We are trying hard to keep disruption to a minimum. To the hon. Member for Dagenham I can say that the £60 million estimate of additional administrative cost to local authorities is just that. It is not intended to compensate authorities for lost cash flow because advance payments from the non-domestic rate pool in England and advance payments from the rate support grant in Scotland will do that. On the figures for re-billing given by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), it sounds as though the provision of £60 million is generous.
Our intention is that the Bill should be implemented as quickly as possible. We shall give maximum co-operation to local authorities. There are signs that many local authorities can re-bill quickly. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford that it would be unforgiveable if local authorities delayed their bills and held them back from the electorate until after the local elections in order to hide the good news.
Mr. David Marshall rose——
Mr. Lang: No, the hon. Gentleman was not present during the debate.
Mr. Dewar: I am a little worried about these allegations. As the senior Minister in Scotland, does the Secretary of State suggest that Labour authorities, or any local authority, would deliberately hold back issuing the bills, thereby putting themselves in much greater difficulty with their cash flow, in order to make the political point that appears to lie behind the Secretary of State's suggestion?
Mr. Lang: I was responding to a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. I hope that the hon. Member for Glasgow. Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) agrees that it would be unforgivable if local authorities delayed in that way.
The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) suggested that the arrangements in the Bill favoured standard charge payers over those in receipt of community charge benefit. We are applying a consistent principle. That principle is that the personal charge set by an authority will be reduced by £140. Where a charge payer pays the full charge, the amount that he pays will be reduced by £140. Where the charge payer pays only a proportion of the charge, the amount will be reduced by a proportion of the £140. So a student paying 20 per cent. of the charge would have his bill reduced by 20 per cent. of £140—that is to say, by £28.
Likewise, where the standard charge is half the full charge, as in several cases, the bill will be reduced by half of £140—that is to say, by £70. Where the standard charge is twice the full personal charge, the reduction will be twice £140. That is not favouritism but a sensible application of a uniform approach. The hon. Member for Eastbourne cannot find fault with that.
It is essential that the measure should not be regarded simply as a means of reducing charges for the coming year. It should instead be viewed in the much wider context of our review of the future funding of local government. The Bill provides for the initial implementation of a permanent
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change in the balance of the funding of local services from local taxation to national taxation. In future, the balance will remain broadly the same as it will be following the enactment of the Bill. The future, of course, includes the new arrangements for funding local government expenditure which I and my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales announced last week.
The Opposition have sought to characterise our approach as indecisive, yet in the next breath they complain about the unseemly haste that they see in the Bill. In the devil's dictionary and distorting glossary of Labourspeak, careful consideration becomes indecision, decisive action equals panic, sensible consultation equals dithering, and co-ordinated progress is described as chaos.
I will give the House an example of Labour's decisive action. The Labour party's roof tax was drafted in two minutes on the back of an envelope and lasted about five minutes. An example of Labour's careful consideration is the more than 67 varieties of local tax that they have come up with in the past few years. They make H. J. Heinz look like a one-product company. The trouble is that the 67 announcements came first and the careful consideration came later.
The roof tax was described by the hon. Member for Garscadden in February 1990 as
"a sound, detailed and practical proposal",
and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) in March said:
"The principle is firm and I cannot see us moving from it."
But the Leader of the Opposition said the next month that he did not think that there was too much enthusiasm for the idea. So with the rates, which the Leader of the Opposition described as the most unjust of all taxes, while his deputy, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) declared that the basis of local government finance must be the rating system. Then the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) described the rates as an irrational and highly resented form of taxation. Now we have the hon. Member for Dagenham taking us back to the rates. I do not know how the House would describe that, but I would describe it as dithering—dithering to the extent of chaos.
Whatever the background of the present position, at the next election the electorate will have a choice. Electors will be able to choose our new low-level local tax or go back to the rates with Labour. I have no doubt which the people will choose. Our proposals are neither ill considered nor confused. They are part of a well thought out, co-ordinated approach. We seek consultation on some aspects in order to achieve broad agreement on a durable solution that will be accepted as fair.
We are considering local government in the round—its function and structure, as well as its funding—and we shall introduce our first proposal in a measured and orderly way.
Mr. Dewar: The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to consider our valuation base and suggested that it was unsatisfactory. Will he confirm that, under his scheme, there will be a property tax which will involve a valuation tax on each individual property, and that there will be regular revaluations in the system? Has he ruled out capital valuations?
Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman will have to contain his impatience until we publish our consultation document.

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Today we are debating the Bill. It embodies the first and key component of our plans as well as forming part of the Chancellor's Budget strategy. Its vital contribution is to reduce charge levels to a tolerable level from the inflated levels to which they have been raised by the profligacy of so many high spending councils, feckless in their disregard for the burden that they placed on local residents.
Mr. Nellist: Will the right hon. Gentleman deal with a point that I put in my speech? What is the Government's position in relation to the 18·5 million people whom the Prime Minister has identified as being seriously in arrears on this year's poll tax? I am thinking of the family in Coventry to whom I spoke on the telephone tonight, who have been charged £19 for the 19 days of this financial year for which the mother of the family lived. Do the Government intend to continue with prosecutions in the courts?
Mr. Lang: The Bill is concerned with the year 1991–92 and not with earlier years.
Labour councils may not care about the burden that has been imposed on local residents, but we do. That is why the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have acted firmly and decisively. I urge the House not to dither but to give a swift passage to the Bill and bring early relief to every community charge payer in the land and then, in a calmer atmosphere, to proceed towards the establishment of a better arrangement for the funding of local government in this country.
I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House, pursuant to the Order this day.

Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill
Considered in Committee.
[SIR PAUL DEAN in the Chair.]

Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill
  Clause 1

    STATUTORY REDUCTION OF COMMUNITY CHARGES: ENGLAND AND WALES
    10.37 pm
    Mr. William O'Brien: I beg to move amendment No. 12, in page 1, line 5, at beginning insert—
    'Subject to subsection (1A) below and to the making of an Order under this section:'.
    The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean): I suggest that it would be for the convenience of the Committee to consider at the same time the following amendments: No. 16, in page 1, line 8, after 'of', insert 'an Order made under'.
    No. 25, in clause 3, page 3, line 14, at beginning insert—
    'Subject to subsection (1A) below and to the making of an Order under this section.'.
    No. 29, in clause 3, page 3, line 16, after 'or, insert 'an Order made under'.
    No. 47, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—
    '(1A) The Secretary of State shall, where he makes an Order under this section to give effect to the reductions specified in subsection (1) above, within one month thereafter issue guidance to charging authorities as to preparatory steps which may be appropriate with respect to—

    (a) any proposals he may consider appropriate concerning the level of local taxation in the financial year commencing on 1st April 1992; and

    (b) proposals concerning the possible introduction from that date of any new system of local taxation.

    (1B) No guidance shall be issued under subsection (1A) above before the completion by the Secretary of State of consultation with such persons representative of local authorities in England and Wales as appear to him to be concerned.'.
    No. 48, in clause 1, page 2, line 6, at end insert—
    '(8) Subject to subsections (1A) and ((1B) above, the Secretary of State may by Order give effect to the provisions of subsection (1) above.'.
    No. 49, in clause 3, page 3, line 19, at end insert—
    '(1A) The Secretary of State shall, where he makes an Order under this section to give effect to the reductions specified in subsection (1) above, within one month thereafter issue guidance to local authorities as to preparatory steps which may be appropriate with respect to—

    (a) any proposals he may consider appropriate concerning the level of local taxation in the financial year commencing on 1st April 1992; and

    (b) proposals concerning the possible introduction from that date of any new system of local taxation.

    (1B) No guidance shall be issued under subsection (1A) above before the completion by the Secretary of State of consultation with such persons representative of local authorities in Scotland as appear to him to be concerned.'.
    No. 50, in clause 3, page 4, line 15, at end insert—
    '(9) Subject to subsections (1A) and (1B) above, the Secretary of State may by Order give effect to the provisions of subsection (1) above.'.
    Mr. O'Brien: This group of amendments refers in the main to orders that the Secretary of State will make to ensure that the future financing of local government is
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    sound and fair to those who contribute to local government services and to local authorities which administer those services.
    Everybody who works and serves in local government is fed up with the constant changes that have been made to local government taxation in the past 12 years, but more so in the past three years in Scotland and in the past two years in England and Wales. As the Prime Minister and Secretary of State now agree, the poll tax is not acceptable, will not work and is costly to administer and collect. Tonight, we are arguing that it should be abolished. We also want son of poll tax to be abolished.
    Clause 1 deals with the statutory reduction in the poll tax for England and Wales. Amendment No. 12 urges the Secretary of State, when making an order under clause 1, to take into consideration the matters detailed in the other amendments in this group. Whether clause 1 reduces the poll tax for all poll tax payers or just a few, as now appears to be the case, we want amendment No. 47 to be given serious consideration.
    Amendment No. 12 provides that, before any action is taken, the amendment should come into serious play because the Secretary of State should issue guidance on what he is preparing, what the level will be and the sort of taxation there will be to finance local services for local government in the year commencing I April 1992.
    I have two significant questions to put to the Secretary of State about any commitment to abolish the community charge. First, does the new local tax embody any elements of a poll tax? We were told by the Secretary of State on 21 March that the new local tax will comprise
    "a single bill for each houshold comprising two essential elements, the number of adults living there and the value of the property."
    Those, we are told, will be the two essential elements included in any future local government tax bill. In response to a question asked by the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) —who advocates the retention of the poll tax—the Secretary of State said that the new tax
    "combines many of the elements of my right hon. Friend's ideas".
    My second question to the Secretary of State relates to timing. When will the new local tax be in place? Amendment No. 47 seeks information about any proposals involving the new system of taxation. What will it entail? Is there to be a register of people who will have to pay the poll tax? The Secretary of State said:
    "It is perfectly possible that we shall not need a register".
    He also said:
    "I have already said that it is possible in the new arrangements that a register of the sort associated with the community charge will not be necessary. It is a detailed and technical matter that must be looked at. We shall be putting forward in the consultation document a number of options—they are not firm proposals now—to deal with the matter because it is important, as I have said several times, that the local authorities become involved at this stage in advising on the most effective way forward." —[Official Report,21 March 1991; Vol. 188, c. 404, 408, 409, 415.]
    Ministers have said that that is right. May I have an assurance that there will be no register?
    Dr. Keith Hampson: Since the Labour party's proposal is to return to the rates, does not the hon. Gentleman accept that there was one basic problem—the rates did not distinguish between the single person and the multi-occupancy of a household? Does he not welcome, therefore, the idea of a consultation

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    document that might consider the various ways in which a distinction could be made between what those different households pay?
    Mr. O'Brien: The rebate scheme sought to distinguish between the single householder and the family, but that scheme was dismantled by the Government. We propose a favourable rebates scheme that will meet the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson). If the hon. Gentleman cares to sit through the debate on the next group of amendments, he will hear our precise proposals on the issue that he raised.
    Will there be a register? The Minister's silence shows that there will be a register, as there is at present. As we know, that register is totally unworkable. How will the local tax compare with the poll tax before and after the poll tax surcharge on VAT has been levied, and how will it square with the principle enuniciated by the Secretary of State to underpin any form of local tax? The Government will have to answer those questions if we or local government are to have any confidence in the Bill.
    In fairness to local government and to poll tax payers, any guidance should be issued within a month of any order, and poll tax payers or ratepayers, whatever the classification, should be afforded fairness in any orders that are made. Our experience of the poll tax legislation over the past three years is that it is unfair. Will the new tax be fair? As we have said, if there had been more time to prepare and more consultation with interested bodies, the flat rate reduction of £140 per poll tax payer could have been applied more fairly. Rebates could have been increased or the 20 per cent. contribution by people on income support could have been abolished. Poll tax could have been reduced proportionately so that some authorities could have levied a low poll tax or none at all. If time had been allowed for consultation, the distribution of the £4·5 billion could have been much fairer.
    Mr. Richard Tracey: The hon. Gentleman speaks about fairness. For the education of the Committee, could he give us the comparison between the current community charge levels in, for example, Barking, Dagenham and Ealing and the level of local government contribution that householders in a two-bedroomed house in those places would pay under the system proposed by Labour?
    Mr. O'Brien: I have no objection to making comparisons, but if the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues want to make them, they should tell us how many people in Barking or Dagenham will receive the £140 rebate
    Mr. Tracey: Answer my question.
    Mr. O'Brien: If we are to have comparisons, let us have some figures from the Government, who are proposing the Bill. As the Secretary of State has made it clear that he is not happy with the poll tax., can we assume that he will endeavour to abolish any proposals in the Bill that resemble a poll tax?
    10.45 pm
    I have here the report of an interview with the Secretary of State in The Times of 10 May last year, at the start of his leadership campaign. In it, he said of the poll tax:
    "In many of the marginal constituencies by which the tenure of power is determined…is a belief that it is either too high, unfair or both, and it has created a lingering sense of injustice. I have never known so large a postbag—from
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    those with a life-long commitment to the Tory cause who, having bought their homes, saved to ensure their independence and budgeted carefully for their old age, feel badly let down."
    Last May, the Secretary of State was telling everybody that the Tory party had let down its supporters because of the introduction of the poll tax. If he believes in what he said then, he should put that belief into practice and make sure that there is no element of poll tax in the Bill.
    The uncertainty of the Government's proposals for local government finance has led members of the Tory party, both inside and outside the House, to suggest all kinds of formulae to ease the pain and problems through which their party is going. Some hon. Members say that there should be a higher VAT charge, some say that we should abolish local tax, some say that we should take some services from local government, including education and the police and fire services. Because of this uncertainty, local authorities will need sufficient time to make the necessary changes if the poll tax is abolished. The Labour party is committed to abolishing the poll tax. We intend to fulfil that commitment.
    The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. Michael Portillo): The issue before the Committee is one of the most simple that we can debate—whether we should take £140 off the headline community charge of each and every person in the country. The Labour party apparently agrees with the Government on that proposition, because it did not oppose Second Reading.
    The second issue before the House is whether the balance of taxation should be as proposed by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. The Government have made it clear that they believe that the new balance which is established by the Bill, as set out by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should be the balance not only for this year but for future years. On this item as well, I believe that the Labour party agrees with the Government.
    I believe that for two reasons: first, the Opposition did not oppose the Second Reading; secondly, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said that he wishes the proportion in future to be about 20 per cent. That implies a slightly higher level of local taxation funding than is brought about by the Bill, but for the moment I shall let that pass; let us say that we are in the same ball park. Again it appears that there is no matter of principle between the two sides.[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Member for Dagenham would stop squeaking, "Let's get to the amendment." I am filling the background before dealing with the amendment. My remarks will be seen to be perfectly germane.
    Mr. Gould: I simply observed that, if the Minister of State had wanted to speak in the Second Reading debate, he had every opportunity to do so, but as this is not a Second Reading debate, I invite him, through you, Sir Paul, to concentrate on the amendment so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien).
    Mr. Portillo: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention. Perhaps I can now get on with my speech.
    The reason for setting out the principles on which the Bill is based—and the principles upon which, apparently, the two parties are agreed—is that, having said that it is in favour of these principles and having failed to oppose the Second Reading, the Labour party now wishes to set up in

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    the first amendment a series of obstacles to providing people with the £140 reduction in their community charges. Having avoided any public obloquy by opposing the Second Reading—recognising, as it did, that if it had opposed the £140 reduction, the British public would have been extremely angry—in this first amendment the Labour party now tries to make it difficult to make those £140 payments. By indirect means, the Opposition wish, if not to deny people a reduction in their community charge, at least to make it very difficult for that reduction to be made and to delay its delivery. I trust that I am now dealing with the amendment to the satisfaction of the hon. Member for Dagenham.
    Mr. Gould indicated assent.
    Mr. O'Brien: Does the Minister not feel that those on income support who will continue to pay 20 per cent. of the community charge should have a share in the £4·5 billion? That is the point of the amendment.
    Mr. Portillo: They will have a proportionate share of the £4·5 billion. They will get 20 per cent. of the £140, just as they are asked to pay only 20 per cent. of the community charge. Furthermore, since the hon. Member for Dagenham is so keen that I should stick to the amendment, I ought to point out that a number of other amendments deal more directly with that question. My hon. Friends and I will be pleased to deal with them.
    The amendment seeks to introduce into the Bill a series of irrelevancies that have nothing to do with giving people a £140 reduction in their community charge in the coming year. That series of irrelevancies has nothing to do with changing the balance between what is raised in local taxation and what is raised in national taxation. The hon. Member for Normanton asked many questions about the future form of the local tax that we shall introduce. I do not intend to go over my right hon. Friend's statement. It was made only last Thursday. It is as clear as crystal, and it is in everybody's mind. However, I remind the hon. Gentleman that the review that the Government are conducting was always foreseen as being in phases. So far the phases have been as follows.
    We made some changes to the community charge reduction scheme, which benefited millions of people. In the Budget, we announced a reduction in the community charge of £140, the headline figure. Last Thursday, we made a statement on finance, structure and functions. That process will be followed by consultations during the summer, to be followed by legislation, which I expect will be introduced in the autumn. That is a clear series of stages in the review.
    At one point, the hon. Gentleman asked me to give him guidance—I do not know whether that was a slip of the tongue—on what the level of taxation would be on 1 April 1992. I have no difficulty in answering that question. The level of taxation will be as it is today. The balance between local taxation and national taxation will be as has been set out by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the form of taxation in place on 1 April 1992 will be the community charge. We have made it clear that we hope to be able to introduce the local tax by 1 April 1993.
    Mr. David Blunkett: Can the Minister tell us what the Chancellor meant when he suggested yesterday that, in the coming year, the VAT increase would not raise sufficient funds to cover the allocation that is now being made? I refer the Minister to column 700 of the Official Report. What taxes was the Chancellor referring to when he suggested that other increases were necessary to achieve the Government's goals?
    Mr. Portillo: I do not have column 700 of Hansard at hand, but I believe that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, in summing up yesterday, said that the VAT increase and the Government's objective of reducing the average amount actually paid in community charge to a figure below £175 would enable us to make further changes in the community charge reduction scheme, to which I referred later yesterday in the debate on the money resolution relating to this Bill.
    The matters with which this amendment deals are irrelevancies. There is absolutely no need to delay the introduction of the reduction of £140 while the Labour party seeks further clarification of our proposals. Those proposals will be clarified fairly shortly, in line with the timetable that I set out this evening, which confirmed the timetable that the Government had set out earlier. I urge Labour Members that it is not in their interests to display to the British public that their objective is to put hurdles in the way of the introduction of the reduction of £140 in the headline figure of community charge. Certainly my hon. Friends take the view that we should implement the reduction as soon as possible, and therefore that the amendment should not be accepted.
    Mr. A. J. Beith: I shall be very brief.
    It seems that the Minister has got himself into a bad mood at the start of these proceedings. I do not know why he should resent the expenditure of a little time to ensure that this Bill will achieve its stated purpose. We have got past the Second Reading. I do not now why the Minister even expected anyone to vote against the Bill, or even to delay the proceedings unnecessarily. Indeed, I suggested to him that the guillotine was unnecessary. The evidence that that contention was right seems to be mounting. The Minister is indeed a little out of sorts.
    We have been told that the purpose of the Bill is to achieve a reduction of £140 in the headline poll tax level for every charge payer in the country. That was quite specific, but it does not appear to be what the Bill achieves. Substantial numbers of people will not have their poll tax bills reduced by £140 from the headline level.
    I do not know why the Minister wants to cause this confusion. He can tell us why, in his view, it would not be appropriate to give additional relief to those who are already benefiting from the transitional relief scheme and the extension of that scheme that has been announced. It would be perfectly proper for him to rest on that case, but what good is served by leading a great many people to expect a greater reduction than they will actually get?
    Ministers have been through this once already. A previous Secretary of State announced at his party conference that nobody would have to pay more than a certain amount above the previous rates, but all the complications were left out. Lots of people suddenly found that that did not apply to them. It applied only on the basis

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    of the Government's definition of the charge—not on the basis of the charges set by local authorities, almost all of which, whatever the political part n in power, were higher. If people had moved house, and for all sorts of other reasons it did not apply.
    There is no benefit to anybody in pretending that the Bill does other than what it actually does. Let the Minister advance his case about the precise level of relief, and not pretend that people will get reductions that they will not get. Otherwise, there will be enormous disappointment and great irritation, and the disfavour that the Government already suffer will be increased. These proceedings could be advanced more quickly and more successfully if people stopped making grand and exaggerated claims.
    If the Minister agrees to do that, I shall be happy not to make any more grand claims about local income tax for most of the night, because the case for it is clearly made out.
    11pm
    Mr. Harry Barnes: The key amendment is No. 47, which deals with the arrangements for moving towards 1992. I tabled amendments Nos. 51 and 52 in an attempt to tackle the problem. The Bill applies only to the coming year and does nothing about the position after that.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) expressed great concern about registration. The Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Scotland have given different answers on the subject. In reply to my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), the Secretary of State for the Environment said:
    "It is perfectly possible that we shall not need a register to administer the tax."
    In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), he said:
    "No one has raised this issue as a problem in the course of designing it. No one has raised it with me as a problem in moving from the community charge to the local tax, so I have no reason to suppose that there is any problem that I must account for."
    Now it is a matter of ignorance. The issue has not been brought to the Secretary of State's attention, so he has not thought about it. It is not that there is to be no register.
    The matter would have been considered if the Secretary of State for the Environment had accepted my offer in January to discuss the impact of registration. Two months later, I received a letter from the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) saying that there was no time to pursue that matter. Yet the impact of the poll tax on the electoral register is of considerable concern. Some 600,000 people are missing from the electoral register compared with last year and taking into account the number of people over 18 years old in the population. Interestingly, the Government refuse to answer questions about' the number of people on current electoral registers, which would allow us to judge whether the poll tax has resulted in an improvement or a worsening of that trend.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment than told me:
    "under the new system we shall not need a register. I have made that clear. Answers to such questions will be clear in the consultation document."
    Yet the Secretary of State for Scotland told my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Macdonald):
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    "Clearly, there will have to be some kind of register, as there is with any kind of local tax." —[Official Report,21 March 1991; Vol. 188, c. 409–22, 474.]
    We need to know whether there is to be a register. The existence of such a register is of considerable importance. If the electoral register is to be used, the system envisaged will be a direct tax upon the franchise. If another form of register is to be used, such as the one that we have experienced, it will be an indirect tax upon the franchise and will have an equally serious effect.
    Every hon. Member should be concerned to protect the existence of the franchise. The House should pride itself on having extended the franchise until this Government came along and implemented the poll tax. I hope that the issue of the register will be taken into account.
    Mr. Dave Nellist: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Census (Confidentiality) Bill was designed to reassure people that there was no link between the collection of the 10-yearly census information and the compilation of a poll tax register, which many people felt would prejudice the accurate collection of information on the census? Will he further confirm that the Government will not protect the electoral register in the same way, because they have probably worked out that the bulk of the 600,000 who have disappeared from the electoral register were hardly likely to have voted Tory in the first place? Therefore, the Government are trying to fiddle the franchise in order to fiddle the next election result.
    Mr. Barnes: It would be serious enough if 600,000 people were missing randomly, across the political spectrum: everyone should have the right to exercise the franchise. But for 600,000 people whose views point in a particular direction to be missing is ghastly—especially given the present first-past-the-post electoral system, which means that the impact need only be felt in a number of marginal seats for a fantastic general election result to follow.
    We should feel deeply concerned about the fixing and fiddling of general election results. The Census (Confidentiality) Bill recognised the problem, but if the register is not to disappear altogether, we shall need an Electoral Registration (Confidentiality) Bill to protect it from the effects of poll tax registration.
    This is probably the most serious impact on democracy that the poll tax has had. Its knock-on consequences have hit the very foundations of the British constitution. Constitutional lawyers would surely consider electoral registration not just another statute, but one of the key statutes that are equivalent in this country to a written constitution.
    Mrs. Alice Mahon: I think that the Minister was joking when he said that Opposition Members were not concerned about the £140 that would be taken off poll tax bills. Let me tell him that many people would be grateful if just a few pounds were taken off their bills, because of the misery that they are now experiencing. With a little more thought, that £140 could have been targeted much more appropriately—it could have gone where it is really needed. It is not too late for the Minister to act. His concern for the Labour party is very touching, but I can tell him now that the country is ready to judge him. If his performance on "Newsnight" is anything to go by, I do not rate his chances of re-election very highly—he really got his come-uppance there.

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    Amendment No. 47 is a probing amendment. We want to know the Government's plans for future taxation. We are saying, "Please tell us that you are going to abolish the poll tax—although no Opposition Member thinks that you will, given the deep divisions within your party." There is a split from top to bottom of the Conservative party, with the Secretary of State wanting a property tax and half the rest of the party wanting a poll tax.
    As my hon. Friends have said repeatedly this evening, we have ended up with a three-tax system. The Minister has a duty to tell us what he is going to do. We need to know about future taxation, given what the Chancellor has done with VAT. As has also been said repeatedly this evening, people in receipt of income support will benefit very little from the £140 rebate, but will pay much more VAT on what they buy. They will receive 54p a week from this giveaway, which in practical terms is no more than a bribe to enable the Conservatives to win the next election.[Interruption.]
    The First Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. Lady is entitled to be heard.
    Mrs. Mahon: If people spend £22 on goods that are liable to VAT, they become losers. It is easy to do that. I obtained a list from the Library of items liable to VAT. It included fruit juice, sweets, hot takeaway food, fish and chips, hamburgers, telephones, biscuits and toilet items, which people use every day. Once a child reaches 13 or 14, he goes into adult clothes, which are liable to VAT. It is important that we know about these matters.
    The Minister and the Secretary of State cannot get away with going on about Wandsworth and Westminster. People in Halifax will want to know why they have to pay extra on a pint of beer so that the rich fat cats of Westminster and Wandsworth can get their services for nothing. Clearly it is not fair. Will the Minister tell us why he thinks that it is a fair tax?
    The Minister must also tell us when he will abolish the poll tax. We all know that he will not abolish the tax, but we must keep pushing and probing. We must say to him, "Take that silly grin off your face. You have lost heavily and you will lose the next election heavily. Start giving some truthful answers at the Dispatch Box." The Minister has wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers' money on the foolish ideological flagship of the previous Prime Minister and her Government. If Ministers were councillors, they would be surcharged out of existence. It is a disgrace.
    Every time I think about the wasted £14 billion, I think about hospitals that have shut, wards that have closed and schools that are scrimping and saving. I visited a school in my constituency last Friday which had classrooms propped up with steel bars. Every time I think about the £14 billion, I think about what we could have been spending on services. For the Minister to stand at the Dispatch Box with the arrogance that is symptomatic of Conservative Ministers and pretend that it does not matter and that the Opposition are playing games is disgraceful. Let him get on his feet and tell us now what he intends to do about the poll tax.
    Mr. O'Brien: I wish to reiterate what I said earlier. There are two significant questions that I will put to the Minister. First, is there to be a poll tax element in the new tax system? We have been told that the new tax system will
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    comprise two significant elements—the number of adults living in the household and the value of the property. Will the Minister confirm that the tax will include a poll tax element, or will he deny that? Secondly, I asked whether we could be told when the new local tax would be in place. Many people inside and outside the House want to know when the changes will be made.
    I raised the point about a fairer distribution of the £4·5 billion. If there had been more time available and consultation with interested bodies and organisations, I am sure that there would have been a fairer distribution through abolishing the 20 per cent. contribution to be paid by people on income support. There could be a greater review of the issue of whether poorer people who have to pay the poll tax could be given a greater rebate. Those matters will be discussed later. We want answers on those issues. I ask the Minister to address just two points: will there be a poll tax element, and when will the new tax system be put into place?
    11.15 pm
    Mr. Portillo: Although I spoke for only about five minutes at the beginning of the debate, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) accused me of being out of sorts, while the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) accused me of joking and having a silly grin on my face. I do not believe that those descriptions are consistent.
    I have already dealt with the questions that the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) has just reiterated. I specifically told the hon. Gentleman that is our ambition that the local tax should be in place on 1 April 1993. The hon. Gentleman rightly identified the two elements of the local tax, but I have nothing to add to my right hon. Friend's statement on that, which was extremely clear.
    The hon. Gentleman called on us to consult about the distribution of the £4·3 billion, but his hon. Friends have spent much of the day deriding us for so consulting. However, his hon. Friends have also spent much of the day praising the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson), but he said that, on matters of taxation, which certainly includes the Budget, it is not possible to consult.
    Mr. John Maxton: We have got no details on the new tax and no legislation on those details is in the pipeline—two separate Bills will be needed for Scotland and for England and Wales. All the experts I have spoken to—finance officers and registration officers—in local government in Scotland say that it is impossible to introduce the tax by 1 April 1993. Those people are not elected members of authorities, but officials. Has the Minister had any conversations with those officials on the practicalities of the proposed tax?
    Mr. Portillo: I reiterate that it is our ambition to introduce it by 1 April 1993.
    It is interesting to note that, when the Government introduce a proposal, suddenly the Labour party says that it is impossible to do it so quickly. For the past couple of years, however, the Labour party has told us that one can do things overnight. I do not believe that the Labour party could even go back to the rates overnight—a proposal which would be deeply unpopular with and resented by the people.
    The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed was worried that I had misrepresented the Bill, but I thought

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    that I was careful to talk about £140 off the headline charge. In a response to a previous intervention from the hon. Member for Normanton, I discussed the position of those on benefits. The reduction in their bills would be £28, which is absolutely right since it is in proportion to the 20 per cent. of the charge that they are paying. I cannot accept that I have misrepresented what the Bill is about.
    The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) was concerned about people who have left the electoral register. Perhaps he believes that they have done so to avoid paying the community charge, but the hon. Gentleman should consider what I said in the House on 13 March when I pointed out that a Labour party newspaper had carried an advertisement headed "Don't Register, Don't Pay". The hon. Gentleman may complain about people not registering, but he should acknowledge that the origin of that action is advice carried in a Labour party newspaper.
    Mr. Harry Barnes: That paper is not an official Labour party document. Non-registration has occurred not because of a specific tactic encouraging it, but because people in desperate circumstances have ducked for cover. The bulk of such people are those coming up to 18. Statistics show that that has happened in Scotland and then in Wales and England. It has not happened in Northern Ireland, where the rate of registration by those attaining 18 is healthy.
    The nature of the poll tax is unbearable, and some people have sold their franchise rights in desperation. No one should be placed in that situation, which undermines the Representation of the People Act 1983. If that Act has a higher constitutional standing than the poll tax, that tax is legally at fault, not the electoral registration law.
    Mr. Portillo: I have no responsibility for electoral registration, which merely serves to emphasise the distinction that exists between community charge and electoral registers—they are two entirely separate registers. Having said that I have no responsibility for it, I am advised that there is no statistical evidence that the community charge is affecting the level of electoral registration. One of the effects of the community charge seems to be that there has been higher participation in local elections. More people are voting in local elections because they are more aware of the choices that they are being called upon to make.
    Mr. Jeff Rooker: This year in Birmingham, there are still only about 705,000 people on the poll tax register. We are pleased to declare that there are 730,000 on the electoral register as a result of a deliberate campaign by the local authority to improve registration, which is now thought to be 97 per cent., because we got across to the people of the country and of our city that the only way to get rid of the poll tax was to register and to vote it away. There are some cities in the country where there has been a deplorable lack of efficiency—in particular, one area in London where they have lost 7,000 people off the electoral register. Frankly, that is a damned disgrace for the people in charge of that authority.
    Mr. Portillo: I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that the only way that people can vote for or against anything is by being on the electoral register. I am sure that, from our different points of view, we all support the
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    maximum number of people being on the electoral register, so that they can vote for the things that we believe in and against those that do them harm. I certainly urge them to register in large numbers. Fortunately, in the local elections in London last year, people voted against a lot of things that did them harm in what were formerly Labour boroughs.
    After this further discussion, I still find no reason why the reductions of £140 for community charge payers should be delayed, as proposed in these amendments, and I continue to urge my hon. Friends to ensure that they are not accepted.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Maxton: I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 1, line 5, after 'amount', insert
    'payable by any person liable either to pay in full a personal community charge, or to pay a charge reduced from such an amount under the Community Charge reduction scheme.'.
    The First Deputy Chairman:With this we may take the following: Amendment No. 18, in page 1, line 8, after 'reduced', insert
    'In respect of such a person'.
    Amendment No. 21, in page 1, line 9, at end insert—
    '(1A) Any amount payable by any person entitled to a rebate of 80 per cent. of a personal community charge shall from the relevant day be reduced in respect of the 1991 financial year by such sum in each case as will reduce the amount to £0.'.
    Amendment No. 28, in clause 3, page 3, line 15, after `year', insert
    '(and payable by a person liable either to pay in full such a charge, or to pay a charge reduced from that amount under the Community Charge reduction scheme)'.
    Amendment No. 32, in clause 3, page 3, line 19, at end insert—
    '(1A) The amount payable by a person entitled to a rebate of 80 per cent. of a personal community charge shall in respect of the 1991 financial year be reduced by such an amount as will reduce the amount to £0.'.
    Amendment No. 35, in clause 3, page 3, line 31, at end insert—
    '(3C) Notwithstanding anything in the 1987 Act, student nurses over the age of eighteen in full time training shall be absolved from payment when such payment would have been less than £140.'.
    Amendment No. 36, in clause 3, page 3, line 31, at end insert—
    '(3A) Notwithstanding anything in the 1987 Act, a person who is deemed to be liable for the community charge at the reduced rate of 20 per cent. shall be absolved from payment when such payment would have been less than £140.'.
    Amendment No. 37, in clause 3, page 3, line 31, at end insert—
    '(3B) Notwithstanding anything in the 1987 Act, a person over the age of eighteen in full time education shall be absolved from payment when such payment would have been less than £140.'.
    New clause 2—The 20 per cent. contribution in England and Wales—
    `( ) The charging authority shall, from the relevant date, no longer seek payments from those who would otherwise be required to pay 20 per cent. of the personal community charge.'.
    New clause 3—The 20 per cent. contribution in Scotland—
    `( ) The local authority shall, from the relevant date, no longer seek payments from those who would otherwise be required to pay 20 per cent. of the personal community charge.'.
    Mr. Maxton: This group of amendments deals with the rebate system and the 20 per cent. minimum payment. It deals directly with an issue that the Government could deal with. It does not delay payment in any way and it will not cause any great problems for the Government, but we consider it to be vital.
    I have been around the poll tax for longer than most hon. Members. I spoke in and wound up the Second Reading debate on the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill for the Opposition in December 1986. It seemed to come as a surprise to English Tory Members in our earlier debate that poll tax legislation for Scotland was introduced before the last general election.
    I led the Labour party through the Committee stage of that Bill. It was a long and arduous task. Almost everything that Conservative Members have been saying about the poll tax—about its unworkability, the problems of collection and its unfairness—we mentioned in Committee during the winter of 1987, four years ago. We have continued to tell Conservative Members, over and over again, that that was what was wrong with the poll tax—it was unfair, unworkable and difficult to collect—and that they would have enormous problems with it. Even the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) has privately admitted that I was right. I hope that he does not mind my repeating it. When I said that the poll tax would not be popular, he pooh-poohed the idea. He thought that the poll tax was one of the greatest election winners that the Tories had ever had. He now admits that, although, in his view, the poll tax is still right in principle, I was right to describe it as "very unworkable".
    I do not believe that Opposition Members should now calmly accept things, stand back and say, "Oh well, at long last, the Government have learnt the lesson." Why should we simply accept that we suddenly have a lot of converts to our views among Conservative Members? The Government are now begging us to talk to them and to have discussions with them about all the various options that they are outlining. I say to them, "You're too late. We told you what was wrong. You had the opportunity to amend the provisions, and you never learn from your mistakes."
    There is one thing on which I take issue with some of my hon. Friends. It is the description of the poll tax as the "flagship". The late Prime Minister certainly described it as such—[HON. MEMBERS: "Former."] Yes, I accept that. I should have said "the former Prime Minister". I know that the hon. Member for Stirling is one of those who is waiting for the time when the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) is Prime Minister again. The former Prime Minister certainly described the poll tax as the "flagship", but a flagship is not born in blind panic.
    Mr. David Winnick: If it comes to a choice between Conservative Members who supported the principle of the poll tax and those right hon. and hon. Members, many in government, who had no time for the poll tax but who, for career reasons, went along with it, defended it and apologised for it, does my hon. Friend agree that, while that may have been fair of the former Prime Minister, it is the latter whom we should hold in contempt much more than the former?
    Mr. Maxton: My hon. Friend has a point, but I hold both of them in fairly equal contempt—those in the first group who still believe in the poll tax because they are
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    stupid, and those in the second group because they are dishonest. Accordingly, both are worthy of our contempt. Some Conservative Members are now saying that they were always against the poll tax but did not resign from the Cabinet at that time because it was such a key issue.
    The poll tax was born in blind panic. In 1985, the Tories—rightly, in our view—revalued properties for domestic and commercial rates—[Interruption.] We did not oppose that revaluation when the Tory Government introduced it. They then got into a total blind panic over it and refused to raise revenue support grant to ensure that the impact of the revalution did not hit their voters hardest.
    Suddenly, the true Tories—the Eastwood, Stirling, and Bearsden Tories—started to say that they would not vote Tory again. The Tories went down to 12 per cent. in the opinion polls in Scotland. Only 12 per cent. of the electorate in Scotland said that they would vote Tory. Then what happened? The then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger), went on to the platform at the Tory party conference and, faced with opposition from Tory voters at the conference said, "Rates are no longer an alternative. We are not going to keep them."
    Suddenly, of course, the Tories had to find an alternative. That was the first time they were faced with that problem, because until then they had said, in their 1983 White Paper for example, that rates were the system of local government finance that they would have for the foreseeable future. Suddenly, however, the rates were to go. The Secretary of State for Scotland said it, and the former Prime Minister backed him and said the same. The Tory party suddenly had to find an alternative and the only thing that they could come up with was to go to the hon. Member for Stirling, whose scheme for a poll tax they had derided. That is how the poll tax was born. It was born in a panic, and it is now dying in a panic.
    If, in 1985, the Government had found something like £250 million for Scotland and given it as rate support grant instead of introducing a poll tax, they would not have had to abolish the rates—and £250 million would have been a small sum in comparison with what they are now having to find to bail themselves out of the poll tax. If they had done that, rate bills would not have gone up, they would not have had to abolish rates and the crisis that we are now in would never have arisen.
    At the core of the legislation when it eventually came was the absurd idea that everybody, with the exception of the mentally handicapped, had to pay something. We even had problems persuading the Government to accept that they should not be taxed. The poorest, the unemployed, the old-age pensioners, the physically disabled and even some mentally handicapped people had to pay at least 20 per cent. At the core of what we are trying to do in the amendments is an attempt to right for the next financial year that wrong done to so many people.
    11.30 pm
    The requirement to pay 20 per cent. has probably created more problems for the Government than anything else. Despite claims from the SNP about non-payment, about 80 per cent. of the people in Scotland who have not paid are on rebates. The vast majority of the 80 per cent are on the maximum rebate and have to find just the 20 per cent. There are 800,000 people in Scotland on that minimum payment. If we add to that total students,

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    student nurses and other groups on the minimum 20 per cent., we find that close to one third of all eligible poll tax payers supposedly have to find only 20 per cent.
    The collection of the 20 per cent. causes enormous administrative problems for local authorities. We are talking about a payment of £80 to £90 per head. That might be reduced marginally by the Bill. The 800,000 will not get the reduction of £140; all they will get is a reduction of £28. Their poll tax will not be wiped out, as will happen to the wealthy people in Wandsworth and Westminster. They will still have to pay something.
    As well as it being grossly unfair that some people should have to pay 20 per cent., collection causes great difficulty for all local authorities, not just Labour-controlled authorities. We suggest that the Government should use a comparatively small amount of the money that they are making available to local authorities to get rid of the 20 per cent. payment.
    I am told that the amounts required to do away with the 20 per cent. would be £300,000 out of £4·3 billion for the United Kingdom and £30 million out of £500 million for Scotland. Instead of a reduction of £140 in everybody's poll tax, there would be a reduction of about £125. With three people in my household paying the poll tax, under the Bill we will benefit by £300-odd. I would be happy to accept a lower reduction in my poll tax to ensure that the poor do not have to pay anything. I am sure that all my hon. Friends would be happy to have a smaller reduction.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Bennett): Write a cheque.
    Mr. Maxton: The Minister says, "Write a cheque." For what purpose and to whom?
    Mr. Bennett: To the Treasury.
    Mr. Maxton: Fine. We know what happens to cheques written to the Treasury. They soon disappear into other things. Certainly, under this Government, the poor would never get the benefit of any cheque that I wrote to the Treasury.
    The simple fact is that the Government have an opportunity to right one of the wrongs of their poll tax system. They have an opportunity to get rid of the 20 per cent. minimum and improve the rebate system. They ought also to backdate rebates to 1 April 1989 in Scotland to take out of the system people who should have had a rebate but never received it or never claimed it. They now face two years of full bills. It would cost a small sum of money compared with the total to take those people out of the system, and it would right enormous wrongs. It would also reduce the administrative burdens on local authorities.
    I have been pleading for the 20 per cent. minimum to be removed—the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) will admit that—ever since it was introduced. I have certainly argued that case during the past two years in the House at Question Time and after Question Time. The Government now have an opportunity to do it. I hope that they will take it. However, despite my pleas, not only do I expect not to achieve the abolition of the 20 per cent. minimum payment now, but it is unclear whether the same 20 per cent. minimum payment will remain under the new tax. We simply do not know. What we know from the Scottish Office, however, shows that the 20 per cent. will remain.
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    I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Eastwood, who will reply to the debate, will take this opportunity to show a little generosity. I am not asking much. I am not asking his constituents to give up large sums of money. It is just a small amount to help the poorest in our society, such as my constituents who live in Castlemilk, Easterhouse and Drumchapel. Getting rid of the 20 per cent. payment would remove an oppressive tax from them. Let that be the first step towards abolition of the tax, followed by the introduction of a fair rating system, which is the only method which can replace the poll tax fairly.
    Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I wish to make a brief speech.
    My credentials are as good as those of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton). I too, perhaps from a different perspective, have argued the case for removing the ceiling on rebates for the community charge. I started doing so when the idea was first mooted in the 1985 Green Paper on social security reform. The first real evidence of independent worries about the issue was in the Social Security Advisory Committee report of that year. It said:
    "Our concern is twofold: first, and most important, we believe that the proposal"
    to put a ceiling on rebates for community charge
    "could cause real hardship to many claimants, especially those on income support; and second, the proposal will cause local authorities extra administrative difficulties, and therefore higher administrative costs, at a time when the Government is committed to simplifying administration and controlling costs."
    The committee's words in 1985 have come true. The Government were silly not to heed such independent advice. The Social Security Advisory Committee was not the only body to warn against the proposal. Other bodies did so, as did the hon. Member for Cathcart and I in the House. Those warnings went unheeded, and we all see the result this evening.
    My purpose is briefly to speak to new clauses 2 and 3 tabled by my right hon. and hon. Friends. While those new clauses may be technically incompetent, they are clear in their intention to try to persuade the Government at this eleventh hour to contemplate the abolition of the ceiling on rebates. It is important for the Minister to talk about the number of people who are caught by the ceiling on rebates and how much money is involved. In the debates in 1985 and 1986, the comments seemed unrealistic in terms of the sums involved and the impact that they were having.
    Before the ceiling on rebates was introduced, about 3 million people were eligible for a 100 per cent. rebate on their rates under the old local government system. A further 4 million people had a partial rate rebate. Today, nobody gets a 100 per cent. rebate, so that significant change has had a considerable impact, particularly on low-income families.
    The Government's justification for the change was that it would improve the link between payment and the use of services—that in some magical way there would be a resurgence in interest in what town halls and local authorities throughout the country were doing. There is little evidence, if that was the intention, that it was well founded.
    Even people who follow these issues closely cannot make a direct correlation between Government grants, specific grants and the various means by which local

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    government finance is provided by central Government and other sources; so they cannot make a comparison between what was previously being spent on their behalf by local authorities and what was spent following the introduction of the so-called system of accountability.
    If the Government are looking for a system that gives more accountability in local government, they should examine the way in which local authorities are elected. A system of electoral reform that included proportional representation would give a more sensitive system to meet the needs and wishes of local people.
    From a social security point of view, the £1·30 increase in income support that was given in 1987 to try to compensate people for paying a 20 per cent. contribution towards the poll tax was totally inadequate and reduced the already meagre levels of income support available to many claimants. About 17,000 claimants north of the border are now having deductions taken from their income support payments to make contributions towards poll tax arrears. That is a scandal and a disgrace.
    I remind the Committee that, on their proposal to impose a ceiling on the rebate system, the Government were defeated in the other place in June 1986. Their Lordships withdrew a provision designed to impose a cap on the poll tax rebate system. The Government were wrong to reintroduce the proposal and reverse in this House that decision of the other place. We have been paying the price for that ever since.
    Experience of the ceiling on the poll tax rebate for the last two or three years has revealed a two-tier system of local government. There is the kind of local government that can be provided and paid for in relatively stable areas of population, such as in the borders and my constituency, where there is less of a turnover in population and the people are perhaps more law-abiding than in other parts of the country. That applies to my constituent, the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). It certainly applies to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel), who pays his debts, is kind to animals and treats his wife well.
    In districts such as the borders, there is a stable population, so it is much easier for the poll tax to be administered and collection rates can be more than 90 per cent. to a semi-reasonable extent. But it is impossible to do so in urban districts such as Glasgow, Strathclyde, Edinburgh and Dundee. The Audit Commission has found it impossible to achieve those relatively high levels of collection in such regions. That is the inevitable consequence of the development of a two-tier system of local government.
    The level of services one can enjoy depends on where one lives. If one lives in an urban context, one's services are reduced, but if one lives in a landward district, the services tend to be better financed and better provided. It is wrong that such a consequence should flow from poll tax legislation.
    11.45 pm
    It is absurd when the amount to be collected from many people will be less than the cost of collecting the tax. That cannot be sensible in any system. My hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) told me earlier this evening that the poll tax contribution to be solicited from students in Shetland is £9, but it will cost
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    nearly three times that amount to collect that poll tax from students, which seems to be completely stupid. That contrasts with the provisions now being made for Wandsworth, where, by and large, residents can easily afford to pay for local services. They will not now be paying anything. The principle that everyone pays is clearly no longer the case.
    As the hon. Member for Cathcart said, the Scottish experience is that a significant number of those facing action as a result of non-payment, certainly in Scotland, are those paying the 20 per cent. contribution. The latest estimate is that 70 per cent. of those facing court action in Scotland are 20 per cent. contributors. That is quite wrong, and the Government should do something to put it right.
    In its report earlier this month, the Audit Commission showed that 30 per cent. of authorities reported a significant problem of unprocessed benefit applications. That is wrong and the Government should do something about it. Clearly, the costs of collecting the poll tax previously, today and in future are fixed. The Government should recognise that, as they should recognise that many people are suffering great hardship—most of them income support claimants and many of them pensioners. They are being subjected to the 20 per cent. contribution, which is immoral, unjust and an administrative nightmare. I hope that the Government will take the opportunity of the amendments, at this eleventh hour, to make sensible changes to make the system much better, more easily administered and much fairer to those who are least able to pay.
    Mr. Patrick Cormack: I did not intend to speak this evening, and I shall be brief. I want to make only one point. I am grateful for what the Government have done. I have been implacably opposed to this tax from the word go, as Opposition Members know. I did not support it at any stage. But we are now moving rapidly towards its abolition, for which I am extremely grateful. I believe that the Government are entirely right to consult widely to get the system right.
    The 20 per cent. contribution system is nonsense. Its collection costs are often more than the sum collected. I discussed collection with the treasurer in south Staffordshire a fortnight ago. It is a prudently managed authority, where about 93 per cent. of the tax has already been collected this year. It is not a question of being unable to collect the tax or of having constituents who do not pay. The cost of collecting the contribution of those who pay only 20 per cent. of the charge far exceeds the yield. That applies especially to students, who quite legitimately might have two or three abodes in the course of a year.
    I accept that we are debating an interim measure, and I fully understand the Government's line. I hope that, when the new system is in place, people who at the moment qualify for 80 per cent. rebate will not be charged. We should not charge the non-earning spouse, the student or the non-householder over the age of 70. I hope that we can look at the detail of such matters and that we shall do so quickly. In future, may we please have no 20 per centers?
    Mr. Dick Douglas: This is an interesting debate. Amendments Nos. 35 and 42 in my name and those of my hon. Friends, relate to the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton). Experience in Scotland has

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    clearly shown that the poll tax has failed not just because of its unfairness and injustice, but because in many areas it is uncollectable. That is not because, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) averred, I and others have suggested that people should not pay and have led them into debt, but manifestly because people on low incomes do not have the resources to pay.
    The hon. Member for Garscadden yawns. I am sorry if I am boring him. He cannot say that 80 per cent. of those who are not paying cannot pay while at the same time saying that they should obey the law and pay. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) is in her place—
    Mr. John Battle: The hon. Gentleman has called off his non-payment campaign.
    Mr. Douglas: We had it for some time in Scotland. People like the hon. Gentleman do not worry me in the slightest. Dinna fash yoursel'. Haud your wheesht. Belt up. On 15 September 1988, the hon. Member for Maryhill said:
    "Non-payment is for us an act of solidarity with those who won't pay because they can't pay."
    Mrs. Maria Fyfe: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Douglas: I am happy to do so.
    Mrs. Fyfe: The hon. Gentleman will recall that those were my sentiments, and I still think that embarking upon such a campaign was justified at that time. However, when Strathclyde regional council later found itself in extreme financial difficulties and faced the prospect of paying off staff, especially low-paid staff, some of us changed our minds and decided to pay up. Plainly, the hon. Gentleman does not agree with that, because he waited until his party had abandoned its non-payment campaign. When he s me, perhaps he would the record in full.
    Mr. Douglas: People are entitled to change their minds. [Interruption.] It is one thing to have a change of mind when the poll tax is manifestly dead; it is quite another to tell people in legalistic terms, as the hon. Member for Garscadden has, that people should pay because it is the law, when he knows that they cannot pay.
    The hon. Member for Garscadden spoke earlier about those with senile dementia, and the hon. Member for Cathcart spoke of the severely mentally handicapped. Both hon. Members know the fight that Opposition parties put up to have those groups excluded. Time and again, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that it was impossible to exclude those suffering from senile dementia.
    The Scottish National party asked the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland what people should do, and he kept advising them to pay. The tax has now been defeated not because of what happened in the House but because of what happened outside. I believe passionately in parliamentary democracy, but a balance has to be struck, and that element should not be put on too high a pinnacle. When the Prime Minister tells people outside the House that votes cast against his party and its policies in a by-election are rubbish bin votes, and when people demonstrate because that is their only way to protest against the onerous tax, and when these factors are ignored, particularly in Scotland, people are left with little
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    alternative but to defeat the tax by not paying it. That course of action is still advocated by some on the Opposition Benches.
    Non-payment has made a significant contribution to non-collectibility. What advice is the hon. Member for Garscadden giving local authorities in Scotland? They are pursing diligence on the very people who he has said cannot pay.
    Mr. Allan Rogers (Rhonnda): The hon. Gentleman talked about rubbish bin votes. What would happen in his community if nobody paid the tax? In the past couple of years, has he put out rubbish bins? If so, who has paid for them to be collected? What will happen to old people's homes, social services and other facilities if no one pays the tax? He does not have the sole lien on non-payment or opposition to the poll tax. Many of us thought that, if local services were to be maintained for those who needed them, we should have to pay the tax.
    Mr. Douglas: I accept what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I come back to my initial position. Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen on Scottish matters cannot say that 80 per cent. of those who are not paying cannot pay but that they ought to obey the law and pay. There is an inherent contradiction there. I am asking the hon. Members for Cathcart and for Garscadden whether, through the Labour party, they are telling local authorities in Scotland to desist from diligence because of the onerous nature of the imposition of poinding, and from threatening warrant sales on those people. They should desist from making sheriff orders—there have been 300,000 in Strathclyde alone—and from hounding the very people whom hon. Members have said cannot pay. I will give way to the hon. Member for Garscadden on this point, but he is silent when asked what advice he will give.
    Mr. Dewar: I should be more inclined to take the hon. Gentleman's point seriously if, when he offers himself to his electorate, who know him well, he gets elected.
    Mr. Douglas: When I stood for election in 1987, I made it patently clear that I would not pay. The Labour party went about lying in their teeth about me. I lost my honorary membership of the National Union of Mineworkers because honourable people like them—I use the word "honourable" loosely—went about telling lies. If the hon. Member for Garscadden wants me to give way again, I am willing to do so. We know what happened in Scotland. We have the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities figures. It argues that, because of nonpayment in Scotland, at present no recovery action can be taken against non-payers until they are three months or more in arrears, and that, on such a timetable, it would not be fully possible to pursue non-payers until October or November next year.
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    We know that the system of local authority finance is collapsing. I told the hon. Members for Garscadden and for Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) ages ago that, if a Labour Government came to power on a Thursday, no one in Scotland would pay the poll tax the following Monday. I asked them what they would do then, and what interim measure they would put in place.
    The Government have produced an interim measure. It is not entirely satisfactory, but the House has chosen not to vote against it. In effect, it is a concealed income tax. I

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    do not know anyone who pays taxes out of anything other than income, but some Conservative Members may take a different view. On both sides this is a huge facade—a farrago—to establish other taxation systems to collect £1 in every £10 of local authority revenue.
    Would the Labour party repeal this measure if it came to power after the next election? Of course it would repeal the poll tax, but what would it put in its place? It would put some form of rating in its place. How long would that take? It would take two or three years. The hon. Member for Garscadden said this morning that the Labour party could do it by April—April of the following year. That would be an interim measure. The Scottish National party has submitted to the Secretary of State details of a local income tax that could be introduced very quickly in Scotland.
    The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. The hon. Gentleman is going very wide of the amendments that are before the Committee. I hope that he will return to them.
    Mr. Douglas: With great respect, Mr. Walker, I am suggesting that, if we had a local income tax, those who could not pay—assessed in relation to their income—would not pay. That is a fair system of taxation. That is what the amendments deal with—the poorer sections of the population who should not be brought into the local government taxation system anyhow, for the simple reason that the idea that everybody should make a contribution to local authority revenue is nothing but a lot of damned nonsense.
    When we ask Conservative Members about Wandsworth, their reply is, "Ah, but people in Wandsworth pay for it through general taxation." So why not relate ability to pay to general taxation? We were told earlier that this was an interim measure. The Secretary of State suggested that the value added tax to be used as a supplement this year will not be available next year and that, under rate support grant measures, general revenue will be used.
    We have argued very forcefully that the poorest sections of the population—students, student nurses, people on income support, the disabled, the unemployed—should not be brought within the orbit of the tax because it is clear that they cannot pay.
    However, if there is a vote on amendment No. 15, the Government's majority will undoubtedly carry the day. I hope that the Government will ultimately consider a system of taxation that excludes certain people. What is needed, particularly in Scotland, is a system that takes account of people's ability to pay. Our figures were rubbished simultaneously by the Government and the Labour party. Scotland could have a local income tax to replace the 10 per cent. or thereabouts that would come from the residue of the poll tax. The cost would be 3p or 4p in the pound. The system could be authorised by an independent Scottish parliament and operated by that parliament through, and in harmony with, single-tier local authorities. That will not be possible if the Government persist with the stupid notion that everyone must pay for local services.
    Mr. Jeff Rooker: Having attended all the poll tax debates, including those relating to Scotland, I never cease to be amazed at the way the Scottish National party attacks the Labour party more
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    than it attacks the Tories. My impression has not been changed by the speech of the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas).
    Mr. Alex Salmond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rooker: No.
    The amendments before the Committee relate to people who, by definition, are the poorest in the country. People who have to pay 20 per cent. of the poll tax are required to pay 100 per cent. of the water rates. Like all other hon. Members, I have constituents who pay water rates amounting to twice the poll tax charge. They do not quite understand that. It is beyond belief that anyone should be asked to pay a water rate of £150 in respect of a two-bedroom inner-city flat in Birmingham. For such people, the poll tax is the last straw.
    Let us be clear what will happen when the Bill is on the statute book. I take the Labour party view. Even if guillotines and other devices have been used, a tax that has been approved by Parliament is legal. We know, however, that this tax is immoral and unfair. Money has to be collected to pay for the services required by the poor and the disabled. People who cannot pay have to be pursued. Bearing in mind the events of the past 10 days, I do not know how any reasonable local authority could issue summonses against such people for the purpose of enforcing poll tax charges of 20 per cent.
    The Government have said that the poll tax is going. Or have they? They are rushing this Bill through Parliament. The Prime Minister has spoken. We have heard all the arguments about the cost of collection. We know that hardly anybody in Wandsworth or Westminster will contribute directly to local government finance. How can any responsible local authority of any political persuasion carry on issuing summonses for those paying 20 per cent.?
    Mr. Salmond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rooker: No, I am not giving way to a member of the Scottish National party.
    I do not see how that policy can be pursued. That is a real dilemma for responsible local authorities. They know full well that the Government are not prepared to bend. I know that the Government will not accept the amendments, but I believe that they will be forced by circumstances to move on this issue and perhaps on a couple mentioned by the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). That is inevitable. They are on the slippery slope. This is more than the thin end of the wedge. The rush is on, and I am convinced that the Government will have to move.
    Mr. Salmond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rooker: No. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not giving way to a member of the SNP. Okay? Right. I say that after my visit to Scotland last Friday. My views were reinforced after discussions with many of my political friends in the nation.
    We could have avoided being in this situation. During the passage of the original legislation, the Government could answer hardly any questions about losers and gainers. They could answer hardly any questions about those on rebates. When we asked in November 1989 what information the Government had as they set out on pushing their flagship through Parliament, they said that

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    no estimate has been made of the likely numbers on rebate in each local authority. On 13 January 1988. the Government said that no information was available on the proportion of households with below-average income and in receipt of rate rebates. On 15 December 1987, the Government were unable to give information on 18 to 25-year-olds gaining and losing. Those are just three examples from a list of about 30 points that I made at the time on which the Government had no information. They could not answer detailed questions as they launched their flagship.
    The Government are in the same position now. They cannot tell the House how many people will receive £140 off their poll tax or less than £140 off their poll tax. The other week, the Government boasted that more than half the poll tax payers in England—18 million-plus—would benefit either from the rebate or from the reduction scheme. They boasted that half would pay less than the full amount, but they cannot quite bring themselves to admit now that, by definition, if more than 50 per cent. gained under the old scheme, more than 50 per cent. of adults in England will not receive £140 off their bills. The one follows the other. What the Government cannot give us tonight, and what they should give us tonight, is a breakdown of those who will not get the full £140 including those paying 20 per cent. whom we are trying to exempt with our amendments.
    I was reminding myself of what was said during the passage of the legislation, and I came across a few gems that I want to share with the House. We are talking about something that affects millions of our fellow citizens—your constituents, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and mine. Just listen to this:
    "Every time I hear people squeal I am more than ever certain that we are right".
    That was the former Secretary of State—the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley)—who has not had the courage to appear in the Chamber once today.
    We put the same point to the right hon. Gentleman repeatedly. In Committee, he said—I am not quoting him out of context; the details will be in the record—
    "With a flat rate charge, it must be true that the burden will fall more heavily on those with low incomes than on those with high incomes." —[Official Report, Standing Committee E;23 February 1988, c. 936.]
    We know that; we kept telling him that. That is why the poll tax flat rate is unfair, and why taking £140 off the top figure, rather than the bottom figure, is still unfair to the low paid.
    12.15 am
    I should like to share with the House another quotation from the record of that debate. I have given the hon. Member concerned notice. During that debate, my hon. Friends and I tried to secure a 100 per cent. rebate to protect the poorest in the land. We do not accept the "holy grail" dictum that everyone should make a contribution—people are contributing through the general tax system every time they buy a VAT-rated good.
    The hon. Gentleman to whom I refer said in Committee:
    "Above all, I am worried because in recent years we have seen the development of two societies. I wholeheartedly support the Government for having helped to achieve growing prosperity for the majority of our citizens. However, we have also created an under class of hapless people who are in enormous personal difficulties."
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    That was before the poll tax was introduced. The hon. Gentleman continued:
    "I am sure that hon. Members share my constituency experiences, except if they happen to represent such areas as Sunningdale…I represent a prosperous area, too."
    In his authority, he said:
    "we shall, on balance, benefit by the introduction of the measure. However, constituents no longer approach us, as Members of Parliament, with the same financial and social problems that, a few years ago, we could have solved with relative ease. We could break through local authority bureaucracy and contact our ministerial colleagues to obtain help with their problems. They were manageable and solvable. Sadly, that no longer applies.
    I am not over-dramatising the position, but I have noticed the haunted look in the eyes of people who shuffle into my surgery."
    I shall repeat that, for the benefit of any hon. Member who has not witnessed the same thing since the introduction of the poll tax in England:
    "I am not over-dramatising the position, but I have noticed the haunted look in the eyes of people who shuffle into my surgery. They have been caught in the poverty trap which has come about by a combination of our benefits and tax system and low income. The proposals are an understandable reaction by the Government faced with such an awkward situation. I am sure that they wanted to impose the poll tax on everyone. But we must have a benefit system, otherwise there would be an outcry because of the additional burden on the poorest members of our society who are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
    We have a get-rich-quick, materialistic environment. It scorns people who cannot keep up with it. That is also distressing for parliamentarians. People need our help; they must not be kicked in the teeth by a system that is becoming increasingly hard on them. They might be regarded by hard newspapers, such as the Daily Express and The Sun as the unsuccessful minority about whom we should not worry too much. Those newspapers probably advocate a small support system at the margin that will just keep such people going. That is the most severe charge facing all parliamentarians when we consider even the small details of the proposals." —[Official Report, Standing Committee E;23 February 1988, c. 884.]
    I am quoting the hon. Member for Harrow, East (M r. Dykes), the Tory Member who has usually backed us all the way on the poll tax. That could have been said by any Opposition Member, but I venture to say that not many Tory Members could have said it.
    I should like to think that, in the past two years—and certainly in the past year—Conservative Members had learnt some of the lessons. People may have shuffled into their surgeries, if they have them and if they are available, unlike the situation in some constituencies where people have to wait nine months for an appointment and where they only get to see their Member of Parliament when they have written a letter to the local newspaper. It happened in a midlands constituency, which I shall not name— —
    Mr. Tony Banks: Name him.
    Mr. Rooker: The hon. Member concerned is not here, so it would not be fair. I would name him otherwise.
    The position has got worse because of the imposition of the 20 per cent., which also gives the Government a convenient loophole when they talk about losers and gainers. By introducing the 20 per cent. the year before the poll tax came into operation in England, they try to compare like with unlike. They should compare the present position with what was happening before, when the poorest paid taxes through VAT and other excise duties but were exempt from the local tax, as they were exempt from income tax, on the ground of low income.

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    That is only fair in our society. Given that the system does not make sense from a practical or from a financial point of view, and given that it does not make sense from a moral point of view when the Bill will give £280——
    Mr. Robert Adley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rooker: No, I have nearly finished.
    We shall give £280 to a person who owns a second home and who, by definition, would not be getting a rebate under the Bill, and we shall give him £140 off the poll tax for his first home, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said earlier. The person who will not have a penny piece rebate will receive a £420 handout, but only £28 will go to the person with only income support. We know that such a person will pay more than that once he has spent more than a half dozen weeks' benefit money. After £1,100 of expenditure liable to VAT, his gain will have gone, whereas everyone else will have to spend £13,000 before the benefits are wiped out. How can that be fair? How can it be fair for someone with a second home, who does not have a penny piece rebate because he is not entitled to it, to have £280 when there will be only £28 for the poorest?
    If the Government had any sense, they would accept the amendment. If they had any sense, they would have listened to us in 1988 and not proceeded with the poll tax. We told them then from the Dispatch Box that we would bury the Government with the poll tax legislation, and bury them we will.
    Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I shared many long hours in Committee with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) and I am heartily glad to see the poll tax now coming to an end. I intend to be brief. We are talking on those of the lowest incomes who face bills that, although lower, are difficult for them to pay. I listened with considerable interest to the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) a few minutes ago. He spoke a lot of sense. The Government would be well advised to listen to him.
    If the Government go ahead and insist, during the two-years interim period before the new scheme comes about, that everyone must continue to pay, they will put a millstone around people on low incomes who have considerable difficulty paying and around local authorities which have to collect payments at a cost that, in many cases, exceeds those payments.
    In Wales, we have a level of poll tax that is, on average, lower than that in England or in Scotland. It will cost more to collect payments from people on the 20 per cent. level than they pay. That makes no sense from the point of view of the individuals who are suffering, or from the point of view of local authorities. Surely there is a need to reconsider the matter.
    If the Government based their case on the need for every individual to make a payment, they have surely conceded that case with the abandonment of bills to individuals and with the introduction of only household bills from 1993. They have also abandoned the principle in cases such as Wandsworth, where many people will not receive bills. The Government have also acknowledged the difficult position of some authorities where minimal
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    payments may be made. As one Minister said, that would be a matter for the discretion of the authority. We need some clarification about how far that discretion goes.
    If some areas end up with a residual charge of £3 or £5, do local authorities have the right to waive that bill? Are they expected to pursue those bills although it may cost £50 or £100 to collect them? The Government must tackle that problem. If they had any sense, they would accept the amendments on that issue, or they could table an amendment even at this late stage.
    The Government should find a way in which to ensure that those on a low income, the unemployed, the disabled and pensioners—those who receive 80 per cent. benefit on the poll tax—are exempt from the new charges. That would remove the pain suffered by those many people who have had to go to court because they have not paid their local authorities.
    A few weeks ago, I was in court in Caernarfon. A thousand non-payment cases came before it that day. A large proportion of those cases involved people who receive 80 per cent. benefit but who still do not have the resources to pay the 20 per cent. It is not in the interests of central and local government, or good government, to pursue cases in such a manner.
    It is not too late for the Government to acknowledge the argument that has been advanced by all parties in the House. Even now they could find a way in which to free those on a low income and in receipt of support from the iniquitous poll tax. That would mean that local authorities would have a much easier job in the next two years until we bury the poll tax once and for all.
    Mr. Robert Adley: I echo the words of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) —the sooner we bury the poll tax the better. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) will know that I have opposed it throughout.
    I shall weary the House for just two minutes as I illustrate the nonsensical unfairness of the system by quoting my family circumstances. First, my wife and I are classed as two payers. She has never paid the rates and she does not pay the poll tax—that exposes the fiction that more people paid the poll tax. We know that that was nonsense.
    In Westminster, my rates were £1,200. Last year, because it is a second home, they came down to £380—now they are down to £72, but I do not claim to be one of the poorest in the country. Last year we were in receipt of transitional relief on our home in Dorset and, this year, my wife and I will be receiving £220 of Government grant. I know perfectly well that I am receiving that money while many on a quarter of my income are not getting any relief.
    Yesterday, I received a letter from the hotel in Cornwall where my wife and I intend to spend the summer holiday. The management told me, quite fairly, that, as a result of the increase in VAT, the price of our holiday will be increased by 2·5 per cent. I accept that, as it is an expensive hotel. I shall enjoy staying there, and I shall happily pay that extra VAT in the knowledge that I do not have to spend that money, but that I want to, because I can afford to stay in a decent hotel. I shall be paying that contribution in accordance with my ability to pay.
    I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to stop the nonsense. Let us get out of this unfair and unworkable tax at the earliest opportunity. I am not the only one to argue that we should use as much of central Government

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    taxation as possible to pay for local services. I do not recall Lieutenant General de la Billière saying that he felt guilty about using his tanks in the Gulf because he had not raised the money for them. I have never appreciated the logic of certain local councillors who have said that, unless they raised the money, they did not feel justified in spending it. The best way in which to assess the value of a local councillor is not how he raises the money, but how he spends it. The less money we spend on raising local taxes the more we shall have to spend on services.
    We all know that the poll tax is to be buried. I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to stop pretending to everyone—let us get rid of it at the earliest possible opportunity.
    12.30 am
    Mr. Eddie O'Hara: I am sure that we all listened with respect to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), who has just spoken, and to the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), who have both always been honourable and consistent in their opposition to the poll tax.
    Perhaps it is appropriate that I should say that I come to praise at least one aspect of the poll tax from the Opposition Benches. The one credit that I can give the poll tax is that it finally blew the cover on the elaborate deception of the 1980s to which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) alluded—that local government expenditure was rising at an unacceptable pace. The truth of the matter is that, throughout the 1980s, the central Government contribution was being steadily reduced and the levy that had to be made upon ratepayers to bridge the gap was rising. That was commonplace.
    Then came the poll tax. My first introduction to it was in 1986, when I was a local government chairman of finance and I went to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy conference in Scarborough—a serious conference, attended by all the weighty professional bodies and institutions concerned with local government finance. The community charge proposals were unveiled there. I remember being astounded at the weight of opposition to the proposals.
    The Government were advised then that the administration of the tax would be horrendously complex and expensive; that implementation would be fraught with anomalies and unfairness; that people would delay payment; and that it would be difficult to police. However, for them to take notice of that weight of distinguished advice would have smacked of consultation—a word which had no place in the Tory lexicon in those days of certainty and decisiveness. And so the poll tax came to pass—or perhaps I should say that it was passed.
    Knowsley's standard spending assessment for 1990–91 was £278, and we levied a poll tax of £365, which is a difference of £87. Why? Because no allowance had been made for expected increases in bad debts, which accounted of £15 a head, or for extra costs of collection, which came to £15 per head; there was an unrealistic inflation allowance of 4·6 per cent., when inflation was 7·7 per cent., which accounted for £30 per head; and finally, and worst of all, Knowsley, the poorest local authority in the land, contributed £16 per head to the safety net, to bail out the likes of Wandsworth. That amounts to £76 out of the £87, leaving £11, which is easily and fairly accounted for by the inadequacy of the funding formula, which recognized
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    factors that favoured Wandsworth and Westminster, but gave insufficient recognition to Knowsley's manifest social needs.
    If Knowsley had received Wandsworth's level of grant allocation in that year, the poll tax would have been reduced by £15, and if it had been given Westminster's, the tax would have been a mere £56·47. That is merely taking into consideration the rate support grant and non-domestic rating contributions, and not all the other fiddles or grants which were given to Wandsworth and Westminster. Knowsley's poll tax could have been in—
    The Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is going to come to the amendments that are before the Committee.
    Mr. O'Hara: Indeed I am. Knowsley's poll tax in 1991–92 was £424·60—£54 more, of which £42 was made up of losses on collection, interest charges and deficits on the collection fund. It could have been a negative figure if Knowsley had been given the same level of grant as Westminster. That is the fulfilment of predictions in 1986 about complexity, expense, anomaly, unfairness, evasions and accumulation of bad debts, and that is only the financial story.
    Now, Mr. Walker, I come to the amendments. There have been cuts in education, affecting hundreds of teachers, and the youth service has been wiped out. Social and leisure services have been affected, as have the voluntary bodies, including the citizens advice bureaux and the money advice centres, which have been losing their funding. Yet we know that 81 per cent. of the clients coming to the money advice centres in Knowsley are those affected by the 20 per cent. rule. They are coming to those money advice centres in desperation for advice on how to find that 20 per cent.
    As I have said, the one saving grace of all this is that these crazy sums have blown the Government's cover, exploded the myth of council extravagence and laid the blame at the Government's door as scheme after elastoplast scheme has been devised to cover the gaping wounds. Hence the community charge reduction scheme, with the Government scaling new heights of gerrymandering. The fourth such scheme was introduced nine short weeks ago, and we now have this Bill of amendment. To stay in order, Mr. Walker, and to refer to the amendments, I must add that perhaps this amendment is the Government's last chance to inject just a grain of fairness into the Bill by taking account of those who will pay 20 per cent. and allocating a moderate sum from the £4·5 billion to alleviate that distress.
    I conclude with my personal epitaph on this sorry story. We have had plenty of imagery—of the 'three-card trick' management of the community charge, and or circus sideshow trickery'. Hon. Members will have heard of Nero, the Roman emperor who fiddled while Rome burned. In 68 AD, he was assassinated. Interestingly, there was then a civil war and a series of four emperors in that year. I wonder whether that is an omen. One of those emperors, Vitellius, was immortalised by the historian Tacitus in "Capax imperii nisi imperasset", which means, "Capable of being emperor, if only he had not become emperor," or, more felicitiously translated, "An emperor with a glorious future behind him." Perhaps the poll tax will show that we have a Prime Minister with a glorious

    905
    future behind him.
    Mr. Tony Banks: I rise to speak in favour of the amendments, but I shall be brief, having sat through all our proceedings. I send that message to my Chief Whip with great love and affection. In view of the quotation just given by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara), I shall try to be as taciturn as I can.
    The amendment seeks to remove what is clearly the most unpopular aspect of the poll tax. The tax has many injustices, but requiring people on the lowest level of income in our society—those on income support—to make a payment is so cruel that hon. Members of all parties have now recognised that.
    I pay great tribute to the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) for having been so frank in telling the House his personal circumstances. I hope that Conservative Members will investigate and examine their consciences in the same way as the hon. Member for Christchurch has. When they do, I think that they will come to the same conclusion—that the amendment must be carried and that the idea of the poorest paying 20 per cent. has to go.
    We understand the reasons for the rule—at least, we understand the words that were used to explain it—that everyone who benefits from local authority services should make some contribution. But it is perhaps surprising that that principle is not applied to the payment of income tax and to voting at the national level. After all, many people do not pay income tax—such as those who are unemployed and those who are on income support—but I have not heard any Conservative Member suggest that, because those people are not contributing to the services provided nationally by central Government, their general election vote should be taken from them. If the Government want to be consistent, they must take the vote away from people who do not pay income tax or allow people who cannot afford to contribute to continue to
    We know many people who cannot afford to contribute. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) gave details from a speech made by the now somnolent figure of the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes). It was a very good speech, but obviously not one that he can recall at the moment. No doubt he is seeking inspiration. I see that he has once again joined the land of the conscious. He made a very good speech in Committee. He made it clear that it was upsetting for hon. Members as well as for their constituents when people found themselves in a position where they could not pay.
    I am not so concerned about people who made a political gesture. Although that is an honourable attitude to adopt, those who do so must take the political consequences. There is a role in politics for those who consider a tax to be immoral and an imposition and who refuse to pay it. I was more concerned about those who could not afford to pay and those who broke down in tears in my advice surgery. They are the people we have to look after. They are the people who are still caught up by the poll tax.
    Great play has been made of the fact that there is to be a reduction of £140. As we know, for those on income support the reduction will be only £28. They will get just 20 per cent. of the £140, but they will be paying 100 per cent. of the 2·5 per cent. increase on VAT—no one has suggested that they should pay only 20 per cent. of that—so the poorest members of society are still being asked to pay the poll tax disproportionately. Figures have
    906
    been given in the debate to show that it is the poorest 10 per cent. who pay proportionately far more of their income on VAT-charged goods and services than the richest 10 per cent. That is grossly unfair.
    If hon. Members will be as decent as the hon. Member for Christchurch and examine their consciences, they will realise that they are voting to benefit themselves to the disadvantage of the poorest people in this country, and will do as the hon. Member for Christchurch will no doubt be doing and join us in the Lobby in support of the amendment.
    Mr. Salmond: I intend to be very brief. To avoid any doubt, I will not give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). However, I should like to support two of his arguments. The first has been expressed by many hon. Members in the debate: it is now long past time to get the poll tax off the backs of the poor. The £140 should not be a top-line reduction but a bottom-line reduction, taking not just the 20 per cent. but many of the low-paid out of the poll tax net.
    The Government have a stark choice: they can make that concession now with as much good grace as they can muster, or they can have it forced on them in coming weeks and months. That concession is coming, not because of any generosity of spirit in the Tory party but purely because the tax is uncollectable, to use the Prime Minister's word, from the poorest people.
    The hon. Member for Perry Barr advanced a second argument. I am sorry to say that he did not have the courtesy to say that he was reflecting that of my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) a few seconds earlier. He said that, in current circumstances, it would be insupportable for any local authority to pursue by civil diligence those who cannot afford to pay the poll tax. If the hon. Member for Perry Barr could communicate to his Scottish Front Bench colleagues, the hon. Members for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) and for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), the need to take the poll tax off the backs of the Scottish poor, I might not express some of my criticisms of the Labour party.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): I thought that I had heard some two thirds of the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) before—indeed, on several occasions. He was kind enough to pay a compliment to the good people of Eastwood. The good people of Eastwood look forward to hearing and analysing the Labour party's proposals for replacing the Government's proposed system. I assure him that the good people of Eastwood will be fully informed of the Labour party's proposals.
    12.45 pm
    Mr. Maxton: I wonder whether the good people of Eastwood are equally attracted to the idea of single-tier local authorities, which will inevitably lead Eastwood to be part of Glasgow.
    Mr. Stewart: I know that that is the policy of the hon. Member for Cathcart. He has confirmed it on many occasions. There are many possible formulae for single-tier authorities. I suggest—[Interruption.] I see that Opposition Members are becoming a little restive about my being tempted down that path by the hon. Gentleman.

    907
    We have had two debates this evening. First, there was the well-considered debate, with speeches from the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood)—I certainly would not challenge his credentials in this matter—and my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). I am sure that my hon. Friends will consider carefully the points that my hon. Friend made about the future. We had a speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) and the House appreciated the hon. Member for Knowsley, South (Mr. O'Hara) improving the class of the debate considerably at one point.
    Then there was the sub-plot to the debate. At some points, I felt that I did not wish to intrude on the private grief of Opposition Members. I wondered whether we would ever get a word in edgeways. The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas), leading off for the Scottish National party, asked 26 questions by my count, 25 of which were directed at the hon. Members for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and for Cathcart. It is rumoured in the press that the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West intends to challenge one of those hon. Gentlemen at the next general election. I am sure that that will be—I was about to say a battle of the titans, but I am not sure that that is an appropriate phrase. Certainly it will be a battle worth watching.
    Mr. Douglas: I may stand against the Minister.
    Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman is welcome to stand against me if he wishes to do so.
    The amendments fall into two sub-groups—if that is the correct word. First, there are the amendments which seek to give those who already benefit from the community charge reduction scheme the full charge reduction under the Bill. The House will agree that the scheme has been generously improved, especially as result of the statement of my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities. Secondly, amendments have been tabled by hon. Members representing the Official Opposition, the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats and by the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) that have the broad effect of eliminating charge payments for those who would otherwise pay 20 per cent.
    The purpose of the Bill is to achieve a general reduction of £140 in the headline personal community charge figure. As a result of the eloquence of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland when replying to the Second Reading debate, the House did not seek to challenge that principle. The importance of that principle must be emphasised against the background of what has happened.
    The hon. Member for Garscadden defended the expenditure patterns of Scottish councils, but they have increased the charge by 30 per cent. this year. 'Their expenditure remains about 30 per cent. per adult higher than expenditure in England or Wales. The regional councils have loaded two years of non-payment on to one year and rebuilt balances after election year.
    As hon. Members have said, by no means everybody pays the headline charge, because they benefit from the community charge reduction scheme or because students benefit from the reduced charge. Others have the advantage of the community charge benefit. Those who benefit from charge assistance would, if the Opposition
    908
    formula was adopted, benefit twice. The principle of the Bill is that people should benefit from the reduction in proportion of the amount of headline charge that they pay.
    Mr. Kirkwood: It would help the Committee if the Minister would say about how much money we are arguing. How much would it cost to abolish the rebate system ceiling?
    Mr. Stewart: I do not have a specific figure to hand.
    Mr. Douglas rose——
    Mr. Stewart: The House is anxious to proceed, but I will give way a final time.
    Mr. Douglas: Does the Minister challenge COSLA's figure of £30 million? Will he, when he meets COSLA on 8 April, clarify that and let us know? The £30 million figure appears to be given with some authority and substance.
    Mr. Stewart: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will analyse the COSLA figure.
    There is a well defined principle here—that, with well defined exemptions, all adults should make a direct contribution to the services that they use. That principle of accountability is important and has had an effect in Scotland, as could be seen by the behaviour of Scottish regional councils last year, election year. In 1990–91, broadly speaking, they increased the community charge by about the level of inflation. It is interesting to note that this year, without elections, they have sharply increased the figures.
    Mr. Harry Barnes rose——
    Mr. Stewart: I have given way twice, and I now wish to proceed.
    The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) was concerned with the issue of waiving. The general principle is that an authority is not obliged to pursue collection if the action would not be cost effective—that is, if it would not be in the overall financial interest of its charge payers. It is for the individual authority to decide in each case whether the principle is satisfied. I think that an authority is likely to set its general approach in the light of the views of its auditor.
    The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) alleged that the community charge was uncollectable. That is simply not the case in Scotland. Of course there are those who have not paid, but the idea that in Scotland there is an enormous dedicated army of people who have not paid is not true. There are variations in Scotland. In the hon. Gentleman's regional council, Fife has an excellent record of collection. It is a primarily industrial area with a Labour regional council and it is estimated that its collection rate in 1991–92, in general terms, will be the same as, or higher than, in the current year.
    I emphasise to the Committee the importance of the rebate scheme, under which more than 1 million people in Scotland benefit. Opposition Members have suggested that many people have serious debt problems. The House is entitled to ask, "Whose fault is that?" It is not the fault of Opposition spokesmen, but it is in large measure the fault of the Scottish National party Members and some Labour Members because there has undoubtedly been a cynical exercise in misleading people about non-payment, which has had two effects. First, it has resulted in a tide of

    909
    outrage among decent people who have paid at having to pay a surcharge to subsidise those who have not, but could afford to do so. That tide of outrage sweeps across people of all political persuasions. Secondly, and perhaps more seriously, the campaign may have misled people and encouraged them to get into serious debt.
    That serious responsibility lies on the shoulders of those Scottish National party Members who have advocated non-payment, many of whom continue to do so. I shall not intrude on the private grief of the SNP over non-payment after the conference at the weekend where, I understand, the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) was described as avoiding calamity by 27 votes.
    Mr. Salmond: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Stewart: No, I shall not. We shall wait to see whether calamity arrives.
    The Bill is about the present system, and 1991–92. I ask the House to reject the amendments and send, not the Opposition's message to the people, but a different message—that the Bill is generous—[Interruption.] Of course it is—that is why Opposition Members did not vote against it on Second Reading.
    The Bill reduces the costs for everyone. The average charge in England will be £250–20 per cent. of that is less than £1 a week.
    People in Scotland have been misled by the non-payment campaign. For 1991–92, the Bill gives substantial help to everyone in paying their personal community charge. Therefore, let everyone make his or her contribution.
    Mr. Maxton: What we have just heard is the rearguard action of the Scottish Office fighting to retain whatever last elements of the poll tax it can salvage from the wreckage around it. It has been fighting that campaign in the review during the past few months. We only have to listen to the leaks coming from the Scottish Office, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for the Environment. I gather that there is an investigation into who is doing the leaking. Those involved have only to stand in front of a mirror to see who has been doing the leaking during the past few weeks. We have seen the last remnants of that fight in the Minister's speech.
    The Government have no give, no take, no generosity and no ability to see that the poor are being hit. That is what is so desperately wrong with the Government—they cannot, with any dignity, admit their previous mistakes and say, "We were wrong, we are sorry and we will now put it right." This is the chance for those Conservative Members who have a sense of responsibility to the poorest in our society—two of whom have courageously continued to speak their minds against the poll tax tonight—to join us in the Lobby to vote for the amendments.
    Question put, That the amendment be made:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 184, Noes 284.

    Division No. 105]

    [1 am

    AYES

    Abbott, Ms Diane

    Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Barron, Kevin

    Armstrong, Hilary

    Battle, John

    Ashton, Joe

    Beckett, Margaret

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Beith, A. J.

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Bell, Stuart

    910

    Bellotti, David

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Benton, Joseph

    Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Kennedy, Charles

    Blair, Tony

    Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

    Blunkett, David

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Boyes, Roland

    Lambie, David

    Bradley, Keith

    Lamond, James

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

    Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

    Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

    Lewis, Terry

    Caborn, Richard

    Livingstone, Ken

    Callaghan, Jim

    Livsey, Richard

    Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

    Lofthouse, Geoffrey

    Campbell-Savours, D. N.

    Loyden, Eddie

    Canavan, Dennis

    McAllion, John

    Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

    McAvoy, Thomas

    Carr, Michael

    McCrea, Rev William

    Cartwright, John

    Macdonald, Calum A.

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    McFall, John

    Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

    McKelvey, William

    Clay, Bob

    McLeish, Henry

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    McMaster, Gordon

    Cohen, Harry

    McWilliam, John

    Cook, Robin (Livingston)

    Madden, Max

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Mahon, Mrs Alice

    Cousins, Jim

    Marek, Dr John

    Crowther, Stan

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Cryer, Bob

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Cummings, John

    Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Maxton, John

    Dalyell, Tarn

    Meacher, Michael

    Darling, Alistair

    Meale, Alan

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

    Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

    Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

    Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

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

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Dewar, Donald

    Moonie, Dr Lewis

    Dixon, Don

    Morgan, Rhodri

    Doran, Frank

    Morley, Elliot

    Douglas, Dick

    Mullin, Chris

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Murphy, Paul

    Dunnachie, Jimmy

    Nellist, Dave

    Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

    O'Brien, William

    Eadie, Alexander

    O'Hara, Edward

    Eastham, Ken

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Evans, John (St Helens N)

    Patchett, Terry

    Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

    Pike, Peter L.

    Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

    Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

    Fatchett, Derek

    Prescott, John

    Fearn, Ronald

    Primarolo, Dawn

    Fisher, Mark

    Quin, Ms Joyce

    Flynn, Paul

    Randall, Stuart

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Robinson, Peter (Belfast E)

    Foster, Derek

    Rogers, Allan

    Fraser, John

    Rooker, Jeff

    Fyfe, Maria

    Rooney, Terence

    Galbraith, Sam

    Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

    Galloway, George

    Rowlands, Ted

    George, Bruce

    Ruddock, Joan

    Godman, Dr Norman A.

    Salmond, Alex

    Golding, Mrs Llin

    Sheerman, Barry

    Gould, Bryan

    Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

    Graham, Thomas

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

    Short, Clare

    Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

    Sillars, Jim

    Hardy, Peter

    Skinner, Dennis

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

    Heal, Mrs Sylvia

    Snape, Peter

    Hinchliffe, David

    Soley, Clive

    Hoey, Ms Kate (Vauxhall)

    Spearing, Nigel

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

    Home Robertson, John

    Steinberg, Gerry

    Hood, Jimmy

    Stott, Roger

    Howells, Geraint

    Strang, Gavin

    Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

    Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

    Turner, Dennis

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Vaz, Keith

    Illsley, Eric

    Walley, Joan

    Ingram, Adam

    Wareing, Robert N.

    911

    Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

    Worthington, Tony

    Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

    Wray, Jimmy

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    Williams, Rt Hon Alan

    Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Wilson, Brian

    Mr. Frank Haynes and Mr. Allen McKay.

    Winnick, David

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Dover, Den

    Alexander, Richard

    Dunn, Bob

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Durant, Sir Anthony

    Allason, Rupert

    Dykes, Hugh

    Amess, David

    Eggar, Tim

    Amos, Alan

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Arbuthnot, James

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Evennett, David

    Arnold, Sir Thomas

    Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

    Ashby, David

    Fallon, Michael

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Favell, Tony

    Atkins, Robert

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Atkinson, David

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Fookes, Dame Janet

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Forman, Nigel

    Baldry, Tony

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Batiste, Spencer

    Forth, Eric

    Bellingham, Henry

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Bendall, Vivian

    Franks, Cecil

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Freeman, Roger

    Benyon, W.

    French, Douglas

    Bevan, David Gilroy

    Fry, Peter

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Gale, Roger

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Gardiner, Sir George

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Gill, Christopher

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Boswell, Tim

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Bowden, A. (Brighton K'pto'n)

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Bowis, John

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Gorst, John

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

    Brazier, Julian

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Bright, Graham

    Gregory, Conal

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

    Grist, Ian

    Browne, John (Winchester)

    Ground, Patrick

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Hague, William

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

    Burns, Simon

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Burt, Alistair

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Butler, Chris

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Butterfill, John

    Hannam, John

    Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

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

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Carrington, Matthew

    Harris, David

    Cash, William

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

    Hawkins, Christopher

    Chope, Christopher

    Hayes, Jerry

    Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Hayward, Robert

    Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Colvin, Michael

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Conway, Derek

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

    Hill, James

    Cope, Rt Hon John

    Hind, Kenneth

    Cormack, Patrick

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Couchman, James

    Holt, Richard

    Cran, James

    Howard, Rt Hon Michael

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

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

    Curry, David

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

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

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

    Day, Stephen

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Devlin, Tim

    Hunt, Rt Hon David

    Dicks, Terry

    Hunter, Andrew

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Irvine, Michael

    912

    Jack, Michael

    Redwood, John

    Janman, Tim

    Riddick, Graham

    Jessel, Toby

    Roberts, Sir Wyn (Conwy)

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Rumbold, Rt Hon Mrs Angela

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

    Key, Robert

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Kilfedder, James

    Sainsbury, Hon Tim

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Knapman, Roger

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Knowles, Michael

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Knox, David

    Shersby, Michael

    Latham, Michael

    Sims, Roger

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Speed, Keith

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Speller, Tony

    Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Steen, Anthony

    Macfarlane, Sir Neil

    Stern, Michael

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Stevens, Lewis

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Maclean, David

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Stewart, Rt Hon Ian (Herts N)

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Stokes, Sir John

    Malins, Humfrey

    Summerson, Hugo

    Mans, Keith

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Maples, John

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Marland, Paul

    Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

    Marlow, Tony

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Marshall, John (Hendon S)

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

    Thorne, Neil

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Mates, Michael

    Thurnham, Peter

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Mellor, Rt Hon David

    Tracey, Richard

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Tredinnick, David

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Trippier, David

    Mills, lain

    Trotter, Neville

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Mitchell, Sir David

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Moate, Roger

    Viggers, Peter

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

    Moore, Rt Hon John

    Walden, George

    Morris, M (N'hampton S)

    Walker, Bill (T'side North)

    Morrison, Sir Charles

    Waller, Gary

    Moss, Malcolm

    Ward, John

    Moynihan, Hon Colin

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Needham, Richard

    Warren, Kenneth

    Nelson, Anthony

    Watts, John

    Neubert, Sir Michael

    Wells, Bowen

    Newton, Rt Hon Tony

    Wheeler, Sir John

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Whitney, Ray

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Norris, Steve

    Wilkinson, John

    Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

    Wilshire, David

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Page, Richard

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Paice, James

    Wolfson, Mark

    Patnick, Irvine

    Woodcock, Dr. Mike

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Yeo, Tim

    Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Portillo, Michael

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Price, Sir David

    Mr. John M. Taylor and Mr. Timothy Wood.

    Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Mr.Paul Murphy: I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 1, line 5, leave out from 'amount' to end of line 15 and insert

    913
    'payable in respect of the year 1991–92 by a person to whom regulations made in accordance with subsection (2A) below apply shall from the relevant day be reduced by such amount as may be determined under those regulations.'.
    The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean): With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 23, in page 1, line 15, at end insert—
    '(2A) Regulations made under subsection (6) below may make such provision for the application of additional rebates as the Secretary of State may consider appropriate in respect of persons not entitled before the passing of this Act to a rebate of 80 per cent. of a personal community charge.'.
    No. 27, in page 3, line 14, leave out from first 'amount' to end of line 19 and insert
    'payable in respect of the year 1991–92 by a person to whom regulations made in accordance with subsection (2A) below apply shall from the relevant day be reduced by such an amount as may be determined under those regulations.'.
    No. 34, in page 3, line 24, at end insert—
    '(2A) Regulations made under subsection (6) below may make provision for the application of additional rebates as the Secretary of State may consider appropriate in respect of persons not entitled before the passing of this Act to a rebate of 80 per cent. of a personal community charge.'.
    Mr. Murphy: I begin by referring to this afternoon's speech by the Secretary of State for the Environment, in which he said that the Bill would provide "direct help" for community charge payers in England and Wales. However, the reduction of £140 is not linked to ability to pay the headline tax. The term "headline tax" is a perpetuation of the local government financial gobbledegook that has developed during the last 10 to 15 years. It does not help us to understand these matters. The fact is that everybody will enjoy this £140 reduction, irrespective of income. It perpetuates the inequality of the poll tax.
    Reference was made in the last debate to the £300 million that would have exempted the poorest people from paying the poll tax. However, the Committee decided not to accept the amendment. This series of amendments relates to the introduction of new rebates. About £600 million would reduce the taper on benefit from 15 per cent. to 7·5 per cent. For every £1 that a claimant's income rises above that threshold, 15p of poll tax benefit is lost. If that were to be reduced to 7·5p, a considerable impact on the so-called poverty trap could be made.
    During consideration of the Local Government Finance Bill in Standing Committee in 1988, the Under-Secretary of State for Wales will recall, as he too was a member of the Committee, the many references that were made to the fact that the poverty trap creates considerable problems with regard to rebate. Furthermore, the rebate system does not address the problem of the poverty trap—those who do not earn enough to claim benefit and those who earn just too much to be able to claim it. Those people are caught in the middle. If some of the value added tax money could be directed towards increasing the new rebates and alleviating such problems, many thousands of people in Wales and tens of thousands of people in the United Kingdom would be better off.
    The last debate referred to Scottish matters. Therefore, I intend to deal with the rebate system as it applies in the Principality. Incomes in Wales are much lower than those in the rest of the United Kingdom. We are at the bottom of the British earnings league. In Wales, 40 per cent. of the
    914
    people earn less than the European so-called decency threshold. In the Principality, 35,000 men and 70,000 women earn less than £130 a week.
    We all know that the additional 2·5 per cent. value added tax will hit hardest those people who are on low incomes. In the Cynon Valley, Merthyr and Blaenau Gwent there are some of the poorest people in the United Kingdom. They will be affected very severely indeed by this extra burden. The editorial in the Western Mail of the day after Budget day said that, in Wales, the £140 would soon disappear because of extra VAT.
    1.15 am
    The people of Wales can see through the trick of switching from one form of tax to another. Those who wish to improve their properties will not be helped. The Rhymney Valley district council informed us recently that many people currently in receipt of rebates will not benefit from the cut of £ 140 in the so-called headline tax, as a large number of them undoubtedly expect to do. For instance, a single old-age pensioner will receive only about £27. In New Tredegar, a single person on income support will get just over £7. Literally thousands of people in Wales who are in receipt of benefits will get nothing like the £140 that has been trumpeted from the rooftops during the past few days.
    There is another strange consequence. People in Wales who are currently eligible for grants to carry out minor repairs and improvements to their properties will no longer be eligible. That will hit a tremendous number of people in the valleys—people who have already been hit by changes in the way in which grants are means-tested. Those two disadvantages are being combined, even if unwittingly. In many parts of Wales, there will be considerable disharmony as a direct consequence of this change.
    These are just two examples of the anomalies and injustices that will result from this measure.
    Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Does my hon. Friend agree that a third example of the rediculousness of this proposal is that the Secretary of State for Wales will pay no poll tax in respect of his flat in the Crown buildings in Cathays park, in Cardiff? Why, when so many people will not get the benefit that they expect from this measure that is being trumpeted tonight, should the Secretary of State not have to pay poll tax?
    Mr. Murphy: I could give examples of that kind of thing in many parts of the Principality. Blanket relief of £140 is daft. People up and down the Principality who earn many tens of thousands of pounds will get the same relief as people on average incomes. My hon. Friend's point is very valid.
    The introduction of the community charge reduction scheme—the so-called transitional relief—has produced anomalies throughout Wales. The system in the Principality is different from that in England. In certain communities, people are divided, and considerable bitterness has been created. Some people on very low incomes get no benefit at all by way of transitional relief. That problem will be exacerbated by the fact that the rebate of £140 will apply throughout the Principality. Our experience in Neath and elsewhere during the past two weeks shows that this panic measure has not been well received in Wales.

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    This is an ill-thought-out, badly drafted Bill, which certainly does not address the main issues. There should have been proper consultation with Welsh local authorities before the details of the scheme were finalised.
    Mr. Wigley: The hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) has made some important points which apply to many parts of Wales. The Bill will result in many anomalies. However, I disagree with him when he says that the Bill is not going down well in Wales. We would be misleading ourselves if we believed that the £140 reduction in bills was not going down well. People always welcome a reduction in hills of that sort.
    We would not deny the average figure of £95 in Wales, but we would like to see the money raised in an equitable way, and we advocate a local income tax. I realise that there are different views on this within parties as well as across parties, but a local income tax would overcome the anomalies of which the hon. Gentleman spoke, which certainly need to be overcome in some way.
    In some areas the rebates are significant while next door they are next to nothing. People in the same circumstances in adjacent communities such as Felinheli and Llanddeiniolen in my constituency have a difference cif £50 to £60 in their community charge. That is not a sensible way to work things out in the long term. One needs to find a formula which takes into account people's abilities to pay.
    Our previous debate dealt with the 20 per cent. threshold. A large number of people could have been exempted if we had done away with that threshold, but even so, there would still have been the question of gradation. The Government have a formula which gives rough justice. They need to work on that or the anomalies will cause bureaucratic and administrative difficulties as well as penalising the families concerned and creating much work and heartache in the next year or two through to 1993.
    For that reason, the Bill should be amended. The wording of the amendments appeals to me because it allows the Secretary of State to bring forward regulations to cope with some of the problems as they arise. It is well worth building in such amendments to give the Secretary of State the sort of powers that he may well find himself needing to overcome the anomalies in the rough justice Bill being rushed through Parliament tonight.
    Mr. Ted Rowlands: I rise to draw to the attention of the House the nonsenses that will occur as a consequence of the Bill. They stem from the fundamental principle of the poll tax—the notion that a citizen is accountable only if he pays some sort of tax. For generations, in Budget after Budget, Chancellors have tried to take people out of taxation by raising personal allowances, age reliefs, and so on. That has not made them any less responsible or less accountable or made the system less democratic. It has been a sensible administrative arrangement not to drag people into marginal forms of taxation.
    Yet the poll tax did just that—it dragged a host of people into paying the most marginal sums of money possible. Now, having introduced the £140 reduction, we shall have an absurd situation in which some people will end up paying as little as £10 or £12 per year. The notion that someone who is paying such a sum is still accountable—still part of a democracy, and a responsible citizen who
    916
    will worry about how he votes because he is paying £12 a year—makes nonsense of the idea of any relationship between paying tax and being a responsible citizen. Hundreds of thousands of people do not pay national taxation; they have been taken out of the system, justifiably, because of their low incomes. Those people are no less accountable, no less responsible and no less democratic than anyone else.
    In my constituency, borough treasurers—or directors of finance, as they are now called—will have to issue new bills for what could well be £12; the cost of billing people in the area could well be £13 per person. What is the point? Will that somehow reinforce the concept of accountability and democracy? The nonsense of the poll tax has already been laid bare by the Government's pathetic attempts to correct the anomalies, and to remove the anger and resentment that they have caused. If we achieve nothing else by constantly voting against the Government's proposals, we shall continue to reveal the stark absurdity of the idea that people must still pay a marginal tax—20 per cent. of the total—to be responsible citizens.
    Mr. Richard Livsey: I fully endorse what has been said by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands), but I should like to add something about owners of second homes. They will receive double relief, in the form of £140 on each home. In Wales, tens of thousands of second-home owners will benefit in that way. Single poll tax payers who have been involved in a multiplier of two will often benefit more than some of the poorest people in Wales, and I do not think that that is fair. Does the Minister think that it is? I want a straightforward answer. In my view, it discriminates in favour of some of the wealthiest people in our society.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Anyone listening to what Opposition Members have said would imagine that community charge bills in Wales are the highest in the United Kingdom rather than the lowest. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) did not congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on securing for Wales the most generous settlement that any Secretary of State for Wales has ever achieved. Although, from the start, Welsh community charge bills were £100 or more lower than those in England, my right hon. Friend managed to achieve the full £140 reduction.
    The hon. Member for Torfaen is usually very generous. He might have acknowledged that achievement, which means that the £260 headline figure that would have been Wales's community charge in the coming year will he reduced to £120 after the £140 reduction. The reduction will bring down the average bill in Wales to £95. Surely no one could consider that a matter for criticism; surely it is a matter for praise. The hon. Member for Torfaen is criticising my right hon. Friend unfairly.
    Mr. Murphy rose——
    Mr. Bennett: No, I will not give way. I want to continue on this subject for a minute.
    The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) spoke of bills of £12 or £13. Strangely, he seemed to be suggesting that we should not have reduced the bills by so much. We should note that. The fact that we have reduced the charge to such an extent means that some authorities will have such small sums to collect that it

    917
    would be uneconomic to send out bills. We have made it clear tonight, as we did yesterday, that, if it is uneconomic to collect the charge because of the cost of billing, it is up to the local authority to talk to the district auditor to see whether it needs to collect the money. I hope that that answers the point made by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfill and Rhymney.
    Mr. Rowlands: If the citizen does not receive a bill, does that make him less accountable or less democratic?
    1.30 am
    Mr. Bennett: I did not quite understand the hon. Gentleman's point about accountable citizens. I thought that the whole purpose of the community charge and of the principle that most people should make a contribution was to make the authorities accountable. We are not talking about the citizens. We are talking about making the authorities accountable. The principle that most people should make a contribution towards the services about which they have a vote and which they receive was generally acceptable. The problem with the community charge has been the outrageous charges made by some authorities, especially those in inner London such as Lambeth, which would have sent out a bill for £595 for the coming year if it had not been reduced.
    Mr. Tony Banks: The hon. Gentleman knows, because he has employed it himself, that the argument is that, if all the people in a local authority area pay something, they are far more aware of the level of services that are provided and their cost. The Minister hoped that, if people made a contribution, they would influence elections to local authorities. That was, as the Minister has said, a way in which to make people more responsible. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) was correct to say that that was one of the original intentions of the poll tax.
    Mr. Bennett: The community charge was a way to ensure that local authorities were more responsive to the wishes of the citizens. We have clear evidence from the results in Wandsworth and Westminster in May 1990 that that happened.
    It is also important to note the remarks of the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey). He complained that those who pay two standard community charges would get the reduction. They will get a £280 reduction. He would be the first to write to complain to the Welsh Office if his constituents who are forced to pay two standard community charges did not get that reduction. It is a typical Liberal Democrat ploy to try to have it both ways. It seems fair that people who pay two standard community charges, on top of their personal charge elsewhere, are as entitled to the reduction of £140 as anybody else in society.
    The hon. Member for Torfaen talked about the benefits scheme. The benefits scheme in Wales is exactly the same as that operating elsewhere in Great Britain. In so far as earnings in Wales are lower than in other parts of England, that is not the point of the benefit scheme. What is relevant is that Welsh charge payers will be treated in exactly the same way as those in England who face similar charges
    918
    and who are on similar incomes. There is no Welsh dimension in the matter. The system is exactly the same for people in Wales as it is for those in England.
    Mention was also made of the separate scheme that applies in Wales with regard to the community charge reduction scheme. It may benefit hon. Members if I explain the basis for the scheme in the coming year. The average 1989–90 rate bill in a community area has been compared with the actual 1990–91 charge. If the 1989–90 bill is exceeded by £37 in 1990–91, relief is given through the community charge reduction scheme to everybody who lives in that community council area. That is unaffected by the 1991–92 reduction.
    The amendments are therefore not acceptable to us. They are designed to remove from the Bill the general reduction in headline community charges and to substitute for it a requirement that the Secretary of State should make regulations, in effect applying the resources saved to improving the community charge benefit scheme for those charge payers with incomes above income support level.
    Mr. Wigley: I wanted some clarification in case, at this early hour of the morning, I had misunderstood what the Minister was saying. Is he saying that, where there is a community charge reduction, as is applicable in Wales, of, for example, £60, people benefiting from that would benefit from the £60 and from the £140, and so might benefit by up to £200? The net figure left would then be about £50. The Minister spoke about a comparison between the poll tax for the coming year and the figure for 1989. Is the Minister making that comparison before or after taking the community charge benefit into account? That makes a significant difference.
    Mr. Bennett: Let me explain exactly how it is done. One starts off with a headline charge of £250, less the £140, which brings it down to £110. One then deducts the community charge reduction scheme entitlement, which might be £40, and that brings the charge down to £70. After that, the community charge benefit for the individual is considered. That is how it is done in Wales.
    Mr. Wigley: There will be no change?
    Mr. Bennett: In that sense, we shall continue to operate as we have in past.
    Although I understand the Opposition's arguments in support of the amendments, I do not, of course, accept them. They would emasculate the Bill. Our purpose in proposing a general reduction in community charges is to give charge payers the benefit of switching a part of the burden which at present falls on them to national taxation. Those who are eligible for community charge benefit will get a proportionate reduction in the amount that they pay.
    The effect of applying the resources that we propose to use to hold down charges generally to improve the benefit scheme would be to extend the taper right up the income scale. Hon. Members will be able to judge the effect if I say that the cost of the community charge benefit in the current year for the entire United Kingdom is in the region of £1 billion, which assists 10 million charge payers. If all the £4·3 billion net cost of the measures that we have announced were applied to improving the benefit scheme, many millions more would qualify for benefit and the situation would become extremely complicated and

    919
    expensive. That would leave less money available for distribution, as it would be swallowed up in extra administrative costs.
    How much better, therefore, to take the course that we propose, of reducing headline charges throughout Great Britain, and improving the community charge reduction scheme in England and Scotland, so that all charge payers will pay less, including those who are eligible for community charge benefit.
    Mr. Win Griffiths rose——
    Mr. Bennett: I have finished, so the hon. Gentleman can make a speech.
    Mr. Griffiths: I did not intend to make a speech, but wanted to ask the Minister a question. Perhaps he will take the opportunity later to answer it.
    At the beginning of his speech, the Minister emphasised that we should all be grateful that the £140 flat rate relief will be applied in Wales on top of the other benefits that already accrue, which try to minimise the damage inflicted on people by the poll tax. That generous money to be given to the people will be taken from them in the first place through the additional 2·5 per cent. on VAT.
    The Minister has told us about the great things that have been achieved for the people of Wales. Can he tell us exactly how much the flat rate relief will be and how much the Treasury expects to gather from Wales as a result of the increase in VAT? It would be interesting to know the relevant figures to assess whether the people will enjoy any benefit or whether, as the Financial Times said the day after the announcement, the electorate are being bribed with their own money.
    Mr. Paul Flynn: The Minister was rather ungracious when he accused my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy) of not complimenting the Secretary of State.
    One could also accuse the Minister of ungraciousness, because we are a little puzzled that low or nil community charges in Wales are not mentioned. Garw valley has set a nil community charge, but all we have heard about is Wandsworth and its prudent local authority. A low community charge in Wales is credited not to the prudence of a local authority, but to the Secretary of State. The Government should pay tribute to the good sense that Welsh local authorities have displayed over the years.
    The other problem that has been skated over during the debate, and that will cause great furore when the bills finally arrive, is the foolish decision to have a different transitional system in Wales. It will then become apparent that, with the present reductions, the difference between neighbours will be greater proportionally than it was originally. For reasons best known to themselves, officials at the Welsh Office decided to give the benefit not to individuals but to areas. There is rough justice in that decision if the area is homogeneous—all a valley area, or all a rural area—but it becomes distorted in areas that are a mixture of urban and rural, as in my constituency.
    What happens to the arithmetic then is that, because the old farmsteads and cottages in the country areas were de-rated and had low ratable values, when officials studied rates in farming areas, they found that they were low. As a result, in the rural wards in my constituency, which are
    920
    some of the most prosperous, virtually everyone receives a handsome rebate, but in council estates in the urban areas, which are the poorest, people receive no rebates.
    I know of dramatic examples where the difference between the charges for people in streets of identical houses is £50. With the new lower rate of community charge, that difference will become even more marked.
    A time bomb is ticking under the Welsh Office, and Ministers will discover the ferocity of the voters' feelings in the election. Voters will put up with a great deal—with high charges and all the nonsense and waste of Government—but they will not put up with unfairness. The system as it operates in Newport East, Newport West and many other constituencies in Wales is grossly unfair.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: I shall briefly answer the extra remarks that have been made. The hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) referred to the Secretary of State and asked why there had been no praise for Welsh local authorities. The reason why local authorities have such low charges in Wales is entirely due to the fact that the percentage that is given by the Welsh Office in aggregate external finance in the coming year will be 92 per cent. of their total expenditure. If it were left to local authorities, charges would be much lower.
    Wandsworth did not get the sort of aggregate external finance that is being given by the Welsh Office to local government in Wales. If one studies the figures for external financing of Wandsworth, and compares it with those for Lambeth, Hackney, Manchester and Tower Hamlets, one will find that they all received more than Wandsworth.
    A remark was made about VAT and the cost to the Exchequer. However, a couple who are receiving £280 would have to spend £13,000 on VAT-rated goods in the coming year before they were out of pocket. That is the difference.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Bennett: No. We could go on all night.
    Mr. Banks: We cannot—we can only go on until half past two.
    Mr. Bennett: Yes, but there are other debates that hon. Members want to take part in.
    Hon. Members also referred to the transitional relief scheme, which is now the community charge reduction scheme in Wales, and said that it was a foolish decision. I find that strange when, only last year, local authority associations were applauding the Government for having a separate system in Wales; that meant that there were no administration costs, because all the money was diverted straight to the community charge payer.
    Last year, community charge payers in Wales benefited to the tune of £20 million. This year, due to the work of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in discussions with the Treasury, that will increase to £62 million, which means that two thirds of the people of Wales will receive a community charge reduction in their benefit this year, and 612 out of 865 communities will benefit.
    I accept that there is an element of rough justice in that, but we also accept that it means that all the money that was available for the reduction scheme will be sent direct to the charge payers and none will be swallowed up in administration. The fact that we gave a much larger percentage of our local government expenditure finance from the centre—92 per cent.—that the scheme was devoid

    921
    of any administration costs and that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has decided upon a £140 reduction for Wales, as well as for England, are all measures that the people of Wales recognise. They are grateful for the fact that the Secretary of State has fought so hard for Wales and has achieved such a magnificent result.
    Mr. Murphy: The Bill would not be emasculated if the Government accepted the amendments. Seeking to ensure that people are taken out of the poverty trap is by no means a bad idea.
    On the issue of transitional relief, the Minister is now aware that the local authority associations in Wales have changed their minds about the value of the scheme and realise the anomalies that my hon. Friends have outlined. The most interesting part of the Minister's speech was his unlikely use of the word "congratulate", when he said that we should congratulate the Government on what has happened.
    Do we congratulate the Secretary of State and his hon. Friends on introducing the tax in Wales in the first place? Do we congratulate them on squandering £10 million to set it up and an extra £10 million to administer it? Do we congratulate them on having £80 million-worth of sweetners that would have been totally unnecessary if the tax had been a decent one in the first place? Do we congratulate them on the fact that local authorities in Wales will have to raise, by way of loans, at least £100 million in the next few months to overcome their cash flow problems, and on the fact that £1 million of that will be necessary to repay the debt and to administer what has happened?
    There is no case for congratulation whatsover in connection with the poll tax in Wales. Indeed, the people of Wales can see through all this, which will be one of the main reasons why the Government will be turfed out throughout the United Kingdom, and especially in the Principality, at the forthcoming general election.
    Amendment negatived.
    1.45 am
    Mr. O'Brien: I beg to move amendment No. 14, in page 1, line 5, leave out from 'amount' to second 'for' in line 7 and insert
    'payable by any person after allowance for any rebate or other reduction in respect of a personal community charge'.
    The First Deputy Chairman: With this, it will be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 26, in clause 3, page 3, line 14, leave out from first 'amount' to 'the' in line 15 and insert
    'payable by any person after allowance for any rebate or other reduction in respect of a personal community charge for'.
    No. 30, in clause 3, page 3, line 17, leave out 'authority is' and insert
    'charge is in respect of'.
    No. 31, in clause 3, page 3, line 18, leave out 'authority is' and insert
    'charge is in respect of'.
    No. 46, in clause 3, page 3, line 19, leave out 'authority is' and insert
    'charge is in respect of'.
    Mr. O'Brien: It is apt that we should be discussing these amendments following the speech of the Under-Secretary of State for Wales.
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    If amendment No. 14 is passed, clause 1 would read
    "The amount payable by any person after allowance for any rebate or other reduction in respect of a personal community charge for the 1991 financial year shall, by virtue of this section, be reduced by £140 or such lesser sum as will reduce the amount to £0."
    The Minister said that, because of the work of the Secretary of State for Wales, poll tax payers in the Principality are to be granted the benefit of the £140 reduction in addition to the other benefits to which people might be entitled because of their circumstances. We have been advised that they will receive the best of all worlds.
    The amendment seeks to ensure that the same principle and the same rebates apply to the rest of the United Kingdom. Although Ministers and Conservative Members voted to reject the amendment that was so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), it is difficult to understand how they can reject this amendment because it is a levelling-up exercise. We therefore seek the support of Conservative Members if they believe in fairness and equality between poll tax payers throughout the United Kingdom. We have been told more than once that there will be some benefit for people who are paying 20 per cent. of their poll tax under the present system. If the amendment were accepted, it would ensure that people on income support, those on low income and those on low fixed pensions would benefit considerably. The amendment would ensure fairness for everyone paying poll tax.
    I call on Conservative Members to have due regard for the principles embodied in amendment No. 14. In view of the points made in the debate on the previous set of amendments, it is difficult to see why the Minister could not accept the amendment and agree to fairness applying throughout the United Kingdom. Therefore, I appeal to the House to accept the amendment.
    Mr. Tony Banks: As no one else wishes to speak, I may as well put in my fourpenn'orth. This set of amendments is similar to a set which we debated earlier. It highlights the position of those who will not get the £140 reduction in their poll tax but only £28 because they pay only 20 per cent. I could have voted against the whole Bill with a partially easy conscience on the grounds that about 41,000 people in my borough will not get a reduction of £140 but will get only £28 although they will have to pay the full 2·5 per cent. increase in VAT. That is grossly unfair.
    I tried to get in on the chirpy little Under-Secretary of State for Wales when he said that the beneficiaries would have to spend something like £13,000 on VAT-charged goods and services before they ran out of the credit that they had received through the lower poll tax. That might apply to someone who was paying the full poll tax and getting the full rebate, but not to those getting the £28 reduction.
    The point that I wanted to make to the Minister, and which I am sure he would have accepted in his usual fair, impartial and objective fashion, was that someone paying only 20 per cent. of the poll tax and getting the £28 reduction would, after spending £1,100 on VAT-charged goods and services, be losing the value of the £28 reduction. The Treasury would then be making a profit.
    If we were to add all the figures, I suspect that we would find that the Treasury will make a profit out of the whole damned thing anyway. It will depend on the resurgence in retail sales and services. I should not be surprised if the

    923
    Government got back more in the 2·5 per cent. increase in VAT than the £4·3 billion that they are paying out to bring the poll tax down by £140.
    The 40,000 people in my constituency and many hundreds of thousands in Wales and the rest of the country who are on income support and who are paying 20 per cent. of the poll tax will find themselves out of pocket because of the Government's proposal. That is why I could fairly easily have voted against the Bill. The Secretary of State said earlier that there is no VAT on essential things like food. That is true at the moment, but pressures are building up for us to levy VAT on food. That will put the people at the lowest level of income in real trouble.
    Mr. Maxton: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there is no VAT on most basic foods, but VAT is levied on foods which especially the children of poor families buy, such as crisps, sweets and lemonade.
    Mr. Banks: I accept that point. Many kids in low-income families subsist on the unhealthy diet that my hon. Friend has described. That is a double tragedy for them, but it has to be taken into account.
    The figures provided by the Library show that the poorest 10 per cent. spend 9·2 per cent. of their income on VAT-charged goods and services, while the richest 10 per cent. spend only 5·7 per cent. of their income on such goods and services. Once again, this measure falls disproportionately on the poorest people. The Minister proposes a regressive tax, so we cannot be grateful to him for the formula that is being devised.
    I hope that the Minister will see just how unfair the measure is. I hope that he appreciates that among all the inequalities of the poll tax, the 20 per cent. charge for the poorest people in our communities is the most invidious of all. He did not accept the earlier amendments to deal with that, but perhaps he will change his mind. Changing their minds seems to be something that the Government do as regularly as they change their underpants—or, looking at some of them, perhaps even more regularly.
    Mr. Harry Barnes: The 20 per cent. minimum payment should certainly be removed. If not, some of the exemptions in the poll tax legislation will be removed. Some people who were exempt will now have to pay extra VAT. Some of them may be able to afford to pay more. For some peculiar reason, the overseas forces do not pay the poll tax but will have to pay the extra VAT. Diplomats, who could presumably afford it, do not pay the poll tax and nor do people in prison, unless they are in prison for non-payment of the poll tax.
    Some groups of people deserve to be exempt from the poll tax but will have to pay the extra VAT. They include groups such as tramps and vagrants, who presumably sometimes spend money on VAT-rated goods. The Government finally agreed to make monks and nuns exempt, on the grounds that they took vows of poverty. Some may take vows of poverty but others have poverty thrust upon them, especially by the actions of the Government. The same principle that applied to monks and nuns should have applied to other groups.
    One group worthy of consideration is the severely mentally handicapped. They are excluded from the poll tax but will pay full VAT. Apart from monks and nuns, the groups that I have mentioned were excluded because they were also excluded from electoral registration. The quaint principle of accountability is the fault in the measure which
    924
    led to the anomaly. The severely physically handicapped, who might be in as poor circumstances as the severely mentally handicapped, need as much money and resources spent on them and as much assistance. Therefore, they have good grounds of hardship and need for social provision to be exempted. Yet they are not excluded, although the severely mentally handicapped are. The difference is in relation to electoral registration.
    Yet the severely mentally handicapped will still be first to pay not only the VAT but, when we move towards the new legislation, presumably the new property tax. We do not know whether the new poll tax amount will be based on the principles of the existing poll tax or whether son of poll tax will be based on a fresh provision and the severely mentally handicapped will come within the exemptions in that legislation.
    Mr. Maxton: If a physically handicapped person lives in his own house and tries to look after himself, he has to pay the poll tax, but if he is in a long-stay hospital or home he does not have to pay it.
    Mr. Barnes: In addition to that, severely handicapped people have to pay the full VAT. There is nothing in the Bill to tackle that problem, so we are bound to he concerned lest those who were not paying anything previously are called on to pay under the Bill.
    Mr. Tony Banks: My hon. Friend described monks and nuns as deserving cases who are exempt from paying the poll tax. Considering that they vote and use local authority services, why are they exempted?
    Mr. Barnes: Various categories of people were added as the poll tax legislation proceeded through Parliament. The lobby in favour of monks and nuns pointed out that they took vows of poverty and should be excluded. The exemption crept in and cut across the principle that it had to be related to the electoral register. An interesting piece of legislation, the Caldey Island Act 1990, linked the electoral register and the poll tax register. It was discovered that on Caldey island there were monks and fishermen who were not on the electoral register. Many of them were not on the poll tax register either, so a special measure had to be introduced to sort matters out.
    I recall that the Minister missed the boat one evening when the Caldey Island Bill, as it then was, came before the House.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: He failed to turn up?
    Mr. Barnes: He missed the boat, although it was probably outside the door.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Another bit of monkey business.
    Mr. Barnes: There are increasing indications, from the Home Office circulars, remarks by electoral registration officers, the Caldey Island Act and other measures, that there is an intricate link between electoral registration and poll tax, and it must go.
    Scottish Ministers say, "All must pay the poll tax," while Welsh and English Ministers say, "Most must pay the poll tax." They must get that sorted out. Only when we get rid of the principle on which the poll tax is based shall we overcome some of the many social problems of which my hon. Friends have spoken.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Robert Key): I never cease to wonder at

    925
    the chirpiness of debates at this time of night, particularly the chirpiness of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). It is a pleasure to have him with us at this late hour. It is also a pleasure for me to be in the company again of the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien). About 14 hours ago, he and I were debating upstairs a rating issue which had everything to do with double counting. In a sense, we are also discussing a problem of double counting here.
    The hon. Member for Normanton opened by saying that he was interested in extending the fairness and equality of the system. I am a bit puzzled by his suggestion that the amendments level up the English position to that in Wales. The amendments would mean that the £140 reduction would apply not to the headline charge but to the amount of liability of the charge payer. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales has just explained, the £140 reduction in Wales applies to the headline charge, just as it does in England.
    I think that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West understands the amendments and asked who would benefit from the reduction that we have introduced. We have always made it clear that charges everywhere will be reduced by £140, except where the original charge set is less than £140, as in Wandsworth, where the charge will be reduced to zero. The charge set by the authority is being reduced, and where a charge payer pays that charge, the amount that he pays will be reduced by £140. Where a charge payer pays only a proportion of that charge, the reduction in the amount that he pays will be a proportion of £140. It is a complete misrepresentation to present that system as meaning that those charge payers are losing out.
    Mr. Harry Barnes: They lose out compared with people who already gain under the poll tax. In Derbyshire, some people have gained considerable amounts of money. The authority has been poll tax capped, so they have gained another £55, and now they are to gain another £140. Some people are doing very well, but those at the other end are doing desperately badly.
    Mr. Key: I suppose that that partly explains the problem that Members such as the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) have with any income tax cuts, because the same is true there. The more someone earns, the more income tax he pays, and the more he benefits from any reduction. I accept that point—it depends which end of the telescope one looks through.
    Mr. Battle rose——
    Mr. Tony Banks rose——
    Mr. Key: I must get on, because I must answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East, and I shall certainly not give way to an hon. Member who has not bothered to be here for the debate.
    The amendments' purpose is to provide that the reduction of £140 in the community charge effected by the Bill is made, not from the headline charge, as the Government intend, but from the liability of each charge payer, after relief under the community charge reduction scheme and community charge benefit has been calculated. The net result would be that a substantial number of charge payers would pay nothing in 1991–92.
    926
    The Bill's purpose is to reduce headline charges. It follows from our decision to shift a substantial part of the burden currently borne by the community charge payer to the national taxpayer. It is not the Bill's aim to ensure that all charge payers should pay £140 less than would otherwise have been the case. The Bill provides generous relief. Under the community charge reduction scheme we have provided relief for former ratepayers who had been especially affected by the move to the community charge. Yesterday, my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities announced substantial improvements to the scheme. For those charge payers on low incomes we have also provided community charge benefit. It is perfectly reasonable that eligibility for relief under the reduction scheme and for benefit should be calculated after, not before, the deduction of £140.
    Mr. Banks: I have one simple question at eight minutes past two in the morning: who is paying for the services that are being received by the people of Wandsworth? It clearly is not the people of Wandsworth.
    Mr. Key: It is being paid for by taxpayers, the hon. Gentleman's constituents, my constituents and, above all, the residents of Wandsworth who, over many years, have invested in their local government services.
    The amendment would exempt not just 20 per centers, as they have been called, but many more people who fall into a category above that benefit. The important factor is that, in the past, we have taken too much taxation locally, and we are now redressing the balance. As we have said, our aim is to achieve average charges of about £175.
    The amendment is not justified. The Bill, with the community charge reduction scheme and community charge benefit, form a generous and substantial package which will reduce the average charge payable next year to less than £175. I urge the Committee to reject the amendment.
    Mr. O'Brien: I asked the Minister to bring about equality between poll tax payers in the Principality of Wales and those in the rest of the United Kingdom. The Under-Secretary of State for Wales said that a person in Wales who receives the benefit of the community charge reduction scheme could also receive transitional benefit and the £140 relief. If people in the English counties and the metropolitan areas receive the benefit of the community charge reduction scheme and transitional relief, why should they not also have the benefit of the £140? The bottom line would be the same.
    The Minister has not convinced anyone that there should not be special consideraton for people who pay 20 per cent. of the charge. People who deserve the largest slice of the £4·5 billion will not get it, and the amendment seeks to rectify that. The people who should benefit most from that money are those who are on income support. The Minister did not address that, and I ask him to reconsider. Instead of appealing to the Committee to reject the amendment, he should tell his hon. Friends to support it, because it would benefit people on low incomes. They should be given fair and full consideration.
    Amendment negatived
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 6, after 'personal', insert 'or standard'.
    The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Harold Walker): With this it will be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 3, in page, 1, line 10, after `personal', insert 'or standard'.
    No. 4, in page 1, line 20, after 'personal', insert 'or standard'.
    No. 6, in clause 3, page 3. line 15, after 'personal', insert `or standard'.
    No. 7, in clause 3, page 3, line 20, after 'personal', insert `or standard'.
    No. 8, in clause 3, page 3, line 22, after 'personal', insert `or standard'.
    No. 10, in clause 3, page 4, line 4, after 'personal', insert 'or standard'.
    Mr. Beith: I shall be brief, because, in answers to questions that I put to him, the Secretary of State seemed to dispose of the matters that I sought to clarify by tabling this amendment. If the Minister can answer yes to my questions, we can quickly get rid of this group of amendments and move to the next one. I tabled these amendments to establish whether standard community charge will be reduced by £140. Secondly, will multiple standard community charge be reduced by the appropriate multiple of £140? Thirdly, will local authorities be fully reimbursed whether for a single or a multiple charge? The Secretary of State's reply to the last question was, "That is correct." What is the answer now to those questions?
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: I am surprised that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) moved this amendment, because his hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Livsey) in the debate on an earlier amendment argued against giving standard community charge payers the reduction. Plainly, the Liberal Democrats need to get their act together.
    I confirm that the answer to the first and second questions posed by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed is yes. The third question does not apply, because in giving authorities the grant in the first place, no account was taken of standard community charge payers. That was a bonus.
    Mr. Beith: Local authorities will find themselves with considerably less money than they thought they had. For example, the borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed will have over £200,000 less than it thought it would have. Some other authorities with many second homes in their areas will suddenly find that, because of the reduction in the charges, they will have a great deal less money to meet the cost of services at a time when they can no longer increase their charge to compensate. Will the Minister explain what they are supposed to do?
    Mr. Bennett: We did not include in the standard spending assessment the fact that they would have the advantage of charging up the two multipliers on the standard community charge.
    Mr. Beith: I am grateful to the Minister, but he has not resolved the problem. Local authorities cannot now change their budgets. They are obliged to stick to the level of charge minus the amount by which the Bill will reduce it. They cannot now take account of the fact that they will have £250,000 less than they expected. Therefore, the Bill creates a difficulty that it cannot resolve. The Minister has given an answer that is different from that given by the
    928
    Secretary of State. I asked him whether authorities would be reimbursed, and he said that that was correct. The Minister has one last opportunity to clear up the matter.
    Mr. Bennett: They will be reimbursed. The point is that the SSA that was originally calculated included the fact that authorities would get a bonus from the standard community charge multiplier, but they will be reimbursed, so they get it doubly.
    Mr. Beith: On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    2.15 am
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page line 1, line 9, at end insert—
    '(1A) Where the reduction has taken place by virtue of this section, a charging authority shall have the discretion to issue no demands if, in its judgment, the total amount to be collected from the charge payers as a whole is likely to be exceeded by the cost of collecting the charge.'.
    The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean): With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 9, in clause 3, page 3, line 24, at end
    insert—
    '(2A) Where the reduction has taken place by virtue of this section, a local authority shall have the discretion to issue no demands if, in its judgment, the total amount to be collected from the charge payers as a whole is likely to be exceeded by the cost of collecting the charge.'.
    Mr. Beith: The amendments are intended to make it possible for a local authority to avoid being obliged to issue a community charge demand, even though the amount of money raised by doing so would be less than the cost of collecting it. Because of the circumstances of the Bill, the local authority has no discretion. If the authority had found that, because of the favourable grant, it needed to raise only £2, £3, £10 or £12 by way of poll tax, then it would probably have decided not to levy a poll tax at all. Some authorities will be levying very small poll taxes because of the Bill. A number of authorities, including Westminster, have come to the conclusion that it will cost them more to collect the money than they would obtain from collection. It cannot make sense to waste money in that way, and the Government cannot be encouraging them to do so.
    The purpose of the amendments is to avoid such waste.In our debate on the money resolution last night, the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, who is so fond of the poll tax, argued that local authorities could ask the district auditor what he thought about this, and if he said, "It's all right, don't worry, I shan't trouble you," they could avoid collecting the amounts involved. That is not a satisfactory basis on which to proceed. The Minister has tipped the wink, the district auditor has given a nod, and the authority does not have to send out the bills.
    In a world in which local authorities have found themselves plunged into illegality when they conscientiously engaged in swap deals, one cannot tell local authority treasurers, "Don't worry, you won't get into trouble, I have had a word with the district auditor and he has promised that he will not take you to court." That is not a reasonable basis on which to proceed. Surely Ministers do not want the collection machinery set into motion when less will be raised than the cost of the collection.

    929
    Ministers are apt to say that the cost of collection is only the cost of sending the bills out—that is, the printing, postage and stamp time involved in the distribution of the bills. That is not so. A local authority cannot send out a series of bills without thereby committing itself to using its best efforts to get the money in. That means going beyond the first bill, to the reminder, and right along the road to the bailiffs and court proceedings. The Minister would be the first to admit that it would be an irresponsible local authority which issued a bill without intending to secure payment of that bill by using the powers at its disposal. Ministers would strongly criticise any local authority which sent out bills without any serious intention of collecting the money.
    Therefore, I ask the Minister to accept the amendment, unless he can show that there is some other, absolutely clear way in which a local authority, in good faith, judging that the amount to be collected is less than the cost of collecting, can avoid sending out bills.
    Mr. Key: One of the problems is the wide variation in efficiency of collection by local authorities. If all local authorities were equally efficient at collection, we should be in a different ball game, but there is a huge variation. The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), was right last night when speaking to the money resolution to point out the importance of the auditor. The issue cannot be ducked. If a local authority honestly believes that it would be more expensive to go ahead and collect, it is absolutely right if it decides to approach the auditor to find out whether he agrees, but there are also other ways of approaching the problem.
    The amendments are designed to ensure that, when an authority reduces its charges by virtue of the requirements of the Bill, it need not issue charge bills for the residual amounts, if it considers that the cost of collecting them is likely to be greater than the yield of the reduced charges. The amendments are unnecessary. The existing legislation already permits an authority to achieve what they seek. Incidentally, the amendments could also lead to a deficit in an authority's collection fund, which would create a serious problem.
    If an authority's charges, after allowing for the reduction required by the Bill, were comparitively small—possibly only a few pounds—it might consider that it was not worth collecting the amounts concerned, thereby saving it the administrative expense of so doing. The correct course then for the authority would not be not to issue bills for the reduced amount, as the amendments propose. That would run the risk of creating a deficit in the collection fund, since estimated income and outgoings would be out of kilter. What such an authority could do would be to reduce its charges to £140 by making an appropriate reduction in its budget—that is, its demand on the collection fund—and then setting substitute charges under section 35 of the Local Government Act 1988, thus passing on the reduction. The provisions of the Bill would then bite by reducing those charges to zero. If one wished to reset the budget downwards, it would simply be a question of giving seven days' notice, having a full council meeting and passing a single resolution. It is not a lengthy affair. That is another reason why I urge the Committee to reject the amendments.
    Mr. Beith: The Minister made great play of the deficit in the collection account. I am worried about the deficit in the collection account that will occur if a local authority attempts to collect a charge which yields less than the cost of collecting it. The Minister has set out alternatives. I am not very happy about the idea of a quiet word with the district auditor. It puts local authorities in precisely the position in which they found themselves over swap deals. Which district auditor warned local authorities that they could not safely engage in swap deals without risking the whole system becoming unstitched in the courts which, as the Minister knows full well, it clearly did? The only alternative is that which he has set out—in the few days now available immediately to call a meeting to reduce the charge to £140 and thereby get down to zero.
    If a local authority takes that course, I hope that it will not then be criticised by Ministers for delaying the issue of bills. It is an extraordinary fact that local authorities cannot move without being subjected to criticism. On the understanding, nevertheless, that that is a course which they can reasonably take, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. O'Brien: I beg to move amendment No. 20, in page 1, line 9, at end insert—
    '(1A) The Secretary of State shall within one month of the relevant day lay before Parliament his estimate of the number of persons for whom the actual level of payment for which they are liable in respect of the personal community charge in the 1991 financial year will not be reduced by £140 from the actual payment for which they were liable before the relevant day.'.
    We have heard statements about those who will be eligible for the £140 reduction in their poll tax bills due to the 2·5 per cent. increase in value added tax. There are substantial differences in the numbers of people we are told will receive the benefit. Amendment No. 20 would help to clear up the confusion.
    We are asking that the number of people whose poll tax will not be reduced by £140 in the financial year 1991–92 be stated. If those people who are in most urgent need of assistance are to be helped, information of this kind ought to be available. The purpose of our constructive amendment is to improve the Bill in that way. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will accept it.
    Mr. Portillo: I do not think that there is any need to amend the Bill in order that this information might be made available. It is always open to hon. Members to seek information in all sorts of ways.
    As the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) knows, the £.140 comes off the headline community charge figure. If people get less than £140, it will be because they are receiving some other type of help. They may benefit from community charge reduction and thereby pay little more than the amount of their rates bill; or they may be on benefit, in which case they pay perhaps only one fifth, or some larger fraction, of the community charge; or they may be students, in which case they pay only 20 per cent. of the community charge in any case. People may already receive help for any one of those reasons. Those who pay the full charge will get a reduction of £140, and others will get a reduction of less than £140 in what their bills would have been. In the latter case, the figure is less than £140 only because such people already get help in another way against the full charge.

    931
    I may be able to help the hon. Gentleman by telling him what the figures are likely to be. We estimate that, as a result of this Bill, 13 million charge payers in England will pay £140 less than they expected to pay. The remaining 22·5 million will also pay less, but the amount of their reduction, on account of the Bill on its own, will be lower than £140. As I have said, the figure will depend on entitlement to relief under the community charge reduction scheme and benefit.
    As has been said, 16 million people will benefit from the community charge reduction scheme. Of those, about eight million are brought into the scheme as a result of yesterday's announcement. In Scotland, about 2·5 million people will get a reduction of £140. About 1·25 million will get less than that. Of those, 600,000 are on the community charge reduction scheme. In Wales, where the reduction scheme operates on a different basis, the £140 will be received by everyone, except students and those who are on benefit. That comes to almost 600,000, out of the 2·14 million community charge payers in Wales.
    I hope that that information is helpful to the Committee. It certainly obviates any need to amend the Bill.
    Mr. Blunkett: We should point out to the Minister that the statement that he made on Monday evening in the debate on the money resolution has caused havoc to local authority administration, computer software and billing proposals. The Government cannot have realised, and certainly the Department of the Environment did not advise them of, the enormity of the changes in what appeared to be a small and inconsequential announcement late on a Monday evening. The results of that could be as large as the difficulties facing local authorities in the process of reassessing and re-billing people under the Bill that we are debating tonight.
    Because the figure of 8 million, 16 million, once upon a time 18 million, people who were supposed to be entitled to rebates under the community charge reduction scheme is now in such doubt, it is important that, even at this late hour, as we reach 2.30 am and come, like Cinderella, to the point where the coach turns back into a pumpkin and the white horses turn back into mice—an appropriate analogy——
    It being half-past Two o'clock, MR DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Order yesterday, to put forthwith the Qustion already proposed from the Chair.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER then proceeded, pursuant to the Order yesterday, to put forthwith the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be included.
    Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 2 to 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith, pursuant to the Order yesterday, and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at to-morrow's sitting, Mr. Speaker shall not adjourn the House until any Lords Message relating to the Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill which may be received shall have been disposed of.—[Mr. Nicholas Baker.]

Baltic States
Motion made,and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Nicholas Baker.]
2.32 am
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: The debate arises at an appropriate time, although, judging from the exit of various hon. Members, they are not prepared to listen to the problems of the Baltic states.
This is not the first time that I have applied for such an Adjournment debate, but I use the word "appropriate" because it follows hard upon the heels of a visit paid by the hon. Members for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) and myself to the Baltic states between 10 and 15 March. Both those hon. Members hope to intervene briefly before the Minister replies.
All three of us would like to place on record our gratitude to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the way in which it facilitated our visit, and we hope to give an extensive briefing to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the results of our visit and fact-finding mission.
We would also like to place on record our thanks to our hosts in Riga, Vilnius and Tallinn. We all found the visit extremely informative and we were impressed by the fortitude and determination of the people we met there. We were also made acutely aware of the oppression which exists in the three states—physical oppression which we could witness through the presence of tanks and Soviet troops, the economic pressure under which many people exist, and the hidden, but perhaps more insidious, pressures being exerted on those fragile democracies by their larger neighbour, the Soviet Union.
My viewpoint and that of my party is that the west should have no hesitation in recognising the three states as independent in their own right. After all, we never did recognise the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement of 1940 and now we should recognise de facto the decisions being taken by the peoples of those states to declare themselves independent nations.
I want to make six points, all of which arise from our findings on our visit, and all of which are intended to encourage President Gorbachev and other representatives of the Soviet Union to come to the negotiating table and, during that process, to assist the people of those three states in a practical way.
If it is not possible for the British Government—or, indeed, other western Governments—to grant immediate official recognition to the three states, the west should make a clear statement that the Soviet Union is placing obstacles in the way of the Baltic states' work towards independence, and that that contravenes the rights of nations to self-determination under international law.
The Minister will be aware of the "Charter of Paris for a New Europe", completed in November 1990. Page 1 clearly spells out that
"Democratic government is based on the will of the people, expressed regularly through free and fair elections. Democracy has as its foundation respect for the human person and the rule of law."
By any democratic yardstick, the people of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have expressed their clear wish to be recognised as independent nations within the community of the world.
The issue should be taken into the international community, given our respect for international law. There

933
are facilities for the Government, through the various international forums, to ensure that the future of the Baltic states is placed firmly on the international agenda. We should also state clearly that technical aid and economic credits are conditional on the Soviet Union's willingness to engage in dialogue and negotiation with the elected Governments of the Baltic republics.
During our visit, it was made clear to us that many people believed that further bloodshed would have occurred following the killings in Vilnius and Riga had the European Community not expressed its willingness to withdraw technical aid at that stage. That willingness should be reiterated. Surely none of us would tolerate circumstances in which people were threatened, and their lives taken, because of their beliefs in their country and their right to have their own Government.
Thirdly, I believe that the states would be helped by the establishment of reciprocal information centres to promote trade and cultural links. That was emphasised by all the members we met. It is clear that the legal status of such centres could be variable, but they could eventually adopt full diplomatic status at the appropriate stage. It would mean a great deal to the three countries if such centres were established.
Fourthly, an attempt is now being made, under the auspices of the Nordic Council, to hold an international conference to deal specifically with the issue of the Baltic states. It is, after all, one of the unresolved questions of the last world war, and such a conference would be extremely helpful. It has been suggested that it should be a parliamentary rather than a governmental conference, but I hope that the British Government will look favourably on the idea. The conference could provide a framework for dialogue between the Baltic states and the Soviet Union, with Denmark and Iceland in particular cast in the role of mediators.
Fifthly, there is the question of practical assistance to the states. That should cover such questions as how we can assist educational institutions such as universities and colleges, how we can help the people to build up a knowledge of legal systems and human rights, how we can help them to build up trade and commerce, to establish communications with the outside world and, indeed, to arrange exchange visits with our Parliament. Many people there want to come here, meet hon. Members and discuss how we operate and what advice we can offer.
It is important that some of the know-how funds established by the Government for the emerging eastern and central European democracies should be earmarked for the Baltic states. We met representatives of all the political parties in the three countries. We must remember that they are talking about what they have called a black hole of democracy. The political parties have to educate people to understand the meaning of differences between political parties and how important it is to exercise a democratic vote. The earmarking of some of the funds would do a great deal to assist those very brave politicians who are trying so hard to establish democracy against a background of overwhelming threat from the Soviet Union.
I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to some of my comments. There is a great deal more about which we, as the representatives of Parliament
934
who visited the Baltic states, can talk. However, an Adjournment debate does not give us sufficient time to do so.
2.40 am
Mr. Quentin Davies rose——
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Does the hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) have the consent of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and of the Minister?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg)indicated assent.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing indicated assent.
Mr. Davies: I endorse the analysis of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), who I accompanied with the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) to the Baltic republics, and her suggestions. We were greatly impressed by the enormous sense of the indomitable human spirit that one encounters in the three countries. After 50 years of apparently overwhelming propaganda and the most brutal repression, the determination of the countries to achieve their national independence again, and their pride and patriotism, have been utterly unextinguished and undimmed. We were also impressed by the tremendous human courage displayed by the people in the three countries, especially in Lithuania during the events in January, when the people literally interposed their bodies between Soviet tanks and their Parliament, which is the symbol of their re-emergent democracy.
I know that the Government remain hopeful that Mr. Gorbachev and the Kremlin leadership will begin to negotiate with the republics on moves towards genuine independence. For a host of reasons into which I will not go now, I have little confidence that there is much prospect of such meaningful negotiation beginning in the forseeable future. However, in those circumstances, the right policy is for the Government, by gradual measures, to encourage the three states to expand the area of their de facto independence so that there is a general sense of inexorable movement in the direction that all of us must feel is right.
2.42 am
Mr. Paul Flynn rose——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) have the consent of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and of the Minister?
Mr. Douglas Hogg indicated assent.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing indicated assent.
Mr. Flynn: I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Members for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies). The story from the visit which haunts me is the one that was told to us by one of the Members of Parliament in Lithuania about her aged parents. She explained to us why she felt so strongly. Like many other people we met there, her parents had spent time in the gulags. They had been robbed of their childhood. When the coup d'etat, which failed, took place in Vilnius, the mother told the father, "This time you must go down. If anyone should die, it should be old people such as you. We need our young people to build the new,

935
free Lithuania." The picture of that frail 70-year-old man challenging the brute force of the tanks with his stick is powerful.
We saw the free, democratically elected Parliaments. There was an affront to all our values because the Parliaments operate behind brick walls, barricades and armed guards. The threat to them is the alien forces of panzer communism. Sadly, we must now take the view from the news even today that glasnost is in its twilight. We must also acknowledge that the situation in the three countries is not stable.
There is likely to be conflict, and we must look to our own history, to our links with those countries and to the feelings that those countries have towards ours, and we must remember the 50 terrible years in which the flower of the nation has been abused, deported and killed in great numbers and in which the worst of the nation have been elevated to privileged positions. Their language has been degraded, but, despite that, the spirit of those three small nations has survived and is enjoying a new spring. It is possible, however, that that spirit could be trampled down again by the forces of Moscow.
I agree with everything that has been said by the hon. Members for Moray and for Stamford and Spalding. When that conflict comes, we must ensure that we have established links at every level that, if possible, bypasses Moscow. We should establish links on a parliamentary level but also on a non-governmental level which incorporate voluntary and religious groups. We must ensure that those links with the Baltic states are direct. When the new conflict arises, there is no way in which this country and Parliament can remain neutral.
2.45 am
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hogg): Despite the lateness of the hour, I am glad that the hon. Members for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) and for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) have raised the question of the Baltic states. I am also grateful to the kind words of the hon. Lady on the briefing and assistance that she received from the Foreign Office—I shall ensure that officials are aware of those kind words.
I should like to take advantage of the debate to outline in general terms the Government's policy towards the Baltic states, as well as to respond to the specific questions that have been posed. It would be helpful if I summarised the Government's policy towards those states and our policy towards the Soviet Union's own policy to the Baltic states.
I should make it clear that the United Kingdom Government have never accepted the legality of the incorporation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union. As the hon. Lady said, that was a clear act of aggression, and the three republics were sovereign, independent states at the time of their incorporation.
Although we never recognised as lawful the incorporation of the Baltic republics into the Union, one must accept as a matter of de facto law that the republics are part of the Soviet Union. Although we have recognised that fact, we also assert their right to self-determination. But, if we are realistic about this, we must accept that the right to self-determination can only be effectively achieved
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through genuine and free negotiation between the Soviet Union and the republics. The outcome will necessarily depend upon those negotiations.
The outcome may be full independence, or some form of autonomy that falls short of that. It is not for us to prescribe or seek to prescribe the outcome of those negotiations. Out interest and duty is to try to secure free and bona fide negotiations between the Soviet Union and the republics. Their purpose must be to try to devise a genuine, consensual and long-lasting solution to the problems that the hon. Lady has outlined.
For about two years up to January 1991, there were grounds for optimism. Genuine elections were held, representative bodies were established, real political freedoms came into existence and there was a real measure of political independence. Then came the killings in January in Latvia and Lithuania, a truly shocking event which the world, the European Community and the United Kingdom in particular rightly condemned in clear language. Those killings threatened to put into reverse much of the improvement that had been secured in east-west relations during the past five years or so.
Perhaps as a result of the condemnations and criticisms which I have just described, the Soviets held back from any continued force. The hon. Lady was kind enough to suggest that it may have been as a result of the action taken by the world community. In any event, the position has achieved a certain rather menacing stability: elected leaders in the Baltic republics are still in power; the bloodshed in Latvia and Lithuania was not repeated in Estonia; and there is some evidence, although not as much as we would like, that the Russians are seeking negotiations.
Mrs. Ewing: I wish that I could share the hon. and learned Gentleman's optimism about the idea that there is evidence that the Soviet Union will enter into negotiations. We found that attempts were being made by all three Parliaments, Presidents and Prime Ministers to open up negotiations. Organisations have been established. Yet time and time again, the Soviet Union has refused to come to the negotiating table. Does he have any evidence to the contrary?
Mr. Hogg: That is why I expressed my remarks in the way I did. I said that there was some evidence, but I went on to say that it was not very persuasive.
There is some evidence—for example, the remarks that President Gorbachev has made from time to time about his willingness to enter into negotiations and also the appointment of the delegations. However, I am not trying to persuade the Chamber that it is very persuasive evidence, and that is why I qualified my remarks.
To summarise the position thus far, our policy is, first, to press the Soviet Government to enter into genuine negotiations with the three Baltic republics with a view to achieving a genuine, consensual, long-term solution to their claims for political self-determination; and secondly, to make it plain to the Soviet Union that, if there is any recurrence of the military policy action that took place in Latvia and Lithuania earlier this year, it will automatically bring into major question any further improvement of the relations between the Soviet Union and the west. Indeed, I do not see how the Soviet Union could look to the west for any sort of assistance in the event of such action taking place.

937
Thirdly, we must try to build up the links and connections that can be developed between the United Kingdom and the Baltic republics. I shall give some examples. Clearly, the visit paid by the three hon. Members who are now in the Chamber is one. That was extremely welcome. We are trying to expand contacts. For example, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister saw representatives of the Baltic republics when he visited Moscow earlier this month. I have seen the Foreign Ministers of the three Baltic republics since I have been in office—in November last year. The British embassy in Moscow has been building up a fairly extensive programme of visits to the Baltic republics. As the hon. Lady may know, the British Council is hoping to establish an English language training centre in Tallinn. There are other examples of these improving contacts that we should like to develop.
The first specific question that the hon. Lady asked was whether one should use the prospect of economic technical assistance from the European Community as a method of ensuring that the Soviet Union enters into negotiations with the Baltic republics. If the Soviet Union were to use force against the Baltic republics, it is incredible to suppose that the European Community programme would survive. In other words, the use of force would cost the Soviet Union the technical aid programme that is available under the EC scheme.
However, it would not be sensible to use the existence of the EC scheme as a lever to bring the Soviet Union into negotiations with the Baltic republics—for two reasons. First, I doubt whether it would be successful. Secondly, there are free-standing reasons that justify the aid programme. After all, it spreads right across the Soviet Union and brings real benefits to its people. It would not be sensible or desirable from the point of view of the Soviet Union broadly defined to withhold that aid merely because it had not entered into negotiations. The policy is to persuade the Soviet Government to enter into negotiations, but we shall not withhold the EC programme as a sanction if they do not. However, we would use it as a sanction if they used military force in the Baltic republics, but one would have to carry one's EC colleagues with one on that.
The hon. Lady also raised the question of a Nordic conference. I must confess that I cannot help the hon. Lady on this because, although I have made earnest and
938
searching inquiries about the Nordic conference, truth to tell, I can find no evidence that there is about to be one. That may be my fault, but I cannot; that being so, I cannot give the commitments for which the hon. Lady has asked. I am sorry not to be of greater assistance in that regard.
I can be more forthcoming about the information centres. The United Kingdom Government have no plans to open information centres in the Baltic republics although, as I have said, we do have plans to extend our contacts. On the other hand, the Baltic republics themselves are extremely welcome to open information centres in the United Kingdom if that is what they wish—although, clearly, such centres would not have any diplomatic status—and my understanding is that they wish to do so.
There has not been any substantial dispersement of the know-how funds to the Soviet Union. Disbursements are likely to begin after 1 April this year, and it is probable that there will be significant projects from the Baltic republics. We would very much welcome that. However, that is not to say that a specific sum is earmarked for the Baltic republics, but I should be extremely disappointed if substantial portions of the funds available did not go to projects emanating from the Baltic republics. Although I do not think that it was under the auspices of the know-how fund, some work has already been done on, for example, port privatisations in Estonia, and developments of small farm agriculture in Latvia and Lithuania.
The hon. Lady also referred to wider and broader contacts being made with the Baltic republics by the United Kingdom and various of our institutions and organisations. I strongly endorse and support what the hon. Lady said. She made a valuable suggestion, and we shall endeavour to find ways of deepening the relationship. I have already mentioned some of the things that we have done and which we shall continue, such as establishing parliamentary, educational, cultural and commercial contacts. They all build a relationship, which is important not only in terms of the relationship itself, but in improving security for the Baltic republics. The hon. Lady's suggestion is to be adopted and applauded.
I hope that I have covered all the points made in the debate. Finally, I should like to thank the hon. Lady once again for raising this important subject. It is our joint misfortune that it should now be 2.59 in the morning.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Three o'clock.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Sri Lanka
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has as to the number of people who have disappeared in Sri Lanka in the last three years; how many detainees are held by the Sri Lankan Government under emergency laws; what recent representations he has made to the Sri Lankan authorities on human rights abuses; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Reliable information is not available on the number of people who have disappeared or the number of detainees. We continue regularly to raise with the Sri Lankan Government our concerns about their human rights performance and the conduct of their security forces in dealing with the serious terrorist challenge they face.

  Iraq (Humanitarian Assistance)
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what humanitarian assistance Her Majesty's Government are giving to Iraq via the European Community, the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations agencies, and other relief agencies.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Kingdom supports the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations relief agencies in Iraq. This year we have already given £2·5 million to the ICRC's Gulf appeal and US $1 million to the United Nations appeal co-ordinated by UNDRO. In addition, the EC Commission has given £8·75 million to support the relief activities in the Gulf region. The share of this attributable to the United Kingdom's aid budget is £1·75 million. All these funds are available for use in Iraq.

  In the light of reports from the ICRC and United Nations Under-Secretary-General Ahtisaari, the United Nations sanctions committee, with full British support, has now made a general determination that humanitarian circumstances apply with respect to the entire civilian population of Iraq in all parts of Iraq's national territory and that the civilian and humanitarian imports identified in Mr. Ahtisaari's report, which are integrally related to the supply of foodstuffs and supplies intended for medical purposes, should be allowed with immediate effect.

TRANSPORT

  Motorway Lighting
  Dr. Twinn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many miles of motorway there are in England and Wales; and what proportion of these are lit.
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  Mr. Chope
  There are 1,640 miles of trunk motorway in England. About 30 per cent. of this length is lit. The Secretary of State for Wales is responsible for motorways in Wales.

  Air Traffic Distribution
  Mr. Snape
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which British-owned airlines were consulted prior to his recent announcement about traffic distribution rights at Heathrow airport; what steps he took to ensure that airlines flying services from Britain's regional airports could continue to do so; if he has discussed the allocation of Air UK's original slots with the Heathrow airport scheduling committee; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The hon. Member will be able to obtain from the CAA the names of the 54 United Kingdom airlines it consulted prior to offering advice on the need for the London traffic distribution rules. My right hon. and learned Friend explained in his statement of 5 March that removal of the rules did not impose any requirement on the operators of regional services to give up operating at Heathrow, and noted the existence of safeguards against unreasonable discrimination in an airport's trade practice or pricing policy. My right hon. and learned Friend has not discussed with the Heathrow scheduling committee the allocation of slots previously used by Air UK, as the Government are not involved in the slot allocation process.

  Mr. Snape
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from British Northern Airlines about his Heathrow traffic distribution decisions and that airline's application to the Heathrow airport scheduling committee.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My right hon. and learned Friend has received no such representations from British Northern Airlines, although its concern to secure slots at Heathrow has been drawn to our attention by others. That is a matter for discussion between the airlines and the Heathrow scheduling committee.

  Mr. Snape
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will review his decision on allocation of airlines to Heathrow in the light of the refusal by the Heathrow airport scheduling committee to allocate the slots previously used by Air UK to British Northern Airlines.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My right hon. and learned Friend has no plans to review his decision to remove restrictions on access to Heathrow. The allocation of slots at the airport is the responsibility of the scheduling committee, which follows guidelines drawn up by the International Air Transport Association. The Government are not involved in the allocation process.

  Holidaymakers (Consumer Protection)
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what discussions he has had with the Association of British Travel Agents over extending consumer protection for all holidaymakers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Consumer protection matters in general, including package holidays, are for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; I
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  understand that the Association of British Travel Agents has had discussions with Ministers in his Department recently.

  The Association of British Travel Agents has also written recently to my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, supporting his request to the Civil Aviation Authority, as announced in his statement to the House on 11 March, for advice on possible arrangements to give financial protection to scheduled air passengers; air charter holidaymakers are already protected by the statutory bonding scheme for air travel organisers, and by the Air Travel Trust.

  Offshore Standby Vessels
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, further to his answer of 14 March,Official Report, column 639, when his Department's latest standard for standby vessels will be applied to all such vessels.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The latest standard is expected to be published in April. New ships will be required to comply in full, but in view of the significant changes that are to be made there will be a staged introduction for existing ships.

  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he proposes to change the record keeping by his Department to enable him to know when standby vessels are on station in the North sea.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Since early 1990 most owners have been providing on a weekly basis information on the locations and time their vessels are on station as a check on the periods of duty at offshore installations. When the revised code is published next month this information will be sought on a voluntary basis for all standby vessels. In his report on the Piper Alpha disaster Lord Cullen recommended that the owners of standby vessels should be required to notify the regulatory body weekly as to the locations and functions of their vessels in the ensuing week. This will of course be a matter for the Health and Safety Commission once responsibility has been transferred to it.

  Drivers (Working Hours)
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he intends to introduce regulations to restrict the working of excessive hours by taxi and private hire drivers.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Government will be consulting trade organisations to establish whether the working of excessive hours is a widespread problem, posing a serious safety hazard. If it is, we shall have to identify appropriate remedial measures.

  Goole Port
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many registered dock workers there were at the port of Goole for each of the years from 1985 to 1990; and how many of those dock workers are currently employed following the abolition of the dock labour scheme.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The numbers of dockers registered at the port of Goole at the end of each year 1985 to 1988 and at 3 July 1989 when the dock labour scheme was abolished were as follows:
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  Numbers of registered dockworkers

  Year

  Numbers

  1985

  189

  1986

  169

  1987

  169

  1988

  165

  3 July 1989

  164

  I have no information about how many of these are currently employed following abolition of the dock labour scheme.

  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will state the total tonnage of exports and imports handled by the port of Goole in each year since 1985.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Annual tonnages of foreign trade handled at the port of Goole since 1985 are as follows:

  Thousand tonnes

  Exports

  Imports

  Total

  1985

  478

  817

  1,295

  1986

  369

  909

  1,278

  1987

  432

  1,265

  1,697

  1988

  497

  1,603

  2,100

  1989

  407

  1,423

  1,829

  11990

  354

  1,242

  1,596

  1 Provisional.

  Highway Maintenance
  Ms. Ruddock
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether the long-term cost of financing highway structural maintenance on the primary route network through capital rather than revenue expenditure will be reduced or increased as a result of the changes proposed by his Department.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The benefits of structural maintenance are primarily felt in future accounting periods. To compare the real cost of financing by means of borrowing and the cost of charging expenditure direct to revenue account, it is necessary to discount the nominal value of cash payments in future years to reflect the time intervals before they are made. The result of the comparison will depend on the rate of discount and the rate of interest.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Immigration
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department in what circumstances and for what reasons the Government record whether persons admitted to the United Kingdom are serving members of their armed forces.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Where relevant to the person's claim for admission, such information would be recorded on the landing card. However, landing cards are not completed for members of forces who are exempted from immigration control under section 8 of the Immigration Act 1971.

  Life Sentences
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is now in a position to make a statement about the Thynne, Wilson and Gunnell case following the European Court of Human Rights judgment.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The implications of the European Court's judgment require full and careful consideration; we will put our proposals to Parliament as soon as we are able to do so.

  Children Act 1989
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance his Department is issuing to local authorities in connection with the Children Act 1989.

  Mr. John Patten
  None, but extensive guidance has been issued by the Department of Health which has responsibility for this Act.

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to protect the rights of those who do not wish to work or open their place of work on a Sunday, to remove the anomalies of the present Sunday trading laws and to replace the present legislation with a formula which allows limited shopping.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The terms and timing of fresh legislation on Sunday trading remain to be determined, but our aim is that such legislation should be workable, enforceable and enjoy both popular and sufficient parliamentary support. Separate discussions to which I have invited the major groups interested in reform of the Sunday trading law may help to identify what particular provisions might satisfy these criteria.

  Plastic Explosives
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the implementation of the Montreal agreement on the chemical labelling of plastic explosives.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) on 20 March 1991 at columns 113–14.

  Security Firms
  Mr. Fry
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has any plans for the registration of security firms and the establishment of minimum training requirements.

  Mr. John Patten
  We are considering a range of options for improving the regulation of the private security industry.

  Immigration Rules
  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he intends to make changes in the immigration rules.
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  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  [pursuant to his reply, 25 January 1991, c. 354]: My right hon. Friend is laying before Parliament today an immigration rules change to introduce a visa requirement for all citizens of Uganda with effect from 2 April.

  Ugandans currently account for nearly one in 10 of all asylum applications in the United Kingdom and their numbers have risen sharply over a period in which there is general agreement that respect for human rights in Uganda has substantially improved. The introduction of a visa requirement should benefit all bona fide travellers who will be less likely to encounter delays on arrival in this country. Our entry clearance unit in Kampala is being strengthened to ensure an efficient service. Regular visitors to this country will be eligible for multiple entry visas.

ENVIRONMENT

  Sites of Special Scientific Interest
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he last issued guidance to owners and occupiers of sites of special scientific interest under the provisions of section 33 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981; and whether such guidance reflects the changes in SSSI notification procedures introduced in the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act 1985.

  Mr. Trippier
  A code of guidance for sites of special scientific interest was published in 1982 and we shall be revising it later this year. Advice is also given in departmental circulars and in the Nature Conservancy Council's publication "Sites of Special Scientific Interest".

  "This Common Inheritance"
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the timetable he has set for the implementation of the policy objectives set out in the White Paper, "This Common Inheritance".

  Mr. Trippier
  Our White Paper, "This Common Inheritance", published on 25 September last year, was the first comprehensive statement of environmental policies and objectives by any United Kingdom Government. Over the last six months we have worked hard, proving that the White Paper means action, not just words. Thanks to the drive and commitment of the Government across the whole range of their activities, getting on for 100 White Paper initiatives have borne fruit so far.

  In the field of investment, I announced last November an increase of 33 per cent., or £130 million, in planned expenditure for 1991–92 on protecting and improving the environment. This provided extra resources for purposes including environmental research, the countryside, the heritage, housing and urban initiatives, pollution control and waste disposal and recycling.

  The Government have set up new institutions, including a permanent committee of Cabinet Ministers to consider environmental policies and follow up and roll forward the initiative taken by the White Paper. Each Government Department has nominated a Minister to consider the environmental implications of all of its policies and programmes. The first round of new annual departmental reports, many reporting at length on environmental initiatives, has been published. The first meeting of a new local government environmental forum

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  has been held, and arrangements have been made to set up similar new fora involving business and the voluntary sector. In Europe, Britain has proposed amendments to the EC treaties to give the Community clearer competence on environmental matters and launched an initiative to promote the integration of the environment with other areas of Community policy.

  In the field of planning, a consultation paper has been issued on tighter controls over agricultural and forestry buildings. The Department of the Environment has published a report and consultation paper on the protection of hedgerows. The planning Bill has been introduced, with proposals which will implement many of the improvements described in the planning chapter of the White Paper. A consultation paper has been issued giving proposals for the application of environmental assessment to private Bills. New guidance has been published on subjects including archaeology and planning, the interaction of planning and transport and planning aspects of the extraction of cement.

  In the field of environmental technology, waste minimisation and recycling, the Department of Trade and Industry in conjunction with the Department of the Environment has launched the new £12 million environmental technology innovation scheme as well as its own environmental management options scheme. An extra £60 million over three years has been announced to upgrade and replace municipal incinerators. A further £31 million will be available over the same period to help authorities improve standards at landfill sites, transfer stations and civic amenity sites and £40 million of resources will be available to enable authorities to invest in effective recycling schemes. The derelict land programme for 1991–92 has been increased by £15 million.

  Research projects have been commissioned on recycling building waste and waste from quarries and mines. Studies to monitor the results of pilot recycling projects in a number of cities have been commissioned. The Department of the Environment and the Scottish Office have announced the introduction of a new system of registration for carriers of waste. At present, local authorities are responsible both for disposing of waste themselves and for regulating the way in which others do so. The DOE has issued draft circulars for local authorities on arrangements to separate these functions by the formation of new local authority waste disposal companies. In line with the United Kingdom's policy, a recommendation on international self-sufficiency in waste management has been adopted by the OECD. Extra resources have been announced by the Department of the Environment for improving local authority disposal and recycling facilities, and a code of practice has been issued on standards of cleanliness in public places and the best means of dealing with litter.

  In the fields of pollution control and air quality, a practical guide has been published to the system of integrated pollution control through which the Government have given a new push to the process of designing out pollution problems from the most potentially polluting processes. Detailed regulations have been laid to implement both these controls and the supplementary air pollution controls by local authorities. The Government have achieved agreement in the EC on standards for new large diesel engines. A new advisory group on medical aspects of air pollution episodes has been announced by the Department of Health. The
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  Department of the Environment has produced a model describing critical loads of air pollution—the loads that a particular environment can tolerate without adverse effects—and has also announced funding for an expanded air quality monitoring network and new arrangements to provide information on air pollution for weather bulletins. As from 1 April, 25 process guidance notes will be published covering processes for local authority pollution control.

  The Chancellor, in the Budget, raised the duty on petrol and dery by 15 per cent., substantially above inflation. With the VAT increase in April the tax differential between leaded and unleaded petrol will rise to 4p a litre, giving a further boost to unleaded, whose market share has risen from 30 to 39 per cent. over the last year. The Budget also put up employers' national insurance contributions on company cars and raised income tax on car sales by a further 20 per cent.

  Also in the field of transport, the agreement that the Government have been pressing for on a consolidated directive applying to emissions from cars of all sizes has been reached. From November this year an emissions check will be included in the MOT test. A Road Traffic Bill has been introduced by the Department of Transport which contains provisions to improve the enforcement of speed limits. The first pilot "red route" scheme has been introduced. Plans have been announced for six demonstration projects on the best way to integrate bypasses with traffic management schemes.

  As for the countryside, a start has been made on planting a new national forest in the midlands. Extra funds have been announced for national park authorities, the Countryside Commission and the Groundwork Trust. Proposals have been announced for additional planning control safeguards over sites of special scientific interest. Agriculture departments in England and Wales have gone out to consultation on a draft code embodying new advice on best practice to reduce agricultural water pollution. My right hon. Friend has announced that he proposes to revoke a deemed planning permission to develop housing on the edge of Canford heath, a site of acknowledged international importance for nature conservation.

  Internationally, the Government have continued to make a major contribution to efforts to agree a global convention on climate change and to work for a successful United Nations conference on environment and development in 1991. In the field of overseas assistance, the Government announced in November 1990 a new public expenditure sub-programme, separate from the budget for aid for developing countries, on global environmental assistance. For this, the Government have pledged £40 million to the global environment facility being established under the leadership of the World bank, UNDP and UNEP to help developing countries tackle global environmental problems.

  In the field of energy, the Government are drawing up plans for a major publicity campaign and extra research on domestic energy efficiency. The Department of Energy's new home energy efficiency scheme has been launched. The Department of the Environment has launched a pilot programme of energy efficiency measures in local authority housing. The Department of Energy has announced a £4 million increase in research into renewable energy. With the active participation of the United Kingdom, the second world climate conference in Geneva agreed the basic shape of a global strategy on climate

  349
  change. Thanks in no small part to the Department of Energy's efforts, obsolete EC rules that made it harder than it need be to switch to gas from more polluting fuels for generating electricity have been repealed, and a new ministerial committee has been established to oversee all aspects of energy efficiency.

  In the field of the heritage, state funds are to be available for the first time for the repair of historic cathedrals. The scheme will be launched on 3 April. A total of £ 11·5 million of new money has been set aside for grants for cathedrals over this and the next two years.

  In the field of water, to help reduce water pollution regulations have been introduced setting standards for farm waste facilities and oil stores. A total of £23 million extra grant in aid for the National Rivers Authority has been announced. The maximum fines for water pollution in magistrates courts have been increased tenfold to £20,000; the fines in Crown courts are unlimited.

  In the field of noise, the report of the Government's noise review working party has been issued for consultation.

  In the field of wider environmental knowledge, the Department of the Environment has issued its detailed consultation paper on its proposed new, more comprehensive environmental statistical report. Consultation with industry and consumer groups is continuing on the outlines of a new eco-labelling scheme. A new leaflet—"Wake Up To What You Can Do For The Environment"—has been published and widely distributed to tell individuals how they can help.

  In Scotland, legislation has been introduced establishing Scottish Natural Heritage. A project team has been appointed to bring the Government's new rural enterprise programme into operation. A fuller list of Scottish Office achievements is in its press notice also issued today.

  In Wales, £41 million funding was announced for the Welsh Development Agency's initiatives "Landscape Wales" and "Urban Development Wales" in 1991–92, with £7 million urban programme support for environmental improvements. An environmental competition for schools is being run with £5,000 cash prizes donated by Welsh Water plc.

  In Northern Ireland, work has started on a code to support the Government's new countryside management strategy. Core funding has been announced for the establishment of a regional Tidy Britain Group office in Belfast, and a consultation paper has been issued on energy efficiency in Northern Ireland. An Environment Week will also be held at the end of April.

  This is only a selection of the very wide range of action that the Government have in hand in order to push ahead with their environmental strategy. Vigorous action will continue, not only to fulfil the individual commitments made in the White Paper, but to roll forward the process of addressing tomorrow's environmental challenges. With co-operation from everyone—individuals, as well as local authorities, businesses, schools and voluntary organisations—I am confident that those challenges can be met with courage and success.

  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the individuals and organisations being consulted in the process of completion of the statistical report on the environment being prepared as a result of a commitment in "This Common Inheritance".
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  Mr. Trippier
  Around 250 organisations have been consulted and 94 written responses have been received by my Department. A list of consultees and those organisations from which written responses have been received has today been placed in the Library of the House.

  Doncaster (Grants)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the amount per head of revenue support grant, area protection grant, inner London education special grant and of all grants payable to Doncaster metropolitan borough council for 1991–92.

  Mr. Key
  The available information for Doncaster MBC for 1991–92 is as follows:

  £/Head of relevant population

  RSG

  226

  Area Protection Grant

  80

  In addition after the enactment of the Community Charges (General Reduction) Bill, Doncaster MBC will receive payment of £140 for each personal community charge paid or, in the case of standard or collective charges, equivalent.

  Information on the amounts of transitional relief grant, community charge benefit grant and specific grants payable to Doncaster MBC in 1991–92 is not available.

  "Wake Up To What You Can Do For The Environment"
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many copies of his departmental leaflet, "Wake Up To What You Can Do For The Environment" have been printed; what plans exist for additional print runs; how the leaflet is being distributed and to which target audiences; how much the printing and distribution has cost to date; and whether any external consultants were involved in the design and content of the leaflet.

  Mr. Baldry
  Five million copies of the leaflet have been printed; additional print runs will depend upon demand. The leaflet is being distributed through supermarkets with the generous assistance of Tesco, Sainsbury's, the Co-op, Safeway and Asda; and at the Department's stand at the ideal home exhibition. Local authorities have been invited to assist in distribution; and copies are available on request from the Department. The target audience for the leaflet is the general public. Printing and distribution have cost £180,000 to date. Consultants were commissioned to conduct market research on a pilot version of the leaflet, and the leaflet was designed by outside contractors.

  Common Land
  Mr. Ken Hargreaves
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he intends to bring forward new common land legislation in pursuance of the recommendations of the Common Land Forum in 1986 and the policy statement made by the Minister for the Environment and Countryside on 26 July 1990; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  It remains our policy, as stated by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside
  351
  on 26 July 1990, to safeguard the status of common land and to strengthen the ways in which we protect and use it. We recognise that this requires legislation to implement it, and the importance of such legislation. I regret, however, that, given the pressures on the parliamentary timetable, we cannot see any opportunity to legislate comprehensively during the lifetime of this Parliament.

  We have also considered very carefully the proposal for a short Bill put to us by amenity bodies. We have concluded that this would not have sufficient advantages to be a priority candidate, in the light of the reservations expressed by other interested parties.

  Land Planning
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what use is made by his Department in developing land use planning policy of geographic information systems and digital terrain models.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Department of the Environment is involved in several applications of geographic information systems—GIS—and digital terrain models, mainly through its research programme. The inclusion of GIS along with other technologies is also being considered in the Department's information technology strategy.

  The following GIS applications are of most relevance to the development of land use planning policy:
  In 1990 the Department undertook a survey of the stock of vacant land in urban areas of England. A GIS was used to select the sample for the survey.
  A research project is being undertaken to explore the potential uses of GIS in the analysis of countryside data.
  A further research project using the Department's land use change statistics applied GIS technology to analyse the data and to report on ways in which the data can be used to monitor planning policies.
  In the Countryside 1990 survey GIS is being used to link together broad-brush census information from satellite remote sensing and data from ground surveys to provide valuable ecological information about plant species and habitats.

  Further information about some of these projects can be found in the article "Government in Action", written by my officials for inclusion in the 1991 yearbook of the Association for Geographic Information. A copy of the article has been placed in the Library.

  Council House Sales, Bolton
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much extra money Bolton council would receive in capital receipts if its sales of council houses were now brought into line with the national average for sales since 1981.

  Mr. Yeo
  A total of 2,200 extra sales would be needed to catch up with the average for England, or 1,000 to come in line with the rest of the region. The receipts cannot be predicted reliably, but in recent months the average discounted selling price for council houses in Bolton has been about £11,000.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent consideration he has given to the use of capital receipts by local authorities with a view to introducing more flexibility into the system in order to provide accommodation for homeless people.
  352
  Mr. Yeo
  We have already introduced a number of relaxations to the rules on the use of capital receipts by local authorities, in particular to encourage provision of low-cost housing. We intend to keep these rules under review to ensure that they are fully achieving our policy aims.

  Recycling Credits
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish the report on recycling credits produced for his Department by Touche Ross management consultants; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice).

  EC Environment Council
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the outcome of the European Community Environment Council on 18 March; and what progress was made towards green labelling.

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) on 20 March,Official Report, column 129. The discussion on eco-labelling revealed widespread general support for the Commission's proposal, but reservations from a number of member states, including the United Kingdom, about the structures and procedures for administering the scheme. We made clear our concern that the proposal should be agreed as soon as possible and look forward to significant progress at the next meeting of the Council.

  Radioactive Substances
  Mr. Gerald Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement on cost recovery charges for regulation of radioactive substances.

  Mr. Trippier
  The Environmental Protection Act 1990 provides for the introduction of charges to cover the costs incurred by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution—HMIP—and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—MAFF—in regulating the holding of radioactive material, and the accumulation and disposal of radioactive waste, under the Radioactive Substances Act 1960. With the agreement of the Treasury and the consent of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Wales have now made a scheme of fees and charges, to take effect from 1 April 1991. I have placed a copy of the scheme in the Library.

  Last July, the Government published a consultation document inviting comments on proposed charging arrangements, with fees and charges based on a division of premises into four "bands" designed to relate the level of charges to the amount of regulatory effort involved. The Department received 17 responses on the proposals, a list of which has been placed in the Library. Copies of individual responses may be obtained through the Library.

  Respondents generally endorsed the banded structure, and the scheme now made operates on this basis. Band 1

  353
  and 2 premises—BNFL Sellafield and the 30 or so nuclear power stations and other premises subject to licensing under the Nuclear Installations Act 1965—will be charged individually on the basis of the actual regulatory time and costs incurred. Charges for band 3 and 4 operators will be on the basis of a series of flat-rate fees, for consideration of applications for authorisation or registration, for the subsequent variation of an authorisation or registration, and annual subsistence charges for holding each authorisation or registration to cover the on-going costs of inspection, monitoring and oversight.

  For band 3 operators—for example, major laboratories, major industrial users—the application and variation fees will be £800, and the annual subsistence charge £400. For band 4 operators—for example, smaller industrial users—the application and variation fees will be £300. The annual subsistence charge will be £75, but this will apply only to those holding larger closed sources. The majority of band 4 operators, holding smaller, closed sources, will not pay any annual charge, since these sources do not require routine inspection.

  HMIP and MAFF will closely monitor their regulatory expenditure, and at the end of the financial year accounts and information on charge income and regulatory costs will be published.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the latest appropriate figures for(a) rate support grant per head, (b) business rate income per head, (c) total aggregate extended finance per head, (d) spending per head, (e) total aggregate spending and (f) population for each local authority in England.

  Mr. Key
  [holding answer 20 March 1991]: I am arranging for the available information for 1991–92 to be placed in the Library of the House. Information on total aggregate finance and spending, which include specific grants, will not be available until authorities send in their detailed budget returns to the Department.

  Mr. Lawson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give the proportion of total local government spending accounted for by(a) education, (b) the police, (c) other services at present provided by county councils and (d) services provided by district councils.

  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 22 March 1991]: The information requested is as follows:

  Total Local Authority Net Current Expenditure

  Budget Estimates 1990–91

  Percentage

  Education (all authorities)

  46·3

  Police (all authorities)

  11·9

  Other services (county councils)

  13·4

  All services (non-metropolitan district councils)

  8·1

  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what central grants were paid in 1990–91 and will be paid in 1991–92(a) in total to each of the councils of Wandsworth, Westminster and Coventry and (b) per capita to Coventry.

  Mr. Key
  [holding answer 22 March 1991]: Amounts of revenue support grant, adjusted for safety net, special grants and the community charge grant are as follows:
  354

  1990–91 £ Million

  1991–92 £ Million

  Wandsworth

  153·1

  192·8

  Westminster

  114·0

  162·8

  Coventry

  84·0

  111·8

  £/Head of relevant population

  Coventry

  385

  503

  In addition authorities receive transitional relief grant, community charge benefit grant and other specific grants. Information on the amounts payable for 1990–91 are as follows; information for 1991–92 will not be available until authorities send in their detailed budget returns to the Department.

  1990–91 £ Million

  Wandsworth

  11·1

  Westminster

  7·3

  Coventry

  32·4

  £/Head of relevant population

  Coventry

  148

  Service Personnel
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will exclude service men and women from any new charges in relation to local government finance.

  Mr. Key
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: It is our intention that the proposed new local tax will take account of the number of adults in a household and the value of the property. We will be consulting on the various options, including the coverage of the new tax.

  United Nations Conference
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out in the Official Report the key points of his speech on environment and development given to the conference, "What On Earth Is To Be Done", on 19 March.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: Copies of my right hon. Friend's speech on this occasion have been placed in the Library.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he met the Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations special conference on environment and development during his visit to London on 19 March.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: No, but my right hon. Friend has arranged to see Mr. Strong in London next month.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if, during his visit to the conference, "What On Earth Is To Be Done", he discussed with the youth representative speakers the matters they raised in regard to the responsibilities of the developed nations to assist in environmental protection of the poorer nations.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: My right hon. Friend listened with interest to a number of speakers on such subjects.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Charles Stewart Parnell (Statue)
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will discuss with the appropriate authorities arrangements to move the statue of Charles Stewart Parnell to a more prominent location on the Committee Floor.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have arranged for the hon. Member's proposal to be brought to the attention of the Advisory Committee on Works of Art in the House of Commons chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack).

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Pools Scheme
  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the pools scheme to benefit the arts and sports will operate on a national or a regional basis.

  Mr. Mellor
  It will be for the trustees to determine the detailed method of operation of the foundation for sport and the arts once it has been established. However, I understand from the proposers that it is the intention that the foundation will operate throughout the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Fisher
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer who will determine, and distribute to the arts, the sums raised by the pools scheme announced in his Budget statement.

  Mr. Mellor
  It will be for the trustees to determine in detail how funds will be distributed once the foundation is established.

  Cars up to 1000cc

  Cars 1001–1500cc

  Cars 1501–2000cc

  Cars over 2000cc

  Up to 4,000 business miles

  24·5p

  30p

  34p

  45·0p

  Over 4,000 business miles

  ll·0p

  13p

  16p

  20·5p

  An Inland Revenue press release is being issued today giving further details of the fixed-profit car scheme.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Climate Research
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the level of funding allocated in real terms over the next five years by the Natural Environment Research Council for climate research; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The science budget has been announced for the period up to 1993–94. Within its allocations, the Natural Environment Research Council is currently planning to spend the following on climate research in real terms:

  Interest (Taxation)
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what arrangements the Inland Revenue is making to handle the increase in repayment claims which will result from changes in the taxation of bank and building society interest.

  Mr. Maude
  The Inland Revenue has undertaken an extensive publicity campaign to encourage all those who are eligible to register for payment of bank and building society interest without deduction of tax and so avoid the need to claim a repayment. Nevertheless, in the year 1992–93, the Inland Revenue needs to plan for a substantial increase in claims to repayment of tax deducted at source from interest and other investment income. The numbers are inevitably very uncertain, but could be well over 10 times the present annual total of around 800,000 claims.

  It is likely that a high proportion of the claims will be made in the period from April to July each year. The Inland Revenue has had to look for a balance between the standards of service it can offer and the need to spread the work to some extent over the year, in order to keep costs down to a reasonable level. I have decided that the Inland Revenue should base its planning on the principle that the time taken to deal with any claim should not exceed three months. The Inland Revenue is setting up 24 new offices around the country to deal with the work. They will, of course, try to keep the time taken to process a claim to the minimum. But there may be occasions, especially in the period from April to July, when the volume of claims received makes it impossible to process them without delay.

  Fixed-profit Car Scheme
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish the tax-free mileage rates which will be used under the fixed-profit car scheme by the Inland Revenue for 1991–92.

  Mr. Maude
  The rates which will apply for 1991–92 are as follows:—

  £ million at 1991–92 prices

  1991–92

  1992–93

  1993–94

  31·0

  29·8

  27·5

  Playing Fields
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the total number of secondary schools in England and Wales; how many of them intend to sell off playing fields over the next 18 months; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Fallon
  The latest available figures show that there were 4,208 maintained secondary schools in England and Wales in January 1990. Information on any plans to dispose of playing fields, either in part or whole, at these schools is not available to the Department. Minimum standards for playing fields at maintained schools are set
  357
  out in the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1981. The disposal of surplus playing fields is a matter for the local education authorities concerned. We expect authorities to review the long-term need for such facilities before taking decisions on disposals.

  Football Grounds
  Mrs. Dunwoody
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received about admission prices to football grounds for youngsters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  I have received two representations about admission prices to football grounds for youngsters attending away matches. The prices charged for admission to football matches are a matter for the football authorities and the individual clubs.

  In-service Training
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what increase or decrease there has been or is proposed in in-service training by local education authorities in 1989–90, 1990–91 and 1991–92; and what assessment he has made of the amount of in-service training(a) necessary and (b) being delivered relating to the national history curriculum.

  Mr. Fallon
  No figures are collected for the total volume of in-service training undertaken by local education authorities. It is for schools and local education authorities to decide how much training is required by their teachers in respect of any particular subject.

  Single-sex Schools
  Mr. Faulds
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is Her Majesty's Government's policy on single-sex educational provision in boroughs with multi-ethnic populations.

  Mr. Fallon
  There is no statutory duty on local education authorities to provide single-sex schools, and it is for them to decide how to respond to parental preferences for such schools. When considering new proposals from authorities either to establish or to close single-sex schools, my right hon. and learned Friend will consider each case on its merits, taking into account the extent of parental demand for this type of provision.

  National Curriculum (History)
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what account he took in setting out the standards to be achieved in the national history curriculum, of the difficulty of working-class children in getting access to museums; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  The requirements of the national curriculum—including those of the order for history which my right hon. and learned Friend published yesterday—apply to all registered pupils of compulsory school age at maintained schools. It is for local education authorities, governing bodies and head teachers to exercise their functions under the Education Reform Act 1988 to make sure that those requirements are met, and they should ensure that all pupils are provided with all necessary learning opportunities. It is up to schools to decide how 358
  best to introduce their pupils to artefacts and historical sources. They may use their budgets to cover the cost of museum visits.

  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps he has taken to assure himself that primary school teachers have sufficient expertise and training in history to teach the national history curriculum; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Fallon
  It is for schools and local education authorities to assure themselves that their teachers are equipped to deliver the national curriculum. The Government are providing support through their programme of specific grants and the National Curriculum Council and School Examinations and Assessment Council are also producing and disseminating curriculum guidance and in-service training materials.

  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what steps have been taken to include the study of racial and sexual diversity in local, national and world links in the national history curriculum; and what specific steps have been taken to enable local education authorities and local museums to train teachers in this aspect of the curriculum.

  Mr. Eggar
  I refer the hon. Member to the order for national curriculum history published yesterday. This should enable pupils to develop knowledge arid understanding of British, European and world history. Local education authorities are encouraged to have due regard to multicultural and equal opportunities aspects in drawing up their training programmes in relation to national curriculum foundation subjects.

  Further Education Colleges
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list those further education colleges which he has visited between his appointment as Secretary of State and Thursday 21 March.

  Mr. Eggar
  As Minister responsible for further education, I have visited the following colleges:

  Enfield college

  South Tyneside college

  Manchester college of arts and technology

  Hammersmith and West London college

  Thomas Danby college

  Capel Manor college

  Bournville college

  Wirral metropolitan college

  North Tyneside college

  Milton Keynes college

  Tower Hamlets college

  Keighley college

  Solihull college of technology

  Suffolk college of higher and further education

  Tresham college

  Supply Teachers
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what assessment he has made of the effectiveness for the administrative and resource arrangements allowing for the appointment of supply teachers to cover for teachers undertaking in-service training in connection with the national curriculum.

  Mr. Fallon
  It is for schools and local education authorities to manage and assess their arrangements for
  359
  in-service training. The senior chief inspector's report for 1989–90 notes the problems they are facing and the ways in which they are tackling them. The Department has commissioned studies by the National Foundation for Educational Research and Sussex university on best practice in this area, which have been made available to local education authorities and will be placed in the Library.

  Polytechnics and Colleges (Land Disposal)
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what conditions are attached to the disposal of Exchequer-funded land and buildings by polytechnics and colleges.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The conditions are the same as those which have applied to universities since 1985, and allow the retention of the proceeds of the sale of Exchequer-funded land and buildings, within specified limits, without reference to the annual appropriation procedures. These conditions are among those set out in financial memoranda between the Department and the Universities Funding Council and Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council, copies of which I am placing in the Library.

PRIME MINISTER

  Human Rights Abuse
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list those occasions over the past year when Her Majesty's Government have made representations to Governments involved in the allied military coalition in the Gulf war concerning human rights abuses in their respective countries; and if he will indicate the criteria adopted by the Government in deciding why and when such representations are made.

  The Prime Minister
  No. Where allegations of abuse are well founded the Governments concerned are in no doubt of our concerns. Our criteria for representations are set out in the foreign policy document "Human Rights in Foreign Policy", a copy of which is available in the Library of the House.

  Gulf War
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will establish an inquiry into the economic effects of the Gulf war upon the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, the Horn of Africa and Bangladesh, the Republic of the Philippines and the Indian sub-continent.

  The Prime Minister
  The Government have studied the analysis produced by the International Monetary Fund, World bank and others on the economic effects of the Gulf war. We have supported the rapid steps taken by the international institutions to adapt their facilities to assist affected countries. Fortunately, the fall in oil prices at the outbreak of war, and the rapid conclusion of hostilities mean that the adverse effects will not be as severe as initially feared.

  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Prime Minister what representations were received by Her Majesty's Government(a) from 2 August 1990 to 16 January 1991
  360
  and (b) from 17 January to 8 February concerning the negative ecological consequences of military action in the Gulf; from which organisations and individuals he received the representations; and what response he made to each.

  The Prime Minister
  Several thousand letters have been received on the subject of the illegal occupation of Kuwait by Iraq and its aftermath, including the ecological damage caused by deliberate release of oil into the Gulf and firing of the Kuwait oil fields.

  Oil
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will propose an international scheme to make available oil at a substantially reduced price to the least developed states to assist them to restore the damage to their economies resulting from the Gulf war.

  The Prime Minister
  The United Kingdom has provided through the European Community some £60 million to Jordan, Turkey and Egypt, the states whose economies were most directly affected by the Gulf conflict. Given the size of our military role in the Gulf conflict we consider that the United Kingdom should not make a further financial contribution; the burden should be shared by others. We have however encouraged the IMF and the World bank to make additional resources available on concessional terms to the poorest countries most affected. The IMF has made specific arrangements to compensate countries affected by higher oil prices. Where the international community is providing such assistance, it will enable those countries to maintain imports of oil at market prices. We believe that providing oil at reduced prices would lead to economic distortions and a wasteful use of energy.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Chicago Expo
  Dr. Thomas
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what fiscal incentives or grants are available to support British manufacturers wishing to exhibit at the Expo to be held on 8 April in Chicago.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Normal terms of support provided for groups of British firms in overseas trade fairs were made available for the environmental technology Expo and the design engineering and plant engineering exhibitions which are part of the "national manufacturing week" in Chicago from 8 April 1991. The support takes the form of a subsidy of 50 per cent. of space and stand costs, together with assistance towards travel costs, for eligible companies.

  A DTI-supported group will exhibit at the design engineering and plant engineering exhibitions, but there was insufficient demand from industry to justify support of a group at the environmental technology Expo.

  Namibia
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1) if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing the value of trade between Namibia and the United Kingdom in 1990–91, broken down by sector;
  361
  (2) what has been the total value of exports from the United Kingdom to Namibia since that country IA, o n its independence;

  (3) what has been the total value of imports to the United Kingdom from Namibia since that country won its independence.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  Information on trade with Namibia is published monthly in "Business Monitor MM20, Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom" which is in the Library of the House. Tables ii—imports—and v—exports—contain data for Namibia.

  Departmental Expenditure
  Mr. Ridley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the total expenditure of the Department of Industry in 1979–80, and the total expenditure on the same votes in 1989–90, in real terms; and what was the one expressed as a percentage of the other.

  Mr. Lilley
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information requested is shown in the following table, taking equivalent Department of Trade and Industry programmes in 1989–90. Running costs have been excluded because, owing to changes in departmental organisation, these cannot be presented on a comparable basis.

  £ million

  1979–80

  1989–90

  1989–90

  current prices

  constant prices

  Department of Industry expenditure (excluding running costs, nationalised industries and public corporations)

  942

  830

  409

  Nationalised industries

  1,108

  -13

  -6

  Public corporations

  70

  0

  0

  Total

  2,120

  817

  403

  The sum of £409 million is 43 per cent. of £942 million and £403 million is 19 per cent. of £2,120 million.

  Arms Control
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he intends to change the condition of United Kingdom arms control and licensing procedures as a result of the Single European Act.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: There are no plans to change the present controls on arms exports which reflect national and international security considerations. Such exports will continue to be subject to stringent export licensing procedures, consistent with our obligations under the treaty of Rome and the Single European Act. My officials are discussing with other Government Departments the possibilities for streamlining procedures relating to exports to our Community partners after 1992.

  Israel
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if the Export Credits Guarantee Department will reduce the premium it is currently charging on credit 362
  for British firms wishing to place contracts in Israel for housing of Soviet immigrants; and what information he has on the equivalent premium charged by Britain's main trading competitors.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 11 March 1991]: As part of its new portfolio management system, the Export Credits Guarantee Department is currently reviewing its premium rates for project business exports to a number of countries including Israel. The review should be completed shortly.

  The ECGD assesses premium rates after taking into account the risks involved. The rates generally charged by other export credit agencies are taken into account, but it is necessary to draw a balance which recognises the costs to the taxpayer which can be involved in supporting project business.

  Envirotech York Exhibition
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what contribution his Department made to the recent Envirotech York exhibition held at the university of York; and if he will make a statement on his Department's policy towards regionally sponsored trade exhibitions for environmental technologies.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 21 March 1991]: My Department provided some financial support to the organisers of the Envirotech York exhibition through its regionally administered technology transfer scheme. In addition, the Minister for Industry officially opened the exhibition and my Department had a stand at it.

  The thrust of DTI technology policy is generally national. DTI regional offices can provide support where the aim of a trade exhibition or other local activity is to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized companies in the region by promoting the wider and better use of modern technology, including environmental technologies.

  Military Exhibitions
  Mr. Corbyn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list all licensing regulations that apply to the import of military technology and equipment for the purpose of display at military equipment and armament shows held in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  [holding answer 22 March 1991]: All products requiring an individual import licence by virtue of the Import of Goods (Control) Order 1954 as amended are listed in the open general import licence of 4 December 1987 as amended, which is published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Military technology and equipment which do not incorporate items listed under entry No. 365 do not require a specific import licence and may be imported under the authority of the open general import licence.

CIVIL SERVICE

  Recruitment
  Mr. Hayes
  To ask the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make a statement about changes in the arrangements for recruitment to the civil service.
  363
  Mr. Renton
  Responsibility for recruitment to junior grades in the civil service was transferred from the civil service commissioners to Departments on 1 January 1983. My right hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Sir R. Luce) the then Minister of State, announced on 13 April 1989 that it was proposed to extend further the area of recruitment which is the responsibility of Departments and agencies from 1 April 1991.

  To give effect to the new recruitment arrangements the Civil Service Order in Council 1991 and a separate Diplomatic Service Order in Council 1991 were made at a meeting of the Privy Council held on 5 February 1991. The orders, copies of which have been placed in the Library, revoke and re-enact with substantial amendments the Civil Service Order in Council 1982.

  From 1 April 1991, recruitment to all grades—except those at grade 7 level and above and their fast-stream feeder entries—will become the responsibility of Departments and agencies. This extends the area of recruitment for which Departments and agencies are responsible from the present 85 per cent. or so of all recruitment to over 95 per cent.

  It is important that recruitment into the civil service should continue to be uninfluenced by patronage or partiality. Selection on merit on the basis of fair and open competition has been the fundamental principle of civil service recruitment since the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms. This principle will be preserved both in selection undertaken by Departments and agencies—departmental recruitment—and in selection undertaken on the responsibility of the civil service commissioners—commissioners' recruitment. Certain exceptions to the general principle, which allow for flexibility in specific circumstances, are set out in schedules to the orders.

  The changes are an essential part of the process of modernising the civil service and of giving managers more autonomy in the use of resources. They reflect the current change in the role of the central departments, with the emphasis switching from regulation and control to advice, audit and the provision of cost-effective services.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  Gulf War
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether any assessment has been made of the economic consequences of the Gulf war on Commonwealth countries in Africa, central and south-east Asia and the Caribbean; when he next expects to meet the Secretary General of the Commonwealth to discuss these matters; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  We have looked carefully into the economic consequences of the Gulf crisis on major recipients of British aid, taking into account the analytical work done by the IMF, World bank and others. The Secretary of State and I both meet the Secretary General of the Commonwealth from time to time to discuss matters of concern to Commonwealth members.

  Africa (Famine Relief)
  Mrs. Clwyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list all allocations of famine relief for Africa made between September 1984 and September 1985, in current and constant 1991 prices, and since September 1990 to date.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Allocations of British emergency aid to Ethiopia between September 1984 and September 1985 are listed on pages 66 and 67 of the Foreign Affairs Committee's first report in the 1987–88 Session on "Famine in the Horn of Africa".

  Allocations of famine relief made to African countries in 1990 were given in my reply to the hon. Member's question of 29 January at columns 462–63. In 1991 the following commitments have been made:

  United Kingdom Food Aid Committed in 1991

  tonnes

  Estimated cost

  £ million

  Ethiopia

  42,800

  8·036

  Malawi

  6,000

  1·2

  Mozambique

  10,000

  2·0

  Sudan

  20,000

  4·0

  Other United Kingdom Emergency Relief Committed in 1991

  £ million

  January

  Ethiopia

  2·000

  February

  Malawi

  0·090

  February

  Liberia

  0·017

  February

  Chad

  0·035

  February

  Burkina Faso

  0·010

  February

  Sudan

  0·002

  February

  Ethiopia

  0·250

  March

  Sudan

  0·400

  March

  Liberia

  0·038

  March

  Tanzania

  0·040

  March

  Sudan

  0·125

  March

  Ethiopia

  0·430

  March

  Kenya

  0·197

  The remaining information requested could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Environmental Issues
  Mr. Robert B. Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when the Government's response to the Environment Select Committee's report on environmental issues in Northern Ireland will be published; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Needham
  The Government's response is being published today and a copy has been placed in the Library. We are committed to safeguarding Northern Ireland's rich natural and man-made environment and we welcome the report as a constructive and opportune contribution towards achieving this end.

  The Government recognise the need to accelerate action to conserve and enhance the environment in Northern Ireland and are making available substantially increased resources to deal with the backlog of environmental legislation and to protect valuable habitats.

  Much has already been done. Some 20 per cent. of Northern Ireland currently lies within designated areas of

  365
  outstanding natural beauty. There are seven country parks, 44 national nature reserves and 26 areas of special scientific interest. The Giant's Causeway is a world heritage site and Lough Neagh and Lough Beg have together been designated as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar convention. Consultations are under way which will lead to the declaration of the internationally important Strangford Lough as a marine nature reserve. Some 167 historic monuments are in state care and almost 1,000 monuments have been scheduled for protection; 26 conservation areas have been designated and 7,800 buildings of architectural and historic importance listed.

  Progress has also been made in dealing with pollution. Significant advances have been made in reducing smoke and SO2 levels since the clean air legislation was introduced in 1964. Some 95 per cent. of rivers are classified as good or fair under the national river classification scheme. The large number of prosecutions for water pollution offences in Northern Ireland is evidence of the Government's determination to protect this asset.

  The Government are reviewing their rural planning policy. The review will take account of the duty to preserve, on the one hand the natural beauty of the countryside and on the other the needs of a strong rural society.

  The Government fully recognise the need to build on the progress which has already been made. They are committed to increasing the protection of habitats, for example, by accelerating the programme for the survey and declaration of areas of special scientific interest and to the preservation of scientific beauty by reviewing of areas of outstanding natural beauty. Secondly, we have undertaken to conserve the man-made heritage by completing the survey of all historic monuments by 1995 and the listing of all pre-1960 buildings of architectural and historic interest by 1994. Thirdly, we will continue to improve pollution control by greatly extending the water quality monitoring of all main rivers and estuaries and by enhancing sewage treatment. The Government will encourage the public to be more aware of Northern Ireland's heritage and emphasise the fact that the individual has a significant contribution to make to a good environment.

  The Government have already taken action, or are planning, to meet all but one of the Committee's recommendations. However, we have concluded that we would not be justified in accepting the recommendation that an independent environmental agency should be established.

  Firstly, the creation of an independent agency would conflict with the recommendations in the Balfour report. Secondly, decisions already taken, or planned, will resolve the problems which underlie the Committee's recommendation. The establishment of a Government-owned company to take over responsibility for water and sewerage services will separate these services from the Department of Environment for Northern Ireland. The Department will retain the regulatory functions. This division of responsibility will eliminate the "poacher-gamekeeper" factor in relation to water pollution control.

  In addition, resources are being increased; the status of conservation and other environmental policies has been enhanced by the creation of a directorate whose head is a member of the DOE(NI) top management team; and the
  366
  Government are committed to assuring the public that environmental factors will be a vital part of decision making.

  In the recent White Paper "This Common Inheritance", the Government confirmed their undertaking to protect Northern Ireland's environment and to bequeath to future generations an unspoiled countryside with clean air and unpolluted rivers and seas. In responding to the Committee's report, we reaffirm our commitment to implement positive environmental policies which will safeguard the natural and man-made heritage in Northern Ireland.

HEALTH

  Grandparents
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what guidance his Department is issuing to local authorities in connection with the Children Act 1989; and whether this guidance will include any details on grandparents' access to their grandchildren.

  Mr. Dorrell
  A number of documents have already been issued to local authorities including "An Introduction to the Children Act", a training curriculum produced by the London boroughs training committee, and "The Care of Children—Principles and Practice in Regulations and Guidance", copies of which are available in the Library.

  Earlier this month over 20,000 copies of the first volume of guidance and regulations, on court orders, were distributed free of charge. Some 16,000 free copies were sent to directors of social services, and copies were also sent to chief education officers and chief executives. Volume 2 "Family Support, Day Care and Educational Provision for Young Children" was launched last week and will be distributed shortly; copies of both volumes are available in the Library. Volume 3 on family placements is being prepared and will be launched next month, and further volumes will follow, copies of which will be placed in the Library.

  Volume 1 includes guidance on the new section 8 contact orders, which are available in private law proceedings and for which grandparents may apply provided that they have first obtained leave of court to do so. This volume also contains guidance on the new provisions as to contact with children who are the subject of a care order.

  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what changes to grandparents' access to their grandchildren will arise from the implementation of the Children Act 1989 on 14 October.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Children Act 1989 makes new provisions regarding contact with children who are the subject of a care order. The Act provides that any person who has obtained the leave of the court to do so may apply for an order determining the contact which is to be allowed between the child and that person.

  It is anticipated that this provision will enable people with whom the child has previously had a close relationship but who are not automatically entitled to reasonable contact with the child—such as, in many cases, grandparents—to keep in touch with that child while he is in the care of the local authority. If the grandparent was the beneficiary of a residence order made under section 8

  367
  of the Act immediately prior to the care order being made, he will be one of those automatically entitled to reasonable contact.

  Where a child is being looked after by a local authority on a voluntary basis, contact is a matter for agreement between parents, foster parents and the authority. The authority will have a duty to promote reasonable contact between the child and his relatives—including a grandparent—where this is consistent with the child's welfare.

  In addition, the Act makes changes to the private law. It introduces a range of orders under section 8 which will be available to the court in private law proceedings. One of these, the contact order, requires the person with whom a child is living to allow the child to visit or stay with the person named in the order, and for that person and the child to have contact with each other. Anyone who has the leave of the court to do so may apply for a contact order.

  Where grandparents have maintained a close relationship with the child, obtaining the permission of the court is unlikely to be much more than a formality.

  For a limited number of cases, grandparents still have the right to apply for a section 8 contact order without first obtaining the court's leave. Broadly, these are where the child has lived with the grandparents for three years or more, or the grandparent has the consent of the person in whose favour there is a residence order in force—or the local authority where the child is in care—or, in any other case, the consent of those having parental responsibility for the child.

  Health Authorities (Administration)
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many new administrative posts have been created by English health authorities since 1 January 1990; what the reason for these new posts are; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  This information is not collected centrally.

  Chiropody
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any new proposals for the recognition of the chiropody profession based on a recognised course of qualification; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Chiropody courses that lead to state registration are those recognised and approved by the Council for Professions Supplementary to Medicine. There are no plans to change that arrangement.

  Child Employment
  Mr. Salmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking in order to assess the effectiveness of regulations governing child employment; and if he has any plans to amend existing legislation.

  Mrs. Margaret Ewing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps his Department is taking to assess the effectiveness of regulations governing child employment; and if he has any plans to seek to amend existing legislation.

  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the report of the national child employment study on "Children at Work in the 1990s", a copy of which has been sent to him.
  368
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  I refer the hon. Members to the reply I gave the hon. Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) on 25 March.

  Patents (Chemical Substances)
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if he will give the remaining patent life for each new chemical entity and new active substance licensed and marketed in each of the years 1987, 1988 and 1989–90, respectively;

  (2) how many products licensed in each of the years 1987, 1988 and 1989–90 had no effective patent life remaining at the point of marketing.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  It is not our practice to give information on the commercial position of the pharmaceutical companies covered by the pharmaceutical price regulation scheme.

  Health Service, Kuwait
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what help he is giving to the Kuwaiti Minister of Public Health to rebuild their health service.

  Mr. Dorrell
  I wrote to Dr. al Fouzan, Kuwait's Minister of Public Health, soon after the liberation of Kuwait offering our full support for the provision of emergency health services. I also commended to him, for the longer term, the services of a British health care-industry consortium, led by John Laing International. Through links with the Association of British Healthcare Industries, the consortium has access to providers of a wide range of British goods and services, including NHS expertise through NHS Overseas Enterprises. The consortium is now actively collaborating with the Kuwaiti Health Ministry to assess that country's needs.

  Hospitals
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what response he has given to an application from the North Western regional health authority for a grant towards the cost of the approved move of the department of psychiatry for the deaf from Whittingham hospital, Preston, to Manchester; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  On the advice of the supra-regional services advisory group, we are making available in 1991–92 bridging finance to assist with the proposed move of the department of psychiatry for the deaf from Whittingham hospital to Prestwich. The loan would be repayable on the sale of property or land on the Whittingham site.

  The initial response of North Western regional health authority has been to decline the offer of bridging finance. The timing and funding of the relocation of the service is ultimately a matter for the health authority.

  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he will make a statement on the future of the Vale of Catmose hospital, Oakham, following the visit last summer by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell), Under-Secretary of State for Health.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Leicestershire health authority approved the closure of Catmose Vale hospital on 8 February 1989.
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  The closure of Catmose Vale is part of the district's overall strategy for hospital services. A full public consultation exercise was carried out and the Leicestershire community health council agreed the closure. I understand the hospital will not close until facilities to reprovide services are complete at Rutland memorial hospital.

  Mr. Carr
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many gynaecology beds will be available for(a) in-patients and (b) day care patients in Sharoe Green hospital on (i) 1 April 1991, (ii) 31 December 1991 and (iii) 1 April 1992; what percentage these are of beds available as at 1 April 1990; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  This information is not held centrally. The hon. Member may wish to write to Mr. W. I. Woolley, the chairman of Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley health authority, for details.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Energy Efficiency
  Mr. Colvin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security which of his Ministers has been given responsibility for energy use by his Department; and what is his or her brief regarding energy efficiency.

  Band of gross income

  Families receiving child benefit

  Number of children

  Child benefit expenditure

  000s

  per cent.

  000s

  per cent.

  £ million

  per cent.

  Under £5,000

  220

  (3·2)

  260

  (2·1)

  110

  (2·2)

  £5,000 to £10,000

  1,410

  (20·7)

  2,610

  (21·2)

  1,060

  (21·2)

  £10,000 to £15,000

  1,080

  (15·8)

  2,070

  (16·8)

  840

  (16·8)

  £15,000 to £20,000

  1,270

  (18·6)

  2,330

  (18·9)

  950

  (18·9)

  £20,000 to £25,000

  990

  (14·5)

  1,820

  (14·8)

  740

  (14·7)

  £25,000 to £50,000

  1,550

  (22·7)

  2,700

  (21·9)

  1,100

  (22·0)

  Above £50,000

  300

  (4·4)

  520

  (4·3)

  210

  (4·3)

  6,810

  (100·0)

  12,310

  (100·0)

  5,010

  (100·0)

  Notes:

  1. Estimates are based on the 1986, 1987, 1988 family expenditure survey, supplemented by the survey of personal incomes, and updated to 1991–92 levels of earnings and benefit rates excluding proposed changes to child benefit announced in the Budget.

  2. Income is measured on a gross basis and is the family's total income from all sources.

  3. Estimates take no account of any failure to claim income-related benefits.

  4. No detailed breakdown is possible for an income band above £50,000 because of sample sizes.

  5. All figures are rounded to the nearest 10,000.

  6. Figures may not sum due to rounding.

  Benefit Arrears
  Mr. Galbraith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will give(a) for each social security office within Strathclyde region, the number of awards of supplementary benefit since April 1987, where regulation 72 of the adjudication regulations has operated to make the arrears payable to the claimant and (b) the number of these cases involving payment of arrears prior to November 1980.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information requested is not available.

  Part-time Students
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his policy on paying benefit to part-time students who have courses to take, free of charge, but can obtain no grant or charitable funding.
  370
  Mr. Jack
  My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Lord Henley, has been given responsibility for energy use. His brief is to maximise energy efficiency in the Department's buildings and to take opportunities to assist in promoting energy efficiency awareness among our staff and clients.

  I refer my hon.Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) on 28 January 1991 at column 434.

  Child Benefit
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list, on the same basis as his reply to the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett), 7 June 1988,Official Report, columns 521–22, the total amount of child benefit, together with the number of families a nd children in respect of which it is paid, and the percentage which each figure represents for the income bands (a) under £5,000, (b) £5,000 to £10,000, (c) £10,000 to £15,000, (d) £15,000 to £20,000, (e) £20,000 to £25,000, (f) £25,000 to £50,000, (g) £50,000 to £100,000 and (h) £100,000 and over.

  Mr. Jack
  Information about incomes of families receiving child benefit is not routinely collected. The following estimates of the gross incomes of recipient families in 1991–92 are therefore made on the basis of sample survey data which are subject to normal sampling and response variation.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Unemployed part-time students can receive income support provided they are prepared to terminate the course if a job vacancy arises, and they meet the basic conditions of entitlement to benefit. That is for a fit person of working age to e available for and actively seeking employment

  Local Offices
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his policy toward the provision of answerphones for local offices for use after hours; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Local offices can, at their discretion, use answerphones after hours to receive and impart information. Currently just under half do so.

  State Pensions
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) in which areas his Department has employed the services of market researchers to canvass pensioners over their preferred method for receiving payment of their state pension;

  (2) if his Department employs the services of market researchers to canvass pensioners over their preferred method for receiving payment of their state pensions in (a)urban areas and (b)rural areas.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department has recently employed market researchers to conduct a survey of preferred methods for receiving payment of state benefits. It was conducted amongst a nationally representative sample of pensioners, people coming up to retirement and people receiving child benefit.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what representations he has received concerning the payment of state pensions through post offices and sub-post offices.

  Miss Widdecombe
  We have received no recent representations.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his Department's policy on payment methods of state pensions; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The Department's policy is to provide state retirement pensioners with the option of payment either by order book encashable at a post office or by automated credit transfer direct to a bank or building society account.

  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what guidance his Department has issued to pensioners who receive a state pension about methods of receiving that benefit.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Information about different methods of receiving retirement pension is contained in the pension claim form. In addition, in 1988, personal letters were sent to state retirement pensioners reminding them of the facility to receive their pension by automated credit transfer to a bank or building society account.

  Benefit Appeals, Scotland
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the number of appeals heard and decided by tribunals concerning(a) income support, (b) mobility allowance, (c) attendance allowance, (d) injury

  Applications received April 1990 to February 1991

  Number of refusals due to perceived inability to repay

  Percentage of refusals due to perceived inability to repay

  Coventry East

  3,633

  83

  2·29

  Coventry West

  1,430

  4

  0·28

  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) how many people in the last year who have attempted to claim a crisis loan from the social fund at the Coventry East Department of Social Security office as the only means by which serious damage or serious risk to their health or safety may be prevented have not been
  372
  and disablement benefit, (e) invalidity benefit and (f) non-income-related benefits in (i) Strathclyde and (ii) Scotland in the years 1988–89, 1989–90 and in the current year.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The latest available statistics relating to social security appeal tribunals are for the quarter ending 31 March 1990. National administrative statistics for appeal tribunals are not available for areas smaller than a social security region. The relevant information for Scotland is in the table.

  Total number of social security appeals heard and decided: Scotland

  Year ending December 1988

  Year ending 31 December 1989

  Quarter ending 31 March 1990

  Income Support

  733

  3,564

  841

  Mobility Allowance

  182

  209

  36

  Attendance Allowance

  13

  24

  3

  Disablement Benefit

  263

  278

  54

  Invalidity Benefit

  526

  674

  119

  Child Benefit

  216

  277

  65

  Invalid Care Allowance

  124

  92

  17

  Maternity Allowance

  2

  3

  1

  Retirement Pension

  63

  44

  5

  Severe Disablement Allowance

  25

  18

  3

  Unemployment Benefit

  3,510

  2,813

  551

  Widows Benefit

  46

  33

  15

  Social Fund
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many crisis loans were claimed and awarded by the Coventry East and West Department of Social Security offices last year.

  Mr. Scott
  The information requested is available in the Library.

  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many people in the last year who have claimed a crisis loan from the social fund at the Coventry East office of the Department of Social Security as the only means by which serious damage or serious risk to their health or safety may be prevented have been refused a loan because, in the opinion of the social fund officer, they could not afford to repay it; what is the number for the Coventry West office; and what percentage of all applications for crisis loans are refused for this reason at each office.

  Mr. Scott
  The table shows the number of crisis loan applications received together with the number of crisis loan refusals because of perceived inability to repay for the period 1 April 1990 to the end of February 1991.

  assessed on the day they have claimed but have been told to return the following day; and what are the figures for the Coventry West office;

  (2) how many people in the last year have been awarded a crisis loan from the social fund at the Department of Social Security Coventry East office as the only means by

  373
  which serious risk to their health or safety may be prevented and have been awarded a loan but told it would be posted to them instead of being paid to them on the day they were awarded it; and what are the figures for the Coventry West office.

  Mr. Scott
  The information requested is not available.

  Disabled Drivers
  Mr. Burns
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security, further to the 1991 Budget statement, whether he will make a statement about the measures designed to help disabled drivers.

  Mr. Scott
  There are two measures arising from the Chancellor's Budget statement which will be of particular help to disabled drivers. The first is an extension in relief from car tax to cover vehicles leased to disabled drivers who are unable to complete the three-year leasing agreement. The second is to increase to £40 the annual petrol tax allowance paid to those disabled drivers who still have a vehicle provided through the invalid vehicle scheme. This represents a 300 per cent. increase in the existing allowance. I am especially pleased to welcome these modest, but worthwhile concessions.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Agricultural Support
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the total of moneys received from the European Economic Community, in connection with agricultural support, subsidies or intervention payments of any kind, in each year since accession; and what has been the net cost of agricultural support, both national and Community, after allowing for the moneys received from the European Economic Community.

  Mr. Curry
  The total of European Community receipts in relation to agriculture, and total United Kingdom expenditure on agricultural grants and subsidies, for the period requested is shown in the table.

  Financial year

  Expenditure on agriculture support

  Gross domestic product at current market prices (1989–90)

  (a) As a percentage of (c)

  Actual (a) £m

  Real terms (b) £m

  (c) £m

  1960–61

  263

  27

  26,277

  1·000

  1961–62

  343

  36

  27,686

  1·240

  1962–63

  310

  34

  29,067

  1·070

  1963–64

  294

  33

  31,358

  ·940

  1964–65

  264

  31

  34,200

  ·770

  1965–66

  237

  29

  36,605

  ·650

  1966–67

  229

  29

  38,852

  ·590

  1967–68

  262

  35

  41,196

  ·640

  1968–69

  269

  37

  44,647

  ·600

  1969–70

  281

  41

  47,962

  ·590

  1970–71

  273

  43

  53,180

  ·510

  1971–72

  323

  56

  59,276

  ·540

  1972–73

  267

  50

  67,589

  ·400

  1973–74

  392

  78

  75,006

  ·520

  1974–75

  495

  118

  89,376

  ·550

  1975–76

  512

  153

  111,210

  ·460

  1976–77

  378

  128

  130,070

  ·290

  1977–78

  460

  177

  151,431

  ·300

  1978–79

  538

  229

  173,762

  ·310

  1979–80

  677

  338

  208,644

  ·320

  1980–81

  1,012

  597

  237,798

  ·430

  374

  Year

  Total receipts from the EC in relation to agriculture

  Total Exchequer expenditure on agricultural grants and subsidies in the United Kingdom (EC and national)

  (£ million)

  1973–74

  80

  390

  1974–75

  170

  490

  1975–76

  260

  510

  1976–77

  180

  380

  1977–78

  190

  460

  1978–79

  330

  540

  1979–80

  410

  680

  1980–81

  610

  1,010

  1981–82

  740

  970

  1982–83

  810

  1,430

  1983–84

  1,200

  1,730

  1984–85

  1,200

  1,710

  1985–86

  1,280

  2,170

  1986–87

  1,480

  1,450

  1987–88

  1,130

  1,630

  1988–89

  1,600

  1,380

  1989–90

  1,230

  1,260

  1990–91

  1,620

  1,960

  It would be misleading to net these receipts off the expenditure because the United Kingdom is a large net contributor to the Community budget and the receipts are in effect fully funded by the Exchequer.

  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was(a) the overall cost and (b) the net cost to the Exchequer of support to United Kingdom agriculture in each year from 1960 to 1990 in actual and real terms; and if he will show each set of figures as a percentage of the gross domestic product.

  Mr. Curry
  The gross cost to the Exchequer of all agricultural support for each year from 1960–61 to 1989–90 is given in the table. The cost is also shown in real terms. It would be misleading to show the cost net of EC receipts because the United Kingdom is a large net contributor to the Community budget and the receipts are in effect fully funded by the Exchequer. The table also shows the cost of support as a percentage of gross domestic product.
  375

  Financial year

  Expenditure on agriculture support

  Gross domestic product at current market prices (1989–90)

  (a) As a percentage of (c)

  Actual (a) £m

  Real terms (b) £m

  (c) £m

  1981–82

  972

  629

  260,950

  ·370

  1982–83

  1,433

  993

  285,691

  ·500

  1983–84

  1,729

  1,253

  309,788

  ·560

  1984–85

  1,712

  1,304

  331,873

  ·520

  1985–86

  2,165

  1,741

  362,876

  ·600

  1986–87

  1,449

  1,204

  390,732

  ·370

  1987–88

  1,630

  1,428

  431,984

  ·380

  1988–89

  1,380

  1,299

  480,635

  ·290

  1989–90

  1,258

  1,258

  518,671

  ·240

  Sources: (a) and (b) 1960–61 to 1985–86 Annual Reviews of White Papers.

  1986–87 to 1989–90 Agriculture in the United Kingdom.

  (c) 1960–61 to 1989–90 CSO Economic Trends 1989–90.

  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish in the Official Report a table showing (a) the amount spent on agricultural support in the United Kingdom under the common agricultural policy and by national grants and subsidies

  £ million

  Amount spent on agricultural support in the United Kingdom under the CAP and by national grants and subsidies1

  Gross domestic product2

  Expenditure on agricultural support as a percentage of the gross domestic product

  1960–61

  260

  26,277

  0·99

  1970–71

  270

  53,180

  0·51

  1980–81

  1,010

  237,798

  0·43

  1981–82

  970

  260,950

  0·37

  1982–83

  1,430

  285,691

  0·50

  1983–84

  1,730

  309,788

  0·56

  1984–85

  1,710

  331,873

  0·51

  1985–86

  2,170

  362,876

  0·60

  1986–87

  1,450

  390,732

  0·37

  1987–88

  1,630

  431,984

  0·38

  1988–89

  1,380

  480,635

  0·29

  1989–90

  1,260

  518,671

  0·24

  1990–91 Forecast

  1,960

  547,000

  0·36

  Sources:

  11960–61 to 1986–87: Annual Review White Papers.

  1987–88 to 1990–91: Agriculture In The UK.

  21960–61 to 1984–85: C.S.O. Economic Trends Annual Supplement 1991 Edition.

  1985–86 to 1989–90: C.S.O. Press Notice—CSO (91) 37–15 March 1991.

  1990–91: Financial Statement of the Budget Report 1991.

  Cereal Substitutes
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the principal cereal substitutes with the prices paid by the compounders imported into(a) the United Kingdom and (b) the European Economic Community.

  Average unit values1 of principal cereal substitutes imported during January to October 1990 into:

  £ per tonne

  European Community

  United Kingdom

  From third countries

  From rest of EC

  From third countries

  All sources

  Manioc

  88·3

  neg

  neg

  neg

  Maize Gluten Feed

  87·1

  93·9

  89·5

  90·2

  Maize Germ Cake

  89·5

  neg

  neg

  neg

  Citrus Pulp

  88·9

  98·8

  102·0

  101·5

  Other Fruit Waste

  75·1

  neg

  neg

  neg

  Beet Pulp

  88·0

  90·5

  95·3

  93·5

  Sweet Potatoes

  104·7

  neg

  neg

  neg

  Brans

  64·5

  94·1

  86·0

  93·4

  376
  and (b) the expenditure on agricultural support as a percentage of the gross domestic product, for the years 1960–61, 1970–71 and each year from 1980–81 to 1990–91.

  Mr. Curry
  The information is as follows:

  Mr. Curry
  Information on the average unit values of imports of the principal cereal substitutes during the period January to October 1990 is shown in the table. Comparisons may be affected by many factors including variations in date of importation, transport and handling costs, origin and specification of the product.
  377

  European Community

  United Kingdom

  From third countries

  From rest of EC

  From third countries

  All sources

  Brewers/distillers waste

  94·9

  77·4

  92·2

  88·6

  Other starch residues

  95·3

  neg

  neg

  neg

  Source: based on Eurostat data.

  Notes:

  neg = negligible imports recorded.

  1 average unit value is the aggregate value of imports (cif) divided by quantity of imports. Import levies and duties (applicable only to brans and manioc) are not included in the valuations of imports direct from third countries but may be reflected in valuation of re-exports and transhipments.

  Sheep Scab
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further consideration he has given to the issue of sheep scab policy and public safety; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  A review of sheep scab policy is taking place and an announcement will be made when this is completed.

  All sheep dip products are licensed under the Medicines Act 1968 and are currently subject to a review to ensure the most up-to-date standards on safety—including safety to the environment. Any products which fail to meet these standards will be withdrawn from the market. The review will be completed by the end of the year.

  Estimated degree of self sufficiency1 per cent.

  1979–80

  1985–86

  1989–90

  Wheat

  2 Cereals

  Wheat

  2 Cereals

  Wheat

  2Cereals

  United Kingdom3

  76·0

  79·6

  105·5

  113·6

  122·5

  113·6

  European Community (EC12)4

  112·9

  92·8

  122·5

  114·2

  133·3

  119·3

  United States4

  272·8

  162·5

  231·2

  171·4

  205·2

  138·1

  Canada4

  312·7

  152·5

  433·9

  201·7

  450·0

  193·1

  Selected Cairns Group countries:

  Argentina4

  202·5

  231·1

  189·1

  209·8

  232·5

  188·8

  Australia4

  476·5

  366·1

  578·5

  398·4

  454·8

  265·4

  New Zealand5

  87·8

  99·8

  80·8

  116·8

  50·0

  100·0

  1 Self sufficiency is defined here as quantity produced divided by quantity consumed: this may differ from definition used nationally.

  2 Wheat and coarse grain excluding rice.

  3 Source: Home-Grown Cereals Authority, 'Cereal Statistics'. 1983, 1988 and 1990 editions.

  4 Source for wheat and coarse grains data: FAO 'Food Outlook', February 1991; FAO 'Food Outlook' Statistical Supplement 1989.

  5 Source is OECD: 1979–80 from 'National Policies and Agricultural Trade, Country Study: New Zealand'—cereals are wheat and barley only; 1985–86 and 1989–90 from 1988 and 1990 editions respectively of OECD 'Agricultural Policies, Markets and Trade, Monitoring and Outlook Report'.

  Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the numbers of confirmed cases of BSE in the United Kingdom for each month since 1986 to the latest available date.

  Mr. Gummer
  The number of confirmed cases of BSE in the United Kingdom listed by month of onset of clinical signs is as follows:

  Month

  Number

  July 1986

  1

  August 1986

  1

  September 1986

  3

  October 1986

  3

  November 1986

  3

  December 1986

  1

  January 1987

  5

  Cereals
  Mr. Ralph Howell
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the degree of self-sufficiency in the United Kingdom, and European Economic Community, United States, Canada and the Cairns group countries of(a) wheat, (b) all cereals, (c) all cereals and cereal substitutes for the years 1979, 1985 and the latest year available.

  Mr. Curry
  Estimates of self-sufficiency in wheat and in cereals are shown in the table for the countries specified and a selection of Cairns group members. Comprehensive information on cereals substitutes is not readily available. Broad estimates for the European Community suggest a self-sufficiency in cereals and substitutes combined of about 103 per cent. in 1985–86 and 105 per cent. in 1989–90: corresponding estimates for the United Kingdom are 109 and 110 per cent. respectively and around 80 per cent. in 1989–80.

  Month

  Number

  February1987

  5

  March 1987

  8

  April 1987

  15

  May 1987

  13

  June 1987

  29

  July 1987

  41

  August 1987

  35

  September 1987

  76

  October 1987

  71

  November 1987

  66

  December 1987

  98

  January 1988

  132

  February 1988

  94

  March 1988

  107

  April 1988

  142

  May 1988

  165

  June 1988

  253

  July 1988

  261

  August 1988

  280

  379

  Month

  Number

  September 1988

  357

  October 1988

  372

  November 1988

  422

  December 1988

  495

  January 1989

  524

  February 1989

  542

  March 1989

  530

  April 1989

  505

  May 1989

  516

  June 1989

  517

  July 1989

  588

  August 1989

  711

  September 1989

  696

  October 1989

  752

  November 1989

  795

  December 1989

  972

  January 1990

  1,182

  February 1990

  1,253

  March 1990

  1,135

  April 1990

  1,006

  May 1990

  1,000

  June 1990

  970

  July 1990

  1,071

  August 1990

  1,158

  September 1990

  1,199

  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list, for each year since 1987, how many BSE cows have been identified(a) on the farm, (b) at the livestock market, (c) at the slaughterhouse and (d) at other locations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  For 1987 the information is not available. For 1988 onwards the information for Great Britain is as follows:

  Year

  Farm

  Market

  Slaughter-house

  Other locations

  1988

  2,140

  16

  27

  2

  1989

  7,004

  55

  73

  4

  1990

  13,767

  74

  97

  4

  EC Food Surpluses
  Mr. O'Brien
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will assist with the distribution of surplus EC food by meeting the costs of distribution by charitable organisations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  Designated organisations will be entitled to reimbursement of the costs of each of the two stages of transport from store to processor and from processor to distribution point, up to certain maximum levels. Organisations participating in the distribution will also be able to reclaim justifiable and directly related administrative costs.

  Mr. O'Brien
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the estimated value of EC surplus food to be distributed in the United Kingdom, in 1991; how this total will be divided between the regions; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  The United Kingdom has been allocated some £17·62 million worth of butter and beef for distribution during 1991. The geographical spread of this distribution will depend solely on the voluntary participation of charitable and other non-profit-making organisations. Applications for designation are currently being considered and I will make a statement as soon as a decision has been made.
  380
  Mr. O'Brien
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps are being taken to enable homeless and destitute people to receive a share of the surplus EC food to be distributed in the near future where no charitable organisation is available to organise the distribution; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  The distribution of produce to all eligible groups depends entirely on the voluntary participation of suitable organisations and I have no plans to change this arrangement.

  Set-aside Scheme
  Mr. Warren
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many acres of farm land have been included in the set-aside scheme; what is the total sum paid to farmers to date; and what are the terms and conditions required of recipients to keep the said land in a reasonable condition.

  Mr. Curry
  Around 265,000 acres has been entered into the set-aside scheme in England in the first three years. Payments are made one year in arrears. A total of £8 million was paid in respect of the first scheme year and a further £17·5 million has been allocated in respect of the second.

  Details of the management obligations placed upon participants are included in the scheme literature, copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Tobacco
  Sir David Price
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps the Government are taking to persuade the Council of Ministers of the European Community to reduce the support to tobacco growing within the Community.

  Mr. Curry
  The Government have consistently campaigned for reductions in EC support levels for tobacco, and particularly for higher tar varieties. In the current annual price-fixing negotiations, the biggest price cuts proposed by the Commission are for tobacco. The proposals would cut prices by an average of 10 per cent. with a range of 4 to 17 per cent. depending on variety, with the biggest cuts falling on higher tar varieties. The Government fully support these proposals.

  The EC tobacco regime is to be completely reviewed later this year. The Government's object will be to secure the most radical reform negotiable.

  Veterinary Investigation Centres
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the number of man hours spent on(a) salmonella and (b) BSE at each of the veterinary investigation centres in 1990; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  The table lists the number of man hours of veterinary and scientific staff time in each of the veterinary investigation centres in England and Wales for the period 1 April to 31 December 1990.

  VI centre

  Salmonella man hours

  BSE man hours

  Aberystwyth

  1,006

  579

  Bangor

  1,259

  641

  Bristol

  3,379

  708

  381

  VI centre

  Salmonella man hours

  BSE man hours

  Cambridge

  3,056

  2,764

  Carmarthen

  953

  1,297

  Lincoln

  2,917

  630

  Newcastle

  1,686

  1,822

  Norwich

  5,936

  592

  Penrith

  614

  751

  Preston

  4,632

  1,504

  Reading

  1,952

  1,440

  Shrewsbury

  2,287

  2,368

  Starcross

  1,779

  1,333

  Sutton Bonington

  2,950

  2,354

  Truro

  724

  1,707

  Thirsk

  2,315

  1,773

  Worcester

  2,264

  2,528

  Winchester

  1,164

  555

  Wye

  1,875

  1,367

  It should be noted that since the veterinary investigation service is managed and operated on a national basis, certain activities within both the salmonella and BSE columns do not reflect activity arising locally—for example, all examinations of processed animal protein for salmonella under the relevant orders are rationalised in one centre and the final histopathological diagnosis of BSE is spread over a number of centres to ensure as rapid a diagnosis as possible.

  It should also be noted that the veterinary field service and not the veterinary investigation service is responsible for the field activities in relation to BSE and for certain field activities in relation to salmonella under the Zoonoses Order, the Poultry Laying Flocks and the Poultry Breeding Flocks and Hatcheries Order and the Processed Animal Protein Orders.

  Veterinary Laboratory, Lincoln
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what assessment he has made of the impact of the proposed closure of the veterinary laboratory at Lincoln on the efficiency of veterinary inspection in that area.

  Mr. Maclean
  In carrying out the review of the veterinary investigation service the review team carried out a full assessment of the impact of the closure of the Lincoln veterinary investigation centre on not only the Department's responsibilities in relation to statutory obligations, disease surveillance, public health and food safety matters, but on the maintenance of an effective and viable service to the local livestock industry. Final decisions were taken only after a very detailed consideration of the facts.

  Responsibility for the work carried out at Lincoln is being transferred to the Sutton Bonington centre where additional accommodation, veterinary and scientific staff and increased investment in new technology are being provided. The quality control unit which operates on a national basis and is currently located at Lincoln is being relocated in new purpose-built accommodation at another centre.

  As I indicated in my announcement of the outcome of the review, I am confident that the implementation of the recommendations of the review team will result in significant improvements in the quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the service provided. The veterinary
  382
  investigation service will be well equipped not only to meet our national needs over the years ahead but to continue to provide an efficient service to Lincolnshire.

  EC Slaughterhouse Regulations
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about derogations to EC slaughterhouse regulations in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Gummer
  At present, all slaughterhouses wishing to export to other member states must comply in full with EC slaughterhouse regulations; there are no derogations.

  However, the European Commission's single market proposals covering this sector include provision for (i) temporary derogations for businesses which will be unable to comply with the proposed rules before the end of 1992; and (ii) permanent derogations from the structural rules for small businesses. The precise nature and scope of these derogations remain to be resolved in the course of negotiations in Brussels.

  The Government fully support the proposal to introduce a single hygiene standard in the meat sector and consider that derogations should be available only where there is a genuine need for them. They should not be used as a means of delaying achievement of the single standard.

  Seafish Committees
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has any plans to strengthen the powers of seafish committees to enable them to develop byelaws regulating the use of monofilament fixed gill nets; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  Under the terms of the Sea Fisheries Regulations Act 1966, sea fisheries committees already have powers to regulate netting within their areas of jurisdiction.

  Fishing Industry
  Mr. John Townend
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether Fisheries Ministers have now completed their consultations with the United Kingdom fishing industry on the introduction of a 90 mm square mesh panel and related measures; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  As foreshadowed in the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre (Mr. Mans) on 14 January, Fisheries Ministers have now consulted the fishing industry about the unilateral introduction for United Kingdom fishing vessels of 90 mm square mesh panels in the North sea and west of Scotland demersal fisheries. The industry as a whole has acknowledged the need for improved conservation measures, but has drawn attention to various problems which the proposed measure would cause. While appreciating these difficulties, we have decided that, in the long-term interests of the industry itself, we do need to introduce the new requirement from 1 July. From this date, with the exception of beam trawlers, United Kingdom vessels fishing in the North sea and the west of Scotland north of 56 deg north and using nets of between 90 mm and 100 mm mesh size inclusive will be required to use a 90 mm square mesh panel of a specified size in either the cod end or extension piece. The
  383
  cod end will also have to meet certain requirements on construction; and the use of topside chafers and lifting bags will be prohibited. However, taking account of the points which the industry has raised the specific requirement to use a 90 mm square mesh panel will, initially at least, not apply to vessels whose maximum engine power does not exceed 298 kW—400 horse power: this derogation will not be available to vessels working as pairs if their combined engine power exceeds 298 kW. By 31 March next year we will review the arrangements in the light of experience and any developments, for example, in relation to EC technical conservation measures.

  We also sought industry views on the desirability of including square mesh panels in nephrops nets in order to reduce whitefish by catches. In the light of industry comments, we will introduce from 1 July a requirement that in areas IV and VI nets with a mesh size from 70mm to under 90mm, or in the case of area VI south of 56 deg north under 80mm, should include 80mm square mesh panels except in the case of beam trawlers. In the Irish sea, area VIIa, where different mesh size regulations apply, all nets of between 70mm and 85mm inclusive, including both nephrops and whitefish nets, should include a square mesh panel of 75mm, again with the exception of beam trawlers.

  Given the United Kingdom's major share of the North sea and west of Scotland cod and haddock stocks and the importance to our fleet of the Irish sea fisheries, we have a clear interest to improve the conservation of these stocks. I believe that these unilateral measures will not only make an important contribution to protecting juvenile whitefish, but should also make clear to the Community our determination to achieve improvements to technical conservation measures which are essential to conserving stocks. We will be laying the necessary statutory instrument before Parliament after the Easter recess.

  Potatoes
  Mr. Stevens
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has determined the market support prices for potatoes to apply in Great Britain for the 1991–92 crop year beginning 1 July.

  Mr. Gummer
  Agriculture Ministers have consulted the farmers' unions about the market support arrangements to apply for the 1991–92 crop year. Ministers have decided that the guaranteed price should remain £53 per tonne. They have, as in 1990–91, authorised the board to decide whether it wishes to support the market by entering into pre-season contracts with producers or by intervening directly, provided that total purchases do not exceed 500,000 tonnes. The target area for potato plantings by registered producers in Great Britain was fixed last August at 154,000 hectares.

WALES

  Uniform Business Rate
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales which areas in Wales have benefited as a result of the business rate revaluation.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The non-domestic rate revaluation factor for each district in Wales is shown in the following table:
  384

  Rating authority

  Revaluation factor

  Torfaen

  6·6

  Alyn and Deeside

  6·9

  Newport

  7·1

  Wrexham Maelor

  7·3

  Islwyn

  7·5

  Blaenau

  7·6

  Rhymney valley

  7·6

  Port Talbot

  7·6

  Cynon Valley

  7·8

  Montgomeryshire

  7·8

  Rhondda

  7·9

  Taff Ely

  7·9

  Colwyn

  8·0

  Glyndwr

  8·0

  Rhuddlan

  8·0

  Ynys Mon—Anglesey

  8·2

  Meirionnydd

  8·3

  Ogwr

  8·3

  Lliw Valley

  8·3

  Llanelli

  8·6

  Merthyr Tydfil

  8·6

  Preseli Pembrokeshire

  8·7

  Cardiff

  8·7

  Neath

  8·7

  Aberconwy

  9·0

  Vale of Glamorgan

  9·0

  Swansea

  9·0

  Ceredigion

  9·1

  Dwyfor

  9·1

  Delyn

  9·3

  South Pembrokeshire

  9·3

  Radnor

  9·4

  Monmouth

  9·7

  Arfon

  9·9

  Dinefwr

  10·4

  Brecknock

  10·4

  Carmarthen

  10·6

  WALES

  8·5

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what percentage of Welsh businesses will have to pay the maximum increase under the uniform business rate in 1991–92; what percentage will see their rates bills fall in real terms; and what percentage will see no increase in real terms.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The effect of transitional arrangements on non-domestic rate bills in Wales for 1991–92 is that 65 per cent. of businesses will have a reduction or no change in real terms.

  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what transitional protection he has arranged following the introduction of the uniform business rate in Wales.

  Mr. David Hunt
  In moving to the new business rating system, the contribution made by businesses towards local government spending in Wales has been maintained at the same level in real terms as in 1989–90. We recognised that some businesses would need time to adjust to the rate increases they faced following the revaluation of non-domestic property and the introduction of the uniform business rate. We therefore introduced transitional arrangements under which no occupier should have a rate increase of more than 20 per cent. in real terms in any year. For businesses which have rateable values below £10,000, the maximum increase should be 15 per cent. in real terms.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what percentage and number of Welsh mixed hereditament businesses will benefit as a result of the initial review of the community charge.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Following our initial review of the community charge and the associated consultation document entitled "The Standard Community Charge and other matters", a number of changes affecting composite hereditaments were brought into force by means of the Non-Domestic Rating (Transitional Period) (Amendment and Further Revision) Regulations 1990 (SI 1990/2329). This amended the transitional arrangements for non-domestic rates to reduce the maximum annual increase in rate bills from 15 to 10 per cent. in real terms for composite hereditaments with rateable values below £10,000 The chief valuer estimates that between 85 and 90 per cent. of mixed hereditaments in Wales will benefit.

  Audiological Services
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the area health authorities in Wales which have a comprehensive audiological service for babies and young children; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  This information is not available centrally. It is for health authorities to determine the nature and level of audiological services provided within their districts, although I understand that the Welsh Medical Committee is currently reviewing the position in Wales for children who suffer from hearing loss.

  Nurses' Grading
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many Welsh nursing clinical grading appeals are currently waiting to be heard at(a) district level. (b) national level and (c) United Kingdom level; and how many appeals have already been completed at each of those levels.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The information requested in relation to nurse clinical grading appeals in Wales is as follows:

  Numbers of appeals

  Appeal level

  Completed

  Outstanding

  District Health Authority

  3,725

  1,733

  Wales Appeals Committee

  151

  1,188

  GB—Negotiating Council

  1

  80

  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he expects nursing clinical grading appeals will be completed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Many more appeals are expected to come through at the all-Wales and negotiating council levels and, in view of the cumbersome and resource-intensive procedures, it is quite impossible to predict when the appeals process will be fully completed. At employing authority level, appeals have been completed in four of the nine districts in Wales. At the all-Wales level, agreement has recently been reached between the Department, management and staff sides on ways and means of speeding up the mechanics and I expect speedier progress to be made.
  386
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give a breakdown of the total number of nursing clinical grading appeals already heard at national level, stating how many resulted in an appeal being upheld, rejected or a failure to agree.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Of the 151 appeals heard to date by the Welsh appeals committee the results have been as follows:

  Number

  Upheld

  34

  Unsuccessful

  4

  Failure to agree

  113

  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give the average cost associated with a single nursing clinical grading appeal hearing at(a) district level, (b) national level and (c) United Kingdom level.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  This information is not available.

  Seven-year-olds (Testing)
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales (1) what consultation he has had with teachers concerning the publication of national curriculum test results for seven-year-olds; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will make a statement on the publication of national curriculum test results for seven-year-olds in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the press announcement which I made on this issue on 20 February, a copy of which has been placed in the Library of the House.

  Primary schools will be required to inform parents of the individual results of the assessment of their children at the end of key stage 1—seven-year-old pupils. There will be no statutory requirement for schools to publish aggregate results more widely although they are encouraged to do so.

  Future requirements for the collection and publication of data arising from the national curriculum assessment arrangements are still being determined. I will consult with the Curriculum Council for Wales, the School Examinations and Assessment Council, local education authorities and others on any proposed regulations.

  Agricultural Tenancies
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the response to his consultation paper on the reform of agricultural tenancy law in Wales.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Consultees have until 13 May 1991 to put forward their views. Responses will then be considered carefully by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and me before any decisions are made.

  Cash Limits
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he proposes to make any further changes to his Department's 1990–91 cash limits.
  387
  Mr. David Hunt
  Yes. The cash limit for Welsh Office/local authorities' capital is to be reduced by £14,274,000 from £367,588,000 to £353,314,000. At the same time, the cash limit for Welsh Office/Housing for Wales will increase by £14,274,000 from £92,183,000 to £106,457,000. These variations arise from the decisions of local authorities to transfer resources to Housing for Wales to enable housing associations to provide additional housing units.

  These changes do not affect forecast outturn for the planning total published in the "Financial Statement and Budget Report".

SCOTLAND

  Fishing
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what directions have been given to fisheries officers with regard to any flexibility which might be permitted in the application of the eight-day tie-up rule, in circumstances where boats at sea are caught up in extreme weather conditions; and if he will make a statement.

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  Persons aged 8–15 with a charge proved

  Dundee

  Crimes

  24

  38

  24

  13

  2

  Offences

  4

  12

  11

  4

  2

  Total

  28

  50

  35

  17

  4

  Tayside

  Crimes

  66

  73

  66

  29

  5

  Offences

  31

  21

  25

  7

  3

  Total

  97

  94

  91

  36

  8

  Scotland

  Crimes

  356

  265

  218

  251

  210

  Offences

  160

  127

  112

  129

  111

  Total

  516

  392

  330

  380

  321

  Persons aged 16–20 with a charge proved

  Dundee

  Crimes

  1,279

  1,252

  1,248

  1,044

  1,000

  Offences

  1,213

  1,222

  1,196

  1,038

  906

  Total

  2,492

  2,474

  2,444

  2,082

  1,906

  Tayside

  Crimes

  2,344

  2,286

  2,298

  1,889

  1,824

  Offences

  2,513

  2,364

  2,469

  2,167

  2,093

  Total

  4,857

  4,650

  4,767

  14,056

  23,917

  Scotland

  Crimes

  26,449

  25,592

  24,153

  22,379

  20,567

  Offences

  30,031

  28,908

  27,697

  25,581

  23,608

  Total

  56,480

  54,500

  51,850

  47,960

  44,175

  1 Includes four cases where the district of origin within Tayside region is not known.

  2 Includes five cases where the district of origin within Tayside region is not known.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish the number of recorded offences involving crimes of(a) indecency, (b) violence, (c) dishonesty, (d) fire-raising and vandalism, (e) theft of motor vehicles, (f) theft by opening lockfast places and

  Number of crimes and offences recorded by the police for selected crime/offence groupings and their percentage of total crimes and offences recorded

  Number

  Percentage

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  (i) Dundee

  (a) Indecency

  269

  253

  268

  243

  315

  0·8

  0·7

  0·8

  0·7

  0·8

  (b) Violence

  590

  561

  580

  623

  600

  1·9

  1·6

  1·7

  1·8

  1·6

  388
  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  Fishery officers have simply been told that, as is always the case when enforcing fisheries, where there is an immediate safety hazard they should take this into account in administering the scheme. Particular examples might be where a vessel was forced to divert to another port because of bad weather or where bad weather meant that it was having to ride out a storm at sea and unable to make port at all. In such circumstances a fisherman should contact the relevant fishery office as soon as the problem becomes apparent.

  Crime Statistics
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish the numbers of children in age categories eight to 15 years and youths 16 to 20 years who have been convicted of offences in each of the last five years in(a) Dundee, (b) Tayside and (c) Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Figures for the last five years for which information is available are given in the table.

  (g) drugs, indicating their percentage of total recorded offences, in (i) Dundee, (ii) Tayside and (iii) Scotland, in each of the past five years for which figures are available.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The information requested is given in the table.
  389

  Number

  Percentage

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1985

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  (c) Dishonesty

  13,082

  15,252

  15,888

  15,379

  16,540

  41·0

  44·3

  45·4

  44·0

  44·1

  (d) Fire-raising and vandalism

  3,300

  3,423

  3,278

  2,898

  3,623

  10·3

  9·9

  9·4

  8·3

  9·7

  (e) Theft of motor vehicles

  652

  605

  545

  563

  585

  2·0

  1·8

  1·6

  1·6

  1·6

  (f) Theft by opening lockfast places

  1,649

  2,185

  2,478

  2,977

  3,708

  5·2

  6·3

  7·1

  8·5

  9·9

  (g) Drugs

  160

  193

  265

  311

  420

  0·5

  0·6

  0·8

  0·9

  1·1

  (ii) Tayside

  (a) Indecency

  380

  387

  417

  424

  475

  0·6

  0·6

  0·6

  0·6

  0·7

  (b) Violence

  971

  949

  1,048

  1,095

  1,088

  1·6

  1·5

  1·6

  1·6

  1·5

  (c) Dishonesty

  22,441

  25,378

  25,996

  24,260

  25,982

  36·7

  39·2

  38·6

  35·2

  37·0

  (d) Fire-raising and vandalism

  6,547

  6,782

  6,601

  6,122

  7,021

  10·7

  10·5

  9·8

  8·9

  10·0

  (e) Theft of motor vehicles

  1,215

  1,122

  1,044

  958

  1,049

  2·0

  1·7

  1·5

  1·4

  1·5

  (f) Theft by opening lockfast places

  2,718

  3,369

  3,656

  4,207

  4,785

  4·4

  5·2

  5·4

  6·1

  6·8

  (g) Drugs

  319

  368

  470

  561

  646

  0·5

  0·6

  0·7

  0·8

  0·9

  (iii) Scotland

  (a) Indecency

  5,741

  5,354

  5,266

  5,057

  5,742

  0·7

  0·7

  0·6

  0·6

  0·6

  (b) Violence

  15,090

  15,705

  18,350

  17,871

  18,374

  1·9

  1·9

  2·1

  2·1

  2·0

  (c) Dishonesty

  342,349

  342,522

  356,527

  344,509

  355,525

  42·8

  41·7

  41·5

  40·3

  39·4

  (d) Fire-raising and vandalism

  79,545

  78,891

  76,444

  73,518

  79,062

  9·9

  9·6

  8·9

  8·6

  8·8

  (e) Theft of motor vehicles

  29,938

  28,036

  26,183

  26,395

  29,064

  3·7

  3·4

  3·1

  3·1

  3·2

  (f) Theft by opening lockfast places

  52,065

  61,402

  68,979

  77,503

  84,748

  6·5

  7·5

  8·0

  9·1

  9·4

  (g) Drugs

  5,078

  5,318

  4,736

  5,213

  7,024

  0·6

  0·6

  0·6

  0·6

  0·8

  Notes:

  1. Under violence are included all crimes in group 1 of The Scottish Office Home and Health Department (SOHHD) classification of crimes and offences.

  2. Under fire-raising and vandalism are included all crimes in group 4 of the SOHHD classification.

  3. Under theft by opening lockfast places are included opening lockfast places with intent to steal and attempted opening lockfast places with intent to steal.

  4. Crimes in (e) and (f) above are included with other crimes of dishonesty in (c).

  5. Details of the SOHHD classification are given in the SOHHD statistical bulletin "Recorded crime in Scotland 1989", a copy of which is in the Library.

  Motorways
  Dr. Twinn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many miles of motorway there are in Scotland; and what proportion of these are lit.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Of a total of 161·5 miles of motorway in Scotland, 27 miles are lit, which equates to approximately 17 per cent.

  Miscarriages of Justice
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement concerning the effectiveness of the procedure for reviewing alleged miscarriages of justice.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Alleged miscarriages of justice in Scotland may be reviewed by the High Court of Justiciary either when an appeal is made from the court of first instance or when a case is referred to the High Court by the Secretary of State in terms of section 263(1) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975. In circumstances where such a reference might be inappropriate, the Secretary of State may make a recommendation to Her Majesty concerning exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy.

  Any convicted person may petition the Secretary of State seeking review of his case. The validity, weight and
  390
  significance of any fresh evidence or any other issue raised is carefully assessed in every case and, where appropriate, consideration given to a reference to the High Court of Justiciary. Between 1984 and 1990 on average 50 persons petitioned the Secretary of State in each year; and three cases were referred to the High Court, the conviction being quashed in each case.

  Food Costs
  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the amount of money allocated for food per prisoner per day in each prison in Scotland.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The cost of food for prisoners is determined by the weekly ration sheet based on an approved dietary scale. On that basis, the average daily food cost per prisoner in Scotland is £1·19.

  Dr. Godman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the amount of money allocated for food per hospital patient per day in Scotland.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  This information is not available in the form requested.

  It is for each health board to decide on how much of its total revenue allocation it will spend on catering services, including food provisions. In arriving at that decision the

  391
  board will have regard to the advice of dietitians on the dietary requirements of patients in the different care groups.

  Agriculture
  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many(a) ewes and shearlings, (b) dairy cows and (c) breeding sows and gilts there were in Scotland (i) in each of the five years from 1986 to 1990 and (ii) on average for the years between 1979 and 1981, inclusive.

  thousands

  Average

  1986

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1979 to 19811

  Ewes and gimmers2

  3,136·8

  3,377·2

  3,463·7

  3,569·2

  3,639·7

  3,686·5

  Dairy cows3

  283·1

  269·9

  263·8

  250·5

  246·5

  242·5

  Breeding sows and gilts4

  50·9

  42·0

  44·4

  47·5

  47·0

  50·7

  1 The figures in this column are not directly comparable with those for the later years. Between June 1986 and June 1987, 5,995 holdings were removed from the main census; at June 1986 there were 88 thousand ewes and gimmers kept for breeding, 147 dairy cows and 97 breeding sows and gilts on these holdings.

  2 Ewes and gimmers, at June of year stated, used for breeding in previous season.

  3 Dairy cows and heifers in milk and dairy cows in calf but not in milk.

  4 Sows and gilts in pig and other sows for breeding.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many hectares of(a) cereals and (b) potatoes were grown in Scotland (i) in each of the five years from 1986 to 1990 and (ii) on average for the years between 1979 and 1981, inclusive.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information set out in the table shows the figures recorded in the June agricultural censuses of main holdings in Scotland.

  Thousand hectares

  Cereals2

  Potatoes3

  Average 1979 to 19811

  505·5

  34·2

  1986

  534·3

  29·9

  1987

  520·7

  29·0

  1988

  523·8

  28·3

  1989

  506·0

  27·7

  1990

  478·3

  27·2

  1 The figures in this column are not directly comparable with those for later years. Between June 1986 and June 1987, 5,995 holdings were removed from the main census; at June 1986 there were 1,013 hectares of cereals and 206 hectares of potatoes on these holdings.

  2 Includes wheat, triticale, barley, oats and mixed grain for threshing.

  3 Includes potatoes for seed and ware.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many agricultural holdings there were in Scotland in 1980, 1985 and 1990, respectively.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The number of holdings included in the June agricultural censuses of main holdings in Scotland were as follows:

  thousands

  1980

  31·4

  1985

  31·3

  11990

  27·2

  1 The figure for 1990 is not directly comparable with those for the earlier years. Between June 1986 and June 1987, 5,995 holdings were removed from the main census.

  392
  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information set out in the table shows the figures recorded in the June agricultural censuses of main holdings in Scotland.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many(a) whole-time and (b) part-time farmers there were in Scotland in 1980, 1985 and 1990, respectively.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information set out in the table shows the figures recorded in the June agricultural censuses of main holdings in Scotland.

  thousands

  1980

  1985

  1990

  Full-time occupiers

  14·1

  13·9

  12·9

  Part-time occupiers1

  9·0

  9·8

  8·6

  1 The figure for 1990 is not directly comparable with those for earlier years. Between June 1986 and June 1987, 5,995 holdings were removed from the main census; at June 1986 there were 3,480 part-time occupiers on these holdings.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the level of investment by the agricultural industry in Scotland in(a) plant and machinery, (b) vehicles, (c) buildings and (d) works, in 1979, 1980, 1985 and the latest year for which figures are available (i) in cash terms and (ii) at fixed prices.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: Figures showing the levels of investment in Scottish agriculture are set out in the table, with the exception of separate figures for buildings and works, which are unavailable.

  £ million

  Plant and machinery

  Vehicles

  Buildings and works

  1979

  Current prices

  61·5

  3·8

  70·5

  Constant 1985 prices

  90·7

  5·9

  104·1

  1980

  Current prices

  53·5

  3·4

  98·7

  Constant 1985 prices

  67·4

  4·6

  110·3

  1985

  Current prices

  71·4

  7·4

  97·3

  Constant 1985 prices

  71·4

  7·4

  97·3

  393

  Plant and machinery

  Vehicles

  Buildings and works

  1989

  Current prices

  73·2

  8·7

  54·1

  Constant 1985 prices

  58·1

  6·6

  43·6

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the number of workers engaged in agriculture in Scotland in 1980, 1985 and 1990, respectively,(a) in total and (b) whole time.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information set out in the table shows the figures recorded in the June agricultural censuses of main holdings in Scotland.

  thousands

  1980

  1985

  1990

  Total workers1 2

  40·6

  34·0

  27·9

  Of which: full time

  28·9

  25·0

  20·0

  1The figure for 1990 is not directly comparable with those for the earlier years. Between June 1986 and June 1987, 5,995 holdings were removed from the main census; at June 1986 there were 463 workers on these holdings.

  £ million

  Roads and Transport

  Water and Sewerage

  Police

  Education

  Social Work

  General services

  Total

  Regions and Islands

  Districts

  1978–79

  217·740

  145·853

  13·138

  129·109

  19·249

  —

  185·002

  —

  710·091

  1979–80

  209·134

  170·729

  13·456

  106·132

  22·022

  —

  196·563

  —

  718·036

  1980–81

  160·659

  151·812

  14·382

  94·559

  20·181

  —

  159·629

  —

  601·222

  1981–82

  191·987

  145·530

  12·668

  99·345

  20·682

  —

  147·714

  —

  617·925

  1982–83

  189·892

  122·556

  13·539

  83·919

  20·577

  —

  166·987

  —

  597·471

  1983–84

  188·901

  133·626

  14·161

  72·423

  23·436

  —

  142·560

  —

  575·107

  1984–85

  185·981

  128·353

  13·660

  67·997

  28·248

  —

  143·760

  —

  568·001

  1985–86

  208·669

  119·362

  14·664

  73·902

  26·500

  —

  132·422

  —

  575·519

  1986–87

  193·311

  125·838

  15·737

  66·511

  20·030

  —

  130·369

  —

  551·795

  1987–88

  158·608

  113·540

  19·539

  70·574

  22·005

  76·190

  —

  90·834

  551·289

  1988–89

  151·353

  119·564

  20·313

  78·825

  24·796

  81·163

  —

  93·240

  569·255

  1989–90

  176·717

  128·988

  18·962

  81·593

  24·449

  60·352

  —

  109·800

  600·861

  Note:

  Figures are at constant 1989–90 prices, as measured by the GDP deflator. For general services, total district council expenditure is readily available only for the latest three years. General services expenditure up to 1986–87 is for regions, islands and districts.

  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the capital allocations, disaggregated into blocks, for 1991–92 for each local authority in Scotland.

  £'000

  Roads and transport

  Water and sewerage

  Police

  Education

  Social work

  General services

  Total

  Borders Region

  4,200

  4,500

  —

  3,453

  430

  1,200

  13,783

  Berwickshire

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  500

  500

  Ettrick and Lauderdale

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  500

  500

  Roxburgh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  600

  600

  Tweeddale

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  200

  200

  Central Region

  4,400

  7,800

  326

  3,914

  1,340

  1,400

  19,180

  Clackmannan

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  500

  500

  Falkirk

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,000

  1,000

  Stirling

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  850

  850

  Dumfries and Galloway Region

  6,300

  7,000

  2,250

  3,010

  780

  1,200

  20,540

  Annandale and Eskdale

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  250

  250

  Nithsdale

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  350

  350

  Stewartry

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  250

  250

  Wigtown

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  700

  700

  Fife Region

  8,300

  11,500

  543

  5,530

  1,440

  2,300

  29,613

  394
  2Includes full-time and part-time regular staff, and casual and seasonal workers; excludes occupiers and spouses working on holdings.

  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many tractors were acquired by the agriculture industry in Scotland(a) in total and (b) of 40 kW and over, in 1979, 1985 and the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: Figures on the number of tractors acquired by the agriculture industry are not available.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the gross local authority capital expenditure on(a) all regional services, (b) education services, (c) roads and transport, (d) social work and (e) district council non-housing services at constant prices for each year from 1978–79 to 1991–92.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information at constant 1989–90 prices is set out in the table for each of local authorities' six main non-housing capital programmes. Information about 1990–91 and 1991–92 will be known only after the end of those financial years.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  [holding answer 25 March 1991]: The information is as follows:
  395

  Roads and transport

  Water and sewerage

  Police

  Education

  Social work

  General services

  Total

  Dunfermline

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,250

  1,250

  Kirkcaldy

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,200

  1,200

  North East Fife

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  400

  400

  Grampian Region

  12,000

  18,500

  196

  8,303

  2,065

  1,000

  42,064

  Aberdeen City

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,600

  1,600

  Banff and Buchan

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  550

  550

  Gordon

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  600

  600

  Kincardine and Deeside

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  360

  360

  Moray

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  450

  450

  Highland Region

  12,500

  10,000

  —

  3,849

  1,015

  3,270

  30,634

  Badenoch and Strathspey

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  160

  160

  Caithness

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  350

  350

  Inverness

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  600

  600

  Lochaber

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  400

  400

  Nairn

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  260

  260

  Ross and Cromarty

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  750

  750

  Skye and Lochalsh

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  300

  300

  Sutherland

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  350

  350

  Lothian Region

  14,400

  19,500

  —

  6,918

  2,935

  1,500

  45,253

  East Lothian

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  500

  500

  Edinburgh City

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,000

  1,000

  Midlothian

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  560

  560

  West Lothian

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,250

  1,250

  Strathclyde Region

  75,600

  65,000

  3,447

  28,561

  9,715

  9,000

  191,323

  Argyle and Bute

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  825

  825

  Bearsden and Milngavie

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  350

  350

  Clydebank

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,000

  1,000

  Clydesdale

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  730

  730

  Cumbernauld and Kilsyth

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  600

  600

  Cumnock and Doon Valley

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  850

  850

  Cunninghame

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  950

  950

  Dunbarton

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,100

  1,100

  East Kilbride

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  900

  900

  Eastwood

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  200

  200

  Glasgow City

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  4,000

  4,000

  Hamilton

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  2,000

  2,000

  Inverclyde

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,500

  1,500

  Kilmarnock and Loudoun

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  700

  700

  Kyle and Carrick

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  800

  800

  Monklands

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,400

  1,400

  Motherwell

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  3,600

  3,600

  Renfrew

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,200

  1,200

  Strathkelvin

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  950

  950

  Tayside Region

  9,500

  14,800

  1,202

  3,956

  1,840

  1,900

  33,198

  Angus

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  750

  750

  Dundee City

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  1,800

  1,800

  Perth and Kinross

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  800

  800

  Islands Areas

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Orkney

  3,600

  1,500

  —

  765

  100

  400

  6,365

  Shetland

  4,300

  —

  —

  1,754

  150

  750

  6,954

  Western Isles

  5,000

  2,100

  —

  3,278

  380

  1,100

  11,858

  Total

  160,100

  162,200

  7,964

  73,291

  22,190

  70,615

  496,360

  Green House Programme
  Mr. Malcolm Bruce
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether a parallel programme to the Department of the Environment's green house programme for local authority housing will be implemented in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 11 February 1991]: I was pleased to announce on Monday 25 March that an additional £2 million is being made available in 1991–92 to promote an energy efficiency and savings initiative in the six local authorities with the largest number of houses suffering condensation and dampness.

  The main aims of the programme will be to promote the wider application of energy efficiency measures to provide affordable heating for tenants, as well as to reduce harmful emissions to the atmosphere through energy savings. My
  396
  intention under this initiative is that resources will be provided to support local authority projects which best meet these aims.

  The Scottish Office will shortly be exploring with Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Falkirk and Motherwell district councils the uses to which these extra resources can best be put. I shall announce the distribution of these new resources as soon as possible.

DEFENCE

  Dubai Defence Exhibition
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if. pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Newport, West,Official Report, 28 February, column 615, he will set out (a) the purpose of his departmental representation at the Dubai 91 aerospace and defence exhibition, (b) the

  397
  projected cost and expected benefits of departmental representation and (c)the number and grades of departmental personnel planned to attend.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  Representatives from my Department will provide marketing support to United Kingdom exhibitors, in accordance with Government policy. The direct costs of this representation will be approximately £18,000. The number and grade of staff attending have yet to be decided.

  Education and Training
  Mr. Stern
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on recent initiatives by his Department in support of higher-level education and training.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  My Department has decided to create a chair in defence engineering. Following a competition among a number of universities, we have awarded the chair on the basis of a joint bid by University college London (UCL) and King's college London.

  The chair will have three objectives: to establish a centre of excellence in engineering and procurement matters relating to defence; to raise further the public profile and professional standards of civilian engineers in the Ministry of Defence; and to provide further education and training for MOD engineers.

  The chair will conduct research in engineering issues of particular interest to the MOD, and intends to provide, from October 1991, a one-year MSc course in the management of defence engineering. The MOD will send about 10 of its brightest young civilian engineers to attend the course, and it is hoped that additional students will be attracted from the United Kingdom and overseas. We also propose to take the opportunity to rationalise in due course the provision of training in naval architecture, which we have sponsored for many years at UCL, by placing this under the aegis of the new chair.

  Chemical Defence Establishment, Porton Down
  Mr. Patrick Thompson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about agency status for the chemical defence establishment at Porton Down.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The chemical defence establishment at Porton Down will become a defence support agency on 1 April. The director of the establishment, Dr. G. S. Pearson, has been appointed the chief executive and will be known as the director general.

  We are taking the opportunity of this new status to change the name of the establishment to the "chemical and biological defence establishment"—CBDE—to reflect more accurately its existing role in both chemical and biological defence.

  There will be no change in the role of the agency. Its aim will continue to be to ensure that the British armed forces are protected from any chemical and biological warfare agents that might be used against them by an aggressor. The establishment's expertise is used to support the Ministry of Defence and other Government Departments. In particular, the establishment provides scientific and technical advice in support of the arms control negotiations in the field of chemical and biological weapons. It will continue to contribute to the negotiations
  398
  at the conference on disarmament in Geneva aimed at achieving a comprehensive, effectively verifiable and global ban on chemical weapons. Research at CBDE also helps to improve health and safety in a wide range of civil activities—for example, the hazards from accidents in the chemical industry, detection of atmospheric pollutants, respiratory protection against toxic fumes and fire hazards and medical countermeasures applicable to the pesticide industry.

  As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said to the House on 18 October 1989, at columns 154–55, defence support agencies will be run on "next steps" lines but will remain within the defence chain of command. Such agencies are established within the MOD's new management strategy, under which we aim to secure better value for money for the defence budget through closer alignment of financial accountability with line management responsibilities, and by a system of performance reviews.

  The establishment of the chemical and biological defence establishment as a defence support agency is another significant landmark in this process. The professional and internationally recognised standards which have contributed to the success of work at Porton Down for the last 75 years will continue to be upheld. The greater freedom and flexibility now granted to the director general will provide him with new opportunities to enhance the establishment's successful role.

  The move to agency status will build upon CBDE's international reputation as a centre of scientific excellence by further improving the efficiency, effectiveness and quality of the work carried out by the establishment. In order to bring about these improvements, the director general has accordingly been set a range of challenging key performance targets.

  These are as follows:

  (a) in 1991–92, to achieve, within agreed time scales, 80 per cent. of the chemical biological defence programme milestones required by the service chiefs of staff, and to seek progressive improvements in performance in future years;

  (b) in 1991–92, to achieve, to agreed cost, 80 per cent. of the chemical biological defence programme milestones required by the service chiefs of staff, and to seek progressive improvements in performance in future years;

  (c) to sustain the CBDE research programme and the capability of CBDE to respond effectively to operational emergencies by maintaining scientific and technical staff at least to the current proportion of 65 per cent. of the total planned manpower;

  (d) to increase the overall efficiency of CBDE by more than 1.5 per cent. over the financial year 1991–92;

  (e) to reduce progressively the full unit cost per scientific productive hour initially by 2 per cent. in the year ending 31 March 1993;

  (f) to continue and extend the programme of efficiency reviews and where appropriate market testing of support services and implement a programme for further studies so that more than 60 per cent. by cost of the support area has been reviewed by 31 March 1992 and thereby identify scope for programme cost reductions in future years;

  (g) to review and improve the existing resource allocation and cost attribution system by 31 March 1992 in order to identify and reduce unit costs;

  to develop the capacity of CBDE for corporate and business planning, and to produce revised plans and targets by 1 April 1992; and

  (j) to refine the customer/supplier objective setting procedures which set targets for timeliness and cost and to incorporate a mechanism for implementation in 1992 which will permit the customer to assess the quality of output in terms of research and of scientific and technical advice.

  399
  I wish the director general and his staff every success in the coming years.

  Non-nuclear Research Establishments
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on progress made towards establishing the defence non-nuclear research establishments as an executive agency.

  Mr. Tom King
  I am pleased to announce the creation of the Defence Research Agency which will be vested as an executive agency on 1 April this year. The agency will comprise the four main non-nuclear research establishments, the Admiralty Research Establishment, the Royal Aerospace Establishment, the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment, and the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment.

  The Defence Research Agency—DRA—will provide the expert scientific and technical services required of it primarily by the MOD but also other Government Departments, in a way which is cost-effective and where necessary impartial; in support of this, the DRA is also encouraged to provide services to non-Exchequer customers. The DRA will continue to represent Her Majesty's Government in its participation in international and collaborative activities.

  An open competition has been mounted to select and appoint a chief executive for the next three to five years; the outcome should be determined by early May. Meanwhile Mr. Nigel Hughes, now chief executive (designate), will act as chief executive from 1 April.

  The chief executive will have the financial and personnel powers which are set out in the agency's published framework document, copies of which will be placed in the Library shortly. Where hon. or right hon. Members have queries on matters relating to the operation of the Defence Research Agency I hope they will write in the first instance to the chief executive. I will continue to deal with questions of policy.

  I will be setting the agency a range of targets to ensure that it delivers progressive improvements in the quality and efficiency of the services it supplies to its customers. The initial targets I have set for the Defence Research Agency during the period 1991–96 are:

  (a) to achieve efficiency improvements of an average of 2½ per cent. per annum over the next five years, by delivering a saving of £10 million in 1991–92 and a reduction of an average of 2½ per cent. per annum in terms of full cost per chargeable hour in the following four years;

  (b) to develop in 1991–92 a programme for asset rationalisation against which targets will be set for the following years;

  to improve asset utilisation, defined as the ratio of turnover to average fixed assets, including those leased; and

  to reduce the total value of fixed assets employed in the business in accordance with the programme by a combination of rationalisation and reduced leasing;

  (c) to keep within the budget agreed for the DRA;

  (d) to complete 80 per cent. of orders and contracts due for completion during the review period and valued at more than £5 million, within budget, taking account of any negotiated changes, and to increase this proportion to 90 per cent. by the end of 1995–96;

  (e) within orders and contracts, to achieve 50 per cent. of milestones within plus or minus one month, and increase this by 5 per cent. per annum over five years;

  400

  (f) to improve the perceived quality of service to customers, as indicated by annual customer satisfaction surveys;

  (g) to enhance existing management information systems, and to develop and implement an internal output and performance measurement system by October 1991;

  (h) to introduce a commercial accounting system by 1 October 1991, to train 70 per cent. of potential users of the system by the same date, and complete initial training of all staff who need to use it by 1 April 1992; and

  (j) to introduce arrangements from 1 October 1991 to give MOD customers information on the cost and quality of work done for them by the DRA to support a tautened customer/supplier relationship and to prepare progressively for subsequent trading fund operation.

  I wish the chief executive and his staff every success for the future in meeting their objectives of providing greater quality of service and better value for money.

  Directorate General of Defence Accounts
  Mr. Stevens
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the establishment of the Directorate General of Defence Accounts as a defence support agency.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The Directorate General of Defence Accounts—DGDA—is to become a defence support agency on 1 April 1991.

  The chief executive will be the present incumbent, Mr. M. J. Dymond.

  The DGDA's role is to provide accountancy services to the MOD. It pays bills, civilian salaries and wages, makes superannuation awards, recovers moneys due, maintains the central ledger, produces the appropriation account and provides accounting advice and data. Its role is crucial to the successful implementation of new management strategy for defence. The DGDA's systems will provide much of the financial information which is needed to run the new devolved management structures.

  The DGDA provides a high-quality professional service. It will aim to achieve new standards of excellence in dealings between the agency and its customers. To this end, the chief executive has been set demanding targets covering all areas of performance.

  Agency status will give the DGDA the freedoms and flexibilities it needs to perform its role more effectively and efficiently, providing continuous improvements in the quality of the service it offers to users.

  The chief executive's targets for the early years are:

  (a) to develop and agree service level agreements for each of the DGDA's functions and tasks with customers by 31 July 1991 and thereafter to meet agreed time, cost and quality of service criteria as laid down in individual service level agreements;

  (b) to reduce the turnaround time of civilian travel claims from 15 to 10 working days by 31 March 1992;

  (c) to introduce a two-weekly billing timetable for bills by the end of 1991–92

  (d) to reduce throughput errors in DGDA in the following areas:

  —non-industrial pay to 3 per cent.; industrial pay by 1 per cent.; pensions to 2 per cent.; civilian travel claims to 2 per cent.; and bill payment by 2 per cent.

  (e) to carry out agreed tasks to time, standard and within budget;

  (f) to achieve a sustained improvement in overall efficiency reflected in the budgeted costs of the following indicators: cost per pay account, cost per travel claim, cost per bill, cost per receipt and cost per pensions award;

  401

  (g) to achieve efficiency improvements of at least £450,000 in 1991–92;

  (h) to produce a saving in the overall defence budget of £450,000 by the introduction of revised selective checking procedures in the D Acs (Bills) area;

  (j) to review existing internal management information systems and identify management requirements by 30 August 1991, and to develop and implement systems, including unit cost measurement, capable of measuring performance of the agency more effectively by 27 March 1992;

  (k) to review the systems and resources required to carry out the agreed tasks and meet targets set for MOD HQ in "Options for Change", with the aim of reducing the net cost of the agency to the MOD and of minimising spare capacity where possible. Where spare capacity cannot be eliminated, to seek to utilise it by expanding the customer base in accordance with the business development strategy.

  I wish the chief executive and his staff every success in their new status.

  Territorial Army
  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which items in a Territorial Army unit's budget for 1992 are to be included in cash terms.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The items which may be included in a unit's budget in cash terms are pay, earnings-related national insurance contributions, training expenses allowance, bounty, travel costs and subsistence.

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what man training day allocations are to be made to Territorial Army units in 1992 by category.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I am unable to give the information requested as, due to the introduction of the new management strategy, man training day allocations are devolved to the chain of command and hence made unit by unit according to role and training need.

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the principal units in the Territorial Army.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The principal units of the Territorial Army are:

  2 Army Reconnaissance Regiments

  3 Light Reconnaissance Regiments

  2 Field Artillery Regiments

  4 Air Defence Regiments

  8 Engineer Regiments

  41 Infantry Battalions

  2 Special Air Service Regiments

  1 Honourable Artillery Company

  11 Royal Signal Regiments

  12 Royal Corps Transport Regiments

  10 General Hospital (RAMC)

  3 Field Hospital (RAMC)

  1 Evacuation Hospital (RAMC)

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many drill halls the Territorial Army has, by region.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The regional deployment of Territorial Army centres is as follows:

  Tavra Region

  Number of Territorial Army centres

  Highland

  42

  Lowland

  38

  North East

  41

  Yorkshire & Humberside

  50

  East Midlands

  53

  402

  Tavra Region

  Number of Territorial Army centres

  East Anglia

  28

  South East

  33

  Eastern Wessex

  31

  Western Wessex

  36

  North West

  54

  West Midlands

  47

  Northern Ireland

  30

  Wales

  39

  Greater London

  57

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will provide the hon. Member for Canterbury with the most recent report of the Territorial Army national employers liaison committee.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will write to my hon. Friend.

  Mr. Brazier
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what are the additional costs of a Territorial Army parachute battalion as against a non-parachute Territorial Army infantry battalion; and what are the principal items which incur these extra costs.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The information is not held in the form requested and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Gulf War
  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what attempts have been made since 27 February by the United Kingdom, the allied military coalition, or the United Nations to establish the nationalities of those people killed by allied attacks on road convoys at Mutla hill, Kuwait and Umm Qasr road on 26–27 February.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Personal effects of bodies buried by British personnel have been passed to the International Committee of the Red Cross, in accordance with our obligations under the first Geneva convention. I understand that other members of the coalition followed the same practice.

  Mr. Bernie Grant
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether any British prisoners of war released by Iraq were physically abused while under Iraqi custody.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Indications from initial debriefing of British prisoners of war released by Iraq are that their treatment in captivity was varied, ranging from serious beatings at some sites, in breach of Iraq's obligations under the third Geneva convention, to relatively good conditions and medical attention at others.

  Coldstream Guards
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information he has on the reason 20 selected recruits to the Coldstream Guards were advised that they could not join the regiment as planned in November 1990 and would have to wait until April 1991.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  As a result of pressures on the defence budget, restrictions on enlistments to the Army have meant that some regiments, including the Coldstream Guards, have had to defer the entry date of prospective recruits.

  Army Regiments
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Army regiments that have spent up to their financial quota imposed by his Department are now funding recruits out of regimental funds until the start of the new financial year.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  No regiments are using their regimental funds to fund recruits.

EMPLOYMENT

  Social Charter
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when he last met Mrs. Papandreou to discuss the social charter.

  Mr. Howard
  I met Mrs. Papandreou on 14 January to discuss the Commission's social action programme and priorities for social affairs in the Community in 1991. I put to her some specific proposals for improving the procedures adopted by the Commission in the social affairs field which I am pleased to say she has now accepted.

  Port of Goole (Accidents)
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the number of recorded accidents which have taken place at the port of Goole in the course of the employment of dockers, stevedores and dock workers for each year since 1985.

  Mr. Forth
  The table shows the number of injuries to employees in services supporting water transport in Boothferry and Scunthorpe, the local authority areas covering the port of Goole, reported to the Health and Safety Executive's factory and agricultural inspectorates under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985 for the period requested:

  Year (1 April to 31 March)

  Fatal

  Major

  Over 3-day

  Total

  1986–87

  —

  1

  2

  3

  1987–88

  —

  —

  4

  4

  1988–89

  —

  1

  7

  8

  1989–90

  —

  1

  8

  9

  It is not possible to give separate injury statistics for dockers, stevedores and dock workers, as these are not individually identified within the reporting category. Nor can the number of separate accidents causing these injuries by identified.

  Advertising
  Mr. Nicholas Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what his Department spent on advertising and promotional material in 1985–86 and what is the total budget for 1990–91.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Department's expenditure on advertising and promotional material in 1985–86 was £17·1 million. The total budget for 1990–91 is £29 million.

  Health and Safety Executive
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has any plans to increase the Government grant in aid of the Health and Safety Executive; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Forth
  Estimates provide for grant in aid to the Health and Safety Commission in 1991–92 of £140 million; an increase of £20 million over the 1990–91 level. Full details of Health and Safety Commission and Executive plans for use of these resources will be published in the plan of work for 1991–92 and beyond in the spring.

  Career Development Loans
  Mr. Hague
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how much money has been made available under career development loans to individuals to assist them in training.

  Mr. Howard
  At the end of February 1991 the three participating banks had lent almost £40 million to more than 16,000 individuals.

  Wakefield TEC
  Mr. O'Brien
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when he last met the chairman of the Wakefield TEC to discuss training provision; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  I intend to meet the chairman of Wakefield TEC on 15 April to discuss a range of training and enterprise issues. Wakefield TEC has provided creative and imaginative plans. I am confident that these will substantially benefit the economy of the Wakefield area.

  Employment Rehabilitation Service
  Mr. Gale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement about the work of the employment rehabilitation service.

  Mr. Jackson
  The employment rehabilitation service offers specialist assessment and rehabilitation to help people with disabilities get back to work or to enter training. It is already very successful. Plans for further improvements were announced in the consultative document "Employment and Training for People with Disabilities" and comments made on how to implement them most effectively are being carefully considered.

  Government Training Schemes
  Mr. Ron Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many young people under the age of 25 years secured full-time employment in 1990 as a result of Government-sponsored training schemes.

  Mr. Jackson
  Of those under 25 years, 63 per cent. of those leaving YT and 32 per cent. of those leaving ET went into full-time employment.

  Unemployment
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the number of people unemployed in the London borough of Wandsworth on 21 March.

  Mr. Jackson
  On the latest count date of 7 February 1991 there were 10,959 on the unadjusted basis.

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

Lord Wolfson of Sunningdale
Sir David Wolfson, Knight, having been created Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale, of Trevose in the County of Cornwall, for life—Was, in his robes, introduced between the Lord Grimthorpe and the Lord Mancroft.

South Africa
2.47 p.m.
Lord Hylton Lord Hylton asked Her Majesty's Government:
In what ways they are helping to bring about peaceful change and constitutional progress in South Africa.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, we maintain full and regular contact with all sides in South Africa. We are urging all parties to open negotiations on a new constitution. We are helping to build a post-apartheid South Africa through our aid programme. In addition, we believe, as do our European Community partners, that sanctions should be progressively lifted, both to encourage reform and to help restore growth to the South African economy, so that all South Africans may see the benefits of a peaceful transition to a non-racial democracy.
Lord Hylton: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his encouraging reply. As a preliminary to constitutional progress, could he be more specific in regard to the Government's policy towards accountability within the South African security forces, especially with regard to shootings, and also in regard to the abolition of single sex workers' hostels?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the accountability of the security forces is a matter for the South African Government. I assure the noble Lord that we regard the violence taking place in South Africa as reprehensible and hope that it will cease as soon as possible. Single sex workers' hostels are a by-product of the apartheid regime and we hope that when apartheid goes they will go too.
The Earl of Kimberley: My Lords, would my noble friend agree that it would be very good if we could begin playing cricket, football and other such sports again with South Africa?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, indeed. I believe that all sporting links with South Africa should be reopened and welcomed. I was delighted to hear on the radio a report by the Olympic Committee which is at the moment in South Africa.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, while we welcome the initiatives taken by President de Klerk and the improved situation, would the noble Earl agree that an immense amount of work remains to be done in South Africa before any major amendment of sanctions takes place? In view of the historical relationship that exists between this country and South Africa, could the Minister say what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to speak to representatives of the South African Government in order that some progress may be made? Those talks could include Chief Buthelezi and Mr. Mandela.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition is absolutely right that an immense amount of work remains to be done. We seek to encourage all parties in South Africa to settle their differences so that progress may be made. That touches on the second point raised by the noble Lord. We welcome discussions between Chief Buthelezi and Mr. Mandela. We try to keep in touch with all parties in South Africa in order to help progress.
Lord Walston: My Lords, will the noble Earl agree that one of the most crying needs in South Africa is for an improvement in housing conditions for vast millions of mainly black inhabitants, particularly in the townships? Can the noble Earl say what, if anything, Her Majesty's Government are proposing to do to help the housing situation both now and once sanctions are lifted?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I am aware that the noble Lord has recently returned from South Africa and is able to give the House a first-hand account of the position. I am glad that he has seen a substantial improvement in the housing situation. We have contributed£500,000 to the Urban Foundation's home guarantee scheme which is designed to stimulate the building of low-cost housing.
Lord St. John of Bletso: My Lords, does the Minister agree that the process of peaceful change in South Africa has been substantially accelerated of late by the accord on 2nd February between the ANC and the South African Government on the release of political prisoners, the return of exiles and the resolve on the armed struggle by the ANC? If there is to be any chance of a constitutional resolve working in South Africa, there must be economic growth. Does the Minister further agree that to that end there needs to be an easing of economic sanctions against that country?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I concur with the noble Lord in that we welcome the agreement on the repatriation, return and settlement of exiles. I also welcome the announcement made on 21st March of the UNHCR's involvement. We look forward to seeing the details. The noble Lord is absolutely right to focus on sanctions. It is important for the South African economy and all of South Africa that sanctions should be progressively lifted.
Lord Peston: My Lords, can the noble Earl say whether the Government are yet in a position to make a statement on the future of economic sanctions? The

949
noble Lord, Lord St.John of Bletso, raises an important point. Are we yet at the stage where we can talk more generally and publicly about sanctions and the future of the South African economy or is it still too early in view of the fact that clearly democracy has not yet emerged in South Africa, although we all hope that it will?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, this is not only a matter for the United Kingdom but for other countries as well, particularly the other EC countries and America. We have lifted the voluntary ban on new investment in South Africa. We have also lifted the voluntary ban on the promotion of tourism to South Africa. We have in addition lifted the ban on certain new investment in South Africa. The Commission is drafting legislation to remove the ban on imports of certain South African iron and steel and of certain South African gold coins.
Lord Peston: My Lords, perhaps I may return to my main point. Will the Minister confirm that I am right in saying that the black population of South Africa is still not enfranchised? In those circumstances does he agree that we have to consider what is happening on that issue before economic sanctions can be totally lifted?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the noble Lord is right to say that the black population has not been enfranchised. However, it is right to boost the economy of South Africa because that benefits all South Africans.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is the noble Earl prepared to tell the House on behalf of Her Majesty's Government that they consider apartheid will not have been removed from South Africa until the majority of the population has constitutional political rights, particularly in view of the fact that it was the British Parliament which initially provided the constitution under which political rights were denied to the majority and political apartheid was introduced?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we are encouraging all sides in South Africa to discuss matters. As regards the all-party congress to discuss the modalities of the new constitution, we welcome Mr. Mandela's call on 8th January for all parties to get together. That reaffirms what President de Klerk said last year.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, the point of my question was that, if apartheid is not considered to be abolished until the majority of the population of South Africa has constitutional political rights, does the Minister agree that there can be no question of ending—there is the possibility of modifying—economic sanctions until those political rights are established?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I hope that I do not take it from what the noble Lord has said that he wishes to make it impossible for the black community to prosper through the benefit of lifting sanctions.

Easter Act 1928
2.56 p.m.
Lord Airedale Lord Airedale asked Her Majesty's Government:
What stands in the way of bringing into operation the Easter Act 1928. whereby 1 Easter is to be celebrated during the first half of April every year.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Earl Ferrers): The Churches, my Lords.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, I am grateful for that very full Answer. If the noble Earl is suggesting that the Churches have to agree on this matter, is he not aware that there is nothing in the Easter Act that says that the Churches have to agree? Does the Minister agree that the Act says no more than that regard has to be had to any opinion which may be expressed by any Church or any Christian body? Surely the Minister will agree that that is a very long way from suggesting that the Churches have to agree?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, for considering that my Answer was full. I did, too. I thought it combined fact with brevity. The noble Lord is perfectly right. The Easter Act says that regard must be given to what the Churches say. This is a theological issue which transcends frontiers. We have naturally consulted the Churches. Basically, the Church of England does not wish to change without the agreement of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church does not wish to change without the agreement of the Orthodox Church. Hence the difficulty we are in.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, is the Minister aware that as long ago as 1966 the Church Assembly of the Church of England, which was the predecessor of the General Synod, passed a resolution welcoming the introduction of a fixed date for Easter, preferably on the date which the 1928 Act provides? Will the Minister consider that this is a matter on which it is necessary to proceed, as the noble Earl has already indicated, by agreement between the Christian Churches on a worldwide basis and after adequate consultation?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for letting us know of the view taken. I agree that we should go ahead provided that there is unity. Perhaps the right reverend Prelate will go back in time in considering the matter further. The First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea had as its timely goal, as one of the documents of the Greek Orthodox Church said, the bringing about of Christian unity through the common celebration of Easter. That was in AD 325, as no doubt the right reverend Prelate will remember. If he can persuade his brother bishops and other Churches to speed up a little then I believe that we shall be able to make the point which the right reverend Prelate has in mind.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, would it not be a good idea to repeal the Easter Act? The noble Lord,

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Lord Airedale, would then be deprived of the opportunity of asking the same Question year after year after year.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that would be even more controversial than the noble Lord's Question.
Lord Parry: My Lords, as the voice of the right honourable the Lord Merthyr is temporarily not represented in this House and as all the questions so far have elicited replies from the Church of England and from the Catholic Church, perhaps a question on behalf of the non-conformist Church in Wales, from one who was born within the shadow of Merthyr's castle, might be appropriate. If there has been no progress since anno Domini 21, has there been any since Lord Merthyr last asked this question?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord was a couple of centuries out. It was anno Domini 325. The answer to the noble Lord's second question is, no.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, while admiring the demonstration which the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has given of the loyalty which a lost cause so often evokes, may I ask my noble friend whether he agrees that to seek to overrule the Christian Churches on the dates and arrangements for the celebration of the most sacred festival of the Christian year would shock and horrify a great many people?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend. Good Friday and Easter Day are the most solemn dates in the Christian calendar. The view of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland is that its members would not wish to move to a common or a fixed date without worldwide agreement.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, can my noble friend explain to me, a simple churchgoer, the existing formula which apparently has existed since AD 325? How is the feast of Easter fixed?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, that is not a very simple formula. Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon which happens upon or next after the 21st day of March. If the full moon happens upon a Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday after. But the moon referred to is not the real moon of the heavens but a hypothetical moon on whose full the date of Easter depends. The lunations of this calendar moon consist of 29 and 30 days alternatively with certain necessary modifications to make the date of its full agree as nearly as possible with that of the real moon, which is known as the paschal full moon. In simple terms, Easter falls on one of 35 days between 22nd March and 25th April.
Lord Elton: My Lords, in case my noble friend has possibly confused some Members of your Lordships' House, I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, can help your Lordships by always asking his annual Question exactly the same number of days before Easter—
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Elton, who is a past master of the techniques of this
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House, must realise that the normal form is to address his question to the Minister and not to the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. But I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, will take account of what my noble friend said.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for drawing our attention to the Council of Nicaea but is he also aware of the Synod of Whitby in 664 at which a predecessor of mine, St. Wilfrid, as Abbot of Ripon persuaded the Church in Northumbria—and eventually the whole Church in these isles—to accept the Roman date? Does he not agree that it would be unwise to undo in the 20th century what was done in the 7th century?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am all for not undoing that. The important point is to try to get others to agree to continue with it.
Lord Airedale: My Lords, does the noble Earl care to remind the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that all history shows that it matters not when Easter is celebrated provided that it is celebrated?
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I am always happy to oblige the noble Lord, Lord Airedale. I shall be content to be a postbox on this occasion for the message which he wishes to convey to my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter.

Algeciras-Gibraltar Ferry Service
3.4 p.m.
Lord Merrivale Lord Merrivale asked Her Majesty's Government:
Following the European Commission's reply of 29th May 1990, what active measures they have taken since October 1990 to facilitate the introduction of the Algeciras to Gibraltar ferry service.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport wrote to the EC Transport Commissioner, Mr. Van Miert, on 20th March.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl for that Answer. Does the Minister agree that it has been many months since any action was taken? I last raised this question five months ago and it has taken five months, in effect, for this letter to be sent to the Transport Commissioner. When does my noble friend expect to receive a reply? Does he expect it to be different from the reply given earlier by the Director General for Transport?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I do not know when we shall get a reply and I cannot speculate on the answer. I certainly refute my noble friend's first point. A considerable amount of work has gone into this fairly complex and wide-ranging area. It has been discussed with Spain by officials on a number of occasions.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, has just said, this matter was dealt with by the House last October. On that

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occasion the noble Lord, Lord Reay, on behalf of the noble Earl, said that several options were open to the Government to pursue. Can the noble Earl tell the House how many of those avenues have been explored and whether there have been discussions on the matter with the Spanish Government?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, there have been discussions with the Spanish Government. There was a meeting with officials in October of last year. It was raised in the margins of a meeting with officials on 22nd January this year. It was not, because of time, raised at the Foreign Ministers' meeting on 12th February; but there are regular discussions. We have also been discussing it within the Government and that has resulted in the letter sent by my right honourable friend.

Gibraltar Airport Agreement
3.7 p.m.
Lord Merrivale Lord Merrivale asked Her Majesty's Government:
Bearing in mind the effect of the non-application of the provisions of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2343/90 on Gibraltar and thus on the economies of air carriers, whether the action brought by the Government of Gibraltar against the EC Council on 28th September 1989 has been declared admissible by the European Court of Justice.
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the action taken by Gibraltar on 28th September 1989 was against Council Regulation No. 87/602/EEC not No. 2343/90. The European Court of Justice has not yet reached any decision on this case.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. In view of the discrimination against Gibraltar under Article 2.(2) of the Directive 89/463 and Article 1.(3) of Regulation No. 2343/90, will the Minister bear in mind, too, the recent demise of Air Europe and the feelings of the people of Gibraltar on the issue? Will the Government take a more responsive attitude—I say this from the heart—towards Gibraltar when a matter concerns Gibraltar's rightful aspirations and actions?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we take account of what Gibraltarians have said to us on many occasions. We also take into account what has been agreed within Europe. We very much hope that Gibraltar will be able to agree to the Anglo Spanish agreement on the airport.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, can the noble Earl tell the House why the Spanish Government are resisting the implementation of this agreement? Is it for economic reasons? Is the noble Earl able to say that there is validity in those reasons?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, the Spanish Government are not resisting this agreement on the airport. They are resisting the agreement on the ferry,
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which was the subject of the previous Question. It is the Gibraltar Government who are not agreeing to the 1987 airport agreement.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, before the Council of Ministers arrived at the agreement to which the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, referred, did the Government consult with the government and people of Gibraltar before they arrived at their decision?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords. I do not know the definitive answer to that question; but I should be very surprised if we did not have consultations.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that a great deal of the grievance felt by the Government of Gibraltar was caused because they were not involved in the negotiations between this country and Spain, which ultimately led to the airport agreement?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, I was not aware of that fact. However, I shall certainly look into the matter.
Lord Merrivale: My Lords, as it is now 18 months since this action was brought before the European Court of Justice, are there any steps which Her Majesty's Government can take to facilitate an early decision on the matter?
The Earl of Caithness: My Lords, we should like to see this matter resolved as indeed we should like to see the issue on the ferry resolved. However, my noble friend is doubtless aware that further action has been taken under agreement No. 2343/90 by the Gibraltar Development Corporation.

Business
3.10 p.m.
Viscount Davidson: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Belstead will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is to be made in another place on Northern Ireland: political talks. It may be for the convenience of the House to know that, subject to the progress of business, the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Bill will be adjourned at about 7.30 p.m. for approximately one hour and that during the adjournment the Second Reading of the Darlington Borough Council Bill will be taken.

House of Lords Offices: Select Committee Report
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare)The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare) rose to move, That the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to [H.L. Paper 36].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, this was a particularly important meeting of the Offices Committee especially in view of the first item of the report on the Ibbs Report. Perhaps I should say just a brief word of introduction. Sir Robin Ibbs was asked

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by the Government to conduct an inquiry into the management of another place. His report has now been accepted by the other place and has considerable implications for this House.
The main object of the report was to strengthen financial management and to that end it recommended that all spending on behalf of the House should be borne on the Vote of the House and that the so-called allied service arrangements should be discontinued. In our case, that means that we will be responsible for approving our own expenditure on building work—that is, both capital expenditure and maintenance—and on printing and stationery, rather than relying, as we do at present, on the Department of the Environment for works expenditure and the Stationery Office for stationery and printing.
The Offices Committee and three of its subcommittees—namely, the committees on administration, finance and the staff of the House—have given very careful consideration to the implementation of the Ibbs Report in so far as it concerns this House. Their recommendations appear in this report. Perhaps I may summarise them as follows. First, they recommend a modification of our committee structure to improve financial accountability and control; secondly, that we should join with another place in the new arrangements for building works, including the joint appointment and funding of a Director of Works for the Palace of Westminster as a whole; and, thirdly, the temporary appointment of a professional financial adviser to assist our Principal Finance Officer in the development of the new system.
I believe that the main proposals are clearly set out in the report. However, there is just one other matter in the report to which I think I should draw to your Lordships' attention. It appears under the heading of "Staff of the House". I refer to the recommendation to set up a Select Committee to consider the situation with regard to all the various Select Committees of this House. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Second Report from the Select Committee be agreed to [H.L. Paper 36]—(The Chairman of Committees)
Following is the report referred to:
1 The Ibbs Report
The Committee has considered the implications for the House of Lords of the recommendations of the Ibbs Report on House of Commons services (Commons Paper 38, session 1990–91). The recommendations have been accepted by that House. The Committee believes that they should be applied where appropriate to the House of Lords.
The Committee recommends that the House of Lords should assume direct responsibility for all expenditure on behalf of the House. The "allied service" arrangements, whereby spending on works and on printing, publishing and office equipment arc paid for on the Votes of the Department of the Environment and the Stationery Office respectively, should be discontinued. The House of Lords Vote should thereafter make the necessary provision.
In order to improve financial accountability and control of the House of Lords, The Committee recommends a reform of its own structure—

(a) The membership of the House of Lords' Offices Committee should be reduced in number, while retaining a majority of backbenchers;

(b) The present sub-committees of the Offices Committee should be replaced by the following—

(i) Finance and Staff Sub-Committee;

(ii) Administration and Works Sub-Committee;

(iii) Library and Computers Sub-Committee;

(iv) Refreshment Sub-Committee.

There should no longer be a Select Committee on Leave of Absence and Lords' Expenses or a sub-committee on Works of Art. The Committee recommends that—

(a) Leave of Absence should be brought within the remit of the new Administration and Works Sub-Committee, and Lords' Expenses within the remit of the new Finance and Staff Sub-Committee; and

(b) the Works of Art Sub-Committee should be replaced by an Advisory Panel on Works of Art, of which the chairman should be a member of the Administration and Works Sub-Committee.

The new committee arrangements should come into effect at the beginning of the next parliamentary session.
The Committee also recommends that—

(a) the House of Lords should participate with the House of Commons in new arrangements for works in the Palace of Westminster, including the appointment and funding of a Director of Works for the Palace of Westminster, subject to satisfactory terms being agreed with the House of Commons;

(b) a professional Financial Adviser should be appointed on a temporary basis to assist the Principal Finance Officer in the development of improved arrangements for financial management in the House of Lords.

2 Security
The Committee approved an increase in the complement of the security force for the Palace of Westminster.
3 Staff of the House
A report from the Staff of the House Sub-Committee was made to the Committee, which agreed to—

(a) the creation of a temporary post of Financial Adviser;

(b) the creation of an additional Executive Officer post to assist the Computer Executive.

Select Committees
The Committee endorses a recommendation from the Staff of the House Sub-Committee that a Select Committee should consider the Select Committee work of the House and make recommendations.
4 Appointment of the Librarian
The Committee recommends that the procedure whereby since 1917 the Librarian has been appointed by the House of Lords' Offices Committee, subject to the approval of the House, should revert to the older arrangement whereby, like other staff, the Librarian is appointed by the Clerk of the Parliaments.
5 Jewel Tower—Parliamentary Exhibition
The Committee agreed to a report from the Administration Sub-Committee which welcomed the projected use of the Jewel Tower for a small permanent exhibition on parliamentary history, to be staffed and funded by English Heritage
6 Permission to Photograph
The Committee agreed to a recommendation from the Administration Sub-Committee that Mr. Peter Lavery, who had received permission from the House of Commons authorities to photograph within the precincts of that House in order to produce a book of photographs as a commercial enterprise, should also be allowed to photograph peers and others associated with the House within the precincts of the House of Lords.
7 House of Lords Fees and Security for Costs

(a) The Committee considered the fees payable on judicial proceedings and peerage claims and approved a revision with effect from 9th April 1991 as follows—

(i)Fees on Judicial Proceedings

£

Lodgment of Petition of Appeal

30

Entering Appearance

7

Issue of Order of Service

30

Lodgment of Petition not referred to Appeal Committee

30

Lodgment of Joint Petition, from each Party thereto

15

Lodgment of Petition referred to Appeal Committee (including report thereon)

35

Application to waive Security for Costs

15

Lodgment of Case, including laying Case on the

145

Table, entering Appeal in Cause List, Bar fee and Counsel attending Lodgment of Joint Case, including laying Case on the

290

Table, entering Appeal in Cause List, Bar fee and Counsel attending Application to set down for Hearing

30

Issue of Final Judgment

35

(ii)Fees on Peerage Claims Petition of Claimant

30

For each of the first 3 days on which the Committee

75

For Privileges meets For each subsequent day

105

Order for Attendance of a Witness

30

Resolution and Judgment

105

(iii)Fees on Irish Peerage Claims On presentation of Petition

30

Lord Chancellor's Report

30

Order made thereon

30

(b) The Committee also approved the following revision in the judicial taxing fee on bills taxed on or after 9th April 1991 to provide for a charge to be levied on the withdrawal of a bill of costs—

(i) on bills where the amount allowed does not exceed£500, a flat rate of£25;

(ii) on bills where the amount allowed exceeds£500, for every£1 or fraction of£1 an amount of 5p;

(iii) on the withdrawal of a bill of costs which has been lodged for taxation, such fee as may be reasonable having regard to the amount of work done;

Provided that the fee shall not exceed the amount payable under paragraphs (i) or (ii) above if the bill had been allowed in full.
(c) The Committee authorised an increase to£12,000 in the amount given by the Appellants as security for costs in appeals to the House of Lords presented on or after 9th April 1991.
8 Healthcare Arrangements for Staff
The Committee was informed of a proposal for a healthcare service for staff within the Palace of Westminster and authorised a proportion of the cost.
9 Revised Scales of Pay
The Committee approved increases in the remuneration of the Chairman and Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees.
10 Hansard Reporting Staff
The Committee authorised payment of revised late night allowances to permanent staff and revised attendance fees to temporary reporters.
11 Official Shorthand Writer
The Committee authorised a revised scale of fees for the Shorthand Writer, subject to a continuing longer term review of the arrangements for shorthand writing in both Houses.
12 Superannuation
The Committee was informed of a proposal to transfer responsibility for superannuation from the Accountant's Office to the Establishment Office. The Treasury would be undertaking the checking of superannuation awards with effect from 1st April 1991. The Committee authorised payment of a proportion of the cost of this service.
The Committee was also notified of the following awards made under the House of Lords Staff Pension Scheme—

(a) Pension and lump sum to Sir John Sainty KCB, Clerk of the Parliaments, who retired on approved early retirement terms on 1st January 1991;

(b) Pension and lump sum to Mr. W. J. Reid, Assistant Editor, who retired on actuarially reduced early retirement terms on 3rd January 1991.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Criminal Justice Bill
3.14 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Earl Ferrers.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 1:
Before Clause 1, insert the following new clause:
("Sentencing Council
.—(1) For the purposes of exercising the functions conferred on it by this section, there shall be a body known as the Sentencing Council, consisting of—

(a) the Lord Chief Justice, and

(b) not less than four judges of the Court of Appeal appointed by the Lord Chief Justice.

(2) The Sentencing Council may appoint as advisers one or more persons from any or all of the following categories—

(a) persons who hold or have held judicial office;

(b) members of the prison service;

(c) members of the probation service:

(d) persons who have knowledge of the after-care of discharged prisoners; and

(e) persons who have made a study of the causes of delinquency or the treatment of offenders.

(3) It shall be the duty of the Sentencing Council to consider and review sentencing policy and from time to time to issue guidelines in respect thereof.")
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. I is also tabled in the names of my noble friend Lord Mishcon and the noble Lords, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington and Lord Hunt. It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak also to Amendment No. 2 tabled in the name of my noble friend Lord Longford, which is an amendment to the proposed new clause.
The proposed new clause would establish a sentencing council as part of the Court of Appeal with the responsibility for issuing guidance on sentencing. I suspect that there are two main questions that Members of the Committee will wish to ask in connection with the proposal: first, is there a need for it, and, if so, why? The second question is whether the proposed form of the sentencing council is one which makes sense against the background, which I shall submit to the Committee in due course, of apparent need.
The sentencing council would be chaired by the Lord Chief Justice and would include no fewer than four judges of the Court of Appeal. The council would have a discretionary power to appoint and take advice

959
from such people as a circuit judge, a magistrate, a prison governor, a chief probation officer and an academic criminologist.
Over the past decade there has been growing interest in the case for establishing a sentencing council as a mechanism for bringing about greater consistency in sentencing practice. That has arisen from concern about disparities in sentencing in both magistrates' courts and in Crown Courts. That concern is shared by many bodies and individuals. I shall presently refer the Committee to some of them. However, that concern has certainly been shared by the Magistrates' Association, which has taken a number of important steps to encourage greater consistency. Those steps included the production of guidelines for magistrates on sentencing and an emphasis in magistrates' training on what is called "structured decision making".
The efforts of the Magistrates' Association to reduce disparities have met with some success. The variations are undoubtedly less extreme than was the case a few years ago. However, it is still possible—indeed, it is very apparent—to find considerable difference between sentencing patterns in courts in similar areas. For example, in 1989, 15 per cent. of adult male offenders in South Tameside received immediate prison sentences, compared with 4 per cent. in Rotherham. The figure in Exeter was 10 per cent., compared with 5 per cent. in Worcester.
There are also variations between Crown Courts to an extent which cannot be readily explained by differences in the pattern of offences. An analysis of Crown Court sentencing figures for 1988 showed that the use of custodial sentences in the first-tier Crown Courts—that is, those able to deal with the most serious offences—varied from 69 per cent. of offenders at Mold to 38 per cent. at Wood Green. In second-tier Crown Courts the figures varied form 63 per cent. at Oxford to 44 per cent. at Durham. Moreover, in third-tier Crown Courts the figures varied from 63 per cent. in Coventry to 33 per cent. in Portsmouth.
The analysis as regards the use of non-custodial sentences also showed that there are very considerable variations. For example, at first-tier Crown Courts the proportion of offenders given probation orders ranged from 4.5 per cent. at Warwick Crown Court to 13 per cent. at Lincoln. Overall, the figures seem to indicate that the more serious the offence the more consistent the sentence imposed. It is significant to note that it is in relation to serious offences that the Court of Appeal has issued the most detailed guidance.
The greatest variations in sentences are to be found in regard to non-violent offences. Taking the figures for magistrates' courts and Crown Courts together, it has been found that 6 per cent. of offenders sentenced in North Wales received custodial sentences in 1988, compared with 16 per cent. in adjoining Cheshire. Moreover, 22 per cent. of offenders sentenced for burglary received custodial sentences in Dorset, compared with 46 per cent. in Cheshire. Further, 5.9 per cent. of offenders convicted of criminal damage in Surrey received a custodial sentence, compared with 32 per cent. in Hertfordshire.
There are bound to be disparities in sentencing figures from court to court and from area to area. One expects that. No court has an identical pattern of crime to another or an identical pattern of criminal to be dealt with. One accepts that too. The implications of those figures are disturbing. What is disturbing about them is that a person's liability to a custodial sentence may be greater if he commits an offence on one side of the geographical boundary than if he commits an identical offence a couple of streets away on the other side of the boundary in another court's area.
Justice demands (does it not?) that the sentencing of offenders should be consistent, reasoned, open and predictable. In no jurisdiction, in no country of which I am aware, is judicial independence interpreted to mean unfettered judicial discretion. Many common law jurisdictions—for example, Canada, Australia and parts of the United States—have already undertaken a careful rethink of sentencing policy and practice. In Britain too, the Government acknowledged the need for a new sentencing framework in their White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public. The Government argue:
"To achieve a more coherent and comprehensive consistency of approach in sentencing, a new framework is needed for the use of custodial, community and financial penalties"
In Part I of the Bill, which we are now considering, the Government set out the constituent parts of that new framework: the basis upon which custodial sentences should be imposed, what the courts should consider when assessing the length of custodial sentences and the factors to be taken into account in deciding upon a particular non-custodial or community penalty. However, the Government also accept that sentencers will require detailed guidance on the interpretation of their new sentencing framework. They say in the same White Paper:
"The Government hopes that the Court of Appeal will give further guidance, building on the legislative frameworkߪThe Government will look to the Judicial Studies Board to make arrangements for training sentencers to give effect to the new sentencing policies and the more detailed interpretation of the legislation by the Court of Appeal"
Throughout this century at least, the Court of Appeal has developed precedents on the way that courts should exercise sentencing discretion. In the 1980s the Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, handed down a series of guideline judgments; for example, on rape, incest, drug trafficking and social security fraud. Those guideline judgments, as anyone who has looked at them will be aware, are valuable. While valuable in themselves, they cover a small number of offences only. They leave the most common crimes—burglary, handling stolen goods, theft and so on —virtually untouched. The existing guidance excludes almost all non-custodial penalties—the most common offences coming before the Crown Court—and nearly all magistrates 'courts' matters.
In addition, the English guideline judgments do not form an inter-related structure. They have emerged, as they must do coming from the Court of Appeal, in an ad hoc fashion over the years. The Court of Appeal is, after all, a reactive body. When cases come before it,

961
it deals with them. Furthermore, it is true to say that the guidelines do not derive from any general analysis of sentencing or the proper use of custody. There cannot be any other social policy which has been allowed to develop in such an unco-ordinated and unpredictable manner.
It is difficult to believe that the basic flaws of a system entirely reliant upon the Court of Appeal will be remedied when the Criminal Justice Bill becomes law. In contrast, a sentencing council would have many important advantages. In particular it would be empowered to develop detailed guidance on sentencing across the board, including those everyday criminal matters which rarely reach the Court of Appeal.
Another advantage that a sentencing council would have is that it could offer guidance across the full range of offences and possible sentences much faster than the Court of Appeal could ever do. It could also set down guidance about matters such as bail which in general is excluded from the overseeing of the Court of Appeal. It could also consider non-custodial penalties which rarely come before the Court of Appeal for the simple reason that few people appeal against non-custodial sentences. A man who has been put on probation is unlikely to go to the Court of Appeal to have his sentence changed.
There is considerable evidence to show that the use of non-custodial penalties is inconsistent. I do not want to weary the Committee with too many figures. But, for example, in only about 50 per cent. of cases is community service used as a direct alternative to custody. Similarly, the suspended sentence seems to have been used in a manner other than that Parliament originally intended.
Many individuals and associations have commented on the present position and have come out in favour of a sentencing council. Foremost among the commentators is Professor Ashworth of King's College, London, editor of the Criminal Law Review. In a series of papers, books and articles, published since the early 1980s, Professor Ashworth has welcomed the series of guideline judgments that the Court of Appeal has produced since the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, became Lord Chief Justice. However, Professor Ashworth has nevertheless pointed out the dearth of detailed guidance on the more common and ordinary types of cases such as burglary, theft and lesser assaults—the type of cases in which the variations in sentencing are the greatest. He pointed out, for example, that there is little direct guidance for magistrates' courts in the present stock of Court of Appeal judgments. That is not altogether surprising given that appeals against sentences passed by magistrates do not go to the Court of Appeal.
Professor Ashworth developed that theme in greatest detail in his book Sentencing and Penal Policy 1983. I shall quote just two sentences. He said:
"It is hardly too much to say that the more frequent the type of case the less appellate guidance there is likely to be. Precedents on serious woundings, robberies and rapes abound; precedents on everyday assaults, theft and damage are hard to find and, because the sentence which gave rise to
962
the appeal was probably abnormally high in the first place, afford little guidance to the magistrates' court or to the third tier Crown Court".
He proposed, as a means of filling that gap, the establishment of a sentencing council chaired by the Lord Chief Justice to produce recommendations which would be issued as practice directions. He developed that proposal in subsequent pamphlets and literature, but I do not need to take the Committee through that today.
Some prominent magistrates are also backing the idea of a sentencing council. The chairman of the Magistrates' Association's sentencing of offenders committee, Mrs. Anne Rich, has said:
"I would heartily support the idea of a sentencing council, although I know that there are still some who have reservations about it. I feel that the approach to sentencing between us and the higher courts, such as the Crown Court, is very much out of line"
Without supporting a sentencing council as such, the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Nicholas Purnell QC, has argued for a standing forum on sentencing in which judges and others in the criminal justice system can discuss,
"on equal terms their differing perspectives, their suggestions and solutions for the developing process of sentencing. This would involve the exchange of information and research, experience and practice from which the judiciary would emerge better informed and to which they would have contributed their unique experience and authority".
He concludes, as a person who has practised for many years in the criminal courts:
"Judicial independence, integrity and vigour will withstand a little bruising from rubbing shoulders with other players on the court".
A committee established by Justice has approved the proposal. A former chairman of the Magistrates' Association, Lady Ralph, chaired the committee which approved it. The Penal Affairs Consortium, which is a group of 18 member organisations, including all the main bodies representing prison and probation staff as well as resettlement agencies and penal reform groups, supports the proposal. Finally—it is not often that a representative of my party can pray this in aid—in an important leader published on 10th November 1990 The Times said:
"The guidelines, though an improvement, still give the judges considerable discretion. Much depends on how the Appeal Court interprets them. All this is hazardous".
It added, and perhaps this is the essence of the case:
"The transmission mechanism between Parliament, Home Office and the judiciary is creaky and ineffective. Judges are notoriously their own creatures, disinclined, through long exercise of power, to heed outside influence. Penal reformers have long advocated the creation of a sentencing council representing all interested parties. Its job would be to formulate detailed guidance on sentencing for the courts"
The Times concluded:
"Justice demands no less".
I see that the noble Lord the Leader of the House is present. I do not know the procedures in this instance but I shall take about another five minutes if the noble Lord can contain himself for that long; otherwise, I shall give way now.
The case for the sentencing council is reinforced by consideration of the contents of the Bill. Without a body of the kind that we propose it is difficult to see from where guidance for sentences can come on the detailed interpretation of some of the sentencing principles contained in Part I of the Bill. Those

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principles cover not only the use and length of custodial sentences but also the use of community penalties.
The Government wish to see more offenders dealt with outside prison by new orders combining such options as probation, community service, curfews, fines and compensation orders. One of the risks involved in the use of new combinations of penalties is that the greater the number of requirements imposed on offenders, the higher the chance that some will he returned to court and imprisoned for a breach. If the new combined orders are used for offenders who would not otherwise have been in prison, this could lead to the imprisonment of offenders who would not otherwise have been at risk of custody. That has to be dealt with.
A further concern is the changes which the Bill makes in the parole system which are likely to increase the prison population. If the Bill's strategy is to succeed, it must counteract the increase in prison numbers resulting from the parole changes, the danger of the new combined orders slipping down the tariff and the prospect of a large increase in the numbers imprisoned for breach of community penalties. This requires much more detailed guidance on sentences than the Court of Appeal has hitherto shown itself able or willing to give.
I have recently been in correspondence with Professor Ashworth, particularly after the debate on Second Reading. He refers to the handbook from the Judicial Studies Board. Members of the Committee who were here at Second Reading may remember that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, told me that I should go away and read it because it was in the Library, but I am afraid that it is not there. Nevertheless, as any sensible counsel does, I have taken the view of a very senior judge and I have considered it. Professor Ashworth says:
"The briefest of references to this is likely to show that it contains good guidance on a small minority of crimes, mostly indictable-only, and contains absolutely nothing on the hulk of crimes tried in the Crown Court and in magistrates' courts every day of the week. Under the government's White Paper proposals, it expressed the 'hope' that the Court of Appeal would hand down more guideline judgments in the coming years. That is surely an insufficient basis for sentencing reformߪIt is essentially reactive, in leaving too much to the chance of cases coming before the Court of Appeal; the individual judgments are unlikely to form a coherent pattern, because the Court operates case-by-case and has no means of 'spreading the canvas' and looking at proportionality among all the major crimes; the Court has shown no enthusiasm for tackling crimes like burglary, handling and everyday thefts; and the court has no real experience of sentencing problems in magistrates' courts, which seem doomed to remain without authoritative guidance".
Finally—I am obliged for the support I have just received in saying that from the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter.
Four minutes ago I said that I would take five minutes, and I am just about on time. Finally, I am afraid that there is an assumption among the judiciary that the judges are really the only people who are qualified to judge and, indeed, capable of judging what sentences are appropriate for particular crimes. There is a feeling also that they are the only people capable of judging what the country or society demands. I do not think that that is an assumption
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that one can necessarily accept. On what is the assumption based'? Why is a High Court judge necessarily in a better position to judge society's demands or its needs than, for example, a Member of Parliament who is at least elected and perhaps more in touch with everyday society and the general public than the judicial ermine allows?
To pose the problem is to answer it. Judges must bear some responsibility for the number of people who are in our prisons; though the noble and learned Lord, Lord Ackner, was insistent in denying that in our debate on Second Reading. I therefore place considerable importance on the ability under our proposals to consult other disciplines. We aim to achieve a greater consistency, not a uniformity in sentencing. We want a greater consistency in sentencing practice throughout the whole criminal justice system, in magistrates' courts as well as in Crown Courts. I do not believe that one can achieve that consistency and fairness which a proper system of criminal justice demands under the present system as at present constituted. I beg to move.
3.30 p.m.
The Earl of Longford The Earl of Longford moved as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, Amendment No. 2:
Before Clause 1, Leave out lines 5 to 16 and insert (" nine members, of whom no more than five shall be judges or magistrates.").
The noble Earl said: I rise with even more than my usual timidity. To use a phrase which will be familiar to a classical scholar like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, sum timida; I am as timid as a timid woman. I realise that in this Chamber we perhaps do not apply that phrase or accept it as describing the attributes of the distinguished noble Baronesses who in many cases have predominated in our debates. Nevertheless, it applies to my situation today.
Here I am, after all these years, differing at any rate in appearance from my revered spokesman on the Front Bench. It has never happened to me before and I am sure that it will never happen again. The truth is that I do not believe for a moment that he disagrees with me. He agrees, but for some obscure reason he must propound his amendment.
I feel that this is a most important issue; it is not trivial or incidental. The whole future of penal reform depends on reducing the number of people in prison. I say dogmatically, and I believe that everyone agrees with me, that in this country we send too many people to prison. Even in relation to the crime rate, we send too many people to prison. Why do we do so? Because the much esteemed judges send them there, with some assistance from the magistrates guided by the judges.
The question is how we persuade judges to send fewer people to prison. The problem is as simple as that. I do not feel that my revered and noble friend's amendment covers that at all. The amendment deals with the disparity of sentencing, but with the general level of sentencing it does not deal. My proposition is simply an assertion that the general level of sentencing in this country is too high. It can only be brought

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down if judges are persuaded or induced to pass lighter sentences or send fewer people to prison. One either agrees or disagrees with that.
Now there is the problem of the so-called independence of the judiciary. I hope that by this time every enlightened Member of the Committee—of course, every Member of the House is enlightened—can distinguish between the independence of the judiciary in regard to individual cases and the independence of the judiciary in regard to the general sentencing level. That is the pons asinorum of the discussion. We must surely make that distinction.
I am saying nothing now about the judiciary in relation to miscarriages of justice about which we have had much discussion. There may be a possible confusion here. On this occasion I am not criticising the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, or any of his colleagues in regard to anything that may have been said about them lately. The only dealings I have ever had with the noble and learned Lord arose because a prisoner whom he sentenced to many years of prison had abused him. That prisoner asked me to send an apology to the noble and learned Lord who generously accepted it. That is my only connection with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane. Whether as an individual or as the Lord Chief Justice, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lane, does not enter this matter at all. I must make that quite plain. When we discuss the independence of the judiciary, we may also consider the important matter of whether we could improve the arrangements to prevent miscarriages of justice, or we might be talking about something totally different: the general level of sentencing. That is what I am talking about now.
The Committee must decide whether it considers the general level of sentencing too high. If the Committee thinks it is too high, that means the Committee must also think judges send too many people to prison. Does the Committee think it can alter the level of sentencing without interfering with the allegedly sacred principle of the independence of the judiciary? I doubt whether there is anyone in the Committee who does not agree that the average level of sentencing is too high. I refer to the average level of sentencing as I do not wish to enter into details in these few remarks. Therefore, if the Committee is agreed that the average level of sentencing is too high, how does it propose to persuade the judiciary to act differently?
The Government obviously hope that, as a result of this Bill, they will manage to persuade the judges, by rather indirect means, to reduce their level of sentencing. That has been affected very well during the term of the present Government in the 1980s with regard to young people and children by an alteration in legislation. I am on the Government's side in hoping that a similar achievement will result from this Bill and that the level of sentencing can be reduced by changes in legislation. I wish the Government well in that.
However, as my noble friend Lord Richard pointed out, the reform of the parole system, as expounded by the Carlisle Committee, would increase the number of
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people in prison unless a new attitude is adopted on the part of the judges. Therefore it is a question of how we can bring about a new attitude on the part of the judges. That must be done. The general level of sentencing in this country is the responsibility of the elected government of the day, whichever party is in power.
I return to my former question: how can one bring about a reduction in the general level of sentencing? I consider my amendment to be rather wet. However, it is not as wet as the amendment of my noble friend. I say that with the utmost respect. My amendment is a wet measure. It would still leave the judges with a lot of discretion. NACRO has suggested in the past that a much wider body should be established. I imagine NACRO stands by that suggestion now. It has suggested the establishment of some kind of national criminal policy committee that involved Ministers. My amendment represents a half-way house. It does not establish total social control over the judges. However, it goes a long way towards trying to influence them in the right direction. I beg to move.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I wish to support the first amendment. Using the jargon of the day, I do not feel uncomfortable with the amendment of the noble Earl. However, I do not believe the composition of the council is the important provision in the amendment. The important provision is the principle involved. Do we want a council, or a forum, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Richard, pointed out, is largely supported by a whole spectrum of people who are involved in sentencing? I wish to stress the inadequacies of the present situation and explain why a council of this kind is so essential.
The guidelines handed down by the Court of Appeal are handed down as a result of the deliberation of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice and probably two or three other senior judges. The guidelines handed down by the Court of Appeal are disseminated throughout the judiciary and the junior judiciary through the Judicial Studies Board. Although the Judicial Studies Board does a good job in the instruction of junior judges and as regards the consistency of sentencing, the guidelines which are handed down from judges of great seniority—one must add they are judges of great age also—are disseminated right through the judiciary. The first thing that a young advocate has to do is to make himself familiar with the guidelines so that when he conducts cases he knows what the guidelines indicate and what kind of sentences will be given for certain offences. Therefore, into the bloodstream of the young advocate flow the views of the senior judiciary; that is, the views of two or three judges at the top of the profession. From those young advocates will be drawn eventually the judges of the future. Therefore, an extraordinarily narrow view is instilled into the whole of the legal profession which deals with crime. A continuing, narrow view of the breadth of sentencing will be propagated. That view starts with

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the views of the senior judiciary. It is because of that process that we have now reached the point where the narrowness must be broadened.
The judiciary must have at its fingertips the views of other people who have far greater experience in all kinds of other areas of the sentencing process. The Court of Appeal has no staff to provide research material, to measure the effect of sentences and to institute inquiries into areas of ever increasing complexity. There is no machinery to achieve that essential co-operation between all the other agencies working in this area of which Lord Justice Woolf speaks so strongly in his report.
As has already been said, there are 27,000 magistrates whose work the senior judges are extremely ignorant of. They have no contact with that work. Court of Appeal guidelines rarely refer to it. It took 10 years from the introduction of the community service order before a guideline judgment came down from the Court of Appeal. At the moment there are 10,000 people in prison on remand, mostly as a result of justices' decisions. Yet there is really no guidance for them on the principles governing bail.
There is no mechanism whatever for addressing a number of key matters which the Committee may consider to be important in the whole sentencing process. Those matters are, for example, the significance and incidence of previous convictions; the level of sentencing scales; the effectiveness of repeat penalties; the deterrent value of the effect of custody; and the success of reparation schemes, intermediate treatment or compensation for particular types or age groups. There is no mechanism to research the appropriateness of certain penalties for young persons, the treatment of ethnic minorities, or the effect on victims or the reaction of the public to different offences and different sentences.
The only other organisation in this area is the Judicial Studies Board. It is significant that Lord Justice Glidewell, who heads that organisation, has himself called for broader discussion among the judges, in some appropriate forum, of principles of sentencing. The Times put the matter very well, saying that:
"Sentencing is not an abstract and sacrosanct judicial privilege to he exercised in isolation from its social consequences—it is a professional decision".
Without a sentencing council of some form sentencing will continue to be inadequate and amateur whereas, as The Times said, it is a professional matter.
Mr. Patten has spoken in another place of the dead hand of conformity and the removal of judicial discretion. That is entirely to misrepresent the role of a sentencing council. I hope that the noble Earl will not repeat those views when he replies to the submissions. The reports and guidelines of a sentencing council would not be binding on the courts unless adopted by the Court of Appeal or given legal force in subordinate legislation, when they would be open to interpretation by the Court of Appeal.
The council would have no executive role, any more than the Law Commission has. It would be an invaluable adjunct to the Court of Appeal. I know that many sentencers would welcome the creation of such a body. The concept reflects very closely the
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thinking behind Lord Justice Woolf's recommendation in his report of a national forum on the penal side. We must move forward in this area. We must progress. Here surely is the first step.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I do not wish to speak in as much detail as the previous speakers, but the variety of sentencing which exists in our courts is a problem. It will always remain a problem because sentencing is very much an art rather than a science. There are many factors which have to be taken into consideration which it is almost impossible to enumerate owing to their great number.
I feel with some conviction that what is proposed, whether in the form proposed in Amendment No. 2 or in its original form as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, is the creation of a new quango. It will provide not the fifth wheel of the coach but probably the sixth or seventh, and will create greater confusion than the status quo.
The wheels of the coach are rather more numerous than the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, seemed to think. He knows better than I that 97 per cent. or 98 per cent. of the criminal work in this country is dealt with by lay magistrates all over the country. There is an appeal from those courts to the Crown Court, which has so far not received any notice in the speeches that we have heard. Secondly, the Court of Appeal is entirely the creation of Parliament. Its jurisdiction is that which is conferred on it by Parliament and its duties are laid down by Parliament. One of the purposes of Part 1 of the Bill is to define more accurately the factors that ought to be taken into account either in the court of first instance, whether that is the magistrates' court or the Crown Court, or by the Court of Appeal on appeals from the Crown Court.
The wheels of the coach are very much more numerous than the previous speakers seemed to think. They have rightly emphasised the importance of the role of the Judicial Studies Board. That is a recent addition to our judicial armoury. In my opinion it can be further improved. I believe that it was the creation of Lord Gardiner, and it has certainly justified its existence extremely well. In addition there are initial courses for magistrates, seminars and textbooks, all dealing with this complicated subject. The Court of Appeal itself issues guidelines—in the nature of things, in the more serious cases. If this Chamber desires to lay down further duties for the Court of Appeal there is no reason why it should not do so.
I feel a considerable degree of disquiet about the additional work laid on the Lord Chief Justice by the proposed amendment, in either of its two forms. The Court of Appeal is probably one of the most overworked bodies in the judicial firmament. I say that with humility in the presence of former members of it. To suggest that the Lord Chief Justice can chair an additional body of this importance, instead of performing his work as chairman of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, is to overload him rather too much. The truth is that in addition to the Court of Appeal there is the Crown Court over the magistrates, there are textbooks, there is the Judicial Studies

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Board, there are visits to prisons and lectures—sometimes compulsory—by social workers, police officers, prison governors and probation officers. All those factors enter into judicial studies of one sort of another. The addition of another quango is not the way forward. It will only make matters more complicated.
There was a very distinguished medieval philosopher whose name was Occam—he was, I think, a Yorkshireman—upon whose judgment I shall rest. He gave, in medieval Latin, the precept that entities are not to be created without necessity.
Lord Hunt: My name appears on the Marshalled List in support of the first amendment. I should like to echo—silently because the Committee will not wish me to repeat what has been said—the case that has been made so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and my noble friend Lord Hutchinson of Lullington.
At Second Reading I spoke briefly in favour of a sentencing council. I also expressed concern about the likely effects of Parts I and II of the Bill in increasing the prison population, in the case of Part II due to the longer period which prisoners will have to serve before they become eligible for consideration for parole, and in the case of Part I because of the likelihood that the more stringent and punitive community orders and other sentences will result in more breaches and consequently in more prison sentences.
I suggest to your Lordships' Committee that we simply cannot afford to adopt a Bill which will have as one of its consequences an increase in the prison population. That is particularly so when the need to reduce the numbers in prison is common ground among all political parties and has been voiced in report after report these past 20 years and has been so clearly demonstrated in the prisons themselves. My belief in the value of a sentencing council which will include a non-judicial component to assist the judges, and it is clear that the first amendment means to assist the judges—
Earl of Longfordam sorry to interrupt the noble Lord. I am less frightened of him than I am of some of the other speakers. I know that he is more benignant. I should like to ask him a question. He realises that these non-legal people are only advisers. They are not members. The noble Lord speaks of a component, which is an ambiguous word.
4 p.m.
Lord Hunt: I am sorry to have used the wrong word and to have displeased the noble Earl. But I am very clear on this point. After all it is an amendment in which I have had a hand. I entirely support its wording. The purpose is to advise the judicial members of the sentencing council.
My support derives from my experience as chairman of the parole board for nearly seven years. I mention that only because I want to make the point that it was an experience from which all the members of that board gained a great deal, not least the judges. There was a wide range of knowledge and experience among our colleagues. As many Members of the
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Committee will know, the judicial members were working with members of the medical profession and with people from the prison service, as well as from the education, probation and social services. They were working with criminologists, magistrates and many others. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, pointed out, we travelled and visited prisons and many other places.
The judges, both past and present, would wish to speak for themselves. However, in my time my judicial colleagues—I think I am right in saying all of them, including the Lord Chief Justice before he was exalted to that office—told me how valuable it was to hear opinions and advice not from time to time but constantly from people outwith their own professions who had such varied experience of crime and criminals not in the courts but in the community and prisons.
The Committee may well feel that that example of shared experience in the context of the parole system may not be closely relevant to the proposal in the first amendment. But I believe that it supports the case for what would amount to an advisory panel—the amendment makes clear that that is the intention—which the judicial members would have the power to create. The responsibility for drawing up guidelines for sentencing would lie with the judicial members. Judicial independence would therefore not be infringed.
It would help to ensure that sentences, particularly for the most frequent kinds of offence not involving serious violence, rape, drug offences, serious fraud and so on, were more consistent than at present. It would probably help to bring about fewer and shorter sentences of imprisonment for the less serious crimes. I see such a council as a necessary piece of equipment to help the courts to interpret the Bill and in particular Part I in the way in which the Government at present and eventually Parliament intend.
Lord Elton: In considering the merits of the principal amendment which is now before us, I hope that the Committee will also consider that there is a further reason for variation in sentencing practices in different areas which is not the result of different views being taken by the sentencers. In future under this Act every sentencer will be under the requirement, as those in the juvenile system have been for many years, to consider first what other sentence will suffice before sentencing an offender to a custodial sentence. In that consideration they have to take into account what other sentences are available. Some of them are rendered suitable or unsuitable by the character or circumstances of the offender. Others are rendered suitable or unsuitable by the nature of the alternative provisions available. That is particularly true of the juvenile sector in which such resources as intermediate treatment are available as an alternative to custody.
The level of provision is dramatically different in different areas. It seems to me that a means of reducing the percentage of custodial sentences in areas in which they are high will often be the provision of non-custodial facilities in which the courts can have confidence. As long as they do not have confidence they will not use them and the prisons will continue to bear the weight of corrective duty.

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I hope that in his reply my noble friend will say something about that issue. Possibly in an aside I might ask him also to hear in mind that, whatever the system, one will not achieve uniformity of practice unless the practice is handed down uniformly. Sadly I remember an occasion in 1984 when I was taken severely to task by two Recorders, both of whom had long been practising, for having myself, it would appear, invented and introduced the system of remissions of sentences. There can be a degree of lack of knowledge of a rather serious nature which can only be overcome by administrative improvement and not by legislative change creating yet more bodies for us to finance and supervise.
Lord Gisborough: When I first became involved with this issue one of the first things I noticed was that even in a county with three courts there were variations in the penalties for quite simple offences such as speeding and having no insurance. Those offences are not particularly diverse one from another compared with other crimes. In fact the magistrates in each court guarded their own independence and set their own rates for such offences.
It struck me that surely within a county they could agree to a single figure. If the magistrates in the courts, as they do now, are to set a benchmark, surely the Magistrates' Association, subject to control, could set a benchmark for the whole country. There can only be starting points. Some benches would always need to go higher than other benches because of a greater tendency in the area for such a crime to take place. For example, on a motorway probably the starting point would always be higher. However, I see no reason why the starting point should not be laid down or suggested nationally. Therefore I tend to agree with the spirit behind the amendment.
Earl Ferrers: In moving this amendment the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said that he was anxious that there should be more consistency in sentencing. That theme has run through the speeches of all noble Lords who have spoken. The noble Lord gave examples from every part of the country, as did my noble friend Lord Gisborough. They said how in different parts of the country different sentences could be given. We too are of the view that there should be more consistency. That is one of the objectives of the Bill.
The way to do that according to the noble Lord, Lord Richard, is to set up a sentencing council which would consist of the Lord Chief Justice and not more than four judges of the Court of Appeal, to which he would add some advisers. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, would go a little further and secularise the council somewhat more. The noble Earl says that religion does not come into it but I thought that he would appreciate that word and would understand its context. He would like to have five judges—not Court of Appeal judges but magistrates, all five of them—and four other people whom one might describe in a not derogatory way as worthies; in other words people who are not judges or magistrates.
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The noble Lord, Lord Richard, asked what I thought was an extraordinary question: why are judges better able than MPs to decide upon sentencing? The noble Lord shakes his head.
Lord Richard: The noble Earl provokes me to rise to my feet. I did not say that they were as well qualified to sentence. I said that they were as well qualified to judge public opinion.
Earl Ferrers: They will judge public opinion, yet they will be part of a sentencing council which will lay down the parameters of sentencing. I suggest that the correct people to deal with that are those who are involved with the judiciary and who have had the professional expertise, with years of such experience.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, and the noble Earl, somewhat let the cat out of the bag when they said that the purpose of the sentencing council would be to reduce the prison population. I accept—as I believe we all accept—that the prison population ought to be kept down so far as possible. People should not be put into prison who would be better looked after outside. That is one of the purposes behind the Bill. Indeed, that is what we ask Parliament to agree to. But to set up a sentencing council in order specifically to lessen the prison population would be overriding Parliament in the parameters which it sets and overriding the judiciary in the way in which it acts within those parameters.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, asked two questions. Oddly enough, I wish to ask two questions. They are not the same as those of the noble Lord. Those who favour the creation of a sentencing council need to ask two questions. First, how would it improve the arrangements for ensuring consistency in sentencing? Secondly, at whose expense would it exercise its authority? I suggest that it might be at the expense of the judges or of Ministers in Parliament, or both.
Perhaps I may deal with the second question first. It is one which advocates of a sentencing council tend to avoid. At the moment the authority over sentencing is very clear. Parliament sets maximum penalties for offences. Under the Bill, Parliament will set out criteria for use in sentencing. The sentence in an individual case is a matter for the sentencer who is guided by precedent and by the judgments of the superior courts. If the Committee were to accept the new clause, a sentencing council would issue guidelines in respect of sentencing policy. The courts would be required in some way to follow the guidelines. That is bound to involve encroachment on Parliament's authority to determine the sentencing policy and the courts' authority in applying that policy.
It has been suggested, although not today, that the problem could be avoided by having the sentencing council's guidelines promulgated in a statutory instrument. If that were to happen, it would reduce Parliament and indeed Ministers to the role of a rubber stamp. If Ministers or Parliament disagreed with the council's recommendations, whose views would then prevail? Expert as the members of a sentencing council might well be—although not in the

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council proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Longford—I suggest that it would not be right for them to impose their views on Parliament, Ministers and the judiciary. It would be a constitutional innovation.
I suggest that it would be a very grave step to ask Parliament and the courts to cede some of their authority to a sentencing council. Before we contemplate that, we must ask ourselves what the proposal achieves. How would it improve the arrangements for ensuring consistency in sentencing? The Bill sets out clearly the criteria for sentencing in the vast majority of cases. The Court of Appeal has already given guideline judgments on a number of offences. It is not a fact that Court of Appeal judgments are confined to major offences such as rape. Guidance has been given, for example, on sentencing for social security fraud and such offences. The Bill will give a basis for extending such guidance to many other offences. I suggest that this combination of legislation and the Court of Appeal guidance is perfectly adequate to bring about consistency in sentencing.
What would a sentencing council add? If it made any difference, I fear that it would be only in the direction of replacing the consistency which is the hallmark of justice with uniformity. We all know that bureaucratic bodies, especially quangos—to which my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham quite rightly referred—soon acquire, curiously enough, a momentum and life of their own. I fear that the sentencing council would soon devise sentencing rules for any and every kind of case. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Richard, referred to the possibility of it giving guidance on sentencing for such offences as burglary.
At the end of that road lies what is called the sentencing grid. That is a practice in some parts of the United States. It dictates a narrow range of sentences for each offence leaving sentencers with very little discretion to take account of the circumstances of each case. That has two results—rigidity, and injustice in individual cases. In a most interesting speech on Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Howe quoted the case of a man who was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for tweaking the bottoms of two ladies. He was given that sentence because that was what the sentencing commission had decreed to be the immutable penalty for indecent assault. Saddled with such rigidity, jurors might prefer to acquit rather than expose offenders to what they considered would be unjust penalties.
The second result—one which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, would not like—is that there might be more rather than fewer people in prison because sentencers were given less discretion to mitigate the penalty where appropriate. A further consequence reported in the United States is that the discretion tends to shift to the prosecutor because the prosecutor's decision about which charge to bring effectively determines the sentence that can be awarded.
I know that the Committee is anxious to see more consistency in sentencing. I have great sympathy with that. I know that the Committee is anxious to ensure that people who would better be dealt with outside do
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not go to prison. With that I agree. However, I hope that the Committee will agree that our system at the moment is better, more flexible and less rigid without having a sentencing council than it would be were we to have a sentencing council.
4.15 p.m.
The Earl of Longford: Many years ago Sir Winston Churchill was interrupted by some hot-blooded Back-Bencher. When he had time to collect himself, he replied, "I do not feel altogether extinguished by that observation". I cannot say that I feel extinguished by any observations on my amendment today. There have not been many, but those that were made seemed to be based on a misapprehension.
The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, talked about taking power from Parliament and issuing instructions. He obviously has not read the amendment. He is a busy man, and there are many amendments to come. I know how devoted he is to the House. He might consider it worth reading the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Richard, even if he did not consider mine worth reading. Amendment No. 1 states:
"It shall be the duty of the Sentencing Council to consider and review sentencing policy and from time to time to issue guidelines in respect thereof".
No one can say that that refers to issuing instructions. It refers to guidelines. The noble Earl ought to speak to his advisers. They mostly do a good job but not today; they have got it absolutely wrong. He has been wrongly advised. I do not expect much more from him today on this particular subject.
I realise that my amendment needs some meditating on. People will have to think about it a bit. Most people do not know anything about it: they do not get the beauty of it at all. So although I may not be able to return to that at the next stage, perhaps I can turn to something still more enlightened and if people read my few remarks in Hansard they may get some idea. In other words, I shall be back next time. I am not withdrawing the amendment. I do not expect any support on this occasion but next time things may be different.
On Question, Amendment No. 2, as an amendment to Amendment No. 1, negatived.
Lord Richard: Perhaps I may at this stage compliment the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, on making a speech which, so far as I could see at any rate, he did not believe a word of.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Richard: No, really. In time-honoured parliamentary fashion, what the noble Earl did was to set up two arguments, neither of which has been put forward from this side of the Committee, and then proceed to knock them down with considerable forensic skill. There is nothing whatever in the amendment about this being done by parliamentary instrument; there is nothing in it which says that Parliament would merely rubber-stamp what the sentencing council said. The amendment is quite specific in its wording as to how the decisions or the advice of the sentencing council would emerge. They would emerge as the Court of Appeal's decisions and

975
determinations now emerge: namely, by guidelines which the courts would have to look at and follow if the circumstances were right.
Secondly, the Minister again raised the question of the grid. Nobody is suggesting that there should be anything like that. Nobody is contemplating for an instant that we should move to a situation similar to that in some parts of the United States of America, where I agree that there is perhaps an absurd degree of rigidity in the way this matter is approached. We are suggesting that the judges of the Court of Appeal should be assisted by advice from external disciplines and then, having had the benefit of that advice, they should probably get guidelines in respect of matters which at the moment they have not considered.
My noble friend Lord Longford said that he thought his proposal was "wet", but if his was wet mine is sodden. However, having heard the non-arguments against the amendment put by the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, I feel obliged to test the opinion of the Committee.
4.22 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No.1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 91; Not-Contents, 152.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Hylton, L.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Irvine of Lairg, L.

Ardwick, L.

Jacques, L.

Birk. B.

Jay, L.

Blackstone, B.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Blease, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Kagan, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kennet, L.

Bottomley, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Listowel, E.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hiastoe, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Longford, E.

Castle of Blackburn, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Clinton-Davis, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Molloy, L.

David, B.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mulley, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Nicol, B.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Northbourne, L.

Ezra. L.

Oram, L.

Falkland, V.

Parry, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Peston, L.

Foot, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Gallacher, L. [Teller.]

Prys-Davies, L.

Galpern, L.

Richard, L.

Gisborough, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Glenamara, L.

Rochester, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Grey, E.

Seear, B.

Hampton, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

Hanworth, V.

Serota, B.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Shepherd, L.

Hayter, L.

Stallard, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Stedman, B.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hughes, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

Hunt. L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

976

Underhill, L.

L.Williams of Elvel, L.

Walston, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Whaddon, L.

Winterbottom, L.

White, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Joseph, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Killearn, L.

Aldington, L.

Kimball, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Kimberley, E.

Alexander of Weedon, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Kintore, E.

Alport, L.

Kissin, L.

Ampthill, L.

Knollys, V.

Arran, E.

Knutsford, V.

Astor, V.

Lauderdale, E.

Auckland, L.

Layton, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Leathers, V.

Belstead, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Bessborough, E.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Birdwood, L.

Lyell, L.

Blatch, B.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Bledisloe, V.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Blyth, L.

Mancroft, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Manton, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Margadale, L.

Bradford, Bp.

Marsh, L.

Brain, L.

Merrivale, L.

Brightman, L.

Mersey, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Middleton, L.

Butterworth, L.

Milverton, L.

Byron, L.

Monckton of Brenchley, V.

Caithness, E.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Caldecote, V.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Mottistone, L.

Campbell of Croy, L.

Mountevans, L.

Carnarvon, E.

Munster, E.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Carnock, L.

Nelson, E.

Cavendish of Furness, L.[Teller.]

Nelson of Stafford, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Norrie, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Coleraine, L.

O'Brien of Lothbury, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Onslow, E.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Oxfuird, V.

Cottesloe, L.

Park of Monmouth, B.

Cross, V.

Pender, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Perth, E.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Downshire, M.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Elibank, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Portsmouth, Bp.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Rankeillour, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Reay, L.

Elphinstone, L.

Renton, L.

Elton, L.

Renwick, L.

Erroll, E.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Ferrers, E.

Shannon, E.

Rather, B.

Sharples, B.

Fortescue, E.

Simon of Glaisdale, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Slim, V.

Gainsborough, E.

Soulsby of Swaffham Prior, L.

Geddes, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Grantchester, L.

Strange, B.

Gridley, L.

Strathcarron, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Hardinge of Penshurst, L.

Strathspey, L.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Sudeley, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Swinfen, L.

Harvington, L.

Swinton, E.

Henley, L.

Tenby, V.

Hesketh, L.

Terrington, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Teviot, L.

Howe, E.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Trumpington, B.

Johnston of Rockport,

Tryon, L.

Ullswater, V.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

977

Waddington, L.

Wise, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Wynford, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Lord Reay: This might be a convenient moment to take a Statement. I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Northern Ireland: Political Talks
4.31 p.m.
The Paymaster General (Lord Belstead): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Statement is as follows:
"Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to inform the House that, following extensive discussions with the main constitutional political parties in Northern Ireland—the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the Ulster Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party—and with the Irish Government, a basis for formal political talks now exists. I frankly acknowledge to the House that this would not have been possible without the goodwill and determination of the Northern Ireland parties and the helpful and constructive approach taken by the Irish Government. The stated positions of all these parties are well known. Her Majesty's Government reaffirm their position that Northern Ireland's present status as a part of the United Kingdom will not change without the consent of a majority of its people.
"The endeavour on which we have all agreed to embark is an ambitious one. We are setting out to achieve a new beginning for relationships within Northern Ireland, within the island of Ireland and between the peoples of these islands. While a successful outcome cannot be guaranteed in advance, I am confident that all the potential participants are committed to a forward-looking and constructive approach. For their part, the two signatories of the Anglo-Irish Agreement—the British and Irish Governments—have made clear that they would be prepared to consider a new and more broadly based agreement or structure if such an arrangement can be arrived at through direct discussion and negotiation between all of the parties concerned.
"To allow an opportunity for such a wider political dialogue the two governments have agreed not to hold a meeting of the Anglo-Irish conference between two pre-specified dates. All of the parties concerned will make use of this interval for intensive discussions to seek the new and more broadly based agreement which I have just described.
978
"As the conference will not be meeting between the specified dates the secretariat at Maryfield will accordingly not be required for that period to discharge its normal role of servicing conference meetings provided for in Article 3 of the agreement.
"It is accepted that discussions must focus on three main relationships: those within Northern Ireland, including the relationship between any new institutions there and the Westminster Parliament; among the people of the island of Ireland; and between the two governments. It is common ground between all the parties that hope of achieving a new and more broadly based agreement rests on finding a way to give adequate expression to the totality of the relationships I have mentioned.
"Talks will accordingly take place in three strands corresponding respectively to the three relationships. Some arrangement will be needed for liaison between the different strands of these complex discussions. All the Northern Ireland parties will participate actively and directly in the North/South discussions. The Unionist parties have made clear that they wish their participation in those talks to be formally associated with my presence and that they will regard themselves as members of the United Kingdom team.
"It is accepted by all those involved that, so as to make full use of the interval between meetings of the conference to achieve an overall agreement satisfactory to all, it will be necessary to have launched all three sets of discussions within weeks of each other.
"A first step towards getting related discussions under way in all three strands will be the opening, as soon as possible, of substantive talks between the parties in Northern Ireland under my chairmanship. These will commence with a round of bilateral meetings before moving on, as soon as possible, into plenary sessions. It has been agreed by all the participants that before long, when, after consultation, I judge that an appropriate point has been reached, I will propose formally that the other two strands should be launched. My judgment as to timing will be governed by the fact that all involved have agreed that the three sets of discussions will be under way within weeks of each other.
"The internal talks, like the talks in the other strands, will follow a demanding and intensive schedule. In order to ensure a full airing of the issues, it will be open to each of the parties to raise any aspect of these relationships including constitutional issues, or any other matter which it considers relevant. All concerned have assured me that they will participate in good faith and will make every effort to achieve progress.
"It is accepted by all the parties that nothing will be finally agreed in any strand until everything is agreed in the talks as a whole and that confidentiality will be maintained thereunto. However, in the final analysis the outcome will need to be acceptable to the people."
My Lords, that concludes the Statement made by my right honourable friend.
4.37 p.m.
Lord-Prys-Davies: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Belstead, has been the bearer of good news, and we on these Benches warmly welcome the long-awaited Statement that the Minister has just repeated. We congratulate the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on his triumph. It is a considerable achievement. We would also place on record our appreciation of the understanding and the flexibility of the political parties in Northern Ireland and of the approach taken by the Irish Government.
After years of appalling atrocities, divisions and mistrust it is immensely encouraging that the leaders of the main political parties in Northern Ireland have been persuaded to sit around a table to have these substantial talks embracing the internal government of Northern Ireland, the relationship between the people of Northern Ireland and the Republic, and the relationship between Ireland and Britain. At times during the past 15 months we greatly feared that the initiative of the Secretary of State might be coming to nothing. There was, and there still remains, a great deal of scepticism about the initiative in some quarters, but that the initiative did not break down is due to the skill, patience, and tenacity of the Secretary of State.
There is no guarantee, of course, that the discussions will lead to a settlement. No doubt the Secretary of State will have to draw on his skills and the good will he has built up over the past 15 months in order to achieve the evasive settlement. Indeed, it is fairly clear from the tenor of the Statement that the success of the talks will in no small measure depend upon the parties having learnt to place their trust in the Secretary of State's judgment.
I have three or four short questions for the Minister. First, what are the two pre-specified dates which are mentioned in the Statement between which the Anglo-Irish conference will not be sitting? When are the talks likely to begin? Secondly, will there be an overall timeframe within which it is hoped the talks will be completed? Thirdly, and particularly in the light of the last sentence of the Statement, is it envisaged that the settlement, if it is achieved, will be the subject of a referendum in Northern Ireland?
I am sure that there is no need for me to say that the Opposition fully support the Secretary of State and all the parties in their endeavours to bring about an enduring settlement which will achieve peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
Lord Holme of Cheltenham: My Lords, we on these Benches recognise the considerable achievement of arriving at this new basis for talks. The 15 months of talks to which the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies, referred had reached deadlock. The fact that the deadlock has been broken by the personal initiative of the Secretary of State is quite a remarkable and extraordinary achievement.
We now have the first talks since 1976. They are all the more hopeful now because all parties in Northern Ireland and the Irish Government are involved. We would wish to associate ourselves with the tributes paid to the Secretary of State. He has shown both
980
patience and nerve. We and our sister alliance party had urged the initiative on him, but it should be said that the Secretary of State deserves all possible personal credit for his political helmsmanship through these very troubled waters. In the Statement which has been repeated the Secretary of State uses the words "good will and determination" and applies them to the parties in Northern Ireland. That is certainly true, but those are qualities which the Secretary of State has shown consistently over the past months.
The Northern Irish parties, together with the Irish Government, have been positive in their response. I trust that the parties are becoming aware of how much ordinary people in every part of the island yearn for a more stable relationship based on mutual respect for the traditions of the communities. If the Northern Ireland parties listen to those people rather than the opposing minorities of zealous activists, I am sure that they will be constructive in the talks ahead.
On these Benches we believe that devolution for Northern Ireland, with a substantial measure of self-government, can be achieved in the end only by the pressure of and with the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. Therefore, I should like to echo the question of the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies. If the talks are successful, how will the consent of the people be established?
Finally, British general elections have destabilised delicate situations across the Irish Sea on several occasions during our mutually troubled history. On these Benches we urge tripartisanship throughout the period of these vital talks. Each of the principal United Kingdom parties should commit itself unequivocally to that process so that we can provide a stable context for the talks over the months ahead. Those talks are certainly much too important to be allowed to become an incidental casualty of all the tensions of a British election.
Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord to give us as much detail as possible on the timetable. I feel sure that the Secretary of State is right to try to achieve the greatest possible momentum by tight timetabling, but we should be grateful if the noble Lord could share with us more details as regards the timetable.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I thank both the noble Lords, Lord Prys-Davies and Lord Holme of Cheltenham, for their reaction to my right honourable friend's Statement which I have repeated today. I agree with both noble Lords—and it was a point made early on by the noble Lord, Lord Prys-Davies—that no one should underestimate the scale of the task which lies before us. It will require determination and commitment of a high order by all concerned to bring the talks to a successful conclusion.
Both noble Lords asked me about the timing of the talks. We intend that talks should begin before the end of next month; in order words, before the end of April. Although I do not believe that my right honourable friend has discussed this with the co-chairman of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Irish Foreign Minister, Mr. Collins, we propose that the interval occupied by the talks should not be less than 10 weeks. Therefore,

981
we propose that an intergovernmental conference which is due to fall within those two periods should not, according to the Statement, take place.
Both noble Lords asked about the reference at the end of the Statement to the need to see that the outcome is acceptable to the people generally. It has been accepted during the discussions which have taken place so far that the outcome of the talks would need to be subject to a process of validation. The major question will be whether the outcome is likely to prove widely acceptable within Northern Ireland. I should not wish to go further than that today.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Colnbrook: My Lords, I join in the sincere congratulations to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State on having managed to bring the parties together in Northern Ireland to talk about the future. That is very difficult. I tried to do it 11 years ago and did not succeed because the Unionists refused to attend. This achievement is a great step forward.
I should like to pass on two observations to my right honourable friend. I hope that he will not drop his guard against the IRA. More than anything else the IRA dreads agreement among the people who live in Northern Ireland and between the North and the South. The IRA will do anything to prevent such an agreement from taking place. I hope that my right honourable friend's guard will be kept up during the course of the discussions.
Secondly. will he do everything possible not to raise too high public expectation for any immediate result? The problems with which we are all familiar have been present for too long. The trenches into which the political parties in the North have dug themselves are too deep for them to be able to climb out very quickly. I fear that if public expectation is raised that all the problems will be solved very quickly, people will be disappointed. We all hope and wish that there will be progress, but I do not believe that it will be speedy and it is dangerous for people to believe that it will be.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I take very seriously any intervention by my noble friend on this subject. I would be the first to say that I heed his warning and that given by the Front Bench opposite that we must not look at this through rose coloured glasses. There is much hard work to be done and many obstacles to be overcome in the weeks ahead.
My noble friend raised the point about keeping entirely alert as regards terrorism. I assure your Lordships that our firm policies for the defeat of terrorism will continue in parallel with our efforts to promote constructive political development. It is worth adding that most of the participants in the talks have clear views on security matters which they have put to my right honourable friend from time to time with both force and eloquence. I do not believe that they would have joined in this process if they thought it was likely to prove inimical to our efforts to defeat terrorism.
Lord Mason of Barnsley: My Lords, I place on record my congratulations to the Secretary of State on
982
his patience, perseverance and skill in obtaining agreement from all major political parties to discuss jointly the prospects of constitutional change. That is quite an achievement especially since the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was an agreement bitterly opposed by the Unionists, and that still remains the position. It is only an agenda but it is a useful first step, having constructed a structure for all-party dialogue which involves government in both Dublin and London.
Is the Minister aware of the position of the two blocs? I refer to a United Ireland versus a Province whose desire is to remain part of the United Kingdom. Those positions have not changed. I refer also to Dublin's constitutional claim on the Province of Northern Ireland, which still exists. It is not only a major irritant to the Unionists but will overshadow the talks on constitutional change, and the Unionists will not brook any interference by a foreign government in their affairs. Those are facts which are most worrying.
In spite of the foreseen difficulties, I sincerely hope that the Minister succeeds. It is a delicate path to tread but he knows that better than anyone. At least the Secretary of State may establish in the minds of both governments a better understanding of each political party's views. That too would be an advance since the aggravation and misunderstandings caused by the Anglo-Irish Agreement. He may also create a more peaceful political atmosphere. That too would auger well for the future.
It is too early to expect much more. For all those who wish to see an eventually peaceful Province, we wish the Minister well in his endeavours; and I earnestly believe that he deserves to succeed.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Mason of Barnsley, for intervening. He was another distinguished Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who realises only too well from personal experience how difficult these matters are.
In reply to the main thrust of what the noble Lord said, perhaps I may assure the House that there is no hidden agenda; we have an open agenda. As the Statement said, it will be open to all who wish to do so to contribute in the talks. We are working towards a transfer, if we can achieve it, of political responsibility to locally elected representatives on a widely acceptable basis but within a wider framework of stable relationships. That is the broad thrust of what we are trying to achieve.
Viscount Whitelaw: My Lords, perhaps my noble friend would give a voice from the distant past on this subject an opportunity to say to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State how much we hope that he will succeed and how much we admire his great tenacity in getting this far.
Perhaps my noble friend will appreciate and pass on to my right honourable friend my one thought regarding what the noble Lord, Lord Holme, said in regard to general elections. It is a nostalgic view from the past; it is something I deeply feel, for I know that it was the worst thing in my life that there was a general election in 1974. Neither the noble Lord, Lord

983
Holme, nor anyone else in this House should believe that we can stop problems arising by any pact between the parties in this country. The parties in Northern Ireland will have to fight each other at a general election on exactly the same basis as before, and that will cause the trouble. That cannot be avoided; it is a bridge that must be crossed.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, the substantive point made by my noble friend Lord Whitelaw is one quite rightly in our minds as a result of it being raised by the noble Lord, Lord Holme, this afternoon in your Lordships' Chamber. It is not one I shall pursue, although I assure the House that it is also in the mind of my right honourable friend.
Before we conclude the debate on the Statement, perhaps I may thank each noble Lord who has spoken, including no fewer than three former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, for the generous congratulations given to my right honourable friend.
Lord Blease: My Lords, as another voice from the past with memories too, perhaps I can join my noble friend Lord Prys-Davies and other noble Lords in welcoming this Statement. It is a message of hope for all peaceable citizens in Northern Ireland. It is an opportunity that must be genuinely grasped by all. I also express my warm appreciation, with others, for the quiet patience, the courteous determination and the political skills of the Secretary of State, Peter Brooke, and his ministerial team, for the open and responsible way they have undertaken their difficult and sometimes personally dangerous parliamentary duties and efforts.
Would the Minister agree that this House should give every encouragement to the people of Northern Ireland—that is, the Churches, the business community and the trade unions—to support in every possible way the political parties enjoining in these political talks regarding the future of Northern Ireland? They must exercise a spirit of principled give and take, which is often absent in political dialogues. I dislike using the word compromise because it has a sense of giving too much away, but there are points where give and take is necessary in these circumstances.
Is it not a fact that unless the search for a reasoned and fair accommodation is firmly based on parliamentary democracy, we in Northern Ireland will all be losers? We shall continue to suffer further economic, social and political deterioration and deprivation. Having some knowledge of the talks that have been taking place over a number of years, I ask the Minister whether consideration has been given to the administrative difficulties experienced by some of the parties involved. I know that other aspects of their involvement have been taken care of. Some members of parties that are involved have papers to present and arrangements to make. Therefore, a little help in the form of an independent central secretariat for the clearance of press notices and the making of arrangements should be genuinely considered.
With those remarks, I wholeheartedly welcome and appreciate everything that has been said in this House regarding the affairs of Northern Ireland.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blease. It is very much in the mind of my right honourable friend that a little time will be necessary for people to bring their case, position and arguments together. As a result of the talks about talks, there is good consultation between my right honourable friend and the parties. That is why we would intend, if it can be agreed, that the talks should start by the end of next month; exactly at what moment will depend on the points made by the noble Lord. I wish to make two further comments. I have been asked whether your Lordships' House should encourage the people of Northern Ireland down this particular path.
I believe that noble Lords have been answered by the exchanges we have had this afternoon. However, no one knows better than the noble Lord, Lord Blease, that success in talks of this kind, if they can improve the basis of the democratic process in Northern Ireland, will be important not only for peace and parliamentary democracy, but also for prosperity. The noble Lord worked hard in his life in the position that he held in the Northern Ireland Congress for Trade Unions for the prosperity of the people of Northern Ireland.
Lord Elton: My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State deserves every word of congratulations on his patience and wisdom. Does my noble friend agree that it will take at least as much patience and wisdom to bring the ship which he is now launching into port, in part for the reasons mentioned by my noble friend Lord Colnbrook? Does he also agree that some credit should go to those other participants who agreed to join in the consultation? It has been difficult not to lose patience with some of the refusals for dialogue we have witnessed over the years. They have been based upon or been reactions to genuine pressures and fears.
Noble Lords would do well to welcome this beginning of statesmanship among the various parties in Northern Ireland, which we welcome at least as heartily as we welcome the honourable and successful courage and perseverance of my right honourable friend.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Elton for intervening. It is right that at the end of these exchanges I should pay tribute to the sincerity, patience and determination of all those who have been interlocutors with my right honourable friend. They have all shown a readiness to address essential interests of other participants and a willingness to work constructively towards accommodating those interests. In case noble Lords with more experience of Northern Ireland than I have feel that perhaps during these exchanges I have forgotten, I repeat that we are now going to be in for a difficult and hard time in the talks.
However, there is a belief that there is sufficient common ground to make these talks worthwhile. The statement which my right honourable friend made to that effect about 10 days ago provoked a degree of scepticism. I believe that my right honourable friend was right. I believe that the discussions he has had,

985
although they have addressed preliminary issues, have expanded the area of common ground and created a firm basis on which at least to start talking.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, following on the point behind the question asked by my noble friend Lord Elton, will my noble friend, in recognising the great breakthrough that has taken place, pass on to his right honourable friend the importance of recognising for some time the fragile relationship that is bound to exist between the parties to this agreement? That makes it even more essential that when any further steps are taken, however small, they are steps which have been agreed by the various parties before any notice of them appears in the press. There has been the suggestion of slight irritation caused by this announcement being made today without all the parties to it being aware of it. Will my noble friend keep in mind that if ever there was a time and a negotiation which did not require anything by way of unauthorised leaks which would prejudice coming to real agreement at the end of the day, then this is it?
Lord Belstead: My Lords, all the exchanges that my right honourable friend has had with the various parties over the past 14 months have been conducted on a basis of confidentiality. We have made a degree of progress on that basis that encourages us to believe that the latest round of talks should be handled in the same way. Therefore, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls has said.
Lord Lyell: My Lords, will my noble friend pass on my congratulations, together with those of all my distinguished predecessors who have spoken this afternoon? But above all does he agree that what he has stressed in his replies to some of the questions that preceded my own intervention, is that patience is the watchword of my right honourable friend? He has had immense patience and success. I believe that the two go hand in hand. Does my noble friend consider that my right honourable friend requires all patience and flexibility in the timetable which has been proposed, particularly at this first step of the talks between the parties in Northern Ireland? We hope that when any successful conclusion is arrived at my noble friend will be able to give us some good news. Until that time we wait and hope with great optimism.
Lord Belstead: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lyell for his generous words about my right honourable friend. We must now hope that his patience and that of the other parties will be rewarded.

War Crimes Bill
Brought from the Commons endorsed with the certificate from the Speaker (pursuant to the Parliament Act 1911) that the Bill as compared with the War Crimes Bill 1990 contains only such alterations as are necessary owing to the time which has elapsed since the date of that Bill.
Read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time and to be printed.

Criminal Justice Bill
5.5 p.m.
House again in Committee.
Clause 1 [Restrictions on imposing custodial sentences]:
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington Lord Hutchinson of Lullington moved Amendment No. 3:
Page 1, line 11, leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall speak at the same time to Amendment No. 7A. I suggest that this amendment is as important as any that the Committee will consider during the passage of the Bill. Part I of the Bill introduces a new framework for the sentencing of offenders. In Clauses 5 to 14 it introduces what are to be called "community sentences". The courts are to be encouraged to impose restrictions on the liberty of offenders, within the community wherever possible, rather than within the negative, corrupting and degrading atmosphere to be found within prisons.
To make this framework successful conditions are set out in Clause 1(2) and (4) which must be met by the courts before imposing a custodial sentence. These criteria are based on very similar criteria which have so successfully governed the sentencing of young persons since 1982. Further conditions are set out in Clause 2(2) and (3) governing the length of the sentence to be imposed. In that way a statutory discipline is imposed for the first time on the courts which will, it is hoped, at long last prevent inappropriate custodial sentences being passed. The measure will also give assistance to everyone involved in the appeal procedure to decide whether the sentencing court's reasoning was or was not acceptable.
In addition to those criteria, in Clause 3 clear, procedural requirements are spelt out which the courts must observe before imposing custody, obtaining pre-trial reports and the like. So in that way here we have a clear, straightforward framework. For reasons which have not been made clear so far and which receive no mention in the Notes on Clauses, these criteria, on which the success of this part of the Bill very largely depends, are not to apply to offenders, as far as custody is concerned, committing offences triable only on indictment if anywhere in their record there has been a sentence of imprisonment, the sentence of imprisonment not having to be for the same type of offence and having no time limit of any kind. As regards length of sentence the criteria are not to apply to any offender committing any indictable offence of any kind.
It means that as regards the more serious offences, senior judges may impose custody when the seriousness of the particular offence does not justify it or for a longer period than is adequate for the

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protection of the public, and they may do so without either any duty to state in open court the reasons for the course which they are taking or any necessity to obtain pre-sentence reports.
Furthermore, in such cases the essential information will not necessarily be available to the court on appeal, although it is in respect of these more serious offences and longer sentences that appeals are most likely to be launched and it is such cases which will cause most concern to all those who are involved in them. At Second Reading I quoted passages from the White Paper and from the Carlisle and Woolf Reports, all emphasising the vital importance of courts reducing the length of sentences, as the Carlisle Report said, "at all levels". As Members of the Committee will know, two Select Committee reports, the expenditure committee report and the All-Party Penal Affairs Group have said the same thing on numerous occasions.
It is accepted officially that our sentencing level in the United Kingdom is the highest in Europe. Statistics show that a higher percentage of men convicted of indictable offences are sent to prison, for longer terms, than was the case 10 years ago. Strangeways prison contained 630 prisoners over and above the certified complement when it erupted. Each of those was costing the taxpayer more than£300 a week to be there: and more than half of them would be reconvicted within two years—a wholly counter-productive operation. If this situation is ever to be remedied—one of the main purposes of Part I of the Bill—these clear criteria must surely apply in every criminal court to all offences and must be observed by all judges, not just magistrates, circuit judges and recorders. Above all, the criteria must apply to all classes of crime. If that is not the case the recommendations of Carlisle and Woolf will simply be frustrated.
There is a very general misconception, which was expressed at Second Reading by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, who I am sorry to say is not in his place, that it is the magistrates and not the judges who fill up the prisons. The most recent Home Office figures that I have show that at any one time 45 per cent. of those sentenced to immediate custody come from the magistrates' courts and 53 per cent. come from the Crown Courts. Because of the shorter sentences coming straight from the magistrates' courts at any one time 88 per cent. of the prison population comes from the Crown Courts and only 10 per cent. from the magistrates' courts. Moreover, the average sentence length in the magistrates' courts has decreased, whereas in the Crown Courts it has increased. It is in the Crown Courts that the statutory disciplines are all important.
Indictable offences cover a wide spectrum and in many of these community sentences will be entirely appropriate even though the class of offence is a serious one. According to Home Office statistics, in recent years an average of 25 per cent. of those convicted of indictable-only offences received non-custodial sentences, all of which will now become community sentences. The judges imposing them will all be subject to the equivalent disciplines set out in
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Clause 5. Surely it is even more important that these same judges should be subject to the equivalent disciplines when imposing terms of imprisonment. It is all the more important that they should call for pre-trial reports and should express publicly their reasons for the sentences they impose.
Finally, excluding indictable-only offences will lead to innumerable anomalies, as excluding classes of offence always does. For instance, criteria will be applicable to theft but they will not be applicable to conspiracy to steal. They will be applicable to sexual intercourse offences with a girl of 12, but not with a girl of 13. Bank robbery is covered, but so is pick-pocketing in the Underground. The only reason given in another place for excepting senior judges from these obligations was that it would be an unnecessary burden to impose upon them, when everyone could see that a prison sentence was inevitable, to ask them to go through these hoops, as it was put by Mr. Patten. I can only say that, on a matter of such fundamental importance, the convenience of the senior judiciary cannot be a good reason for undermining the very basis of this Bill and putting its success in jeopardy.
It was also said that there was nothing to stop every court calling for reports and following the procedures in Clause 3. That is true, but the reason for having Clauses 1 and 2 in the Bill is that the judges simply do not follow similar policies and that some form of statutory discipline has now become essential.
If a previous sentence of imprisonment is to be enshrined in the Bill as a reason for removing the need to apply the criteria, the mischief of imposing unnecessary custodial sentences will leave its mark on the system for years to come. These amendments seek to remove that possibility, remove the exceptions and ensure that the Bill makes a fresh start right across the board. I am sure that the Committee will want to hear how these exceptions came to be in the Bill in order to decide whether their inclusion justifies the damage that will follow. I beg to move.
5.15 p.m.
Lord Richard: I am happy to join the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, in proposing these amendments. As I understand it, we are now considering Amendments Nos. 3 and 7A and not, at this stage, Amendment No. 11. I think that is right.
This amendment would extend the criteria governing the use of custodial sentences to offences triable only on indictment. It is a fairly simple and short point to state, but, like my noble friend Lord Hutchinson, we are waiting for some justification from the Government as to why the Bill has been drafted in this way.
The basic argument for the criteria in Clause 1, as I understand it, is that having to give reasons to justify a custodial sentence on grounds relating to the seriousness of the offence or the need to protect the public from serious harm is a valuable discipline which should help to reduce the likelihood of inappropriate custodial sentences in the future. That is the object of the exercise. A subsidiary argument, but also an important one, is that if there is a subsequent appeal

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against the sentence then the existence of a statement of reasons helps everyone involved in the process to decide whether the reasoning of the sentencing court was acceptable. If that is right—it certainly seems to be the purpose behind the Bill—those arguments surely apply just as much to custodial sentences imposed for indictable-only offences as they do to custodial sentences imposed for summary and either way offences. There is no logical distinction that I can see between the two.
As my noble friend pointed out, many indictable-only offences cover a very wide spectrum in some of which—it is interesting to look at the way in which they have been dealt with in the past—a community penalty is entirely appropriate. Robbery is a good example. Robbery ranges from armed robbery to offences in which the degree of force is relatively slight and the amount stolen is small. In recent years about one-quarter of offenders convicted of offences triable only on indictment in England and Wales have actually been given non-custodial or suspended sentences. Therefore, if the statutory criteria do not apply in indictable-only cases, the discipline of applying them would not be present in many cases where at the end of the day a community penalty is a realistic possibility.
It is true that the exclusion of indictable-only cases from the criteria leads to some highly artificial distinctions. Moreover, the Bill applies the criteria to offenders convicted of indictable-only offences who have not previously served a sentence of imprisonment as an adult. That produces an anomaly. An offender sentenced to detention in a young offenders' institution for a serious robbery at the age of 20 would have to satisfy the criteria for custody if charged with another robbery as an adult.
On the other hand, an offender who served 14 days' imprisonment for a minor offence when aged 21, who subsequently stayed out of trouble for 40 years but was then convicted for a minor role in a robbery when he was in his sixties, would not be subject to those criteria. It is almost impossible to justify that kind of anomaly. The best way to avoid such anomalies must surely be to apply the criteria to all indictable only offences.
In Standing Committee in another place on 29th November 1990, when a similar amendment was under discussion, Mr. Patten said:
"We are trying to give guidance to judges about the way that Parliament will seek, in future, to see sentences handed down, but not to go so far as to make a judge sit up straight and say. 'This is ridiculous. Why should I have to give a reason for sentencing someone who has just committed a dreadful aggravated burglary or a rape? Why should I have to go through the hoops and say in open court why this man, or more rarely, this woman, should get an immediate custodial sentence?'"
All the judge would have to do to satisfy the criteria in such serious cases is to say that the offence was so serious that only a custodial sentence could be justified. I should have thought that that was hardly likely to place a serious burden on the courts. Indeed, it seems a very small price to pay for the benefit of
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applying the discipline of the criteria to other indictable only cases where a non-custodial sentence is a realistic possibility.
Finally, the ultimate illogicality—it seems to me—of the present proposal by the Government is that criteria for custodial sentences similar to those in Clause 1 have applied to the use of custodial sentences for young offenders under the age of 21 since 1983. They have applied to all custodial sentences for young people, including offences triable only on indictment. That does not appear to have given rise to any difficulty in the courts. Therefore, for the life of me, I do not see what difference it makes in principle whether the individual is under or over the age of 21. If the system has operated perfectly well for young people since 1983, we submit to the Committee that it can operate perfectly well now.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: My name is also attached to the amendment. However, there is hardly any need to add to what has been said to justify what is proposed. It is clear from what has been said that the onus is on the Government to justify exceptions from the general rule, which we were all expected to believe would take place. As has been said, the 1982 Act, which I suppose came into force in 1983, applied across the board to young people. We were led to believe at that time that that provision would ultimately be extended to all offenders irrespective of age.
During consideration of what became the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, 1 attempted to extend the provision to cover the ages above that of juveniles. I was told that the experiment with juveniles had to continue before any extension could be considered to cover adults. When it was extended to adults, I thought, as did many others, that it would he extended across the hoard. However, that does not appear to be the case. We very much want to know the reason why this is so.
Part I of the Bill is a good measure and long anticipated. I am most grateful to the Government for bringing it before Parliament. However, I cannot understand why offences on indictment should be excluded from the provisions of this part of the Bill. As I said, the Bill is long overdue and, as the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, pointed out, it will inevitably give rise to anomalies. I cannot see any reason for excluding indictable offences, except possibly the amour proper of the power of the judiciary.
I do not think that it is infra dig for the higher judiciary to have to state clearly when the only possible sentence for an offence is custody. I do not see why the judge should not be compelled by an Act of Parliament to say those few words. All he needs to say is that the offence is so serious that only a custodial sentence can be justified. That will not impose any great hardship on the higher judiciary, especially as we know that at present one-quarter of the offences on indictment are dealt with by way of non-custodial sentences. It means that in something like three-quarters of the disposals with which the High Court deals those words will need to be said. As I said, I cannot believe that that will he a great hardship. That seems to me to be the only reason for the current

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restriction. However, if the noble Earl can give me any other reason for the present situation, I shall be most interested to hear it. I support the amendments.
Earl Ferrers: Amendments Nos. 3 and 7A would extend the restrictions on the use of custody in Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill and the associated procedural requirements in Clause 3 to all indictable-only offences except those where the penalty is fixed by law—that is, in the case of murder or high treason. Included would be people convicted of indictable-only offences who have previously served sentences of imprisonment.
Members of the Committee have argued that we should not draw a distinction according to the type of offence. I do not agree. Offices which are triable only on indictment are serious offences. In 1989, 78 per cent. of adult offenders sentenced for such offences had committed violent or sexual offences, or robbery. Some of these offences will he more serious than others. But there can usually be little doubt that an offence such as robbery or rape properly deserves a custodial sentence—and quite probably a long sentence. Current sentencing patterns reflect this view. In 1989, 76 per cent. of adults sentenced for an indictable-only offence were sentenced to immediate imprisonment. Moreover, in many cases, the sentences received were long; 70 per cent. of sentences for rape, for example, being in excess of five years. For those kinds of offences, imposing the kinds of restrictions on the use of custody and the procedural requirements set out in Clauses 1 and 3 for every case would, I suggest, pose an unnecessary and an unhelpful burden on the court and on the probation service which would have to provide the reports.
There is already a good deal of clear Court of Appeal guidance about sentencing for such offences; for example, Regina v. Billam in 1986. In that case the Court of Appeal gave firm and clear guidance on the appropriate sentence for rape and the factors which might aggravate such an offence. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, wishes to intervene. I am happy for him to do so.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I am most grateful. Is the noble Earl seriously saying that when there is the possibility of the imposition of a lengthy sentence—that is, one of perhaps two, six, eight or 10 years' duration—the judge should not obtain a pre-trial report and that he should not discover everything he can about the accused, and about the offence, in order to decide on the length of the sentence?
Earl Ferrers: I believe that the majority of judges already do so. It is inconceivable that judges do not take into account every conceivable matter relevant to the case. However, as matters stand, they can require a report to be made. The point is that they will not be obliged to do so in every case. I have no doubt that where the court considered the case to be borderline—that is, as between imposing a custodial or community penalty—it would indeed ask for such reports to be made.
It could be argued that indictable only offences should be excluded from the new sentencing
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framework. There are already restrictions on imposing custody upon young offenders and those who have not previously served a term of imprisonment even if the offence is triable on indictment only. We believe that it is right to ask the courts to think carefully before imposing custody in such cases. It would be wrong to require Crown Courts to follow the detailed procedures set out in Clauses 1 and 3 in every case. We are referring to those convicted of an offence triable only in the Crown Court and who have served a previous term of imprisonment. Those are the worst cases. It would be wrong to make all those cases subject to the same provisions.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge: Before the Minister sits down, he quoted the figure of 74 per cent. for one of the years in respect of those who served long custodial sentences. That means that 26 per cent. did not. That means that in one in four cases the judges, by the proper procedures—it has nothing to do with the Bill—were obliged to make such an inquiry before they decided not to impose a custodial sentence. It is inconceivable that anyone should seriously say that we cannot ask the judges to announce that it is a matter that has been dealt with. We must try to obtain a better explanation.
Earl Ferrers: The noble Lord, Lord Donaldson, will be well aware that when people are tried the judge will make every conceivable effort to reach the right conclusion. In the Bill we say that those who are tried summarily, or either way, or on indictment only, but who have not yet served a prison sentence, should be subjected to the restrictions to ensure that fewer people go to prison.
It is unreasonable to say that a Crown Court judge should be obliged on every occasion to go to the trouble of asking for reports from the probation service and others for those who have been to court previously. The judge may wish to do so, but it is unnecessary to impose an obligation upon him to do so in those cases.
Lord Elton: My noble friend seems to object, in particular, to what may be thought to be elaborate procedures set out in Clause 3 being applied to the type of offender described in the passage that the amendment seeks to remove from the Bill. It would be helpful if he would tell us whether he objects to the judge being required to make the considerations required in Clause 1(2) (a); that is, to arrive at an opinion:
"that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one other offence associated with it, was so serious that only such a sentence can be justified"
and so forth. It sounds as if he would be content for the judge to form an opinion, as it were, prima facie, because the offence itself and the preceding offence were so serious. In other words, is he seeking to avoid placing an administrative burden on the judiciary as opposed to avoiding judicial consideration? Perhaps the Committee will forgive me for floundering over terminology with which once again I have become unfamiliar.

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In Clause 3 there is a peculiarity which I should like my noble friend to clarify. I apologise to him for not signalling my intention to ask this question by tabling an amendment. I was overtaken by events. In subsections (2) and (3), we find that the court may consider the relevant circumstances of previous offences, but is precluded from considering any response to previous sentences. Those of us who work directly or indirectly with offenders are closely interested in how they react to sentences. It seems, to me at least, a bit like telling a doctor that he may consider that the patient has had a disease in the past but may not consider what response he has made to the treatment he was given for that disease.
I am making this point slowly so that my noble friend may be sustained by the usual supply of wisdom from the usual quarter if it is not already resident in his impressive cranium. I believe that I have made the point clear, and I hope that my noble friend will be able to answer the question.
Earl Ferrers: I shall answer those two questions as best I can. My noble friend generously said that he was floundering when he asked his first question. His floundering caused me to flounder in comprehension. I should like to consider the question he asked so that I can understand what he is getting at. I am prepared to consider the point.
With regard to my noble friend's point about the treatment for the disease, we are concerned with those who have already served a period of imprisonment. It is important to consider that people have been sentenced and spent time in prison rather than necessarily to discover how they reacted when they were in prison.
Viscount Bledisloe: The noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned a point that I confess also puzzled me. As I understand it, the proposers of the amendment suggest that the only consequence of deleting paragraph (b) is that the courts will then have to go through what have been described as the hoops and give reasons for imposing custody, if they do. As I understand it, subsection (2) debars the court from considering a man's previous record except in so far as one other offence is concerned—it is associated with the offence in question. From subsection (8) we see that that means an offence for which he is convicted or sentenced at the same time.
If the amendment is accepted, a court would be debarred from saying, "You have a record as long as my arm; you have been to prison 14 times before, but I cannot take that into account when deciding whether or not to pass a custodial sentence upon you". That is a rather more important change than ensuring that a judge utters certain ritual words before he passes the inevitable sentence of imprisonment upon a serious rapist. I may have misunderstood. If I have not, surely the amendment goes much too far if it means that no regard can be had to the previous convictions of someone tried on indictment when deciding whether he is to go to prison.
Earl Ferrers: We are trying to say to those people who fall within the lower categories—those who are tried summarily, either way or on indictment—that they will be subjected to the provisions of Clause 3 to ensure that they go to prison, only if that is the correct course for them. The courts have to go through the other hoops to keep them out of prison. If the amendment were to be accepted, that would also apply to those who have committed an offence which is only triable in the Crown Court and to those prisoners who have already been subjected to a prison sentence. They are therefore the worst types of offenders. Those people who, the noble Viscount said, had sentences as long as their arm and who had been in before would be excluded from the restrictions which are placed on court sentencing for other offenders. If the amendment were included, the courts would be subject to those restrictions. That would be correct because those are the people who committed the worst offences.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I am a little shocked by the noble Earl's reply. He has not seen fit to tell us how this exception came into the Bill. It is perfectly clear from what he said that it is simply for the convenience of the senior judiciary. No doubt all Members of the Committee will draw the conclusion that it is clearly part of a package deal in regard to Clauses 1 and 2.
Earl Ferrers: Perhaps I may interrupt the noble Lord. I feel he is going a bit over the top to say that it is just for the convenience of the judiciary and that it is a package deal. It is nothing of the kind. I have tried to explain more than once the reasoning. It is that those people have been convicted of the most serious offences and have already spent a period in prison. For them, we say that it is not right to impose on the judge that there should be a report in all cases. There may well be cases where the judge will want a report.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: The question before the Committee is whether or not the criterion that the sentence passed must be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence should apply to all judges when passing any sentence.
There is no possible explanation of why some judges, for some offences, should not be subject to that criterion. No reasoned argument has been put forward as to why a judge, faced with whether he should impose two, three, six, 10 or 20 years, should not have to face the criterion. A sentence commensurate with the seriousness of the offence is the question that will have to be decided.
The amendment states that that criterion should apply to all judges in all sentences. The fact that 25 per cent. of non-indictable offenders are not given custodial sentences indicates a large swathe of offences where the judge must consider whether there should be a custodial sentence. In 25 per cent. of the cases he decides not. He must have been considering it in a great many more cases.
Another point is that over and over again imaginative sentencing means sometimes breaking the

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pattern for an offender who has continually offended. Anyone who has been involved in sentencing knows that there are moments in the career of any criminal or any person who has committed offences where, through some change in their lifestyle, their age or for some other reason, it is suddenly not worth repeating the custodial ladder. A judge passing sentence, besides having to consider information received, must also take account of the criterion of having to pause to consider what is necessary in a certain case and whether the sentence is commensurate with what a man or woman has done. It is essential that this should happen across the board.
The noble Earl said that the judge would go to every possible length to obtain the proper information in any case. The trouble is that extremely long sentences out of proportion with the offence have largely arisen because some judges are pressed for time and deal with a great many pleas of guilty on one day in a senior court. They do not pause sufficiently to consider the information before the court. Nor do they ask for information as they should.
As the noble Earl said, the current pattern reflects the use of long sentences. The Bill is all about that current pattern. Clauses 1 and 2 seek for the first time, through parliamentary intervention, to change that pattern at long last. That is why it is so important that the criteria should apply right across the board.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Viscount, who raised the relevant matter of previous convictions, that the question will arise later when we come to the amendments involving that subject. I do not believe that it should enter our decision on this amendment.
5.45 p.m.
Viscount Bledisloe: Before the noble Lord continues, does he accept that the effect of his amendment would be that no court could in any circumstances have regard to someone's previous record, however ghastly, in deciding whether or not to send him to prison?
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: No, I do not accept that. It will be a matter for argument later when we explain why that is not so. I agree that it may well be so in many cases, but not all. It may be so as the Bill is drafted but perhaps it will be drafted differently by the time we finish.
Lord Elton: Since the noble Lord has already been interrupted, perhaps he could give his reaction to the point I tried to make. It is that there may be two categories and not one here. He includes all categories. By disapplying Clause 1(1) (b) he also disapplies the operation of Clause 3 which concerns the procedures that must be gone through by the judge in the process of carrying out Clause 1(1) (b). Would the noble Lord find it attractive to abandon that and to disapply only the Clause 3 procedures in what my noble friend would call obvious cases? That would save an enormous amount of time and administrative expense.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I entirely understand what the noble Lord said. He is absolutely right in demonstrating that there are two different
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points in the procedure where the criteria apply. The first is the one to which I referred of whether the sentence is commensurate with the seriousness of the offence criterion. It is vital that that should be followed. Clause 3 involves the administrative pre-trial details, the paper work and so on.
I see that it may be possible at a later stage in the Bill's progress to insert an arrangement whereby, if both parties, the prosecution and defence, agree that there is no need to follow the procedures in Clause 3, one does not follow them. That may be a way out of the problem. However, I could not possibly go so far as the noble Lord suggested and say that there was no necessity for the senior judge to follow the Clause 3 procedures. With the agreement of the other side—the defence—it may well be so, but not otherwise.
I feel inclined to divide the Committee on the matter because it is of such importance. However, having regard to the time, it may well be wiser in the circumstances for the situation to be understood by more noble Lords than are present in the Chamber at the moment. In view of the great importance of the matter I shall return to it at a later stage. For the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 4:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert:
("( ) A court may deem that an offence is serious if that offence involves violence, robbery, arson, drug trafficking or a sexual offence.").
The noble Lord said: I have a query on a procedural matter. I wonder what will now happen to Amendment No. 11. As I understood the position, Amendment No. 1 I had originally been grouped with two amendments we have just been considering as it covers a similar point. Amendment No. 3 extended the criteria to offences triable only on indictment. Amendment No. 11 extended the criteria to pre-sentence reports for offences triable only on indictment.
Earl Ferrers: I also thought that that amendment would be discussed with the amendments we have just dealt with. I did not intervene to suggest that we should follow that course because I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, had for some reason decided to speak to only two amendments. It appears to me obvious that Amendment No. 11 is connected with the other two amendments, but it is up to the person in whose name the amendment is tabled to decide what to do in this matter.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: Amendment No. 11 stands in my name.
Earl Ferrers: As that amendment has not been spoken to, it can always be debated when it is called. However, I hope that for the convenience of the Committee the same arguments will not be rehearsed all over again.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: As I understand the position, if the amendments in the name of the noble Earl are accepted, Amendment No. 11 will not be called. If Amendment No. 10 in the name of the noble

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Earl, Lord Ferrers, is accepted Amendment No. 11 will fall, and in that case I shall be perfectly prepared to withdraw Amendment No. 11.
Lord Richard: I am obliged for that explanation. Amendment No. 4 is a probing amendment. The amendment seeks to insert the following words at the end of Clause 1(2) (b):
"A court may deem that an offence is serious if that offence involves violence, robbery, arson, drug trafficking or a sexual offence"
The amendment is perhaps not the most felicitously drafted measure one could devise. However, the object of the exercise is simple. The Bill proposes that a person shall not be gaoled unless the offence he has committed is serious, so it would be nice to be told what offences will be deemed to he serious. The Bill does not define "serious". That will lead to inconsistent interpretation, judicial confusion and even further regional variation in the use of custodial sentences. The clause, somewhat roughly, attempts to offer the judiciary some guidance on the circumstances in which it may wish to deem an offence serious. It is, however, worth noting that approximately half of all persons who have been gaoled did not commit an offence that came into any of the categories mentioned in the amendment. The main objective of the amendment is to discover whether the Government have a definition in mind for "serious" and, if so, what that definition is. I beg to move.
Earl Ferrers: Clause 1(2) (a), as currently drafted, prevents the courts imposing a custodial sentence unless the offence was so serious that no lesser disposal would do. We have left it to the courts to decide in each particular case whether the offence is serious enough for a custodial sentence. We do not think it right to spell out the provision. That is because the circumstances of each case vary. Depending on the circumstances, for example, some sexual offences may be serious and others may not. In exercising their discretion the courts will benefit from the guidance given by the Court of Appeal.
This amendment would qualify Clause 1(2) (a). If it is simply intended to provide guidance on what types of offence might be serious enough to justify a custodial sentence 1 do not think it is needed. The courts do not need to be told that violent offences or drug trafficking may be serious offences for which they might consider imposing a custodial sentence. On the other hand, the amendment might be intended to restrict further the courts' use of custody under Clause 1. Not only would the offence have to be serious enough for a custodial sentence, it would also have to fall within the range of offences listed in the amendment.
The noble Lord, Lord Richard, was kind enough to say that his amendment was not felicitously drafted. The problem is that it omits a number of offences for which the courts might justifiably want to impose a custodial sentence. The amendment omits to mention a domestic burglary where the victim's home was systematically wrecked by a gang of professionals who stole items worth many thousands of pounds in value. It omits to mention large scale fraud or financial
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wrongdoing, as in the Guinness case. I am certain that the noble Lord did not intend to exclude such offences. Obviously the courts would have to pass prison sentences for those kinds of offences. We believe it is right not to spell out exactly what constitutes a serious offence but to leave that decision to the sound judgment of the courts.
Lord Richard: I am not impressed with that reply as this is a matter which is bound to cause a certain amount of judicial confusion. The courts and judges will have to determine what is or is not serious. I should have thought some guidance from the Government or from Parliament in this Bill would have been helpful. However, it appears that not much guidance or help will be forthcoming. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 4A:
Page 1, line 21, at end insert:
("( ) An offence shall not be regarded more serious by reason of any previous convictions of the offender or any response of his to previous sentences".).
The noble Lord said: This is a paving amendment to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 and it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I speak to the three amendments together. If certain amendments tabled by the Government are accepted a provision in Clause 3 will be deleted. However, it reappears in an identical form in another part of the Bill. As I understand the position, that provision is now relevant to Government Amendment No. 72. At this stage I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 on the basis of the Bill as it is currently drafted.
The object of these amendments is to delete the provision enabling the courts to consider the circumstances of previous offences when assessing the seriousness of the current offence. It is worth noting that the Government have drafted the provision in that fashion. They believe the relevance of previous offences lies in the assessment of the seriousness of a current offence. That is an exercise of judicial determinism that I find hard to follow. As I see the position, the Government are saying to a judge, "You cannot consider the circumstances of previous offences in terms of the sentence you are going to pass, but on the other hand you can consider the circumstances of previous offences when you are assessing whether or not the current offence is serious enough for you to pass a sentence". To put it mildly, that seems a somewhat artificial situation.
For the most part the criteria for custodial sentences contained in the Bill emphasise the need to match sentences to the seriousness of the offence rather than to the offender's previous record. That is fine so far. I understand that policy. Home Office Research Study No. 103,Sentencing Practice in the Crown Court(1988), found that in cases of theft where the value of the goods stolen was under£200, 39 per cent. of offenders received immediate prison sentences. That is a staggering statistic. In such cases imprisonment is often a response to persistent petty offending in the past. It cannot be justified by the

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gravity of the offence for which the judge is supposedly sentencing. As the White Paper put it, injustice is more likely if courts do not focus on the seriousness of the offence before them when they sentence.
Clause 3(3) of the Bill, which the amendments would delete, modifies that principle by stipulating that courts can take into account the circumstances of previous offences in so far as they are relevant to forming an opinion as to the seriousness of the current offence. An example of that, which was cited by Mr. Patten when the Bill was in Committee in the other place, might be when the circumstances of previous offences helped the court to conclude that a burglary for which it was sentencing was a calculated, premeditated and professional offence as opposed to an opportunist one committed on the spur of the moment.
I suggest to the Committee that subsection (3) is not necessary in order to achieve that result. Courts could, in any case, legitimately sentence more heavily for calculated, professional offences under the criteria which already exist in Clauses 1 and 2, which deal with the seriousness of the offence.
Since the Bill was published it has become clear that many magistrates, Members of Parliament, journalists and others—including some peers, myself among them—find the distinction between subsections (2) and (3) confusing and difficult to grasp. We give the Government credit for good intentions to the extent that we do not believe that subsection (3) is intended to allow courts to increase sentences simply because the offender has a previous record. However, there is a very serious risk that that is precisely how it will be interpreted in practice by some judges and many magistrates. If that is so it undermines the aim of restricting custodial sentences to serious cases. Because of that risk—dare I say that serious risk?—in our view subsection (3) should be removed from the Bill. That is what the amendments seek to achieve. I beg to move.
6 p.m.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I support the amendments. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Richard, said about the problem of the two subsections and that the Bill would be far better without subsection (3).
As I understand it, the intention is that the courts should observe the principle that if the offender has already been punished for an offence it is unfair and unjust to punish him twice over by increasing the penalty for the subsequent offence. Lesser offenders should not be imprisoned because they have done the same thing before. Persistent lesser offenders should, as far as possible, be dealt with in the community.
The Bill is trying to remove what might be called the ladder principle which at present is built into the way in which judges approach the persistent offender. Community sentences are tried, fines are tried, and so on all the way up the ladder until the judge says that everything has been tried and the offender must now go to prison. Subsequently when somebody comes before the court again the court finds no difficulty in
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saying that he must go to prison again. There is no problem at the moment in repeatedly sentencing offenders to prison. The Bill is intended to ensure that, for a change, repeated sentences should be imposed which are not prison sentences. Courts should appreciate that for people who offend continually it may be far better to deal with them by means of repeated sentences in the community and that additional offences should not make the instant offence more serious because of what has happened previously.
That would produce a completely different attitude to sentencing, one which has to be instilled into the judiciary and into the magistracy. They should not necessarily follow the ladder principle. They should be prepared to impose community service orders more than once. There is nothing wrong in doing that two, three, four or five times. That is no more wrong than imposing a short term of imprisonment two, three, four or five times. It is likely that the imposition of custodial sentences will be totally destructive and non-productive. There is a good chance that the imposition of community sentences will have the desired result. One has to have patience and it may succeed.
That is the purpose of the proposed subsection. It is intended to try to alter that approach, which at present is built into the judicial system. Therefore, I wholeheartedly support the amendment.
Earl Ferrers: I understand the anxieties which the noble Lords, Lord Richard and Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, have expressed. In principle there is not a great deal between us. The new sentencing provisions in the Bill require the courts, in passing sentence, to concentrate on the offence or offences immediately before them. That must be right. They do not allow the courts to take account of an offender's previous convictions when determining the seriousness of an offence except to the limited extent provided in Clauses 3(3) and 6(4), or any responses to his previous sentences.
Perhaps I may explain why we have included those subsections in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Richard, gave the Government a very generous accolade, saying that he thought that the Government were trying to do the right thing. That came as nectar, coming from the noble Lord. The provisions are not intended to allow sentencing on the basis of record to creep in by the back door. They are intended to provide for those particular cases—and not to go further than that—where the instant offence may legitimately be regarded as more serious by virtue of something in the offender's past. I accept that that is a delicate area. For example, there is a great deal of difference between an opportunist burglar, who tries a back window on impulse, finds it open, and steals something, and someone whose previous offending of a similar character shows him to be someone who offends in a systematic and premeditated way.
Another example is the shopkeeper who sells bad food, and who makes the excuse that it was an oversight because he did not check his stock carefully enough. The first time, or perhaps even the second time, the court might accept that; but what if it is the

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tenth time? Are we really to say that the court cannot look at the circumstances of the previous nine offences and conclude that the offender is guilty not of an oversight but of a deliberate and sustained disregard of the law and of the public's safety?
I give one more example. An offence of criminal damage against property in a particular area, which formed part of a pattern of such offences, might rightly be regarded as more serious if all the offences had been against the property of members of the ethnic minorities, showing them to be racially motivated.
It is important to note that the circumstances of previous offences must be relevant to the seriousness of the current offence before that can be taken into account. Previous offences of a completely different character would be unlikely to be relevant. Even if there were recent similar offences those would not necessarily be relevant to the seriousness of the current offence. For example, if the offender is a compulsive shoplifter, the tenth offence is not made any more serious by the previous nine offences; for an habitual inebriate who goes to Tesco every week and pinches a bottle of whisky, the tenth offence is no worse than the previous nine. It would be a different matter were the offender a member of a professional shoplifting gang. Then the circumstances of the previous offences might well be relevant to the sentence for the latest offence.
The account that is to be taken of the offender's previous record in sentencing raises a difficult issue. It is one to which we have given a great deal of thought. I am quite clear—I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington—that generally speaking, sentencing on record (punishing an offender twice over for the same offence) is wrong in principle and harmful in practice. Clauses 3 and 6 rule that out. On the other hand, if the circumstances of previous offences are genuinely relevant to the seriousness of the offence then almost by definition we would produce the wrong result if we told the courts completely to ignore them.
I believe that Clauses 3 and 6 strike the right balance. I hope that the Committee will agree.
Earl Nelson: Before the noble Earl sits down perhaps I may revert to the example he gave of the inebriate who goes every week to Tesco and steals a bottle of whisky at a value, let us say, of£9. I believe that I understood his point. On the one hand, there is the drunk who goes to Tesco and steals a bottle of whisky which is valued at only£8 or£9 and on the other there is, say, the professional pickpocket with 20 previous convictions which cover perhaps five years but who steals only£5 each time. Are we then to treat the professional pickpocket in the same way as it is suggested that the drunk who steals whisky from Tesco should be treated?
Earl Ferrers: It is always difficult to say what one would do in one case as opposed to another. I gave the example of the bottle of whisky at Tesco. The person who stole in that way week after week in fact could not help doing it. Therefore, the cumulative sum of offences does not affect the main principle that the
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man could not help acting in that way. Had that man been part of a gang and removed the bottle in order to stock up some other shop—a case of deliberate knavery—then the other offences ought to be taken into account.
As regards the pickpocket, obviously the judge would have to consider whether or not that was a matter which fell within the scope of these clauses. I do not think that it would be right for me to comment on that.
Viscount Tenby: Perhaps the Minister will permit me to ask another question on this matter. I am not exactly shifting the goal posts. I understand the point about judging the offence under consideration in relation to a past criminal record. Let me consider the other side of the coin. What about the man who has a record and comes again before the court although he has not offended for a considerable period of time? Should not the court take that fact into mitigation? Is it able to do so?
Earl Ferrers: Yes, I think that it is able to do so and would do so.
6.15 p.m.
Earl Fortescue: I should like to ask my noble friend a question to which, had I studied the Bill in proper detail, I should probably know the answer. I am concerned about the offender who has been in trouble on several other occasions and been sent to prison two, three or maybe four times. To impose a community sentence is a great risk to take. I wonder whether it will now be possible to combine a community sentence with a suspended prison sentence. It seems to me that that might be the best and easiest answer.
Earl Ferrers: I believe that in fact it is not possible to combine a suspended prison sentence with a community sentence because the two sentences cover different aspects.
Lord Richard: I am obliged to the Minister for his response. However I ask him to look again at this matter. The provisions of Clause 3(3) create confusion as to the extent to which courts are entitled to look at previous offences. The noble Earl said that they can only do it for the purpose of forming an opinion as to the seriousness of the offence. I understand that. But an hour or so ago, charmingly as always, he was not prepared to define "serious" because it would hamper the activities of the judges in the courts.
Clause 1(2) says that:
"the court shall not pass a custodial sentence on the offender unless it is of the opinionߪthat the offenceߪwas so serious that only such a sentence can be justified for the offence".
For the life of me I do not understand why, when that is in Clause 1(2) (a), one then needs the provision in Clause 3(3) which, from the way in which it is drafted, will only complicate matters so far as concerns sentences. Clause 3 does not add anything to the provisions of Clause 1(2) (a). I suppose that it is simply an attempt to remove what the draftsmen thought might be confusion arising from Clause 3(2). If that is

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the basis, all I can say to the noble Earl is that it has not succeeded in removing confusion but has compounded it.
If subsection (3) were omitted from the Bill, a judge who had an offender in front of him with a number of previous convictions, under the provisions of Clause 1(2) (a) would clearly say to himself: "Let us look at this man's background. Is he a professional burglar, pickpocket or stealer of whisky from Tesco? If I decide that he is a hardened criminal to that extent, ergo I come to the conclusion that this offence is more serious than the offence of the inebriate who goes into Tesco and steals a bottle of whisky because he or she is drunk and who does it on a fairly regular basis".
The judge can do that under Clause 1(2) (a). If he can do it already under that clause, why on earth do we want to repeat in Clause 3(3) in rather complicated and difficult language precisely what he can do in Clause 1(2) (a)? Subsection 3(3) is a complicated provision which adds nothing to the powers of the judges and does not do anything for the Bill. I suggest that this is a matter which the noble Earl might be so kind as to look at again.
Earl Ferrers: Perhaps I may say a few more words on this point. I understand the difficulty of the noble Lord. He is concerned about the definition of seriousness. One cannot go too far down that road. It is rather like people saying that in Bills one ought to define reasonableness—what is or is not reasonable. I believe that it must be for the courts to decide what is serious and what is not serious.
I accept that this is a difficult area. I shall of course consider all that has been said but I am advised that subsection (3) is needed so that the court can take into account everything that is relevant to seriousness. What the Committee has said is of great importance and I shall certainly look at this matter but without any commitment. I would not wish the noble Lord to think that that is an indication that I shall accept his amendment. But I realise that we are in quite delicate and difficult areas and I should be prepared to look at what the Committee has said to see if there is any way in which we can make the point better and clearer.
Lord Richard: I am obliged to the noble Earl for what he has just said. Personally, I do not see why subsection (3) is necessary. No doubt at some stage someone will tell me why it is. However, as the noble Earl will look again at the matter, I ask leave of the House to withdraw the amendment. If, after he has looked again at it, he decides to stick where he is, I reserve the right to bring the amendment back at a subsequent stage of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Richard Lord Richard moved Amendment No. 4B:
Page 2, line 11, after ("language") insert ("(with interpretation if necessary)").
The noble Lord said: This is a small amendment but it raises a fundamental point. The Committee will see that it is the peg on which to hang the hat. It amends line 11 on page 2 by inserting in subsection (4) (b),
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"in any case, to explain to the offender in open court and in ordinary language with interpretation if necessary why it is passing a custodial sentence on him"
There is evidence to suggest that some defendants who cannot communicate effectively in English appear before the court without access to properly qualified and relevant interpreters. Those few Members of the Committee who were present late one night may remember that I raised the issue in the passage of the latest code of conduct under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. The evidence that I have since received confirms my fears.
The national and local courts should have a responsibility to ensure that services are accessible to all defendants and witnesses in a multilingual and multiracial society such as ours. They must make special provisions for people who cannot communicate in English. The need for interpreters was highlighted in a recent Policy Studies Institute survey which noted that within the adult Asian population, 62 per cent., and among Pakistani people, 48 per cent., speak either little or no English. Within all age groups, women on the whole are less fluent than men. Over 70 per cent. of Bangladeshi and Pakistani women were reported as speaking little or no English.
Most agencies recognise the need for interpreters in the criminal justice system. But there is no set policy for employing them, for testing their language skills, their efficiency or their suitability for the job. Interpreters are often recruited in a very ad hoc manner where staff cannot find the member of the team who speaks the required language. It is self evident that the use of untrained, casual interpreters can lead to difficulties. It may lead to wrong interpretation if the translator does not understand the jargon used by the court personnel or lawyers. He or she may have a personal bias, may distort the issue and not keep confidentiality. There may be serious consequences if the interpreter cannot understand the client's dialect or language properly. The same is true if the interpreter's English is modest.
Courts should not take advantage of volunteers. That may often lower the standard of service provided. In order to give an efficient court service, interpreters should be trained, paid properly for the service, and supported adequately. Perhaps I may cite two examples recently brought to my attention where defendants probably suffered because of the absence of, or casual attitude towards, interpreters. An Asian with a limited command of the English language, having no previous convictions and no contact with the probation service, was sent to prison in the Midlands for four months. She had pleaded not guilty to making a false instrument but was found guilty at the Crown Court. No social inquiry report was prepared. Her case had been allocated to an assistant probation officer when she was committed to the Crown Court. She had been processed by the magistrates' court without the probation service or the court authorities picking up her language difficulty.
The probation officer to whom the case was allocated wrote to her solicitor to establish her not guilty plea but never contacted her. The solicitor later used a member of her family to interpret in the preparation of the case. When the case was heard at

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the Crown Court she was finally allowed the services of an independent female interpreter. On a finding of guilt, the judge asked her barrister whether a social inquiry report would be required. The barrister took instructions and declined. She was then sentenced and taken down to the cells. It is of concern that the probation service did not give a higher priority to interpreting services. The solicitor also failed to employ an independent interpreter in the preparation of the case even though that cost could have been covered by legal aid.
Another example, although not similar, is in the same vein. An Indian man with a limited command of the English language was recently sentenced to six months' imprisonment for offences of driving with excess alcohol and breach of a suspended sentence for indecent assault on a young woman. He had no previous convictions. The man was seen in order to be assessed for a bail address because he was listed as being of no fixed abode. The solicitor maintained that he was able to understand so long as he was spoken to slowly. The probation service was asked to clarify the man's financial situation. It became clear that he had a permanent address. He was therefore not in need of a bail address but was in need of help in relation to his immigration status. The police had already been alerted by the immigration office that the man was subject to deportation. The probation service advised lawyers to have the case put back so that appropriate interpreters could be found. However, due to the man's status, bail was refused.
Those two cases are relatively undramatic. At the Crown Courts, the Old Bailey and the major courts where trials take place, interpretation services are provided in the serious cases. It is at the lower end of the ladder that frequently they are not provided. It is there, unless we are very careful, that defendants tend to fall through the net. Many courts now routinely supply interpretation but the coverage is patchy. If the courts had a statutory duty to obtain and provide appropriate interpreter services, then the possibility of misunderstandings and even miscarriages of justice would be minimised.
This is not a minor issue for the ethnic minorities in this country. It is a matter that the Government should take on board. I hope that the noble Earl will give some undertaking.
Lord Renton: I was hoping that the noble Lord would be able to add a postscript. I listened with great interest and some sympathy to his remarks. He said, if I heard him aright, that the court should not simply call on volunteers as interpreters. However, there is nothing in his amendment which requires anything other than the mere obtaining of interpretation. Before we go any further, will he explain what he is getting at?
Lord Richard: I was thinking of an instance in which a defendant appeared in court. There was no interpreter readily available and the police were advised to contact the local race relations board. They did so. It was claimed that the interpreter was able to speak the language which the defendant spoke. It
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became clear during the course of the case that he did not. Fortunately it became clear sufficiently early. To rely on such a casual approach in order to provide an interpretation service in court has dangers. Sometimes those dangers result in people being convicted who should not be convicted. They are sent to prison. The Home Office should ensure that the interpretation services provided in our courts are sensible and work properly.
As a result of considerable work in an experiment in Cambridge, the interpretation services provided in the Cambridge area, with the co-operation of the police, are extraordinarily good. I should like to see that extended. Reliance upon volunteers is dangerous.
Lord Hylton: The noble Lord has raised an important and valuable point. However, his amendment seems to bear only on sentencing. Will the Government consider the matter in a much wider context involving the whole trial and judicial process?
Lord Renton:It is within the knowledge and experience of many Members of the Committee that the courts never hesitate to try to find an interpreter when an interpreter is needed. There is already ample power to do so. In the course of time the courts have taken upon themselves the duty to try to find an interpreter. Very often the interpreter is a friend from within the immigrant's own community. There could be no better person, because the court will understand what the accused is trying to get at, what he needs to know and so on. In a perfect world one would wish to find the services of qualified interpreters available all the way down the scale; but that is not what the noble Lord's amendment requires. As it stands I do not think that it adds anything to the present obligations under the law.
6.30 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: The noble Lord, Lord Richard, draws attention to a point to which the Government attach considerable importance—that is, the provision of adequate arrangements to provide competent interpreters in court proceedings which involve defendants who do not understand English. The Home Office at the moment are participating in the steering committee for the community interpreter project, which is being funded by the Nuffield Foundation and which has developed a model for the selection, training and assessment of community interpreters for the criminal justice system as a whole. That is a point that the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, was concerned about. We hope that this work will prove helpful in identifying what further needs to be done in order to ensure that no one who appears in court is disadvantaged because of an inability to speak, to understand or indeed to hear the language of the court.
We shall certainly be bearing in mind, in the light of progress with this work, the case for statutory rules about the provision of interpretation or a statement of best practice. This is inevitably some way off, because the fact is that there are very few qualified interpreters in relation to the demand for them, and their numbers cannot quickly be expanded.

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Section 144 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 provides for statutory rules concerning the conduct of proceedings in magistrates' courts. These could be used to make provision in regard to interpretation, if it turned out that a statement of best practice would not he sufficient. There are equivalent powers to make rules for Crown Court proceedings. The purpose of Clause 1(4) (b) of the Bill is so that the reasons for a decision to pass a custodial sentence should be explained to the offender in a way the offender can understand. I am sure that the courts will recognise that special care would be needed if the offender could not understand, or had difficulty in understanding, English. However, I do not think it is necessary to refer expressly to this in the Bill. As I have said, we can issue guidance and we can make statutory rules if it should appear that interpretation is not being provided where it should be or if further guidance on the best way of providing interpretation should prove to be helpful.
It is the law, which has been settled for over 75 years, that where a defendant does not understand English the evidence must be translated, and there are already regulations for the payment of interpreters out of public funds for that. I think therefore this is a matter for organisation and not for legislation, but I understand the difficulty to which the noble Lord has drawn attention.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I wonder whether it would be possible for the noble Earl to give us some indication of when the Nuffield study will be completed.
Earl Ferrers: I cannot tell the noble Lord now when that will be; but I shall try to find out and will let him know.
Lord Richard: I thank the noble Earl for his response. The noble Lord, Lord Renton, is quite right. My amendment is a very narrow one but it was designed to provoke a response on a much more general approach, and I think that the noble Earl has provided that. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 5 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Viscount of Oxfuird): In calling Amendment No. 6, I have to advise your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment No. 7, due to pre-emption.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 6:
Page 2, line 25, leave out subsections (7) and (8).
The noble Earl said: I beg to move Amendment No. 6 and, if I may, I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 76, 101 and 102. These amendments all tidy up the drafting of the Bill and they make no substantive changes to its provisions. If your Lordships wish me to give an explanation I shall do so, but as the amendments do not make any substantive changes to the provisions of the Bill, I hope that you will accept such a brief explanation. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to
[Amendment No. 7 not moved.]
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 2 [Length of custodial sentences]:
[Amendment No. 7A not moved.]
Lord Windlesham Lord Windlesham moved Amendment No. 8:
Page 3, line 1 leave out paragraph (b).
The noble Lord said: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, standing in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, and myself. This is the first time that I have spoken in the Committee on this Bill, and I should like to say at the outset that I applaud the aim to produce a coherent legislative framework for the sentencing of offenders. That is a worthwhile objective and one that is fully deserving of support.
In many ways the sentencing provisions in the first five clauses are the core of this important Bill. They were forecast in the notable Green Paper on Punishment, Custody and the Community and in the White Paper which followed it. But it was always going to be a difficult task to translate the intentions and principles of the policy into statutory form.
I ask your Lordships to consider the aim that the punishment for an offence should be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence: what could he clearer than that? The precept that punishment should fit the crime is one of the basic principles upon which the administration of justice depends. I am sure we can all agree upon that. The idea of proportionality and just deserts was a theme of the White Paper, but now we have in this part of the Bill in Clause 2(2) (b) a provision that empowers the courts in certain circumstances to give violent or sexual offenders sentences which are longer than the offence deserves if, in the opinion of the court, it is necessary to protect the public from serious harm from the offender. In such cases, excluding the most serious, the courts are allowed—indeed encouraged—to impose sentences that are disproportionate with the current offence.
What is the justification? So far as I can tell from speeches made by Ministers in another place, it is that the protection of the public from further crimes by persistent and dangerous violent or sexual offenders is so vital that an exception should be made to the rule of law—for that is what it is—that a man should be punished for what he has done rather than for what he may do. If any authority is needed for that proposition, I would cite three recent cases in the Appeal Court: Smith in 1987, May in 1989, and Richardson when the same principle was upheld as recently as last year.
This is not the first time it has occurred to legislators that public support can be gained in this way. There is very little that is original in the perennial questions of crime and punishment. As long ago as 1908 in the Prevention of Crime Act preventive detention was introduced. In the Criminal Justice Act 1948 corrective training was introduced. In the Criminal Justice Act 1967 extended sentences were introduced. All have failed to fulfil expectations and have been discontinued. It is an irony that in this very Bill Clause 4 abolishes extended sentences of imprisonment for persistent offenders.
It is true that, unlike extended sentences, the current proposal for the topping up of sentences will need to be within the maximum penalty prescribed by the statute. But that does not overcome the objections. There are several, but let me concentrate on only two. The first is that persons sentenced under Clause 2(2) (b) could receive sentences for less serious crimes of a severity that is normally reserved for more serious crimes. Secondly, the inconsistency that will result is surpassed by the fact that under the Bill the power to increase the sentence beyond what the crime deserves does not extend to the more serious offences that are triable only in the Crown Court.
As amended in another place, Clause 2 of the Bill applies where a person is convicted of an offence which is triable either way, or only summarily in the magistrates' court. Thus when an offence triable either way is heard before a jury in the Crown Court, what happens'? The judge must remember that he has a power, given him by this Act when it becomes a statute, to set aside the rule of law that punishment should fit the crime. But that same judge, sitting in the same Crown Court, when trying the case of a person charged with a more serious offence—again of violence, or a sexual offence but one triable only on indictment—must remember that he is now bound by the rule of law. He has no power to disregard it in the second case; in the first case he does.
That cannot be right. It is illogical. It will only cause confusion among the judiciary. There is a strong probability that problems would result with the application of the European Convention on Human Rights and the jurisprudence of the Court of Human Rights. The omens for this proposal—and that is all it is at present—are no more favourable than the previous attempts at disproportionate sentencing. It is for that reason that I and a number of others from all parties in both Houses believe that this part of the Bill is better omitted. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I support the amendment and add to what has been so powerfully said already by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, when he was pointing out the ridiculous situation as regards the difference between the two cases that come up. It would be even more ridiculous if there were two or three people in the dock in relation to one situation where one of them had committed the lesser offence on the indictment and another had committed the more serious offence on the indictment, and that same judge would then have to say, "Well, so far as the more serious offence is concerned, I am bound by the common law rule of proportionality, and I shall sentence you to two years' imprisonment because that is what you deserve on the offence. But for you, No. 2, it is a lesser offence, but there I have the statutory right under the Act in Section 2(2) (b) to follow the words of the statute, and I may extend the two years. I won't give you two years. One year would be what is proportionate to the offence, but because of your record and so on I shall extend it to three years". He
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would be bound by two completely different principles. That is a ridiculous situation, as the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, has already said.
The noble Lord also mentioned the Court of Human Rights. The Court of Human Rights has just delivered a judgment exactly on this point in the case of Thynne and others. In that instance, of course, it was a life sentence, but what the Court of Human Rights said was that when a life sentence prisoner has served that proportion of the sentence which is for the penal part of it—that is, the just deserts part of it—he is entitled to have a review by a judicial body of when he should be allowed out on "the safety of the public part" of the sentence, and exactly based on the same principle to which the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, referred. Not only will it come up; it has already come up in the Court of Human Rights.
Looking at the words of this objectionable subsection, it says,
"for a violent or sexual offence, for such longer term".
As has already been pointed out by the noble Earl, sexual offences vary between the absolutely trivial and the most appalling and violent offences. The trouble is that sexual offences in the main are the worst possible offences for sentencing people to long periods of imprisonment. The whole policy at the moment everywhere is to try to keep these offenders out of the negative procedure that would be the result of imprisonment.
Such offences arise emotionally and they are bound to arouse an emotional response in magistrates' courts, and indeed in the higher courts. As a result, it is easy for the court to give the response, "You must be put away for the protection of the public". That is a very easy response. The mischief of this topping-up subsection is that it is exactly that kind of offence where the wrong sentence will be passed because the court has the power to top up sentences. I suggest that that is another mischief.
How long should the protection be? That introduces an assessment of an accused's future behaviour which is bound to be a very subjective judgment. Do the public need one, two, or five years' protection? People sitting in the public gallery will say, "This sex offender is an absolute monster. He has interfered with children on two occasions and five, six or even eight years' protection is needed". It is a totally subjective judgment about what the future behaviour of an accused might be. That is not a good basis for sentencing policy. For those reasons and for the reasons so powerfully urged by the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, I support the amendment.
Lord Renton: I too support the amendment but I do so for slightly different reasons from those already advanced by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington.
When the courts find that they have to interpret this clause they will be obliged to apply the well-known rule of statutory interpretation which, if I may dare to use a short Latin tag, can be expressed as expressio unius est exclusio alterius. In plain English that means that if Parliament gives one example, other examples must be presumed to have been excluded.

1011
Here we are given the two hypotheses of violent and sexual offences. However, there are many other offences from which the public need to be protected, sometimes for a long time. What about those offenders who persistently break into people's homes by night or even by day? Do not the public need to be protected from them? What about those rather disgraceful fraudsters who find an excuse to enter an old lady's house by posing as an official and who then rob the old lady while her attention is diverted? That is a crime which is too easy to commit and is frequently committed more than once by the same person. I should have thought that taking the view that such persistent offenders as I have mentioned ought to be given a sentence which will protect the public for some time the court will read the subsection and find that it has no power to do so because of the very sound rule of' interpretation.
When legislating, those who instruct the draftsman sometimes ask him to cover particular hypothetical cases. They may not be the most frequent or even the most serious hypothetical cases. This is a glaring example of selective hypothesis. I feel that we should exclude this subsection for the reasons already given.
Perhaps I may back-track to say that we may very well have had the same sort of discussion on Clause 1(2) (b). Perhaps at a later stage we should also consider that. I believe that very strong reasons have been given for omitting this subsection.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: I support the amendment because the present proposal which it is designed to amend is both unjust and ineffectual.
Clause 2(2) (b) empowers courts to give violent or sexual offenders sentences longer than the offence deserves if they consider that it is,
"necessary to protect the public from serious harm from the offender".
However, that provision is not aimed at offenders who commit the most serious offences. Those offences which are triable only on indictment are excluded from Clause 2 and continue to be governed by present sentencing criteria. Those offenders would continue to receive lengthy sentences in line with Court of Appeal guidance which has produced swingeing increases in sentence lengths for violent and sexual offences since the mid-1980s.
According to the White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public of February 1990, that provision is aimed at offenders convicted of less serious offences but where the court realises that they are a serious risk to the public. The White Paper cited the example of an offender convicted of an offence of causing actual bodily harm which would normally merit a twelve-month sentence. Under the proposed legislation the Crown Court,
"could give a longer sentence, up to the maximum penalty of five years, if it considered this necessary to protect the public from serious harm from the offender"
The central objection to that approach is that it is unjust. Principles of justice require that the courts seek proportionality between the severity of the penalty and the just deserts of the offender. Members of the Committee will recall instantly the kind of case which we in Wales remember coming up in the imaginary magistrates' court at Llanerchymedd which had
1012
before it on one day four separate and consecutive cases of the alleged stealing of a sheep. The first case was punished with a fine of£10, the second with a fine of£20, the third with a fine of£50 and the fourth with a swingeing fine of£100 on the grounds that, "There is far too much of that sort of thing going on".
Once sentencers abandon the principle of proportionality, they are no longer applying justice but a form of social engineering without a defensible moral foundation. Social engineering in itself is not necessarily bad. Half of the significant reforms in 19th century British history could be so described. However, that is not the responsibility of the courts. Sociologists, economists and even politicians have a part to play in social engineering but judges, I submit, do not.
There is also the question of double punishment. Offenders sentenced under these powers could receive sentences for less serious offences of a severity normally reserved for more serious crimes. Assuming that the risk of serious harm will normally be inferred from previous offences, that amounts to a person being sentenced twice for the same offence: first, when he receives his original sentence and, secondly, when an additional amount is added to the sentence for a later less serious offence. Such sentencing decisions would be highly subjective based not on what the offender has done but on the judge's guess as to what he may do in the future. In the words of the poem:
"What is to come is still unsure".
This sort of measure has a poor history. Previous legislation allowing wholly disproportionate sentences for persistent offenders has proved unpopular with judges. Preventive detention in the Prevention of Crime Act 1908, corrective training in the Criminal Justice Act 1948 and extended sentences in the Criminal Justice Act 1967 have all empowered courts to impose much longer sentences than normal on persistent offenders. All have fallen into disuse and disrepute. I believe that the extended sentence was used only five times in 1988 and this Bill abolishes it.
Clause 2(2) (b) is not only unjust but is also ineffectual especially in the case of sexual offenders. As has already been said, sexual offenders need not so much a long period of incarceration but effective treatment for their condition. The length of sentence should be determined at least in part by the time required to bring about a change in the offender's behaviour. There is reason to believe that the Government are slowly beginning to see the light on this matter.
When he introduced the Government amendment at Report stage in another place on 20th February, the right honourable John Patten, the Minister of State at the Home Office, said:
"These amendments will enable the courts to require many sexual offenders to undergo longer and more intensive programmes of supervision. The purpose is to increase the confidence of the courts—that is very important—and of the public in the arrangements for dealing with sexual offenders, to protect the public from the risk of serious harm from sexual offenders, and to try to help sex offenders to reduce the risk of their committing further sexual offences in future" —[Official Report, Commons, 20/2/91; col. 287.]
Those laudable aims are unlikely to be fulfilled unless the Government are prepared to provide

1013
central funding for centres providing specialist treatment and therapy for sex offenders. Such treatment confronts offenders' attitudes to their offending; it requires them to accept responsibility for their behaviour and to acknowledge the serious damage that is done to their victims. It also helps them to control their deviant sexual tendencies. Without such treatment extended periods of supervision and long periods of incarceration will be of little value in protecting the public from sex offenders.
At present there is only one centre in England and Wales—the Gracewell Clinic in Birmingham—which provides such treatment on a residential basis. To-date the Gracewell Clinic has had 526 referrals, 110 of whom have been treated at the clinic. While the Gracewell staff are the first to agree that a rigorous research evaluation needs to be conducted of its effectiveness, it is notable that to-date no one—I repeat, no one—treated at that clinic has been re-convicted. That is encouraging even when allowance is made for the under-reporting of such offences.
At present the Gracewell Clinic receives no central government funding. Since it was established it has depended heavily on the financial generosity of a single individual benefactor. The Home Office agreed that when the probation service places an offender at the clinic it can pay from its area budget for the offender's treatment. However, as your Lordships will be well aware, probation budgets are severely stretched and it is not always possible for them to find money for such a purpose when it is needed.
The provision of treatment for sex offenders is of such importance that a careful and reputable approach like that of the Gracewell Clinic ought to receive government backing. The Government should provide financial support to Gracewell, pending an evaluation of its effectiveness, and other clinics which may then spring up. If such an evaluation indicates that the clinic's approach is effective, the Home Office should seek resources from the Treasury to establish similar centres in other areas. That is the way forward; not that suggested by paragraph (b), which will simply incarcerate a deteriorating condition.
I add one personal note. Last year BBC Radio 4 ran a short series of programmes called, "The Moral Maze". It was a kind of panel programme where witnesses were interrogated on great moral issues of the moment. I was one of the panel together with a splendid rabbi, a professor of law and a journalist. One subject on which we were called upon to interrogate witnesses was pornography and its effects. We interviewed, among others, the director of Gracewell Clinic. I was deeply impressed with his ability, skill, seriousness, sensitivity, and above all his success. The Gracewell programme is hard, relentless and long; it is almost cruel. I was worried in case it amounted almost to brain washing; but it works. People do not re-offend.
It is that approach that we need to adopt towards sexual and violent offenders. It is the way forward, and I support the amendment.
7 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: The noble Lord spoke of the Gracewell Clinic. As he is aware, amendments have been tabled to deal with a range of issues concerning the clinic. Therefore I shall not follow his interesting observations on that matter.
I return to the speech of the noble Lord. Lord Renton, with which I very largely agree. Why do we refer to "sexual" and "violent" offences? The descriptions are far too broad. As my noble friend Lord Hutchinson pointed out, in terms of sex offences they range from offences of multiple rape incorporating massive violence, to offences such as indecent exposure. It is far too broad a description of a group of offences to be incorporated in the Bill in the way that it is. The same applies to violent offences. The description ranges from a relatively minor assault to acts of extreme violence.
I find it difficult to understand why those two categories of offences are picked out in the way that they are. They do not necessarily reproduce faithfully public attitudes. As the noble Lord, Lord Renton, indicated in his speech, compared with a relatively minor sex offence or a minor offence of violence, there is infinitely greater disquiet felt among elderly people when they have been ripped off by sophisticated fraudsters. That group of people arc not mentioned in the Bill. It is wholly wrong in principle that those two categories of offences should be isolated in the way that they are.
We have been down this path on a previous occasion with Mr. Brittan's parole policy, which led to the establishment of the Carlisle Committee. Specific types of offences were laid out by him in a statement at the Conservative Party conference, where he indicated that there would be a wholly different parole policy for certain types of offences compared with other categories of offenders. What did the Carlisle Committee say about that approach? It said that it was wrong in principle, and it is in the process of being buried in this Bill. In that situation why do we have what, in my view, are unworthy and ill-advised words in the Bill.
Lord Elton: I shall be interested to hear my noble friend's response to the point made by my noble friend Lord Renton on expressio twins est, exclusio alterius.
Leaving that aside, perhaps lay Members of the Committee can have a little help both from my noble friend Lord Windlesham and the Minister. We have been warned of using hypothetical cases, but categories may be stated hypothetically.
I should like to know from my noble friend Lord Windlesham (who moved the amendment) what would be the case if his amendment was incorporated in the Bill and the removal of paragraph (b) was effected. How is it proposed to treat a serious violent offender who maintains both during his trial and during his sentence that his greatest ambition is to repeat the offence on the same category of person? Whether immigrants, Chinese, foreigners or women is immaterial.
I should like my noble friend the Minister to tell me what I should already know: what happens in such

1015
cases under the law as it now stands, and what would happen in the case, if it occurred, with the Bill unamended?
The Earl of Longford: I shall not detain the Committee for more than a moment. I endorse what was said in regard to the Gracewell Clinic. There is to be discussion about that later. I have visited the clinic and it is doing good work. On the other hand, it is extremely expensive in the sense that the ordinary person cannot afford to attend. I am referring to an individual with a sexual record who has just left prison. Under the present arrangements, he simply cannot afford the amount of money necessary to attend the clinic. I endorse what has been said about the need for Government support.
Generally speaking I regard this as a confused clause which arises from confusion in the mind of the noble Lord. We have heard speeches from lawyers, administrators of the law and others. I speak as an old don—that is to say, a person who is accustomed to putting questions, conducting viva voces and asking people whether they are quite sure they know what they mean. I do not believe that the Government would get a pass degree of any kind on the strength of this clause. I am disgusted at the great deal of confusion here. What does this measure amount to? The Government feel entitled to qualify a matter whenever they feel like it in response to what they believe is public opinion which, I suppose, is the kind of opinion expressed in the Sun newspaper or a similar tabloid.
I am horrified at the idea that one can suddenly have a great principle which is retribution under another name. There is no harm in retribution. Years ago I wrote a book in which I argued for retribution. There is nothing harmful in that provided it is properly understood. But it is qualified by this new and evasive arrangement in which certain selected people who are the targets of public animosity are to be treated worse. Speaking as an old don, I give the Government an omega.
Lord Elton: Obviously my noble friend Lord Renton is volunteering to answer the question I asked of my noble friend Lord Windlesham. Perhaps my noble friend will give me the answer.
Lord Renton: As I see the matter, there is already power in the courts to take into consideration, in cases of persistent offenders, the need to protect the public in quite a wide range of cases. If we are to have a measure replacing paragraph (b) then let us take the principle giving power to the court in general terms instead of using selective hypotheses.
Earl Ferrers: I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Renton for answering the point raised by my noble friend Lord Elton. If my noble friend Lord Renton wishes to answer the remainder of the questions that I have been asked, I shall be delighted for him to undertake to do so. He is entirely correct. The existing law allows courts to give greater sentences. The existing law will continue in relation to the Crown Courts which deal with indictable only
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offences and where the person has already served a prison sentence. My noble friend Lord Renton shakes his head.
Lord Renton: If we keep paragraph (b) then on all future occasions the courts will look at it and say, "Parliament has selected the occasions when we may imprison for the protection of the public. If Parliament had wanted that protection to be given on other occasions, we have no power to do it. We have to bear in mind what Parliament has now enacted".
7.15 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: I shall bear in mind what my noble friend says. Clause 2(1) says:
"This section applies where a person is convicted of an offence which is triable either way or only summarily".
My advice is that the existing powers of the Crown Courts continue and the curtailment relates only to those cases which are triable either summarily or both ways. My noble friend Lord Windlesham did as he always does. He made a very powerful speech about this amendment. This amendment would prevent the imposition of a longer sentence than the seriousness of the offence would justify in the interests of protecting the public from serious harm from a violent or sexual offender.
It would mean that in future the sentencing powers of the courts would be determined, if my noble friend's amendment were to be accepted, solely by the seriousness of the offence for which the offender was convicted. An important function of the criminal law, namely, to protect the public, would be inadequately provided for in the Bill. That function of the law is carried out now. Most people would agree with the proposition that the courts must have sufficient powers in order to protect the public from serious harm. That is exactly what Clause 2(2) (b) does in a reasonable way. The power to impose a longer sentence to protect the public is available only for violent or sexual offences.
In order to invoke that power the courts have to do various things. The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, said that the courts would get it wrong if sentence were passed through topping up. If the courts are to take this course they must be satisfied that there is a risk of death or serious personal physical or psychological injury to members of the public occasioned by the offender committing further such offences. Clause 1(7) says quite clearly:
"In this section and section 2 below any reference, in relation to an offender convicted of a violent or sexual offence, to protecting the public from serious harm from him shall be construed as a reference to protecting members of the public from death or serious personal injury, whether physical or psychological, occasioned by further such offences committed by him".
That is the purpose of having this permission in the Bill. The reasons have to be stated in open court for imposing such a sentence. The courts must not impose a sentence which is longer than the statutory maximum for the offence. In other words, the power is available only where the offender clearly represents a danger to the public and only where the court has very clear grounds for imposing such a sentence and makes those grounds clear. I entirely agree with the

1017
view expressed that the starting point for sentencing should be the seriousness of the offence and that generally an offender should not be given a longer sentence simply because of previous convictions. That is reflected in the Bill. We must also recognise that in some cases this approach may not give the public adequate protection.
I can give two examples. An assault occasioning actual bodily harm might, on the grounds of seriousness, justify a sentence of 12 months. But it might be clear that the offender has committed several similar offences in the recent past of an increasingly worrying kind. My noble friend Lord Elton made some suggestions about that. In those circumstances the Crown Court may feel it is right to give a sentence longer than 12 months and up to but not in excess of the maximum penalty of five years, in order to protect the public from risk of further serious harm.
Let us consider a case of reckless driving. The particular offence may not of itself be serious enough to justify a six months' custodial sentence. But if it is clear from the offender's previous convictions that he or she has committed a number of reckless driving offences before and by so doing has risked causing serious injury to other drivers or pedestrians, a magistrates' court may judge that a six months' custodial sentence will protect the public by taking the offender out of circulation for a period of time and may bring home to the offender the seriousness of his or her behaviour.
My noble friend Lord Windlesham referred to the power to give longer sentences which did not apply to indictable only offences. The point of the Bill is that in the indictable only case where the offender has previously been in prison, the Bill does not limit the court's sentencing powers. The courts can now give a longer sentence to protect the public. They will still be able to do so. The difference between the two cases cited does not arise in practice. We should be rightly criticised if we did not retain the ability of the courts to give longer sentences to protect the public provided that those sentences are within the maxima laid down by Parliament.
Lord Renton: Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps he will allow me to intervene. I think we can get the best of both worlds. We can meet the principle which he has stated of giving power to the court and we can meet the principle expressed by my noble friend Lord Windlesham and others in the debate by simply leaving out,
"in the case of a sentence of imprisonment for a violent or sexual offence",
and leaving in the rest of paragraph (b). I should have thought that everybody would then be satisfied. It means that the court would have just that power, which, very naturally, my noble friend Lord Ferrers has said the courts should have, of sentencing people, where the circumstances seem to require it, for a longer period in order to protect the public from serious harm.
Lord Elton: My noble friend has slightly extended the operation of the revised amendment by leaving out
1018
the words "in the case of a sentence of imprisonment". He has thus extended the operation of the whole of the subsection to other sentencing.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: Perhaps I may ask the noble Earl whether he would be good enough to deal with the two issues which were raised and to which he has not responded. First, is what the Government propose here consistent with our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights? That question was put to him, as he may recall, by two of my colleagues. Many of us look forward to hearing his response. He may remember that the noble Viscount, Lord Whitelaw, when Home Secretary, was asked precisely the same question on a matter involving immigration. The answer given was, "Yes, we are wholly satisfied. It is consistent". The Government then lost the first case that went to the European Court on the issue. We should like to know and to be reassured that this matter has been examined by the Government and their legal advisers.
Secondly, I asked, as did others, why sexual and violent offences have been isolated in this fashion. How can it be right for us to return to the policy which was announced when Mr. Brittan was Home Secretary? Mr. Brittan identified particular types of criminal offences as being wholly different from other types of criminal offences in relation to the administration of the parole scheme. The Carlisle Committee said that that was wrong in principle. Are not the Government returning to precisely the same attitude so far as concerns this subsection? I should be immensely grateful if the noble Earl would answer those two questions.
Earl Ferrers: My advice is that we are not in contravention of the European Court of Human Rights and that we are not likely to be. I do not see any incompatibilities with our obligations. The noble Lord referred to the Brittan policy. I do not think that this is the same thing. Sexual and violent offences have been isolated in this case because we are in the business of protecting the public. It is in regard to sex and violent cases that the public is most vulnerable.
My noble friend Lord Renton made a helpful drafting suggestion. He has, as always, the advantage over me in that he takes pride in being a draftsman, in which happy position I am not. I should like therefore to be able to consider his advice. It would be wholly inappropriate for me to comment off the cuff on such a fine piece of drafting as he has suggested. I shall certainly take note of it and get in touch with him later to tell him what I think.
Lord Windlesham: The heart of the noble Earl's reply on behalf of the Government was contained in his final words. He said that the Government wish to retain the ability of the courts to protect the public from serious harm. That is not what this subsection does. What the amendment is proposing is to maintain the status quo. It aims to retain the existing powers of the courts. It is the Government, in this subsection, who wish to extend them, and to do so in a way which is open to the objections that have been raised in the past 50 minutes or so. This is not a provision which

1019
has been sought by the judiciary. The judiciary has not asked for any additional sentencing powers to protect the public. The judiciary wishes to protect the public as much as the Government do and it has the necessary powers to do so.
Questions of "dangerousness" and "risk" are the hardest of all to weigh up and to estimate. Anyone who has been on the Parole Board, as the noble Lords, Lord Harris of Greenwich, Lord Hunt, and myself have been, know that to be the case. Once attached, "dangerousness" is a difficult label to remove. It is not quantifiable in a judicial procedure, least of all in the critical act of sentencing.
My noble friend Lord Elton asked me a question which was answered immediately and eloquently by my noble friend, Lord Renton. My noble friend raised a hypothetical situation. The answer I would give is the same as that given by my noble friend Lord Renton; namely—echoing what I said in reply to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers—that the court already has powers under the existing law to take into account any aggravating circumstances in deciding upon the sentence.
Lord Elton: Can my noble friend reassure me on this point'? Am I mistaken in thinking that subsection (2) (a) which immediately precedes subsection (2) (b) does not limit the existing law in the respect that subsection (2) (b) at present seeks to restore it? I understand that his amendment will not restore the law to its present state because subsection (2) (a)—in this case the expressio unius—will be in the Bill and the exclusio alterius will be out of it.
Lord Windlesham: Subsection (2) (a) refers to a sentence commensurate with the seriousness of the offence. That is entirely acceptable and in accordance with the principles of just deserts and proportionality. We shall have to leave on one side the question of previous convictions, which was discussed in the earlier amendments. The reference to the term "commensurate with the seriousness of the offence" is in line with the existing law, and indeed the principles behind this Bill.
We have had a full debate—
Lord Elton: I do apologise for being so importunate but the point I am trying to make to my noble friend is a sound one. The Bill gives only one basis on which a sentence can be founded for such term and so on. No other consideration therefore is allowed to be caught. If it is right that inclusion of violent and sexual offences excludes all other offences, then surely the inclusion of only one basis for founding a term of the sentence excludes all others. That is the simple point I am trying to make. I apologise for making it so often and so badly.
Lord Windlesham: I appreciate my noble friend's concern. It is an issue which would need to be looked at carefully, as would the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Renton, if the amendment were to be carried.
I believe that the Committee would like to express an opinion on the matter. We have had a full and well-informed debate. The amendment has received
1020
support from all sides of the House. If it were to be carried, the Government would need to look at the drafting of the remainder of the section, taking note of what my noble friend Lord Elton said, and also at the counter suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Renton. However, in the event of the amendment not being carried, we have heard my noble friend Lord Ferrers say that the Government will consider the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Renton. In my view it is certainly worthy of consideration.
Earl Ferrers: I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but I believe that he is trying to lick the butter off of both sides of the bread. I said that I would consider the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Renton. When one gives such undertakings, they are usually given on the understanding that the amendment is not pressed to a Division.
I see that I have upset the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich. However, perhaps he will contain himself a little longer and allow me to continue. The noble Lord is shaking his head, but he should wait to hear what I have to say.
As I said, normally when one gives such an undertaking it is given in order to facilitate the procedures. It would seem that my noble friend Lord Windlesham wishes to press the matter to a Division in the belief that, if the Government lose it, we shall nonetheless reconsider the matter. It would be discourteous of me to say that I shall not consider the very helpful suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Renton. I was merely trying to make the point that I believe my noble friend Lord Windlesham is trying to lick the butter off of both sides of the piece of bread.
Lord Windlesham: There will be further stages of the Bill. Noble Lords will have the opportunity on Report to table such amendments as they wish. At that time, my noble friend Lord Ferrers can tell us what he thinks about the merits of the proposals.
7.32 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 8) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 52; Not-Contents, 69.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Craigavon, V.

Lawrence, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Longford, E.

David, B.

Macaulayi of Bragar, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Mason of Barnsley, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Faithfull, B.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

Nathan, L.

Galpern, L.

Nicol, B.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Parry, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Greenway, L.

Renton, L.

Grey, E.

Richard, L.

Halsbury, E.

Ripon, Bp.

Hampton, L.

Rochester, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Seear, B.

Henderson of Brompton, L.

Sefton of Garston, L.

1021

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Walston, L.

Taylor of Gryfe, L.

White, B.

Tenby, V.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E.

Tordoff, L. [Teller.]

Windlesham, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Winstanley, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Henley, L.

Alport, L.

Hooper, B.

Ampthill, L.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Astor, V.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Beloff, L.

Joseph, L.

Belstead, L.

Kimball, L.

Blatch, B.

Long, V.

Boardman, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Lyell, L.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Butterworth, L.

Mersey, V.

Caithness, E.

Milverton, L.

Caldecote, V.

Mottistone, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Carnock, L.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.[Teller.]

Nelson, E.

Orkney, E.

Clanwilliam, E.

Oxfuird, V.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Peel, E.

Crathorne, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Rees, L.

Derwent, L.

Renwick, L.

Downshire, M.

Sharpies, B.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Elliott of Morpeth, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Elton,L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Ferrers, E.

Swinfen, L.

Fortescue, E.

Swinton, E.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Trumpington, B.

Gisborough, L.

Ullswater, V.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Vaux of Harrowden, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Waddington, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Wise, L.

Harvington, L.

Wynford, L.

Hemphill, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Viscount Long: I beg to move that the House do now resume. In moving the Motion, I suggest that the Committee stage resumes at twenty minutes to nine.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Darlington Borough Council Bill [H.L.]
7.39 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
As a county Durham man, I have been visiting Darlington for more than 50 years. I have done so because of the great pleasure I always derive from being in a town which has a unique character, with such pleasant and courteous citizens and an atmosphere which is welcoming from the moment one enters the town. It is one of the jewels in my county's crown. I hasten to point out that I am in no way connected to Darlington, whether in business, government (local or national), culturally or any other aspect.
I am glad to be associated with the Bill because I have no doubt that its proposals will lead to physical improvements in the town—improvements from which other benefits will flow.
1022
Darlington has had a cattle market since medieval times. That fact is of considerable interest and importance. It is something which should not be disturbed unless there are good reasons for doing so. Nevertheless, despite that long tradition of people having the right to bring and buy cattle and other livestock in the town, the time has now come to introduce a Bill of this nature.
The enshrining of those rights in a local Act (the Darlington Extension and Improvement Act 1872) arose from a long-standing clamour to ban sales of livestock because of the general inconvenience that they caused and, not least, the effect on public health and hygiene. Your Lordships will note that environmental factors were also important in those days.
The effect of the Act was to allow those responsible for the health of the town to take action to deal with the problems while at the same time preserving the common law rights of farmers and others to hold their livestock sales at a convenient location.
Under the Act, power was given to the council to close down an unsatisfactory market (which was becoming a health risk) but only on condition that the council provided an alternative market,
"fit and proper for its purpose".
However, we have now to put the position into perspective. After 120 years, the market has become less and less fit for its purpose, and there can be little argument that its location in a residential area is completely unsuitable. The council has little choice but to look for alternative sites—a matter which it pursued with due diligence, realising that a number of requirements had to be satisfied. As might be expected, certain problems arose. It could not find a site which it already owned, but it eventually found one on land owned by someone else close to the new Darlington by-pass.
A further problem arose when the council came to consider, as it had to, the cost of building a new market and the cost of purchasing the necessary land. For that it would have had to budget for no less than £5 million. For Darlington, whose population is fewer than 100,000, that sum is large, and not one with which in normal circumstances it would even contemplate dealing. The difficulties are exacerbated because of the present relationship between central government and local authorities. Your Lordships will be aware that government controls on council spending these days are severe. As a former councillor, I feel that the very nature of local self-government has been changed fundamentally. I could give several examples of that if time permitted, but I shall mention the most important: Darlington's basic credit approval—the amount the Government will permit the council to borrow—is about £2 million only, and most of that has to be spent on essential requirements such as housing.
If your Lordships were to ask about other possible receipts, I should reply with two examples. The council's expectation of capital receipts from land disposals has been severely reduced as a result of the depressed property market. That is a fact of which your Lordships will be acutely aware. That problem is

1023
well known; but it may not be so well known that since last April councils can use only up to half of those receipts for new projects.
There is another difficulty. A few years ago grants from the European Community were also available for such projects. On the whole, as I am sure most noble Lords will agree, the EC was very generous in awarding such grants, but now they are not available for that purpose. That is another blow which has had to be faced.
If the whole of the cost of that £5 million were to be placed on Darlington's community charge payer, under the present system (until last week's Budget proposals, and special Bill to deal with the poll tax) it would increase the charge per charge payer by £67 in addition to any normal annual increase.
Even under the proposed new arrangements for the community charge there is no doubt that the cost of providing a new market would he substantial. Such an increase would not fall on most farmers and the market's customers, merely because most of them do not live in the town; they live in surrounding areas which make no contribution to the borough's expenses.
It will not have escaped your Lordships' notice that we are dealing with a business operation. If the council were to attempt to bear the cost of a new market, the moment that became known to Darlington's inhabitants, those normally moderate, mild-mannered citizens might storm the town hall demanding to know why they should be heavily subsidising a private operation. Such action would he understandable, although unlikely. However, the council is determined to show that it was making the right and fair decision, and, to use a biblical phrase, went "the second mile". It commissioned a study from Durham University's economics department to ascertain who benefits from the existence of the cattle market in Darlington. Its report showed that the market generated 69 full-time equivalent jobs and gross income to the town of £690,000.
The report also took into account what have become known as the "knock-on" effects. They can be of importance these days, but the economists concluded that they were of little significance. An economic study, important though it is, cannot assess the detailed environmental effects of a cattle market situated in an urban area. What about the smell, the mess, the litter, the noise, the traffic problems and a host of other associated matters?
This is not an academic matter for me. For the first 25 years of my life, I lived literally next to a cattle market. I have to confess that as a child I took great pleasure in nipping over the fence to be among the animals and to do the jobs associated with markets; but it did not take too long for me to come face to face with problems similar to those that I have mentioned.
Taking into consideration the economic study, the cost and the environmental effects, the council came to the conclusion that it had no choice but to seek powers to close the market without providing a substitute. By any standards, that must be considered a reasonable decision. That is why the Bill comes before the House this evening. Your Lordships ought to know that the
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case is strengthened by the fact that the Bill has the unanimous support of the council. That is important because the council is what is referred to in these days as a hung council. In a number of my activities outside the House I deal with hung councils and extracting a decision from them can be a difficult task. In this case, all the political parties and all individuals are at one in attempting to secure the change. With such unanimity it is safe to assume that the councillors represent the view of the vast majority of the town's citizens. Perhaps I should also mention that the Bill has the full support of the Member of Parliament.
To conclude, I believe that considering all the aspects with which I have dealt tonight there is an unanswerable case for the Bill. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Dormand of Easington.)
7.51 p.m.
Earl Peel: My Lords, before I respond to what the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, said, I apologise to him and to the House for not putting my name down to speak on this Second Reading. It was an oversight on my part and I apologise if it led to confusion.
As the noble Lord said, the object of the Bill is to release Darlington Borough Council from part of the council's market undertaking contained in the local Act of 1872 to maintain a cattle market in the town. A working cattle market has existed in the town from well before then. The noble Lord said that it was from medieval times and I believe that the precise date is 1458. The market represents an important facility for the local agricultural industry, being used regularly by well over 1,000 farmers. Livestock is the prime farming enterprise in the region and the Darlington market is especially noted for its trade in beef cattle. I believe that the turnover is in the region of over 200,000 units of stock per annum. Thus it is substantial.
The market is run by a company which leases the present site from the council. Everybody agrees that the site in the town is unsatisfactory for a modern livestock market. The farmers totally accept that. It causes a nuisance to local residents and its efficiency is impaired by the cramped space available and the difficulties of manoeuvring large vehicles on the site and in the surrounding streets. Those points were made by the noble Lord, Lord Dormand.
However, if Parliament passes the Bill, as matters stand there is every prospect that the cattle market will cease to exist. The council will serve notice to quit on the market company which does not at present have consent to set up elsewhere on a more convenient site. If the market closes, local agriculture will suffer a serious blow. Other livestock markets in the region will face serious difficulties in attempting to absorb the Darlington trade, which is considerable. Congestion in the relevant towns like Northallerton and Barnard Castle would be greatly exacerbated. It is right for me to point out also that there will be cases of hardship among a group of 50 widows who have inherited shares in the market company on which they rely for their income. We must bear that point in mind.

1025
Local farmers can understand if the council no longer believes that it should have a duty to provide a cattle market. That point is undisputed, and times change. However, they are strongly of the opinion that it must be in the interests of both the town and the surrounding countryside for the council to facilitate the relocation of the market outside the town on a site that would not arouse objections from its neighbours and which would encourage commercial efficiency. I understand that the council is currently considering the planning considerations of relocation proposals that have been made to them by the market company. Furthermore, one of the applications refers to permission for a housing development to fund the new market. If that can be agreed it will naturally overcome the problems of finance to which the noble Lord referred.
I am confident that the matter can be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. I have seen the proposed site for relocation and believe that it is very suitable. None of the costs of relocation need fall on the townspeople through the community charge or rates. The council could be released from its market obligations and the way cleared for the erection of low-cost housing on the present site of the market, to the benefit of those in need and as desired by the council.
Provided that these matters can be sorted out as I suggested I see no reason why the Bill should not proceed to the statute book. I urge the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, to use his influence with the council to encourage the happy result which I believe can be achieved, given goodwill and a spirit of co-operation by all interested parties.
I do not believe that we can segregate the town from the country simply on a whim. The noble Lord made the point that the farmers who come in and use the town facilities do not make a contribution. However, we must add that those same townspeople go out into the countryside and neither do they necessarily make a contribution. It is a quid pro quo and we cannot ignore that fact.
Until assurances are forthcoming and a satisfactory solution is reached, I urge the Committee, when considering the Bill, to have regard for the farming community and their longstanding right to a market.
Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, referred to the report of the consultants. He gave us some of the details but many of us would be interested to read it. Perhaps he will be good enough to put a copy of the report in the Library of the House so that we have an opportunity to look at the details.
7.56 p.m.
Lord Crathorne: My Lords, I wish briefly to support my noble friend Lord Peel. I live close to Darlington and, like most of us, have received a number of letters on the subject and many people have contacted me including the noble Lord, Lord MacAndrew. He would have been here this evening but is tending his farm near Darlington. There is no question but that the market must be moved from its present site, though there is a difference of opinion on
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whether a new market is needed. The farmers certainly think so. I understand that the neighbouring markets would have considerable difficulty in coping with the additional livestock if the Darlington market closes. My hope is that the Darlington council will make it possible for a new market to be built because there seems to be a need for one.
Darlington has been a market town for many centuries. That fact is even recorded on the town's coat of arms, as noble Lords may know. We cannot sort the matter out this evening but I hope that everyone concerned will get together and reach a satisfactory compromise. I urge the committee which will consider the matter to look carefully at the implications of the Bill becoming law in its present form.
7.58 p.m.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, first, I apologise for the absence of my noble friend Lord McIntosh of Haringey who is unable to be here this evening. Like all speakers from the Labour Front Benches on Private Bills, I wish to make it clear at the outset that our Front Bench is neutral in these matters. I speak in an individual capacity.
The House is indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, for the clear and cogent way in which he put forward the arguments of the promoters of the Bill. He began by declaring his 50-year knowledge of Darlington which is about five years less than mine. I am a native of Newcastle upon Tyne and it is interesting that he was brought up next to a cattle market. So was I. I wonder whether we ever met when there was a transfer of stock! The cattle market in Newcastle at the top of Scotswood Road where I was born has long since gone.
We are discussing a feature of a town which has served the town and its inhabitants well for more than 100 years. Literally, in the twinkling of an eye, such features can disappear.
I was pleased to hear the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Peel, and his noble friend on the Benches opposite. They did not oppose the fact that the market should be relocated. The arguments in favour of that are powerful.
However, I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, who reminded the House that the present problems as regards the relocation of the market are not of the council's choosing. The council did not create the network of controls which surround it. I was delighted to hear the speakers on the Benches opposite pleading that the council's involvement in this enterprise should continue. I am satisfied that the Select Committee of this House will carefully consider the representations of those who wish their point of view to be heard.
The noble Earl, Lord Peel, said he was confident that the matter can be resolved. I hope that is the case. I am sure that the last thing a council such as Darlington would want is to do something which is right for the citizens but is detrimental to the local farming community.
When I quickly glanced at the representations made on this matter, I was impressed by some of the points

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that were made. Darlington Council is unanimous in its view on this matter. I do not know the political complexion of that council but it obviously must be a mixed council. The noble Lord, Lord Dormand, said it was a hung council. If that is the case, all political persuasions will be represented on the council. Unanimous agreement has been reached on the need to promote this parliamentary Bill. The noble Lord added that the Member of Parliament who represents Darlington also supports the Bill. I have the highest regard not only for the people of Darlington, but also for the common sense of the councillors of Darlington. Like the noble Earl, Lord Peel, I, too, hope that a solution will be reached which is satisfactory to all parties concerned.
8.3 p.m.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, it may be helpful to your Lordships if at this point I intervene briefly to state the Government's view on the Bill. Perhaps I should apologise to noble Lords for the fact that I was brought up nowhere near Darlington or near a cattle market. Despite that I shall do my best to state the Government's view.
It is traditional on Private Bills that the Government take a neutral stance. This Bill is no exception to that rule. The Government have considered the content of the Bill and have no objection in principle to the powers being sought by the council. Neither my department nor the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has raised any observations on the Bill. We take the view that the issues raised by the Bill in relation to the closure of Darlington's cattle market and the proposed repeal of the council's obligation to provide a substitute, are local issues in which the Government would not wish to intervene.
There is one petition against the Bill and the petitioner will have the opportunity to present his objections to the Select Committee. The committee will be in a much better position than we are tonight to examine in detail the issues involved and it will have the added advantage of hearing expert evidence. I hope, therefore, that the Bill will be given a Second Reading and allowed to proceed in the usual conventional way to committee for this detailed consideration.
8.5 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, I thank the two speakers on the Benches opposite for taking part in the debate. I suspect they will not be surprised to learn that I am not entirely convinced by their arguments. I know the noble Earl, Lord Peel, will disagree with me, but I consider that his choice of the word "whim" was rather unfortunate in describing the view of the council in taking this action. That word would not be acceptable to the council and it is not acceptable to me. However, I hasten to add that both speakers from the Benches opposite made a number of points which will need to be addressed when the Bill is considered in detail by the Select Committee. Many of the points they raised will be more appropriately dealt with by the Select Committee as they require detailed
1028
consideration. They can be more satisfactorily dealt with by the Select Committee than by your Lordships' House on Second Reading.
The speakers on the Benches opposite did not appear to give sufficient consideration to matters affecting the town itself, particularly as reflected in the stance and views of the borough council. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Graham concurred with my view that the views of the council are important. They are the essence of the argument. I am sure that will be recognised when the Bill has completed all of its stages.
The noble Earl asked whether it would be possible for me to place in the Library a copy of the report commissioned by the borough council. However, it is not my report and therefore I am not in a position to say "yea or nay". Nevertheless, I can assure the noble Earl that I shall consult the council to see whether that is a possibility. I appreciate the strength of the argument for that measure. I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
Viscount Long: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until twenty minutes to nine o'clock.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from 8.7 to 8.40 p.m..]

Criminal Justice Bill
House again in Committee on Clause 2.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 9:
Page 3, line 13, leave out subsection (4).
The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 9 it may be convenient if at the same time I deal with Amendment No. 13 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and government Amendments Nos. 30 and 71.
This group of government amendments is intended mainly to make better and clearer provision in the Bill for the mitigation of sentences. The key amendment is Amendment No. 71. That is a new clause relating to savings for mitigation to be inserted after Clause 23. Its purpose is to make clear that nothing in Part I of the Bill shall prevent a court mitigating an offender's sentence by taking account of any relevant matters. Those will include, among others, a plea of guilty, time spent in custody abroad, the terminal illness of the offender, the serious illness of someone close to him or any reparation by the offender.
Subsection (2) of the new clause makes more specific provision for mitigation. It brings together subsection (4) of Clause 2, which is referred to in Amendment No. 9, and subsection (3) of Clause 5, which is referred to in Amendment No. 30, both of which we seek to delete, and subsections (6) (a) and (b) of Clause 16, which is subject to Amendment No. 58, which we shall also seek to delete. Amendment No. 71 puts all of those points, which at present are in different parts of the Bill, into a more appropriate part of the Bill.
The new clause in Amendment No. 71 provides for mitigation generally. The fact that an offender had made or had offered to make reparation to the victim for his offence would certainly count in his favour when mitigation of sentence was considered. So, for example, would the fact that the offender had assisted the police. However, there is a danger that if we mention some mitigating factors the courts may conclude that Parliament meant to exclude others. For that reason I should prefer not to adopt the right reverend Prelate's suggestion, but I can assure him that his point is covered. I hope that that meets the concern of the right reverend Prelate.
Members of the Committee will see that the proposed new clause also refers in subsection (3) to the question of mentally disordered offenders. We shall debate that question separately under Amendment No. 17 and others which are grouped with that amendment. I should just say that subsection (3) of the new clause in Amendment No. 71 ensures that the Bill cannot he taken as requiring a custodial sentence or one of a particular length to be passed on a mentally disordered offender or as constricting in any way powers to make an order under the Mental Health Act 1983. I can assure the Committee that acceptance of that part of the new clause will not pre-empt discussion of the other amendments relating to mentally disordered offenders.
The other two amendments are simply consequential on the proposed new clause. I beg to move.
8.45 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: I should like to speak to Amendment No. 13, to which the Minister referred. The amendment was proposed when the Bill was considered in another place. I understand that it was withdrawn on the understanding that the Government would consider the matter further. I am grateful to the noble Earl for the point that he made.
Nevertheless I should still like to raise the question of reparation covered by the amendment. Reparation has merited increasing attention. Attention has rightly been given to the importance of holding offenders accountable by requiring them to make reparation for their offences. That has been done partly through compensation orders and partly through community service orders. However, a body of experience has recently grown up concerning the method of reparation based on bringing together victim and offender. It is that particular notion of reparation which I should like to mention this evening.
The Home Office sponsored four pilot programmes, one of which was undertaken in Leeds. The probation officer responsible for the Leeds project was one of my licensed clergy; hence my interest in the matter. The Home Office report of the reparation projects indicated that they were widely welcomed, not least by victims. The idea behind the notion of reparation in this case is that offenders and victims should be brought together. Reparation consists in part of a willingness by an offender to meet the victim, and the victim also has to be willing to take part in the meeting.
1030
The research that has been undertaken shows that there has been a wide welcome for the procedure, certainly on the part of victims. It enables those who are victims to objectify what has happened to them. I have heard stories about people who have been burgled for whom the burglary has been an experience of extreme anxiety and fright. Those who have suffered in that way find that they endure the consequences for days or weeks afterwards. To meet the person who has burgled one enables one to objectify those anxieties and fears and to realise that a particular person was responsible. That enables the victims to come to terms with what has happened. It also enables offenders to personalise what they have done. It is no offence against the state or the community: these are people who have been harmed by their offence. The offender is suddenly able to come to terms with the fact that the offence was against a person.
The experience of reparation gained in those schemes should not be lost. My reason for bringing forward the amendment was to provide an opportunity to consider the notion of reparation and to argue that it ought to be taken into account when mitigating circumstances are considered before sentencing. I am happy to commend the amendment in my name to the Committee.
Lord Richard: None of us could object to the sentiment behind the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate. We would not wish to hold up the other amendments. In view of the fact that the noble Earl said that the various points are covered by the new clause there is little more to say.
Earl Ferrers: It is right that the right reverend Prelate should draw the attention of the Committee to the importance of reparation. It is an essential part of the criminal justice system that a person should be in a position to make reparation for what he has done. I can assure him that if that is so it will he taken into account. But, for the reasons which I am sure the right reverend Prelate will understand, I believe that it is desirable not specifically to include reference to that. As I said, if that is done the impression is given that one has referred to one particular mitigating circumstance and thereby might involuntarily exclude others. I hope that the right reverend Prelate will be satisfied with that assurance.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 [Procedural requirements for custodial sentences]:
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 3, line 17, leave out subsections (1) to (3) and insert:
("(1) A court shall obtain and consider a pre-sentence report before forming any such opinion as is mentioned in subsection (2) of section 1 or 2 above.
(2) In forming any such opinion as is mentioned in that subsection, a court—

(a) shall take into account all such information about the circumstances of the offence (including any aggravating or mitigating factors) as is available to it; and

1031

(b) in the case of any such opinion as is mentioned in paragraph (b) of that subsection, may take into account any information about the offender which is before it.").

The noble Earl said: In moving this amendment I shall speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 36, 37, 42 and 72. These amendments are mainly of a technical and drafting nature. The existing subsections (2) and (3) are to disappear altogether from Clause 3. These cover the way in which the offender's previous record is to be dealt with. There are identical provisions in Clause 6 with regard to community sentences. It seems to us that rather than repeat the same provisions in Clauses 3 and 6, it would be better to bring them together in a new clause, which appears as Amendment No. 72. There is, however, no change in the wording.
The existing subsection (1) is separated into two subsections—subsections (1) and (2). This is to make a clearer distinction between the purely procedural requirement to obtain a pre-sentence report and the other provisions of the clause which amplify the factors to be taken into account in sentencingsw—subsection (2).
The new subsection (2), which is probably the most important of this set of amendments, introduces what I think is a very useful clarification of the factors which Clause 3 specifies as relevant to sentencing decisions. It makes a clear distinction between factors which are relevant to assessing the seriousness of the offence—for example, any aggravating and mitigating factors—and those which are relevant to assessing the risk of serious harm from the offender. Factors which might aggravate or mitigate the offence would include the offence being premeditated, or the offender being the ringleader, which would be aggravating factors; or, if the offender had acted on impulse or had been led on by more experienced accomplices, these might be mitigating factors. Factors relevant to assessing harm naturally go rather wider because the court must be able to consider all relevant information about the offender, including information about his mental state, his attitude to the offence, and his previous behaviour, in deciding whether he is someone from whom the public needs to be protected. I should mention that factors which are relevant to neither of these, but which may still be relevant in mitigation of sentence (such as a guilty plea) are to be dealt with in the new clause after Clause 23 which deals specifically with mitigation.
Amendments Nos. 36 and 37 do for community sentences in Clause 6 what Amendment No. 10 does for custodial sentences. They make a clear distinction between information about the offence and information about the offender. I do not think that the Committee would wish me to repeat the arguments. They also ensure that, as with the amendment to Clause 3, the courts are required to obtain and consider a pre-sentence report before forming an opinion on the offender's suitability for the particular orders listed in Clause 6(2).
With that explanation I hope that the Committee will agree that these amendments improve the Bill. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Alport): I have to advise the Committee that if this amendment is agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendments Nos. 11 to 16.
Baroness Flather Baroness Flather moved, as an amendment to Amendment No. 10, Amendment No. 10A:
At end insert ("and
( ) shall take into account the need to avoid discrimination on racial grounds.").
The noble Baroness said: As the Chamber is in the process of considering far-reaching and crucial changes to the criminal justice system, I beg the Committee to consider carefully the amendment standing in my name on the Marshalled List. I am prompted by my knowledge of the deep anxiety felt by the ethnic minority groups to introduce this amendment for inclusion in the Bill and because I believe that no credible revision of legislation such as this would be complete without categoric revision being made for ethnic groups which now form 4.7 per cent. of the population of this country.
There is no dispute about the importance of the principle and decisions in the criminal justice system must be made without discrimination. Paragraph 1.16 of the Government's White Paper Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public which was published in February 1990 stated that:
"the rule of law will be maintained only if those charged with criminal offences are treated fairly and justly in the courts. There must be no discrimination because of a defendant's race, nationality, standing in the community or any other reason".
The key question therefore is what would be the advantages of enshrining that principle in legislation. To understand the strength of feeling on this point among many members of ethnic minorities, we need first to appreciate the widespread and mounting concern about the disproportionate number of black people in the prison system. The proportion of the prison population from ethnic minorities has risen from 12.5 per cent. in 1985 to 16 per cent. in 1989, although ethnic minorities constitute, as I said earlier, less than 5 per cent. of the general population. That disproportion cannot simply be attributed to differential crime rates or to the fact that a higher proportion of the black population is in the crime prone teenage groups.
The fact is that the Home Office statistics on the ethnic breakdown of the prison population, first compiled in 1985 and published annually since then, show that members of ethnic minorities entering prison have on average fewer previous convictions than white prisoners and that before conviction they were less likely to receive bail than comparable white defendants. Further, the findings of many research studies contain indications that members of ethnic minorities are treated differently from white people at various stages of the criminal process. As I said on an earlier occasion, if the ultimate purpose of punishment is the rehabilitation of the offender, that will result only if the offender feels that his punishment is just and fair. Distrust of the system leads to resentment and suspicion, which is totally counter-productive.
In recent weeks the judiciary has been the subject of harsh criticism. I do not intend to add to that. But in

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this climate it is singularly important and appropriate to include an amendment such as this one. It is not suggested that there is any conscious wish to discriminate on the part of anyone working within the criminal justice system, least of all on the part of the judiciary.
Turning to Clause 3, one sees that the judges are being asked to take into account information regarding the circumstances of the offence, including aggravating and mitigating factors. Judges may also take into account any information which is before the court about the offender. Apart from the fact that the judges may not always have obtained a pre-sentence report, I should not have thought that any members of the judiciary would proceed to sentence an offender without taking into account the factors which they are asked so specifically to consider in this Bill.
It seems logical, therefore, that the need to avoid bias on racial grounds should also be added to the checklist. That will demonstrate openly the need for fairness in the treatment of black offenders and send out a very important message to say that there is a commitment on the part of the judicial system to avoid discrimination however or from whatever source it may occur.
I have been told that the judicial oath covers that point. The oath is:
"To do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm".
Clearly it covers that situation. But I cannot envisage any situation in which an appeal would be brought on the basis that the judge has not acted in accordance with the oath. I cannot imagine any greater personal attack on a judge than that. Furthermore, if the judicial oath is to be solely relied upon as expressing correctness of approach not much of the recent legislation, let alone other elements of this Bill, would he necessary. I believe that the amendment fits in entirely with the judicial oath and does nothing to detract from it. On the contrary, it serves only to enhance it.
At Report stage of the Bill in another place, the Government amended what is now Clause 79 to require the Home Secretary to publish information annually for the purpose of,
"facilitating the avoidance by such persons of discrimination against any persons on the grounds of race or sex or any other improper ground".
The phrase "such persons" refers back to the phrase,
"persons engaged in the administration of criminal justice".
It establishes a need to keep under review procedures and practices which may have a discriminatory effect; and I greatly welcome that. However, the Government were unwilling to accept a case for including any further provision in the Bill.
I reiterate the reasons for supporting the amendment. First, by drawing attention to the issues in the check-list in Clause 3(1) the Government would be making a far-reaching statement about the importance which they attach to the principle of non-discrimination. Secondly, as it stands, the Bill lays down in statute a very detailed set of principles for sentencing covering the use of both custodial and community penalties. Those cover so many other
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sentencing principles that it would be strange if the principle of non-discrimination were left out. Thirdly, since discrimination can be an unconscious act, it would be advantageous to ensure that sentencers had to stop and think consciously and explicitly about the need to avoid discrimination in their decisions. Fourthly, such a statement in legislation would reinforce the efforts of many organisations and individuals within the criminal justice system to ensure that the system is fair and is seen to be fair. I beg to move.
9 p.m.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: I support the noble Baroness's amendment. Perhaps I may ask the Minister some questions on his amendments afterwards.
In supporting Amendment No. 10A I do so as a member of the NACRO race relations committee which for the past five years has been inquiring into racial matters in the criminal process. There is no need to establish that there is racism or racial discrimination in the sentencing process. The great point is, as we discovered, that the ethnic minorities perceive that there is discrimination. It has taken a tremendously long time to convince the different agencies—the judges, the magistrates, the lawyers, the probation officers and even the ushers and other persons working in the criminal justice system—that that is the perception. That factor has been received with surprise; and after a time those agencies have come to accept that it is true. During the past few years they have all taken important, surprisingly excellent, measures to set the matter right. Their co-operation has been extremely good.
There is therefore a need for this declaration. I support in every way what the noble Baroness said in introducing the amendment to enshrine the principle in the Bill. Many people working in the system are clearly still unaware of that perception, and of many disturbing facts, some of which the noble Baroness has referred to. Perhaps I may refer to others.
Twenty-four per cent. of the females in custody are from the ethnic minorities. More defendants from the ethnic minorities are acquitted than white defendants. According to statistics, they receive prison sentences earlier in their careers than white persons. They are stopped and searched more often. They are cautioned less often than white persons. There are fewer pre-trial reports and fewer recommendations on sentences. They are over-represented in the after-care and post-custody supervision. None of that may be due to racial discrimination. It is an extremely complex area. There may be many reasons. However, there are these disturbing facts. Because they exist it would be of the greatest possible assistance if there were a statutory declaration of the kind suggested.
Part I of the Bill emphasises the new framework which is based for the first time on a number of principles. Therefore if those principles are in the Bill, this is another principle which should be included. It would go a long way in giving confidence in the system which has had so many knocks recently. It would show clearly that it is a fair system. That is important

1035
in recruitment for the different agencies. That is an extremely important aspect of racial discrimination problems in the criminal process. Until there is real recruitment of the ethnic minorities on the Bench, in the magistracy, in the legal profession, it will always be incredibly difficult to get over the problem. Such a principle is of great importance. I strongly support the amendment of the noble Baroness.
I am in a state of some confusion with regard to the amendments in the name of the noble Earl. Amendment No. 72 inserts the new clause. It is perfectly clear. It states:
"(1) Subject to subsection (2) … an offence shall not be regarded as more serious for the purposes of this Part by reason of any previous convictions of the offender or any response of his to previous sentences".
And then (3):
"In so far as the circumstances of any offences of which an offender has been previously convicted are relevant for the purpose of forming an opinion as to the seriousness of the offence, nothing in subsection (2) above—
which I have just read out—
"shall prevent the court from taking those circumstances into account for that purpose".
Having said that, one goes back to Amendment No. 10 and finds:
"A court shall obtain and consider a pre-sentence report before forming any such opinion as is mentioned in subsection (2) of section 1 or 2 above".
Presumably that is referring to the same two criteria. It goes on:
"In forming any such opinion as is mentioned in that subsection, a court … shall take into account all such information about the circumstances of the offence … as is available to it"—
that is, as I read it, the criterion as to the seriousness. Then we come to (b):
"in the case of any such opinion as is mentioned in paragraph (b) of that subsection,"—
that is, the protection of the public—
"may take into account any information about the offender which is before it."
Do I read that correctly to mean that in the first criterion you may only look at the circumstances of the offence—that is to say, not the previous convictions of the offender—and that it is only when it comes to the protection of the public that you can look at the previous convictions of the offender? Amendment No. 72 does not seem to say that and I find it extremely confusing. I should be most grateful if the noble Earl could make it clear.
Baroness Carnegy of Lour: I should like to support my noble friend Lady Flather in her Amendment No. 10A, which is an amendment to the Government's Amendment No. 10. It is not usually helpful to put special pleading for particular groups of people on the face of the Bill but I would suggest that this Bill, and in particular this part of it, should be an exception. I note with interest that the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, with all his expertise in these matters, seems to agree with that because his name is on the amendment.
My noble friend Lady Flather made it clear tonight and also in her speech on Second Reading that there is no suggestion at all in her mind of anything deliberately discriminatory about the way the courts deal with ethnic minorities. But there is a feeling, and the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, has endorsed it,
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among those minorities that the way they are treated in the courts from time to time shows bias against them. There are other statistics that have been quoted and other research that seems to bear this out.
In considering Clause 3 of the Bill we are considering the moment when the court decides what a sentence is to be; whether it is to be a custodial sentence and, if it is, its duration. In deciding this, if Amendment No. 10 is accepted the court will have a pre-sentence report before it and will have to take into account the available information on the circumstances of the offence and, if a violent or sexual offence is being dealt with, also information about the offender.
At this crucial point my noble friend is suggesting that the court must be reminded, by putting this on to the face of the Bill, that it must also take into account the need to avoid racial discrimination affecting its decision. As the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, has said, no judge would allow deliberate racial discrimination to intrude and, as my noble friend has said, the judicial oath precludes it. But surely, equally no judge could seriously object to this addition to what my noble friend has referred to as the checklist of that which has to be taken into account when passing sentence.
Technically it may not be a necessary addition, but if members of our ethnic minorities need the reassurance that justice is being done, I believe that this amendment to this part of the Bill would help. I hope that the Government will think very carefully about this. I know that so far they have not thought it necessary to take it on board, but I hope that if they do not accept the amendment they may put something else in this part of the Bill to replace it.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I should like to follow both the tone and temper of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Carnegy of Lour. This is clearly not a matter of party politics. I think we all feel that something of this kind ought to go into the Bill and I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, has put her finger on it by making it a cardinal principle of sentencing and thus has reached the very heart of the Bill, which is the treatment of offenders. I am also attracted to the later amendment, but that is of a rather more general nature and at the moment I cannot see why both should not go into the Bill. I feel sure that the Bill should be informed with the principle of non discrimination, and both Amendment No. 100 and Amendment No. 10A seek to do that very thing.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, who moved the amendment, I have no wish to impugn the judiciary, or indeed any of the constituent parts of the administration of justice, but I think we can all agree that racial discrimination can be unconscious. It is for that reason that the various government agencies, including the Lord Chancellor's department, the Home Office, the courts and the legal professions themselves, have all been making strenuous efforts over the last few years to combat racial discrimination within the constituent parts of the criminal justice process. They have done it by various means; by recruiting more people from the ethnic minorities, and so on. They have been successful, but not as successful as they would have wished. I am sure that all those

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who have been engaged in this process will testify to the fact that sometimes they feel themselves facing indifference and hostility—and there is no question about that.
9.15 p.m.
My particular interest in this matter arises because I am chairman of an organisation called Action on Youth Crime. It was formed to try to keep young people, especially the older age group of 16 to 18, out of the criminal justice system. It is formed really from two statutory bodies: the probation service—represented by senior probation officers—and the social services, where we have representatives of the Association of Directors of Social Services, and the principal voluntary bodies concerned with the young and the criminal justice process.
Two years ago we had to face up to the fact that there was so much prima facie evidence of racial discrimination within the criminal justice system that we had to collect together what facts we could from the research that was available. We did that and published a fact sheet in 1989, just about two years ago. We found that what fuelled the feelings of the ethnic minorities was substantiated in the statistics of the various studies that we collected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, has gone into those statistics in some detail and so I do not wish to repeat what she has said. All I wish to say is that two years ago we found what we considered to be irrefutable evidence that, whatever the intentions of the no doubt extremely fair and well-minded people who run the criminal justice system, the net result was that there appeared to be discrimination. That amply seemed to justify our bringing these facts before the public, because if there was discrimination it gave full justification to the legitimate fears of the ethnic minorities that they were not being fairly dealt with.
The figures are popularly supposed to show that young black people—and I am talking only about young black people—are more prone to commit crime than white people. That clearly is not so. Instead, the evidence shows that young people from the black ethnic minorities and from the ethnic minorities who offend are more likely to be imprisoned. The conclusion of our close examination of the statistics was that they are more likely to be imprisoned. They are not treated, no doubt unconsciously, on a parity with white people.
I shall briefly illustrate the position. We found from a survey of youth custody trainees from south-east London, for instance, that Afro-Caribbean trainees in youth custody training programmes had fewer previous convictions, and were less likely than their white peers to have had a probation or supervision order. That is a telling finding.
Again more recently than that, in 1989, the West Yorkshire Probation Service found that probation officers' recommendations to the courts for probation and community service orders were far less likely to be accepted for Afro-Caribbean and Asian offenders than for white offenders. I choose only two of the many telling statistics which have been brought together in the factsheet produced two years ago. I
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shall not elaborate on those because the facts speak for themselves and they speak also for the need for this amendment and Amendment No. 100.
The high custodial sentencing rate for young offenders from ethnic minorities must disturb us all, especially as we all believe in racial justice. Variations in sentencing do not automatically prove that discrimination takes place. By and large, that can be explained by variations in the seriousness of offences. I do not deny that. However, the whole weight of evidence goes the other way; that despite all the mitigating explanations which can be thought of, nevertheless there is ingrained in the system somewhere—perhaps throughout, I do not know—discrimination which is so clearly demonstrated by those statistics.
In addition, there is clear evidence that young black people are more frequently stopped by the police than young white people. Young black offenders are imprisoned with fewer previous convictions than young white people and the courts accept recommendations for non-custodial penalties less often for young black offenders than for young white offenders.
I submit that if all those considerations are taken together, something is badly wrong with the operation of our legal system. An amendment such as that moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, is necessary to ensure that the criminal justice process deals equitably with young offenders from all ethnic backgrounds and gives confidence to those people whose mothers and fathers, cousins and kin have doubts. Those doubts about the fairness of our criminal justice system simply must be dispelled so that they will have confidence in it as well as the white community.
Lord Elton: The noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has made a very powerful case which will be found more powerful on reading. I commend to the Minister the statistics quoted.
I was a reluctant convert to the view that there appears to be an element of discrimination against ethnic minority offenders in our criminal processes. In his reply, I ask my noble friend to consider what are the social effects of that. The fabric of our society is only sustainable if the mass of society consents to the criteria on which justice is administered. If a particular discrete, identifiable and self-identifiable sector of that society believes that there is a system of justice which is just for other people but not just for them, whether or not that belief is well founded, the effects upon our society as a whole will be very damaging because those people will see the judicial system not as a means of maintaining law and order but as a means of keeping "them" down and "us" up. That is a recipe for internecine warfare and is very dangerous.
Therefore, it is necessary and timely that a new gesture be made by the Government that they subscribe to the impartiality of justice as we know in our hearts that they do. What that gesture should be is another question. I have doubts about the amendment so ably and eloquently moved by my noble friend Lady Flather.
I see an apparent discrimination at many points in the criminal justice system, and not simply in the

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sentencing process. For instance, one of the statistics which I did not hear, and may have missed in the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, was in regard to the disproportionate number of black offenders who are remanded into custody when they are charged with the same offence and have the same background as white offenders. In other words, there needs to he a gesture to commit us to equality of justice for all members of our community which goes wider than just sentencing.
I looked at Amendment No. 100. It lays upon the Secretary of State a slightly indeterminate duty which would be impossible for him to discharge. I do not see a remedy there. I merely want to endorse the view that a belief that racial discrimination exists within the criminal justice system is not an eccentric view; it is not a Left-wing view; it is not a prejudiced view. It is a view which flows naturally from looking at the statistics by people who were initially disposed to discount them.
I ask my noble friend to consider between this stage and the next whether he can devise something more effective than that which is now before us.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: Before the noble Lord sits down, would he not agree that half a loaf is better than no bread?
Lord Elton: I find it dangerous to agree with any general principle uttered by the noble Lord without great thought. I put against it the expressio unius est exclusio alterius principle mentioned earlier. If we were speaking of comestibles, I would agree with the noble Lord; we are talking of justice.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: The noble Lord is very wise. I spoke on this question at Second Reading, as did many other noble Lords. There is a great deal about which there is general agreement. It is not a party matter and there need be no controversy whatever. As the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, said, there is no dispute about the importance of the principle that decisions in the criminal justice system must be made without discrimination. The central point before us is what the advantages would be of enshrining that principle in legislation and at this point in the Bill.
A case can be made for enshrining the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness. I looked at the whole of our debate on Second Reading and I read it all over again. One passage struck me as central to the entire matter. It arose in the speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and perhaps I may remind the Committee of it. She said,
"At present there is a strong suspicion among minority groups that they are unfairly treated by the courts. That feeling has built up over a long period. We cannot write it off simply as a figment of imagination. There is a substantial body of research which not only supports that view but shows that matters are becoming worse.
"I do not speak of the level or types of crime but of a comparison of the treatment between white and black offenders on a like-with-like basis. Studies show that black people are more likely to receive custodial sentences as opposed to community service or probation. They are likely to receive custodial sentences at an earlier stage of offending
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than their white counterparts. They are also much less likely to receive bail than their white counterparts".—[Official Report, 12/3/91: col. 144.]
The issue could hardly be put more clearly or more sensitively than that. But the Bill as it has progressed is not equally clear. On that same Second Reading I asked three questions regarding Clause 79(1). I asked,
"who monitors, and how, those key decisions in the criminal justice system so that the Secretary of State is enabled to publish relevant information?
Secondly, will it, or will it not, be a duty for the criminal justice agencies to take remedial action if the published information suggests that discrimination has taken place'? Thirdly, if discrimination on racial grounds were alleged, what recourse would be open to the individual?" [Official Report, 12/3/91; col. 131.]
As the Bill has gone on we have been unable to resolve those questions. I have not yet received any satisfactory answer to them. That is why I support this amendment which makes one clear, powerful statement. Clause 79(1) (b) is welcome so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. The Government were unwilling to accept the case for including in the Bill any further provision on the issue. At Report stage Mr. John Patten, the Minister of State at the Home Office, said:
"I have no doubt that any unfair discrimination by those working in the criminal justice system would be unlawful ... The legal position is clear and for that reason we see no merit in a provision that puts a duty on sentencers and others not to discriminate. That would add nothing to the present legal position". [Offical Report, Commons, 20/2/91; col. 337.]
Surely, there is a concealed non sequitur here. The legal position may be perfectly clear but it may also be forgotten, scanted, overlooked or under-emphasised. That is what lies at the heart of the proposed amendment. The amendment would act as a discipline, an aide-mémoire, as a drill in priorities and as part of the checklist of the sentencer. The other great virtue of the amendment is that it is a declaration. If it appears at this point in the Bill it will reassure people, particularly black people. They will be able to point to it. It will increase their trust which has been too battered recently by the criminal justice system of this country.
It has been said, and I think it true, that discrimination can so often be unconscious. As the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, said, it would be a great advantage if we could ensure in the Bill that sentencers had to stop and think consciously and explicitly about the need to avoid discrimination in their decisions. Discrimination can be unconscious. All of us live by a shorthand of assumptions. We think that Welshmen sing all the time and love rugby football. I know hundreds and thousands who cannot sing a note and who loathe the wretched game. We know the stereotype that women are muscularly less powerful than men. We know of occasions when that is not true. We work on the stereotype that children need protection all the time because they are innocent. Those of us who are parents as well as those of us who are lawyers know that that need not always be the case.
Stereotypes and unconscious prejudices infect every one of us. For that reason it would be good to declare in the Bill our determination to uphold the principle that decisions in the criminal justice system must be made without discrimination and to give to sentencers

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the personal discipline of including that in their checklist of things to be taken into account before sentence is decided and obliging them to examine their consciences every time on that question. I support the amendment.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Beloff: Perhaps I may venture briefly to utter a dissenting voice. I do not disagree for a moment with any of the statistics or other observations that have been made about the way in which the criminal justice system may work to the detriment of members of the ethnic minorities. Nor would I disagree with the view that this is a blot on our system of criminal justice. One has to ask oneself whether the suggested remedy is not a danger in that it attempts, as the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, described so eloquently, to delve into people's conscious or unconscious motivations. If we accept this or a similar amendment, we are saying that those who pass sentence—our judges and magistrates—have innate prejudices against which it is necessary to warn them.
I should have thought that this is a dangerous incursion into the area of private conscience. The law can deal with objective matters. The law can say that such and such a person is entitled to such and such treatment. That, after all, has been the basis of our race relations legislation. But to say that a judge must consider before he passes sentence whether he is being motivated by considerations of prejudice—if racial, why not religious considerations or considerations of gender—is a different matter. The example of the United States in this respect is quite important. There are all kinds of possibilities for lack of fairness. To introduce into our statute law—into a measure as important as a Criminal Justice Bill—the suggestion that those who administer justice must be presumed to have prejudice may, far from giving confidence to members of the ethnic minorities—I agree that the perceptions are as important as the facts—accentuate their suspicions. They will say that the Upper House, or in the end Parliament as a whole, agrees that there is prejudice in the judiciary. We ought to think long and very clearly before we attack a grave and important problem in this way.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: Blacks, and particularly black youths, are stopped and searched more often than white youths. That is confirmed by the statistics. When they are brought before the court they are more likely to be remanded in custody than given bail. What is more, the statistics show that those same people who are remanded in custody are often acquitted when they are tried. If convicted they are often not given custodial sentences.
With this Bill we are trying to reduce the number of people who are given custodial sentences who should not be given them. In Amendment No. 10 we state that the judge should take into account certain matters before deciding whether to give a custodial sentence. Bearing in mind the statistics, is it not sensible to say to the judge that he should take account of the reports, he should take account of the circumstances of the
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offence and the state of the offender and that he should also bear in mind the need to avoid racial discrimination. That seems to me to be eminently sensible.
The issue would probably not arise if we did not have such statistics. However, we do have them. Therefore, although it may not necessarily be racial discrimination, there is a possibility that it could be. In the circumstances, it is sensible merely to say to the judge, "When you are about to decide whether to impose a custodial sentence you should consider the need to avoid racial discrimination". That is really what the amendment is saying and all that it requires. I do not understand why we have had all this hullabaloo.
From everything that I have heard, I gather that everyone would like the judicial system to function without there being any discrimination on the grounds of race. If that is what is really wanted, then to suggest to the judge that he should consider that matter when he is thinking about other aspects is eminently sensible. I cannot see any reason why the amendment should not be accepted. I hope that the Minister will say that the Government are happy to accept it. One assumes that they would like to try to remedy what appears to be a defect in the judicial system.
9.45 p.m.
Lord Renton: The noble Lord, Lord Pitt, began his remarks by pointing out—and I do not dispute what he said—that black people are arrested, stopped and searched more often than white people. However, I am afraid that the amendment before us does not cover that issue. I have a great deal of sympathy with the motives of my noble friend Lady Flather in moving Amendment No. 10A. Surely we all agree that it is important not only that justice should be done but that it should also manifestly be seen to be done to all people and on all occasions.
Evidence has been put before the Committee about the results of the present sentencing policies of the courts, especially as regards magistrates' courts. If he is able to do so, I hope that my noble friend Lord Ferrers will be able to reassure my noble friend Lady Flather, and the rest of the Committee, on the facts which she and others have put forward.
However, having expressed my sympathy with my noble friend's motive, I must say that I doubt whether her amendment serves her purpose. If there is a need for such an amendment, surely it should apply right across the board. For that reason I prefer Amendment No. 100 which is also tabled in her name and which I believe goes much further. I do not believe that it quite covers all the issues involved, but it could be said to cover the points which the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, started to raise.
As I said, I doubt whether Amendment No. 10A really serves my noble friend's purpose. I also doubt whether there is a need for it and whether it is technically well based. Amendment No. 10, deals with the matters which the court should consider before sentencing people to custodial sentences. I should point out at this stage that I support this amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Ferrers.

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Under the Bill as it stands, and under Amendment No. 10, the matters in question relate to the "circumstances of the offence"—that must always be so—the past record of the offender-that must be so—and other relevant information about him. We see that in new subsection (2) (b) which states that the court,
"may take into account any information about the offender which is before it".
The fact that the offender is a black person, or, as my noble friend Lord Beloff reminded us, a person whose religion may differ from that of those who are sentencing him; or, if I dare say it, an Irish person or a Welsh person—
Noble Lords: No!
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I thank the noble Lord for giving way. As far as we are aware, there is no evidence of any discrimination against Irish people or Welsh people. What we have is evidence that there is discrimination, or so it appears, adduced by the noble Baroness and myself, against black people. So there is no need to have an amendment to prevent discrimination against atheists or Welshmen.
Lord Renton: The assumption that the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton, has asked us to accept may be the right one, but is one not entitled to look at the matter from a broader point of view? That is what I and my noble friend Lord Beloff have been inviting the Committee to do.
The phrase "any information about the offender" could include anything which had to do with avoiding discrimination against him or her on racial grounds. To that extent, my noble friend's amendment would not be necessary. However, when deciding whether to impose a custodial sentence, which is only one part of the work of the courts, for the avoidance of racial discrimination. That might give the unfortunate impression that we do not attach as much importance to the need for the court to avoid racial discrimination on other occasions.
I have great sympathy with what my noble friend Lady Flather has put forward, which has been well supported. I am anxious to hear what facts my noble friend the Minister can give, but as a means of achieving its object, I doubt whether my noble friend's amendment is the best way to do so.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: In view of the evidence that black people are more likely to receive custodial sentences than non-custodial sentences, does the noble Lord believe that it might help if the judge has to take into account that he should try to avoid racial discrimination? I put the point no stronger than that.
Lord Renton: I should not repeat the views that I have already put before the Committee, but if the noble Lord cares to study Hansard tomorrow, I hope that he will find that I have given good reasons for saying that if it is necessary to have a provision written into the Bill to avoid racial discrimination, it should go beyond imposing custodial sentences.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: I ask this specific question: does the noble Lord accept that the evidence suggests that blacks are more likely to receive custodial sentences than non-custodial sentences? This section of the Bill deals with what ought to be taken into account before custodial sentences are imposed. To put it at its lowest, therefore, does he not think that the amendment might help?
Lord Renton: I think I ought not to try further to convince the noble Lord by repeating myself.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: I wish briefly to add my support to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Flather. I listened with care to what Members of the Committee said, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. It seemed to me that he was talking about people's perceptions of the law but was not taking sufficient account of what has been said on all sides of the Committee about the statistics. I believe that analysis and anecdote come together here. The analysis is quite clear on where the statistics take us. That is borne out by what happens when we meet black people, particularly black youngsters.
I listened with great attention to what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, said. I underline the points he made on the social fabric and the way in which the perception of black people as being part of the social fabric is undermined. In addition, their individual self-understanding is undermined. I have known people working in bail hostels for black youngsters, trying to bring home to them the gravity of the offences they have committed. It is extremely difficult to do that against the background of feeling that the system is weighted against them. The bitterness in them makes it extremely difficult to help them face what they may have done.
I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Renton, said about it only concerning sentencing, but taken in conjunction with Amendment No. 100 this amendment provides a broader way of looking at the problem. I should be happy if somebody could suggest a better way of incorporating the proposal in the Bill, but if there is none then it is important that this amendment should be accepted.
Earl Ferrers: My noble friend Lady Flather has shown only too clearly how important it was for her to put down her amendment. She has touched on a very important point and I am glad that she has brought it to the Committee this evening.
In all walks of life we have constantly to be on our guard against racial discrimination. We must perpetually work and aim to avoid it. We do not necessarily achieve that by passing laws, it is something for which we have to strive in all that we do. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, that this is no party matter; it affects us all and we are united in wishing to ensure that there is no racial discrimination.
My noble friend is anxious to ensure that there is no unfair discrimination on the grounds of race in determining whether or not to impose custodial sentences. Fair treatment for all those who come before the courts is an issue of vital importance. It

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goes without saying that there can be no room for racial discrimination or any other unfair discrimination in any part of the judicial system. The Government are determined that there should be none and those who work in the judicial system are of the same opinion. There is, therefore, no disagreement with the principle that the amendment is intended to promote.
However, I am bound to say that I have some anxiety about the nature of my noble friend's amendment. My noble friend Lord Elton was quite right that society only works if there is an acceptance of justice throughout it. It is not right that, as he put it, there should be a "them" and "us" attitude. It is appalling that there should be such an attitude, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Renton who said that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, referred to the comments of my right honourable friend Mr. Patten when he said that there was no point in including in the Bill the need not to discriminate as that is the whole ethos behind the entire court system.
The amendment would require the courts to take account of,
"the need to avoid discrimination on racial grounds",
when deciding whether or not to impose a custodial sentence. That is an understandable and worthy concern but it would simply restate what is already a matter of law; that is, that sentencers must treat people fairly in passing sentence. I agreed with my noble friend Lord Beloff when he questioned whether we were right to make sentencers delve into their minds and ask themselves whether there was any racial prejudice in their minds before they imposed sentences. There should be no racial prejudice in their minds; nor should there be any religious prejudice. All judges and magistrates have to take the judicial oath, as my noble friend Lady Flather said. That oath places a clear duty on them to act rightly in all cases without fear or favour, affection or ill will. The principle applies to all sentencing decisions and not just to decisions on custodial sentences.
My noble friend Lady Flather provided various statistics. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, who said that 24 per cent. of females in custody came from ethnic minorities. I believe the noble Lord also said that people from ethnic minorities were stopped and searched more often and were released less frequently than people from other groups. The matter of statistics concerned the noble Lords, Lord Hutchinson, Lord Henderson and Lord Pitt, my noble friend Lord Elton and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon. The general thrust of their remarks was that statistics show discrimination. I do not believe the statistics show that. They may show who has been convicted and who has been kept in custody. But that does not necessarily mean they show that discrimination has occurred. We must be a lot more sophisticated in the interpretation of statistics before reaching such conclusions. The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, was right to say that it is a complicated matter.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: I, for one, did not assert that the statistics show there is discrimination. What I did say was that they raise a suspicion that discrimination may exist. I do not think one needs to go further than that. Certainly, if the statistics are before one, one must ask oneself what they mean and why they are as they are. The possibility that there may be discrimination must arise in one's mind.
Earl Ferrers: I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Pitt, if I misinterpreted his remarks. I can understand that the noble Lord thinks the statistics may raise certain queries in his mind and in the minds of others. However, I can only repeat what I said. One must adopt a much more sophisticated approach to statistics before reaching the conclusion that they reveal discrimination.
I agreed with my noble friend Lord Renton when he said that, technically, the amendment was not well based. It is not clear, for example, what would be required of sentencers for them to meet the procedural requirement that the amendment imposes on them. The other procedural requirements in Clause 3 of the Bill all involve the courts in considering particular kinds of information, such as a pre-sentence report, information about aggravating or mitigating circumstances, or information about the offender, for example, his attitude to the offence. However, the requirement to avoid discrimination would not be linked in a similar way to any clear and practical steps. I suggest that it would not sit easily in that position.
There is already provision in Clause 79 of the Bill on the need to avoid discrimination in the criminal justice system. The provision was included in another place because of the anxieties that were expressed about racial discrimination and the need to avoid it. The provision was specifically included for that purpose. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to publish annual information about the position of ethnic minorities and women in the criminal justice process. That is the most helpful and constructive way of reinforcing the principle of fairness which is already reflected in the law and of supporting all those working in the criminal justice agencies in meeting that need for fairness. If a duty is imposed upon the Secretary of State to publish that annual information the process of gleaning that information will ensure that those who administer the law in all parts of the criminal justice system will do all that they can to avoid any form of racial discrimination.
The noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, asked me a specific question with regard to previous offences. The situation is not quite as the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson, understood it. When the court is considering the seriousness of an offence under subsection (2) (a) of Amendment No. 10, it will be able to take account of previous offences only as permitted in subsection (2) of Amendment No. 72. When the court is considering the circumstances of the offender under subsection (2) (b) of Amendment No. 10 for the purpose of sentencing on grounds of protecting the public, it is not restricted by the provisions of Amendment No. 72 as to the regard which can be had to the past record. If the past record indicates that the

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offender is a persistent offender whose activities put the public at risk it should be possible to pass a sentence which protects the public.
My noble friend Lady Flather has raised a very important point upon which there is no difference of approach on any side of the Chamber. However, my advice to the Committee is that it would be wrong to incorporate that type of amendment in the Bill at this point as it would not sit conveniently or properly in the Bill. I assure my noble friend that the requirements on the criminal justice system to avoid racial discrimination are considerable and have been enhanced by the amendment which was put down in and accepted by another place. I hope therefore that my noble friend will not wish to see her amendment, important though it is, incorporated in the Bill because I do not believe that that would be the right thing to do.
10 p.m.
Lord Hutchinson of Lullington: Before the noble Earl sits down, perhaps I may ask him one question. He mentioned Clause 79(1) (b). Does that envisage the monitoring of sentences in the courts for the purpose of determining whether there appears to be some form of discrimination? If it does, that information would be of assistance in relation to this question.
Earl Ferrers: I shall have to take advice upon that matter because I would not like to mislead the noble Lord, Lord Hutchinson. Perhaps I may write to him on the matter.
Baroness Flather: I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in the debate and for the support that I have received. I am pleased to note that there are noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber who are anxious about the issue. It is very good to have had a debate on the subject.
There are a few points which I should like to take up; and it would be wrong of me if I did not do so. One of the major matters raised by my noble friends Lord Elton and Lord Renton and, indeed, by my noble friend Lord Ferrers was whether this was the right kind of amendment in the right place. I shall not stick by a form of words in a particular place. It is the sentiment which I wish to see incorporated in this very important Bill. I shall not stand by eight or 10 words and say that they have to go in this place or that place.
If my noble friend Lord Ferrers had given me some hope that he would look at the matter again I should
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have felt a great deal better. He has not. Therefore I am deeply concerned and I may have to bring something back at the next stage of the Bill. I should greatly appreciate any help from noble Lords or perhaps noble and learned Lords who are better able than I to do the drafting. I shall await their help.
At this stage I shall not let go of the point made by my noble friend Lord Beloff. He said that private conscience is not in the public domain, or something of that nature. Personally I believe that if private conscience leads to groups of people being treated adversely, it does become part of the public domain and surely a warning would not be out of place.
The noble Lord also mentioned gender and religious grounds. I include both those matters with racial discrimination. Any form of discrimination, whether it is on grounds of gender or religion cannot be acceptable. If there are people in high positions who can affect adversely the lives of groups of people because their private consciences are out of the public domain, then something is seriously wrong. That should be considered carefully.
I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Ferrers felt that he should support that sentiment. If that is so, I do not know why in the Bill there are so many strictures on the judiciary as to what they should and should not do. I urge my noble friend to think again and consider bringing some provision into this Bill. It is not about whether criminal justice is in fact above all this argument, whether it is discriminating or not discriminating; it is a question of confidence. The confidence is not there. There are statistics which prove that that lack of confidence is justified and there is deep anxiety over this matter. I should have thought that the draftsmen whom the Government have at their disposal could find a suitable place to slot in something.
I am not very keen on our next amendment, Amendment No. 100, for the same reasons that were given by my noble friend Lord Elton. Although I am a very poor lawyer, I believe that the judiciary should not be under the thumb of the Executive. That would be a bad move forward in all respects. But that is the next point, which is there as a declaratory amendment. I hope that we do not have to move it at some other stage. I should be very grateful to my noble friend if he would think again on this matter. I do not wish to divide the Committee. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage.
Amendment No. 10A, as an amendment to Amendment No. 10, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Amendment No. 10 agreed to.
10.10 p.m.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe): Amendment No. 10 having been agreed to, Amendments Nos. 11 to 16 are pre-empted. We move to Amendment No. 17.
Earl Ferrers Earl Ferrers moved Amendment No. 17:
Page 3, line 33, at end insert:
("(3A) Without prejudice to the generality of subsections (1) and (2) above, before passing a custodial sentence in a case to which section 1 or 2 above applies on an offender who is or appears to be mentally disordered, a court shall consider

(a) any information before it which relates to his mental condition (whether given in a pre-sentence report, a medical report or otherwise); and

(b) the likely effect of such a sentence on that condition and on any treatment which may be available for it.").

The noble Earl said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 23, 24, 25 and 26 and to Amendments Nos. 71, 74 and 96.
Lord Richard: Perhaps the noble Earl will allow me to intervene. As I understood the grouping—I can be wrong about these matters—the four amendments grouped were Amendments Nos. 17, 23, 24 and 74. That was one grouping. A subsequent grouping was Amendments Nos. 25, 26 and 46. Is that right?
Earl Ferrers: I am most grateful to the noble Lord for coming to my rescue. He is quite right. I looked at some figures which had been photocopied and were not clear. I am deeply grateful to him for his rescue. I hope that he will continue in that spirit in relation to all other matters.
The problem of mentally disordered offenders is an exceedingly important and difficult one. The fact that the amendments which we are now considering come from all sides of the Chamber shows that this is not a party political matter, but one where we are all searching to find the right way forward. We all agree that people who ought to be receiving health or social services treatment should not find themselves in prison.
These are real problems, and they must be tackled properly. Legislation has a part to play, but to a large ,extent the problems are practical ones. If the practical measures to overcome the problems do not keep pace with the legislative changes, we shall end up making matters worse, not better.
For example, one way of keeping mentally disordered offenders out of prison is to ensure that the court has psychiatric reports which will identify those offenders who ought to be in hospital instead. But as things stand at the moment, a remand in custody will often be needed to enable the psychiatric report to be prepared. The offender therefore ends up in prison anyway. That is not what we want.
That is where practical measures come in. There are a number of imaginative schemes in operation around the country where duty psychiatrists are on hand to attend the court, interview the defendant, and present an immediate psychiatric report—thus avoiding a remand in custody. But at present this falls well short of a comprehensive national scheme. We hope that it
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will be possible to develop such a scheme, but the number of psychiatrists qualified in such work is at present limited.
It is against that background that the Government's approach—reflected in the amendments standing in my name—is to give legislative encouragement to the practical steps which are in hand to improve matters for mentally-disordered offenders. The amendments standing in the names of my noble friends Lady Faithfull, Lord Mottistone, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, adopt a rather more prescriptive approach. I understand why they would like to push things along more firmly through legislation. However, I hope to persuade them that this is not necessarily the best course and that there are dangers in doing so.
Under the present legislation, an order for the detention of an offender in hospital can be made only when the doctor or the hospital has agreed to accept the patient and is able to admit him or her within 28 days. The introduction of a power to direct a hospital to take a mentally disordered offender, irrespective of whether a bed was available or the hospital was the most suitable, would result in several undesirable consequences. These include the fact that offenders might be placed in inappropriate hospitals. For example the levels of security might not be adequate. There could be a disregard for the clinical judgment of the doctors concerned. They would be forced to take patients whom they may consider not treatable or unsuitable for their unit. The therapeutic relationship between patient and doctor, which is vital for the effectiveness of treatment, could be undermined. Hospital resources could be pre-empted for those who have committed offences, possibly at the expense of the services which could be provided for other mentally disordered patients who have not committed offences.
I believe that the power would prove unworkable. A court would not know all about the facilities and services available for the care of mentally disordered offenders. It would have to rely upon the doctor providing the medical opinion and upon the responsible authorities. We do not think that the court should be able to ignore that opinion and make its own decision about which hospitals he should be sent to and what kind of treatment he should receive.
We should remember the wise words of the Butler Committee that,
"psychiatric hospitals would find it impossible to do their work if they were forced to accommodate all such cases as the courts thought right to send them, regardless of their ability to provide suitable treatment".
That being so, our priority is to get the practical arrangements right, rather than to rely on legislative prescription. Our policy remains that mentally disordered offenders should be treated and cared for by the health and social services system rather than in the penal system. We are actively encouraging the various agencies concerned (through, in particular, the Home Office Circular 66 of 1990) to collaborate effectively and to develop systems and services which enable more people to be diverted in this way. I fear

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that giving the courts powers which they could use in disregard of clinical judgments will serve only to undermine that necessary co-operation.
As your Lordships may know, my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Health have established a major review of health and social services for mentally disordered offenders which is assessing the range, pattern and operation of these provisions. This is due to be completed by the middle of next year. I do not think that we should prejudge or try to pre-empt the outcome of the review. It will pull together developments such as the Woolf Report, the scrutiny of the Prison Medical Service, and the reports by Judge Tumim on prison suicides and on Brixton. Bold decisions may well he needed, but these must also be carefully considered.
This work will also build on what has been achieved in recent years: we now have some 650 permanent or interim regional secure unit places in England that simply did not exist in 1979. Health authorities have plans to provide some 100 further places. In September of last year, there were 76 consultant forensic psychiatrists. Twenty years ago there were just two.
I am afraid I must also draw to your Lordships' attention some further problems with the amendments which have been proposed. I will refer to these briefly.
Subsection (1) of the new clause in Amendment No. 23 proposed by my noble friend Lady Faithfull, the noble Baroness, Lady Seear, and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, would forbid any custodial sentence or remand in custody if the offender is found to be mentally disordered. The amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Mottistone would also make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pass a custodial sentence on such an offender. I am afraid that this is too rigid. We cannot exclude the possibility that in some cases a custodial sentence or remand in custody may be the only way to protect the public. The important thing is to ensure that the courts give proper weight to the offender's mental state before deciding what to do, as they would be required to do under the Government's amendment.
I hope that this explanation will serve to show why the Government would have difficulty in accepting some of the amendments which have been tabled from both sides of the Committee. It is clear that we are all united in looking for the best possible way forward. I believe that the government amendments offer that way forward. They make it clear that the courts should consider the information which is available about the offender's mental condition, and that they should not pass a custodial sentence if that would adversely affect an offender's mental condition and his treatment. Subsection (3) of the new Clause 23, which we discussed earlier, also makes it clear that the courts are not required to pass a custodial sentence on a mentally disordered offender, even if the offence which he has committed would normally attract such a sentence. I assure your Lordships that the Government will continue to pursue all the practical measures open to them to keep mentally disordered offenders out of the prison system. I beg to move.
10.15 p.m.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: Many of us, for various reasons, on this side of the Committee find it difficult to approve of Amendment No. 17. We welcome the concern and the thrust of the amendment but we feel that the thrust lacks a certain necessary vigour and that the amendment does not penetrate deeply enough. Many of us on this side of the Committee would prefer Amendment No. 23.
However, the effect of what is before us in subsection (3A) (b) is in itself interesting. It seems to many of us to be impossible for a court, if it has no psychiatric assessment available to it, to regard itself as capable of considering the likely effect of a custodial sentence upon a defendant's mental condition and upon any treatment available for it. The court is not qualified to do so. Consideration of the impact of penal custody on mental disorder would appear to be a technical, medical and professional question, on which a court would need a professional psychiatric opinion. If this is indeed the intention of the Government's amendment, it would seem to require the commitment of considerable additional resources to encourage early psychiatric assessments in order to avoid the scandal of prolonged medical remands in custody.
The amendment may make it necessary for the Government to approve immediate spending on duty psychiatric rota schemes for all courts which need them. If such schemes are not introduced, courts will either make their own crude and inexpert judgments on the impact of custody or defendants will be unnecessarily and unfairly remanded to prison custody for an opinion to be sought.
However, I take heart from reading on the tapes at about 5 o'clock this afternoon that in another place the Private Member's Bill sponsored by the honourable Member for Ryedale, which gives new legal safeguards to defendants suffering from mental handicap, completed its Committee stage and has been promised the full support of the Government. I find that fact fortifying and refreshing.
Nevertheless, the new subsection (3A) still contains the words "before passing a custodial sentence", and so does not address the essential problem that courts send such offenders to prison because the National Health Service will not take them and not because the court has failed to consider the ill effects of imprisonment on someone who is mentally disordered. Therefore, the Government's amendment is no substitute for the wider clause on mentally disordered offenders contained in Amendment No. 23.
At the heart of that amendment, and fatally lacking in Amendment No. 17, is the determination which would prohibit courts from sentencing or remanding mentally disordered people to custody and which would require the National Health Service to accommodate any mentally disordered offender on whom a court makes a hospital order. There are strong indications that the number of mentally disturbed people in the prison population has increased in recent years. During the year 1989–90

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16,898 prisoners were referred to psychiatrists, 38 per cent. more than in 1987–88, during a period when the prison population as a whole decreased slightly.
Professor John Gunn of the Institute of Psychiatry recently carried out a survey for the Home Office of a 5 per cent. sample of sentenced offenders serving six months or more. The report of the survey will be published later this year, I gather, but some of the findings were summarised in a paper which Professor Gunn delivered to the Mental Health Foundation in September 1990. The sample comprised 1,365 adult males, 404 male youths and 273 females. Around one-fifth of the sample were found to have some degree of mental disturbance. Thirty seven—that is 1.8 per cent. of the total sample—were suffering from psychoses; 144, or 7 per cent., from neuroses; 221, or 10.8 per cent., from personality disorders; and 22, that is 1 per cent., from organic disorders. Sixty-three of these cases were assessed as needing treatment in special hospitals or the National Health Service.
If those proportions were true for the total prison population, which is currently some 45,000, this would mean that over 9,000 prisoners could be mentally disturbed, including over 1,300 in need of hospital care. May I ask those Members of the Committee who have experience of visiting prisons to agree with me that that would not be out of kilter with what we see as we go around?
Prison is the worst possible place for someone with a mental disorder. Even when psychiatric services are provided in prison, the benefits are offset by poor physical conditions and very restricted regimes. The gloomy, insanitary conditions inside large Victorian prisons, together with impoverished regimes which often mean that mentally disturbed prisoners are locked in their cells for much of the day, are likely to exacerbate the mental health problems of prisoners prone to depression and those who have a disorder with a depressive element. It is not surprising that Judge Tumim is anxious about the suicide rate because such conditions can increase the risk of suicide or self-mutilation among those prisoners. A research study by Dr. Enda Dooley published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1990 examined the record of prison suicides in England and Wales between 1972 and 1987. He found that mental disorder was among the reasons for suicide in 22 per cent. of cases; over one-third of prisoners committing suicide had a previous history of psychiatric contact; over one-quarter had previous in-patient admissions; and 23 per cent. had received some form of psychotropic medication in the month before suicide.
Those figures speak for themselves. They are the cause for Judge Tumim's anxiety. By prohibiting the use of prison for mentally disordered people, Amendment No. 23 would provide a powerful incentive to speed up developments and to the National Health Service to get its house in order on this matter. It need not become law immediately. The Government could announce that they will bring it into force in perhaps five years' time to allow for the necessary alternative arrangements to be made. However, ultimately it is no more justifiable for the
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NHS to refuse to treat a patient suffering from a mental disorder than to treat an accident victim or someone with a serious physical illness. Amendment No. 23 enshrines that basic principle in a binding statutory form.
Perhaps I may conclude with a case which has been brought to my attention, among a number of others, by the National Association for Mental Health. This shook me. In November 1988 David Byrne was arrested in the car park of a drugs company, naked except for his socks. He had been reported to be damaging cars with a hub cap which he had removed from one of them. Instead of arranging an assessment of his need for treatment in a psychiatric hospital, the police charged him, put him before a court and he was remanded in custody. Initially, he spent time in police cells where he became highly disturbed, shouting continually and unintelligibly and totally immune to any communication. Eventually, he reached Brixton Prison and on arrival the doctor examining him described him as hyperactive, covered in faeces, naked except for a sheet and making gestures appearing to defend himself. The doctor considered him to be mentally ill but instead of arranging for his early transfer from prison, staff kept him in the medical wing until he died five days later, possibly having suffocated under a blanket. The inquest verdict was open.
Although the prison medical officer described the cell in which he was held as inhuman, primitive and not allowing or good supervision, none of the medical staff considered that his condition warranted use of Section 48 of the Mental Health Act, which only happens in the most extreme circumstances such as when a prisoner is extremely violent or suicidal. It is against such situations that we are fighting.
Baroness Faithfull: I rise to speak to Amendment No. 23 which is grouped with Amendment No. 17. I listened with great care to the Minister when he spoke to Amendment No. 17. At this hour my IQ is at a rather low ebb and I do not believe that I fully understood what he said. However, what I did understand seemed to be reasonable but unrealistic.
The Butler Report was published some 15 years ago and, as my noble friend will realise, that report recommended that those suffering from a mental illness should not be accommodated in ordinary prisons. Yet in 1991 we are still in the same position as we were in 15 years ago. It is extremely important to remember that. Over all those years we have wanted to cure and deal with this difficulty, but have not yet found a way of doing so.
Perhaps we could examine the situation of the mentally disordered person being kept in prison. First, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Morris, the prisoner suffers. Prison is not the place to put such people. The noble Lord, Lord Morris. has given the figures of the number of people who have committed suicide. The prisoner does not benefit; he suffers greatly.
Secondly. I have had a great deal to do with prison staff. I pay tribute to the way in which they deal with mentally disordered offenders in prison. But as many prison officers have said. they are not trained to look

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after mentally disordered patients. It is difficult to care for them, but to do so along with all the other prisoners, and co-ordinate men who are fit, well and able with those who are mentally disordered, is asking prison staff to do more than should be required of any person.
Thirdly, the other prisoners find the presence of mentally disordered people in their midst disturbing. That is understandable. Again, it is extraordinary how tolerant many prisoners are, but nevertheless they are sometimes disturbed, upset and unhappy. For the mentally disordered to be kept alongside ordinary prisoners causes trouble and makes for a bad atmosphere in the prison.
The noble Lord, Lord Morris, gave statistics, which I shall not repeat because they will appear in Hansard. We turn to the solution. I understand that one would wish mentally disordered prisoners to be dealt with under the National Health Service in hospitals in the community. But that is completely unrealistic. One must face the fact that it is unrealistic even over a period of five years.
Amendment No. 23 recommends that mentally disordered patients should be dealt with under the National Health Service, but two aspects may be set against that, and even waiting five years will not deal with them. One aspect is that doctors and nurses in mental hospitals do not want to look after prisoners in secure units within those hospitals. A few patients under the Mental Health Act must be looked after in secure accommodation for fear that they will leave the hospital. However, the number of people being looked after in secure accommodation under the Mental Health Act is unacceptable to staff. Therefore, if one is to look after prisoner—men who are alleged to have committed an offence and are on remand, or who have committed an offence —under the National Health Service, one must change the whole attitude of the psychiatric units in the National Health Service. Is that possible? It goes against their ethos and one is up against a very real difficulty.
Secondly, the beds are not available. Although my noble friend Lord Ferrers said that 600 were available—a minute amount compared to what is required—and an extra 100 will shortly be available, that will never meet the need, even in five years. Therefore, there are two points to be made. First, can this situation be dealt with under the health service? I recognise that the amendment does not say it, but within the penal system should there be secure units run apart from the prisons for the mentally ill prisoners who need security?
I have some difficulty because since the amendment was drafted various representations have been made to me that it will not be possible to deal with these patients under the national health system. Therefore, I have put forward the second suggestion which is not in the amendment. The situation has gone on for 15 years. We have had pious hopes of dealing with it, but we have not done so. I suggest that there needs to be set up a committee to look at how the problem can be dealt with either within the National Health Service or in other ways.
Lord Mottistone: I shall speak briefly to Amendment No. 24. It is a pity that it is so late and that we spent so long on some of the earlier amendments. However, perhaps I may say how much of an improvement it is to have Amendment No. 17 which is very much better than not having it at all. The fact that it does not go far enough I shall dwell on in a minute or two. It is useful to have a requirement for medical reports and pre-sentence reports by probation officers and social workers on an offender who is or who seems to be mentally disordered, and that those reports should be considered by the courts. Paragraph (a) of the amendment refers to,
"a pre-sentence report, a medical report or otherwise".
I think that "otherwise" might be particularly helpful because information relating to an offender's mental condition can also be given by the offender himself or more probably his relatives and friends and their advisers who will usually know the history of his mental illness and its treatment and will be able to provide these details without delay. I draw that to my noble friend's attention. If there is to be given any guidance about the implementation of Amendment No. 17 then those points might be noted.
It is also pleasing that the courts will be required to consider the likely effect of a custodial sentence on any treatment which may be available for the offender's mental condition. My noble friend Lady Faithfull and the noble Lord, Lord Morris, touched on this: what happens then? My Amendment No. 24 would take the matter further and would not only require the courts to consider these issues but would prevent them from passing a custodial sentence where that might have a serious adverse effect on the offender's mental health. It would also require the courts to try to secure treatment for the offender and enable them to obtain information from the appropriate regional health authority about arrangements for admission to hospital if that seems advisable.
I shall not press that matter much further, but I would like to take up a couple of points that my noble friend Lady Faithfull made. She said that the ordinary mental hospitals would not readily take to this provision. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister needs to take note of the point made by my noble friend Lady Faithfull; namely, that we should have some kind of special hospitals within the prison service system which are not special hospitals like Broadmoor, but of a lesser grade of importance and taking less serious mental patients. That would be part of the prison system rather than of the health service system. It is only in that way that we shall get the measure working.
I am very encouraged by some of the comments of my noble friend the Minister about actions and initiatives which have been taken by the Home Office and many other bodies, including the health department. A great many of these are summarised in paragraphs 10.115 to 10.140 of the Woolf Report. Paragraph 10.140 states:
"These initiatives have a further significance to this Inquiry. They demonstrate what can be achieved by co-operation between different agencies involved in the Criminal Justice System. The need for a close and effective

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relationship between these agencies is a matter to which this Report attaches great weight. It is necessary to find an appropriate mechanism for assisting that co-operation".
That needs to get going fast.
My noble friend the Minister drew our attention to the fact that a great deal has been done during the past 10 or 12 years in that direction. Some of the figures he quoted were quite impressive. But the fact is that it is not good enough. I have been approached by a senior probation officer at Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight. The prisoners there are young men aged between 18 and 25. Some are older but the main group are of that age. They serve on average two-year sentences. The senior probation officer tells me that about 25 per cent. of them are inadequate and will never be able to look after themselves in ordinary life without outside help. She says that about half of them would probably be eligible, properly classified by a psychiatrist, to go into a mental hospital and that the other half are just inadequate. They would be a burden to the community in some way but would not qualify for admission to a mental hospital. For such people we need accommodation which is not quite a prison but is not a hospital either. There is a gap in provision.
The Home Office and the other agencies are working in that direction. However, in the nature of things, they are working terribly slowly. In the meantime, these poor, unfortunate people are being put in a prison environment which does them no good at all—everyone agrees with that—and many of them end up losing their lives. Some commit suicide and others have all the stuffing—what little stuffing they ever had—knocked out of them, so that they cannot pull themselves together when they leave prison. A large number of people are involved. In Camp Hill Prison 25 per cent. of inmates fall into the category I have mentioned. From what I know of the other larger prisons of Parkhurst and Albany, I have the impression that such a figure applies to them also. We must get weaving.
My noble friend said that we are waiting for next year. I hope that he was given that advice last year for this year. I am told by NACRO that the Home Office should have reached a conclusion by July 1991. If that is so, and if my noble friend can confirm it, that is helpful. However, if it is July 1992, I shall despair. We have to do something.
I could give many other examples. There is the case of a schizophrenic patient, a girl of 28 years, in Risley. She is very violent and has been in hospital many times. She should not have been in prison at all. I hope and pray that in applying Amendment No. 17 my noble friend will help the courts to implement it. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said, it is brilliant as far as it goes, but it leaves the courts hanging.
What do they do with the patient? I say he is a patient because he will have been declared one. A hospital bed cannot be found for him because half the hospital beds have been closed. There are not hospital beds waiting for such patients in the ordinary hospitals. Moreover, it is not suitable to send such people to prison. The courts are aware of that fact, so what are they to do? If the person had not committed
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a relatively serious offence, he would not have been brought before the court in the first place. This is a tragedy. We must get the matter sorted out—and we must do so before 1992.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Harris of Greenwich: I very much agree with the remarks just made by the noble Lord, Lord Mottistone. We must exhibit a degree of impatience on the matter. To my knowledge, this situation has existed for at least 15 years. There is a game of leisurely ping-pong going on between the Home Office and the Department of Health. I can testify to that fact, having attended the meetings designed to deal with the issue.
I do not want to make a scapegoat out of the old DHSS, but it is a fact that substantial sums of public money were voted by another place in order to set up secure units. Such units were supposed to take a significant number of people from the prison population. But what happened? It seems that the money was diverted and used for wholly different purposes. That is not accceptable.
I welcome the fact that the discussions referred to are now going to take place between Ministers in the Home Office and in the Department of Health. I hope that they will be succcessful. However I felt somewhat uneasy when the noble Lord suggested that there should be a new type of psychiatric establishment for these people run by the Home Office. I cannot see any conceivable grounds on which the Home Office should accept such a responsibility. It seems to be highly desirable that we should try to ensure that as many of these people as possible are placed in mental hospitals. However, the noble Baroness is quite right to point out that there is deep resistance in the mental hospitals: they do not want these people. But, similarly, the prisons do not want them.
Anyone who has visited a prison and who has seen the facilities available will know that in most cases you cannot have a successful treatment strategy in, for example, the prison hospital at Brixton. That hospital was vividly described by Judge Tumim in his report. I find myself in total agreement with the Home Secretary. At the time of the publication of the Tumim Report, he said that the place for mentally ill people is in mental hospitals. That is his view and it also happens to be mine.
Lord Windlesham: I do not want to delay Members of the Committee for too long as I believe that the Minister wishes shortly to conclude today's proceedings. However, I trust that I am correct in thinking that I heard him refer to the growth in the number of consultant forensic psychiatrists since the Butler Committee reported, and to the growth of the number of places in regional secure units as being 600. I should be most grateful if my noble friend would write to me in answer to the following detailed questions. First, has there been any increase in that number over the past five years? Secondly, if so, how does that increase relate to the target set by the Butler Committee? My own recollection is that Butler recommended over 1,000 places. However, I may be mistaken in that

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assumption. Those are detailed but important questions. I should be most grateful if my noble friend would write to me in response, rather than replying to me now.
Earl Ferrers: I am grateful to Members of the Committee for the views which have been expressed on the matter. We are all concerned to ensure that people who are mentally distressed should be looked after in mental institutions and not in prisons which may be unsuitable for them. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Castle Morris, gave the Committee a distressing example of the way in which such situations can go wrong.
I believe that my noble friend Lady Faithfull said that what I had said was reasonable. However, she then went on to say that it was not realistic. The Butler Report recommended, as she said, that we should keep mental patients out of prison. That is what we want to do, but the report also said that psychiatric hospitals would find it impossible to do their work if they were forced to accommodate all cases the courts thought right to send them, regardless of their ability to provide suitable treatment.
That causes the dilemma upon which the noble Lord, Lord Harris, put his finger. Prisons do not want these people and sometimes the hospitals do not want them. One of the dangers is that if the courts force patients onto doctors and into hospitals which may not want them, that may upset the relationship between the patient and the doctor when there should be a rapport. That is not a reason merely for saying that patients should go only where the doctors wish them to go. It is important that there should be an accord between doctor and patient over matters involving mental treatment.
If the courts sentence those people to be detained in certain institutions against the will of those institutions, that sets everything off on the wrong foot. The trouble with Amendment No. 23 is that it makes it impossible for the court ever to impose a custodial sentence to protect the public. That brings into question what happens to those people who require some form of looking after if there is no accommodation available. If Amendment No. 23 were accepted those people could not be kept in prison. They would have to go into other accommodation for mental patients. What happens if there is no accommodation available? What happens if the hospitals concerned are not suitable for the person being sentenced? What happens if the hospitals do not want to receive that type of person?
My noble friend said that the NHS cannot cope. My noble friend Lady Faithfull also said that we should set up a committee. That is what we have done. My right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Health have set up a major review of all the health and social service problems involving mentally disordered offenders. They will assess many aspects of the problem. My noble friend Lord Mottistone did not mishear me: regrettably the review will not be completed until the middle of next year, not this year, but that does not prevent action being taken earlier because interim reports will be provided. Action can be taken on the interim reports.
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My noble friend Lord Mottistone said that my noble friend Lady Faithfull had said that there should be special hospitals within the prison system to take lesser grade people rather than that they should be dealt with within the health service. Our view in general is that where a person is mentally ill such a person should be looked after by the mental health services, but not necessarily within the prison system.
There is a big gap between what is available and what in a perfect world should be available. The number of places required for such people is greater than the number available at the moment. That is something we must all strive to improve.
My noble friend Lord Windlesham asked me about figures. I shall see whether I can give him the figures that he requires. I said that we have 650 regional permanent or interim secure places in England which did not exist in 1979. The health authorities have plans to provide a further 100 places. In September last year there were 76 consultant forensic psychiatrists compared with just two 20 years ago. I do not have the figures for the increase over the past five years, nor the others for which he asked, but I shall see that he gets them.
Lord Windlesham: I am sure that the noble Earl will take the point about whether there has been any progress at all in recent years. I feel that 1979 was a long time ago.
Earl Ferrers: I quite accept that. I shall find out the facts and let my noble friend know. The point of the amendments which I have put down is that we are making a distinct effort to ensure that those people who ought to be treated within the health service and under the mental health system are so treated. However, the courts may have the right, if necessary, to ensure that some people who may nevertheless have to be within the penal system are provided for. That is the case at the moment. We all wish to see more provision of places for those suffering from the distress and anxiety of mental health. I hope that the amendments I have put down will be accepted by the Committee. I shall certainly take into account the many important matters that Members of the Committee have raised over the problem of mental health.
Lord Mottistone: Before my noble friend sits down, he said that in a perfect world we require more hospital beds within the mental health system. Will he join with many of us outside in persuading his right honourable colleague the Secretary of State for Health to stop the regional health authorities closing beds in mental hospitals? The fact is that if the beds had not been closed at the rate they have been during the past 10 years, we should have a few beds to spare for the offenders who ought to be put in those hospitals. The beds are not there because regions have been shutting them down. They have done that because previous health departments said that that should happen. This is not a political matter, the situation has been going on for years, right back to Enoch Powell, and it has been doing a lot of harm.
Earl Ferrers: I shall certainly look into the point which my noble friend made. I know that there was a certain anxiety that those who suffer from mental disease should not be kept incarcerated in certain buildings. They ought to be allowed to live within the public system and not be kept separate from the public. I shall look into the point.
Lord Richard: Before the Minister sits down, perhaps I may ask two questions. First, would he be kind enough to let me see the letter that he is to send to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham? It will be of interest to others, particularly the noble Lords, Lord Harris and Lord Mottistone.
Secondly, those of us who have practised in the courts over the years have observed—and it is obviously a rather unsatisfactory and non-scientific observation—that there seem to be far more people now coming before the courts who are mentally disordered in the general sense of the word, or inadequate, or whatever phrase one wishes to use, than there were 20 or even 30 years ago. Are there any figures on this? Does the Home Office have any statistics as to whether there has genuinely been an increase in the number of mentally disordered people coming into the system and going to prison? If so, I should very much like to see those figures.
Earl Ferrers: Perhaps I may look into the position and see what figures are available. I shall write to the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, with the statistics which he and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, requested. I shall copy that letter to all those who have taken part in the debate and place a copy in the Library, and then perhaps everyone will be satisfied. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Richard, will not think it impertinent if I include in the letter to my noble friend Lord Windlesham what statistics I can obtain on the questions that he asked. That may simplify matters.
Baroness Faithfull: My name is the first attached to Amendment No. 23. As these amendments are grouped together, should I speak to my amendment now or when we come to it? I have been speaking to it.
Earl Ferrers: The amendments are all grouped together. I thought that my noble friend had spoken to Amendment No. 23. If that is not the case, it would be appropriate for her to do so now.
Baroness Faithfull: My noble friend the Minister has remarked on the difficult situation that exists in the health service. He also said that he feels these patients should be dealt with under the health service. But that still does not get us anywhere. This is a difficult and complicated matter. The noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, asked for further information on various points. Therefore I intend to withdraw Amendment No. 23, but I shall return with the provision at a later stage of the Bill.
Earl Ferrers: I appreciate that my noble friend wants these patients dealt with within the health service system. However, I suggested there would be an objection to her amendment because it would force the mental health system to deal with all those people. If places are not available to treat them, the provision would jam up the system. The amendment is not workable. I believe my provision would be preferable as it gives the court another option.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Reay: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.
House adjourned at one minute past eleven o'clock.

  TEACHERS: INITIAL TRAINING COURSES
  TEACHERS: INITIAL TRAINING COURSES
  REGULATION OF RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES: CHARGES SCHEME
  REGULATION OF RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES: CHARGES SCHEME
  CCGT GENERATING CAPACITY: ESTIMATE
  CCGT GENERATING CAPACITY: ESTIMATE
  REAR SEAT BELTS: EC COUNTRIES
  REAR SEAT BELTS: EC COUNTRIES
  VEHICLE EXCISE DUTY EVASION: SURVEY
  VEHICLE EXCISE DUTY EVASION: SURVEY
  TAXIS REAR SEAT PASSENGERS KILLED OR SERIOUSLY INJURED—STATISTICS
  TAXIS REAR SEAT PASSENGERS KILLED OR SERIOUSLY INJURED—STATISTICS