Sitting of 21 October 1991

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

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Rowlands: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many people are currently unemployed in Merthyr and Rhymney; and what estimate he has of the number of job vacancies available.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. David Hunt): Before I answer that question and with your leave, Mr. Speaker, I wish to say that our thoughts are very much with the people of Aberfan. In saying that, I know that I speak not only for the House, the people of Wales and the people of the rest of the United Kingdom, but for people across the world.
    The figures are 7,394 and 519.
    Mr. Rowlands: May I thank the Secretary of State for those kind and sympathetic words which will be greatly appreciated in Aberfan? It has been my privilege to represent Aberfan in this House for the best part of 20 of those 25 years. I have witnessed the determination, courage and commitment of the community to rebuild itself. Our thoughts are certainly with the many personal friends and families who have to live with those terrible memories and grievous loss.
    May I remind the Secretary of State that the pit was closed two years ago and that in March the deep navigation pit next door at Treharris was closed? Next month Penallta is to close, thus leaving the south-east Wales coalfield with only two pits, Taff Merthyr and Tower. Will the Secretary of State give us his personal assurance that he will not be party to any coal board privatisation which, according to the Rothschild report, would mean the complete closure of all pits in south-east Wales, thus destroying the true great mining tradition?
    Mr. Hunt: I very much join with the remarks of the hon. Gentleman at the outset of his supplementary question.
    Only this morning I was reflecting that in 1947, at the time of nationalisation, we had 229 pits in Wales whereas now we have five and that in 1947 we had 124,000 people employed whereas now we have just over 1,000. From those statistics people can see the tremendous transformation that has take place in Wales. Equally, it imposes an obligation on the Government not only to sustain the coal industry—
    Mr. Rowlands: The Welsh coal industry.
    Mr. Hunt: Yes, the Welsh coal industry. The first pit where I went underground was Point of Air in north Wales —which sometimes we forget is one of the Welsh coal mines. We must also provide the job opportunities that will be needed in the Wales of the future.
    Mr. Barry Jones: I thank the Secretary of State for his remarks about the community of Aberfan and for associating all of his Department and the people of Wales with what he said.
    I welcome the Dow Corning investment in the Vale of Glamorgan, which is a credit to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) and all concerned. Has not the Secretary of State failed to appreciate the seriousness of the situation over which he presides? I am talking about the 12 successive monthly increases in unemployment in Wales, the 40 per cent. rise in unemployment in Wales this year and now a spate of redundancies that are causing grave concern. Will he admit that in communities such as Aberdare, Merthyr, Bridgend, Rhondda, Pontypridd and Swansea the situation is a national disgrace? Will he tell us now what is his strategy to make Wales the best and most successful economy in Europe?
    Mr. Hunt: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's opening remarks.
    I take this opportunity to say that I am delighted today to be able to announce a major investment package of more than £14 million, involving the creation of 470 jobs. Each of the projects is backed with regional selective assistance from the Welsh Office. I hope that that communicates to the hon. Gentleman that not only are we determined to provide more job opportunities, but we are putting our money where our mouth is.
    Mr. Ron Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what proposals he has to alleviate the current levels of unemployment in (a) Rhymney Valley, (b) Mid Glamorgan and (c) Wales.
    Mr. David Hunt: The range of measures operated by the Welsh Office, the Welsh Development Agency and all Government agencies are aimed at combating unemployment. We shall continue to look for and respond swiftly to opportunities that have the potential to reduce unemployment.
    Mr. Davies: Many of my hon. Friends will join me in my constituency at Ystrad Mynach to commemorate the closure of Penallta colliery which means the loss of 300 jobs and the end of the coal industry in the Rhymney valley. Since even the former Prime Minister has now acknowledged that she is "painfully aware" of the destructive nature of the Government, will the Secretary of State, as an act of contrition and a public apology to the people of Wales for the past 12 years, care to join us at that commemoration next week?
    Mr. Hunt: I have nothing to apologise for. It is most discourteous of the hon. Gentleman to try to lay at the door of a Conservative Government what has happened in the coal industry. I have already given the figures on that industry and he will know from them that far more pits were closed under Labour Governments than under Conservative ones. During the 1980s a series of Conservative Governments brought new jobs to different parts of Wales. They have transformed Wales with the

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    biggest land clearance programme in Europe. It is about time that the hon. Gentleman acknowledged that, just as the 1980s were the decade in which Wales was transformed, the 1990s will be the decade of opportunity.
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Is not the best way in which to continue to expand the soundness of the Welsh economy not to follow the moans and groans of the Opposition, but to continue the pragmatic and enlightened approach that my right hon. Friend and his predecessor have followed? Those are not my comments, but those of the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) as reported on "Wales on Sunday".
    Mr. Hunt: I take the opportunity to thank the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) for his kind remarks about the enlightened policies of myself and my predecessor.
    Mr. Foot: These shameful unemployment figures are far higher than those at any time in the post-war period when a Labour Government were in power. How much is the latest increase in unemployment due to the abandonment of effective regional policies by the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessors which has meant that, for Wales, the slump goes deeper and it will take us longer to get out of it? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the abandonment of those regional policies was done in defiance of recommendations from the Opposition?
    Mr. Hunt: Among the package of announcements that I am delighted to be making today is one of a joint venture between Germany and Sweden in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency for the manufacture of automotive exhaust downpipes and silencers at Tredegar. There is another project relating to the tie and neckwear factory at Nantyglo. Those two projects alone will create nearly 100 jobs. I hope that that will demonstrate to the right hon. Gentleman our determination to continue to bring job opportunities to Wales and his constituency.
    Mr. Raffan: Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming today's announcement by Knitmesh in my constituency that it is to create 67 new full-time jobs and 58 part-time ones? Will he also join me in congratulating British Aerospace at Broughton on securing the Japanese air self-defence contract with 27 British Aerospace jets? Does my right hon. Friend agree that those announcements bode extremely well for jobs in north-east Wales?
    Mr. Hunt: I am glad to respond to my hon. Friend's invitation to welcome the investment by Knitmesh of nearly £2 million, about which I am delighted. I was also extremely pleased to be present, with the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), at the opening of the new wing factory at British Aerospace and I was delighted to hear of the good news since. All that represents good prospects for the future.

    Water Quality
    Mr. Win Griffiths: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what progress has been made in implementing the EC directives on bathing water quality and drinking water quality.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Bennett): We brought both directives into
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    United Kingdom legislation and have given major investments to water undertakings to ensure that the directives are met.
    Mr. Griffiths: Yes, but the Minister must be aware that we have not met the deadlines set in the directives. I had hoped that this afternoon the Minister might have been able to tell me when, as a result of discussions with the chairman of Welsh Water, he expects the bathing water and tap water quality directives to be met in Wales. Has there been any slippage, as I believe, in the investment programme announced on the privatisation of Welsh Water? Perhaps the Minister does not appreciate the seriousness of the problem, but in parts of Cardiff more than 20 per cent. of the water has lead levels above the safety limit. Does he agree that it would be far better for Welsh Water to invest money in improving water quality than in buying shares in South Wales Electricity and other such companies?
    Mr. Bennett: Welsh Water is investing £1·8 billion over 10 years in the water industry in Wales—that is £500,000 every day for 10 years—and it is doing an excellent job. Its programme will mean that shortly no lead pipes will be in Welsh Water's control and it has put forward a £10 million programme to help householders to get rid of lead pipes in their homes.
    Mr. Grist: Will my hon. Friend confirm that Britain is the most successful EC country in providing decent. clean water and that we are honest in our testing, we publicise our testing and we obey the directives, unlike some of our partners?
    Mr. Bennett: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because 99 per cent. of Welsh drinking water already meets or exceeds EC standards. It is distressing that the Labour party spends all its time running down Britain when our record is much better than that of our European partners. One need only smell the Rhine at Cologne or go on the beaches in the Mediterranean or Greece to see that our European partners have a long way to go to catch up with British standards.
    Mr. Wigley: Does the Minister accept that it is unreasonable to fund that large expenditure, which must be met, from the charges made for water? Does he accept that the profits retained to fund such improvements in capital works have driven up the price of Welsh water to the extent that some of my constituents, pensioners living in single-bedroomed flats, pay £220 a year in water charges? Is not that ridiculous? The Government must look at means of funding general improvement work other than through the taxation now charged by Welsh Water.
    Mr. Bennett: The hon. Gentleman must look at the facts. Welsh Water is spending £108—
    Mr. Wigley: Answer the question.
    Mr. Bennett: I am answering the question, if the hon. Gentleman would listen. Welsh Water is investing £108 for every £100 that it collects in charges. The average charge to consumers in Wales is 55p per day, which is a small charge. I admit that, to some people, it is a considerable amount to collect in one lump, but it can be paid over a period of 10 months. It is important that we get over the period of neglect of the last Labour Government, when investment fell to an all-time low.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Roy Hughes: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the most recent unemployment figure for Wales.
    Mr. David Hunt: On 12 September, the latest seasonally adjusted figure for unemployment was 120,200.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Secretary of State appreciate that it will cost £21 billion to keep 2·5 million people on the dole this year, 120,000 of whom are in Wales? In the Newport travel-to-work area, the unemployment rate is now 11·7 per cent., with 27 people competing for each vacancy. Is not that a disgraceful record for the Government after 12 years and is not it time for the people of the country to be allowed to give their verdict on that record?
    Mr. Hunt: The hon. Gentleman will recognise that five years ago the figure was 180,000. One area where there has been a substantial reduction has been in the long-term unemployed. I am sad that the hon. Gentleman did not take the opportunity to highlight the successes that have taken place in and around his constituency through new investment and the marvellous news about Imperial park. Imperial college has decided to set up a science park in the area around the hon. Gentleman's constituency. That is marvellous news for the future of Wales.
    Mrs. Clwyd: If the Secretary of State is so proud of his record, will he explain why, under three successive Secretaries of State, unemployment in the Cynon Valley has been the highest in Wales? If he and the Coal Board have nothing to hid on privatisation, why was I denied access to the only remaining pit in the Cynon Valley, Tower colliery, the week before last? Will he give the men at Tower colliery, which is now making a profit, a categorical assurance that, despite two or three previous redundancies in the coal industry, they now have a secure future in the Tower colliery in Cynon Valley?
    Mr. Hunt: Whether or not the hon. Lady can gain access to the colliery is a matter for British Coal, not me. I regret that she failed to repeat the words of the chief executive of Cynon Valley council who said that Cynon Valley was rapidly becoming the land of high-tech investments. It is exciting that we are now seeing a number of new investments—
    Mrs. Clwyd: Come on!
    Mr. Hunt: The hon. Lady should not downgrade the achievements of her council, which is doing extremely well in attracting new investment. I am delighted about the investment—the joint venture of the Gooding Sanken group—which is to take place next year.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: My colleagues and I would like to be associated with the sentiments expressed earlier this afternoon.
    I am sure that the Secretary of State is aware that the people of Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire are disappointed that, after 12 years of Tory rule, Fishguard is at the top of the unemployment league with a rate of 18 per cent. and Cardigan has 17 per cent. That is not a very good Government record and my constituents are disturbed.
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    How long will they have to wait before unemployment levels move down the league and the average rate is closer to that of other constituencies—6 per cent?
    Mr. Hunt: I much appreciate the hon. Gentleman's first remarks.
    As for Fishguard and Holyhead, I greatly regret that there are some traditional pockets of high unemployment in Wales and we must use every way possible to feed new opportunities through to those districts. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pay tribute to the substantial investment being made in north Wales, through the A55 corridor of opportunity. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will be present at the opening of the Conwy tunnel. I am also delighted at the M4 development in the south, towards west Wales, which will open up many opportunities in south and west Wales.
    Mr. Murphy: Bearing in mind all the talk that we have heard this afternoon about the appalling level of unemployment in the Principality, is not it exactly the wrong time for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to be asking for major cuts in the training budget? Now that the Secretary of State has responsibility for training in Wales, will he confirm that, in Wales, career development loans and business enterprise training will continue? Most importantly, precisely what proportion of the £100 million cuts in youth training and the £100 million cuts in employment training will be borne by the people of Wales?
    Mr. Hunt: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised the subject of training. As he will know, resources are a matter for discussion within government and the House will be informed about that subject in the autumn statement. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman mentioned training, because I regard a key move to be the Prime Minister's transfer of the responsibility for training from the Department of Employment to the Welsh Office. It gives us a marvellous opportunity in Wales and I have set up a training, enterprise and education unit within the Welsh Office which seeks to bring together those three key sectors of responsibility to formulate future training policies with the training and enterprise councils—the first of which in the United Kingdom was set up in Wales. Those are exciting developments.

    Job Losses
    Mr. Flynn: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his estimate of the total number of jobs that have been lost by outward investment, or the export of existing jobs overseas, in the past 12 months.
    The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Sir Wyn Roberts): We do not hold those figures, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that nine inward investment projects have been secured for his constituency in the past 18 months, promising some 450 jobs and that the magnificent Imperial science park being established there will create many hundreds of top-quality new jobs in addition to those provided by the new Patent Office.
    Mr. Flynn: While the loss of jobs from Newport and Llanelli to firms overseas is serious enough, what is more worrying is the loss of jobs from Newport to other parts of the United Kingdom. Is the Minister aware of the claims made by the previous Secretary of State for Wales that the Toyota jobs were in the bag for Wales until the previous

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    Prime Minister called in the Toyota boss and told him that she wanted the jobs to be located in Derby because of the large number of marginal seats in that district? She also promised to match the grant available in Wales for Derby.
    Is the Minister further aware that the Prime Minister flatly denied the claim and told me that the Government neither encouraged nor discouraged Toyota in its choice of site? Will the Minister guarantee today that should future jobs bonanzas come to Wales they will not be stolen by Huntingdon man using the Huntingdon charter to site such jobs in Huntingdon?
    Sir Wyn Roberts: The hon. Gentleman has revealed himself as rather smaller-minded than I had thought. Of course I have seen the Prime Minister's reply to him—it contains what I have already said. The eventual decision was for Toyota itself to take. There were competing claims within the United Kingdom and overseas. That is entirely credible and, bearing in mind the fact that Toyota did not require Government financial assistance, it is inconceivable that any pressure could have been brought to bear on it.
    To listen to the hon. Gentleman one would think that we in Wales had some God-given right to every investment. We do not.
    Mr. Dickens: Does my right hon. Friend accept that inward investment in the United Kingdom in general and in Wales in particular was outstanding last year? What have been the investment opportunities in the first six months of this year?
    Sir Wyn Roberts: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have done extremely well with inward investment. Last year about 147 projects were secured, promising 15,000 new or safeguarded jobs and capital investment of about £585 million. In the first six months of this year we have had 102 projects, promising 10,800 jobs and about £735 million worth of investment. It is incredible that one has to go to a rival region such as Catalonia, which I visited last week, to hear just how well we are doing in Wales.
    Mr. John P. Smith: It is true that I will always warmly welcome good news for my constituency wherever it comes from, especially good news relating to public money being used to pave the way for investment. It is a pity, however, that many of my colleagues cannot enjoy such good news because of what is happening in Wales.
    In the light of the announcement about Barry, may we look forward to an early decision on the establishment of a rail link to Cardiff-Wales airport which will further increase investment opportunities in Barry and the rest of south Wales?
    Sir Wyn Roberts: The hon. Gentleman and I have been over this ground on a number of occasions and I know that he knows only too well that this is primarily a matter for South Glamorgan county council to put forward in conjuction with British Rail. Then, if such a proposal is made, we can consider it.

    Citizens Charter
    Mr. Hind: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the numbers of representations he has received from the people of Wales on the implementation of the citizens charter in Wales.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: So far we have had more than 70 representations, we have published 28,000 copies of the citizens charter in Wales and we have already published the education charter for parents. Shortly, we hope to publish the tenants and patients charters.
    Mr. Hind: Will my hon. Friend take every opportunity to remind the parents of Wales that through the parents charter they will have greater choice, a vastly increasing flow of information from schools and a much-improved say in the running of those schools and the education of their children? That contrasts with what the Labour party would give them: a reduction in say and choice and a great reduction in the powers that they as parents would enjoy.
    Mr. Bennett: I could not agree more. Not only would the Labour party ensure that parents did not get information about exam results—it opposed the idea when the relevant Bill was passing through the House—but it would abolish city technology colleges, do away with grant-maintained schools and get rid of the assisted places scheme. The whole policy of the Labour party is to scrap, demolish and oppose. It has no constructive suggestions on education.
    Mr. Anderson: Will the aggrieved private citizen in Wales be able to complain about evasions and delay by the Welsh Office? The aggrieved people of west Wales have been waiting three years since they were promised that the second cardiac unit would be sited in west Wales. Will they be able to complain about that delay in spite of the Welsh Office promise?
    Mr. Bennett: If the people of Wales have a complaint about the Welsh Office they can complain to the parliamentary ombudsman. My job is to ensure that all the policies of the Welsh Office are put forward as speedily as possible for the people of Wales.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Will the Welsh Office publish a railway sufferers charter for Wales pointing out that the considerable investment in industry between Shrewsbury and Aberystwith has been met by British Rail by the withdrawal of all InterCity services west of Wolverhampton? Will that railway sufferers charter also ensure that people can not only complain, satisfying though that is, but can see some improvement in the abominable rail services west of Shrewsbury?
    Mr. Bennett: I have considerable sympathy with what the hon. and learned Gentleman says about British Rail, and I have recently had cause to complain about the west Wales lines. The best thing that can happen to British Rail for the passengers is a move towards privatisation so that passengers can have more say and more control over their services.

    Health Service
    Mr. Denzil Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next intends to meet the chairmen of the health authorities to discuss the future of the health service in Wales.
    Mr. David Hunt: On 20 November.
    Mr. Davies: When the Secretary of State meets those chairmen, will he discuss with the chairman of the East Dyfed health authority the proposal to close the Mynydd

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    Mawr hospital in my constituency? That hospital is for the elderly chronically sick, and there is a great danger that services for those people, along with the phrase itself, are beginning to disappear. Is the Secretary of State aware that however good acute and rehabilitation services, and whatever the expectation of life, unfortunately in the last three years of their lives many people will need to be looked after in hospital? Will the right hon. Gentleman look with disfavour upon that proposed closure and on any proposal to close a hospital for the elderly chronically sick?
    Mr. Hunt: I understand that East Dyfed district health authority is consulting on the transfer of services for the elderly and that consultation ends on 2 November. If the community health council objects, the proposals will be decided by the Secretary of State.
    Mr. Rogers: When the Secretary of State meets the chairmen of the health authorities will he discuss with the chairman of Mid Glamorgan health authority the delays in hospital reorganisation in the Taff Ely—Rhondda area, which have led to considerable underprovision? Although a new hospital is opening, there will be a substantial loss of beds in the area. I know that the Secretary of State has made arrangements for a meeting on 24 November and I am sure that he will receive with sadness, as will Opposition Members, the news that Mrs. Mattie Collins, the leader of Rhondda borough council for many years, died yesterday. At that meeting, which I hope to attend in her place, will the Secretary of State have an answer about this hospital reorganisation?
    Mr. Hunt: At that meeting I look forward to discussing these issues with the hon. Gentleman. I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the life of Mrs. Mattie Collins, who did such a tremendous amount for her area. I know that the news of her death will have been received with great sadness in all parts of the House.
    Mr. Raffan: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the doctors, nurses and ancillary staff at Glan Clwyd and Wrexham Maelor hospitals on treating 1,000 more patients this year than originally expected? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is yet further evidence of the excellent national health service available to those living in the Clwyd health authority area?
    Mr. Hunt: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The health service in Wales is now treating a record number of patients, it has a record level of funding and the proposed reforms are receiving enthusiastic support from a number of health service managers because they will ensure that the record level of funding is spent in the best possible way for the patients.
    Mr. Gareth Wardell: When the Secretary of State meets the chairmen of the health authorities in Wales, will he make three things abundantly clear to them? First, will he make it clear that they are responsible, with a continuing role, for looking after the long-term intensive care of the elderly? Secondly, will he ensure that funds are available so that general practitioners can refer their patients to the hospital that they deem to be appropriate for their treatment? Thirdly, will he look again at the position of the orthopaedic hospital Rhydlafar, in Cardiff, to ensure that money is made available so that those arriving for major hip and knee operations are not referred back to their
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    general practitioners? The money ran out before the summer recess, which is a cruel deception when that centre is available.
    Mr. Hunt: On the hon. Gentleman's third point, he will know that we received a tremendous number of bids for waiting times for 1991–92, requiring funding of about £5 million against the £1·3 million that was available. Against that background, we were unable to support the bid in full. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman knew this, but I am happy to tell him that a further £64,000 to support 40 additional operations in 1991–92 will be made available. I will respond to the hon. Gentleman on his other points.
    The hon. Gentleman spoke about funding. I do not want any impression to be given—I want only the facts to be made clear. They are that in 1979 in Wales the health service received £481 million. At 1991 prices that is £1,113 million. We are spending £1,769 million, so we are funding at record levels.
    Mr. Livsey: Does the Secretary of State realise that wards in psychiatric hospitals are still being closed despite the fact that there are inadequate facilities for community care and that the Mid Wales hospital in my constituency, at Talgarth, is the subject of a feasibility study? Will the Minister give us an assurance that no psychiatric patient will be discharged into the community without proper facilities being made available?
    Mr. Hunt: I am happy to give that assurance. I thought that all-party support had been given to the policy of moving people into the community, with the requisite support services. We in Wales should take pride in the fact that, although admittedly we are not so far forward as many of us would like to be, we have made considerable progress under the mental handicap strategy.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that Pembroke health authority was given £50,000 by the Welsh Office to pay for its application for NHS status? Will he rule out, here and now, any further such bribes to get NHS hospitals to opt out of local health authority control? The people of Wales reject the handling of our health service by the Under-Secretary of State and they do not support the Secretary of State's policies on our health service.
    Mr. Hunt: The answer to the first point is yes. The answer to the second point is that it was not a bribe—it was finance to fund the preparation of the first application for NHS trust status in Wales. I make it clear that neither I nor my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will entertain applications for NHS trust status unless we are convinced, first, that the hopital concerned will stay within the NHS, secondly, that it will be financially viable and, thirdly, that the change will result in better patient care. I can put that across clearly to the hon. Gentleman.
    We are still being criticised on NHS funding. Let me put it in simpler terms. When we came into power in 1979, the health service was spending £171 for every man, woman and child in Wales. That was not a bribe—that was the level of spending that the Labour Government had reached. Uprated to 1991 prices, it would be £396. We are spending £614 for every man, woman and child.

    Urban Renewal (Holyhead)
    Dr. Marek: To ask the Secretary of State for Wales, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) of 10 June, Official Report, column 456, what action he has taken in connection with rail services under his responsibilities for initiatives for urban renewal in Holyhead.
    Sir Wyn Roberts: The provision of rail services in Holyhead is the responsibility of British Rail. I have granted supplementary credit approvals of £250,000 to Gwynedd county council in the current financial year to fund the high-speed train refuelling facilities at Holyhead.
    Dr. Marek: What else does the Minister intend to do to ensure that Holyhead retains its position as the centre for freight travelling to and from the Republic of Ireland, especially in view of British Rail's stupid decision to use the route from Liverpool to Belfast and then transfer freight by lorry to Dublin? Also, what does the Minister intend to do to reinstate the InterCity service between north Wales and Euston? The 9 pm train from Holyhead was withdrawn a few weeks ago by British Rail, and between 100 and 150 people had to stand all the way to Crewe, packed into a four-car sprinter unit.
    Sir Wyn Roberts: On the last point, I am sure that British Rail will be glad to hear of the heavy demand for its services. The hon. Gentleman knows that there has been an increase in the number of services available to take people, if not to Euston from north Wales, to Manchester and Crewe where they can take connecting trains for London. As for freight, we must make the services from Holyhead more competitive. The more I study the question, the more I realise that we lose freight traffic because we are not so competitive as we should be.

  CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

    Clergy Stipends
    Mr. Ian Taylor: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what recent consideration the Church Commissioners have given to the current stipend of a vicar.
    Mr. Michael Alison (Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing the Church Commissioners): The Commissioners, as the central stipends authority, review stipends regularly and will consider them again at a conference with dioceses in November, and at the annual stipends conferences which take place each spring. The current average stipend of an incumbent is about £12,100 per year. In addition, he receives some benefits in kind, including free accommodation and a non-contributory pension, the average value of which is estimated by the Commissioners to be £7,260.
    Mr. Taylor: Will my right hon. Friend carefully consider taking £1 off a vicar's stipend every time that vicar uses the new Prayer Book which has been published by one of the oldest publishing houses in the country and in which the Lord's Prayer refers to God as "Our Mother and Father"? Is it not sensible that curates who are themselves confused about bisexuality should not try to confuse their congregations about whether Jesus was a hermaphrodite?
    Mr. Alison: My hon. Friend makes a serious point, albeit in a light-hearted style. The liturgy of the Church of England is approved by Parliament and therefore has a statutory basis. It would be unlawful to make any unauthorised liturgical change of gender in the Lord's prayer or in any other authorised liturgical service. In that respect, the restraint of the law is even more potent than pay restraint. My hon. Friend refers to the identity of Jesus. He will know from the Gospel that His most popular self-designation was "Son of Man", which is a double positive—or a double negative, depending which way one looks at it.

    Church Urban Fund
    Ms. Hoey: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, whether the Church Commissioners have reconsidered their contributions to the church urban fund for 1991.
    Mr. Alison: The Commissioners board of governors will review the position with regard to a grant for the church urban fund towards the end of this year.
    Ms. Hoey: Will the right hon. Gentleman convey to the board of the Church Commissioners the concern that will be felt in inner city areas if the grant of £1 million given in the past four years is not fully restored? It will be seen as a downgrading of the great work that the Church has done in the poorest areas in the inner cities and among the disadvantaged. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to remind the Church Commissioners of the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury who said last week of the church urban fund:
    "It brings hope where none seemed possible."
    Will the right hon. Gentleman convey those thoughts to the governors?
    Mr. Alison: I take careful note of what the hon. Lady has said and I will certainly convey to the Church Commissioners her views about the need to return to the £1 million grant. However, she will bear two points in mind. The church urban fund this year will, from its own resources, be able to maintain the level of its grants even in default of the Church Commissioners' £1 million, because it already has a substantial income. The money that we would otherwise give to the church urban fund this year will go to clergy stipends, and will especially be slanted and directed towards the poorest inner city parishes. What the church urban fund loses, the poorer parishes get through the maintenance of their stipends.

    Clergy Stipends
    Mr.Bowis: To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what provision is made for public consultation over clergy stipends.
    Mr. Alison: The Commissioners, as central stipends authority, consult dioceses at least once a year about future stipend levels and take account of their views when making recommendations. A report is submitted annually to the General Synod which may debate the report if it chooses.
    Mr. Bowis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is considerable public concern that for many family men

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    the level of stipend is inadequate? At the same time, many people share the view of the noble prelate the Archbishop of Canterbury that perhaps there should not be total security of tenure in parishes. Will my right hon. Friend encourage widespread consultation to see whether there cannot be a new system of payment of stipends to take on board those two points, perhaps by using some form of incentive payments?
    Mr. Alison: I take careful note of what my hon. Friend has suggested. The notion of productivity in the cure of souls is difficult to administer fully, humanely and consistently. He will have noticed the level of stipends and the supplementary payments that are available, thanks to the Church Commissioners' successful administration of their funds in recent years. There has been a 75 per cent. increase in the level of stipends in real terms, greatly outpacing the rate of inflation. There is more land to be possessed and more to be done. We will do our best to follow through my hon. Friend's suggestion.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

    Toilet and Changing Room Facilities
    Mr. Janner: To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, what steps the new Director of Works will take to improve staff toilet and changing room facilities.
    Mr. A. J. Beith (on behalf of the House of Commons Commission): The Director of Works, who is a member of the department of the Serjeant at Arms, took up his post in July, but he will not become directly responsible for the parliamentary works programme until it is transferred to the Commission from the Department of the Environment next April. In the meantime, I will ensure that any concerns that the hon. and learned Gentleman has are made known to the relevant authorities.
    Mr. Janner: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that many of the facilities for staff members in this Palace are wholly unworthy and in many cases disgusting? Is he aware, for example, that the waiting staff changing rooms have been moved to the former office of the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), the leader of his party, who I understand has moved out? None the less, there is no security and nowhere for the staff to lock away their clothes. They are not even allowed to have keys to the door. Will the hon. Gentleman look into the matter and try to arrange for our staff to have the facilities to which they would be entitled anywhere else?
    Mr. Beith: The Commission is well aware of the need. New changing and rest facilities have been made available at No. 1 Parliament street, where those criticisms will not apply. I will look at the specific points raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman and ensure that they are brought to the attention of the appropriate authorities.
    Mr. Dickens: Does the hon. Gentleman feel that if the toilet facilities in the House of Commons are sufficient for the hundreds of people who visit the House of Commons each day, they should by the same token be sufficient for the staff who work in the building?
    Mr. Beith: Those matters do not fall within the responsibility of the Commission until the transfer of the works next April. It will be our intention that there should be adequate and excellent facilities for staff members and visitors.

    Refreshment Department
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, what recent reviews have been undertaken of the payments and conditions of service of staff of the Refreshment Department; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Beith: Pay reviews for the non-industrial and industrial staff of the Department took place on 1 April and 1 July respectively, and pay increases for both groups of staff have been implemented recently in line with civil service pay agreements. The Establishments Office of the House has reached the final stage of negotiations with the relevant unions on the introduction of a simplified grading and pay structure for non-industrial grades, which will affect a small percentage of Refreshment Department staff. In addition, consultations have proceeded along similar lines for the industrial grades. The Commission has recently agreed proposals put forward by the Board of Management, and has authorised the Establishments Office to commence negotiations with the Hotel and Catering Union.
    Mr. Skinner: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that when the £3·40 barrier was broken for the hourly rate paid to House of Commons refreshment staff, no one was sacked and, incredibly, more staff have been employed since then? Will those staff be treated in the same way as Members of Parliament when the next review is carried out? Will they be awarded pay rises of no less than 6·5 per cent., and when their pensions are calculated, will the Commission ensure that those pensions are in line with the recommendations of the Top Salaries Review Body, which is so embarrassed about the 60 per cent. pension increase awarded to some top civil servants that it has postponed the increase until after the general election? Will the hon. Gentleman guarantee that staff will receive the same increase, and that they will receive it before the election?
    Mr. Beith: It is quite some time since the House broke through the £3·40 barrier to which the hon. Gentleman referred. As for pensions, staff—unlike Members—receive non-contributory pensions, along with a series of other benefits, which makes it difficult to compare their terms with those operating outside the House. A package containing a number of improvements is, however, currently the subject of negotiation.
    Mr. Charles Wardle: Bearing in mind the number of people who work in the Refreshment Department and elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster, and the number of visiting officials from Government Departments—not to mention the number of right hon. and hon. Members— what can the hon. Gentleman do to promote the idea of establishing a mini-supermarket on the premises? Given the hours worked by all employees in the Palace, it is sometimes very difficult for them to find their way to a shop to buy essential supplies.
    Mr. Beith: The hon. Gentleman's interesting suggestion does not arise out of this question.

    Disabled Employees
    Mr. Corbyn: To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, how many people employed by the Commission are registered disabled; and what proprtion this is of total employees.
    Mr. Beith: Of the total number of staff employed by the House of Commons, eight—that is, 0·7 per cent. of the total—are registered as disabled. The Commission's policy with regard to the employment of disabled persons is set out in its annual report of 1981–82, and—together with a summary of the positive action taken by management to increase the recruitment of disabled staff—was printed in the answer given on 13 June 1991 to a written question to me from the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. McMaster).
    Mr. Corbyn: Is that not a most unsatisfactory reply, and is not the situation disgraceful? Legislation suggests that a minimum of 3 per cent. registered disabled should be employed. There is no reason on earth why, having passed that legislation, the House cannot implement it.
    The hon. Gentleman has said that a statement about a positive action programme was made in 1981–82. That was 10 years ago, and an amazing total of eight people with disabilities are now working in the building. That is a disgrace. I urge the Commission to consider this as a matter of urgency, and to increase the number of vacancies for people with disabilities, providing a model for the rest of the country and demonstrating that we do not believe that those who suffer from disabilities are unable to work gainfully.
    Mr. Beith: The numbers that I gave did not include all who work in the building: the staff of the Property Srvices Agency were not part of the staff of the Commission.
    The authorities have taken positive action beyond the 1981 statement to ensure that disabled persons are aware that applications from them would be welcome. Measures include a statement to that effect in all advertisements, encouraging disabled people to state whether they are registered; keeping close links with the disablement resettlement officers, and organisations representing disabled people, to which all job vacancies are sent; and facilitating the placement of disabled students for work experience. Disabled applicants will normally be shortlist-ed for interview if they are appropriately qualified. We are anxious to improve the figure as, I know, are many other employers.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS

    Annunciator System
    Mr. Butler: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he intends to upgrade the annunciator system.
    The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John MacGregor): There are as yet no firm proposals to upgrade the annunciator system, but the first step has been taken. During the summer
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    recess, a consultant has been investigating the require-ments for a cable network covering the entire Palace, which would provide hon. Members with information technology facilities but could also carry a modernised annunciator system. His report is expected to be presented before the end of the year.
    Mr. Butler: Is not the technology for the annunciator system nearly a quarter of a century old? When we have a new system, will it be able to take an audio feed from the Chamber?
    Mr. MacGregor: I believe that it is nearly a quarter of a century old. However, it was decided a little while ago that as the system was still working satisfactorily it did not make sense to change it outside the context of an examination of a cable network for the House as a whole. We have therefore taken the first steps in that regard, and the House will recall that the matter was debated in July 1991. Shortly after that debate, the House of Commons Commission gave the necessary approval for the consultancy study. That is now proceeding and we shall progress to the next stage after that.
    Dr. Cunningham: May I strongly support the reply of the Leader of the House to the hon. Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Butler)? We should not waste money on an outdated annunciator system when we need to recable the House so that hon. Members can have access to information systems, data bases and as many television channels as we decide appropriate. I hope that we would decide that it was appropriate to have the live feed from the House as well.
    Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman knows that I agree with him about how we should proceed on that matter. He will be aware that after the consultancy study the next stage is to set up a specialist working party to draw up the specifications for the interfaces required to produce a list of approved computers. The other matters can also be considered.

    Televising the House
    Mr. Tony Banks: To ask the Lord President of the Council how many complaints he has received from members of the public and hon. Members regarding the televising of the House.
    Mr. MacGregor: I have received a few letters from members of the public making general comments, but I am not aware of any complaints about the way in which the televising operation itself has been carried out within the House during the current Session.
    Mr. Banks: Televising the House of Commons is one bit of television output about which the Prime Minister does not have to write a letter of cringing apology to someone because it has, of course, been so successful. Following what the right hon. Gentleman said in reply to the previous question, when shall we have television from gavel to gavel so that people can tune in to the debates that they want to watch rather than the debates chosen for them by broadcasting journalists?
    Mr. MacGregor: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been extremely successful in the House in the way that he comes over on television. The hon. Member for Newham,

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    North-West (Mr. Banks) will be aware that the Select Committee on Broadcasting, &c. hoped that a continuous service operated by United Artists would be available from this autumn. There have been technical and legal problems with the Marco Polo satellite, but it is hoped that live continuous coverage of the proceedings of the House will be available from the Marco Polo satellite to cable subscribers in the new year as soon as the problems have been overcome.
    Mr. Simon Coombs: I support what hon. Members have said about the need for live television coverage to be provided in the offices of hon. Members. When does my right hon. Friend expect the consultant's report to be available to him and, in due course, to the House?
    Mr. MacGregor: We hope that the consultant's report to which I referred earlier will be available towards the end of the year—probably by the end of November.

    Building Work
    Mr. Janner: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement on the forthcoming transfer of responsibility for building work in the Palace of Westminster.
    Mr. MacGregor: Following the appointment of the Director of Works in July, good progress is being made to set up the new organisation which will assume responsibility for works services.
    Mr. Janner: Will the Lord President of the Council be kind enough to arrange for a survey and census of the hazards in this building to elderly and infirm people who use the House? Meanwhile, will he use his powers at least to conjure up some railings for the stairs leading down from Westminster Hall to the interview rooms, down which to the right hon. Gentleman's knowledge an elderly, charming and kindly peer recently fell and was very lucky not to be severely injured?
    Mr. MacGregor: I will certainly arrange for that particular matter to be looked into. The hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that we are about to undertake a major study with regard to access for the disabled, and that will include some of the points to which he referred.

    Office Allowance
    Mr. Hind: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement on his plans to review the parliamentary office allowance.
    Mr. MacGregor: As I announced in a written answer on 25 July 1991, I wrote to Sir David Nickson, chairman of the Top Salaries Review Body, on 24 July, asking him to conduct a review of the office costs allowance. Sir David has since replied, agreeing to produce a report by the middle of February.
    Mr. Hind: My right hon. Friend will be aware that many hon. Members feel that they are short-changing their constituents because of their lack of resources, particularly in dealing with the large number of letters and constituency problems that they receive. Will my right hon. Friend put his weight behind the inquiry to ensure
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    that more research facilities will be available by way of additional cash and help in dealing with the large number of matters that we are now asked to sort out?
    Mr. MacGregor: I put my weight behind having the review undertaken so that all those matters could be looked at by the TSRB—including, of course, hon. Members' increased work load. My hon. Friend will know, however, that the TSRB wishes to conduct a comprehen-sive survey of hon. Members in relation to their use of staff, office costs and their views on the allowance, which would clearly include the points that my hon. Friend has raised. I am sure, therefore, that he will wish to make his views known to the TSRB.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: Will the House authorities look carefully at the possibility of providing a special allowance for Members who like to keep their staff in their constituencies, in addition to the office costs allowance which is currently paid? That would have the double effect of paying for facilities in constituencies and taking pressure off accommodation in London, so we might solve two problems with one stone.
    Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend may wish to put that point to the TSRB, together with his reasons for it. It would, of course, be for the TSRB to make recommendations.

    Palace Tours
    Mr. Simon Coombs: To ask the Lord President of the Council what is his estimate of the number of people who toured the Palace of Westminster last year; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. MacGregor: I am advised that in 1990 the estimated total number of visitors to the Palace of Westminster in Members' parties was 112,265. In addition, 6,720 schoolchildren took part in tours as part of the autumn visits programme organised by the education unit.
    Mr. Coombs: Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to consider the point that I raised with him in the summer—that greater encouragement should be given to allowing people who are not connected with Members of Parliament to visit the Palace during the summer recess?
    Mr. MacGregor: I indicated in my reply to my hon. Friend during the summer some of the difficulties involved, particularly those of a security nature, and the various hoops that would have to be gone through The position has not changed.
    Mr. Cryer: Will the Leader of the House do something about a point of order that I raised before the summer recess? I refer to the provision of a room in which disabled visitors to the House can relax. When I took a party of blind students around the House, they were provided with absolutely no facilities at all. It is disgraceful that they cannot be taken anywhere for a cup of tea, they cannot be allowed to sit down anywhere, and there is no room for them. Groups of blind students have to be pushed to one side to allow rich pickings from the corporate entertainment in private dining rooms. It is about time that practice stopped and proper facilities were provided.
    Mr. MacGregor: The whole House will be aware of the pressure on accommodation in the Palace. The hon.

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    Gentleman's point is for the successor to the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee to consider if he would like to put it to it.

    Terrace Marquee
    Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Lord President of the Council if he has any plans to seek to retain the marquee on the terrace all the year round; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. MacGregor: There are no plans at present to keep the terrace pavilion in operation for the whole year. Any permanent construction would need planning permission from Westminster city council and the approval of the Royal Fine Art Commission and English Heritage. It is unlikely that the terrace pavilion, while appropriate for its present use, would be considered a suitable permanent structure.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, even if planning permission would be hard to come by, the
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    terrace pavilion is a useful facility he should explore ways in which it can be maintained all the year round in view of its popularity and the demand for it?
    Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend is certainly right about the demand for it. The facilities have been well received and have been heavily booked by hon. Members. Having the pavilion all the year round, which was examined by the Service Committee in the past, would involve problems at times of year when it is not currently used. I refer to problems of wear and tear, and possibly even loss of the whole facility. Maintenance and refurbishment would have to be done on site, too, and it is felt that that is more effectively done elsewhere. However, it is a matter that the Services Committee, or its successor under the Ibbs proposals, could bear in mind.
    Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: I will take the statement first.

Social Security Benefits (Uprating)
3.34 pm
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the uprating of social security benefits. This will take place for most benefits, as is now the normal practice, in the first full week of the tax year—that is, the week beginning 6 April. The statutory instruments to implement my proposals, applying to both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will in due course be laid before both Houses for debate and a full schedule of the new benefit rules is being placed in the Vote Office.
I will, as usual, deal first with the main national insurance benefits, including in particular the retirement pension which now goes to some 10 million people. The bases for the uprating will be the latest available information about the increase in the retail prices index over the past year: that is to say, the rise of 4·1 per cent. in the 12 months to September.
Our firm and continuing commitment is to increase the pension fully in line with prices. Next April, therefore, the basic pension will go up by £2·15 a week for a single person, from £52·00 to £54·15, and by £3·45 a week for a couple, from £83·25 to £86·70. This will increase expenditure on retirement pensions by around £1 billion.
Public service pensions will also be increased across the board by 4·1 per cent. as will war widows' pensions and war disablement pensions. I am glad to be able to tell the House on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence that the special Ministry of Defence payment to the pre-1973 war widows will similarly go up from £44·36 to £46·18 a week. This special payment will, of course, remain tax-free and continue to be disregarded in calculating entitlement to income-related benefits.
All other national insurance benefits will be increased by 4·1 per cent. taking unemployment benefit, for example, for a single person from £41·40 to £43·10 and from £66·95 to £69·70 for a couple. Maternity allowance and lower rate statutory maternity pay, both of which were increased in real terms in the last uprating, will be increased from £40·60 to £42·25 and from £44·50 to £46·30 respectively.
National insurance sickness benefit will go from £39·60 to £41·20 for a single person and from £64·10 to £66·70 for a couple. As the House knows, however, most short-term sickness is now covered by statutory sick pay administered by employers, in which a number of changes were made last year. The new arrangements, including the special provisions for small employers, appear to be working well and I do not propose to disturb them except to increase the lower rate of SSP, which goes to employees currently earning between £52 and £185 per week. This will be increased by the retail prices index, from £43·50 to £45·30. The higher rate, which goes to the better-paid employees, of whom the great majority are in any case covered by occupational sick pay schemes, will remain at £52·50, since I judge that the cash required to increase it can more sensibly be used to improve the position of sick and disabled people in other ways.
I turn next to the income-related benefits—income support, housing benefit and community charge benefit. By convention, since the main housing costs of income support claimants are met separately and directly, these benefits have been uprated by an index which seeks to exclude such housing costs.
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As the House is aware, since these benefits were uprated last year, there has been a £140 reduction in the community charge, which in turn has meant a reduction of £28—over 50p a week—in the amount which those on income support are expected to meet from what was included in their benefit for that purpose. There is therefore a strong case for adjusting benefit rates accordingly to produce an expenditure saving of £200 million. I do not propose to do that.
I have, however, concluded that it would be right in these circumstances to align the calculation of what is called the Rossi index more exactly than at present with the items the costs of which people are expected to meet from their benefit. This entails including within it not only 20 per cent. of community charge, but certain miscellaneous housing costs, and water rates, which have not previously been covered in the calculation. This will put the index on a more logical basis for the future— indeed, the inclusion of water rates also responds directly to a number of representations that we have received from welfare rights bodies and others.
The result is to produce an uprating index of 7 per cent., nearly 3 percentage points higher than the full RPI. Other things being equal, that would entail a small reduction in the cost of the uprating, by comparison with the use of the previous less comprehensive calculation. But that will not in fact happen, because I propose to devote rather more than the sum involved to an additional increase in the income support premiums for pensioners who are disabled or who are over 80. Those premiums will be increased, over and above the 7 per cent., by £1 a week for a single pensioner and £1·50 for a couple, contributing to overall increases in income support for this group of £5·10 a week, from £58·10 to £63·20 for a single person, and of £7·70 a week, from £88·45 to £96·15 for a couple. The cost will he £60 million.
Nearly 600,000 pensioners will gain to the full extent through income support, and over 400,000 will gain through increases in housing benefit and community charge benefit. It will thus build further on the series of measures that we have taken in recent years to give extra help to the less well-off pensioners and especially those who are older which have already increased the pensioner premiums by some £300 million in real terms in the past two years.
All other income support rates will go up by 7 per cent. Thus, benefit for a single person over 25 will increase from £39·65 to £42·45; for a couple with two children aged 10 and 12 from £104·55 to £111·85; and for a pensioner couple aged under 74 from £83·15 to £88·95.
Before leaving the income-related benefits, there are three further issues to which I should refer. The first are called the non-dependant deductions in housing benefit and income support for housing costs—that is to say, the contribution expected from the income of a non-dependant, living in the household of a claimant, in calculating the householders' benefit. Here I have received representations that these deductions, however reasonable in concept, are at too high a level for those on lower incomes. I shall therefore shortly be consulting the Social Security Advisory Committee and the local authority associations on a proposed restructuring of the deductions from next April.
Its effect would be to reduce the contribution expected from anyone whose income is below £130 a week— including a reduction of over a quarter, from £5·70 to £4,

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in that applying to a non-dependant who is not in full-time work or whose income is below £65—but to expect a somewhat larger contribution than at present, £18 instead of £13·50, from those in full-time work with incomes over £130 a week. While giving what I believe will be widely seen as a fairer and more sensible structure and once again helping the least well-off, these proposals would reduce benefit expenditure by about £50 million.
This, however, helps me to make much more substantial increases than would otherwise have been possible in the second area on which I need to touch—the income support limits for residential care and nursing homes. Unlike other income support rates, these include provision for housing costs. But I intend to make increases significantly greater than inflation, raising support in this field by nearly £200 million, or some £80 million more than would come from simply uprating the limits in line with the retail prices index.
After the very large increases made last year in the limits for nursing homes, I have concluded in the light of the available evidence and the representations made to me that the right course is a general increase in virtually all the limits of £15 a week, thus giving a proportionately larger increase this year to people in residential care homes. For the residential care limits in two categories—those for the very dependent elderly and for the mentally handicapped, who between them cover almost 40 per cent. of all residential care home cases—I propose an increase of £20.
In only one case do I propose an increase below £15, which is in respect of the limit sometimes known as the terminal illness limit for nursing homes. Originally intended primarily to give additional help to hospices, it has not proved very effective for that purpose, since many hospices do not make charges and there is therefore no basis on which their patients can claim the special rates of income support. As a basis for distinguishing between nursing homes, it has become increasingly artificial and difficult to operate. I therefore think it right to make only a £5 increase in this limit, thus narrowing the gap between it and other nursing home limits, and to steer additional help to hospices in two other ways.
One is to make changes in the rules for attendance allowance and from next April also the new disability living allowance, which will give more than £2 million of additional benefit to people in voluntary hospices. The other is to make available from the social security budget a further £1 million towards the direct funding of hospices as part of the Government's commitment to increase their contribution to the movement. This sum will be made available through the Department of Health. I believe that these moves will be widely welcomed.
With that one exception to which I have referred, all limits will increase by more than 5 per cent., with the limit for the very dependent elderly in residential care homes going up by about 10 per cent.—making a total increase in this very important category, covering about a third of all elderly people in residential care homes, of 32 per cent. in three years. The Greater London additions for both residential and nursing homes will also be increased to £25 and £35 a week respectively.
Finally in relation to the income-related benefits, I should tell the House that the additional resources for the social fund which my right hon. Friend the Minister of
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State announced in August, increasing this year's grants budget by some £10 million and the loans budget by some £30 million, will be fully carried through into provision for 1992–93, when the budget for the two elements together will be almost £300 million—30 per cent. higher than the budget initially made available in 1991–92. That is, of course, in addition to the greatly improved arrangements for cold weather payments, which are outside the budget and which, should the need arise, will be made automatically. Some 400,000 more people than previously would be eligible for payments.
I turn now to families with children. As I said in my statement this time last year, child benefit is and will remain a strong element in our policies for family support. That has been underlined by the further increase which has taken place this month, announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget, together with the undertaking that the benefit would in future be increased in line with prices.
After having reviewed the benefit levels in accordance with my statutory duty, I have decided that the right course for next April is to increase each of the rates which have just come into payment by the full 4·1 per cent. RPI increase for the whole year to September, even though they will have been at their present level for only six months. This will raise the payment for the eldest eligible child by 40p to£9·65 and the rate for other children by 30p to £7·80. One-parent benefit will also rise, by 25p to £5·85 per week.
At the same time, we shall continue with our policies to give greater help to low-income families with children, including not least those in work whose earnings are modest. That too, has been underlined by the increases in income support and family credit made in parallel with this month's child benefit increase. The relevant benefit rates, including the family premium and the age-related amounts for children, will all be increased in April by 7 per cent.
On the latest figures, family credit is now going to a record 356,000 families, 30,000 more than a year earlier, at an average level of more than £30 a week. That gathering success will be further reinforced next April by reducing from 24 to 16 the number of hours of work needed to qualify, which we expect to enable another 30,000 families to benefit immediately and a further 35,000 in due course. I shall shortly be consulting the Social Security Advisory Committee on proposals designed to ensure a smooth transition to those new arrangements and more generally to improve the speed and accuracy with which claims are processed.
While those changes will help families of all kinds, they are likely to be of particular help to lone parents who wish to work, who already account for more than one third of those helped by family credit. We have already improved the earnings disregard in housing benefit and community charge benefit. The introduction of the £15 maintenance disregard in those benefits next April will mean that lone parents receiving maintenance will still be better off in work on family credit with earnings up to £50 below what they would need at present.
The changes in family credit, together with the new maintenance disregard, will increase expenditure next year by some £70 million. That will mean that since 1988 we have made available some £600 million extra in real terms through the income-related benefits to improving the position of less well-off families with children.

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I come now to benefits for sick and disabled people, to whose needs we have consistently sought to give special attention both in promoting and improving existing benefits and in developing new ones.
All the main disability benefits will go up by the 4·1 per cent. increase in the RPI, thus raising invalidity benefit in line with the retirement pension, and both severe disablement allowance and invalid care allowance from £31·25 to £32·55. The invalidity allowances payable with invalidity benefit, and since December 1990 the similar additions payable with severe disablement allowance, will also be appropriately increased.
The main disability premiums in income support, including the greatly enhanced premium for disabled children introduced 18 months ago, will, of course, rise by 7 per cent., so that, for example, the benefit for a family with a disabled child of 12 will increase from £107·60 to £115·10 a week.
Apart from the strategic improvements in benefits for disabled people, to which I will come in a moment, I have a number of detailed changes to make which will be of significant benefit to those affected. The residence qualifications for severe disablement allowance wall be brought into line with those for comparable benefits, making it easier for people coming or returning to this country to qualify. Families with children under 16 who receive social security help with care costs will, when the child has to go into hospital, keep that help for up to 12 weeks instead of four. The earnings limit for invalid care allowance will be further increased from £30 to £40.
A number of possibilities for simplification of the war pensions scheme are currently under discussion with representative bodies, in a joint effort to improve the working of the scheme. While I do not intend to make decisions on most of the issues involved until those discussions have been concluded, I have decided to add the war pensioners dependency allowance into the basic war pension for all disablement pensioners, which is not only a helpful simplification, but will give small gains to some 50,000 people. This group of small improvements involves a total additional cost of about £4·5 million.
I am also able to inform the House of our plans for further substantial increases in resources for the independent living fund, which is providing assistance to more than 10,000 severely disabled people. The provision for next year will rise by some 40 per cent. adding more than £20 million to this year's level of £54 million. That will ensure that the fund continues to play an important role in helping people with disabilities to live independent-ly in the community in the run-up to the full implementation of community care.
Although not strictly an uprating matter, I should also take this opportunity to tell the House, following consultation with the Social Security Advisory Committee, that I am today laying revised regulations to re-establish the original policy intention underlying the income support severe disability premium, whose purpose is to give extra help to severely disabled people living independently of their families, but which has, in some cases, been extended well beyond that by the creation of artificial tenancy arrangements within one household. While accepting that the regulation re-establishes the clear policy intention when the premium was introduced., the committee has asked that steps should be taken to ensure that no disabled person should lose an already established entitlement. I gladly accept that. In those cases,
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appropriate protection will he provided at an additional cost of £5 million, compared with the proposal originally referred to the committee.
From next April, mobility allowance and attendance allowance for those under 65 will be replaced by the new single extra costs benefit—disability living allowance, or DLA. Those entitled to them will be automatically transferred to the new benefit and the relevant rates will be set at 4·1 per cent. above those of the existing allowances. Thus the higher mobility component of DLA will be £30·30—£1·20 above the current mobility allowance—and the two upper rates of the care component will be set at £43·35 and £28·95, £1·70 and £1·15 a week respectively above the current attendance allowance rates. Attendance allowance itself will be similarly increased for those over 65, for whom it continues.
At the same time, two new tiers of DLA will be introduced, giving help with care or mobility costs—or both—for the first time to some 300,000 people for whom the existing benefits do not cater. Among the gainers will be 10,000 severely mentally handicapped people with serious behavioural problems, who cannot at present get help with their mobility costs and who will qualify for the top rate of the mobility component.
The new lower rates of disability living allowance will be set not at the £10 a week on which discussion of the new structure was based, but at £11·55, which in effect applies this year's and last year's uprating to the original figure. For those on the lowest incomes, receipt of even one of the lower rates of DLA will bring entitlement to the disability premium in the income-related benefits. Thus, those on income support will be nearly £30 a week better off.
In April, we shall also introduce the new disability working allowance, helping up to 50,000 disabled people who wish to work but have limited earning capacity, by enabling them to top up those earnings with benefit. The rates governing its assessment are set out in the schedule to my statement. They will mean, for example, that a single person could earn as much as nearly £100 a week, while still being entitled to some disability working allowance, and with it the disability premium in housing and community charge benefit, together with the reassurance which disabled people have been seeking of a much extended linking period back to their old incapacity benefit, should they be unable to continue working.
The new disability benefits mark a further important stage in a programme which, in the past two years, has already included real increases in the disability premiums both for adults and children, the introduction of a carer's premium and of additional payments with severe disablement allowance, the extension of mobility allowance to the deaf-blind, and the extension of attendance allowance to severely disabled babies and the terminally ill.
Overall, by 1993–94, the better part of 1 million disabled people will be gaining from this programme, either through real increases in existing benefits or entitlement to new ones, to a total of some £300 million. With earlier changes and the massive expansion that has taken place in the coverage of mobility allowance, attendance allowance and invalid care allowance, it will mean that, next year, expenditure on benefits for disabled people and carers will be no less than two and a half times greater than in 1979.
Despite the difficult circumstances, we have been able to commit ourselves to the uprating that I have outlined today, at a cost of over £3 billion. We have honoured and

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confirmed our pledge to retirement pensioners. We are doing more for those who are older and least well-off, more for families with children, and more for disabled people. Those are our priorities, and I believe that they will be widely endorsed.
Mr. Michael Meacher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that pensioners will be bitterly disappointed by the statement? Not only is £2 a week a miserly increase but, contrary to the Government's promise, the increase does not protect pensioners against inflation. Is he aware that the RPI has fallen to 4·1 per cent. largely because of the cuts in mortgage rates, but as almost no pensioners have mortgages, the relevant inflation index for pensioners is the underlying rate excluding mortgages, which is 5·7 per cent.? Is he aware that his announcement today short-changes pensioners by nearly £1 a week? Is not, £2 a week increase for pensioners an insult? It is not even enough for a pound of sausages and a couple of loaves, while workers on average pay are receiving increases of more than £20 a week and some executives, increases of more than £2,000 a week.
The Prime Minister talks of a society with the power to choose. By giving pensioners an increase of £2 a week, is he not giving them the obligation to go without? If the Chancellor can afford to spend nearly £2 billion by cutting income tax by a further 1p in the Budget, as he keeps hinting, is it not time that pensioners were given priority —as Labour now proposes, with £5 and £8 a week increases, and the restoration of the pension link with earnings—instead of having to be at the end of the queue, as they always are under this Government?
Will the right hon. Gentleman admit that, if the Government had not broken Labour's pension link with earnings, thereby cutting pensioners out of rising living standards for the past 11 years, he would be announcing —[Interruption.] Conservative Members may try to shout me down, but they will not stop pensioners learning the truth about this statement.
If the Government had not broken the link 11 years ago, would not the right hon. Gentleman now be announcing a single pension of £70 a week instead of £54, and one of £111 a week for a married couple, instead of £86? Will the right hon. Gentleman admit that he is saving £450 million this year alone at the expense of pensioners by refusing to uprate the pension in line with earnings—three times as much as the total pre-election sweetener for pensioners announced today?
The right hon. Gentleman claims that he is concentrating extra resources on the poorest. He is not. Will he confirm that the 7 per cent. increase for those on income support that he announced today is less than the rate of inflation for people whose housing costs are wholly met from other sources? Is he aware that the poorest pensioners of all are the 900,000 living below the income support level who will get only the 4·1 per cent. increase, which will not even keep up with the true rate of pensioner inflation?
We welcome the £15 a week increase in DSS payments to those in private residential homes, but has the right hon. Gentleman noticed that the latest survey by Price Waterhouse—the same company that the Government used a year ago—shows that the average shortfall in DSS payments is not £15 or £20 a week as he announced today,
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but more than £60 a week? Will he confirm that the Government, having pushed nearly 200,000 frail, elderly residents who are on income support into private homes, are still nowhere near meeting the charge imposed by the homes, so both the residents and their families continue to face anxiety and the threat of eviction?
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the increase in child benefit that he has announced goes no way to restoring the cut in its real value in the three-year freeze since 1987? Will he confirm that the shortfall is still more than £2 a week per child for the second child and subsequent children; and that since this is the last uprating before the election, it means that only Labour will now make good the substantial cuts from these Tory years?
The most noteworthy aspect of this statement, despite its extreme length, is its omissions. Why did the right hon. Gentleman say nothing about the young homeless, deprived of all benefit by him and reported by many citizens advice bureaux to be starving? Or does he regard them, like Sir Bernard Ingham, as "a blot" on the domestic and tourist landscape; or like the Minister for Housing and Planning, who described them the other day as people you trip over on your way to the opera?
Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Disgraceful.
Mr. Meacher: It is indeed disgraceful—for once I can agree with the hon. Gentleman.
Will not the right hon. Gentleman create more young homeless by the £50 million increase in the non-dependent deductions that he has announced? Why has he said nothing about the unemployed, whose benefits have been cut by £1·5 billion a year since 1979 and whose unemployment benefit is as a result only one third of the level paid to unemployed people in France of Germany? If the right hon. Gentleman is really interested in assisting the poorest, why has he offered no new money for the social fund, applications to which, due to sharply rising unemployment, have risen fast recently, but refusals of which are rising even faster?
Why has the right. hon. Gentleman said nothing about ending the payment of 20 per cent. of the poll tax by the poorest in our society? Even today there was the announcement of an ingenious new way of funding the£140 reduction in the poll tax by cutting—
Mr. John Marshall: Nonsense.
Mr. Meacher: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman does not understand this, but it is being done by cutting the Rossi index for the very poorest.
After this statement, more than 10 million people will still be forced to try to cope at the new income support level of £42·50 a week, one seventh of the average wage. Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that that is sufficient for one sixth of the population to feed, heat and clothe themselves for months and sometimes years on end? The Prime Minister is producing not a classless society but a "couldn't care less society", and this statement will confirm our status as the poverty capital of Europe.
Mr. Newton: The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has been rather more restrained than usual when reacting to my statements, but I cannot honestly say that he has been more sensible. It is quite clear that we have put more resources into the social fund and that they are being fully carried through next year.

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The hon. Gentleman's point about the young homeless in relation to non-dependant deductions is manifestly absurd because I made it plain that increased deductions were to be expected only from those earning more than £130 a week.
I have listened to the hon. Gentleman's endless attempts to make something out of child benefit, but I must remind him that we have put £600 million more into helping less well-off families, and expenditure on families with children is now higher than if, over the past three years, we had increased child benefit alone.
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has yet had a chance to look at the Price Waterhouse survey, but when he has examined it he will see that, taking regional variations into account, the report does not substantiate his suggestion that much more is needed than the new rates that I announced today.
What the hon. Gentleman says about pensioners would be rather more credible if he had said last year, when we made an increase of almost 11 per cent., much of which was associated with the rise in mortgage rates, that we had given a real increase to pensioners. As always, of course, the hon. Gentleman tries to have his cake and eat it. He should know that, if pensions had been uprated only in line with the pensioner price index, which seeks to measure pensioners' costs specifically, the increases over recent years would have been a great deal less than those that we have made in line with the retail prices index.
The hon. Gentleman asked me to confirm some figures, which no doubt he has carefully calculated, about what would have happened if we had pursued Labour's policies in respect of uprating. If we had pursued those policies, pensioners would now be a great deal worse off. We have already seen pensioners' incomes increasing generally far faster under this Government than under the previous Government. If the hon. Gentleman wants confirmation of the risks that pensioners would face if we went along with the inflationary tactics of the hon. Gentleman., he should look no further than to the activities of the shadow Chancellor and shadow Chief Secretary, who go round the country saying that the hon. Gentleman's promises in this area are not promises at all.
Mrs. Marion Roe: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the excellent package of benefit increases, especially the increases in child benefit. Will he confirm that the full inflation uprating means that there will be three increases in child benefit within the space of a year?
Mr. Newton: Yes, I can confirm that, and I am pleased to have been able to announce this further increase which, as I said, uprates a six-month benefit rate by a full year's inflation.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Many things in the statement are welcome, especially the assistance for people in residential and nursing homes, for the over-80s, for families with children and for those who are mentally ill or in long-term categories of sickness or disability. The disappointments in the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and therefore the evidence of his failure to win the battle with the Treasury, relate to those on income support, who will still have to pay 20 per cent. of their poll tax, and pensioners. Although the Secretary of State rightly says that last year pensioners got more than the cost of living increase, this year they will receive
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significantly less—about 3 per cent. less across the board —and in relation to basic pensions they will not have a guarantee of a full pension, irrespective of contribution for the country as a whole. The great failure is that pensioners are the victims of the statement.
Mr. Newton: I need hardly say that I do not share the hon. Gentleman's view; nor will many people when they have had the opportunity to study what I said in more detail. I have put another £60 million into real increases for the older, less well-off pensioners, about £70 million into helping less well-off families with children, and about £80 million above the RPI into the area of residential care and nursing homes. That will help rather more than 200,000 less well-off pensioners. The new levels of disability benefit, which will take benefit to people who do not get anything at all at the moment to help with costs, are worth £120 million. I do not regard that as defeat, and I do not think that other people will, either.
Mr. Andrew Bowden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these increases will be widely welcomed throughout the country? Will he emphasise to the House that, under the policies of the last Labour Government, the savings of millions of pensioners were crucified by a 26 per cent. rate of inflation? If Labour returns to office, precisely the same thing will happen again. Will my right hon. Friend turn his attention to the residential care allowance, especially in the south-east? We have special problems because our expenses and costs are much higher than those in most other parts of the country.
Mr. Newton: I am grateful for the first part of my hon. Friend's question. I know that he takes a strong and continuing interest in this subject, which is a great credit to him. On his latter point, I cannot at this stage undertake to introduce yet another complicated regional arrange-ment into the residential care and nursing home limits. My hon. Friend will have noticed that I increased the Greater London allowance, although I realise that that does not quite meet the point that he was making, as I increased it for nursing homes last year. I hope, too, that he will not overlook the importance of the increase that I made for the dependent elderly—a 32 per cent. increase over three years —which will help about one third of those in residential care homes.
Mr. John Battle: Is the Minister aware that on 24 June this year, the European Council of Ministers agreed that VAT would be increased by up to 9 per cent. on fuels and some food items? Would that not, at a stroke, completely wipe out in the next financial year the increases for pensioners that he has announced today?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that these matters are under discussion in another place and go well beyond what I am in a position to comment on in the House today. He will also know that increases in prices, of whatever kind, are faithfully reflected in the indexes that we use, and shall continue to use, to uprate social security benefits.
Mr. John Hannam: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on producing an extremely generous uprating of benefit in such difficult times. In particular, I welcome the £100 million extra for disabled people. He has

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increased the independent living fund by 40 per cent. Will he ensure that that excellent source of funding for severely disabled people continues?
Mr. Newton: My hon. Friend knows better than anybody, given his strong interest in the interests of disabled people, what our commitments have been in respect of helping them to live independently. I, too, welcome the further increases in resources that I have been able to announce this afternoon, especially that in the independent living fund.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I welcome the changes in disability benefits as far as they go, but may I press the Minister on one aspect of the water charges element? As he will know, I welcome the involvement of this element in income support, and it is a move for which many of us have pressed. However, does he accept that the position of the single pensioner is invidious? For example, the one who saw me last week, with a water charge of £220 on a single-bedroomed house, will have an increase in her water charges of RPI plus X, which will erode her pension by 50p immediately. She will not be helped by the announcement that the Secretary of State made today, because she is not on income support. Therefore, will he consider extending what he is doing for income support to all pensioners?
Mr. Newton: The dispute over the index used for income support has been over the fact that, until my announcement this afternoon, it did not include water rates. It follows that water rates are included in the retail prices index, which has been used for uprating pensions generally.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Bearing in mind the promise that we heard today from the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) to restore an earnings link to retirement pensions, may I ask my right hon. Friend to take this opportunity to remind the House that, although the last Labour Government introduced an earnings link, they were so strapped for cash that they were unable to implement the proposal? Is it not bare-faced cheek for the hon. Member for Oldham, West to pretend that it would not be the same again?
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House that the last Labour Government found a way of, in effect, leaving out six months' inflation so as to save what would probably now be about £1 billion, largely at the expense of pensioners.
Mr. Tom Clarke: Does not the Secretary of State feel at least embarrassed that he has confirmed in his statement, yet again, that the Government have refused to implement the community care sections of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 for at least another three years? Does he realise that even the marginal improvments in benefit that he has announced for people in private residential homes should mean that we have arm's-length inspections to ensure that minimum standards prevail? Why is he prepared to accept the absence of value for money, of inspection and of any strategy for community care?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman, to whom I also pay tribute for the interest that he takes in such matters, knows
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of the various steps being taken to introduce a more independent element into the registration of residential care homes through new arrangements within local authorities. He will also be aware of all the steps taken towards the introduction of what I believe will be improved community care arrangements in 1993. Some of what I have announced this afternoon will underpin them, but, more generally, the arrangements will help disabled people who may not be covered by community care in the sense in which the hon. Gentleman means it but who nevertheless need the assistance of the social security system.
Sir David Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us who take a particular interest in the cause of the severely disabled are pleased that he was able to do so much more for the independent living fund, on which some of us have been pressing him for a long time? In view of his obvious confidence in the independent living fund, what is its future?
Mr. Newton: I think that my hon. Friend knows that we have made it clear that we intend to make arrangements for those covered by the independent living fund when the transition to community care takes place in 1993, but that thereafter, in general, it would be appropriate for new cases to look to the overall new arrangements for community care at local level.
Mr. Max Madden: Is the Secretary of State aware that most people will regard a 4p in the pound increase for pensioners as extremely mean, his silence on increasing the Christmas bonus frozen at £10 since 1972 as extremely miserly and his failure in Cabinet to abolish the 20 per cent. contribution to the poll tax by pensioners as extremely disappointing? Does he accept that the only way in which British pensioners will cease to be the poorest in Europe is to restore a link with earnings so that pensions can be increased by whichever amount increases most? That is Labour's policy and it is the best hope for British pensioners.
Mr. Newton: As I have said several times, if we adopted the European pensions policy so often urged on us, the first result would be that 2 million married women would lose the pensions that they currently receive on their husband's contributions. Secondly, I have not for a long time heard anyone from the Opposition have enough nerve to refer to the Christmas bonus, which for two years they did not pay at all.
Mr. David Nicholson: In addition to my right hon. Friend's help for people in nursing and residential homes and for those in hospices—his help for the latter will be widely welcomed by those in the hospice movement in my constituency—is he aware that his effective and caring targeting of help on the poorer pensioners will be widely welcomed? It is in sharp contrast to the extravagant promises made by the Opposition, which would lead to people being either conned or clobbered, or probably both. Will, he, however, ensure that the self-employed have full access to family credit because, as he will be aware, there are some difficulties in that respect?
Mr. Newton: I said in my statement that we are considering various ways in which to improve further the administration as well as the coverage of family credit. I shall certainly bear in mind my hon. Friend's point. I

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welcome his support for the additional measure that I was able to announce this afternoon for less well-off, older pensioners. That measure means that we have made a great deal of improvement, in one way or another, for less well-off pensioners for three years running.
Mr. Jeff Rooker: I support the comments made by the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) about the independent living fund. Does.. the Secretary of State realise that his answer highlights the fact that there will he two classes of disabled people if and when he does what he proposes to the independent living fund? Some people will have the benefit protected and some will be pushed into the underfunded community care system. Surely it is only equitable to offer the massive benefits in new systems of helping people to stay independent to as wide a section of the community as possible. He must not run away from that.
May I ask the Secretary of State one more question so that we do not get confused? He said specifically that the figure given by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) of an underfunding of pensions, if the earnings link was maintained, of £16 for a single person was not correct. Will he explain why it was not correct and, at the same time, offer the House the opportunity to say that it seems unfair that we cannot get a decent link for pensioners at 4·1 per cent. whereas we manage for ourselves a decent link with earnings of 6·5 per cent.? Why cannot we be linked with pensioners or why cannot pensioners be linked with us?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will know—I hope that he will regard it as sensible—that one of the purposes of the new arrangements being introduced in April 1993 is to produce an across-the-board improvement in arrange-ments for community care. Although it could have been argued that the most sensible and logical course would be for everybody to move from the ILF into the new arrangements, which I believe will work well, we have said specifically that those covered by the ILF at the point of changeover—in the same way as we have for the residential care and nursing home limits—will continue to be covered by the existing arrangements. That is a sensible and practical step to ease the transition.
On pensioners, I do not think that I said that the hon. Member for Oldham, West had made a mistake in his mathematics. I have not had the opportunity to check. I did not seek to say that. I said that, if the Labour party's policies on the linking of those benefits had been pursued in the way in which the hon. Gentleman urges, we would have gone straight back to the problems that the Labour Government found—that they could not sustain those commitments. They ended up making pensioners worse off.
Miss Emma Nicholson: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not pensioners who are bitterly disappointed by his announcement today, but the Labour party? Its disappointment stems from the magnificence of the increase and the skill in deployment with which he has targeted it on the most needy members of our society. Does he find it especially shameful that the Opposition spokesmen cannot even honestly recognise and accept that we have spent two and half times more than they did in 1979 on that acutely disadvantaged group, the disabled? Is he not ashamed of the Labour party's response?
Mr. Newton: I thank my hon. Friend for her supportive remarks. It is a very remarkable achievement that, by a combination of an improved coverage of existing benefits and the many new steps that we have taken in the past three years, we have so massively increased the amount of support going to that group of severely disabled people.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Although the support that the Government are giving to older pensioners through the extra income support is welcome, does the Secretary of State realise that there is a group of younger pensioners who have suffered a great deal as a result of the Government's policies? They are those put out of work in their fifties, supposedly to make this country's economy work again. In many cases, they have not worked from their middle fifties until their sixties. They are extremely hard up, because they have been on benefits for a long time. Is it not time that the Government targeted some help for them?
Mr. Newton: It will be within the hon. Gentleman's recollection that, although what I announced this afternoon is the premium increase directed to the over-eighties and the more severely disabled less well-off pensioners, last year I made the same sort of real increase in the income support premium for younger pensioners —those between 60 and 74. I thought that the balance this year pointed in the direction that I have announced.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that colleagues who represent south-east constituencies, who have had especially difficult hardship cases concerning the elderly in residential homes, will welcome the increase in the residential care allowance by £15 to £20 a week? May I underline what my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) said a moment ago? We still have special problems with the cost of residential care in the south-east. I know that it is difficult for my right hon. Friend to give a regional premium, but I ask him to undertake to look at that matter once more for us.
Mr. Newton: I can, of course, assure my hon. Friend that—as my statement made clear—we shall always continue to keep those matters under review. I cannot undertake this afternoon to introduce a regional premium of the kind that my hon. Friend suggests in advance of the move to community care. Having looked carefully at the figures, however, I believe that the increases that I have announced—particularly the larger increase for the very dependent elderly who are in residential care homes—will substantially ease the problem with which my hon. Friend is rightly concerned.
Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Here we are, at the end of the 20th century. Does the Secretary of State agree that, no matter how the figures are fiddled and regardless of the percentage that is used, the elderly and infirm—the old pensioner and the handicapped person —and, indeed, the single-parent family will still be living in poverty? That is the reality of life for them, now and in April.
Mr. Newton: What I am conscious of is this. The figures suggest that pensioners' average net incomes have risen by some 30 per cent.—rather more, indeed—under the present Government. That is partly because their savings and occupational pensions have been worth more and

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partly because the average rate of inflation has been lower. I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's general proposition. What I do accept—and what I have now demonstrated in three successive annual uprating statements—is that for a sizeable group of less well-off pensioners we need to do more and that is exactly what I have done.
Mr. David Martin: May I add my welcome for the £15 uprating for private residential and nursing homes—a form of community care against which the Labour party carries on a relentless and unfair vendetta? May I also thank my right hon. Friend for listening to those of us who want the increases and for acting accordingly?
Mr. Newton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have certainly listened very carefully to the representations that have been made. In the past week, while making my final decisions, I have met the representatives of a number of organisations—such as charitable and other bodies—and care home owners. I very much hope and expect that the large increases that I announced will be helpful to them.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Does the Secretary of State accept that there should be a direct link between growth in earnings and increases in pension payments and that that principle should be accepted by hon. Members on both sides of the House?
I especially welcome the attention paid by the right hon. Gentleman to hospices, but will he explain a little further? Will he ensure that people in hospices—I do not single out any group, but I am thinking particularly of people suffering from AIDS—are not disadvantaged in any way by his proposals?
I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not directly responsible for students, but will he take into consideration the large number of students who are not covered by the proposals, are being denied benefit and are suffering as a result of the Government's provisions?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will know that the arrangements under which the student loans scheme was introduced, and the arrangements for access funds, include those about whom he expressed concern.
There are two changes relating to hospices. First, an extra £1 million in grant will be given directly to them; secondly, a change is to be made in attendance allowance and then in disability living allowance rules, which at present have the practical effect of making it impossible for many people in hospices either to continue to receive attendance allowance or to claim it for the first time. That problem will be overcome and the change will be worth just over £2 million to people in voluntary hospices.
Mr. Anthony Coombs: The increased support for the mentally handicapped—not only in residential care, but in the community—is very welcome. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, over the past 12 years, spending on long-term sick and disabled people has risen from £1,800 million to nearly £13,000 million? Does not that illustrate the Government's commitment to an especially vulnerable group?
Mr. Newton: Yes, it does. As I said in my statement, even when allowance is made for inflation that is an increase of some two and a half times in real terms— which, in my view, constitutes a remarkable record.
I share my hon. Friend's satisfaction with the various ways in which I have been able to steer additional help towards mentally handicapped people. Let me pay special tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, not least in regard to the ingredient in the new disability living allowance, which will bring extra help to some 10,000 severely mentally handicapped people.
Mr. Harry Barnes: There is a mismatch between the start of the tax year—and hence the uprating of benefit—and the local government financial year. That means that council rent increases take place in advance of upratings. The practical consequence is that many people who can ill afford it lose in terms of benefit and related housing benefit provisions for at least a week or so. Will the Government end that fiddle?
Mr. Newton: Any mismatch between the benefit year and the tax year is very small this year given that we are talking about the week beginning 6 April for the uprating of social security benefits. If the hon. Gentleman wants me to look at the point in greater detail, I will.
Mr. Roger King: Has my right hon. Friend had a chance to reflect on his excellent proposals this afternoon, which included a worthwhile uprating for the basic pension, and on those presented by an alternative political party for a flat rate increase of £5 for a single pensioner and £8 for a couple, bearing in mind the fact that that political party advocates a standard minimum wage? Would not that have a disastrous impact on shop prices and make that party's proposed increase highly illusory?
Mr. Newton: There is no doubt that, no matter which of the various estimates one takes, the introduction of a national minimum wage would increase inflation to the disadvantage of pensioners and, more to the point, put a lot of people out of work.
Mr. William McKelvey: I welcome the extent of the changes in the rates for nursing homes to £15 and £20 for disabled people, but will the Secretary of State take steps to stop the growing abuse of private nursing homes which are seizing people's personal allowances as part of the rent?
Mr. Newton: This point, as the hon. Gentleman will be aware, has arisen on several occasions. It is not a question of seizing anyone's benefit. The plain fact is that benefit is payable to people as individuals and it applies for residential care and the nursing home limit and personal expenses allowance. Only the individual can decide how to use that money.
Mr. Jacques Arnold: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is better to help less well-off families with the breadwinner in work than to make them unemployed through the imposition of a national minimum wage?
Mr. Newton: Yes, I do, and that is why I and my colleagues are proud of the introduction of family credit and of the success that it is becoming.
Mr. Terry Rooney: The Secretary of State mentioned in his statement the new-found benevolence for the elderly and the disabled. Why has he not tried to deal with the problem of women aged between 60 and 65 who are still disbarred from claiming invalid care allowance and who are dependent on moves in the European Court rather than on this Government?
Mr. Newton: I do not quite know what the hon. Gentleman means by a new-found benevolence, when for three years we have consistently been steering additional help to the groups to whom I have referred: low-income families with children, less well-off pensioners and, not least, disabled people. There is nothing new-found about that. It is a consistent programme which is bringing more help to the groups that we want to help.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Will my right hon. Friend find time to produce figures for the benefit of Opposition Members to show the comparison between the incomes of pensioners in the United Kingdom and those in the rest of the European Community? Will he confirm that often when Opposition Members talk about "state" benefits, they are talking about private benefits from employers and trade union schemes in France and Germany? Will he also confirm that benefits in this country are 34 per cent. ahead for the average pensioner and that benefit is being increased for the poorest pensioners by nearly twice the rate of inflation to ensure that those pensioners receive the greatest benefit?
Mr. Newton: As I have now said several times, pensioners' average net incomes have been rising faster than those of the general population during the lifetime of the present Government. Quite apart from the point that I made about married women's pensions paid on their husbands' contributions, many of the comparisons with other European countries, of which the hon. Member for Oldham, West is so fond, totally ignore matters such as the fact that, in Germany, pensioners will be making health contributions which they would not have to make here.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Does the Secretary of State accept that the increase for pensioners is paltry and will be widely resented throughout the country? On the range of benefits, he knows full well that there is a tendency for administrative means to be used to err on the side of refusing benefits rather than granting them, if there is any sort of discretion. When he puts his statutory instruments before the House, will he state the full range of ministerial directions which accompany them? They should be part of the statutory instruments, and the right hon. Gentleman should not be producing extra legislative power without any authority of the House.
Mr. Newton: Whatever regulations we use to administer the social security system, there will obviously be a need for guidance. By and large, that guidance, unless there is a very good reason for not publishing it—for example, to prevent fraud—is publicly available. I would firmly resist the suggestion that, by back-door means—if that is what the hon. Gentleman meant—measures are adopted to prevent people from getting the benefit that they should get. That is simply not the case. On the contrary, considerable efforts have been made to ensure that benefit gets through to the people for whom it is
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intended. That is one reason why the extension of disability benefits and the increased expenditure on them have gone as far and as fast as they have.
Sir Jim Spicer: Does my right hon. Friend accept that all fair-minded people will warmly greet the package that he announced, which amounts to £3 billion? Within that total, the sum of £1 million for hospices might seem small, but that £1 million will act as a multiplier for many people in our voluntary sector, who will turn the sum into many millions of pounds. I thank him for that. As he passes that £1 million to the regional health authorities, will he make certain that Dorchester hospice, which will start work on 6 December, gets its fair share?
Mr. Newton: As I said in my statement, the mechanism will be a transfer to the Secretary of State for Health for distribution under the scheme that he already has for direct help to hospices. I should make it clear that the total amount of benefit that I expect to be gained by hospices arising from this afternoon's statement is not £1 million but £3 million. I certainly undertake to draw to my right hon. Friend's attention, as they say, my hon. Friend's plea on behalf of his local hospice.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a busy day, but I shall allow questions to continue until 4·45 pm and then we will have to move on.
Mr. Harry Cohen: Has the Secretary of State noticed that fares in London and the south-east are due to rise by more than 8 per cent.? Why has he not taken that into account in setting the income support level? Does he realise that a five-day travel pass costs the equivalent of 35 per cent. of a single person's income support? Why does he not take that into account? Would he like to live on £28 a week for housing, poll tax, eating, heating and everything else?
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman will realise that for many years it has been the practice to base upratings on the latest available information about what has happened to prices. That remains the sensible course. It is also worth making the point that it seems likely that, by next April, the rate of inflation will be lower than it is now.
Mr. Harry Ewing: May I press the point that was made by my hon. Friends the Members for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) and for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Mr. McKelvey) on the residential care and nursing home allowance? Does the Secretary of State accept that more than 90 per cent. of beneficiaries will not receive that benefit? It will go straight to the owners of residential homes and will make no difference at all to the pocket money that beneficiaries receive. Has not the time come for a royal commission on the operation of residential homes and nursing homes? When highly paid professional football players in Scotland are told by their financial advisers that the best investment is in one of those residential homes, it is time to worry. I wonder whether the Secretary of State shares my view.
Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government have made wide-ranging proposals, which are now building up towards implementation, to change the whole nature and basis of those arrangements in what

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he and I would regard as a more sensible direction from April 1993. What I have announced today is an increase in the income support limits within the present structure. That, too, is sensible.
Mr. Tony Banks: How much money have the Government saved since the abolition of the single payment system? Is it not now running into hundreds of millions of pounds? Is not it grotesque that people who badly need loans are often judged as being unable to pay them back and so are refused? Is not that hypocrisy and injustice on the part of the Government?
Mr. Newton: The single payment system was unsustainable and had become increasingly open to abuse. Resources for the social fund have been substantially increased by what my right hon. Friend announced in August and what I am carrying through to next year.

Points of Order
4.47 pm
Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have given you notice of my point of order, and I also conveyed my intention to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen).
The ability of hon. Members to petition on behalf of their constituents is a treasured privilege. That privilege was abused last Friday, when the petition that was presented to you, Mr. Speaker, was based on a fraud. Signatures were fraudulently collected and sought to give credibility to that fraud. There never has been, there is not, nor is there going to be any likelihood of the Nottingham city hospital or the Queen's medical centre in my constituency being taken out of the national health service.
I will acknowledge that the form of the petition must have been correct, Mr. Speaker, or your office would not have accepted it. However, I ask whether it is possible for you to investigate how the other signatures were collected, for I believe that those people were unaware of what they were being asked to sign. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is quite right. The petition was in order when it was presented to the Table Office, and the Table Office accepted it in good faith. It is not for me to judge its accuracy. I should call the hon. Member concerned.
Mr. Graham Allen: The signatures on the petition were collected by Alan Simpson, the next Labour Member for Nottingham, South, and myself. They came from thousands of people in Nottingham—health workers, doctors, nurses and patients—all of whom know that the Nottingham city hospital opted out last Wednesday. If it is of assistance to you, Mr. Speaker, I will read the full text of the petition. It states: "We"—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Allen: I am trying to be helpful.
Mr. Speaker: Not now. [Interruption] Order. The petition was properly presented on Friday. It would have been open to the hon. Member to include a number of signatures on the hand-written top sheet of his petition. That did not happen. Nevertheless, as far as the Table Office was concerned, the petition was in the correct form.
Mr. David Ashby: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. What are hon. Members supposed to do when petitions are put forward which are totally misleading and totally misrepresent the situation? We have even seen such a petition held up by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen). He seems to be happy to have presented a misleading petition to the House. What are we to do in those circumstances?
Mr. Speaker: I cannot advise the hon. Member on tactics of that kind. I am concerned only with whether the petition was properly presented, and I have to say that it was.
Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have a great deal of sympathy with you because of the onerous responsibilities facing you, especially as we approach the intense battle of a general

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election. However, may I prevail upon you, in the coming short recess, to examine your responsibilities in relation to the Representation of the People Acts? According to the motions on the Order Paper, today's debate will be an exclusively English debate on the health service—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If that is indeed the case, we shall have no opportunity of raising the position in Scotland and the fact that the Secretary of State for Scotland and his Minister of State are at odds on the issue of hospital trusts in Scotland.
We cannot question a Scottish Office Minister today, and if I were to raise this matter with the Secretary of State for Health, he would say, "This is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, and he will reply." May I have your assurance, Mr. Speaker, that in future, and especially in a general election or by-election period, you will seek to ensure that such debates are not dominated by Front-Bench speakers as happened during last Monday's defence debate when, although you asked for short speeches, the two Front Bench spokesmen consumed two hours—[Interruption.]
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We should get on with it. The debate is certainly not limited to England and Wales and I hope that, with any luck, when we get to it, I shall be able to call some Scottish Members.
Mr. Harry Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Well, what else?
Mr. Ewing: If you are to make the Representation of the People Acts your bedside reading during the short recess, perhaps you could consider the position of an hon. Member who is elected under one political banner but who then changes party—[Interruption]
Mr. Speaker: I am not certain that I shall he reading those Acts.
Mr. Douglas rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am now pretty certain that those Acts will not be part of my bedside reading in the short recess.

National Health Service
Mr. Speaker: I must announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition and that, because no fewer than 44 right hon. and hon. Members have already sought leave to speak in the debate and hope to be called. I therefore propose to put a limit of 10 minutes on speeches between 7 and 9 o'clock.
4.51 pm
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr. William Waldegrave): I beg to move,
That this House welcomes the record extra resources provided for the NHS and the substantial increase in the number of NHS patients treated since the Government came to office in 1979; supports the Government's reforms of the NHS which are already bringing about improvements in patient care; deplores the intellectual bankruptcy of Her Majesty's Opposition which, bereft of any coherent proposals of its own for the modernisation of the National Health Service, is reduced to peddling smears and scares which lower morale amongst NHS staff and cause wholly unnecessary fear amongst patients; notes with approval the Prime Minister's unequivocal statement on the NHS that there will he no charges for hospital treatment, no charges for visits to the doctor, no privatisation of health care, neither in part nor as a whole, now or in the future; and welcomes his unequivocal assurance that Trust hospitals remain a permanent part of the NHS.
The Government have chosen to hold this debate today to show the House and the country three things. First, we intend to nail the falsehood that was put at the heart of Labour's campaigning ever since the notorious Monmouth by-election—that the Government intend to privatise health care in Britain and that NHS trusts are leaving the health service. Secondly, we intend to dissect and record for the House the increasingly desperate and contradictory shifts of line made by Labour over the past few weeks, as it has been forced to retreat from allegations which it knows to be false. Thirdly, we intend to demonstrate to the House what is already established among independent experts and commentators outside —that Labour has no serious policy for management of the health service and no position that stands up on money for health, and that it is our domination of the real agenda which has forced it to resort to a truly scurrilous campaign of smears and scares.
I will start by nailing once and for all the falsehood about privatisation. First, let us remember Labour's first version of that falsehood. It started with mendacious leaflets at Monmouth saying that the local trust hospital would be leaving the NHS. It went on with the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) saying that the Prime Minister would privatise health just like coal and steel. Then we had the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) saying, "We all know what the Tories do with nationalised industries, don't we? They privatise them," and the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham saying, "They will finish up selling off hospitals and privatising the health service".[Interruption.]
Before Labour Members who are less well briefed start to cheer, I should point out that those were the allegations endorsed by the Leader of the Opposition's speech writers in Brighton, when their leader said:
"The Tories will privatise the Health Service."
It was simple. It was straightforward. It was false. But that is not what Opposition Members are saying now. The trouble with accepting advice from the ragbag collection of

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advisers who make up Labour's policy now is that it does not have to face interrogation from this House or from interviewers outside. Under those pressures, Labour has been redrafting and redefining—like the late Dr. Bowdler trying to rewrite Shakespeare without the naughty bits. We get six redefinitions a day; we get backing and filling; we get wriggling; and finally we get retreat.
It took six pages of the transcript of the hon. Member for Livingston's interview with Mr. Walden for that redoubtable interviewer to get to the truth. Mr. Walden said:
"Ah, well, now it's becoming clearer to me, and how wise we were to have this discussion, because you are not saying, are you, that the Conservatives intend to sell off the public institution called the National Health Service to private interests?"
Then came the answer from the hon. Member for Livingston:
"No".
So much for his leader, so much for the hon. Member for Copeland—wherever he is—who rejoices in the title of Labour's campaign co-ordinator; so much, for what it is worth, for the right hon. Member for Gorton—people always seem to be treading on him, poor fellow. The hon. Member for Livingston admits that the answer to the privatisation smears which his colleagues have perpetrated is "No". The hon. Gentleman should have the courage here and now to give the same clear, single-syllable answer to this House that he shared with Mr. Walden and the viewers. Why does he not just give us the same unequivocal "no" today?—[HON. MEMBERS "Answer."] I fear that the strings of the puppet have been pulled once again in a different direction.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: On the subject of that Walden programme and retreating, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why he found it necessary to say that the Government would stop making charges for fertility treatments at hospitals such as Bart's when a letter was sent to him on 19 August saying that that was illegal, but he did absolutely nothing about it? The right hon. Gentleman retreated only when Walden asked him that question. The truth about the right hon. Gentleman is that he is educated beyond his intelligence.
Mr. Waldegrave: There is no danger of that with the hon. Gentleman. His intervention enables me to say once again, and to make it as clear to the House as I made it on the "Walden" programme—and as clear as we have made it in the past and as clear as we will make it again in the future—that one cannot do that:it is illegal to charge NHS patients.
We all know how Labour has sought to back-track in the past few days.
Mr. Tom Clarke
rose—
Mr. Waldegrave: No doubt we shall come to the hon. Gentleman in due course.
We know how Labour has sought to back-track in the past few days. We have privatisation replaced by creeping privatisation; we have creeping privatisation replaced by commercialisation, and falsehoods replaced by creeping falsehoods.
Let us examine some of the new definitions. One line is that having charges for some items of service in the NHS
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is privatisation. In that case, the very founder of the NHS invented privatisation. It was Aneurin Bevan who passed the legislation for prescription charges, and it was a Labour Government who introduced charges for teeth and spectacles.
There have always been some charges for some services in the NHS, under Labour and under the Conservatives. The proportion of the income of the service which comes from patient charges is actually lower now than it was in the 1950s. We did abolish universal free eye tests and dental check-ups and introduce charges for those able to pay—as is well known—and it was controversial at the time; just as Labour introduced the original charges for teeth and spectacles, and just as, in 1967, they reintroduced the prescription charge having rashly abolished it—[HON. MEMBERS:"Ah."] There has been, and there will be, no fundamental shift away from a service financed overwhelmingly from taxation.
Mr. Rhodri Morgan rose—
Mr. Waldegrave: If charging is to be the definition of privatisation, it was the hon. Gentleman's party who invented it. I give way to him.
Mr. Morgan: Although I did not see the programme, I understand that the Secretary of State said that it was illegal to charge for any health service except eye tests, prescriptions and those which he has just identified. If it is illegal, will he do something about the practice of one of the hospitals that serves my constituency of charging for nebulisers? It prescribes nebulisers, which are vital for people suffering from emphysema and acute bronchitis, and tells them—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a speech, not an intervention. This is delaying the Secretary of State. I think that the Secretary of State has got the point.
Mr. Waldegrave: The position is entirely clear. NHS patients cannot be charged and will not be charged. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] I have answered the hon. Gentleman's question. NHS patients cannot be charged. [Interruption.] I have given the hon. Gentleman the absolutely clear answer that he asked for, and that is the truth.
Yet another redefinition comes from the Leader of the Opposition. Needless to say, his does not work either. In his version of the policy, he says:
"Up to now, care for elderly people has been free."
This is an important matter. Like most of his pledges, it involves some billions of pounds of expenditure. Up to now, we have pursued a policy, supported by both sides of the House, called "Caring for People". The White Paper was supported by the right hon. Gentleman and the Labour party.
If the Leader of the Opposition is now saying that the transfer of people from wards in acute hospitals into the community, where they are supported by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security through the Department of Social Security, is to be abandoned by the Labour party, that is yet another commitment which involves billions of pounds of expenditure and will result in less good treatment for patients. The Labour party should come clean on that. Is it abandoning care in the

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community or not? If it is, that is an astonishing reversal, which would not only bring huge new pressures to bear on NHS hospitals but be worse for patients.
Then we come to the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman). Retreating off that ground, she has dug Labour into another hole. Privatisation as she defines it means high waiting lists. If that is so, Labour is the prince of privatisation. There has never been a Labour Government who did not leave waiting lists higher than they found them. What is more, as the hon. Member for Livingston knows full well, even if the hon. Member for Peckham does not, on a fair and comparable basis waiting lists fell between 1979 and now.
I give the figures for England. In March 1979, the number was 752,000. In March 1991, it was 693,000. I would like the hon. Member for Livingston to repudiate the briefing note that he has put round the country and which has been sent to me from a variety of places. It says that his figure of approximately 900,000 for now is for England, "excludes self-deferred cases"—so far, he is right —and
"includes waiting lists for day surgery, which were collected separately from 1987."
That is totally dishonest, because the truth of the matter is that the figures were not collected at all before 1987— not that they were collected separately. The hon. Gentleman is an honest man and he should repudiate that. He knows perfectly well that he gets his higher figure by including day patients, figures for whom were not collected before 1979. He should have the honesty to admit it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] We will not get any answer.
The next argument of the hon. Member for Peckham was that we were driving people into the private sector. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are."] Opposition Members should wait before they cheer. This one lands them in a hole as well, I am delighted to say. The single year when the largest rise in the percentage of the population covered by private insurance took place was 1979—a 28 per cent. increase. No one can doubt what caused that. It was caused by Confederation of Health Service Employees pickets controlling access to the cancer wards and by the total collapse of the service. In short, Labour's running of the health service was the best recruiter for private health care that there has ever been.
Big falsehood, little falsehood, creeping smears, smears that bellow in the tones of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) or in the dulcet tones of the hon. Member for Livingston: in the past two weeks we have nailed them all. Labour took its campaign a smear too far and it knows it. It was the politics of hit and run, and the House will not let Labour Members get away with it.
Meanwhile, at Langbaurgh, the two candidates for the main Opposition parties have been following their leaders into total confusion. First, the Labour candidate. Labour's candidate in the by-election is repeating the tired and false old allegations about trust hospitals leaving the NHS. I am also told that that is not his only error. It seems that, in his election literature, he lists two hospitals as part of the new South Cleveland trust. In fact, there are three. It is a pity that his slogan is:
"It's time to make Langbaurgh count".
Then there is the unfortunate Liberal. He has joined in with a finely printed leaflet. He was selected, the hon. Member for Bolsover may be interested to know, for his local knowledge. He has led a great campaign on the closure of the maternity unit in Gainsborough. He is not
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going to have the closure of the maternity unit in Gainsborough. Unfortunately, Gainsborough is in the next county—it is Guisborough. I am afraid that the candidate is a little askew.
Mr. Simon Hughes: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, because I was in Guisborough maternity hospital this morning. [Interruption.] If the Tory candidate thinks that dealing with a printer's error which was accepted as such is a way to win a campaign, he has something else coming. I want to ask the question put to people who go to the maternity hospital, and I hope that the Secretary of State will answer it. Why do not his Government commit the resources sufficient to make sure that the NHS has the money that it needs—[HON. MEMBERS: "How much?"] I will tell Conservative Members how much—to keep pace with NHS inflation, which is above the average inflation? Why do the public expenditure plans of his Government show that the figures for the next two years are net increases of 1·2 per cent—.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already made it clear that interventions should be interventions. They should be specific questions or comments which are to the point. It is unfair of hon. Members to seek to jump the queue in this way. I tell the hon. Member and any other hon. Members who want to intervene that I want specific questions from now on. Come on Mr. Hughes, get it over with.
Mr. Hughes: Why are the commitments in the public expenditure plans 1·2 per cent. and 0·65 per cent. for the next two years—well below the least estimate of what the NHS needs to stand still?
Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman is suffering from what is known as post-candidate selection depression. These matters will be dealt with when the autumn statement comes out. The hon. Gentleman was honourably trying to dig his candidate out of the absurd hole into which he had fallen head first, and I pay tribute to him for that.
Mr. Tim Devlin: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend is aware that the position is in fact rather worse than he fears? When the Labour candidate in Langbaurgh was asked to explain why he thought that there were two hospitals in the trust instead of three, he said, "Ah yes, that is because only two of them are in the constituency." That makes it rather worse, because none of the three hospitals in the trust is in the constituency.
Mr. Waldegrave: Neither of the Opposition parties has been very lucky with its candidate in this particular election campaign.
The reason why the Labour party took off into the smears and scares was because of the third point, to which I am coming.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Waldegrave: Hon. Members will doubtless make their speeches in due course.
Mr. Tom Clarke: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will recall that, 20 minutes ago, the Secretary of State said that he would give way to me. Is it in order for the Secretary of State for Health in England,

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who made statements on television yesterday about the health service in Scotland, to refuse to give way to a Scottish Member?
Madam Deputy Speaker: So far there has been no breach of Standing Orders. The Secretary of State will have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said.
Mr. Waldegrave: The reason why Labour Members went down the side track of smears and scares was because of the drubbing that they had been receiving at the hands of the experts on their policies, such as they are. Seldom has there been such a consensus among health experts— generally an argumentative lot—than there is now on the fact that Labour's positive policy on health has been an object of almost universal derision.
Ken Judge, the director of the much respected King's Fund Institute, said:
"One of the key difficulties"—
key difficulties, mind you, not one of the lesser difficulties—
"with Labour's health policy is that it is not at all clear precisely what their policy for running the system is."
Pamela Charlwood, director of the Institute of Health Services Management, called Labour's plans to replace the purchaser-provider division with health authorities divided into two boards as "an unworkable mess". Professor Alan Maynard of York university asked of Labour's absurd flexi-funding scheme:
"Where is this extra money coming from? Are there going to be closures and sackings? How do they identify successful authorities? They haven't thought it through."
Dr. David Hunter, director of the Nuffield Institute, who, incidentally, has been trying to help Labour Members in one of their think tanks, said:
"Labour plans have not been worked through in detail. They are not convincing. They would create further turmoil and uncertainty."
Yesterday he added that he feared that under Labour the NHS would not be "modernised", it would be "fossilised."
That is why there is not a single serious editorial or other commentator who takes Labour seriously on its policy. The Observer's political diarist, not in his comments a particular friend of mine, described the policy of the hon. Member for Livingston thus:
"He does not possess a single new idea for organisation of the Health Service. His one notion is to throw more money at it in carefully unspecified amounts."
At this rate I must warn the hon. Gentleman that it will not be long before he is attacked by the Daily Mirror. After all, Labour Members have not had long. They have had only 12 years. Perhaps in another 12 years they will have a policy. We shall see that they get the time.
Then there is money. Labour Members are not very good at money. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Livingston in one respect. He shares his favours equally; having spent last Sunday going backwards on the Walden show, he spent this Sunday going backwards on the Dimbleby show. There was the truly comical spectacle of him trying to make sense, either to himself or to Mr. Dimbleby, of his flexi-budget. It became crystal clear that, if such a scheme were ever to be introduced into NHS management, it would be a recipe for chaos. Every hospital would he encouraged to compete for incentive funds, and only the winners would be rewarded. The
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others would go bust. Mr. Dimbleby could not take it seriously. What was apparent also was that neither could the hon. Member for Livingston.
Far more fundamental was the hon. Member's further shifting of the ground on money. He could not define what he meant by underfunding, and he abandoned his clear previous pledge to abolish it, whatever it might be, over the lifetime of a Parliament. In passing, he had a snipe at the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) who had made it clear that only some of the alleged underfunding, whatever it might be, could be put right in a Parliament. He told her that she should not give interviews. It was a truly magnificent piece of the equivocation for which the hon. Gentleman is becoming increasingly known.
I shall tell you, Mr. Speaker, what the hon. Gentleman's formulations on spending were on Mr. Dimbleby's show. I noted them down. They started with something that almost means something:
"We have made a firm commitment, and I am very happy to repeat the firm commitment, that we will over the lifetime of the next Parliament—it cannot be done overnight—we will restore the underfunding of the NHS of the past decade."
That was in January. Yesterday it became first, "We will", then, "We very much hope" and finally, "We will seek" —the ultimate weasel word. The hon. Gentleman will seek and he will not find.
When cornered this time, the hon. Gentleman did not take refuge behind the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), his usual shelter from the stormy blast. He called in aid in a voice of awe the "ultimate authority". By that he meant—I am afraid I am not joking—"our leader, Mr. Kinnock". The latter, however—he is sitting smiling in his usual benign and somewhat vacuous way—had already involved himself in quite another pledge, involving £3 billion to £4 billion of different money.
The hon. Member for Livingston referred to such promises as "interesting contributions", "persuasive" and "a very serious figure". Finally, he said:
"I am not in a position to differ from them, but equally I am not in a position to validate"
them. As a recent leader in The Times said of Labour:
"Their undefined `restoration of underfunding' is designed to permit everybody, from consultants to porters, to think that Santa Claus is round the corner. They remain as ever, a gigantic soft touch."
Mr. Tom Clarke rose—
Mr. Waldegrave: I must let the hon. Gentleman out of his agony. Come along.
Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for finally giving way. He is making it more difficult for me than Brian Walden did for him yesterday. When the Secretary of State was asked a specific question about charges in Scotland, including charges for HIV patients, and he gave the reply which led many of us to believe that those charges would be annulled, had he consulted his fellow Ministers at the Scottish Office? If not, has he now done so? If there have been consultations, when will the charges be withdrawn?
Mr. Waldegrave: There is no need to consult about what the law of the land is, and that is the end of that matter. [Interruption.] There is no lack of clarity about it whatever. NHS patients cannot be charged.
It is not just that Labour Members cannot substantiate the half-promises on resources that they have made. It is

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worse than that. On a range of issues, they have made unequivocal promises to reverse savings that we have made, the benefits of which we have already ploughed back into patient care. They would end, for example, the contracting out of services, which has gained us a minimum of, and probably much more than, £50 million for spending on patients.
Yesterday, the hon. Member for Livingston pledged an additional £400 million to £500 million, which would be taken from patient spending and would finance Labour's absurd minimum wage plans in the NHS. I am grateful for his unusual candour, in that he said £400 million to £500 million. He continued in a totally absurd passage to say that that would be "largely self-financing" because he would take all the money away again in tax. I believe that the hon. Gentleman may have let some small cat out of the bag about what would happen to the taxation rates of the low paid. What else can "largely self-financing" mean?
Let us get this clear: Labour is already pledged under its national insurance and tax proposals to take £20 a week from the average nurse and £70 a week from the average general practitioner. The House should be told today whether it is now pledging to reverse those cuts in take-home pay for health service workers, gross or not. If it is not, all those health service workers know that, if the Labour party is elected, they will lose in real terms, as they did under the last Labour Government. We will not get the answer to that, any more than we will get an answer to anything else from them.
The Opposition made another utterly disastrous pledge yesterday. They have promised to launch the health service down the route that Barbara Castle launched it down in the 1970s. That promise comes from the otherwise normally thought of as the oh, so responsible right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East. Yesterday, he made it clear on yet another television show that the Labour party intended to remove pay beds from the NHS. That will take another £100 million.
That money will be lost to the NHS and given to the largely French and American-owned private sector health companies—those companies that Lord Ennals and others direct in Scotland and elsewhere. Why should the NHS not have the opportunity to make that money for patients? It could plough that money back into the system for NHS patients. Why should it be forced to lose that money? That is what Barbara Castle attempted to do and that is what brought her into total conflict not only with the British Medical Association, but with the entire health service.
Barbara Castle is an honest lady, and she wrote down in her diary the reason for the policy—the hon. Member for Bolsover knows this very well, as he reads those diaries every evening. She wrote:
"doesn't the Government; realise"—
the then Labour Government; Ted Short was giving her some trouble on this rather absurd policy—
"that this is an essential political sweetener for the Unions?"
That is what generated the Labour Government's apology for a policy then, and that is what generates the Opposition's apology for a policy now.
Throughout the world, Governments of all political persuasions are seeking with greater urgency to match scarce resources with the increasing demand for health care. In Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and New Zealand, the ideas that we are carrying through into practice have been paralleled, or indeed, in some cases, imitated, by other Governments.
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It is right to devolve decision taking, as we are doing, to NHS trusts and to general practice fund holders. It is right to enable comparison of costs to be made by those who have to judge where to put resources. It is right to reward with more resources, so that they can do more work, those who are the most efficient at delivering high-quality health care. That is what our internal market is now beginning to do.
It is right also to raise the total level of resource to meet new needs, as we have done. At a time when other countries are seeking to rein back spending on health, we have been increasing the share of the gross domestic product that goes to the health service. In the past 10 years, there has been a full percentage point increase in spending from a bigger national product.
It is fear of those facts and of the void of their own policy that has led the Opposition to smear and to mislead. But it is not too late even now. Even at this late stage, the hon. Member for Livingston could redeem himself today before the House by setting out in paragraphs preferably a little shorter than those he used on the "Walden" programme three simple things. First, he should say that he knows the privatisation smear to be false. Let him say that and use that "no" as he did on the Walden programme. Secondly, what are his plans for the management of the health service? Let us hear about them at last. Thirdly, how much money is he going to spend? Let him say those three things to the House today. He has had 12 years: we might at least have some answers finally.
We could hardly have had a clearer example again today of the shiftiness of the Labour party on this issue. Our policy is clear. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said—I repeat his words in the House today—
"There will be no charges for hospital treatment, no charges for visits to the doctor, no privatisation of health care, neither piecemeal or in part, nor as a whole. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not after the next election. Not ever while I am Prime Minister."
That is what my right hon. Friend said, and that is the truth. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
What we have achieved on spending and what we intend on policy is crystal clear. It is underpinned by clear commitments in the pledges and principles that are placed before the House today. That is why I urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to reject the amendment and to support the motion.
5.24 pm
Mr. Robin Cook: I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof,
`deplores the decision of Her Majesty's Government to ignore the evidence from the consultation period that the overwhelming opinion of the local public and health staff was opposed to the commercialisation of their health service by further units opting out of the local health service; condemns as irresponsible the approval of further trust applications in the face of the widespread financial difficulties experienced by existing trusts with their original business plans; rejects the relentless privatisation of health services by the construction of more private wings, the transfer of geriatric care to nursing homes, the increased introduction of private contractors, the decline in access to a National Health Service dental service, and the introduction of tax relief on private medicine; notes with alarm the spreading practice of charges for hospital services and the damage done to eye screening by the introduction of commercial charges for eye tests; regrets the persistent refusal of Her Majesty's Government to recognise the self-evident underfunding of the hospital service and rejects the priority attached by Her Majesty's Government to

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cutting taxes rather than restoring cuts in public services; and commends Labour's policy document "A Fresh Start for Health" as the comprehensive basis for renewing a public health service over the lifetime of a full Labour Government.'.
The 900,000 people on the waiting lists in Britain and the 300,000 people who had their operations cancelled in the past 12 months would all regard the speech that we have just heard as wholly irrelevant to why they cannot get the health care that they need.
Mr. Peter Thurnham rose—
Mr. Cook: With respect, it is not the form to intervene within the first 30 seconds of a speech.
The Secretary of State accused me of retreating on my statement. If I was so minded to retreat on anything I have said, I could not hope to rival the speed with which he moved in retreating on tax relief only yesterday. I apologise to the Secretary of State for one thing; we drafted our amendment before his revelation on the Walden programme. Had we known about that before, we would have wished to include in it the right hon. Gentleman's cheerful confession that tax relief for private medical insurance did not work very well, that not many people had taken it up and that they might as well abolish it. All we need to complete the act of repentance is a letter from the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) to say that she was
"only too painfully aware that I was responsible", and was "mystified" that it was such a flop.
Six months ago, at the start of a previous debate, I told the House that the scheme for private medical insurance, far from working well, was not working at all. Far from resulting in more elderly people choosing private medical insurance, all the scheme has done is provide tax handouts for people with existing policies—a tax handout at a total cost of £150 million over three years. That money would have been far better spent on the geriatric wards that the Government are closing.
That daft scheme came out of the same review that gave us the dogmatic changes to the NHS that the Government are now imposing. It was the first proposal in their White Paper to be implemented; now it is the first to be, abandoned.
After that experience, one might have thought that a touch of humility would have been appropriate among those on the Treasury Bench—possibly a passing cloud of self-doubt. Not a bit of it. Never mind the fact that the one part of their policy of which we have had two years of experience has turned out not to work very well, the Secretary of State has chosen to kick on regardless.
Last week, the right hon. Gentleman put another 99 units into his giant experiment with the health service when he made them self-governing trusts, but there is plenty of evidence that those trusts are not working very well. Central Manchester is in deficit of more than £1 million, interestingly almost half of it caused by losses on its new private wing. It is a bit like the tax relief on private medical insurance—not many people wanted to take up that option. The people of Manchester, had they been asked, would have preferred that money to be invested in national health facilities rather than in a private wing.
The Bradford trust has given us another new first in businesslike methods. At the weekend, Bradford an-nounced, for the first time in its history, compulsory
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redundancies of nursing staff. Mind you, the director of nursing could not bring himself to use the term "compulsory redundancy": he described the nurses as being "released". They were released because the ward in which they worked, which currently treats 34 patients a week, is to be closed next month.
In search of the common ground, let us put to one side the argument between the Opposition and the Government about whether one can close beds and increase patient care at the same time. I concede that nursing staff and others have been extremely inventive in coping with bed closures, even down to inventing "hot bedding" by which day cases occupy the beds in which in-patients sleep at night. However, I hope that Conservative Members will not now pretend that one can reduce the number of qualified nurses and increase patient numbers without the quality of care suffering. Yet the Library advises me that the next statistical bulletin will say that, in the past year, 3,000 fewer nurses have been employed in the health service, at the very time when the Government have increased the number of administrators by 4,000.
The subject of administrators logically brings me to Guy's hospital, where we find the best paid health administrators. Guy's currently spends more in its business budget for the current year and is receiving less in revenue than it expected in the current budget. Estimates of how much less revenue it is receiving are subject to a wide margin of error. In the case of work outwith the main block contracts, the estimates of how much has gone unpaid vary from an official figure of 50 per cent. unpaid to an unofficial figure of 95·5 per cent. Guy's response has been another business first for the NHS: it has sent packing its director of finance, with a farewell deal of £200,000 plus his BMW car. Is that what the Secretary of State meant when he promised to bring modern business practices to the NHS? Where is the value for money for patients in that?
Mr. David Wilshire: Before the hon. Gentleman knocks management and administration too much, will he comment on the fact that some 3 per cent. of NHS employees are managers, whereas Britain's biggest manufacturing industry has over 20 per cent?
Mr. Cook: Absolutely. The hon. Gentleman's question goes to the heart of why we resist the Government's changes. The kind of market that they propose cannot be run without a much larger army of administrators than any business ever has. If the hon. Gentleman wants to compare the NHS with the private medical sector, never mind private industry, he will find that the administration in the NHS is half the level of the private medical sector. Why, then, should we copy their methods? Surely they should copy ours.
We know that the Secretary of State recognises those problems. He has not managed to muster the same candour as he did in relation to tax relief, but he has kicked into touch the other applications for trust status in London. Instead, we are to have a committee of inquiry for London. It is more than a year since I published a leaked document from his Department warning Ministers —admittedly, his predecessor—of the consequences of a market for the London health service. It warned that the consequence would be "unplanned downsizing", and that at least one major hospital would be put at risk. However,

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the Secretary of State's predecessor did not listen: he simply ploughed ahead. The Secretary of State even allowed Guy's to become a trust, although we now know that it had the worst of six ratings for financial viability from his independent advisers.
A year later, nine out of the 12 London teaching hospitals are in deficit. Some of them are contemplating severe downsizing. In the fix that the Secretary of State got into, he was absolutely right to appoint a committee of inquiry, but it was absolutely wrong for him to go ahead with his risky experiment without having a committee of inquiry at the beginning.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent): Will the h on. Gentleman explain why, with a rapidly falling population, London should be so grossly over-hospitalised, while areas like mine have been deprived of much-needed resources for many years because of the concentration of resources in London?
Mr. Cook: Let us take the logic of the hon. Gentleman's question. He says that London is over-hospitalised and there is over-capacity. One could challenge that statement, but let us accept the premise of the question. If there were surplus capacity, surely competition in a health market would work. Surely this would be the one place where there would be a buyer's market and where practices could drive a hard bargain on behalf of the patients. If the Government really believe in the market, why have they now had to admit that the only way to run a public service is by proper, sensible public planning?
If the Government have decided that, in this case, where they have surplus capacity, they cannot run a market in which there is competition, why are they promoting a market in health care without the benefit of a committee of inquiry in places such as Aberdeen, where the only hospital for 15 miles in any of three directions is a hospital that is applying to become a trust? Where is the competition in that? What conceivable gain can be achieved by creating a market for that one hospital? Consultation on the application for that trust for Forresterhill hospital closed in the same week as the by-election in Kincardine and Deeside started.
Were the Secretary of State a resident of my home town of Aberdeen and a voter in Kincardine and Deeside, he would have some difficulty when he went to the polling booth for the by-election and sucked his pen, because every candidate in the by-election is opposed to his policy. I cannot tell the House the results of the by-election but I can give the results of the consultation on the application for trust status for Forresterhill hospital. A total of 3,919 responses were received; 13 were in favour of the application for trust status; and almost 3,900 recorded opposition to the trust. How can there be any doubt about the response to that consultation? How can anyone pretend that consultation would be anything but a sham if the Government even contemplated approving it? How can the Government seriously hope to fight a by-election—
Mr. Ian Taylor: Answer the questions.
Mr. Cook: If Conservative Members want questions, they should answer this question before that by-election: what will the Government do for Forresterhill hospital, and will they make it opt out once polling day is out of the
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way? Moreover, since Conservative Members are so keen on questions, let me ask another question that we asked last week and to which we are still awaiting an answer.
Mr. Roger Gale: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: No. Conservative Members wanted questions and we shall give them questions. Does it never cross their minds that, when the public are so opposed to a proposal, it is just possible that the public are right? The public are right to believe that they would get better health care if an integrated public service was retained rather than broken up into competing businesses.
This morning, the Secretary of State said that he did not understand what we meant by "commercialisation". Let me try to help. Last summer, I asked for the business plans of hospitals seeking to become trusts in this round. Three out of four refused. Interestingly, the most common reason for refusing—
Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: I can never refuse the hon. Gentleman. I shall give way when I have finished this passage.
Mr. Waldegrave: The hon. Gentleman has gone off, in his usual way into past speeches. Will he answer the questions that I asked him? He gave no answer whatsoever to the three questions that I put to him. Will he now honour the House with his confidence and give those three answers?
Mr. Cook: If the Secretary of State is patient, he will get to those passages and he will have some answers. I do not promise that he will like the answers, but he will certainly get some.
First, may I help the Secretary of State on the term "commercialisation"? The most common reason given by those hospitals that refused to release their business plans was that the information that they contained would be of value to a commercial competitor.
Mr. Jerry Hayes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: No. I have already made a promise.
We have already damaged the health service. If, even before those hospitals become trusts, they no longer regard other hospitals as partners in the same public service but as commercial competitors—
Mr. Oppenheim: As I know that the hon. Gentleman will have carefully costed the Labour party's proposals for the NHS, will he say by exactly how much he believes the NHS to be underfunded? Will it be the priority of a future Labour Government—should one come to power—to redress that underfunding?
Mr. Cook: Yes, it will be a priority of the next Labour Government. The Labour party's Front Bench team all understand that that will be one of the key ways in which the next Labour Government will be tested.
Mr. Waldegrave: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Cook: I shall happily give way to the Secretary of State, but I am still replying to his hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim).
Mr. Waldegrave: For the aid of the Hansard writers, we heard the hon. Gentleman say "a priority". Will he now say, among all the other priorities, how much would be spent?
Mr. Cook: Both those questions are now of such antiquity that we should send them for carbon dating. Let me respond—[Interruption.] There is not much point in Conservative Members asking questions if they will not listen to answers.
I shall respond by stating quite plainly what we have said on funding. First, each year we shall ensure that, if we approve a pay award in the health service, we shall fully fund it in a way that the Government have never done since 1985. Secondly, when we produce our budget for the national health service, we shall fully take into account the pressures on the budget of the growing numbers of the very elderly in our community—the very people who created the NHS and who, cruelly, now find that they cannot use it when they need it. Thirdly, in the first year we shall start to tackle underfunding and shall continue to do so year on year.
Mr. Hayes: The hon. Gentleman really must come clean. Thousands of people saw him on the Jonathan Dimbleby progamme yesterday and saw Mr. Dimbleby ask the hon. Gentleman about the £4 billion of underfunding that the Leader of the Opposition talks about and the £6 billion underfunding that the British Medical Association talks about. The hon. Gentleman replied that he was not in a position to validate the estimates. How can anyone believe him?
Mr. Cook: The hon. Gentleman and I had the same exchange during the last debate, in which the hon. Gentleman accused me of not being serious because I said that it could not be done overnight. Having watched the Conservative party conference I understand that, for the hon. Gentleman, "overnight" is rather a long time. Nevertheless, the position remains precisely the same; over the lifetime of the Parliament, we shall seek to restore the underfunding, and in each year we shall make progress towards achieving that end. In precisely—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. This is a most serious debate. Millions of people outside the House, as well as those inside it, are listening to the debate, so let us have it conducted in good order so it might be properly recorded so that they may understand it.
Mr. Cook: We shall do it next time because we did it last time. The last Labour Government—
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Cook: Conservative Members will have to listen to the facts now.
Inside five years, the last Labour Government provided more extra nurses and doctors for the NHS than the Government have done in more than 10 years. Every year, we increased the real resources to the health service by twice the amount that the Government have done. If Conservative Members are seriously going to contend that the—
Dr. Keith Hampson: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. There was a gross
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inaccuracy in the hon. Gentleman's statement. The only time during the past 20 years when there was a real cut in NHS spending was in 1977.
Madam Deputy Speaker: That was not a point of order at all.
Mr. Cook: If Conservative Members are seriously going to contend that there is no underfunding of the health service, as appears to be the basis of their chant, let them try to tell that to Maria Mullhall. Let the Secretary of State try telling her about equal access to free health care. Last year, her father's heart operation was cancelled. This year, her father had a second heart attack.
Mr. Gale: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Cook: I can understand why Conservative Members do not want to hear this.
Madam Deputy Speaker: I shall take the point of order, which I hope is genuine.
Mr. Gale: Madam Deputy Speaker, a few moments ago I distinctly heard you say to Conservative Members that thousands of people outside the House were waiting to hear the answer to a question. Could you instruct the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) to give it?
Mr. Cook: I can understand why Conservative Members do not want to hear about the real effect of their policies on real people. As the House well knows, the people outside the Chamber know the reality of what is going on in the health service, and they want to hear that reality expressed from the Opposition Dispatch Box during this debate. Conservative Members will not be allowed to silence that.
Maria Mullhall's father suffered a heart attack this year, having had his heart operation cancelled last year.
Mr. Ian Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is wriggling.
Mr. Cook: I am not wriggling. Conservative Members do not want to hear what is happening in the health service under their Administration.
Maria Mullhall rang 999 for an ambulance.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You reminded the House that the public would be watching this debate—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I reminded the House that millions of people outside the House take this matter seriously, and the House should do likewise. We must hear this debate in the good order that this debating Chamber demands. I call Mr. Cook.
Mr. Nicholls: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I have heard the hon. Gentleman's point of order and he must now resume his seat. I call Mr. Cook.
Mr. Cook: I very much hope that Maria Mullhall is one of those watching this debate, because she will see the depth of concern being expressed. When she rang for the ambulance, for 15 minutes she was connected to an answering machine asking her to hold. Her father died while she was connected to that answering machine. When

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asked to comment on the matter, a spokesman for the ambulance service said that the answering machine was used "when demand is excessive".
How is it possible for a fatal heart attack to be described as an excessive demand? How can Conservative Members go on denying that there is underfunding when the system cannot handle an emergency call for a heart attack? There were no answering machines under Labour.
Mr. Waldegrave: May I remind the hon. Gentleman what happened to the emergency services when the Labour party was last in power? The Confederation of Health Service Employees was controlling access to hospitals and the ambulances could not get into the hospitals.
Mr. Cook: One of the reasons why people outside this House find it impossible to trust this Government's commitment to the health service is the open contempt with which they talk about most of the people who work in the service. One thinks of the contempt with which the Secretary of State quoted the Confederation of Health Service Employees at the Conservative party conference. He quoted the general secretary of COHSE as demanding that his members should
"push for a health service that acts in the interests of its staff".
The Secretary of State got his applause at the party conference. It is a pity that he did not read what the general secretary of COHSE had actually written. He had called on his members
"to push for a health service that acts in the interests of its staff and the people who rely on it."
What word can we use to describe that deliberate misquotation? What word will the Under-Secretary find in his well-thumbed Collins dictionary to describe it? How dare they accuse us of lying?
Maria Mulhall's experience was not unique. Dr. Michael Joy, a GP in Surrey, has done an analysis of his heart patients over the past 10 years and found that, in that period, 15 of them died on waiting lists for operations. None of them died while waiting for private operations.
It is difficult to do justice to the fury of the patients who write to us after being told that they will have to wait for more than a year for their operations and after learning that, if they had the money, they could have the same operation with the same surgeon in the same hospital in little more than a week. Patients call it privatisation when they see more private wings in NHS hospitals providing a fast track for patients who can pay. In Doncaster, the wards closed by the trust hospital are being reopened by an American private hospital company. In Newark, the proposal before the health authority is for 50 acute NHS beds and 50 private sector beds at a hospital designed from the start to have a first-class and a second-class compartment.
Patients call it privatisation when they find that geriatric wards are closed and patients are put in private nursing homes. How would Conservative Members who are seeking to intervene in this debate respond to the moving letter that appeared in a national newspaper last week from a man whose wife was admitted to hospital with terminal cancer and who described how his distress in her last months was increased by pressure to get her out of the NHS hospital and into a private nursing home? That took place in a hospital with 60 closed geriatric beds standing empty—a hospital that found the money and the land to
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build a private wing for private patients. I can tell Conservative Members what this gentleman calls that. He says:
"Not only is a form of privatisation taking place, it can be seen and it can also be experienced."
Mrs. Edwina Currie: Will the hon. Gentleman clarify what he has just said? Is it now Labour party policy to nationalise all the hundreds and thousands of first-class private residential care homes and nursing homes throughout the country and to put their occupants back, 30 or 40 to a ward, into NHS geriatric wards?
Mr. Cook: Of course that is not our policy. Our policy —this should be the duty of any Government charged with the management of the NHS—is to make sure that those patients have a choice between public and private sectors, and that they are not confronted with a private sector monopoly.
Patients call it privatisation when they discover that the dentist will treat them only if they go private. The day the Prime Minister made his speech on not privatising the health service, patients at a practice in Devon received a letter from their dentist telling them:
"As from January 1992 we shall no longer be able to offer NHS treatment to our fee-paying adult patients."
The contrast between what the Prime Minister said and what they were told was so stark that three separate patients of the practice in question sent me the letter, saying:
"It surely is privatisation by the back door."
Patients call it privatisation when they discover that they have to pay for what used to be free. I was extremely interested to hear the Secretary of State say yesterday that it was illegal to charge NHS patients. I was sorry to learn from this morning's papers, however, that, when asked, his Department could not find a single case in which he had intervened to stop such charging.
Scarborough health authority has sent a letter to those who used to receive incontinence aids:
"You will be aware that, in a modern"—
Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Nonsense.
Mr. Cook: In that case, it is nonsense from health authorities acting under a Conservative Government.
"You will be aware that, in a modern NHS, each health authority has to look carefully at costs and expenditure. After careful thought I have therefore decided that the free supply of incontinence aids can no longer be sustained."
So patients on income support find that they are being charged for incontinence aids that once were free.
What will the Secretary of State do about Bart's, where this morning it was discovered that some patients coming for fertility treatment are being asked to pay £350 of the £800 cost? Will the right hon. Gentleman stop that after this debate? What will he say to the woman in Ipswich who wrote to me because 12 years ago she injured her spine and was given a free appliance to help with the pain? She finds that this month she will have to pay £70 to replace the appliance. What will he say to this woman of 72, so poor that even under the present rules she qualifies for housing benefit? She says:
"Yes, it is creeping privatisation of the NHS".
These are not our words: they are the words of the patients who know what is happening. Are they too lying when they describe what happens to them?
Mr. Devlin: Perhaps we could move a little further north, from Scarborough to Langbaurgh, where on

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Thursday the Labour candidate said that hospitals that opt for self-governing status opt out of the national health service. On the same day, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) said in the Evening Gazette that hospitals that become trusts remain part of the NHS. As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough is sitting in front of the Langbaurgh candidate's friend, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to introduce them?
Mr. Cook: The hon. Gentleman clearly came here with instructions to get his sound bite in for the local press. I was foolish enough to imagine that he was going to say something relevant to the debate—but I think it time that we made progress. People who find that their health service treatment is slipping away from under them will remember the total indifference that the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) showed on this point.
We shall not let the Secretary of State come back to this House after what he has said about charges being illegal without hearing whether, after this debate, he left the Chamber and stopped those charges.
Quite properly, Madam Deputy Speaker, you do not allow us to use the word "lie" of each other in this House, but the rules do not prevent me from reporting that the word has been used against me time and again in the past three weeks—although not in this Chamber. It has not been used to my face, when I am in a studio—it is always said when I am not there to answer back. No one has raised the charge more often than the Secretary of State, whose routine response to criticism now is to brand it a lie.
The reason for the Chamber not allowing the use of the word "lie" is well-founded: it is that we cheapen and degrade public debate when we reduce it to the level of personal abuse. The politician who forgets those rules will pay a high price. It is a price that is exacted by a public who will treat with contempt any politician who would rather abuse his opponent than answer the charges. After a fortnight of abuse by Conservative Members, the voice of the nation was heard last weekend, in a poll which gave health as the largest single reason why people would not vote for this Government.
The Secretary of State had some fun at the expense of our policies. He has clearly been through our document "Fresh Start for Health". It is the fullest, longest, most comprehensive health document ever produced by an Opposition. Before coming to the debate, I went to the Oriel room and requested the documents that the Conservative party produced on health policy before the 1979 election. I was told that none could be found.
So that the Secretary of State has no doubt about our policies and why the public prefer them, I shall tell the House what our policies are. First, we shall rebuild the NHS as a public service and bring back into the local health service those hospitals that have gone it alone as trusts. We shall not bring them back into health authorities that represent just the Secretary of State of the day, but into health authorities that represent local communities. We shall set each of them a performance agreement which will tackle the variation in performance which Conservative Members keep identifying and never tackle.
We shall offer pressure and incentives to improve the performance of health authorities that are failing in public service while Conservative Members offer only the risk of
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downsizing and closure in a health market. We call our document "Fresh Start for Health" because Conservatives have imposed on the health service a wrong agenda with the wrong priorities. That was plainly demonstrated last year, when the Government discovered that they could not afford their changes to the national health service and to community care and therefore chose to plough ahead with their unpopular changes to the NHS but to delay changes in community care until 1993.
It is not care in the community to take patients out of a geriatric ward and put them in a private nursing home. That is simply transfer from a public institution to a private institution. Real care in the community is provided by those local authorities which supply the home help service, the authorities that are in the top 20 in the league of home help provision—every single one of them a Labour authority. That is why we shall introduce a community care grant to support the work of those local authorities. We shall ring-fence that grant to make sure that the bottom 20 authorities, none of which are Labour, have to spend that money on the care of the elderly.
We shall create a level playing field in residential care to end the nonsense by which the biggest subsidy from central Government goes not into public residential care but into private residential care. We shall take the action that the Government have failed to take to make a reality of their targets in health promotion, such as banning tobacco advertising to stop pressure on young people to take up the habit and bringing in random breath testing to stop alcohol abuse. We shall undo the criminal damage that the Government did to the screening service when they introduced charges for eye tests. We shall restore the free eye test so that no one will have to go without an eye test because he cannot afford it.
We shall plug the biggest gap in the Government's list of health targets by introducing targets to reduce inequalities in health between income levels. Conservatives cannot do that, because they have spent a decade levering open inequalities in income and cannot now admit that they have also widened inequalities in health. We can improve matters, because we understand that people who are poor will suffer from poor health. We know that, when people are unemployed and cannot afford decent food, their children will grow up stunted; that, if pensioners cannot afford to heat their homes, they are more likely to die in winter.
We recognise poverty as a health issue, which is one of the reasons for our intention to end poverty wages through a minimum wage. We cannot stomach the double standards of an Administration who tell us that £3·40 is not too much for a prescription charge but is far too much to ask as a minimum wage for an hour's work. We shall do these things because we believe in policies that would enable us to live in a society that would rather invest in a modern health service than take tax cuts and run.
People outside also want to live in that society. They want the health policies that recognise that we can get better protection for everybody if we all work together to build a public health service that defends everybody rather than one that tries to protect private individuals. That is why health is now one of the largest of the major issues registered in all the opinion polls. It is also why health is now the largest single reason why people are so anxious to sweep this Government out of the way.
6.6 pm
Sir Norman Fowler: At the start of his speech, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) dealt with waiting lists and patient care. I agree that those issues are the test, but he should remember what happened when Labour was in power and was able to implement some of its policies. Under Labour, nurses' pay did not increase, it fell behind. The hon. Gentleman spoke about rebuilding the national health service, but when Labour was in government capital spending fell by 29 per cent. Spending on hospitals has never been cut as it was by the last Labour Government, who left the hospital building programme in total chaos.
People will have no confidence whatever in the speech by the hon. Member for Livingston, because it amounted simply to generalisations and at no stage did he set out how much he intended to spend on the health service. Over the past 15 years, the actions that caused most harm to health care had nothing to do with trust hospitals, contracting out or health charges. They were the industrial action that brought the 1979 winter of discontent and the health strike of 1982. That action lengthened the waiting lists and prevented patients from being treated. In 1979, the Labour Government did nothing to prevent the damage and in 1982 Labour supported the industrial
Mr. Harry Ewing: As a former Secretary of State, the right hon. Gentleman knows that the hospital building programme is a long-term project. When the Labour Government came to power in 1974, I found, as Health Minister at the Scottish Office, that there was no hospital building programme to inherit from the outgoing Tory Government. It took us some time to get into place a decent hospital building programme.
Sir Norman Fowler: I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, but I do not accept that as the historical position. It is well set out in every objective history of that period that the Labour Government got into such devastating trouble with their economic policies that they had to cut every capital building programme, including that for hospitals. That is why the Labour Government were so disastrous for social services.
If predictions are required, mine is that the greatest danger for the future of health care—that is, services for the patient—is a Labour Government who are still in hock to the big public service unions. We have already seen the process in operation. Mr. Bickerstaffe has told Labour Front-Bench spokesmen that his members do not want any contracting out or competitive tendering. Without any discussion or argument, the hon. Member for Livingston has given an assurance on that to the unions. He would throw away, if he were in government, £50 million of income to the NHS.
There is no point in talking about underfunding of the health service when a shadow Secretary of State is prepared to agree to such demands. Those who are interested in health care should be concerned about that position because there is no point in giving the health service extra resources if those resources, rather than being devoted to patient care, are used to buy union support. Mr. Bickerstaffe clearly regards Labour Front-Bench spokesmen as soft touches, as pushovers.
The hon. Member for Livingston once again raised the issue of privatisation, but, in an effective speech, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State thoroughly and ably
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demolished those claims. This is not the first time that the privatisation issue has been raised. It was raised in the 1979, 1983 and 1987 elections. Not long before the 1983 election, I published a short document, called "Co-operation between the NHS and the private sector at district level", aimed at achieving sensible co-operation, for the benefit of patients, between the health service and the private sector.
I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) here because, as Leader of the Opposition at the time, he described this as the most serious attack on the national health service since it was started. I am glad also to see the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) here. She said that we were secretly dismantling the health service.
Those statements sum up the attitude that the Labour party has displayed on health service policies over the past decade. It is not interested in any co-operation between the health service, the private sector and the voluntary sector. All we have is this sterile, barren knocking match between the two sides.
The privatisation claim should be seen for what it is. It has no substance. It is but an electoral card. The only difference is that this time the card is being played even before the election campaign has started. It has achieved the unlikely result of making the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) appear to be a master strategist. However, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is correct. The Labour party has already abandoned its central claim of privatisation, which must mean the organisation on the health service on private insurance lines.
The Labour party has a new claim—that of creeping privatisation—the basis of which must be a policy of national health charges. That is a curious accusation, because it was not a Conservative Government who introduced prescription charges, eye test charges and dental charges, but a Labour Government. One could construct a theory that Mr. Attlee and Mr. Gaitskell stand revealed as closet privatisers, but it is much more likely that the first post-war Labour Government faced the problem that has characterised the health service ever since —an increase in costs led by an increase in demand and therefore a need not only to raise resources but to use those resources to maximum effect for the benefit of patients.
Mr. Robert Litherland: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Norman Fowler: No, I shall not, because I do not wish to take up much time.
That is why so much of the Opposition case today and so much of the case that they set out in the country is so barren. There is no doubt that over the next year, the cost of the health service will increase because of an aging population and medical advances. Thus, the aim of the Government, of whatever political complexion, must be to achieve, through good management of the service, the maximum impact on health care.
Mr. Robin Corbett: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Norman Fowler: I have already said that I shall not give way.
What trust hospitals are all about is devolution downwards. It is what any decently run company or

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corporation would do. I speak with at least some experience when I say that it cannot make any sense for all the decisions in a service of about 1 million people to be made by the Secretary of State at the centre. If Labour Front-Bench spokesmen do not understand that, they understand nothing about the NHS.
The Opposition oppose this policy, as they have opposed other changes. After the report from Roy Griffiths, I introduced general managers, to which they were opposed, despite the fact that there was no mechanism for making effective decisions. Today, they accept general managers and will not abolish them, despite two years opposing such a policy.
I remember that they opposed the selected list of drugs. As many of my hon. Friends will remember, they pressed me to make economies in the drugs budget, but when I tried to do so, they showed their great constructiveness by opposing my measures. If they ever come to government, they will not reverse that policy. Not even the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) would put all those drugs back on prescription.
The Opposition have a great deal to be modest about in respect of their record in opposition. They have now announced their blanket opposition to competitive tendering in ancillary services such as catering and cleaning. There is no question but that that throws away resources, but the principle is that it is often more effective for a specialist company rather than an in-house organisation to do work such as catering and cleaning. There is nothing especially revolutionary about that—it is not even a matter of the public sector versus the private sector. Managers in all types of organisations have the option—sometimes they use it and sometimes they do not.
If the Labour party were in power, that option would be abolished, and that shows a good deal about the party. It shows what I can describe only as an antipathy towards outside industry, an antipathy which shifts only when the Labour party puts down a motion that deplores or regrets the decline in industry itself. However, above all, it shows an antipathy to good and effective management inside the health service, and that is what I regret most profoundly. Labour has no experience of management. That is not necessarily a criticism, but it is a criticism when I say that Labour shows no interest in good management.
The Government are right to aim for a better-managed health service and one in which the patients' interests are dominant rather than the interests of the providers. Labour's approach may scare some voters—I accept that it could easily do so—and I suppose it is possible that its approach may win a few votes. Personally, I should rather lose a few votes and do what I believe is right in this respect. In fact, I do not believe that the Government will lose votes on their health policy, because the Opposition have started their scare far too early. They are already being rumbled, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State showed in his brilliant speech, and by the last act, they will be revealed as bankrupt of policies. Basically, they stand for nothing but the interests of the big public service unions. We respect the legitimate interests of all those who work in the health service, but, above all, we stand for better patient care. I believe that we have the courage to pursue policies that will achieve better public health care.
6.22 pm
Mr. Charles Kennedy: The debate on the future of the health service—especially that between the Secretary of State and his opposite number in the Labour party, the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook)—has become or has begun to resemble a cross between All Souls college and the All Saints road. This afternoon's debate is scarcely an exception. Somewhere in the middle of the claims and the counter-claims, of the inflated and exaggerated allegations from both parties, is the national health service. It is undoubtedly true that it is underfunded, that it suffers from low staff morale, that it is increasingly becoming a political football and that, on the basis of this afternoon's evidence, it is likely to remain so.
The Select Committee on Health could serve as a useful barometer. On occasions, despite its all-party nature, it has been able—as the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) and the present Secretary of State surely know—to produce unanimous reports on many conten-tious, difficult and complex health issues. Sadly, that ability appears to be lacking in the Chamber, and the Government's reforms continue apace. That must partly be due to the way in which the Government went about their reforms.
Had the previous Prime Minister bowed out the leadership of the Conservative party after, say, a decade in office, one doubts that the reforms would have been introduced in the way that they have been, that the pace would have been accelerated as it has been or that they would have seen the light of day in their current form. I cannot envisage the current Prime Minister or the Secretary of State going about the reforms in the way that they are now obliged to do. They are living out the legacy left to them late in a Parliament and very late in the day for the Government.
When one considers that legacy and the about-turn in one aspect of policy which the Secretary of State mentioned on television yesterday—in respect of tax incentives foisted on the Cabinet and contained in the Budget two years ago against the wishes of the then Secretary of State for Health, the Chancellor and many others—one must ask, in view of the number of people in general management who are now on performance-related contracts in the health service, what return a Secretary of State and his Cabinet colleagues would enjoy in terms of performance-related ability for such about-turns in respect of the public purse within only 24 calendar months.
The Government decided to press ahead with the first tranche of trusts despite all the warnings. Last week, we heard about the second tranche of trusts despite the lack of democracy, the lack of consultation and the lack of public and professional consent. Mao Tse-tung was once asked what he thought of the French revolution. He sat back for a moment and then said, "It is too early to say." The same cannot be said about the NHS trusts. It is by no means too early to come to a conclusion about them. In the absence of pilot schemes the trusts have been a crazy way of going about reforms. The national health service—
Sir Jim Spicer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kennedy: Of course I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.

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Earlier this year, before we moved into the second wave of trusts and before the first wave had begun to hit serious problems, the Secretary of State made it categorically clear in the House and outside that in future Ministers would no longer have to take key decisions in the way they did at that time about which hospitals would go and which would stay. If hospitals were inefficient, if there was over-provision or if they could not provide the right type of care or treatment, they would wither on the vine under the new commercial internal market system.
But what did the Secretary of State say last week when phase two of the internal market system was announced? His statement contradicted the philosophy behind the Government's approach. Announcing the delay until April 1993 of the date on which the four London teaching hospitals would become operational trusts, he said:
"I have asked the NHS management executive to establish devolved management in these hospitals at the same time as the other trust boards are established. In this way, these four great hospitals will get as early as possible the benefits of devolved management."—[Official Report, 16 October 1991; Vol. 196, c.312.]
We would not be against the benefits of devolved management. It makes sense to suggest that public money can be used more efficiently nearer the point where the care must be delivered. That points to greater devolution within the hospital sector of the health service, but the Secretary of State's statement contradicted the thinking behind the reforms. It makes it clear that one can have the devolved management structure without having to go the whole way towards NHS trust status. The Secretary of State admitted that contradiction in his concession last week.
Sir Jim Spicer: The main thrust of what the hon. Gentleman is saying is that we need to establish a track record on the trusts. I come from West Dorset, where three trusts have been established. We are side by side with the Yeovil district hospital, which is a trust. The hon. Gentleman talks about low staff morale, but in the five months since that trust has been established, staff morale is sky high and its record of achievement—alongside that of West Dorset —is remarkable. Perhaps he has discussed the issue with the leader of his party, but would it not be more politic for the leader to say that he has a good example on his own doorstep and that he would be wholly in favour of the policy if the same progress could be established as is seen in Yeovil hospital?
Mr. Kennedy: That is not the account that I received from the leader of my party. On his recent visit to that hospital he was concerned, as the local Member of Parliament, about the anxieties expressed to him by people in the hospital about the future funding basis. They were precisely the anxieties that have arisen about so many other trusts because of the uncertainty into which they are entering.
The hon. Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) will appreciate that I am not in a position to bandy statistics with him about his part of the country, and I suspect that he does not want to give an in-depth account of health service provision on the north end of Skye. I will say to the hon. Gentleman that any step into the unknown, which for so many units—different sector hospitals in particular— trust status involves, is bound to bring with it apprehension, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has reported to me. However, I
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shall draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend, and I am sure that he will be interested in what the hon. Gentleman has to say.
The hon. Member for Dorset, West has raised an important point. Surely it makes more sense, if one is to deliver more devolved management and more efficient use of public money within the hospital sector, to be more decentralist in one's approach to the management of the health service. By definition, in going down the hospital trust route, which they claim in part is about decentralisation and greater local autonomy, the Government do not follow the logic of the argument.
Local people are not enjoying a local say either in the decisions about trusts or in their subsequent operation. That has been seen over the past decade in the way in which health authority membership has been twisted again and again by the Government so that the prime qualification has become not knowledge of the health service or commitment to the area in which the health care is delivered, but first and most importantly: "Is this individual a card-carrying member of the Conservative party?" That makes people cynical about the changes they now see.
The cynicism has been heightened with the trusts because all too often the board, the company and the directors established and appointed do not have a tremendous—or any, in some cases—track record of experience of the health service, and do not have a local community identification in the area in which the trust will operate.
The Secretary of State announced last week, in the absence of any pilot scheme and now with only one specific, important and necessary independent inquiry into the health service in London, that he is pushing ahead. Why, if he can freeze the four teaching hospital applications, can he not apply the same principle further afield and freeze the second wave of trust applications? Indeed, he could go further and cancel them, and extend the London inquiry to a national basis. In the meantime, he should not pursue further any opt-outs in Scotland or in Wales.
Looking at the memoirs of the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker), the former Secretary of State for Wales, it was interesting to see his account of the time when trust status was first being discussed within the ranks of the Cabinet. He was allowed by the then Prime Minister, as he interestingly reveals in the memoirs, to treat Wales as a laboratory for his far more Keynesian approach to politics generally, rather than for the Thatcherite economics which was the order of the day. He concluded simply that NHS trust status would not be a relevant factor for Welsh health care delivery. That was not so in Scotland.
In the context of the all-important Kincardine and Deeside by-election, we have what the Minister of State, Scottish Office wants to hold up as the flagship NHS trust application for Scotland—the Foresterhill complex in Aberdeen. That flagship is more likely to prove an electoral Titanic for the Scottish Conservative party. In the context of the Grampian area and of Aberdeen in particular, there is no scope for any meaningful competition for Foresterhill.
The Foresterhill application effectively involves the confiscation of land from the university of Aberdeen, which has joint ownership of the site. If the hospital were to pay the university at the market rate, it would saddle the

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trust with so much capital debt that it would render the business plan meaningless, and the trust would be bankrupt even before it had been set up. Perhaps the Secretary of State will compensate the university for the loss of the site. However, that would be a blatant misuse of public funds for politically doctrinaire ends.
It would be utterly absurd for the same person to decide what level of compensation the university would receive for the loss of facilities, if the trust application went ahead, and to sit in judgment on the trust application itself. It would be a classic conflict of interest. It would not be allowed in the council chamber, and it should not be allowed in the Cabinet. That alone should render the entire application for the Foresterhill opt-out null and void forthwith. If the Government are not willing to give that message at the end of the debate tonight, they will get that message from the public in the by-election on 7 November.
What about the existing trusts which have already gone ahead in England? They should be reviewed case by case, given the remarkable financial holes which have opened up among many of them. Their financial viability, the community responsiveness and the extent to which they can be brought back under the health authority's ambit should all be guiding principles here. The membership of the trusts, and the whole question of the extent to which the buildings and the sites involved can be brought back directly into NHS public ownership, are also relevant.
It is not enough to look at the existing tranche of trusts, as the Labour party proposes to do, and to say that, on the appointed hour, all the gears will be thrown into reverse and there will be a further reorganisation in the other direction. I can assure the House that anyone talking to professionals in the health service knows that they are sickened by reorganisation after reorganisation, and that morale would be further depressed by that. A more pragmatic approach will have to be taken to the first wave of trusts.
Mr. Robert Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is on an interesting point, especially in relation to the Foresterhill hospitals. Is he saying that, if the Secretary of State for Scotland agrees to the opting out of Foresterhill, matters should be left there, and that the health of the people in my constituency should be left to the vagaries of the trust? The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He is either for the trusts or against them. He cannot hedge any more in Kincardine and Deeside.
Mr. Kennedy: There is no hedging going on in Kincardine and Deeside, or anywhere else, as the hon. Gentleman knows. The Liberal Democrat candidate in Kincardine and Deeside has organised a massive petition for many months before the by-election on the issue. I have just made the position clear. In Wales and in Scotland, there should be no opt-outs, full stop, because they are not there already. In England, there should be a complete cancellation of the second wave of proposed opt-outs.
For the first wave opt-outs which have already gone ahead, the presupposition must be against the continuance of NHS trusts, which means studying the membership of the trusts and the statutes under which the trusts have been established, including the ownership of the sites and of the land, the conditions of service of the staff, the contracts of employment and the lack of democracy that has bedeviled
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the entire process, to ensure that the national erosion of the health service does not go further. That is a clear and unequivocal statement of position.
Mr. Jim Sillars: Let us consider the position in Scotland. If the Tory Government ignore public opinion in Kincardine and Deeside and, let us say, in Ayr, where the Ayr district general hospital is also a candidate for trust status, will the Liberal democrats wish those hospitals not to be transferred back into the national health service?
Mr. Kennedy: No.
Mr. Sillars: The hon. Gentleman says no. Why should it be different in England?
Mr. Kennedy: With great respect to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), I must point out that I have said no such thing. The smile on the hon. Gentleman's face suggests that he knows that. I have made the position clear. In Committee and in the House, the Liberal Democrats opposed NHS trust status, and we continue to do so. I am talking about the first wave that have been approved in England. They are already up and running. The question that has to be addressed is how, in practical terms, they can be brought back under proper national health service management control. Practical legislative means are available to the Department of Health, and we argue that such means should be used. That position is clear.
Mr. Bob Cryer rose—
Mr. Kennedy: I want to continue.
The great financial difficulty into which the Government have got themselves into is that they have confused cross-boundary flows with an internal market. That has now been seen by the health authorities that are losing in terms of extra-contractual referrals. Indeed, halfway through the financial year, some health authorities find that the money that was set aside for extra-contractual referrals has been almost used up. So much for money following the patient; the patient is now following the money, due to the nature of the block contracts which have been entered into. They reduce GP and patient choice, and make nonsense of the so-called citizens charter—let alone any patients charter.
What, then, should be done about NHS funding? First, the Government have never properly recognised that the true level of health service inflation runs persistently higher than that expressed by the retail price index. The opinions of experts differ, but I think that it is fair to say that the difference is between 1 per cent. and 2 per cent.
That being the case, surely it is essential for the Government to increase annual expenditure on the health service by a minimum of 1 per cent., in real terms, above the level of health service inflation. If they are committed to growth in the service, that will be necessary not only to keep pace with developments in medical technology and with the demographic change that has increased the proportion of elderly people, but to advance.
Secondly, within that total the Government must include the abolition of charges for eye and dental tests. There is no doubt that, in the long term, the disincentive that those charges produce will cost the country more. People will choose not to use the excellent preventive services that are now available.
Mr. James Couchman: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the number of eye tests currently being carried out has risen almost to pre-charge level?
Mr. Kennedy: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is very badly informed. An analysis that we have conducted over the past 12 months, which covered several hundred constituencies, proved conclusively that, in the case of opticians, the opposite is the case.
Any dentist or optician will tell the hon. Gentleman that there are now two income categories that they can treat, providing the full range of preventive and promotional health services that they wish to provide. The first category comprises people on income support, whose treatment has been fully funded; the second comprises those who are sufficiently well off not to have to worry about the cost. Those who fall between the two categories —who now form the majority—are having to cut corners, and are not proceeding with the full-scale preventive treatment that is considered essential. The hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) is, quite simply, wrong.
The Labour party says—I do not doubt the sincerity of its intent—that it would make extra finance available as economic growth was achieved. We should, I think, view the position with a little more optimism: we should take the view that, in the event of 1 per cent. real growth on top of health service inflation, any economic growth on the basis of which further NHS funds could be provided should be seen as a health dividend—as a means of bringing Britain, bit by bit, more into line with our continental neighbours in terms of the proportion of GDP that we devote to health.
Mr. Rowe: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Kennedy: In fairness to Conservative Members, I want to finish my speech soon.
Thirdly, the Government must be prepared, if necessary, to use contingency reserves for the full funding of national pay awards. We must end the ludicrous and unfair system whereby awards that are decided centrally are not funded nationally, necessitating the making of local cuts. Our approach is honest, in that it recognises the need for those who criticise the Government for not spending enough to spell out the details of the additional expenditure that they themselves advocate. I sympathise with some Conservative Members, who must feel irritated when they hear complaints from Opposition Members who give no pledges or figures to back up those complaints. That is not the stance that we have taken; we have already made our costing public.
Trusts currently dominate the health debate, and I noticed that the word "trust" also dominated the conference address of the Conservative party chairman, who almost invoked Baldwin by saying, "Trust the people." The people do not trust the Government with the health service, and they certainly do not trust what the Government are telling them about the health service and hospital trusts.
The result of the Eastbourne by-election contributed somewhat, I believe, to the atmosphere that led to the downfall of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher); the Ribble Valley result contributed somewhat to the circumstances that led to the withdrawal of the poll tax. I think that an appropriate result in the Kincardine and Deeside by-election—appropriate from our point of
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view, and that of the health service—could contribute to an end to further opt-outs, and a reversal of the policy itself.
The Government's reforms are as misconceived as the present Secretary of State for Health is miscast. There is a case for a realistic costed alternative; the Liberal Democrats will continue to argue in favour of it in the House, on the hustings and whenever the opportunity provides itself.
6.46 pm
Mr. Michael Morris: First, I declare an interest: I am married to a general practitioner, and I am an adviser to two pharmaceutical companies.
This evening marks the first occasion on which I shall have voted with the Government on the national health service issue since the introduction of the GP contracts and the NHS reforms. I shall be doing so because it is now clear to me that the present Prime Minister is 110 per cent. committed to the national health service. He has made it abundantly plain to the nation not only that he believes in the service, but that he has used it throughout his life, and that his children were born into it. That commitment represents a gold standard that the public should understand and respect, and I think that they do.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has shown doggedness and tenacity in achieving a real increase in funds for the national health service. That is long overdue, and I pay tribute to him. Those of us who were here at the time of the 1974 Labour Government remember all too clearly the cuts that were made then; perhaps the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was not here, but if he was, he must remember the debates that took place—I spoke in some of them. In particular, he must remember the 3 per cent. cut in nurses' pay, the 17 per cent. cut in doctors' pay and the 29 per cent. cut in capital expenditure on hospitals. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that that record does not stand up against the record achieved by the current Secretary of State.
Having conferred those words of praise on Ministers, I do not wish them to think that I am entirely satisfied with what is happening on the ground. I want to ask them some questions. First, are they really doing enough to chase the NHS executive up hill and down dale to implement the reforms? Let us look briefly at the role of the GPs as gatekeepers for a successful hospital service.
There is little doubt that the concept of fund holding —the concept, in effect, of the self-employed general practitioner—is attractive, and GPs will wish to continue in that role. Having read the medical press and listened to the views of many doctors all over the country, I am convinced that there is a general desire to adopt such arrangements. I hope that the artificial restriction in respect of the number of patients will be removed. There are GPs in my constituency who are under that level, but they are perfectly capable of becoming fund-holders if they so wish, although there is no compulsion.
Morale remains too low among our GPs. A letter about GPs' pay arrived this morning from the general medical services committee. It stated that targets have been achieved under the contract, but that it is the review body's desire to claw back the extra remuneration achieved by meeting those targets. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wants to switch off every GP in the

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country, there is no surer way to do that than to ensure that, if a GP meets his target, the extra money that he earns will be clawed back for achieving the target.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health issued an excellent press release on 18 October about the increase in the number of GPs using computers. That was a good press release, but it would carry more weight if there were not family health service authorities around the country which were unaware of their budget until this year was five months on and which have said that there will be no remuneration for maintenance payments. Even today, funds available for GP computerisation are inadequate to meet the targets that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State wishes to achieve.
One of the problems is how to tackle the FHSAs. We must stop some of the nonsense that is occurring. The exceptional FHSAs, which do something other than the norm, cause the trouble. In some cases, authorities will transfer resources from one budget to another, and that distorts general practice in that area. In other cases, money set aside for staff and premises is transhipped to another category of expenditure. There are GPs in some parts of the country—thankfully, not in my constituency—who are not being paid the full amount for what they achieved in the previous quarter. If my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reflects on the GP contract, he must realise that it was probably a mistake to have only one medical representative or doctor on FHSAs. The experience of those dedicated people is necessary to make the system run smoothly.
Trust hospitals are, and always were, part of the national health service. They are part of devolved management, which was the concept behind trust status. The problem, as many of us who have studied these matters know, is that the strategy of my right hon. Friend's predecessor, the former Secretary of State for Health, to rush in with 57 new trusts without clear monitoring has proved to be a sticking point.
I agree with the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) that it makes no sense to proceed without a thorough analysis of what those 57 hospitals have achieved. If the vast majority are a success, we can go forward with total confidence. I believe that that may be the case, but I should like it confirmed.
With regard to the second wave, I considered the applications for the Oxford region, part of which I represent, and I was happy to support the majority of those applications. However, I thought that the submission by the Milton Keynes acute hospital was distinctly thin. That unit has not managed to live within its budget since it was created and it has been feather-bedded because it is a brand new city hospital for the new town of Milton Keynes. Nevertheless, its application was approved. Decisions of that kind cause difficulties.
Northampton general hospital has not sought trust status yet, but what safeguards will apply to that hospital if the hospital in Milton Keynes faces difficulties? Will Milton Keynes once again receive the extra resources to the detriment of the remaining hospitals in the Oxford region? If devolved management is the basis of the development of the hospital side of the NHS, we should remember that there are two forms of devolved management in education—grant-maintained status and
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local management status. Although trust status may be one form of devolved management in the health service, one hopes that there may also be others—this should not be a black or white issue.
I fervently believe that it the right of every patient—and, through the patient, the GP—to know how long he or she will have to wait. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on setting firm targets, so that, by next March, no one will be on a waiting list for more than two years, and that, by March 1993, no one will be on a waiting list for more than one year. Both those targets are praiseworthy. However, it is not sufficient simply to consider in-patient waiting lists; we must also consider the delays in obtaining out-patient appointments. We must highlight that dimension as well.
The changes will not occur simply as a result of exhortations from the chief executive of the NHS. There must be a combination of relentless pressure for continuous quality improvement similar to that achieved by the quality control methodology of manufacturing industry. It also requires extra targeted resources. Why can we not have a monthly statement to show what we are achieving in comparison with our targets? All hon. Members receive a monthly statement about unemploy-ment which is broken down to constituency and ward levels. If we can have such a service from one section of the state, why can we not have such information about the NHS?
The basic position of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is crystal clear. Whatever may have been the intentions of my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), it is clear that the present—and, I believe, the future—Prime Minister uses the NHS; he believes in it, and he is grateful for what it has done for him and his family. The basic concept of its being free at the point of use is fundamental to him, to me and to all Conservatives. The other significant change is that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recognises that the NHS requires extra real resources. However efficient the management may be—there is still a long way to go in that respect—we cannot hide the fact that the NHS's percentage of GNP must rise in this country. We should not be on a level with Greece and far below France, Germany, Italy and our other European partners in that regard. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recognises that.
Labour never got the economy moving. Labour Members have never been able to achieve what they wanted in their hearts to achieve. Their desires remained desires and aspirations, never becoming a reality.
I remain critical of what is happening on the ground and of the way in which some of the strategies are interpreted at district health authority and FHSA level, but for the first time I can honestly say that we have a Prime Minister and a Secretary of State for Health who believe in a national health service. I shall therefore have pleasure in supporting the Government today.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I remind the House that the 10-minute limit on speeches operates from 7 pm.
6.59 pm
Mr. Michael Foot: I am the only Member who was present in the House to hear Aneurin Bevan make his Second Reading speech which introduced the national health service and also heard him, from the same Bench on which the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) sits, deliver his resignation speech about charges that were imposed. I was hoping to have discussed some of that history, especially because the Secretary of State gave a most misleading account of it. He should not have done that. He should have taken a bit more notice. He might even have learnt something from a letter which appeared in The Independent the other day, which states:
"Sir: I am absolutely thrilled by William Waldegrave's undertaking for a complete reversal of Conservative policy on the NHS, that is, 'equal access to free health care throughout the country for everybody, regardless of their means'. My last two sessions of 'free' health care cost £52 (teeth) and £176 (eyes)."
Aneurin Bevan would have been especially interested in that letter. It was on precisely the charges that were introduced for teeth and spectacles that he resigned. He had some other excellent reasons for his resignation, but he tried to give a warning to the country, a warning to the Labour party, which was on the Government side of the House at that time, and a warning to some others, too. The whole country would have been wise to listen to what he said. He said:
"The Chancellor of the Exchequer in this year's Budget proposes to reduce the Health expenditure by £13 millon— only £13 million out of £4,000 million."
He went on to state:
hat is to be squeezed out next year? Is it the upper half? When that has been squeezed out and the same principle holds good, what do you squeeze out the year after? Prescriptions? Hospital charges? Where do you stop? I have been accused of having agreed to a charge on prescriptions. That shows the danger of compromise. Because if it is pleaded against me that I agreed to the modification of the Health Service, then what will be pleaded against my right hon. Friends next year, and indeed what answer will they have if the vandals opposite come in?"
He was referring to the Opposition. He went on to state:
What answer? The Health Service will be like Lavinia —all the limbs cut off and eventually her tongue cut out, too." —[Official Report, 23 April 1951, Vol. 487, c. 41–42.]
Many of us think that Aneurin Bevan had great prescience. I do not think that he foresaw the way in which the present Government would seek to impair the rights of people in the health service to raise their voices against the methods that were forced on them by the Government. He made a careful prophecy, and I hope that everyone will take account of it. The Secretary of State was wrong in his history of the subject, so I advise him to read the excellent history of the national health service by Charles Webster. Many of the problems that the health service had to face are set out.
The Times Literary Supplement review of that
publication states:
"The miracle of the British National Health Service is not that it survived its delicate infancy but that it ever came to be horn."
Then comes the prophecy:
"If it required a politician with the weight of an Aneurin Bevan to create the NHS, it will probably require one in the mould of Margaret Thatcher to dismember it."
The word "dismember" may be just as good as "privatise" because it means pretty well the same thing. It means
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exactly what my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my party have been describing to the country that the Government seek to do.
We can review the history of this measure as well as the history of what happened in the days of the Labour Government and the way in which we introduced the national health service and fought for it against all the opposition raised from Conservatives all over the country. There has been a history of this measure. The hon. Member for Northampton, South has made many brave speeches criticising the Government on the subject of the health service. He has much more knowledge of the health service than most of the rest of his party rolled together. They should take note of what he says. On previous occasions he has been even more critical. He now says, "It is different. The policy that is now being pursued by the new Prime Minister is different from the one that was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) when she was Prime Minister."
We must be fair to the right hon. Member for Finchley. It may seem very strange for an Opposition Member to say that, but we should be fair even to her. She was responsible for the introduction of the measure. She was responsible for refusing to listen to the doctors, the British Medical Association and the royal colleges. She is the one who slammed the door in their faces and would not listen to them. It is most unfair that all the blame should be put upon her. She was much too impatient, but she had Ministers who were much too subservient. She was always hectoring and they were always cringing. She knew what she wanted to achieve; they knew they wanted to hang on to their jobs.
If anybody questions what I say, he or she has only to imagine what would have happened if any Secretary of State for Health—heaven knows, there are plenty of former Secretaries of State for Health on the Government side of the House—had dared to have the latter-day conversion which afflicted the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). He belatedly decided that he would oppose the poll tax, even though he was quite prepared for the poor Scots to endure it. But he at least revolted. If one Secretary of State or one member of the Cabinet had dared to revolt, the Government would not have led us down that dangerous path which threatened the future of the national health service.
Ever since the new Prime Minister took his job—an Edmund Burke phrase rings in my mind—his Ministers have attempted meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which once they proudly strutted. Pretty well all of them strutted in. A couple of years ago, even the hon. Member for Northampton, South was an enthusiastic supporter throughout the country. He gave almost as much support to the proposals then as his right hon. Friend is giving to the present proposals. We see no great difference between them. Anyone who studies the reality will see that they are very much the same proposals—the same proposals which the right hon. Lady forced on her subservient Cabinet and the same proposals which they devised in the Cabinet committee that had never examined any of the proposals and objectives from the medical profession or the British Medical Association, as the hon. Gentleman will be keen to confirm. Even more serious is the fact that the heads of the royal colleges pleaded with the Government, the right hon. Lady and her subservient Ministers to listen. We could have been saved all that trouble.

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Five months, 10 months or two years ago, huge sums of money could have been saved. I am not sure whether we would have saved more than the losses on the poll tax— that would certainly mean setting it pretty high. As my hon. Friends have often said, we could have had a united, intelligent review of the health service.
Aneurin Bevan was never opposed to reviews of the health service. He even said that they should happen every five or 10 years to see how we should make the best advances and how we could make the whole apparatus more democratic. Indeed, he set out the measures to do that. In 1958, in his last speech on the health service, he told the Conservative Government, "You have had about five or six Ministers of Health. They have not been much good because, apart from their other disqualifications, they have been here such a short time that they are unable even to learn their job, and the main point of their job is how to stand up to the importunities of the Treasury." That was the delicate way in which he described it.
When we win the next election, as I am sure we shall, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) will be given the same five-year period at the Ministry of Health as was given to Aneurin Bevan in 1945. When he was given the chance, Bevan said, "I want to stay here for five years to carry through the whole programme." One of our very best days since 1948, when the NHS provisions were introduced, will be when my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston, who has earned so much respect because of the way in which he has put his case, takes up the office of Secretary of State for Health and starts to clear up the terrible mess that the Conservative Government have made.
7.9 pm
Sir Timothy Raison: I am one of those who enjoys listening to the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) speaking as Aneurin Bevan's vicar on earth. It will be a sad day when we can no longer hear him speak in the House. Unusually for him, when the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) spoke on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, he used a tired phrase; he talked about health being treated as "a political football". I think that we all know in our hearts that that will continue and that there is absolutely no possibility of the House of Commons ceasing to take an interest in health or of its ceasing to do so in a thoroughly partisan way. Indeed, it is right that we should debate the health service in the Chamber and even inject party politics into the subject.
Having said that, however, we are reaching a situation when the Labour party's posture on this matter—and especially that of its Front-Bench spokesmen—is becoming more and more ludicrous. The scale and nature of Opposition Members' attacks on the health service are totally misleading and mendacious. Their case is becoming absurd and beginning to fall apart.
We all heard the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) once again trailing out a list of touching hard cases. The public are beginning to see through all that. It is time that the hon. Gentleman looked for something else to talk about. I notice that he is about to leave the Chamber, and
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I do not blame him for that. He talks a lot about long waiting lists, but the longest waiting list is the one that he is on in his search for office.
I genuinely believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has managed to reverse the gravamen of the political onslaught in the past few weeks. The way in which he has responded to Labour's irresponsible attacks and has clearly shown exactly what is happening in the health service has been enormously to his personal credit. It is beginning to get through to the public that there is something false in the Opposition's assertions.
I firmly believe that our structural changes are on the right lines. The introduction of the trusts and of budget-holding practices is a thoroughly good idea. I do not go along with those who say, "Let's sit back for a few years to consider whether they are a good idea." It would be totally wrong to block the growing impetus for reform in many parts of the country. I do not know what people in Scotland and Wales are saying—perhaps they do not want to experiment with trusts—but the blocking or deferral of the proposed trusts in my part of the country would lead to great disappointment. Anybody who has looked at what is happening or talked to the people involved will know that what I am saying is true.
I do not claim that we have always got our health service reforms right. It is pretty obvious that our reforms at the beginning of the 1970s were wrong. Although I dutifully voted for them, I now think that we introduced a grossly over-bureaucratic system in which tier was piled upon tier. That had to be dismantled. I am not trying to claim any unique virtue for my party's approach to such things, but I believe that we have now evolved a system that offers the possibility of a greater directness of management. It will be a much leaner system than in the past and one in which decisions will be taken where they should be taken. To use a naval analogy, we are trying to ensure that decisions will be taken on the bridge of the ship rather than in the Ministry of Defence. If that principle is sound in war, which it most certainly is, exactly the same should be true of running the health service.
As a result of the reforms, I believe that we shall see a more clear-cut management with incentives to efficiency through competition. It was interesting that the hon. Member for Livingston ended by saying that a Labour Government would be looking for incentives to try to increase efficiency and to reward success. Curiously, therefore, at the end of his speech he started to concede part of the philosophical argument. Of course, a Labour Government would not actually do that, whereas we have found a system that will achieve it. Indeed, until recently, socialism everywhere always led to a bureaucratic approach. The irony is that socialists elsewhere are now beginning to recognise the failures of the bureaucratic approach and are working hard at decentralisation. That is happening in the countries of eastern and central Europe —only the British Labour party is living in the past.
We all know that the health service will not be magically transformed overnight. Nobody expects that. However, given time to mature, I believe that the new system is heading in exactly the right direction. I should like to illustrate that point by examples from my constituency where the state of play is that we have four trusts or potential trusts. One has just been approved by the Secretary of State; one has been deferred; and two are included in the third wave.

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The new trust that was accepted last week is the Aylesbury Vale community healthcare trust. I am sure that it will be outstandingly successful. The trust will cover adult mental health, the elderly mentally ill, mental handicap, physical rehabilitation and general community work, such as district nursing, health visiting, chiropody, and palliative care. It will come into being with strong popular support. Indeed, there was very little opposition to it at the discussion stage. Those who will operate the service are committed to it and the community health council supports it. It would be a bitter blow to say to those people, "Sit back, go away and do nothing for the next year or two." As I said, I can see no reason why that trust should not be outstandingly successful.
The trust in south Buckinghamshire, to be based around Wycombe, was deferred. Although that is sad because much good work went into its preparation, I do not necessarily blame my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for deciding to defer it, because it would be a single-district trust and I have always had some reservations about whether such trusts are the right way of proceeding. Perhaps some financial questions remain to be resolved. I am delighted, however, that although my right hon. Friend has made it clear that he cannot accept the application at this stage, he believes that the trust will be able to go ahead in due course and he will consider its application sympathetically. If we were to have a single health authority for the whole of Buckinghamshire instead of three different health authorities, I am sure that we would overcome the single district trust problem and that such a trust would then have the viability that it does not have at the moment.
The proposed third wave for the county ambulance service seems to make good sense. The other proposed third wave trust would cover Stoke Mandeville hospital. Although it is famous for its spinal injuries unit, it is, of course, a district general hospital as well. It has had some difficult problems and some disappointments over the delay in its redevelopment programme. It has also had various other problems, including overspending. Again, I believe that the best way of tackling those problems and of making use of its highly skilled staff would be to run the hospital from within the unit rather than imposing management from outside.
I am not criticising the past management, although they have had their difficulties, but if one asks what is the best way of running a unit that faces problems, of having a happy staff, of building up their morale and of tackling some tricky development problems, who could seriously deny that that is far more likely to be achieved by managing the unit from within—rather like a battleship —than by imposing the management from outside?
I believe that the underlying philosophy behind what we are setting out to achieve is absolutely right. Of course, there will be problems. The health service will be underfunded, but then, it will always be underfunded. Anyone who is honest will accept that it will always demand more and more money. However, on the crucial question of how we can best tackle the problems, increase morale and achieve clear-cut decision making, I believe that the idea of the trusts is right. It would be a great error to be pushed off course and to delay or abandon their implementation.
7.19 pm
Mr. David Young: The Conservatives have always argued that the national health service is safe in their hands. In fact, it is about as safe as a chicken in the hands of a farmer who is about to wring its neck. The public support for the Labour party stems not from propaganda but from ordinary people's experience of the health service—people who are told that they have to wait for one or two years on the waiting list for an operation but that if they paid privately they could have the operation within days or weeks. That is not choice—that is extortion.
The Government have consistently argued that we have a free health service, but by extending the payment per prescription from 20p to £3·40, they seem to have flown in the face of that principle. They have certainly cancelled eye tests. They have also cancelled the dental test. The main sufferers when such tests are cancelled are the young and the old—the people most at risk whom we as a community should seek to help. If high blood pressure and glaucoma are not detected in an eye test, does that not lead once again to hospital lists being extended by people who have to go for remedial treatment, when preventive treatment would have been less costly?
During the past 12 years, we have seen the Conservatives create a two-tier health system. With 900,000 people on the waiting list, the incentive to the patient to go private is not choice but pain. The Government's policy has made the long waiting list the recruiting sergeant for private practice. A two-year waiting list may be acceptable to the Secretary of State, but when an 81-year-old woman is waiting for a hip replacement, the question which goes through her mind is, "Will the surgeon get to me before the undertaker does?" That is the choice that the party of choice provides.
Underlying the whole system is the fact that the quality of life of people on waiting lists is affected and undermined. In a civilised society, we should consider quality of life, if nothing else. The Conservative party claims to be the party of choice. What chance is there of going to the hospital of one's choice if one wants to go to a hospital to which the district health authority has not contracted out and if the extra referrals budget has gone by the board? What choice is there then?
What choice is there for the single elderly person who requires long-term nursing care if there is little or no community budget? What choice is there except a private nursing home? I am aware of what the Secretary of State for Social Security has said today about giving more money to such people, but unfortunately it is not elderly people but owners of private nursing homes who will receive the extra money. We shall soon see the charges at those private nursing homes increase once again.
However, that is not the question. What about the many people just above the benefit level and those who throughout their lives had saved for a rainy day? It will be a pouring day when they have to fork out £15,000 to £20,000 per annum for private treatment in a nursing home. What about people who are told that they have to sell their home in order to obtain treatment? Where are they when they can no longer afford that treatment? Will they be downgraded, as in America, from one nursing home to another? Is that the type of society that the Tory Government want? It is certainly the kind that they have created.

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As a Member of Parliament for Bolton, I have always been concerned about the health of Bolton. No hon. Member who represents that area can be otherwise when one reads the Black report and other reports from the director of medical services which tell one about the health of Bolton. On 27 January 1981, I got the go-ahead from Sir George Young for the new Bolton general hospital. For almost a decade the Government failed to come across with the money. If the speculation in yesterday's Sunday Mirror is correct and the £37 million is to be diverted for other purposes—the article mentioned opting out and hospital trusts—that will be a gross betrayal of the people of Bolton.
Mr. Thurnham: The hon. Gentleman says that he is concerned about health in Bolton. Will he retract the bogus scare stories to which he was party about cancelled operations in the north-west? Does he accept that no health authority has said that there is any truth in it? In Bolton, there were only 651 operations not cancelled, but postponed, and 780 operations were put off because patients did not turn up for them. Is that financial cuts?
Mr. Young: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would use his own time and not mine. He will have a chance to make his speech. I have represented Bolton and I know of the cuts. One of the things that sickens the people of Bolton is this. When the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) says, "I want the surgeon of my choice at the time of my choice," that is fair. But it is not fair that her policies have denied that to everyone else. A plasterer in my constituency has to remain idle because he has months to wait before he can have an operation on his elbow. That is what I am talking about when I complain about waiting lists.
It is no wonder that certain hon. Members become coy when they attack us on our assertions but will not declare whether they and their families depend on the national health service. That is the only criterion on which to judge whether people believe in the national health service. If they do not go into those hospitals or see the waiting lists, it is easy to argue in statistical terms, but one person on the waiting list for two years is one too many. If there had been an incentive to remove the waiting lists, it could have been done. Instead, the Government provided handouts in terms of private health insurance for the elderly, which the Secretary of State has retracted now that an election is approaching. I want a health service for all the people, not just for those who can buy their way out of the system. That is the health service that we want in Bolton and for the country—and that is why, after the next election, there will be three Labour Members of Parliament for Bolton.
7.29 pm
Sir Jim Spicer: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Mr. Young). and most hon. Members owe a great deal to the national health service over many years. I certainly do in personal terms, but even more in family terms.
My eldest daughter broke a leg. She had a broken leg for eight years. During that period she had 14 major operations. The last one took thirteen and a half hours. She is now walking on that leg and is healthy. Not once did she dream of moving out of the health service, and not
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once did she not receive superb treatment. I am sick and tired of hon. Members who try to say that we have the worst service in the world. We have the best service in the world, and the sooner we all recognise that, the better.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is not here. I, too, shall return to that marvellous television programme, "On the Record", which I enjoyed enormously yesterday. In that programme, the hon. Gentleman was trying to be a good fairy—I mean that in the nice, old-fashioned sense. He was saying, in effect, "Vote for me and all will be well." As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made clear, the hon. Gentleman avoided some questions. First—this question will return time and again—how much additional funding does the Labour party believe to be essential for the NHS? Is it £2 billion a year, £3 billion, £4 billion, £5 billion or £6 billion? Hon. Members can ask that at various times of various Labour-Front Bench spokesmen and they will always get different answers.
My second question relates to the hon. Gentleman's speech today. How will he translate his obvious dislike of and distaste for private residential care, where so many elderly people reside with the help of the Government, into action if, unfortunately, he ever becomes the Secretary of State? Hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country would like an answer to that question.
I knew a geriatric hospital with wards of 10 or 20 beds which was to be closed. The spirit there was marvellous. I followed the case of each patient moved from that hospital. One old lady said to me, "I never thought that I would be able to live out my life in a room of my own with a view like this—I thought that I was condemned to living in a ward for the rest of my life." Is the hon. Gentleman against taking elderly people out of hospital institutions and putting them into private accommodation? The country and certainly my constituents would like to know.
The same "good fairy" gave the impression that he would wave a wand and, miraculously, the money to achieve everything would appear. He said that it would come from "the economy", but what possible growth in the economy can we rely on under a Labour Government? How many years does he expect that it will take to wipe out his theoretical underfunding? Yesterday the hon. Gentleman was coy about that, as he has been in the past. As my right hon. Friend said, the hon. Gentleman has changed his tack and stance on this time and again.
My third question is: how carefully has the hon. Gentleman researched authorities with trust status? In particular, has he looked at the West Dorset health authority, which has been fully trusted for its acute, community and mental health services since April? Perhaps he would like to visit us. If he or the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman) would like to come, we should be delighted to welcome them. They would see the resounding success achieved through wonderful co-operation between the authority, the trusts, the consultants, the doctors and all health service employees.
I will give some quick examples of what we achieved. From an annual budget this year of £77 million, we have already achieved a saving of £1·3 million, which will be devoted entirely to cutting waiting lists. Since April, 80 per cent. of patients have been treated within six months. Soon none will wait more than a year. Nobody will wait for two years, as the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East said. Even that one year wait will be exceptional. For each of the past three years, 6 per cent. more patients have been

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treated. There is a total commitment to the second phase of our splendid district hospital, which will combine all our acute resources on one site. Coupled with that, we have major improvements in all our community hospitals under our community trusts. On the mental health side, we have seen the closure of Harrison and Coldharbour hospitals —two marvellously run hospitals, but built 150 years ago. Their patients are now back in the community. I have seen what has been achieved even in six short months, and it is remarkable.
Will someone from the Opposition Front Bench please come and look at what is happening in west Dorset? I extend the same invitation to the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy). He mentioned Yeovil hospital. That was where my daughter had most of her operations. There is no better hospital. It has trust status. The hon. Gentleman said that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) visited the hospital recently and discovered that some people there were unhappy or, at least, uneasy about the future. Perhaps he talked to different people, because I have spoken to some people there in the past three or four days and they are happy.
I hear that the number of patients treated in Yeovil hospital is up by 5 per cent. since April, that waiting lists are substantially down and that only 63 patients have waited for more than a year, a decrease of 70 per cent. on last year's total. The hon. Gentleman said that he was sure that there must be a fly in the ointment somewhere and that the hospital would probably run into financial difficulties. It will not. It has a balanced budget. It is appointing five new consultants, three arising directly from the trust status, and more improvements are expected across the board. I am delighted that the right hon. Member for Yeovil will gain so much in his constituency as a result of the policies instituted by the Government and I hope, although I fear that it is a forlorn hope, that he and his colleagues will vote with the Government tonight.
I have made my position clear. I depend on the NHS and always will, and so will my family. So long as we have a Conservative Government wholly committed to it under our present Prime Minister, that NHS will continue to operate at an increasing level of efficiency and with better management. As has been said, proper management of scarce resources is the key. We cannot go on always throwing more money at the NHS. We must use that money more efficiently. Surely no one can deny us the right to do that.
7.37 pm
Mr. David Hinchliffe: The simple fact which neither the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer) nor any Tory Member who spoke before him has addressed is that the majority of British people believe that the Government are intent on privatising the national health service. The public are witnessing the obvious break-up of the NHS by a Government who have no electoral mandate for such action. It is the logical action of a Government who have privatised numerous state industries and who have a pathological hatred of collectivism, co-operation and of the socialism inherent in the principles of the NHS. It is the logical action of a political party that voted against the introduction of the NHS way back in the 1940s before I was born. The public are not stupid. They can see the obvious steps that have been taken in the direction of a health care market.
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My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) said that the Government had used certain processes in pursuing their policy and he identified one such process as destabilisation. Certainly the Government have destabilised the NHS as they deliberately decided to underfund it. According to the National Association of Health Authorities, the NHS was underfunded to the tune of £2·5 billion in the first 10 years of the Government's term of office. At the same time, however, the Government were able and prepared to give income tax concessions to people who already had plenty of money. We now see the results of that underfunding, because a quarter of all the NHS beds in Yorkshire have been closed. Not all those beds were for psychiatric or mentally handicapped patients; 15 per cent. of acute beds have been taken out of use within the Yorkshire regional health authority.
Industrial disputes in the NHS have been provoked deliberately. Those disputes included the nurses' legitimate claim for a decent working wage and the decent claim from the ambulance workers for an appropriate working wage in recognition of their expertise. The pay awards that were eventually arrived at were not funded by the Government.
The public see before their eyes that paying for health care is becoming the norm. They have witnessed the huge increase in prescription charges and the introduction of charges for eyesight and dental checks. The Government also introduced income tax concessions for private health care, the ultimate insult to a generation of elderly people who, in common with my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent, were around at the time the NHS was set up. Those people fought for the NHS, so is it any wonder that the Secretary of State has had to concede that that tax concession has been a shambles? Those elderly people do not believe in the concession. They share our commitment to a properly funded NHS, available to patients at the point of need.
The care of the elderly has been privatised. There are now 5,000 fewer elderly care beds in the hospital sector. In my area of Yorkshire, the number of private nursing beds has increased by 1,000 per cent. Hospital trusts, such as that in Bradford, have stated that they do not accept any responsibility for the nursing care of the elderly. They do not regard that as their job. In my constituency, NHS hospitals which were supposedly unsuitable for the care of the elderly have been closed. Sandal Grange is a classic example; it has reopened as a private nursing home. That is happening across the country.
The county hospital which previously cared for the elderly in my constituency has also been closed. We had been promised a new geriatric unit at Pinderfields hospital, but that has not come about. The old hospital has not been replaced. Snapethorpe hospital, recently rebuilt, has also been closed for the care of the elderly. Patients must now pay to go to private nursing homes to receive the care that they previously received from the NHS. Is that not equivalent to the privatisation of the NHS? Of course it is. My constituents know what is happening.
Charges have been introduced for the use of NHS facilities. Surely if people are charged to park their vehicles in hospital car parks, that is equivalent to privatisation. That is what has happened in my constituency. The people are being penalised. It is all right for Conservative Members to sneer at that, as car park charges may mean nothing to them—it is pocket money. However, for elderly people who struggle to run a car, such charges mean a great deal. Those people need their cars to get to hospital

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to visit their loved ones or to receive treatment. Conservative Members may sneer about that, but such charges are all part of the privatisation of the NHS.
Private consultation for my constituents is becoming the rule rather than the exception. It is the norm for people to have to pay to see a consultant before they are accepted into the system. Frequently they end up paying to visit Methley park hospital for private treatment. They should receive that care within the NHS by right.
It saddens me to know of case after case of elderly people who have paid all their lives towards the NHS and who believe in it. They now have to bribe a doctor to get the treatment that they should get by right. That is an absolute disgrace, but it is the reality in my area and elsewhere.
The public have also witnessed the reconstruction of the NHS—prompted by Government measures—as a com-petitive set of business units. Whether people have trusts in their area or not, the pattern is clear. The introduction of private-sector style management—a great success, according to one Conservative Member—has not been a success in my area. A man who used to run a biscuit factory was brought in to run the local NHS, but the mistakes made during that period are still being put right by the new management.
Conservative Members talk about the devolution of accountability—what absolute rot. What is the role of the community health councils? Supposedly they represent the voice of the patient, but that voice has been made to shut up. In my area, the CHC is no longer able to discuss anything in the meetings of the area health authority. It is unable to have any dialogue on issues of direct concern to it.
Obvious financial incentives have been offered to general practitioners to opt out of the system. I recently received a letter from a local GP in my area who described the way in which financial incentives are offered to GP practices to opt out and to become self-managing. He described the way in which Yorkshire regional health authority operates. He wrote:
"In order to improve waiting list statistics they are seeking GP's help in removing from the waiting-lists those patients who have been waiting longer than one year. I presume they are hoping patients can be referred to a different Provider and so in terms of statistics would start their waiting period again. They are also hoping we will remove patients who have changed addresses, died, no longer need treatment or can be persuaded to opt for private treatment. Fund Holding practices will be paid a 'bounty' for each patient removed from the waiting list and a 'bonus' if on 1st April. 1992 there are no such patients. Yorkshire's Non-fund holding practices are to be asked to carry out the same 'ghost-culling' exercise but will not be paid for doing so. Whilst not giving any direct benefit to patients of Fund Holding practices it allows those practices to gain financially and therefore purchase better equipment and services for their patients. In essence it is a further financial carrot to encourage practices to become fund-holding and to strengthen the position of existing fund holders at the expense of non fund-holders."
That is a clear example of the way in which the Government are pushing public money at GPs to persuade them to manage their own budgets.
The Labour party has been accused recently of running a dirty tricks campaign about the NHS. I took particular note of a disgraceful article that appeared in The Sunday Times a week ago on the issue of Dr. Mark Baker moving to a consultant's post within the Yorkshire regional health
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authority. The news editor of The Sunday Times, Mr. Michael Williams, has accepted that that article contained at least six factual errors. He undertook to print, in full, a letter from me refuting the allegations in the article. I am sorry that Mr. Williams is not a man of his word, as he removed the main point of my letter—that Dr. Mark Baker had confirmed on BBC television the precise information I had released.
There is no need for dirty tricks, as it is quite apparent—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. The hon. Gentleman has had his time.
7.48 pm
Mr. James Couchman: In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) may I first declare that I have an interest in two health care companies? I advise Pfizer, which is a Kent-based pharmaceutical manufacturer, and Denplan Ltd.
In common with my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Sir J. Spicer), may I also declare a family interest? Like the vast majority of the population, my family and I use the NHS for all our health care. Some colleagues will be aware that, during the past 18 months, my wife has been a cancer patient at Guy's hospital. During that time, she has received superb treatment and enjoyed the morale of the staff, which is extremely good. Throughout her serious illness, she has always been treated in a most encouraging manner. My family has always enjoyed satisfaction from the health service, and we use it exclusively for our health care.
I find it deeply insulting when Labour Members accuse us of wishing to privatise the health service. Why would we, who have enjoyed satisfaction from the national health service, wish to deprive others of such satisfaction? Opposition Members' actions in the past few months seem to have much more to do with propanganda and scare than with telling the truth about the health service as it is or would be under a Labour Government. It is regrettable that the nostrum of those propagandists of the 1930s and 1940s—that if a fabrication is repeated often enough it will be believed—has been taken up by Opposition Front-Bench Members.
I remember sitting throughout the entirety of the Bill for the reform of the health service that we are now discussing—the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. During those proceedings, there was little mention of privatisation. That was not the Opposition's objection at that time, and I suspect that their attempt to persuade people that we intend to privatise the health service has much more to do with elections than with telling the truth.
I, too, watched that excellent programme on BBC1 yesterday lunch time in which the hon. Member for Livingstone (Mr. Cook) was interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby. What a slippery and evasive performance the hon. Gentleman gave, especially in relation to the resources that a Labour Government would provide for the health service. He did not say whether it will be £1 billion, £2 billion, £4 billion or £6 billion, but it does not matter, because the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) will not pass over that money in any case.

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The right hon. and learned Gentleman will take additional income tax and national insurance from all doctors and most nurses, and not a penny piece of ii will be paid to the national health service, because all that additional revenue has been pledged in social security benefits to pensioners and in child benefit. I wonder how nurses and doctors will feel about that. They will say, "It's back to the same old swings. We remember the last Labour Government when our wages were reduced—nurses' by 3 per cent. and doctors' by 17 per cent."
That is in stark contrast to what the Government have done for the pay of nurses and doctors. In real terms, nurses' pay has gone up by 48 per cent. and doctors' pay by 39 per cent. Since 1979, spending on the health service has increased by 50 per cent. in real terms. The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), who is in his place, mentioned the increases that will be necessary. The Government have kept pace with those, but demand in the health service is infinite. It does not matter how much more money a putative Labour Government might put into the health service, because it would never be enough. It would always be outstripped by medical advance and the number of elderly people who require tremendous extra service.
Some 84 per cent. more patients are now treated in geriatric units. That is partly to do with the fact that it is no longer seen as the end of the road to end up in a geriatric unit bed, because geriatricians now work extremely hard to rehabilitate the elderly when they come into their charge. They may then go to a home outside, where almost all of them are supported by the state in some form. Some 293,000 people are now in homes supported by public funds, compared with 132,000 in 1979. Thus, more than twice as many people are now in homes for the elderly supported by public funds. That is the sort of improvement that has taken place since 1979.
We are constrained to speak for only a brief time this evening, but I should like to have said much more in this debate. I welcome the inquiry that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has set up into the situation in London. I was chairman of a health authority before entering the House, and I have long been convinced that
London, especially inner London, is over-provided with health care. There is too great a concentration of high specialist units in the undergraduate teaching hospitals on the three-mile ride from Harley street which we all know and which has been recognised since 1909.
I hope that Sir Bernard Tomlinson, in his wide-ranging inquiry, will consult on the problems caused by over-concentration in London. There is no doubt that the hospitals on the inner London ring are starving constituencies such as mine—30 or 50 miles outside London—of resources. St. Thomas's hospital has had to give associate university status to the hospital in my constituency because insufficient ordinary or secondary care patients are going into St. Thomas's and there must always be 40 medical students at the Medway hospital because more people are living there.
I hope that Sir Bernard will be given a free hand to recommend the movement of those undergraduate teaching facilities out of London and into the provinces where they should be. That would remove at a stroke the reason for keeping too many of those hospitals open. I look forward to Sir Bernard's report being published soon.
7.57 pm
Mr. Robert Hughes: I shall concentrate on the application for trust status by the Forresterhills hospitals in Aberdeen. The foreword of the application document says:
"The Hospitals represented in this application have an excellent record of service to the public over many years. They are a most valuable asset for the people of the area and they play an essential role in the lives of each and every one of us."
I concur wholly with that and it is interesting that, in the rest of the document, not a single case is made about the applicants, who are involved in the health service in Aberdeen, being frustrated in their management or in making improvements. Nor is there any evidence to say that they could improve on what has gone before, except a vague promise of more flexibility.
On 9 October, which is less than a couple of weeks ago, the 90-day consultation period ended. Within five days of its ending, Grampian health board was able to write to the Secretary of State to say that it upheld and recommended the application. Some will say that it has acted with commendable speed. The Secretary of State for Scotland would certainly not take that view, however, because a local event of national importance is to take place in the locality covered by the hospital—the Kincardine and Deeside by-election.
The electors in that constituency will want to know when the Secretary of State will reply to the application and what response he will give. They will ask the Secretary of State and every Minister who goes there whether they agree with the Tory party candidate in the by-election who is opposed to opt-out status. Everyone is opposed to it, and the application should be refused. If Grampian health board was not prejudiced by its judgment before the application, when it said that the application should go ahead, it, too, would recommend rejection.
As for the consultation process, there were 3,919 responses of which 13 or 0·33 per cent. were for the application; 40 or 1·02 per cent. expressed no opinion, but said that they were certainly concerned; and 3,866–98·65 per cent.—were against the application. In addition, the People's Hospital Campaign in Aberdeen, which I co-chair with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Doran), entered a petition bearing 34,627 signatures.
One would think that Grampian health board would take account of the weight of all that evidence. In its letter to the Secretary of State the board says that it is worried about the number of objections, but goes on to discount them. It takes an interesting line, saying that the problem is that 3,559 of the responses were standard letters prepared by the People's Hospital Campaign and cannot be taken into account. The lives of Members of Parliament would be much easier, but we would be a damn sight less popular, if we replied to every standard letter that we received by saying that we did not take them into account. The Secretary of State would be surprised if that were so.
It is an insult to public opinion to reject such responses out of hand. However, let me be more than fair. If the vast number of responses received in the form of the People's Hospital Campaign standard letter are taken out of the total, we are left with 360 responses, of which only 13 were in favour, so the 0·33 per cent. in favour becomes 3·61 per cent.—hardly a mandate to proceed. The balance of judgment is entirely wrong.
Grampian health board's second line of attack is to say that the people do not understand what they are talking

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about, because they do not understand the process. The unit area medical advisory committee opposed the application. The area medical committee, covering the whole of the Grampian region, objected. The hospital's senior medical staff committee and the local medical committee, which represents general practitioners in the Grampian region, opposed the application. Every organisation and group involved with the health service opposed the application. For the health board to say that people do not understand what is going on is to denigrate all involved with the health service.
We were told that the consultation process was wide. The applicants produced a pamphlet in a tasteful shade of blue that spelt out the trust's advantages. At best, the pamphlet is disingenuous, and it also shows some incompetence. I received my copy only a fortnight before the consultation period ended, and I have no particular reason to believe that I was singled out. At the end, the pamphlet states:
"Any other comments or expressions of support which you would wish to have taken into account should be sent direct to…"
It does not state that one can object. That is the so-called open consultation that the Government say they support —the pamphlet is, to put it mildly, disingenuous.
We are told that the proposal involves local choice by local people. The chairman-designate of the trust was approached by the chief executive of the NHS in Edinburgh—such is the local choice that those involved could not even choose their own chairman. What choice will they have once the application goes through? What about the others involved? Who asked them? Is the decision locally inspired, or is it imposed from above? I suspect that it is imposed from above.
The Government say that we are telling a lot of lies about privatisation, but let us consider what is happening in Aberdeen. The health board built, planned and paid for a 60-bed unit for its geriatric and psychogeriatric patients. It was planned that, from the day it opened, it should be run by the health service. But it has been contracted out to be run by a private medical company.
Within the Aberdeen health board district there is a hyperbaric centre which was developed in the 1980s to take care of divers in the North sea who need urgent medical treatment for the bends. That centre was included in the application, but it has already been stripped out. It was sold to a private company on Friday. The medical professionals running that centre have been told to clear their desks and get out within the week because their offices have been sold to a private diving company. The centre does not deal with marginal problems but saves lives; it is of great importance. It was sold off because it would cost money and was an expensive part of the service to develop, which is exactly what we said would happen. Services which are not commercially popular and which will be a drain on funds will be sold off. Another centre which deals with disturbed children who need psychiatric care was stripped from the application because it created difficulties.
Some two thirds of the land is owned by the health board and one third by the university. As the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) asked, will the land be free? Who will pay for it? Do we expect the trust to pay for it? It would never be able to borrow the
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money to pay for the university land, and the university cannot afford to give it away for nothing. Borrowing the funds would affect patient care. It is an absolute disgrace. Privatisation is proceeding apace and everyone in the House, including Conservative Members, knows it.
Everyone of repute in the Grampian region has opposed the application. Every candidate in the Kincardine and Deeside by-election opposes it. No case has been made approving the application. That is recognised by everyone, including the Tory candidate and every Conservative group on the regional and district councils. Every Conservative is against it. Are all those views to be overridden? It does not matter whether they are or not, because the electorate will override the Secretary of State come the Kincardine and Deeside by-election and, what is more, the electorate will override the Government come the general election. We shall have a service which is true to its principles, is free to people at the time of need and provides the best care. I support that, and I believe that the whole country supports it.
8.6 pm
Mr. Richard Page: It is fascinating how a phrase or word sometimes encapsulates in the public's mind a concept or idea. It is then either given the fair wind of approval, or rendered stillborn or handicapped at birth. I well remember, when I was in opposition, standing in the Chamber in early 1979 and using the phrase, "a winter of discontent". I do not claim copyright on that phrase, because I understand that an itinerant playwright had used it a few centuries before. But the phrase encapsulated in people's minds the Labour Government's embattled argument with their paymasters. The words used by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) jarred with the truth as he started to say how well the Labour party had treated the national health service during its time in office.
I do not know who developed the phrase "opt out", but in doing so he or she created a fertile base on which the Labour party has been able to develop the various fears that it has put into the public's mind. When Lord Callaghan was Prime Minister, he once said that a lie could be halfway round the world before the truth had got its boots on. I have always borne that in mind, and we must get our boots on if we are to get round the world and nail the lie being circulated about the Government's attitude towards and plans for the national health service. That was one of the reasons why, last Wednesday—
Mr. Robert Litherland: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Page: No, I will not, as I am restricted to 10 minutes.
Last Wednesday, I tabled an early-day motion and immediately received 100 signatures for it. The motion deplored the scares and smears put about by the Opposition, and gave a commitment by Conservative Back Benchers that the health service would not be privatised, but would stay as a national service. I say bluntly that I would find it difficult to be a member of a party that did not provide health care for every man, woman and child in this country, irrespective of their private means.
Constituents have asked me why we are introducing change and proposing trusts which, they say, the doctors

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and consultants do not want. I have been forced to spend time explaining that the medical profession has not been of the brightest when taking managerial decisions. The medical profession was not in favour of the national health service in the first place.
I remember the furore over the funds for generic drugs. I remember doctors threatening to put up a reply to that idea in their surgeries—at least, that was what was said by doctors who were not on holiday in the West Indies enjoying the hospitality of some of the drug companies. The doctors have complained about budgets and trusts, but some of them are beginning to say that perhaps trusts are not so bad after all. Even their budgets, they say, are fine. They have started to realise what lies behind such schemes.
This series of poor initial judgments by some members of the medical profession has been seized on by the Labour party and used for its own ends. If my constituents persist, I shall also tell them another reason in favour of the changes. For four years, I have been privileged to serve on the Public Accounts Committee, and whenever a national health item comes to my attention, I have two conflicting emotions. The first is that this is a juicy item that we can get our teeth into—such items are always juicy: taxpayers' money is always being wasted. The second feeling is that I should put my head in my hands in despair at this waste of taxpayers' money under the present system. If Opposition Members want to sneer at these changes, I suggest that they work their way through some National Audit Office reports. They can then come back and tell us whether they think some changes should be introduced to the health service.
A recent example concerned health service supplies in England. I was struck by the absence of management data about them. If the NHS had gone out of its way to make life difficult, it could not have done a better job. It was
impossible to compare regional data, because there was no common management system throughout the 14 regions.
I offer a few simple quotes from the NAO report:
"The absence of readily available information about purchases from individual major suppliers weakens the negotiating position."
That is not the best way to look after taxpayers' money. From a commercial point of view, it is the most damning part of the exercise:
"The NHS lacks the detailed data needed to carry out more penetrating but selective reviews of key business factors".
The plain fact is that the system does not have the information on which to make the necessary judgments.
The NAO found that such basic information as a list of the top 50 items by value purchased in the past two years was not available. Even the top 30 suppliers to each region could not be named.
I could go on, but I will not. I will not discuss the report on patient transport services or that on operating theatres, although I am glad to say that, following the NAO's report and the PAC's report, the usage percentage has risen from 50 or 60 per cent. to between 75 and 90 per cent.
There is no time to discuss the detail of the trusts or how they can be more efficient and can save taxpayers' money, allowing that money to be ploughed back into better services. Central control has not worked. The way forward lies in local control through local choice and local management. People should be paid for what they do. My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman)
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talked about money going into London and not into the shires. In the shires, we are doing excellent work and performing a great many operations at even lower cost.
Of course there will be errors and failures among the trusts, but they will be as nothing compared with the overall benefits and advantages.
The unfounded allegations about privatisation are being nailed. When the public realise that they have been duped by the Labour party, the backlash will be terrible, and it will be visited upon Opposition Members when the election comes.
8.14 pm
Mr. Jim Cousins: It simply will not do for the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) to complain about a lack of information in the NHS, given that it was by proceeding so boldly without adequate information that the Government got into the mess that they are in. It was not sensible of the hon. Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman) to complain about the Government's belated discovery of the financing problems of the London teaching hospitals. All those things should have been known in advance and represent unnecessary difficulties into which the Government plunged through lack of foresight.
Labour Members are sensible enough not to imagine that the problems of funding teaching hospitals are confined to London. Some of the difficulties experienced by NHS opt-out trusts throughout the country are due to the difficulties in the system that the Government designed to try to fund the activities of medical and dental teaching —precisely the problems that they have now discovered in London.
The Opposition did not invent the ridulous machinery that is now crumbling around the Government. The Government complain about the costs of bureaucracy in the NHS, yet in an effort to control those costs they have utterly failed and, incredibly, costs have soared. In Newcastle upon Tyne, two of the four main hospitals now form NHS opt-out trusts—yet the costs of administering the district health authority have risen by 100 per cent. in two years due to lack of foresight on the part of the Government, who have only themselves to blame. The new, slimmed down Northern regional health authority costs 25 per cent. more to administer now than it did two years ago. These are the Government's failings and no one else's.
It was not the Opposition who decided that it was a fine idea to let private wings sprout in hospitals all over the country. That is what has happened at the Royal Victoria infirmary hospital in Newcastle, and that is proposed for the South Cleveland hospital. It was not the Opposition who designed the consultation procedure for NHS opt-out trusts. Incidentally, the two trusts recently approved for north Tees and south Tees, near the Langbaurgh constituency, failed to attract the support of one Conservative Member of Parliament from their area when applying for trust status.
It was not the Opposition who looked at the old long-stay geriatric hospitals, which were certainly a problem, and came up with the brillant solution of putting their inmates up for auction. Yet that is what happened at Ponteland and Lemington hospitals on Tyneside. The

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Government designed that solution. If they do not like the term "privatisation", I remind them that it was a term of their own devising and implementation.
The Opposition were not responsible for a system in which two hospitals in the same city compete by fair means or foul for the right to house a new fast-track cataract surgery unit. The north and south of the Northern region, in the system that the Government devised, are locked in combat over whether the monopoly of the Freeman hospital trust can be sufficiently broken to allow the southern end of the region on Teesside to have its own heart unit. Those difficulties were of the Government's own making.
The Opposition did not devise the system in which, in an effort to save its own budget, the Freeman hospital trust required kidney patients to go and collect prescriptions from their GPs at a cost of £3·40 and bring them back to the hospital for storage. The chairman of the Freeman hospital trust, who was once in the removal business, explained matters thus:
"It is not a question of the Trust avoiding necessary expenditure or endeavouring to deflect the revenue burden into the primary care sector. It is however a question of choice and determination of priorities within a given resource allocation ".
We did not devise the system whereby such short-changing in patient care can go on.
Miss D, one of my constituents, wants a cataract operation, and went for an NHS referral. She was told that she would have to wait 35 weeks for an out-patient appointment. However, Mrs. C. went to a consultant at the Freeman hospital trust, paid £25, and was told that the operation will cost £2,000, which she cannot afford. She was then accepted on the NHS waiting list for that hospital as an NHS referral. I am trying to have the £25 returned to her because, as she is an NHS referral, she is entitled to have her money back. The Opposition did not devise that system.
We also did not produce a report on the health of the nation which clearly demonstrates that a low-paid manual worker, his partner, his child and his parents will have an experience of illness dramatically different from that of people who are not low-paid manual workers. Conservative Members should bear that in mind in all our debates about low pay and a minimum wage. Attacking low pay through a minimum wage will make one of the most important contributions to the improvement of health that can possibly be made. We did not discover that information, but we have demonstrated that our policies will recover the situation and that we have the person to do it. I only wish that the opportunity which is coming our way could come a little faster.
8.21 pm
Mr. John Carlisle: I shall not follow the line taken by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins). I represent a constituency in the North-West Thames region and agree with the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Couchman), reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page), about money going from London to the shire counties. We have collectively been campaigning on that since I came to the House. Many London hospitals are greatly overfunded
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and under-subscribed. If some of the funds and the manpower were switched from London, they might solve some of our problems.
My constituency has one of the best known hospitals adjacent to the M1—the Luton and Dunstable hospital, which, I am glad to say, has successfully applied for trust status, as has the South Bedfordshire health care unit. In the time that I have been privileged to represent them in this place, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of letters of complaint that I have had about the hospital service. It would be foolish to say that we do not have problems, but the hospitals have a fine record, a fine body of people running them and excellent doctors and nurses. In emergencies which occur because of the hospital's proximity to that major road, the staff do a wonderful job.
It is sad that campaigns against the trust application mounted by local people, and especially by the local Labour council, have found favour in some areas. Many of the fears and smears expressed by both Opposition parties have inevitably stuck, and many untruths have been expressed in and around my constituency by those promoting their own cause.
In May, for the first time in 15 years, Luton borough council had a Labour majority, which spent more than £20,000 on an opinion poll about whether the hospitals should have trust status. Out of the total resident population of 280,000 available to the hospitals, about 40,000 people in the borough of Luton took part in the opinion poll, and the majority was 3:1 for the hospital not becoming a trust. Such a result is quite understandable, in view of the campaign mounted by the Labour party.
The main reason for that decision was ignorance, and for that, some of us on the Conservative side can take some of the blame. However, much of it was due to the political manoeuvring of the Opposition, who unashamedly played on the fears of the most needy in our population. I cannot speak for other areas, but certainly in my area the Opposition campaign was disgraceful and will rebound upon them.
Labour and Liberal parties complain that not enough consultation took place before trust status was sought, and they say that the public were not consulted. I think the Opposition have also said that the medical profession itself was not consulted. South Bedfordshire health care unit wrote to 120 doctors inviting their comments and asking them to attend a meeting. Only six doctors responded. How can they complain about not being consulted?
South Bedfordshire placed newspaper advertisements about meetings in the area and, in particular, advertising a meeting in Luton which has a population of about 150,000. Despite massive advertising, only one citizen turned up at the Luton meeting. That shows that the Opposition may be hanging their hats on a rather spurious peg, because the public have not shown the interest that we would like them to show. People have been stirred up by misinformation, especially by the Opposition.
About two years ago, when trust status was first considered, consultants, doctors, nursing staff and hospital staff expressed opposition to the idea. That was understandable, because it was unknown territory and they did not know where they were going. Some of the opposition was forthright, and was certainly made known to me. Since then, it has been accurately reported that

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many consultants are in favour, and a recent expression of opinion showed that a majority are in favour. Nurses and doctors are also well on the side of trust status.
Opposition Members should note that members of the Confederation of Health Service Employees and the National Union of Public Employees have told hospital management that they are quite willing to work with them towards the trust coming to fruition next April. They also wish to be kept informed of proceedings. The Opposition think that they have everybody, including their favourite unions, on their side. Opposition Members who are sponsored by unions should go to their union bosses or, perhaps more importantly, to union members and ask them whether they are as opposed to trusts as their parliamentary representativess make them out to be. People in those unions understand that the welfare of those who work in the health service, certainly in my constituency, will be enhanced by trust status as they set their own starting levels, pay levels and conditions.
The Opposition do not seem to want to know that, for the first time in 26 years, hospitals are being returned to the people, who will control them. Through their representatives in the House and on the board, the people of Luton will be able to make known the needs of the area. Weasel words and siren voices from the Opposition will not be heard when the trusts come to fruition.
This is an exciting time for the health service; thank heavens the Government have had the courage not to throw money at the problem, as the Opposition would do, but are doing something about it. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his team on their courageous step, which will be more than welcome in my constituency and throughout the country. At the end of the day, we shall have a national health service of which we can be proud.
8.29 pm
Mrs. Rosie Barnes: Today's debate, like that over recent weeks, has been in something of a cul-de-sac. We have all opposed privatisation, questioned whether the motive behind these reforms was privatisation and asked, if it is, whether that is a good thing and, if it is not, what should be done in its place. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have suggested that privatisation may have been high on the agenda under the former Prime Minister. I have no doubt that there has been a change in direction and I feel more comfortable about the NHS because I believe that the current Prime Minister and Secretary of State do not intend to privatise it. That does not mean that I welcome these reforms, because they are fundamentally flawed and will not take the NHS in the right direction and solve the problems that it faces.
The NHS is underfunded. We spend a lower proportion of our gross domestic product on the NHS than do the United States or most of our European counterparts. We are way behind them, and we must redress that balance.
Mrs. Ann Winterton: Is it not true that in the United States and on the continent, patients pay their own money when they go to see the doctor, while our system is free at the point of delivery and is supported by taxation?
Mrs. Barnes: Our system is largely supported through taxation, but, regrettably, charges are creeping into the system and they have to be added into the calculation.
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There has to be increased funding to take account both of the increasing number of elderly people, who are expensive to treat, and improved technology. To some extent, the NHS is the victim of its own success. People are kept alive longer, so they are expensive when they are elderly, and the equipment to keep them alive is often expensive high technology. The loving care administered in the early days of the NHS required little treatment and so was much cheaper.
Therefore, it is worth reconsidering the introduction of an hypothecated tax, with a portion of income tax earmarked to go to the health service. People do not like paying tax or increases in tax. They prefer their taxes to he reduced, but there is a general agreement that they want the safety net of a health service that offers every facility when they or theirs want it. People would be prepared to pay a higher percentage of the gross domestic product towards the health service if they knew that that was where that portion of their income tax was going.
Some of the arguments about what has been described as the internal market could have been avoided. One of the first things that I did when I came here as a Member of Parliament in 1987 was to table an amendment to the Health and Medicines Bill to introduce a new form of patients' right, giving patients some control over their share of the NHS money. It would enable them to initiate the decision to go to an alternative health authority or even to the private sector, taking with them their share of the NHS money, if their health authority was not in a position to deliver the treatment that they needed within a reasonable time.
I did not think that we could promise utopia, so I suggested that the time in question should be based on what the 20 per cent. of best health authorities were delivering in the speciality. That would become the national benchmark time within which people were entitled to be treated. For example, if the top 20 health authorities were able to deliver hip replacements, where diagnosed as necessary, within five or six months, that would become the national benchmark. If a health authority could not give such treatment within that time, the patient would be entitled to make the decision to take his share of the NHS money and go elsewhere.
That form of internal market would have introduced a competitive edge into the NHS. Furthermore, the pivotal point of the decision-making process would have been not the doctor, but the patient. The decision would not be imposed on the patient. If he wanted to stay where he was and wait longer, that would be his choice. Apart from making the health service national—it is not at present —it would also have had the benefit of not destroying the doctor-patient relationship. Under the Government's proposals, the patient may feel that a decision is being imposed on him because it is the cheapest way to treat his case, not because it is the best or quickest way to do it or involves using the nearest hospital. That may not always be the case and I do not assert that all doctors work on that basis, but introducing a financial complication in the doctor-patient relationship is a regressive step.
The Government's proposals endanger the Cinderella services—geriatric and psychiatric care. The hospitals that choose to become trusts in the first and second waves may decide to push those services to one side because they are expensive and do not show up well on the economic indicators, and that will deprive the communities that they serve. I endorse further consideration of the possibility of

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making whole district health authorities trusts so that some of the devolution of power, some of the autonomy and some of the decision-making can be made at more local levels, taking into consideration the total provision for everybody in the community and ensuring a proper balance of what is needed across the board. That is preferable to one hospital going for the profitable services and booting out the others.
The Government's proposals will fragment rather than integrate the health service. General practitioners and hospitals should come under one umbrella and work closely together. The present system forces them apart. Doctors try to push treatment on to the hospital budgets and hospitals try to push treatment on to doctors' budgets. A district area trust would enable them to work together more harmoniously.
I have been worried by the glee with which the London hospital review has been picked up by representatives of the shires, who have shown their conviction that London has too much hospital provision, and even a surplus. As Member of Parliament for Greenwich, I have no such experience. I find that things have got marginally worse since some of the teaching hospitals which the residents of Greenwich have traditionally used have become self-governing. Where Greenwich district health authority has a contract with hospitals such as Guy's and St. Thomas's, people are not getting treatment more swiftly and efficiently than they were under the old system.
I am not talking about the conditions that will not worsen while people wait for treatment: I am talking about treatment such as radiotherapy for breast cancer. Recently, a woman came to my surgery to tell me that she had been diagnosed as having cancer of the breast; she was told that her condition was inoperable, that radiotherapy was important and that she should start as soon as possible. On being referred to Guy's she found that there was a long waiting list for this treatment. Others have come to me with stories of how they have to wait for surgery for their kidney problems.
In the last few moments available to me, I draw the attention of the House to some research in which I was involved in the mid-1980s before I came to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Lady has run out of time.
8.39 pm
Mrs. Ann Winterton: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mrs. Barnes), and I hope that the intervention that she generously allowed me to make did not reduce her time. Her speech was thoughtful and constructive, and she outlined some of her reservations about the present reforms. However, in her speech one could trace several elements of common ground, not least on the issue of single trust status for a health authority district.
I am grateful for the opportunity to add my voice to the reassurances given by my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and Secretary of State about the future of the national health service in the Government's hands. I, too, am a national health service patient and have, on the whole, received good treatment from it—with one exception, when I was the subject of negligence in the casualty department of a hospital at the time of a socialist
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Administration. I have no doubt that that hospital would have said that it was understaffed and underfunded, but I am realistic enought to know that mistakes can be made and problems can occur, and that whichever party is in government will try to do its best for the health service.
It must be repeated time and again that our national health service is unique, that it is free at the point of delivery to patients in the doctor's surgery and in the hospital, and that it is maintained through taxation. I am pleased that assurances have been given that that will remain so.
The facts are undeniable, not least that the Government have increased expenditure on the national health service at 3 per cent. above the rate of inflation each year since they were elected, with the cumulative effect of an increase of more than 50 per cent. I accept—as, I believe, would everyone with any common sense—that that is not enough, nor ever could be enough, and that the introduction of reforms makes added expenditure necessary. The reorganisation process soaks up valuable funds which could be directed to patient care.
There is a commitment to the national health service. It is all well and good for other parties to say that they would change things in the future, but in the past they have never been able to generate the money and put it where their mouths are. Conservative Governments have been in office longer than any other during the lifetime of the national health service, and during that lifetime—especially in the past 12 years—there has been a tremendous increase in capital expenditure on new hospitals which were badly needed. In the Macclesfield health authority area we have benefited from a new district general hospital on which about £11·5 million has been spent.
We know that money is not everything—it is how the money is spent that is so important. The Government not only are committed to ensuring the continuation of the health service which, as we know, is dear to the hearts of every citizen, but seek to improve the service, to make it more patient-sensitive and to return decision making about local health matters to where the decisions can best be taken, which is locally.
The health service faces challenges, and there are problems that need to be tackled. Indeed, health care has changed dramatically in the past two decades. Nowadays people live longer and new techniques have been developed to improve the quality of life. One has only to talk to people who have had new hip, knee or elbow operations to know what I mean—their lives have been truly transformed. New pharmaceutical products have been developed and have played a full part in therapeutic care, and diagnostic facilities such as scanners are now widely used. All that is to be welcomed.
Professionals are being encouraged to play their part in the management of the service—consultants, doctors, nurses and midwives. I make a plea for the latter group. I believe that, in the regrading which took place before the reforms were introduced, midwives came badly unstuck. We should recognise the unique skills of the midwife and the part that she plays in caring for women before, during and after birth, and also in caring for the newborn. The midwife's expertise cannot be replaced by others, and this country needs a well recruited and trained midwifery profession which is also well remunerated in accordance with the responsibilities undertaken.
I believe that many of the fears expressed about the future of the national health service stem from the fact that

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people do not understand the reforms or the way in which they are being implemented. Any change is anathema to those who do not realise that the NHS cannot be left in a fossilised state but must change to meet the challenges that I described earlier, not least the demographic changes.
Two health authorities—Crewe and Macclesfield—cover my constituency of Congleton. Leighton hospital, under Crewe health authority, was in the first wave of hospital trusts. Although not without difficulty, it has made steady progress and due to its greater flexibility it is able to respond more quickly to problems that arise. For example, the air conditioning plant in the operating theatres is at long last being tackled. That will affect the number of operations in the short term, as two theatres are out of commission while the work is being done, but it will assist in the long term and we shall not face the situation that we experienced this summer when theatre sessions were postponed because of the condition of the air and the heat.
The hospital, with its new trust status and also previously under the Crewe district health authority, has historically been underfunded because Liverpool has taken the lion's share of the resources within the Mersey regional health authority. It is not a question of the overall amount, but of how that money is allocated. That situation is being rectified and extra funding allocated to us again this year but, sadly, that funding is not coming fast enough. As in London, we wish to see a change in the way funds are given to different areas within the Mersey region.
Macclesfield health authority has expressed interest in applying for trust status in the third wave of applications, and I welcome the fact that the acute unit at the district general hospital and the community services are to go forward, I hope, as a single unit. That is a common sense approach which should greatly benefit the Congleton War Memorial hospital which lies on the periphery of the health authority area. That excellent local community hospital was founded after the first world war and was built and run by local subscription. Low-wage earners in the textile mills contributed a penny a week from their wages, and that commitment and support for the hospital is ingrained in the character of the people.
Over the years, as health care has changed, we have lost the operating theatre and the maternity unit, both of which we fought hard to retain. It should be noted that one of those facilities was lost under a socialist Administration and one under a Conservative Administration. We now believe that services to local people can be enhanced and that Congleton War Memorial hospital will play an increasingly important role in the successful provision of health care for my constituents.
I wish to mention community care briefly. Cranage Hall hospital in my constituency is a hospital home for the mentally handicapped. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell), recently visited it. I am concerned about the rate at which care in the community is being implemented. I have been to see people with a mental handicap who are now living in the community. A first-rate job is being done, and they are extremely happy. However, it must be remembered that to support those people in the community costs a huge amount of money.
Other people could also possibly benefit from living in the community, but there will always be a hard core of mentally and physically handicapped people who will have
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to live in what is called an institution but which often is, or can be, a comfortable hospital home. Asylum facilities must always be retained with all the treatments which are necessary—for example, the hydropool and physioth-erapy. These facilities should be centres of excellence, and I hope that, in the plans for the future, such ideas will be taken on board and that action will be taken to ensure that those facilities are available for all handicapped people.
8.49 pm
Mr. Martin Redmond: This afternoon, we saw the spectacle of a Secretary of State in retreat, but it was not a capitulation. It was a tactical retreat by the Secretary of State, and an attempt to confuse the issue and to confuse the public in the hope of conning them into thinking that the national health service is safe in the Government's hands.
I have said clearly from the start that the Conservative Government are after a two-tier health system, with a private element, similar to the system in the United States. Anyone who wants that system should go over there and try it: it brings pain and misery. I believe passionately in the health service, so I want to protect it for the public. Regrettably, it appears that the Conservative Government do not.
The Government talk about democracy and about informing people. Perhaps they should inform the public of their true intentions towards the health service. If they want the people to have a say, they could have supported my ten-minute Bill which called for a referendum on opt-outs, or they could test the public with a general election. That might be the way forward.
The Government have said time and again that they intend to give power back to the people. The reverse has happened, because power has come to central Government. The great pity is that there is no local democracy and no accountability. The trusts are now in total control, and the general public have no access or input to decisions made about their health. The Conservative Government talk about consulting people, but the consultation is a sham.
Only the trusts and the Secretary of State have access to the financial business plan. Neither Trent regional health authority nor the local health authority has access to the financial business plans, yet we are expected to make a decision on their viability. It is a great pity.
In the old days, Doncaster health authority had 4·5 per cent. admin costs. I was proud to be part of that. Regrettably, since the trust has taken over, the budget has yo-yoed in a way that should give the Secretary of State grave concern. The trust does not seem able to manage its finances, yet the local health authority appears to be indifferent to what is going on in relation to the trust.
It has been said that the waiting lists are coming down. I want to draw attention to the unemployment list and to the way in which the Government have fiddled the figures, which do not reflect reality. The Minister may shake his head, but there are ways in which to fiddle the figures. I am sure that the Minister is aware of that and of the fact that that is taking place. I want no shaking of heads.
It is clear that the Doncaster Royal infirmary/Montagu trust has increased admin costs. Mr. Nicholson, the chief executive, used to be on about £30,000; he is now on approximately £55,000. There is the expense of another

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tier of administration, and it is disgraceful, because the money could be spent on improving the health care of patients.
When I asked about the chairman-elect of the new trust at Tickhill Road/St. Catherine's, Mr. Horsebury, I was told that he was not the chairman-elect. I lay money on the fact that he will be. When I asked Baroness Hooper about the appointment, I was told that it had been put forward by the Doncaster trust. When I asked Mike Bone, the executive officer, he said that the appointment had been put to them by the Department of Health. Either Baroness Hooper or Mike Bone is wrong. They cannot both be right. If they want to lie about silly things like that—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman realises that the word that he has just used must be withdrawn.
Mr. Redmond: I withdraw it completely, Madam Deputy Speaker. There have certainly been some misleading statements from the—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. "Misleading" is also an unacceptable word here.
Mr. Redmond: They have certainly conned people, Madam Deputy Speaker.
A constituent of mine in Conisborough was going for dialysis treatment to a Sheffield hospital. The group attending that session had to make their own way to the hospital by public transport. A complaint was made to me which I took up. Everyone attending the Wednesday session, bar my constituent, now has transport provided by the Sheffield hospital. He has obviously been victimised by the system for having complained to his Member of Parliament.
Another constituent has complained about the treatment that his wife gets at the Wednesday session at the new Tickhill Road/St. Catherine's trust. He has been told that his wife cannot go to the Wednesday session because the two nurses there are off sick. What is happening to treatment?
In the past, charity funds were given to the hospital for the extras—the cream on the cake. The charity funds are now being used to provide basic care, which is disgusting. The money from one fund-raising activity was not spent in the way that was intended. That may not be illegal, but it is immoral.
If the public want a guarantee about the future of the NHS, they can do only one sensible thing. They must demand a general election, vote Labour and ensure that the NHS is safe for future generations.
8.57 pm
Mr. David Wilshire: The Labour party's performance over the past few months has been utterly sickening, and their performance this afternoon has been breathtaking in its arrogance—in the party's complete refusal to answer in clear words, or in any words, three simple questions.
What the House needs, and what the nation deserves, is the truth. The truth is this: the state of affairs in the nation is not as Labour claims. If the public are told the truth, they support the Government's proposals; if the campaigners against change tell the truth, they must admit
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that their opposition to those proposals takes the form of orchestrated self-interest, rather than genuine concern for the sick and the elderly. As for the truth about NHS trusts, if people consider and discuss the facts, rather than simply trying to scare others, it will become clear that trusts will lead to better public health care for all.
Rather than swapping the kind of ill-researched generalities that the Labour party likes to use, let me try to get at the truth by referring to a case study. Ashford hospital, Middlesex, is in my constituency— [Interruption.] If hon. Members would listen, they too could get at the truth, rather than trying to blind the world with their bias.
Ashford hospital is one of the two district general hospitals in the Hounslow and Spelthorne district health authority area. When they use the hospital, its patients —my constituents —simply do not recognise the scare stories put about by the Labour party; they see those stories as fantasy. The waiting list at that hospital has been greatly reduced: it is one of the shortest in my part of south-east England, and is far shorter than it was when I became the local Member of Parliament four years ago. The hospital has the lowest costs in the area. None of us, professionals or lay people, know what the costs really were before the Government's reforms were introduced.
Let me give an example. The cost of general surgery at Ashford hospital is £887 per patient. At the other hospital in my district, the cost is £2,060. At the five other local hospitals outside my district, the highest cost is £1,400 and the lowest £1,200. Ashford hospital is significantly cheaper, and makes better use of money; but, before the reforms, we simply did not know that. My constituents now have quicker access to treatment, and about twice as many patients can be treated in a low-cost hospital as can be treated in a high-cost hospital.
Let us test Labour's claims about public opinion against the true position of Ashford hospital. Labour tells us that consultants are against the Government's proposals. Consultants at Ashford carried out a public vote: 32 were in favour of the proposals, while six opposed them. The director of nursing researched nurse opinion, and reported that 50 per cent. supported the changes, while 50 per cent. were neutral—not against.
Detailed consultation on personal issues took place with other staff. Only recently, all the portering staff were invited to take part in a discussion. The only subject that concerned them was whether their jobs were secure, not whether the proposals would benefit patients.
Then there is the question of public opinion. As the local Member of Parliament, I have received fewer than half a dozen letters opposing trust status. The community health council held a meeting, to which just 40 of my 70,000 constituents turned up. The hospital held four public meetings. At the first three, about 50 people were present; at the second, third and fourth, more than 20 who attended were the same people as before, asking the same questions; at the fourth, just 140 were there.
Seventy-three letters were written to the region about the application for trust status. In one of my local newspapers, an anti-Government pressure group admitted that it had written 67 of those letters. The group claimed that the fact that only six letters opposing the trust had been received by the region demonstrated apathy. It does not: it demonstrates the contentment of the people I represent.

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Let us now test Labour's claims about the spontaneity and genuineness of opposition to trust status. I suffer from the presence in my constituency of a very vocal anti-Government pressure group—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is called the Labour party."] No, it is not the Labour party; the Labour party will be glad of that in a moment.
That pressure group claims to speak for local people about health care. But the founder of Hospital Alert, which plagues the life out of my constituents, recently spoke at an anti-Government rally of the Workers Revolutionary party, and duped a number of general practitioners into signing an anti-Government petition. She recently addressed an "all trade union alliance" conference which called for a general strike to bring down the Tory Government. That is the truth about the campaign against NHS trusts at Ashford. It is not spontaneous; it is not on behalf of the public; and it is not altruistic. It is orchestrated, it is individual and it is cynically self-seeking.
Let us test Labour's scare stories about NHS trusts against the truth at Ashford. We are all grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for including Ashford in the second wave. As I have said, the professionals and the managers at Ashford and the lay people in my constituency have joined to support what has happened. We believe that more people will benefit from the shorter waiting lists, and more people will be treated at lower cost at Ashford as a result of trust status. Everyone in my constituency will benefit from local priorities being decided locally.
The case study that I have described shows that the truth is not as Labour claims it to be. The Government's reforms have received professional and lay support. Despite what Labour says, those reforms will produce better local services. They will make the NHS in my constituency much more public and much less private—if that is the gibe that the Labour party wants to throw about.
I believe that the country is beginning to understand clearly that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is telling the truth. As a Government and a party, we have improved and will continue to improve the NHS. We have no plans, and never will have plans, to privatise the NHS. That is not the truth. To claim otherwise ignores the facts that stare people in the face. If the Labour party continues to indulge in the politics of the sewer, it will reap the rewards that it justly deserves.
9.6 pm
Rev. Martin Smyth: We all appreciated the contribution from the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire). However, I recall that one rule of logic is not to argue from the particular to the general and reach a conclusion covering all. I was glad to learn that the hon. Gentleman is happy about what is happening in Ashford, but there are concerns about the national situation.
I am delighted to be able to contribute to the debate and was pleased to see that the Minister responsible for health care in Northern Ireland was on the Government Front Bench earlier. We are talking about the national health service.
Like other hon. Members, I commit myself to the NHS. My wife and I are NHS patients and my daughter serves in the NHS. I served on the old Social Services Select Committee and I am currently a member of the Select
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Committee on Health. When we carried out an objective study into NHS funding, we discovered that it was massively underfunded. At that time, we were shot down by the Government's response. I am happy to acknowledge that since then a tremendous amount of money has been poured into the health service. However, having said that, anyone who believes that the health service is as perfect as we would like it to be, is not living in the real world. I want to contribute to the debate because I am concerned that we should continue to improve the NHS.
The hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) dismissed the doctors' participation and called them hopeless managers, while the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs. Winterton) welcomed the fact that we now have professionals—including doctors and nurses—in the management of the health service. I favour the view of the hon. Member for Congleton. I appreciate that not every doctor will be a good manager. However, when we moved from administrators to general management, did we significantly improve the management of the health service? I believe that we did not. In moments of cynicism I believe that we simply changed the title of "administrator" and handed several thousands of pounds more to general managers who just continued not to do the work that they should have been doing before. If people believe that no improvements can be made in the health service, they are not living in the real world.
We should not be conned into thinking that movements forward at this moment will be the panacea of all ills. I am thinking, for example of ordinary patients. A woman whom I visited in my constituency on Saturday morning has been a patient in the health service since the mid-1970s. Among other problems, she has an abscess in her breast. If only she could be operated on, as the medical folk realise the situation. The hospital sent a letter informing her that there was no bed available for her but it included a note saying that an amenity bed would be available.
I thought that that must be like Conservative party central office sending me a letter under the signature of the chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten), looking for subscriptions for and membership of the Tory party. The Conservatives have only recently been prepared to organise in Northern Ireland whereas hitherto they were not. I suspect that the relevant person in the health service was travelling more on hope than on confidence that a person in a working-class home, after years of illness, could pay for an amenity bed in a national health service hospital. That. was one of the scandals of the matter.
Those who believe that hospital trusts will remedy the situation because we have management at the grass roots level may be due for a shock. Even at that level, managers may not be of the required calibre. If I may repeat the nautical metaphor used by the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir T. Raison), instead of a ship being directed by the Ministry of Defence, it should be directed from the bridge. I often wonder what would have happened at Trafalgar if Nelson had not turned a blind eye to the admiral's signal.
There will be pressure. Those who opt for national health trust status have an instinct that they could be interfered with even more dramatically by directives from the Department than they have already. I trust that, in the coming weeks, hon. Members, regardless of the party that they represent, will realise that, if we make the national

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health service a political football, we will discover that the general electorate—patients, practitioners and friends of patients—will give another judgment.
9.12 pm
Mr. Robert Hayward: Time is short, so I shall be brief, but I should like to deal with a comment by the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth). No hon. Member believes that all is right within the health service. There are many problems in the health service in my constituency with which, unfortunately, I do not have time to deal. However, I shall refer to many of the substantial changes and improvements that I have seen in the past few years. I do that because the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) recently came to my constituency. He did not, as would normally be the case, advise me that he intended to do so. He held a press conference outside a hospital in myconstituency—[Interruption.] Opposition Members deride that fact. They fail to recognise that, in so doing, the hon. Gentleman had alongside him the Labour candidate for my constituency, one Councillor Berry, who is leader of the Labour group on Avon council. Councillor Berry was a member of Frenshay health authority.
The Labour party consistently tells us that it is committed to the health service. Let us look at the record of Councillor Berry. He was elected to Frenshay health authority in February 1990. I have with me the minutes of Frenshay health authority for 1990. At the bottom they state, "Apologies, Dr. R. Berry." I have with me the March minutes for Frenshay health authority. [Interruption.] They do not state "apologies". They state:
"The chairman welcomed Dr. Berry, who was attending the first meeting of the Authority."
He might have said that he was also attending the last meeting of the Frenshay health authority.
I say that because I have the April 1990 minutes with me, which state, "Apologies from Dr. Berry." The May 1990 minutes again state, "Apologies from Dr. Berry." The June 1990 minutes also state, "Apologies from Dr. Berry, and the July 1990 minutes again read "Apologies from Dr. Berry." Councillor Dr. Berry was absent from 83 per cent. of the health authority meetings that he was invited to attend. That is the caring Labour party. That is the person whom the hon. Member for Livingston stood alongside, saying, "We believe in and are interested in the health authority." If he is so interested in the health authority, why did Councillor Berry miss 83 per cent. of its meetings?
I should like to ask the hon. Member for Livingston and his hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman), who is to reply to the debate, why no member of the shadow Treasury team was present on the Opposition Front Bench for the hon. Gentleman's speech. The answer is that they were embarrassed by the expenditure commitments, amounting to billions of pounds, that they knew that the hon. Gentleman would be likely to make. Neither the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith), nor the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett), nor any member of the shadow Treasury team, was present for the hon. Gentleman's speech.
During the time the Conservative Government have been in power, and while I have been a Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Livingston has visited
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Cosham hospital. When there, he could have mentioned the brand new hospital at Taunton and the one at Weston-super-Mare, or the complete reconstruction of the Bristol eye hospital, all of which are just a few miles from Cosham. He could have referred to the brand new ambulance station in Soundwell road in my constituency, only 450 yd from where he was standing—I know because I measured the distance this weekend.
He could also have referred to the brand new health centre, sited right next door to the hospital at which he was speaking and which had been opened only a few months previously. He could also have walked into Cosham hospital where he would have seen a plaque commemora-ting the opening of a new ward to care for the elderly, especially those suffering from senile dementia. He would not do that, of course, because the plaque commemorated the opening of the new ward by me.
Page 5 of last Saturday's Bristol Evening Post has the headline "Hospital boost for elderly". The article states:
"Keynsham hospital hopes to open its new 24-place wing for the elderly and mentally ill next summer."
Turning over the page, one sees the headline: "Hospital bosses get op theatre go-ahead". That article states:
"Health chiefs have given the go-ahead for a £5 million scheme for new operating theatres at the Bristol Royal Infirmary."
That was only the day after my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened a new urology unit at Southmead hospital.
Yes, there are problems in the health service, but we have made enormous advances in the past few years. The benefits are there to be seen in my constituency and the immediately surrounding area by anyone who chooses to look, including the hon. Member for Livingston.
Like the vast majority of people in my constituency, I believe my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that the health service is not being privatised. So far as I am concerned, it will not be privatised so long as I or anyone else is a patient in it. Unlike the hon. Member for Livingston, I remember 1977 when my grandfather lost his eyesight because his eye operation was cancelled. Twenty years ago, my left arm was not operated on for five hours after I had broken it, simply because an anaesthetist was not available. She had to be brought in from a party. Yes, there are problems in the health service, but we should all recognise that they have existed for a long time.
9.19 pm
Mrs. Alice Mahon: When the Government came into office in 1979, they embarked on a strategy of privatising and selling off Britain by the pound. Privatisation takes many forms. One is to sell off good companies such as Amersham International. Another is to sell off utilities. Another is to introduce private contractors into services such as the national health service. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) seemed proud of it, but whatever he may say, the introduction of such private contractors has been devastating. Dedicated, hardworking domestics were sacrificed on the altar of privatisation. We were told that such efficiency savings that were made would be used to improve patient care. What absolute rubbish. Any ward sister will tell one that a domestic is an integral part of the ward team and often acts as the eyes and ears of the ward.
In the Health Select Committee, the National Childbirth Trust told us that a study which it had

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conducted of women giving birth in hospitals showed an overall post-natal infection rate of 21·9 per cent. It blamed that on the standard of cleanliness in hospitals. The position is so bad that, in their anti-natal classes, the NCT teachers recommend that pregnant women take cleaning materials into hospital with them. In that case it would seem that privatisation breeds germs.
But it is in the wholesale privatisation of the care of the elderly sick that the Government have had such a spectacular success. By squeezing the district health authorities of cash and appointing their friends as chairs and managers of the DHAs, the Government have brought about a major change in health care provision for the elderly sick. It has been changed from a service free at the point of use to one in the private sector where the elderly sick or their relatives are increasingly asked to make a contribution towards their care. Who took that decision? There was no Act of Parliament, but there was a change and a hidden agenda.
In the 1980s, the Government decided that the elderly sick would be called bed blockers and that there would be no long-stay care for them. Relatives were offered lists of private nursing homes. It became impossible to get a bed, or at least to keep it, if one was elderly and sick. That is part of the Government's hidden agenda of privatisation of the NHS.
Earlier this year, Alan Templeton, the chair of Calderdale district health authority, told Calderdale community health council that it was not the responsibility of the DHA to provide long-term institutional nursing care, but that its duty was to support individuals in the community before and after episodes of medical support in hospital. Who gave him or anyone else the right to deny my elderly sick constituents an NHS hospital bed? When was it decided that after a certain age people could no longer have treatment in the NHS?
Why cannot we have NHS nursing homes? I had a case of a woman who was well into her eighties whose daughter had looked after her. Mrs. Jones had diabetes, was blind and needed daily injections. She had ulcers on her legs which needed dressing daily. She was confused and incontinent and she developed pneumonia. She needed medication, medical care, nursing care and a hospital bed. The daughter was told that no hospital bed was available. In the end a bed was found in a private nursing home. You or I would have qualified for a bed, Madam Deputy Speaker. A wicked and cynical policy has developed which redefines illness according to age, and the Government are responsible for it.
Another way to privatise the service is to starve the district health authority of funds, thus lengthening waiting lists for operations and forcing people into the private sector. That is happening increasingly with the elderly. Mr. Only, a 70-year-old pensioner, wrote to me. He had been waiting 17 months for a cataract operation. He was going blind and was told that he would have to wait another six months, but that if he was willing to pay he could have the operation done within days. That is privatisation.
In April we got the market system, based on the American system. That gave us the trusts. We all know that the Government bulldozed the trusts through Parliament. If they are still telling us that the trusts will not be privatised, why is it that the Secretary of State for Health issues circulars for action by all health authorities when it comes to infection control of deadly diseases, such as hepatitis B and HIV, yet when it comes to the trusts he
724
offers the circulars for information only? It is because he has relinquished power over the trusts and the trusts are one general election away from being private hospitals. They are separate bodies, and we know it.
The trusts and the market system are creating great anxiety for staff. They know that their jobs are not safe. The document "Changing Labour Utilisation in NHS Trusts" is causing anxiety to staff. Given the Government's record on privatisation, I do not believe that they do not intend to privatise the health service, and nor do the British people, who will show that at the general election.
9.25 pm
Ms. Harriet Harman: What has been striking about this debate is that, on such an important matter as the national health service, Conservative Members have not been prepared, or have not found the courage, to speak up for their constituents—for all their constituents on waiting lists in pain and anxiety, for all their constituents who have had their operations cancelled and for all their constituents who are worried about their hospitals opting out and whose Member of Parliament refuses to listen to them.
What was striking about the speech of the Secretary of State was that it showed not a glimmer of recognition of the crisis that we all know exists in the NHS. We know, and so do patients who use the NHS, that it is being damaged by a threefold Tory attack: underfunding, commercialisation and privatisation. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."]
The Secretary of State tried to nit-pick about definitions. He attacked our candidate in Langbaurgh. He has accused us, as have his Ministers, of lying. All that that will do is convince people that the Government are refusing to face up to the crisis of underfunding and scrap the policies for which they have no mandate and not a scrap of public support. It might make the Secretary of State feel better, but it is no way for a Government in office for 12 years to defend their record.
Everyone knows, even if the Secretary of State does not, that underfunding in the NHS has caused long waiting lists. In 1979 there were 690,000 people on waiting lists. By March 1991 there were 900,000. [Interruption.] The all-party Select Committee on Health said that 23 per cent. of those waiting had been waiting for more than a year. [Interruption.] Hon. Members can howl down the figures that I have produced, but they cannot howl down the pain, anguish and misery of all those people on waiting lists.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady appears not to be giving way, in which case hon. Members should not persist.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Ms. Harman: I will give way to the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman).
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Clearly the hon. Lady was not listening to the Secretary of State's opening speech. Had she been listening, she would have known that those thoroughly misleading figures that she has just given include day cases which were not totted up in those days. She is wholly wrong.
Ms. Harman: The Secretary of State and members of his party can try to sweep away the figures—[HON MEMBERS: "No."]—but if they think that by denying the figures and nit-picking over them they can change the reality of long waiting lists, of which their constituents know, they are wrong. It will not work. All it does is convince their constituents that they are out of touch.
Long waiting lists leave patients in pain and misery and force many people, reluctantly, into the private sector. Many of those who go private feel that they have no alternative if they are to escape from the pain and inconvenience of an indefinite wait for treatment. They do not feel that they are exercising their choice. They feel angry that, despite having paid through their tax and their national insurance for their health care, they cannot get the treatment when they need it. Those who cannot afford to go private feel angry, too, because they know that, if they could pay again, they could see the same doctor, in the same hospital, for the same operation, in the same week. The Secretary of State might not call that privatisation, but that is what the people who are suffering call it.
My hon. Friends the Members for Wakefield (Mr. Hinchliffe) and for Newcastle upon Tyne, Central (Mr. Cousins) have said that people are being driven into the private sector because of underfunding. That underfund-ing has caused district health authorities to cut hospital beds. No doubt the Secretary of State will deny those figures as well, but bed closures have contributed to the huge waiting lists. Since 1979, the NHS has lost 27,000 acute beds. How can it be a sign of modernisation for the NHS to cut the number of its beds but, at the same time, for the private sector to increase its number of beds?
Since 1979 the NHS has suffered the closure of 531 hospitals, the disappearance of one acute hospital bed in five, a backlog of maintenance and repairs equivalent to £1·5 billion and the cancellation of nearly 300,000 operations.
Mr. David Shaw: As a chartered accountant, I have listened with interest to the figures that the hon. Lady has quoted. Can she quote the real figure in which my constituents are interested? How much extra would a Labour Government put into the health service? Can she give us the real figure?
Ms. Harman: The difference between the next Labour Government and this Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."]—is that we believe that the NHS has been systematically underfunded for 12 years. We believe that that underfunding needs to be redressed, and we shall begin that task when we come into government. Even if the Government do not know that long waiting lists are causing people to be pushed into the private sector, the private health insurance companies do. They know that long waiting lists are their biggest—
Hon. Members: How much?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us settle down.
Ms. Harman: The private health insurance companies know that long waiting lists are forcing people into the private sector. The Secretary of State should look at the brochures of those companies; they talk about people going private because they cannot stand the pain and misery caused by long waiting lists.
726
The number of people going private has increased under this Government by 188 per cent., largely as a result of long waiting lists. Cash-starved district health authorities are forced into deals with private health care companies to finance new buildings and equipment that they otherwise could not afford. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) quoted the example of Grampian health board, which built a 60-bed unit that now must be run by the private sector.
Today we have again discussed opting out. Once again Conservative Members have tried to peddle the myth that opting out is simply a benign form of devolved management and that no one need worry about it. That is absolute nonsense.
Mr. Thurnham: Will the hon. Lady withdraw her bogus allegation of 330,000 cancelled operations? How on earth did she arrive at that figure, which is simply a wild estimate that has been denounced by health authorities throughout the country? It is wrong, and this is a meaningless, shoddy exercise.
Ms. Harman: Those figures are absolutely accurate. If the hon. Gentleman checks Hansard for February this year he will see a question from one of my hon. Friends asking how many operations were cancelled last year. The Minister of State's answer gave a figure of about 300,000. If it was all right for the Government to calculate the figures on that basis in February, why is it not all right for us to do so in October? The only thing that has changed is that we are nearer an election and the Government are frightened.
Mr. Robert B. James: Will the hon. Lady give way?
Ms. Harman: No, I shall not give way again—
Mr. Peter Hardy: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Ms. Harman: —except to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Hardy: My hon. Friend mentioned opting out. She will be aware that the Government can have no mandate to implement opt-out in South Yorkshire. Is my hon. Friend aware that, despite the fact that the vast majority of people in South Yorkshire thought that the consultation exercise was a waste of time, the overwhelming majority of responses received on the opting out of the South Yorkshire ambulance service were strongly opposed to it? Only four organisations, consisting largely of Tory placemen, offered any support. However, the document that I suspect the Government received on that showed a fraudulent entry that was later tipp-exed out. That reduced by six the number of organisations which supported the proposal. In view of that publication, will my hon. Friend, even at this late stage, invite the Minister to reconsider that fraudulent application?
Ms. Harman: On the basis of the important point that my hon. Friend has made, I hope that the Minister will reconsider the opting out described by my hon. Friend.
People are opposed to opting out because they know that it is not just devolved management. If the Government had wanted to devolve management, they could have done so 12 years ago and it would not have needed legislation. They could have simply done it through the Department of Health. People are against opting out

727
because they know that it severs the link between their hospital and the local community that that hospital serves. They know that it also severs the link between hospitals and the Department of Health, which has responsibility for national strategic planning of the health service.
People are against opting out because they know that the national health service no longer owns its land or hospitals, nor employs the staff. The land, buildings, equipment and contracts of employment are passed over by statute from the Secretary of State to the boards of directors of the hospitals. Those boards of directors can decide whether to sell the land or to hire or fire the staff, and can decide what work the staff do and for whom. They can decide whether to carry out or increase private practice.
May I quote a leaked internal document from the North-West Thames regional health authority? Such documents remain secret. It says enthusiastically that, if Harefield hospital opts out, the prospects will be good for private patient work. It enthuses that opportunities may also exist to increase the work load of Harefield at the expense of other local hospitals. However, it warns that there may be a danger of a cartel, with the Brompton national heart hospital taking the work away from Harefield. That is the language of commerce and business. It is the priority of the marketplace rather than of patient care.
People know that nursing care has already been privatised with a massive public subsidy so that people who used to be able to receive care in geriatric wards or cottage hospitals have no choice but to go to private nursing homes which have been funded by the public sector. There was a 21,000 per cent. increase in the amount of public subsidy for private nursing homes between 1979 and 1990. It rose from £2·5 million in 1979 to £530 million in 1990. That money could have been spent in national health service nursing homes. People do not want to use up their life savings as they are pushed out of acute hospitals into private nursing care with no choice about where to go..
People know that dental charges are pushing dentistry out of the NHS and into the private sector. Dental charges have doubled in the past 10 years, and in some parts of the country it is difficult to find an NHS dentist who will take NHS patients. Eye tests, which provide an important screening service, must be paid for in full except by people who are means-tested or have certain conditions.
The Secretary of State would do well to recognise that it is the combination of long waiting lists, high charges, privatisation in dentistry and nursing homes, and private wings in NHS hospitals that convinces people that the NHS is under threat from the Government. It is because we are concerned about what is happening that we shall redress NHS underfunding, commercialisation and privatisation. In the lifetime of one Parliament, a Labour Government will redress the underfunding which has caused the present financial crisis in the national health service.
Performance agreements for each health authority will include the reduction of waiting lists and times. We shall set up a task force to tackle waiting list black spots and do what a Select Committee on Health wanted the Government to do, but which the Government refused: set up an investigation into the link between waiting lists and the amount of private practice. We shall bring opted-out hospitals back within district health authorities and end
728
the internal market in which district health authorities and hospitals have to buy and sell services. It is no good— [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us proceed in good order.
Ms. Harman: It is no good the Secretary of State or the Prime Minister making promises or declarations—people will not believe them, but will judge for themselves on their own experience. Government allegations against us will simply convince people that the Government are hopelessly out of touch.
9.43 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): This was the debate that the Labour party did not want to have—and from its point of view, it was entirely right, because the debate has exposed the hollowness of Labour Members' claim to be interested in the health service.
The initial effect of listening to Labour spokesmen talking about their policies reminds me of nothing so much as looking at an elaborate operatic set. The initial impact is undeniably impressive, but it relies for its effect on ingenious lighting which obscures the detail and on clever choreography which insists that the actors walk with care so as to preserve the illusion of solidity. One wrong step by any of the Labour spokesmen on that set ensures that the whole edifice collapses amid the sound of ripping canvas and splintering timber. That is the spectacle to which the House was treated earlier this afternoon.
Let us look first at underfunding. I have some sympathy with the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). After all, he was dealt a wholly impossible brief by his shadow Cabinet colleagues. His brief was to tell the National Association of Health Authorities and Trusts that Labour promised it £4·5 billion, at the same time as telling the British Medical Association that Labour promised it £6 billion, at the same time as the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) was going around the prawn cocktail circuit saying that Labour made no pledge at all about health expenditure.
Today, the hon. Member for Livingston finally crashed off the set that he had created and let the cat out of the bag. He committed Labour on expenditure in the following words: "We have done it before, and we will do it again just like last time." As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) reminded us, those are chilling words indeed to anyone on an NHS waiting list or looking for care in an NHS hospital.
I will remind the hon. Gentleman what "just like last time" means. Last time, Labour increased health expenditure by 3·1 per cent. on average in real terms each year it was in office. Three per cent. is a figure to which the Labour party appears to be attached, because in the 1987 general election the Leader of the Opposition, the person so touchingly referred to yesterday by the hon. Member for Livingston as the ultimate authority, their leader, committed the Labour party in the course of this Parliament to increasing expenditure on health by 3 per cent. per year in real terms.
The problem for the hon. Gentleman is that 3·1 per cent., the record between 1974 and 1979 and the commitment of the Leader of the Opposition at the last election, is precisely the record of this Government every

729
year since 1979. Despite all the alarums and excursions, the hon. Member for Livingston has failed to open any difference between his commitments and our record.
I do not dispute for one moment what the hon. Gentleman and his predecessors between 1974 and 1979 would like to have done. The difficulty was that the International Monetary Fund refused to pay the bill. The hon. Gentleman's commitment is to do it again just like last time, but the real issue, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) reminded us, is not money—it is management.
Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Dorrell: Once, and then no more.
Mr. Lofthouse: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that consultants at Pontefract general infirmary informed me that they have been warned by the health authority not to "over-market"? They must leave room to attract customers from outside the authority's area so as to attract money. Is he further aware that I recently received a letter from three consultants informing me that, due to underfunding, my constituents are receiving what they describe as sub-standard service? Does he not believe them?
Mr. Dorrell: Before leaving the subject of underfund-ing, I will simply observe that a party which says that we are underfunding the health service should have an idea of the amount of the underfunding. It should also give a clear commitment to the electorate about what it would do about underfunding if elected to government.
The hon. Member for Livingston suggests that we should study the record of the Labour Government of 1974–79. I am happy to do so. I shall look at the way in which resources have been used in the health service. Those resources grew at exactly the same rate between 1974 and 1979 as they have grown under this Government since 1979.
Between 1974 and 1979, in-patient treatments rose at an average yearly rate of less than 1 per cent. Since 1979, they have risen at an average of more than 2 per cent. per year. Between 1974 and 1979, in-patient waiting lists rose by nearly half—by 48 per cent. Since 1979, they have fallen by 8 per cent. Between 1974 and 1979, bearing in mind that resources grew at the same rate in that Parliament as they have done since, capital expenditure on new health equipment and buildings in the NHS fell by 28 per cent. Since 1979, that same capital expenditure has risen by 68 per cent. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield rightly said, the issue is management—how resources are used within the national health service.
I shall now deal with the issues raised by the hon. Member for Peckham (Ms. Harman)—
Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dorrell: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will wish to sit down so that I can answer the questions asked by his hon. Friend.
730
The hon. Member for Peckham expressed concern about the decline in the number of acute beds in the national health service. I will read an extract from The Times, which states:
"Some press reports have given the impression that hospital closures are evidence that our health service is being run down and is doing less for patients … That is just not true, in many cases new and efficient buildings are replacing antiquated ones … I make no apology for the policy of closing hospitals that are no longer needed. Under-used beds cost money that could be better spent elsewhere."
Those are not my words but the words of Lord Ennals when he held the office now held by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
The 1974–79 Labour Government recognised, as we have recognised, that a modern health service needs fewer acute beds to treat more patients. Under Labour, acute bed space fell by 1·2 per cent. per annum between 1974 and 1979 for exactly the same reason as it has continued to fall since 1979.
The key question is how Labour, if elected to office, would improve the management of the national health service. Labour Front Bench spokesmen have shown precious little interest in that issue. They prefer to spread the privatisation smear, even though they now recognise that the smear does not work. They started by saying that we intend to privatise the health service. They have been convinced that that smear is unworkable and now want to use the growth of charges to create the impression of what they are pleased to call creeping privatisation. That charge does not work either, because my right hon. Friend has drawn attention to an inconvenient detail—that a policy of creeping privatisation by extending charging would be against the law.
The legislation under which the NHS works is perfectly clear. Section 1(2) of the National Health Service Act 1977 states:
"The services so provided shall be free of charge except in so far as the making and recovery of charges is expressly provided for by"
that or another enactment. Three specific enactments allow charges, the first being the prescription charge which, as someone rightly said, was introduced by Labour. Secondly, there are opticians' and dentists' charges—also introduced by Labour. So far, that is 2:0 to Labour. Thirdly, charges for eye tests were introduced in 1988. By my mathematics, the extension of charging falls 2:1 to Labour.
Nothing daunted, the Labour Front Bench spokesmen went on to talk about nursing home charges, and nursing homes are an important issue. I had thought that the policy in the White Paper "Caring for People" was a bipartisan one. The Labour party is explicitly committed to supporting it, and it is under that policy that those who need nursing care are provided with it, in the community, in private sector nursing homes. That policy has abolished a waiting list that we inherited in 1979—that for part III accommodation, social care in local authorities.
The Labour party cannot accept the principle of any provision of any sort of care that is not provided in the public sector. Exactly the same principle informs its approach to pay beds. It now pursues a policy of removing pay beds from the health service, which would cut by £100 million the resources available for patient care.
Mr. Brian Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dorrell: No.
The Labour party is also committed to a mimimum wage policy which will result in a further cut of £400 million in the resources available for patient care. It is committed to abolishing market testing, which will cut the amount available for patient care by £50 million.
Mr. Cryer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Dorrell: No. Then there will be—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must resume their seats, because the Minister has shown that he will not give way.
Mr. Dorrell: —a further cut of £300 million. That is £750 million-worth of cuts in patient care to which the Labour party is committed, and will introduce if it comes into office.
The hon. Member for Livingston made it clear yesterday that he remains committed to the absurd proposal of flexi-budgets, a proposal that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has rightly described as an unworkable mess. The Labour party has not thought it through and is not convincing. The one thing that is clear about flexi-budgets is that they would mean a return to funding health care institutions, rather than funding health authorities to buy the health care for the people in their areas. That will be of interest to those of my hon. Friends who represent constituencies that stand to gain from weighted capitation. My right hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, South (Sir P. Blaker) and for Finchley (Mrs. M. Thatcher) and my hon. Friends the Members for Calder Valley (Mr. Thompson), for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson, for Dudley, West (Dr. Blackburn), for Chorley (Mr. Dover) and for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnharn) all stand to lose as a result of the proposal to abolish weighted capitation.
Labour's policies are all of a piece. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield said, the Labour party has been consistent since 1979—it has opposed change and then accepted it. It opposed the sale of council houses, trade union reform and every cut in the standard rate of income tax. Now, it is Labour policy not to let the standard rate rise. As my right hon. Friend said, it opposed general managers in the NHS, the limited list and market testing, although it had introduced that in Liverpool. They are a good Opposition. They have learnt how to run scare stories without committing themselves, but to govern is to choose and they are unfit to govern because they are unwilling to choose.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 209, Noes 303.

Division No. 231

[10 pm

AYES

Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

Benton, Joseph

Allen, Graham

Bermingham, Gerald

Anderson, Donald

Bidwell, Sydney

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Blunkett, David

Armstrong, Hilary

Boateng, Paul

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Boyes, Roland

Ashton, Joe

Bradley, Keith

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Battle, John

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Bell, Stuart

Caborn, Richard

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Callaghan, Jim

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

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

732

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Canavan, Dennis

Lewis, Terry

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Litherland, Robert

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Livingstone, Ken

Clay, Bob

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Clelland, David

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Loyden, Eddie

Cohen, Harry

McAllion, John

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

McAvoy, Thomas

Corbett, Robin

McCartney, Ian

Corbyn, Jeremy

Macdonald, Calum A.

Cousins, Jim

McFall, John

Cox, Tom

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Crowther, Stan

McKelvey, William

Cryer, Bob

McLeish, Henry

Cummings, John

McMaster, Gordon

Cunliffe, Lawrence

McNamara, Kevin

Cunningham, Dr John

McWilliam, John

Darling, Alistair

Madden, Max

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Marek, Dr John

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

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Dewar, Donald

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Dixon, Don

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Dobson, Frank

Martlew, Eric

Douglas, Dick

Meacher, Michael

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Meale, Alan

Eadie, Alexander

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Eastham, Ken

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Edwards, Huw

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Morgan, Rhodri

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

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

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Fisher, Mark

Mowlam, Marjorie

Flannery, Martin

Mullin, Chris

Flynn, Paul

Murphy, Paul

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Nellist, Dave

Foster, Derek

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Foulkes, George

O'Brien, William

Fraser, John

O'Hara, Edward

Fyfe, Maria

O'Neill, Martin

Galloway, George

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Parry, Robert

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Patchett, Terry

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Pendry, Tom

Golding, Mrs Llin

Pike, Peter L.

Gordon, Mildred

Prescott, John

Gould, Bryan

Primarolo, Dawn

Graham, Thomas

Quin, Ms Joyce

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Radice, Giles

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Randall, Stuart

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Redmond, Martin

Hain, Peter

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Hardy, Peter

Reid, Dr John

Harman, Ms Harriet

Richardson, Jo

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Robertson, George

Haynes, Frank

Robinson, Geoffrey

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Rogers, Allan

Henderson, Doug

Rooker, Jeff

Hinchliffe, David

Rooney, Terence

Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Ross, William (Londonderry E)

Home Robertson, John

Rowlands, Ted

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Ruddock, Joan

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Sedgemore, Brian

Hoyle, Doug

Sheerman, Barry

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Short, Clare

Ingram, Adam

Sillars, Jim

Janner, Greville

Skinner, Dennis

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

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

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

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

Kilfoyle, Peter

Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

Lambie, David

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Leadbitter, Ted

Snape, Peter

Leighton, Ron

Soley, Clive

733

Steinberg, Gerry

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Stott, Roger

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Strang, Gavin

Wilson, Brian

Straw, Jack

Winnick, David

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Worthington, Tony

Turner, Dennis

Wray, Jimmy

Vaz, Keith

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Walley, Joan

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Wareing, Robert N.

Mr. Ray Powell and

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Mr. Eric Illsley.

Wigley, Dafydd

NOES

Adley, Robert

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Aitken, Jonathan

Day, Stephen

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Devlin, Tim

Allason, Rupert

Dickens, Geoffrey

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Dicks, Terry

Amess, David

Dorrell, Stephen

Arbuthnot, James

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Dover, Den

Arnold, Sir Thomas

Dunn, Bob

Ashby, David

Durant, Sir Anthony

Aspinwall, Jack

Eggar, Tim

Atkins, Robert

Emery, Sir Peter

Atkinson, David

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Evennett, David

Baldry, Tony

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

Batiste, Spencer

Fallon, Michael

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Farr, Sir John

Bellingham, Henry

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Bendall, Vivian

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Bevan, David Gilroy

Fishburn, John Dudley

Bitten, Rt Hon John

Fookes, Dame Janet

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Forth, Eric

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Body, Sir Richard

Fox, Sir Marcus

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Franks, Cecil

Boswell, Tim

Freeman, Roger

Bottomley, Peter

French, Douglas

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Fry, Peter

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

Gale, Roger

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Gardiner, Sir George

Bowis, John

Gill, Christopher

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Goodlad, Alastair

Brazier, Julian

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Bright, Graham

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

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

Gorst, John

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Buck, Sir Antony

Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

Budgen, Nicholas

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Burns, Simon

Gregory, Conal

Burt, Alistair

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Butcher, John

Grist, Ian

Butler, Chris

Ground, Patrick

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Grylls, Michael

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Carrington, Matthew

Hampson, Dr Keith

Cash, William

Hanley, Jeremy

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Hannam, John

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

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

Chapman, Sydney

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Chope, Christopher

Harris, David

Churchill, Mr

Hawkins, Christopher

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

Hayes, Jerry

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

Hayward, Robert

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Conway, Derek

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Couchman, James

Hill, James

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Hind, Kenneth

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

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

734

Hordern, Sir Peter

Oppenheim, Phillip

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Page, Richard

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

Paice, James

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Patnick, Irvine

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Patten, Rt Hon John

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Hunt, Rt Hon David

Pawsey, James

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Hunter, Andrew

Porter, David (Waveney)

Irvine, Michael

Portillo, Michael

Irving, Sir Charles

Powell, William (Corby)

Jack, Michael

Price, Sir David

Jackson, Robert

Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Janman, Tim

Redwood, John

Jessel, Toby

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Rhodes James, Sir Robert

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Riddick, Graham

Keilett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Ridley,Rt Hon Nicholas

Key, Robert

Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Roe, Mrs Marion

Kirkhope, Timothy

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Knapman, Roger

Rost, Peter

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Rowe, Andrew

Knowles, Michael

Rumbold, Rt Hon Mrs Angela

Knox, David

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Sackville, Hon Tom

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Sayeed, Jonathan

Latham, Michael

Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

Lawrence, Ivan

Shaw, David (Dover)

Lee, John (Pendle)

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Shelton, Sir William

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Shephard, Colin (Hereford)

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Shersby, Michael

Lord, Michael

Sims, Roger

Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

Skeet, Sir Trevor

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Maclean, David

Soames, Hon Nicholas

McLoughlin, Patrick

Speed, Keith

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Speller, Tony

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

Malins, Humfrey

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Mans, Keith

Squire, Robin

Maples, John

Stanbrook, Ivor

Marland, Paul

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Steen, Anthony

Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

Stern, Michael

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Stevens, Lewis

Mates, Michael

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Maude, Hon Francis

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Stewart, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Stokes, Sir John

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Sumberg, David

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Summerson, Hugo

Miller, Sir Hal

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Mills,Iain

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Miscampbell, Norman

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Mitchell, Sir David

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Moate, Roger

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Thorne, Neil

Moore, Rt Hon John

Thurnham, Peter

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Tracey, Richard

Morrison, Sir Charles

Tredinnick, David

Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Trippier, David

Moss, Malcolm

Trotter, Neville

Mudd, David

Twinn, Dr Ian

Neale, Sir Gerrard

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Nelson, Anthony

Viggers, Peter

Neubert, Sir Michael

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Walden, George

Nicholls, Patrick

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Waller, Gary

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Ward, John

Norris, Steve

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Watts, John

735

Wells, Bowen

Wood, Timothy

Wheeler, Sir John

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Whitney, Ray

Yeo, Tim

Widdecombe, Ann

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Wilkinson, John

Wilshire, David

Tellers for the Noes:

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Mr. David Lightbown and

Wolfson, Mark

Mr. John M. Taylor.

Question accordingly negatived.
Main Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 301, Noes 224.

Division No. 232]

[10.15pm

AYES

Adley, Robert

Davies, Q. (Stamfd & Spald'g)

Aitken, Jonathan

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Day, Stephen

Allason, Rupert

Devlin, Tim

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Dickens, Geoffrey

Amess, David

Dicks, Terry

Arbuthnot, James

Dorrell, Stephen

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Arnold, Sir Thomas

Dover, Den

Ashby, David

Dunn, Bob

Aspinwall, Jack

Durant, Sir Anthony

Atkins, Robert

Eggar, Tim

Atkinson, David

Emery, Sir Peter

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Baldry, Tony

Evennett, David

Batiste, Spencer

Fairbairn, Sir Nicholas

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Fallon, Michael

Bellingham, Henry

Farr, Sir John

Bendall, Vivian

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Fishburn, John Dudley

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Fookes, Dame Janet

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Forth, Eric

Body, Sir Richard

Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Fox, Sir Marcus

Boswell, Tim

Franks, Cecil

Bottomley, Peter

Freeman, Roger

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

French, Douglas

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

Fry, Peter

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Gale, Roger

Bowis, John

Gardiner, Sir George

Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

Gill, Christopher

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

Brazier, Julian

Goodlad, Alastair

Bright, Graham

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

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

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Gorst, John

Buck, Sir Antony

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Budgen, Nicholas

Green way, Harry (Ealing N)

Burns, Simon

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Burt, Alistair

Gregory, Conal

Butcher, John

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Butler, Chris

Grist, Ian

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Ground, Patrick

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Grylls, Michael

Carrington, Matthew

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Cash, William

Hampson, Dr Keith

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Hanley, Jeremy

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Hannam, John

Chapman, Sydney

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

Chope, Christopher

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Churchill, Mr

Harris, David

Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

Hawkins, Christopher

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Hayes, Jerry

Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Hayward, Robert

Conway, Derek

Heath, Rt Hon Edward

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Couchman, James

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Hill, James

736

Hind, Kenneth

Norris, Steve

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Hordern, Sir Peter

Oppenheim, Phillip

Howard, Rt Hon Michael

Page, Richard

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

Paice, James

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Patnick, Irvine

Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

Patten, Rt Hon John

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Hunt, Rt Hon David

Pawsey, James

Hunt, Sir John (Ravensbourne)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Hunter, Andrew

Porter, David (Waveney)

Irvine, Michael

Portillo, Michael

Irving, Sir Charles

Powell, William (Corby)

Jack, Michael

Price, Sir David

Jackson, Robert

Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

Janman, Tim

Redwood, John

Jessel, Toby

Renton, Rt Hon Tim

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Rhodes James, Sir Robert

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Riddick, Graham

Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

Key, Robert

Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Roe, Mrs Marion

King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Kirkhope, Timothy

Rost, Peter

Knapman, Roger

Rowe, Andrew

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Rumbold, Rt Hon Mrs Angela

Knowles, Michael

Ryder, Rt Hon Richard

Knox, David

Sackville, Hon Tom

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Sayeed, Jonathan

Lang, Rt Hon Ian

Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

Latham, Michael

Shaw, David (Dover)

Lawrence, Ivan

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Lee, John (Pendle)

Shelton, Sir William

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Shersby, Michael

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Sims, Roger

Lord, Michael

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

MacGregor, Rt Hon John

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Maclean, David

Speed, Keith

McLoughlin, Patrick

Speller, Tony

McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Malins, Humfrey

Squire, Robin

Mans, Keith

Stanbrook, Ivor

Maples, John

Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

Marland, Paul

Steen, Anthony

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Stern, Michael

Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

Stevens, Lewis

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Mates, Michael

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

Maude, Hon Francis

Stewart, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Stokes, Sir John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Sumberg, David

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Summerson, Hugo

Mellor, Rt Hon David

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Miller, Sir Hal

Taylor, Sir Teddy

Mills,Iain

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Miscampbell, Norman

Temple-Morris, Peter

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

Mitchell, Sir David

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Moate, Roger

Thorne, Neil

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Thurnham, Peter

Moore, Rt Hon John

Tracey, Richard

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Tredinnick, David

Morrison, Sir Charles

Trippier, David

Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Trotter, Neville

Moss, Malcolm

Twinn, Dr Ian

Mudd, David

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Neale, Sir Gerrard

Viggers, Peter

Nelson, Anthony

Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

Neubert, Sir Michael

Walden, George

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Nicholls, Patrick

Waller, Gary

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Ward, John

Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

737

Watts, John

Wood, Timothy

Wells, Bowen

Woodcock, Dr. Mike

Wheeler, Sir John

Yeo, Tim

Whitney, Ray

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Widdecombe, Ann

Wilkinson, John

Tellers for the Ayes:

Wilshire, David

Mr. David Lightbown and

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Mr. John M. Taylor.

Wolfson, Mark

NOES

Adams, Mrs Irene (Paisley, N.)

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Allen, Graham

Fearn, Ronald

Alton, David

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Anderson, Donald

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

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Fisher, Mark

Armstrong, Hilary

Flannery, Martin

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Flynn, Paul

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Ashton, Joe

Foster, Derek

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Foulkes, George

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Fraser, John

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Fyfe, Maria

Battle, John

Galloway, George

Beith, A. J.

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

Bell, Stuart

Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

Bellotti, David

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Godman, Dr Norman A.

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

Golding, Mrs Llin

Benton, Joseph

Gordon, Mildred

Bermingham, Gerald

Gould, Bryan

Bidwell, Sydney

Graham, Thomas

Blunkett, David

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Boateng, Paul

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Boyes, Roland

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Bradley, Keith

Hain, Peter

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Hardy, Peter

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Harman, Ms Harriet

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Haynes, Frank

Caborn, Richard

Heal, Mrs Sylvia

Callaghan, Jim

Henderson, Doug

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Hinchliffe, David

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)

Canavan, Dennis

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Home Robertson, John

Can, Michael

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Howells, Geraint

Clay, Bob

Hoyle, Doug

Clelland, David

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Cohen, Harry

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Corbett, Robin

Ingram, Adam

Corbyn, Jeremy

Janner, Greville

Cousins, Jim

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Cox, Tom

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Crowther, Stan

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Cryer, Bob

Kennedy, Charles

Cummings, John

Kilfoyle, Peter

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Kirkwood, Archy

Cunningham, Dr John

Lambie, David

Darling, Alistair

Leadbitter, Ted

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Leighton, Ron

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H')

Lewis, Terry

Dewar, Donald

Litherland, Robert

Dixon, Don

Livingstone, Ken

Dobson, Frank

Livsey, Richard

Douglas, Dick

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Eadie, Alexander

Loyden, Eddie

Eastham, Ken

McAllion, John

Edwards, Huw

McAvoy, Thomas

Evans, John (St Helens N)

McCartney, Ian

738

Macdonald, Calum A.

Robinson, Geoffrey

McFall, John

Rogers, Allan

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Rooker, Jeff

McKelvey, William

Rooney, Terence

McLeish, Henry

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Maclennan, Robert

Ross, William (Londonderry E)

McMaster, Gordon

Rowlands, Ted

McNamara, Kevin

Ruddock, Joan

McWilliam, John

Sedgemore, Brian

Madden, Max

Sheerman, Barry

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

Marek, Dr John

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Short, Clare

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Sillars, Jim

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Skinner, Dennis

Martlew, Eric

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Meacher, Michael

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

Meale, Alan

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

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

Mitchell, Austin (G'f Grimsby)

Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Snape, Peter

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Soley, Clive

Morgan, Rhodri

Steel, Rt Hon Sir David

Morris, Rt Hon A, (W'shawe)

Steinberg, Gerry

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Stott, Roger

Mowlam, Marjorie

Strang, Gavin

Mullin, Chris

Straw, Jack

Murphy, Paul

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

Nellist, Dave

Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Turner, Dennis

O'Brien, William

Vaz, Keith

O'Hara, Edward

Wallace, James

O'Neill, Martin

Walley, Joan

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Warden, Gareth (Gower)

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Wareing, Robert N.

Parry, Robert

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Patchett, Terry

Wigley, Dafydd

Pendry, Tom

Williams, Rt Hon Alan

Pike, Peter L.

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Prescott, John

Wilson, Brian

Primarolo, Dawn

Winnick, David

Quin, Ms Joyce

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Radice, Giles

Worthington, Tony

Randall, Stuart

Wray, Jimmy

Redmond, Martin

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

Reid, Dr John

Tellers for the Noes:

Richardson, Jo

Mr. Ray Powell and

Robertson, George

Mr. Eric Illsley.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House welcomes the record extra resources provided for the NHS and the substantial increase in the number of NHS patients treated since the Government came to office in 1979; supports the Government's reforms of the NHS which are already bringing about improvements in patient care; deplores the intellectual bankruptcy of Her Majesty's Opposition which, bereft of any coherent proposals of its own for the modernisation of the National Health Service, is reduced to peddling smears and scares which lower morale amongst NHS staff and cause wholly unnecessary fear amongst patients; notes with approval the Prime Minister's unequivocal statement on the NHS that there will be no charges for hospital treatment, no charges for visits to the doctor, no privatisation of health care, neither in part nor as a whole, now or in the future; and welcomes his unequivocal assurance that Trust hospitals remain a permanent part of the NHS.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Lords Amendment to the British Technology Group Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Boswell.]

Orders of the Day

  British Technology Group Bill
  Lords amendment considered.
  Lords amendment: After clause 6, insert the following new clause—Offers for sale of securities—
  "Where an offer for sale of any securities of the successor company is to be made by or on behalf of the Crown or any invitation or advertisement is to be issued by or on behalf of the Crown in connection with the offer, the Secretary of State shall consult such persons appearing to him to be representative of the universities of the United Kingdom as he considers appropriate."
  Read a Second time.
  Mr. Speaker: With this we will take amendments (a), (b) and (c) to the Lords amendment, and consequent Government amendments Nos. 1 and 2.
  10.30 pm
  Dr. Lewis Moonie: I beg to move, as an amendment to the Lords amendment, amendment (a): in line 6, after 'universities', insert 'and research councils'.
  We remain implacably opposed to the principles behind the Bill. We believe that it is ill conceived, and poses a real danger for the future of the British Technology Group. However, that is not the substance of our discussion tonight. I have to recognise that the House has already made its decision on the British Technology Group Bill. It therefore remains only for us to consider the Lords amendment and to see in what way it might be improved.
  The Lords amendment, a cross-Bench amendment, was carried last week. As we can see from the amendment paper, the Government have agreed to accept it. It offers a small concession from the Government on the safeguards surrounding the sale that we attempted to have built into the Bill—that, before offering for sale any securities in the successor company
  "the Secretary of State shall consult such persons appearing to him to he representative of the universities of the United Kingdom as he considers appropriate."
  The purpose of our amendment is merely to tease out some additional concessions from the Government. As they have been decent enough to accept this small amendment, they might be broad-spirited enough to consider some further improvements to the Bill.
  Our amendment (a) seeks to insert "and research councils" after universities. That is self-explanatory. We seek to broaden slightly, and only slightly, the terms of consultation which have already been agreed in principle. In amendment (b) we have attempted to specify some of the information about which universities should he consulted. After all, in theory it is possible for the Government to phone the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, tell it that they are selling securities and call that consultation. I am sure that, being a decent man, the Under-Secretary would not dream of doing anything so underhand and out of keeping with the spirit of the Lords amendment. Nevertheless, we feel that it would be valuable to add this additional safeguard.
  Amendment (c) is also self-explanatory. We feel that the Secretary of State ought to allow a reasonable period for consultation on the Bill and have suggested a period of three months to allow the Bill to be gone into in proper detail.
  740
  Much of the argument in Committee, in both this House and another place, dealt with the independence, integrity and impartiality of the British Technology Group following any privatisation. To some extent, the Government have met those concerns. Indeed, in Committee I remember the Under-Secretary saying clearly that he intended to safeguard those three important principles. He appears to have done so in two ways. One is by certain inclusions in the articles of association. He has certainly tried to do so. The other is by accepting the Lords amendment.
  I should be grateful if he would spend a few minutes looking at those principles in tandem with the articles of association and explain to the House how he feels that his objectives have been achieved. There was no disagreement on those objectives in Committee, merely considerable discussion of how they might be achieved.
  In conclusion, I reiterate that we are opposed to the sale in principle. Should the Bill not go through before a change of Government, which happily will occur in the next six months, we will certainly reverse the proposal. If the reports in the press are accurate, it may well be that a rather more interventionist Secretary of State is about to be chosen to see out the twilight of this Administration, in which case we might see changes in the Bill before then. Who knows? I am sure that neither the Minister for Corporate Affairs nor the Under-Secretary of State would welcome that. I ask that Under-Secretary to give some explanation of how he thinks that those important safeguards have been handled.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs (Mr. Edward Leigh): I am grateful for the constructive spirit in which the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie) moved his amendment. He is right that there is no agreement on the principle of privatisation, but that matter has been well aired in this Chamber, and we do not need to go over that ground again. Both sides of the Chamber are united in the firm hope that the impartiality, independence and integrity of the British Technology Group can be retained. I give a commitment on behalf of the Government that we are fully committed to those three Is. The concessions made in the House of Lords will allay any residual concerns in those areas.
  The hon. Gentleman mentioned the articles of association. There are two key provisions in the articles of association protected by the special share. These are, first, a 15 per cent. limit on individual shareholdings, which will continue in the articles even after the special share is redeemed at the end of five years. The Government will be prepared to consider higher individual shareholdings, should that prove necessary, to attract the right consortium, but we are looking at a benchmark of some 15 per cent. The second is a restriction on substantial disposals of assets above a certain level—25 per cent. of net assets or of the income raised by the assets disposed —without the special shareholder's consent.
  In addition, there are two further safeguards in the articles of association. The first is a provision for one director of the company to be directly appointed by the universities in consultation with the polytechnics. The universities will thus have the power of appointment to the board, in contrast with the current situation, in which universities have no right of representation on the present board. Secondly, one director, in addition to the

  741
  Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, shall be someone who appears to the members to have wide experience in the commercialisation of public sector research. Those will be entrenched in the articles of association. In my judgment and the Government's. there is no doubt that those provisions, entrenched in the articles and protected by the special share held by the Government, will preserve the impartiality, independence and integrity of the BTG.
  As the hon. Gentleman said, we accept the amendment proposed by Lord Flowers in another place. It will ensure that there is full consultation with the universities. We believe that the hon. Gentleman's amendments are unnecessary. Amendment (a) would require the Secretary of State to consult the research councils. I should draw the attention of the House to the role of Government research councils. They have historically provided the BTG with a small proportion of its inventive ideas. In the year ending 31 March 1991, about 10 per cent. of new inventions accepted by the BTG came from this source, compared with around 50 per cent. from the academic sector.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy will accept that the fact that we have accepted the Lords amendment, and will ensure that there is proper consultation with the universities, will meet any concern that might exist.
  Amendments (b) and (c) attempt to set out some of the details of the kind of consultation which the Secretary of State must conduct with the universities and to fix a three-month period for that to occur. The Government do not consider that that is appropriate. We will conduct proper consultation with the universities before any offer for sale is made. We will certainly ensure that there is sufficient time for them to make representations and for us to consider them.
  We do not believe that it will be in the interests of the long-term viability of the BTG to extend the consultation period over a fixed three months. I can only assume that there is something else behind the amendments—that the Opposition are attempting to delay full privatisation beyond next spring. I cannot understand why. If one was solely concerned with the future of the BTG—there is considerable interest in the country in purchasing it as a viable entity—on should reject the amendments.
  Dr. Moonie: Implicit in that statement is the suggestion that the BTG will be privatised immediately. Is that the case?
  Mr. Leigh: There will be a full consultation period. I cannot give a firm date when privatisation will take place. As soon as Royal Assent is received, an information memorandum will be issued. I can tell the House that considerable interest has been expressed in purchasing the BTG. We are confident that we will find a purchaser or purchasers who will ensure that the impartiality, independence and integrity of the BTG is maintained.
  I cannot give a firm date when the privatisation will take place, but I hope that it will be some time in the new year or shortly after.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: The Minister and his colleagues will be aware that I, in common with the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Dr. Moonie), have been extremely sceptical from the outset about the interests and motivations of the Government.
  742
  We believe that the Government consider the BTG to he yet another publicly owned asset which, for dogmatic reasons rather than anything else, they want to privatise.
  It is welcome that at least the cross-Bench proposal —described as minimalist—was approved by their Lordships. That will lead to some consultation with the universities. Effectively, that has been the only concession wrung out of the Government by electoral defeat. However, I am glad that they have not sought to overturn that in the fag-end of the parliamentary Session.
  On the amendments, although the Minister has sought to say that the research councils have a lesser share of BTG business that does not invalidate the point that they should be the subject of consultation. As a result of the amendment in the other place, which the Government now recommend to us to accept, there will he consultation with the universities. However, that does not exclude the advantage of consultation with the research councils as well. The Minister's answer did not deal with that point effectively.
  The amendments seek to ensure that the consultation exercise is wider and longer than it might otherwise have been. That is the risk behind the procedure. I accept that one normally would not specify that the details of consultation should be contained in legislation. However, the danger is that the Government will proceed more quickly than would be wise even if one accepted the premise of their privatisation proposal. The Minister did not deal with that problem. My party, in common with the Labour party, does not accept that premise.
  I accept that the Government made some concessions in the other place on the articles of association, and dealt with some of the concern about the independence and integrity of the BTG being sustained. The large bulk of the employees of the BTG work in my constituency. Apart from the senior management, those employees have never been persuaded that the privatisation proposal was in their best interests. so those concessions on the articles of association arc welcome. The fact that there will be some-protection and that the BTG will not be sold off wholesale to one interest is at least progress. It appears that the argument has been won.
  However, it will be unfortunate if the Government do not accept the amendments tabled tonight. They do nothing disadvantageous but give some protection, and they would be welcomed by the employees. They would not be disadvantageous to the British Technology Group or the public interest. Therefore, although the Minister's initial response was to resist them, I hope that he will accept them in the same way as the Government have accepted the principal Lords amendment before us, which provides for consultation. Our scepticism, however, remains. We think that the Government are wrong and, if the opportunity arises, we—like the Labour party—would seek to change the course that the Government are piloting for the BTG. We hope that that opportunity will arise. In the meantime, I hope that the Government will accept that the amendments have been tabled in good faith and will, even at this late stage, accept them.
  10.45 pm
  Dr. Jeremy Bray: The Minister is right to say that a number of the points that Labour Members have argued on Second Reading and in Committee were subsequently accepted in the Lords, and

  743
  that some of them have been embodied in the published articles of association. However, I am surprised that he has not continued in that spirit in reply to our amendments to the Lords amendments before us tonight. They were tabled in good faith with the intention of serving the purpose of an efficient future for the British Technology Group.
  It may be true that, in the past and until now, the research councils have directly accounted for only a relatively small proportion of the IPR that has come to BTG. However, I should he surprised if the Department of Trade and Industry, of all Departments, were to take the view that that would necessarily he so in the future. Does he value the link programme so little that the joint interest between the Minister's Department and the Science and Engineering Research Council might not produce a more abundant supply of IPR which BTG might wish to consider in the future?
  As for the scope of the consultation, I expected the Minister to stand up and say, "Yes, of course we shall consult on those matters. It would only be common sense to do so. It is not necessary to put it into the legislation, but it is certainly our intention, in safeguarding the integrity and impartiality of the BTG, that there should be scope for consultation." There is a practical reason for this: there have been reports, confirmed in a sense by the Minister, that more than one group is interested in bidding for BTG. However, the universities have been approached by only one potential group, and they have no knowledge of what other bidders may be in the market.
  Surely the Minister sees that it would be in the DTI's interest and the interests of the future of the BTG, for the universities to be properly consulted about the bids that are received. In recognising that one might well be more closely associated with the universities than others, it is not beyond the wishes of the Minister and his Department to handle such consultations. It need not be a sensitive matter but may be related to the acceptability of the partners, what is known about them, and so on. A vast fund of knowledge exists within the universities and the research councils, which I should have thought the Minister would want to tap.
  Had we wished to table a blocking amendment, the period would not have been three months but six months or a year. Had our intention been to wreck the Bill, you, Mr. Speaker, would not have selected the amendments for consideration, because they would have been out of order. So it is a bona fide point that there are substantial issues on which practical consultation is needed about the nature of the Bill, particularly given the concessions that the Government have made—the special share, the 15 per cent. holding and the disposal of more than 25 per cent. All those factors point to a desire to carry with BTG the support of the public in the higher education and research council sectors.
  Therefore, even if the Minister is not of a mind to accept the amendment—I understand the procedural complications that that might cause, because, if the amendment were to return to the Lords further amended tomorrow, that might lead to delays and embarrassment for the Government—surely, in view of the worries felt in the universities and research community, the Minister could say that it was his intention to conduct consultations in the manner and with the scope suggested in the amendments.
  Mr. Leigh: I am grateful to the hon. Members for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray). We believe that the universities can he taken as representatives of the whole research community. That point was made by Lord Flowers in another place, when he moved the original Lords amendment.
  I shall remind the House of the figures that I gave previously. As the hon. Member for Motherwell said, they might change but as a benchmark they provide useful information. In the year ending 31 March, about 10 per cent. of new inventions accepted by the BTG came from research councils, compared with about 50 per cent. from the academic sector. Therefore, the universities are in a wholly predominant position, and enjoy a unique relationship with the BTG. We do not believe that it is necessary to make similar provisions in the Bill for other interest groups.
  Dr. Bray: Is the Minister saying that the universities, which were the source of the proposals, were not funded by the research councils in any of the research leading to their proposals?
  Mr. Leigh: I can only repeat what I said, which I think was absolutely clear. We were rightly told that the universities have a predominant role in BTG's affairs. They provide BTG with about 50 per cent. of its inventions. Lord Flowers told us that the universities can represent the research councils in the consultations. Therefore, we accept the amendment in a spirit of conciliation.
  If we were to accept the logic of what the hon. Member for Motherwell, South said, we would have to broaden the further consultation provided for by the Bill to include a raft of other interested parties, including private sector companies, investors, management and employees, polytechnics and licensees—all of which have legitimate interests. We have listened to representations on the Bill made to us while formulating our policy on the special share provisions. However, we do not intend to include special provisions in the Bill to consult all those groups, because it simply would not be feasible to do so.
  Timing was mentioned by the hon. Members for Motherwell, South and for Southwark and Bermondsey. We believe that a period as long as three months is neither necessary or possible. The best way to explain the subject to allay any fears—particularly those expressed by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey—is that the consultation process will not be rushed. It will take as long as is required—no longer and no less. With good will on both sides, it need not be a process that takes months rather than weeks to resolve.
  Preparations for the sale are well advanced, and there are a large number of potentially interested parties. Therefore, it would send the wrong message to the market and have a prejudicial effect on the sale if there were now to be a three-month hiatus in the privatisation process to allow for consultation. I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that there will be proper consultation, but it would in no way aid the group's future as an organisation maintaining impartiality, independence and integrity if there were to be a three-month hiatus.
  The hon. Member for Motherwell, South said that the privatisation of the BTG was ideologically driven. The BTG already operates on a fully commercial basis. It is

  745
  entirely self-financing and profitable, with no Government subsidy. It no longer enjoys the right of first refusal on public sector inventions. It has been competing for this business since 1985. Lastly, and most importantly—this meets the charge that our privatisation is merely ideologically driven and not concerned with the better management and future of this organisation—its current public sector status restricts the commercial freedom of the business and has restricted its development, especially overseas.
  We believe it right not for ideological reasons but for the future of this group, for its impartiality, independence and integrity, that we should complete the process tonight which will, incidentally, result in the abolition of the National Enterprise Board.
  Dr. Bray: Does the Minister intend to consult the universities on any bids received, given the universities' right to nominate a director to the board?
  Mr. Leigh: No, because the universities may place a bid themselves. We have taken great care to allay all their
  746
  concerns. I met the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, as did my noble Friend Lord Rea. It is very possible that the universities may want to bid for a share in this consortium. In that event, it would be inappropriate to give preferential treatment to the universities in the bidding process. We will be bound by this Lords amendment—I hope that the House will accept it in a few moments' time—at the time when the memorandum of information is sent out, to consult the universities on it and on the advertisements associated with it. That will reassure the universities that we intend to continue the constructive dialogue that we have held with them on this issue in recent months.
  Dr. Moonie: We are not very happy with the Minister's reassurances, but I see no point in pursuing the matter. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, to the Lords amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Lords amendment agreed to.
  Consequent Government amendments Nos. I and 2 agreed to.

  Aid to Developing Countries
  [Relevant documents: European Community Documents Nos. 6515/190 relating to guidelines for co-operation with developing countries in Asia and Latin America and 7576/91 relating to generalised tariff preferences for certain products originating in Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama.]
  Mr. Bowen Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. How much time do we have to debate this order; and why was it not considered, as recommended by the Select Committee on European Legislation, by European Standing Committee B?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): We have one and a half hours to debate the order, if that much time is required. On the other point, apparently the House voted accordingly.
  10.58 pm
  The Minister for Overseas Development (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of European Community Document Nos. 4051/91 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memoranda submitted by the Overseas Development Administration on 18th and 25th February 1991, and 5896/91 + COR I. relating to financial co-operation with developing countries in Asia and Latin America; and endorses the Government's policy on Community aid to Asian and Latin American countries.
  The motion invites the House to take note of two documents, 4051/91 and 5896/91. The first is a Commission communication to the Council proposing guidelines for technical and financial co-operation with the developing countries of Latin America and Asia during the period 1991 to 1995. The second is a proposed regulation on the same them. If a regulation is adopted by the Council, the guidelines will become redundant. This we hope to do at the Development Council on 28 November.
  The earlier draft. 4051/91, was deposited with an explanatory memorandum on 8 February, and a supplementary explanatory memorandum on 25 February. The second document, 5896/91, was deposited with an explanatory memorandum on 5 June. There was a previous Commission communication, document 6515/90, which the Select Committee on European Legislation also considered relevant for debate. It is therefore tagged to this motion. However, it has been overtaken by events. It was a general policy paper entitled "Guidelines for Cooperation with Developing Countries of Latin America and Asia". One further document is tagged to this debate: the Commission's recent proposals on the tariff preferences for certain products originating in central America, Document 7576/91. I will come to this later.
  Since the United Kingdom joined the EC, British Governments of both parties have supported a global EC development programme going beyond the African Caribbean and Pacific countries covered by the Lome Convention. These documents do not deal with aid to Lome countries, of which there are now 69, nor does it cover food aid, on which about £120 million per year is spent for Asia and Latin America alone. It concerns only the EC's programme of aid to Asia and Latin America —the ALA programme—started in 1976. A Council regulation of February 1981, adopted after five years of discussion, gave it a clear focus on the poorest countries and on the needs of rural areas.
  748
  Implementation has since then been governed by annual guidelines. In December 1990, the Council of Ministers agreed a five-year framework figure for development aid to Asia and Latin America of £1·92 billion or 2·75 billion ecu. The documents propose the basis on which that money should be allocated.
  Asia and Latin America are regions of great importance to us. They include major trading partners, both dynamic growing economies in the Pacific rim and our more traditional partners such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. They are regions of great political signifi-cance, with many countries especially in Latin America emerging from murky military regimes to the light of democracy. They also contain a large proportion of the world's poorest people and environmentally sensitive forests and savannahs. It is therefore right that we should accord them a high place in the EC's external relations.
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: I agree with almost everything that the Minister has said, especially about murky military regimes. Will she assure the House that agricultural exports, especially the export of tropical fruit from Latin America, will not harm the interests of Caribbean producers? As the Minister knows, many banana producers are now small family farms in the Windward Islands and elsewhere. The Germans do not appear to give a damn about such producers. May we be assured that those producers' interests will not be harmed by the developments that the Minister outlines?
  Mrs. Chalker: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) will know how hard we have worked to try to get a proper regime for Caribbean countries, which are the main suppliers of bananas to the British market. It would be wrong to go into more detail, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the subject of bananas is never far from my desk, and we shall discuss it further in the future.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the Commonwealth Caribbean countries should not rely on our good will and supply us with inferior quality bananas? Will she note that a much higher quality of banana is obtainable from the republics of central America, which in many ways also deserve our good will?
  Mrs. Chalker: I should be in your bad books, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I went into the subject of the quality of bananas at this point in the debate, but I assure hon. Members that the aims of our bilateral aid programme in the Caribbean, which is not covered by these documents, are not only to improve the quality of the produce of all the dependencies, such as the Windward Islands, but to encourage diversification into other products. Without diversification, all banana growers, whether in the Caribbean, central America, Latin America, Asia or Africa, will be in difficulties.
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Watch out for the skins.
  Mrs. Chalker: The hon. Gentleman is too kind.
  In 1989, largely at United Kingdom insistence, the Commission produced an evaluation of the 13 years of its ALA programme. At the Development Council in November 1989 I insisted that we should maintain the

  749
  poverty focus of the programme, increase the role of women in its projects, and make it more sensitive to environmental concerns. I am glad to say that the Council agreed. It was in response to those conclusions that the Commission produced the documents which are the subject of tonight's motion.
  The new Development Council policy shows a number of welcome improvements. For example, it has been a goal of British Government policy under Governments of both parties to secure a basis for EC aid to Asia and Latin America which allows for coherent planning of aid in each of the major recipient counties. Hence, we welcome the creation of a multi-annual programme, which should allow more effective aid programmes linked to the implementation of development policies by the Governments concerned.
  We also welcome the way in which aid is to be tailored to the varied needs of recipients. The Commission documents refer to two axes: development aid for poor countries and population groups, and economic cooperation with more advanced countries and sectors. For the latter countries, economic co-operation, with its emphasis on trade and the private sector, is clearly the right approach. We have been in the forefront of the pressure for greater access to markets of the developed world, for more effective support for the development of the private sector, and in the promotion of the right climate to encourage investment.
  For this to work, there must be a real prospect of markets for the goods produced. We have therefore argued very strongly for an open and liberal trade regime through the general agreement on tariffs and trade, GATT, and continue to believe that this is the best mechanism to advance the development of all economies. Trade is more effective than aid as an engine of growth, and contributes much more income to the developing nations.
  However, for poor countries, that trade engine may need help to get started. Aid on concessional terms is vital to help build the infrastructure, both physical and human, that the private sector needs to grow. We also have a duty to seek to alleviate the acute poverty that blights so many lives in these countries. I have repeatedly emphasised the importance that we attach to improving the position of women. Women bear most of the burden of poverty in these countries and we must continually seek to design our aid to meet their needs. For example, we are contributing £6 million and the EC a similar amount to the Chitral rural support project in Pakistan, in which, alongside the Aga Khan Foundation, we aim to help women improve their skills, participate in decision making, and gain genuine control over their lives.
  We have therefore worked hard in the negotiations on the new ALA programme to maintain the poverty focus of the development aid axis, so that grant aid goes where it is most needed. We have also pressed hard for a high priority for the needs of women. We expect to succeed in both areas. Our partners now see the crucial importance of these dual focuses.
  The conservation of the environment is another key theme of British aid policy. The 1990 Houston summit charged the Commission, together with the World bank, with developing a programme to conserve the Amazon rain forest. Earlier this year, I visited forest areas in Brazil
  750
  and saw for myself both the scale of the need and the contribution that we are making through our bilateral aid programme there. We have already launched six forestry projects, and appointed a forestry expert to make sure these are effective and to design more projects there. However, the theme is too large for any single donor, so we have argued strongly for a substantial proportion—at least 10 per cent.—of the EC's ALA programme to be set aside for projects specifically to conserve the environment throughout both regions.
  We have also pressed for a special place to be given to the fight against drugs. This is a scourge of most regions of Asia and Latin America. We have ensured that there is a special place made in the regulation for aid to combat drug production and trafficking. We therefore welcomed the allocation of 60 million ecu—about £40 million—to the worst affected countries of the Andean region last year. These countries were also accorded special treatment under the Community's trade preference system for developing countries, the generalised system of prefer-ences. Since we do not wish to dilute that advantage, we have reservations about extending the same benefits to central America, as proposed in the Commission proposal 7576/91 which is tagged to this debate.
  We believe that human rights and good government are fundamental to the success of development.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs Clwyd) has done some interesting work on the question of renewables and how they could be slotted into the aid programme. Does the Commission have a view on the extent to which the export of renewables technology to third-world countries might be further developed? Do the Government have a view on these matters?
  Mrs. Chalker: I can answer for my Department. We are examining that question to see where it can fit and where it will work. A country has to have a certain ability to accept and utilise such exports before they are sent. I am not aware that the Commission has taken a position on the issue, but I will check and write to the hon. Gentlemen.
  I said that I believe that human rights and good government are fundamental to the success of overseas development. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made a clear and powerful statement of our views on this topic in Harare last week at the Commonwealth Heads Of Government meeting. It is critical to look at the broader policy environment when considering aid allocations. For example, are the institutions to which the aid is being directed effective, open and accountable? What are the democratic processes? Does the country respect human rights and the rule of law? Answers to questions of that kind indicate whether resources are being used effectively. They also help to tell whether the recipients are, in fact, committed to those goals in the context of their own societies.
  Where improvements can be encouraged, there are positive measures that we can take. These include support for the legal sector, customs, police, public administration, accounting and audit, and a free press. On the other hand, while it is right to emphasise the help that we can give to those who wish to move forward, in cases where the abuse of human rights is serious, we have to be prepared to redesign or withdraw support. That is true for the ALA programme but, of course, it also goes much wider.
  Mr. Wells: Are the Government's broad policy aims shared by the European Community? How can my right hon. Friend ensure that, if they are, they are enforced through the policies of the European Community?
  Mrs. Chalker: My hon. Friend anticipates my next comments.
  The Dutch presidency is preparing operational guidelines on "Human Rights, Democracy and Development", and we must ensure that these threads are sewn into all Community aid. My discussion with our 11 partners in Holland in July this year was open and first class, and I believe that all countries are prepared to follow the lead that we have given in aid policy. We are also negotiating clear provisions in the ALA regulation in particular. That is very important, because it means that we are starting with the ALA regulations as we mean to go on.
  Good government is essential for aid programmes to be effective, but there are other aspects of effectiveness, and here again we are pressing hard for improvements. The United Kingdom's share of the EC aid programme Corms an integral and important part of our overall aid programme, and we work for high quality in it as we do for all our aid. I have to say that I do not believe that the Commission's systems are yet up to our standards, but we have seconded a number of staff to build them up. We are also working to improve monitoring and evaluation procedures in the Community.
  The House will have noted that the second draft was a good deal better than the first. At least in part, that is due to our efforts. We now await a further revised proposal which, I trust, will he better again.
  Mr. Peter Bottomley: My right hon. Friend will have noticed the comment in the explanatory memorandum, which states:
  "the new proposal does not accurately reflect the conclusions which were reached at Council."
  Can she share with the House her opinion on whether that refers to an insignificant mistake that we are now pointing out or whether it was a result of deliberate confusion? In the administration of a programme, it strikes me as rather important to translate Ministers' wishes at the Council into what is put before the European Community.
  Mrs. Chalker: As so often happens in some of these discussions, there is a good reason for improving the draft. I will check on my hon. Friend's point. As far as my memory serves me, it was a question of improving the draft. There was nothing sinister behind it.
  Mr. William Cash: Has my right hon. Friend had discussions with the United States on these matters? The question of protectionism in Europe and the increasing interest of the United States in south America as a result of that is developing. Has my right hon. Friend observed any change in the United States position? Why are we taking such a specific interest in those countries when it appears that the United States is beginning to take a greater interest in the north-south grid of central and south America, and in the developments that that might have with respect to protectionism and the European Community?
  Mrs. Chalker: As the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) has already said, the United States has always taken a
  752
  tremendous interest in central and south America. It has also taken an interest—one might not always describe it as a free trade interest—in what happens to products coming not only from those countries, but from countries further afield. My hon. Friend may remember that I said earlier in my speech that one of the most important things for the developing ALA countries—and, indeed, for all other developing countries—is trade access. Getting a successful outcome to the GATT round is fundamental. That was underlined by the G7 summit and was repeated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during the summer months. We are determined to ensure, as we have succeeded in doing in the ALA regulation, that there is improved trade for the developing countries. All our EC partners have signed up to that. I hope that I can put my hon. Friend's anxieties to rest on that.
  When we come to the Development Council on 28 November, I intend to ensure that the final version of all the documents incorporates and fully reflects the goals that I have outlined in my speech today. I have no interest in programmes that do not meet those goals, They must meet those goals for the sake of the developing countries, for their future, for alleviating poverty, for improving the lot of women in those countries, improving the environment of those countries and, above all, helping them to gain growth in their own economies, which will help their nations more than anything else.
  11.18 pm
  Mrs. Ann Clwyd: I welcome this rare opportunity to debate an aspect of development and co-operation on the Floor of the House in Government time. Once again, the timetabling of the debate demonstrates the dismally low priority that the Government give to aid and development. These vital issues are currently treated as little more than a stopgap, or a filler, in parliamentary business. It appears that only when having run scared of a November election, and thinking that they had parliamentary time on their hands, were the Government prepared to debate these issues. Once again, their approach wholly fails to match the importance that is increasingly attached to the subject by the British people.
  Be that as it may, I welcome the chance to debate this topic—particularly the European Community's programme for Asia and Latin America, which does not receive enough attention. The programme, however, now runs at over 350 million ecu a year—more than three times its size just 10 years ago.
  Mr. Wells: Will the hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Clwyd: No, not yet. I have only just started my speech. The hon. Gentleman will be able to make his speech in his own time.
  The proposals to reform the framework for Community assistance to Asia and Latin America—
  Mr. Wells rose—
  Mrs. Clwyd: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a speech, he may do so when I sit down. I am not giving way.
  Mr. Wells rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady has made it clear that she is not giving way at this stage; the hon. Gentleman must not persist.
  Mrs. Clwyd: The proposals—
  Mr. Wells rose—
  Mrs. Clwyd: If the hon. Gentleman would wait until I have completed more than a paragraph of what I have to say, we could start the debate. Until then, perhaps he will allow me to develop my theme.
  The proposals to reform the framework for the Community's assistance to Asia and Latin America come at an important time for both regions, particularly in regard to their relationship with Europe. In Latin America, countries are striving to build economies to consolidate the democratic gains of recent years— although, sadly, that process has suffered a serious setback following recent events in Haiti.
  After a disastrous decade of debt and economic decline, which has left Latin Americans 10 per cent. poorer than they were a decade ago, some glimmers of economic hope are now appearing in countries such as Mexico and Chile. Despite the bullish reports from some parts of the financial press, however, we should make no mistake about the fact that formidable obstacles still face the continent—and, paricularly, its poorest people. Sluggish levels of world growth, the legacy of a decade of debt-induced cuts in social and economic investment, slow progress in the dismantling of developed countries' trade barriers and unsustainably high levels of debt service remain.
  In central America, there is now real hope of a peace settlement, particularly in El Salvador. Once peace is secured, the task of reconstruction is massive. There is the need for physical rehabilitation, not least from the devastating environmental impact of war—including the destruction of thousands of acres of forest by Government bombing raids in the Morazan region of northern El Salvador over recent years. There will also be the need to support agrarian reform measures, to give the poor and landless a fairer share of the country's land and to act to put right one of the central popular grievances behind the long-running and bloody war.
  In Asia, the challenges are even greater. It shares with central America some of the challenges of post-conflict reconstruction—particularly in Cambodia, with the planned signing of the peace accord on Wednesday. First, the remaining political problems must be confronted. In particular, Britain, through the Community and the United Nations, must not accept a return to positions of power for the Khmer Rouge representatives implicated in the genocide of the Pol Pot era, as seems all too possible.
  Secondly, Britain must end a shameful aid and trade embargo that has continued to punish one of the poorest countries and peoples in the world. Community aid will have a crucial role in helping Cambodians to rebuild their country's shattered economy. I hope that the Minister of State will say something about that later. Will she also comment on the position in Vietnam and tell us what she will do to ensure that that country, which for so long has been denied crucial development aid, receives that essential assistance. Although the region which, apart from a few important exceptions such as the Philippines, has not normally been thought of as debt-troubled, the recent financial crisis in India should warn us against complacency.
  The starkest challenge is posed by the level of poverty in Asia, and I am glad that the Minister placed such a strong emphasis on alleviating poverty. More than 70 per
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  cent. of the world's poor—struggling to live on less than 50p a day—live in Asia. In south Asia, people can expect to live on average to just 56 years of age—10 years less than in Latin America. Only 65 per cent. of primary school-aged children are enrolled for primary school education in south Asia and that is just above the figure in sub-Saharan Africa.
  If the European Community is to play a full part in the concerted efforts to cut world poverty—something that the World bank development committee reaffirmed in Bangkok last week as the highest priority of the international development community—it must allocate adequate resources to Asia.
  The Minister referred to a high priority for women. I hope that she can tell us what percentage of the aid will be directly focused on women. When questioned in the past about the direction of poverty alleviation and its aid programme for women in developing countries, the Overseas Development Administration has provided completely inadequate answers.
  The relative allocation of Community aid between Asia and Latin America is one of the key points in the new guidelines that we are considering. There has been a long-running debate in the Community on that issue, and I am glad that there is reference to that point in the ODA's memorandum. Given its relative poverty, Asia continues to be considerably underfunded by the Community. Although no explicit financial split is set out in the document, there are clear and worrying references that imply a move away from Asia. For example, article 2 states that all developing countries in the regions are eligible
  "for development assistance and economic co-operation",
  opening the way for more aid to be pushed to Latin America. Specific new criteria added for widening the programme—for example, support for drug substitution programmes—also implies diversion of aid away from the poorest countries.
  We believe that the proposed guidelines could lead to a diversion of aid from the poorest towards bringing Community businesses the greatest commercial gain. Aid will be used instead, as the Commission states,
  "to promote European investment in the ALA developing countries."
  The gradual loss of focus on the poorest countries and the poorest people is a worrying trend that must be actively resisted by the Government. I hope that the Minister can assure us that the guidelines will not be allowed further to tilt the balance of the Community's programme with non-Lomé countries away from Asia, where the greatest levels of poverty lie. What is the Minister doing to ensure that the overriding priority of helping the poorest is compatible with promoting Community business under the guidelines?
  There are also serious concerns about the programme over funding. The Council of Ministers recently attempted to cut elements of the Asia-Latin America programme to find money for the 400 million ecu aid package for the Soviet Union.
  Did the Minister support the Council of Ministers' proposal to cut 14·8 million ecu in commitments from budget line B7/3005 for support for small and medium-sized businesses, including the co-operatives in Asia? Did she, in the Council of Ministers, support the proposal to cut 10·8 million ecu of commitments from budget line B7/3015 for similar activities in Latin America?

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  Although the cuts have been opposed by the European Parliament, the attempts to cut aid to Asia and Latin America belie the oft-repeated assurances by the Commission and by the United Kingdom Government that the south will not lose out to the east.
  Mr. Hugo Summerson: I am sure that the hon. Lady will find time to welcome the proposal by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to remit entirely the debts of the poorest countries to the tune or £550 million.
  Mrs. Clwyd: Of course one welcomes that move by the Prime Minister. Opposition Members have been urging it for a long time. That leaves, of course, a percentage still owed by the poorest countries to the commerical banks and to multilaterals. I hope that the Prime Minister will also address that point in future proposals to allay the debt of some of the poorest countries. I hope also that he will apply himself to the debts of some middle-income countries, which are equally worrying and in respect of which we have also been urging some debt relief.
  Mr. Corbyn: Although any relief of debt must be welcome news for the poorest in the poorest parts of the world, my hon. Friend will be aware that the Prime Minister, in making his statement, also put down considerable conditions, insisting on the adoption of market economy measures which have been a palpable failure in this country and in many other parts of the world. That is a condition on which the British Government would be prepared to write off those debts.
  Mrs. Clwyd: I thank my hon. Friend for reminding us of that point. I am sure that his remarks will not fall on deaf ears on the Government side of the House.
  The other major change included in the document is the proposal to end the present practice of the EC aid programme to Asia and Latin America being run on a system of single-year cycles. That practice has been rightly criticised as clearly working against long-term planning. As the Minister said, we welcome the principle of changing to multi-year programmes, allowing the Community and recipients to build a proper long-term strategy for its aid and economic co-operation in Asia and Latin America which is badly lacking at present.
  There are also other welcome elements in the guidelines, some of which the Minister mentioned, such as the stress on human rights and democracy, the undertaking to direct aid towards the poorest people, and references to support for the human dimension of development, notably the role of women. As I said, much lip service has been paid to directing aid towards women. I hope that the ODA will have specific targets and be able to answer specific questions on that point.
  Dr. Godman: With regard to improvements in human rights and the development of parliamentary democracies in Latin American countries which, rightly and properly, are to receive this sort of assistance from the European Community, is my hon. Friend aware of any discussions with United Nations officials concerning that aid? I remind her that Mr. de Soto and his colleagues have performed admirable work on behalf of the United Nations in El Salvador and Guatemala. Perhaps their experiences in those countries might help the European Community's deliberations concerning those criteria.
  Mrs. Clwyd: I thank my hon. Friend for making those valuable points. I hope that the Government will also be even-handed in their consideration of support for human rights. There is plenty of evidence that the Government have not been even-handed and that, depending on their attitude towards the rulers of certain countries, they will turn a blind eye to the abuse of human rights in those countries.
  I agree with the reservation in the ODA memorandum on the vagueness of the guidelines on environmental vetting. The issue of implementation is even more important. In practice, the record of EC aid to the regions is appalling. Let us take Bangladesh as an example. At the end of last year, the EC Court of Auditors produced an utterly damning report on the record of the Community's programme to that country between 1976 and 1988. One of the report's criticisms was that none of the 12 major problems looked at, which accounted for nearly three quarters of the total spent in the period, achieved its main socio-economic objectives. It stated that most projects set unrealistic completion dates. A cotton project that was supposed to take three years was still less than three quarters implemented after eight years. One cereals project started three months after it was supposed to finish. The assessment and monitoring of the EC programmes was weak.
  Aid was given to improve veterinary services for livestock, assuming that that was behind the shortage of animal power for ploughing and other tasks in rural Bangladesh. In fact, the shortfall had more to do with the lack of fodder and of credit for farmers to buy animals, which the project did nothing to tackle. Monitoring was poor, which is hardly surprising because the report reveals that, since the middle of 1986, only one person in Brussels had responsibility for monitoring the 65 EC-funded infrastructure projects in various countries, and that he did not visit Bangladesh once.
  It is not only in Bangladesh that EC aid has failed to reach the poorest. To choose just one example from the Latin American programme, 18·5 million ecu was allocated for the Central American civil aviation authority to equip the airline network with radar—hardly much help to the struggling peasant farmers or agricultural workers on poverty pay across the region.
  The lessons from Bangladesh and from other EC programmes in Asia and Latin America are that, although it is important to have better guidelines for Community aid to Asia and Latin America, it is even more important to ensure that the guidelines are followed and properly implemented.
  Ministers have not been slow to agree about the shortcomings in EC aid—almost as a way of diverting criticism from the bilateral programme—but the Government's attitude to the scandal of wasted EC aid has been as ambiguous and confused as their attitude to Europe in general. They distance themselves from the shortcomings of EC aid by shifting the blame on to the Community, as though they were not part of it. It is imperative that the Government do more to be actively and constructively engaged in ensuring that programmes under the new guidelines are carefully assessed, monitored and evaluated in practice. Perhaps our European partners would pay more heed to what the British Government have to say about the quality of Community aid if we were seen to be serious in our commitment to the overall level of aid funding instead of cutting aid to just 0·27 per cent.

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  of GNP last year—the lowest ever on record and something that the Minister herself told us last week that she regretted.
  With a Labour Government in place by June next year for the start of Britain's presidency of the Community, we will act to ensure that Britain's aid programme is adequately funded and that Europe's aid programme to Asia and Latin America is effectively used in the battle against poverty.
  11.39 pm
  Sir Michael Marshall: Having just returned from Asia and Latin America. I am glad to have this opportunity to say a few words in this debate. When I read the guidelines for co-operation with developing countries in Latin America and Asia, I was worried about the bloodless nature of the prose. When I considered some of the problems with which both Latin America and Asia are confronted, I was anxious about the way in which the proposed implementation would work in practice. Also, the sanctions to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) referred earlier seem to call come matters into question.
  Having heard my right hon. Friend the Minister, I was somewhat more reassured, although I still wish to put some questions to her. I appreciated in particular the robust ending of her speech, in which she said that the Council of Ministers, as I would hope, is there to make political judgments, to take the bloodless prose and to consider some of the practical problems and what can be done to resolve them.
  In paragraph 5.2.2, the guidelines state:
  "the Commission considers it neither desirable nor possible to retain the original objectives for Community aid to the developing countries in Asia and Latin America. if only because the needs of these countries have changed."
  That is undoubtedly true, but it is precisely because of those changes that I suggest that there is an opportunity perhaps to sharpen up the way in which Community aid, along with bilateral aid, might be directed.
  One must observe in Latin America the truly remarkable political development of the ending of so many "murky military dictatorships", as my right hon. Friend described them. That presents us with an era ahead in which Latin America and Europe will come closer and closer together. That is to be greatly welcomed. It is perhaps indicative of that that, at the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference just over a week ago, Spanish was introduced as a third main language, after many generations of having English and French as the only effective official languages. That is a sign of the times, and something which, again, I welcome.
  Within the document, there are some good thoughts on the environment and so on and, indeed, on the general framework of how economic aid to those countries might be applied. But I wish to concentrate on drugs for a moment in relation to aid to Latin America. It seems to me that the stated objective of helping to stamp out drug production is all very fine, but I am worried about the degree to which aid seems to be specific, in the sense that it is not coupled directly with whether there is a total commitment to stamping out drug production.
  I hope that my right hon. Friend can assure me that, at the political level, assessments will be made to ensure that
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  aid which is given throught the community does not go hand in hand with economies which are being successfully driven forward by ever-increasing drug production. There should be some relationship there. There should be some willingness to withdraw, if that is seen as a feature of certain countries.
  Mr. Corbyn: In the hon. Member's discussions with people about the awful problem of drug production in Latin America, was the problem raised with him that many farmers are paid such disgracefully low prices for legitimate crops that they produce that to some extent they feel themselves pushed into drug production against their wishes, and certainly without any wish to pollute our youth in Europe or north America with the consequences of their drug production, the profits from which go. of course, to the millionaires in between?
  Sir Michael Marshall: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. The obvious corollary is surely to ensure that aid goes to helping to resolve that balance. That is the type of aid that I would like to see.
  I shall be brief, because I am aware that others wish to speak, and we have only a short time. Turning to the problems of Asia, I want to concentrate not on the environment, population or drugs, which are well known problems, but on human rights. The problem of human rights in Asia is massive. Before I deal with it, I must cross swords briefly with the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd). She suggested that we should simply continue to push aid into Asia-Pacific on an ever-increasing scale. In touching on that problem, she ignores an important and significant shift within the Asia-Pacific region.
  Anyone who has had the chance to attend Asia-Pacific conferences recently must be greatly encouraged by the way in which more and more countries within the region are beginning to see a commitment—indeed, a positive moral imperative—to assist in the process of development within the region. One can cite the constructive attitude of Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and Korea in that regard. Therefore, one should not automatically assume that there is a straight, upward European progression. It must be related to what is being done in the region. Given that resources will always be limited, one should not just take a straight, upward-curve view of life about assistance to Asia. One must balance those two factors.
  I was pleased that my right hon. Friend stressed human rights. Against the background of Harare, with the tie in the Commonwealth of aid to progress on human rights, we see a standard that I should like to believe could he more widely spread throughout Asia. The human rights problems are well known, and I do not need to repeat them in detail.
  There is a long way to go on rights for women and children. The House does not need to be reminded of all the figures, but in Asia, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, the overwhelming number of illiterate women is one of the greatest single barriers to progress for their future and that of their country. I hope that my right hon. Friend, if not tonight then in future, can let me know how much aid is spent, not just on women and children as the hon. Lady requested, but on that specific area of illiteracy, which is the greatest challenge of all.
  In many areas of human rights, whether on a country's record on political prisoners or on the rights of ethnic

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  minorities, our aid, whether bilateral or through the Community, must increasingly look for progress and should indeed include some sanction if we cannot find progress. In short, what has been said in Harare sets the standard which should apply not only to our bilateral aid, but to the aid that we are discussing tonight.
  11.46 pm
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I shall he only a few moments and shall follow the hon. Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall) in his comments, particularly about south-east Asia.
  We should treat the hon. Gentleman's proposition with some importance. There is a great scope for many of the major manufacturing countries in south-east
  Asia— certainly Japan, Hong Kong and the other countries that he mentioned—to play a far more responsible role in developing the countries on their doorstep, which in many ways are underdeveloped. However, there is a danger, as I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree. Japanese aid policy is often determined by self-interest, and if the Japanese were given almost a monopoly arrangement on, for instance, the right of access for aid, in the long term they might abuse it and turn some of those smaller countries virtually into satellite manufacturing states, creating a Greater Japan and developing further industrial strength for it. One should bear that consideration in mind, particularly when considering the role of Japan in that area.
  I wish to tackle tht Minister on the report of the European Court of Auditors. A couple of years after I was first elected, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) made a notable speech in the House about a Court of Auditors report. Those reports are rich pickings, and we now have them on Community aid. It seems, however, that little changes. The right hon. Lady said that a couple of staff from the Department has been seconded to the Community to advise, in order to secure higher standards in the quality of aid. I am not altogether convinced that that is sufficient. The European Parliament needs to set up a Public Accounts Committee, similar to the operation that we have in the United Kingdom. It is due to lack of accountability, in terms of not being able to ask questions of the civil servants in the Commission responsible for implementing these policies, that no action is taken to rectify problems.
  The right hon. Lady should take that principle on hoard, and I shall press it as and when a Labour Government are elected—because I believe that European institutions should be kept far more accountable in terms of the public moneys that they expend.
  There was a statment tonight on the tapes about the Vietnamese boat people. I had expected far greater numbers of people to be involved in the agreement, but there are fewer than 300. A number of my hon. Friends have visited the camps, as have Conservative Members, and the conditions are quite appalling. The Hong Kong authorities are struggling to resolve an insoluble problem. The international community is not interested in playing its part in resolving the problem. Indeed, if people from those camps were invited to more developed parts of the world, that would only lead to an even greater invasion of people from Vietnam into Hong Kong and other parts of south-east Asia. Some people who are genuine refugees will always have a right to move to different parts of the
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  world, but we must not set up a system which simply invites more and more people to Hong Kong and south-east Asia.
  How can we get out of the mess? The only answer is for the western powers, and particularly the European Community, to change their attitude to investment in Vietnam. That country is crying out for investment. If it thought that the investment tap was to be turned on, it might see the problem of the resettlement of its people in a different light. I hope that the right hon. Lady will consider that suggestion.
  Tonight my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) and I had an interesting dinner with a professor from Strathclyde university. The subject of our conversation was the attitude of successive British Governments to the export of technology, particularly in relation to power generation. The Minister will be aware that my hon. Friend has tabled many questions on this matter recently and that there have been some heated exchanges on ATP—aid and trade provision—policy.
  If the Minister was honest with herself, I am sure that she would accept that problems arise with the technology involved in such programmes. I do not believe that those problems can be abolished overnight, as they are part of a deep-rooted section of British industry that has somehow managed to graft itself on to part of the aid budget.
  It could he argued that one should start reprofiling the available aid into technologies which meet environment-ally acceptable criteria. The non-fossil fuel obligation is an interesting example of such development. If one creates a market, industry then moves to react to those new conditions. Is it not possible for the Government to reprofile British industry exports that are ATP-supported or tied-aid-supported towards projects which are environmentally acceptable?
  In recent months, the Minister has made some commendable speeches on good governance. The Foreign Secretary also made a good speech on the subject in Westminster Hall about six months ago. Could the right hon. Lady start developing the case for changing the nature of our exports in this area towards such environmentally acceptable projects? I accept that the Minister might claim that she is already doing so, but that this is not coming through in the presentation of policy.
  I have spoken to those who work in the relevant agencies and they remain unconvinced at this stage that meaty negotiations are taking place with British industry about changing the profile of the exports. The problem is that, unless major initiatives are taken and the Government lay down far stricter criteria on what projects they are prepared to support, we shall stick to the old pattern of ATP allocation, with all the dangers and environmental instability that that can create in some parts of the world. I make those points on the back of this debate because much of that technology is going into the areas to which we have referred tonight.
  Finally, I give an example of where that could have been done but was not. We fought a war in the Falklands in 1982. The Ministry of Defence spent hundreds of millions of pounds on logistical support during and after the war. Instead of sending vast amounts of oil for power generation there, why did we not send windmill technology, which is now very advanced? One windmill can produce three quarters of a megawatt of electricity. Only 1,800 people live in that part of the world, so a couple of windmills would provide electricity for most of the

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  Falklands islands—certainly enough for the south of the islands, where most of the people live. Instead, we sent ships loaded with oil.
  That simple proposition helps to concentrate our minds on the fact that there are other ways to deal with problems of power generation, which do not require the burning of fossil fuel. Yet they arc available in the form of fairly cheap technology.
  11.57 pm
  Mr. Jim Lester: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and find that I agree with every point that he has just made.
  I have always understood that our proposals for change in the European Parliament are about financial and public accounts control, and to give the European Parliament an opportunity to question the European budget as we do in the House.
  I follow the hon. Gentleman's point about the Vietnamese boat people. In spite of the pros mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall), all the documents show a convergence and improvement that are to be welcomed. We also welcome the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister and her officials in bringing that about. It is clear that, in those areas of the world, unless there is a convergence and a common policy on development, we shall not chip away at the huge problems which we all recognise exist.
  I shall mention three countries for which there is a sense of urgency. First, I follow the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) in mentioning Cambodia. Those of us who have been involved in that country's agonising moves toward the ending of a war and its potential for re-establishing itself in the community of nations look forward to the signatures of the various parties on Wednesday and the setting in motion of the virtuous circle, rather than the other one, which has been the source of such despair for so long.
  We are fairly sanguine about that situation and know that it will need a great deal of diplomacy and skill before things are seen to be happening on the ground. It would help if we could make a statement on our attitudes toward the new Supreme National Council and the problems of resettlement, which is one of the subjects that concern us. The Secretary-General is well aware that a hurried resettlement, or driving across the border by any faction that has people in Thailand, would be deplored by all of us.
  Statements about resettlement and the shortfall in funds that is likely to be declared in Paris would be a helpful way for us to play a part in bringing about the changes in Cambodia that we want to see. Those of us who have been there know the scale of need in the short term, but it is a pump-priming exercise, because Cambodia is not like sub-Saharan Africa. but has tremendous resources and potential. Therefore, any aid that comes from this country and Europe will be of a pump-priming nature.
  One aim which has been realised by visiting experts and which could be achieved relatively quickly would be to provide the know-how ability to raise taxes from the population who, at present, pay no taxes although they have a thriving market economy. We are not talking
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  merely about providing big money in terms of redevelopment, roads, telecommunications, hospitals and resettlement, but of rapidly providing the new Government with the knowledge of how to operate a modern state.
  I totally agree with what the hon. Member for Workington said about Vietnam. Those of us who know that country know that desperate poverty is the driving force behind people leaving and must be alleviated. That is where human rights enter the argument, because it is a matter of linking progress with development, but not denying the development in the short term. Vietnam probably has the most significant environmental problems of any country in Asia. I shall not go into the reasons for that, because everyone recognises the enormous devasta-tion caused by the war.
  There is tremendous scope for giving Europe the opportunity to break the log jam of the American embargo on Vietnam. Whatever help we give, we are essentially involved in a pump-priming exercise. With the right level of short-term aid, Vietnam could become a second South Korea in a short time, because it has an industrious, able people, and although it is not over-blessed with resources, it has a considerable potential market.
  I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could give some sign of how she hopes to lead her European colleagues on 28 November in discussions on those countries, because we are anxious for them to rejoin the family of nations and a prosperous south-east Asia so that we can concentrate even more on different countries in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world that will never have the same opportunity.
  One takes a harder line on human rights in Burma, which is an essential producer of drugs. So far, the aid that has gone to Burma from United Nations organisations has been solely connected with drugs. We have all stopped our aid programmes to Burma because of its appalling human rights record and its rejection of the democratic elections held two years ago. We have to weigh the relative evils: drug production and denial of human rights. If we are to deal with Burma, which is a major producer, how can we ensure that any assistance to deal with drugs is ring-fenced so that it specifically addresses that problem and gives no encouragement to what I consider to be the illegal regime currently in control in Burma?
  There is tremendous opportunity throughout the world at present. There has been change in Latin America and Asia in districts where it seemed impossible to foresee any improvement, and the same progress can be repeated in Africa and eastern Europe. The opportunities for the transfer of resources that Europe should be contemplating are tremendous. That is the answer to the economic migration that concerns many people, including my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Therefore, we should seriously debate the overall level of aid that we are prepared to give from the European Community, and ensure that it reaches the target countries in good time and at the right time to have the maximum effect.
  12.4 am
  Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: I congratulate the Minister on holding this debate at a relatively early hour. The last similar debate was held, as I recall, at about 3 am.

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  I represent a dissenting voice amidst all this unanimity. I note that the Minister looks pleased at last. There is something wrong with the approach being foisted on the poorest countries in the world. The continent of Latin America, for instance, has gone from having a trade surplus 30 years ago to having a significant deficit. It is in debt; low prices paid for commodities sold by the continent have contributed to that debt, as have the high interest rates of the past 10 years.
  Meanwhile, there have been enormous social upheavals. Rio is now a vast sprawling metropolis surrounded by huge shanty towns. Most other large cities throughout Latin America are the same. Local infrastructures and communities are breaking down. With that breakdown go violence, crime and poverty.
  Drugs and drug production represent another major factor. That issue must be faced now and in the future. It is the poor of the inner cities of north America and of western Europe who suffer the consequences of this drug problem, and it is the poor in the poorest countries of Latin America who produce the drugs. In the middle somewhere are the millionaires whose hands are untainted by these drugs. At one end of the scale, people are forced to produce drugs because they cannot produce anything else that will pay them a reasonable price—and the results are seen on our streets.
  The attitude now prevalent seems to be that the only solution to Latin America's problems is a reduction in the activities of the state, which should concern itself only with security and the armed forces. The answer, it is said, lies in a rapid increase in export promotions and of inward investment to the continent. The result is the horror stories that we hear—of schools and hospitals being closed and of water purification programmes being put back—all to pay off debts on the edict of Washington via the World bank and the IMF.
  I was pleased when I first heard the Prime Minister's statement on the radio last week that he was prepared to write off some of the debts of some of the poorest countries. The inevitable sting in the tail, however, is that writing off those debts appears conditional on the countries adopting what the Prime Minister calls market economics as a solution to their problems.
  It is the utmost arrogance on the part of western European Governments, who have deliberately encouraged low prices for the commodities produced by these countries—and the high interest rates that have contributed to their indebtedness—to claim now that they are prepared to write off some of their debts in return for the adoption of market economics, knowing full well that those economics led to enormous social upheaval in the countries. Such arrogance resembles that of certain 19th-century English statesmen and their colonising activities around the world.
  Mr. Lester: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Corbyn: We should be thinking a little more seriously about the consequences of some of our policies for the desperately poor people of Latin America.
  Mr. Lester: Surely the hon. Gentleman understands that there is no point in writing off a country's debts without changing the policies that caused the debt in the first place? The whole point of market economics is to effect change so that those debts will not recur. Writing off debts and leaving them to accumulate again helps no one.
  Mr. Corbyn: I agree with the hon. Gentleman and hope that that does not ruin his future. The policy which caused the debt in the first place must be changed. There is no point in writing off the severe debt of those countries without looking at the policies. I have here the OECD list of such countries. The policies that need to be changed are not those relating to the degree of social activity of the state in those countries, which is usually minimal. I want to see policies that will lead to significantly higher commodity prices and much lower interest payments so that those countries will be able to develop. The hon. Gentleman seems to advocate some form of punishment of the Governments of many of those countries.
  The rubric being foisted upon the poorest countries is that the solution to all their problems is the adoption of a free enterprise economy. The pinnacle of that is the GATT negotiations, the obsession of the former Prime Minister, with the idea of a world free market in food. If ever there was a manifesto for free enterprise for the big agribusiness countries of western Europe and north America, that is it. That would be the consequence of the GATT policies that the former Prime Minister sought to pursue.
  We must pay attention to the environmental and social consequences and the long-term economic relationship arising from such policies. Despite all the talk about aid for the past 20 years, the reality is that the gap between the richest and poorest countries has got bigger and in many cases the economies of the poorest countries are contracting. We should pursue policies that will help to alleviate social problems and allow economies to expand in a sustainable way rather than in an environmentally destructive way. I know that the Minister has spent some time on that issue.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) spoke about El Salvador and the unfairness of its land distribution system. I think that she said that the basis of many of that country's problems arc the maldistribution of land and poverty. The same applies in Nicaragua, just across the border, where the Sandinista Government have been defeated in an election that they themselves called. The consequences of the free market economy being thrust upon Nicaragua are that co-operatives are being broken up and the big landowners are returning. Much of the social deprivation that brought about the Sandinista revolution in the first place is returning.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: Why was not land reform carried out in Nicaragua during all the years of the Sandinista Government?
  Mr. Corbyn: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. A great deal of land reform was carried out. The hon. Gentleman may not have been listening carefully to my speech. I spoke about the return of unreformed land in Nicaragua to large owners who are returning and being given their land back by the current Government. That is one of the problems recreating the inequalities that brought about the Sandinista revolution. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Ms. Primarolo) visited Nicaragua during the time of the Sandinista Government and can confirm what I have said.
  Ms. Dawn Primarolo: Yes.
  Mr. Corbyn: Perhaps in winding-up, the Minister will tell the House about the trading relationship between the EC, including this country, and Cuba. Cuba removed

  765
  United States influence in 1959 and has suffered 30 years of a United States economic blockade. As a means of survival, Cuba became a full member of Comecon and its economy was greatly linked to those of eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Now it has to pay for all its imports with hard currency—[Interruption.] Conservative Members may laugh, but that has resulted in severe shortages for the Cuban people. The Government of Cuba are making considerable efforts to export medicines and medical equipment and to diversify their economy to give self-sufficiency and export fresh food and vegetables. Cuba produces many goods which could reasonably be imported into Britain and western Europe. In return, this country and western Europe might like to export to Cuba such things as technical equipment, vehicles and electrical technology.
  I hope that the Minister will not allow the Government to be persuaded by President Bush and others in the United States into further isolating Cuba, which has made considerable achievements in education, literacy and health. It is probably the best-educated and most literate country in Latin America: that is a great achievement for a country that was in abject poverty in 1959.
  Mr. Jacques Arnold: I wonder whether the Cuban Government might be prevailed upon to go for the biggest achievement of them all and to have a truly democratic election. It is now the only Hispanic Latin American country not to have had a proper election of its Government by the people.
  Mr. Corbyn: That is rich, coming from the hon. Gentleman. He talks about democracy in Latin America, but I remember him, only two or three years ago, at 4 o'clock in the morning, desperately defending the Pinochet Government. The human rights record of the United States, in its activities in the region, is abominable. I am asking the Minister what trade conditions are being imposed on Cuba and what trade will be allowed in future.
  What is being given to Sri Lanka and is there any monitoring of how that aid is used? What controls are there over the final destination of that aid? The situation there is appalling. The abuses of human rights are serious and there is great poverty. It would be useful if the Minister could address herself to those questions.
  I hope that we can come back for futher debates on the relationship between northern and southern countries. We cannot go on observing the growing gulf between the richest and the poorest countries and adopting economic policies that widen rather than narrow that gulf, create rather than prevent environmental destruction and create greater poverty and urbanisation, rather than promoting sustainable development.
  debatge.
  12.17 am
  Mrs. Chalker: With the leave of the House, in the time left to me I shall try to respond to as many as possible of the points made in this interesting debate.
  It is evidence of the consensus in the House that hon. Members seemed to agree with most of the factors that I outlined in my opening speech, such as European Community co-operation in aid programmes with Asia and Latin America. Good government, with all its
  766
  implications—including elections in Cuba—seems to be the order of the day. We want not only the Community aid programme, but all aid programmes, to have a poverty focus and an emphasis on the special needs of women. We want conservation of the environment to be a requirement of all aid programmes, not just that of the EC, which is the subject of our debate. We want to ensure that we help these countries in their great fight against drugs. We need effective measures to raise project quality. I hope, although it has not been mentioned in the debate, that hon. Members will agree that all aid programmes should give support for population planning and family health, because these are critical to the well-being of the developing world.
  We shall continue to press other issues in other Community programmes. We have to achieve many objectives through the international financial institutions, particularly the World bank, as well as in the EC and our bilateral activities. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) for his comments on the improvement and development of Community aid. I can tell him that it is certainly better than it was five years ago, but the reason for having strict guidelines and for ensuring that they are implemented is to improve them still further. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel (Sir M. Marshall) also referred to that. While I am mentioning him, may I congratulate him on his election as president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which is welcomed by his colleagues in all parties.
  Some hon. Members commented on the quality of aid, as did I. The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) asked about the accountability of the Commission in delivering its aid programme. The Court of Auditors report to which the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) referred demonstrates that there are controls in the system. Their scope may need broadening, but they exist and it is Britain that has emphasised for many years the importance of proper evaluation. Progress has been made, especially in the past two or three years, and I shall continue to press for further progress. However, I agree that aid quality control mechanisms within the Commission are not as tight as we want them to be. There is more work to be done and we shall continue to do it.
  We must continue to press for accountability from aid recipients because accountability is an integral part of good government. It is not enough for the Commission to ensure that the aid is being dispatched properly—it is critical that the aid is properly utilised, so donors must he subject to the highest standards of accountability and control. We must ensure that that control extends to the recipient countries.
  We have covered much ground this evening, but I especially want to take up the points made by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley about women. She asked what percentage of the projects are of direct benefit to women. I fear that she misses the fundamental point, which is that women bear the overwhelming burden of poverty in the developing world. They and their children are at the bottom of the heap, which is why every programme must have a poverty focus to try to lift that burden from them. To focus on poverty is to benefit women directly. It is too important an issue to aim at targets which could quickly become meaningless—all poverty-focused aid must and should benefit women. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel, with whose comments on the key

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  role of women in development I concur, will accept that. We believe that it is crucial for the development of these nations that aid is directed to poverty alleviation and thereby helps women.
  Sir Michael Marshall: I asked my right hon. Friend about illiteracy and the slave labour of women and children at work.
  Mrs. Chalker: If I started to talk about slave labour, we might be here beyond the time allotted. However, I have sought to deal with the question of illiteracy during my two and half years with the Overseas Development Administration. To enable women to read and write is to enable them to start to take their rightful place. Therefore, our programmes seek—as do projects such as the Aga Khan Foundation projects which I mentioned—to target women to enable them to play their full role.
  I shall respond to what the hon. Member for Cynon Valley said about the split between Asia and Latin America. She asked whether the emphasis was moving away from the poorest countries. I assure her that it is not, and that we shall not allow that to happen. I remind her that the ALA programme began as a consequence of British accession to the Community because of our close relationship with the poor countries of southern Asia. It is a key objective in our present discussions and will remain so.
  Far from promoting EC business interests, the bulk of the ALA programme goes to the poor countries of Asia and will focus on the poverty alleviation that I have mentioned. There will, of course, be encouragement of private investment for the more developed countries of Latin America; that is part of generating growth in their economies. However, as far as we can see—and the intentions of our colleagues in the Community are the same as ours—we shall focus specifically on poverty alleviation, and that means on Asia.
  Several hon. Members have asked me about Cambodia and Vietnam. There is no aid and trade embargo on Cambodia. Last year, we extended our British non-governmental organisation joint funding scheme to Cambodia. We encouraged Voluntary Service Overseas to start work there and we made more than £ 1 million available through the United Nations agencies. With the settlement, which we hope is about to be signed on Wednesday, we shall build on those measures, and we shall make a specific United Kingdom announcement very shortly about what further we can do. We will build on the work that we have done in the past, but we will also go into new areas of work.
  On Vietnam, and especially on the vexed problem of the Vietnamese boat people, we believe that financial support
  768
  for an international programme to assist the reintegration of the returning economic migrants and know-how for the Vietnamese Government's economic reform programme are most important. We will provide those, and details will be announced very shortly.
  On the boat people specifically, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has today announced in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Carrington) a pledge of £3 million towards the international reintegration assistance programme. That is in addition to our substantial share of the European Community contribution to the $114 million international reintegration assistance programme. We know that there is an urgent need for a solution, and we are working away at it. The internationally agreed comprehensive plan of action offers the best way to bring the solution about, but it is essential that we implement it fully, especially the provision that all non-refugees must return to their country of origin.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe asked me a number of other questions which I should like to answer, but I shall have to do so in writing.
  The Community dimension of our programme is increasingly important in our overall development assistance effort. We have worked hard to ensure that the regulation reflects our priorities. I believe that the version on which we finally decide in November will meet that objective. I commend the motion to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 4051/91 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memoranda submitted by the Overseas Development Administration on 18th and 25th February 1991, and 5896/91 + COR I, relating to financial and technical co-operation with developing countries in Asia and Latin America; and endorses the Government's policy on Community aid to Asian and Latin American countries.

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 102 (9) (Standing Committees on European Community documents),

  DISABLED WORKERS (TRANSPORT)
  That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 4315/91 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of Transport on 3rd June 1991, relating to safe transport of workers with reduced mobility; notes that the principle of improved transport for people with reduced mobility is in line with the Government's aims; and endorses the Government's intention to seek amendments to the draft Directive so that it neither undermines the policy aims of the Government supported by its disability advisers nor imposes unreasonable burdens on the transport industries.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
  Question agreed to.

PETITION

  Cruelty to Animals
  12.27 am
  Mr. Simon Burns: I want to present to the House a petition organised by Miss Lisa Steele of Linnet drive, Chelmsford and signed by more than 200 of my constituents who are extremely concerned about the cruelty suffered by animals in the cause of producing and manufacturing commercial sales of cosmetics and toiletries, in spite of protests over many years.
  The petition reads:
  Wherefore your Petitioner prays that your honourable House will accept and agree to the plea offered, condemning such activities and practices. and introducing more rigid guidelines for proper conduct in these institutions.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Residential Homes (Leicester)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]
  12.28 am
  Mr. Greville Janner: I am pleased to have the chance to ask the House to listen to the plea of the residents of Simon lodge, in my constituency, and to those of residents of other old people's homes in the city of Leicester—in areas represented so ably by my hon. Friends the Members for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) and for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz). Those homes are threatened with closure; their residents are likely to be evicted, and it is a disgrace that they are to be forced out of their homes as they approach the autumn, and, indeed, the winter, of their days.
  It was Charles de Gaulle who said that life was a great voyage whose end was shipwreck. The proposal to close down the homes means that the lives of elderly people will be wrecked, and the only reason is money. This is placing money—profit and cost—above all other considerations, and it is placing the quality of life at the bottom of the pile of care.
  I appeal to the Minister to use his considerable influence to prevent this from happening. Leicestershire county council is one of those unhappy bodies that are hung: it has more Conservatives than members of any other party. Unless the Minister intervenes, they will vote in favour of throwing out the residents of Simon lodge; and giving them the choice not of staying where they are, but of going to whatever private homes—or, possibly, other public homes—they wish to go to. That is a choice that they do not want, because they are contented where they are.
  The Social Democrats hold the balance on the council. I have privately appealed to them to join their Labour colleagues in saying, "No: we will not allow this to happen.- Whether they will do so, we shall see. The committee that will make the decision meets on Wednesday. I can tell its members that neither residents, nor their families, nor their supporters, nor their friends, nor the voters in the city of Leicester, will forgive them if they vote with the Tories to close Simon lodge.
  Why is this happening? Some of us saw the Minister, who has been good enough to stay up so late to be with us, the other day. Producing the brief that he had received, he told us bluntly that there was concern about the provisions for health and hygiene in the homes. I contacted Brian Waller, who is director of social services and performs an excellent service for the public. I asked him whether there was any fear about the health and safety of my constituents in Simon lodge. He replied:
  "On the question of health and hygiene and the kitchen improvements, while there are no urgent shortcomings which would cause the Environmental Health Officer to be seriously concerned, the survey work which was carried out showed that the kitchen and other facilities in this 21 year old home need to be siimilicantln, upgraded to modern standards."
  I have been to the home many times. I can testify that it is a place where people are happy and well cared for; moreover, it is a decent home on which a great deal of money has been spent. It is clean and well decorated; it is the sort of home where there is a perfectly adequate building, but where what really matters is that people are cared for: The staff have an affection for the residents and look after them, and the residents want to stay.

  771
  I put it to the director of social services that this was a home where people were well looked after, and where there was no risk to health. When I spoke to him, he told me frankly that there was no concern about any threat to the residents at present. I pointed out that there would be hazards to health if there were unhygienic circumstances. That must be attended to now: it was not a question of closing the home. He said that there was no such threat.
  Of course there is not. It is an excuse. What the authority is really saying is that it wants to sell the place. But we know that a Conservative council wants to buy it. This is not what was described in this afternoon's debate as creeping privatisation: it is galloping privatisation at the expense of elderly people, and that is wrong. It is not what was described in the press as "back-door" privatisation. It is front-door privatisation through the main entrance of Simon lodge, and it is intended to drive out the people who want to stay in that home. They will have to be moved to private homes. Well, there are some very good private homes in Leicester, but there are also some that are not so good.
  The Government say that those people should have a choice. If that is the case, they should be able to choose to stay where they are and not be driven out simply because the home will have to he upgraded some day. Many other places will need to be upgraded one day. Even places that are not residential homes will have to be upgraded some day. For example, the Palace of Westminster needs upgrading. I asked at Question Time today why the facilities for the staff of this place are so bad, and I was told that those facilities were to be upgraded. However, that does not mean that this place will be closed down and people will be driven out now.
  Closing the home is wrong, and totally lacks compassion. It is unfair to push people out. We are not dealing with the privatisation of a utility such as gas, electricity or water. We are dealing with a home where people live, where they have a good quality of care and life and where they want to stay.
  One old lady at the home, whom I will not name, is 92. She has been in the home for 22 years. The people at the home do not want to tell her what is happening, because they fear that to do so would be the end of her. We are dealing with human beings, not with pieces of furniture. No doubt the Minister will claim that it is a matter for the county council, not for him. I cannot advise the council to listen to the Minister. However, the Minister is a cunning, shrewd, intelligent operator, and he knows that Leicestershire will not forgive him if he allows the home to close.
  The case is simple. Some money needs to be spent on Simon lodge, but it is a good home in which people want to stay. People live there in a happy, contented, comfy environment, and it should remain open. The care of the elderly means looking after them and keeping them in their own homes where possible. If places like Simon lodge become elderly people's homes, they should be kept open. I appeal to the Minister, and through him to the council, not to close that home but to allow the people living there to continue their good lives in that excellent and happy place.
  12.37 am
  Mr. Keith Vaz: I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) for the privilege of addressing the House on this issue. As he said, we met the Minister last week. This is a unique occasion, as this is the first time that I have seen all the three Members who represent Leicester together on an issue to defend the elderly people of Leicester.
  This is one of the saddest debates in which I have taken part—[Interruption.] I am sorry that the Minister is laughing, because this debate is serious. It is also sad because of the way in which elderly people in Dale house, Simon lodge and elsewhere are being treated by the county council as a result of the Government's policies.
  I pay tribute to Ben Edmunds, the chairman of the campaign committee at Dale house and to his other supporters who came to London last Thursday and accompanied me to Downing street and to Buckingham palace, and who also joined my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) at our meeting with the Minister.
  We want to dedicate the campaign to the memory of Mike Preston, the local county councillor in Humberstone who died only a few hours after launching the campaign and petition to save Dale house. We had hoped that the memory of Mike Preston would live on in Dale house, and we hope, even at this late stage, that Dale house and the other homes will be saved.
  If the Minister had cared to visit Dale house he would know that that home provides excellent care. It has excellent members of staff, and the residents want to stay there. At our meeting last week, the Minister said that he did not regard elderly services as a priority.
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell)indicated dissent.
  Mr. Vaz: The Minister said that, and we disagreed with him. We think that it is the most important priority. The elderly people of Leicester need homes such as Dale house, Curzon house and Simon lodge. They are their homes. For people such as Nellie and Tim, two residents who wish to live the rest of their lives in such homes, this matter has come as a traumatic shock. Two of the residents have died since the horrendous proposals were announced.
  At the end of a previous debate, the Minister said that to govern was to choose. He provides no choice for the residents of Dale house. He gives them no opportunity. They must either go into a private home or move their home. The Prime Minister, at the end of his speech to the Conservative party conference, said that the theme for the 1990s was the power to choose and the right to own. Those citizens are too old to be able to own, but they should be given the right to choose to remain where they want to remain.
  All we want is the money which Parliament should have given the local authority—the £8.7 million that is required as a result of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. I was a member of the Standing Committee which considered that legislation—the Minister was not. By providing that money, even at this late stage, those three homes can be saved. I urge the Minister to place his county before his party and allow those people to remain there.
  12.41 am
  Mr. Jim Marshall: I apologise for the poor quality of my voice. It is caused by the bug that is going around. I am sure that it has not been generated by the Minister.
  I also pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) for arranging this Adjournment debate. This is the first time in the four years of this Parliament that the three Leicester Members have been present as a group to urge a coherent policy on the Government. That shows what we and our constituents feel about the closure of the three elderly persons' homes in Leicester.
  We must realise that this matter is about resources. Those three homes have been threatened with closure, because, unless they close, the other elderly persons' homes within the county of Leicester cannot be brought up to a standard which would satisfy Government regulations. Those three homes—Curzon home is in my constituency —are being sacrificed because the Government are failing to provide sufficient resources to enable them to remain open.
  The Minister is a Leicestershire Member of Parliament. At a stroke, he can remove the threat to those three homes. He can remove the threat that the residents feel, of being dispersed to other public or private sector homes in the country. At a stroke he can allay the fears of residents and of their relatives, who are equally concerned about how their dependents will be cared for in future. I urge the Minister, as a compassionate person as well as a Minister of the Crown—there are occasions when those two roles are incompatible—to exercise discretion and ensure that Curzon home and the other two homes remain open.
  12.43 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Mr. Stephen Dorrell): I should begin by apologising to the House that I have to weary it with my opinions for a second time in an evening.
  I understand the natural concern that arises in any case where it is proposed that an elderly persons' home should be closed. I understand it particularly in this case because two of the three Leicester Members came to see me last week—the third sent his apologies; he was in Leicester at the time—to argue the case with me. I understand the problem also because I read the local newspapers in Leicester and I am well aware of the background to the case and the concern that has been aroused locally as a result of the proposals which the county council is due to consider on Wednesday.
  However, quite apart from the fact that I have read the newspapers and that the hon. and learned Gentleman has come to see me, it is obvious that any closure involves the disruption of elderly people's lives, which is something that we should all like to avoid. There is no argument between us on that, and I understand the concern that the case has aroused.
  It is also important that I should make my status clear in this matter. This issue has to be decided by Leicestershire county council, not by the House or Ministers in the Department of Health or in any other Department in Whitehall. There is an important distinction between the social services world and the national health service world. If we were talking about an NHS hospital and a contested proposal to close it, the
  774
  matter would ultimately be decided by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. It is the tradition in the Department of Health that in such circumstances the Under-Secretary has quite a large input into the decision that is ultimately to be made by the Secretary of State. There would be an appeals system against a proposal to close the homes in question if they were part of the NHS, but they are not—they are the property of the Leicestershire county council.
  It is absurd to suggest that every decision that falls to be made by a local authority should in some sense be held, either directly or indirectly, to be the responsibility of a Minister of the Crown. The purpose of local government is to ensure that not every decision in our society is taken by one of the 85 Members of Parliament who are Ministers of the Crown. We have local government to spread decision-making through the community and to have a more plural system of decision-making. One cannot accept the logic of that system if every difficult decision is then appealed to Ministers.
  I repeat that this is a decision for Leicestershire county council, not the Government.
  Mr. Vaz: The Minister will recall that, during the passage of the Children Act 1989, the Government provided extra resources for its implementation. Why will he not provide Leicestershire with the extra resources necessary for the implementation of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990?
  Mr. Dorrell: I was coming to resources later, but I will deal with them now. The Government have seen a substantial increase in the expenditure incurred by personal social service departments. In fact, since 1979, such spending has risen by 51 per cent. in real terms. It is absurd to say that no extra resources have gone into social services care—
  Mr. Vaz: Not for this legislation.
  Mr. Dorrell: Leicestershire county council is responsible for the allocation of its social services budget. It is within the discretion of the county council whether it uses the social services budget for this purpose or for some other social services purpose.
  The speech of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) also showed at the very least a misremembering of what I said when he came to see me last week. He suggested that it was my view that care of the elderly was not a priority. That is not my view. My view is that the Government are quite right in the world of social care to pursue the policy that we have described as a "mixed economy of care". We made it clear repeatedly in the "Caring for People" White Paper, if nowhere else— incidentally, at least until today, I thought that that White Paper represented a bipartisan policy—that, in the world of social care, we do not believe that it is necessarily right for the public sector to take upon itself the exclusive obligation to provide social care.
  There is an important distinction between our approach to health care, where we have repeatedly made it clear that we have no intention of privatising or of seeing an existing public health institution moved into the private sector, and our approach to social care, where we have said exactly the opposite and where we have repeatedly made it clear that we think that the private sector has an important

  775
  role to play. Indeed, we have welcomed the role that it has played in the growth of residential places for the elderly over the past 12 years.
  The first point about government policy, as carried out by local authorities, is that we are in favour of a mixed economy of care of private and public sector provision side by side. The second point is the most salient in the current dispute in Leicestershire. We do not think that it is any longer defensible for the public sector to provide residential places for the elderly against different quality standards from those which the public sector insists that the private sector observes. I should have hoped that all three hon. Gentlemen would welcome the fact that the public sector is committed to ensuring that all public sector residential care homes for the elderly meet the same standards as we have required for some time from private sector provision.
  Mr. Janner: Recognising that the public sector homes need upgrading, why will the Minister not make available the resources which the county council needs to do so? Is it not inevitable that, as a result of resources being taken away from it, the county council is forced to run down the public sector so as to drive people into the private sector?
  Mr. Dorrell: That is precisely the same point as the hon. Member for Leicester, East made. In response to him, I pointed out, as I do in response to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that expenditure on personal social services over the past 12 years has risen by 51 per cent. in real terms.
  Mr. Janner: What about in Leicestershire?
  Mr. Dorrell: I do not know the figure for Leicestershire offhand. Leicestershire is not out of line with the national picture. There has been a substantial increase in the resources available for social services provision. I was going through the key points of the Government's policy as discharged by local authorities. A third point is relevant in this case. We have repeatedly said that, where a change in the provision by a local authority is planned, the management of that change must take account of the welfare of the residents of the homes in question. In this case, it clearly means that, if there is a policy to close a proportion of county council homes, there must be a transitional plan which respects the legitimate interests and wishes of those who live in those homes today.
  The Government's policy has been carried through successfully since 1979 and has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of residential care places available for care for the elderly. The hon. Member for Leicester, East alleged that care for the elderly was not a priority. Far from it. The policy has resulted in a dramatic increase in provision over 12 years. The combination of our change in the rules on entitlement to DSS benefit and our encouragement of private provision has seen the number of residential care places in Leicestershire available for use by the elderly rise by 49 per cent. since 1979. Public and private sector provision have existed alongside each other, with the growth principally in the private sector. That was deliberately because of the policy of a mixed economy of provision for social care that I described.
  We recognise that the delivery of that policy had one significant defect—that it provides too great an emphasis on residential care and inadequate provision for
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  domiciliary and other support services to reduce the demand for residential care. That is one of the major factors that has led us to propose the changes in community care provision which will come into force in April 1993. Until tonight, that was a bipartisan policy supported by both sides of the House. However, it seems that there is a weakening of support on the Labour Back and Front Benches for the principles of community care.
  Clearly, if and when the community care policy is carried out—the social services have a clear responsibility under those provisions to manage the demand for residential care within their budgets against the identified needs of elderly people—it will tend to ensure that a larger share of that resource is used for domiciliary and residential support, daycare facilities, respite care and a full range of proper care for the elderly. Other things being equal, it will also tend to depress demand for residential places.
  Against that background, Leicestershire county council has homes below the standards that for some years it has been demanding of private sector providers as well as vacancies in its homes.
  Mr. Vaz: There are no vacancies.
  Mr. Dorrell: I am advised that there are about 200 vacancies in the public sector in Leicestershire. There is a total provision in the county of just over 1,800 places, of which 200 are vacant.
  Thirdly, against the background of community care, the prospect is that demand for places in residential care will not grow as fast in the years ahead as in the past.
  Against the background of those three salient facts— homes below standard, existing vacancies and the fact that future demand is unlikely to be buoyant—it does not seem unreasonable for the council to plan to improve the stock of its homes, financing that improvement by a reduction in the total number of places provided. The National Health Service and Community Care Act was passed only two years ago and it has been explicitly the responsibility of local authorities to manage this provision, so it would be absurd of the Government now to seek to second-guess the details, home by home, of carrying out that policy.
  The cost of bringing the three homes mentioned in this debate up to the standards required in the private sector is £255,000 for Dale house, £235,000 for Curzon house and £236,000 for Simon lodge. To bring all three homes up to the standards required in the private sector requires costs sigificantly above the average of homes in Leicestershire, which stands at £198,000.
  If the county council plans to reduce its provision to bring supply into balance with demand, it is not unreasonable for it to concentrate its reductions on the provision in the city of Leicester, which is where the alternatives are in most plentiful supply.
  I simply do not accept that this is the result of Government policy. Expenditure on social services has risen by 51 per cent. since 1979. The management of those resources is in the hands of the county council, and it is to the council before Wednesday night that the hon. Gentlemen's representations are properly addressed.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to One o'clock.

ENERGY

  Private Coal Mines
  Mr. Jack Thompson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list the privately owned deep coal mines in the counties of Northumberland and Durham and their possible life span.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The British Coal Corporation is the licensing authority under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946. The information requested is therefore a matter for it.

  Nuclear Power Plants
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list by date for the last 12 months, and for each nuclear power plant in the United Kingdom, the number of reported cases where tools or equipment have been dropped into a reactor tank.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  No such incidents have been reported to the Health and Safety Executive over the past 12 months.

  Energy Consumption
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list, in tabular form, the energy consumption in million tonnes of oil equivalent of(a) coal, (b) oil, (c) gas, (d) nuclear, (e) hydro and (f) other renewables in (i) the United Kingdom and (ii) each of the other OECD nations for the latest year available.

  Mr. Moynihan
  Data on energy consumption in the United Kingdom are published routinely in "Energy Trends" and the "Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics". Data on energy consumption in OECD nations in 1989, the latest year for which data are available, are published in the OECD publication "Energy Balances of OECD Countries, 1980–1989". Copies of each are available in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list, in tabular form, the energy consumption in million tonnes of oil equivalent of(a) coal, (b) oil, (c) gas, (d) nuclear, (e) hydro and (f) other renewables in (i) the United Kingdom and (ii) each of the other European Community nations for the latest year available.

  Mr. Moynihan
  Data on energy consumption in the United Kingdom are published routinely in "Energy Trends" and the "Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics". Data on energy consumption in European Community nations in 1990, are published in the Eurostat publication "Energy-Monthly Statistics". Copies of each are held in the Library of the House.
  306
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will list, in coal units, the energy consumption per inhabitant of(a) the United Kingdom and (b) each of the other European Community nations.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The data requested, available most recently for 1989, are as follows:

  Energy consumption per inhabitant

  Country

  Tonnes coal equivalent

  United Kingdom

  5·57

  Belgium

  6·45

  Denmark

  4·89

  France

  4·40

  FRG

  5·99

  Greece

  3·49

  Ireland

  4·02

  Italy

  4·25

  Luxembourg

  13·88

  Netherlands

  7·39

  Portugal

  2·01

  Spain

  2·77

  Source: United Nations Energy Statistics Yearbook 1989.

  Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what decisions have been taken, pursuant to the European Council resolution of 18 February 1980 on the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuels, as set out in the Official Journal No. 651, of 29 February 1980.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  In line with the European Council resolution referred to by the hon. Member, the United Kingdom has continued its programme of reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel while maintaining the objectives of public safety, environmental protection and non-diversion of nuclear materials.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy what decisions have been taken by Her Majesty's Government, pursuant to the European Council decision 80/237/EURATOM on the establishment of an ad hoc advisory committee on the reprocessing of irradiated nuclear fuels, as set out in the Official Journal L 52.26.2.80, page 9.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The Government co-operated in the work of the advisory committee referred to by the hon. Member and noted its findings. These were broadly in line with United Kingdom policy.

  IAEA Safeguards
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy, pursuant to his reply to the hon. Member of Newport, West of 28 March,Official Report, column 573, what expenses have been incurred by the United Kingdom under section 27 (finance) of INFCIRC 125, the agreement between the United Kingdom, Japan and the International Atomic Energy Agency; whether the agency has ever been relieved of its safeguards responsibilities under section 24(2) of INFCIRC 125; and if the suspension of INFCIRC 125 provisions under UNFCIRC/125/MOD. 1 of 2 December 1977 is still in force.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  No expenses have been incurred by the United Kingdom under section 27 of INFCIRC 125; nor has the agency been relieved of its safeguards
  307
  responsibilities under section 24(a) of INFCIRC 125. With regard to the hon. Member's final point, suspension of the agreement still applies.

  Renewable Energy
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy how many representations he has received recently(a) directly and (b) via hon. Members on the subject of renewable energy.

  Mr. Moynihan
  On 5 August I announced a new ministerial advisory group to spearhead the Government's review of renewable energy strategy. Since then I have received about 130 representations directly, and about 400 via hon. Members, on the subject of renewable energy.

  Mr. Flynn
  to ask the Secretary of State for Energy what recent meetings he has had with the Office of Electricity Regulation in regard to applications made to generate electricity by renewable systems; and what policy decision he has taken as a result.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  My officials have liaised closely with OFFER throughout the exercise to make the proposed Renewables Order 1991 as part of the statutory consultations. My right hon. Friend will make the order when the statutory consultations with the Director-General of Electricity Supply and the regional electricity companies have been completed.

  Research and Development
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will indicate, for each of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, the amount spent on(a) nuclear research and development and (b) renewable energy research and development; and what proportion of total energy research and development budget the amounts represent in each case.

  Mr. Moynihan
  Statistics on total spending on energy research and development in OECD countries on nuclear research or renewables are not available to my Department.

  Iraqi Nuclear Plants (Damaged Fuel)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on the United Kingdom's agreement on 8 July to a request by the United Nations to make provision in conjunction with French nuclear authorities to handle damaged nuclear fuel from the Tuwaitha nuclear plants near Baghdad.

  Mr. Heathcoat-Amory
  The International Atomic Energy Agency approached the United Kingdom and French Governments with a request for assistance in the removal of nuclear weapons-usable material from Iraq in fulfilment of United Nations Security Council resolution 687. The Government attach great importance to the elimination of Iraq's potential for developing nuclear weapons and supports the United Kingdom nuclear industry's readiness to participate in this work.

  Any contracts will be on a commerical basis between the companies involved and the IAEA. The agency has invited detailed proposals and operators in the United Kingdom and France which have the necessary specialised facilities will, I understand, be submitting a joint proposal to undertake the work.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Wakeham
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targetted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of the year.

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

  Social Security Commissioners
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Attorney-General what is the average delay between a social security commissioner's oral hearing and notification of the decision to the claimant; and how much of this is ascribed to administrative delay.

  The Attorney-General
  The average waiting time between the oral hearing by a commissioner and the dispatch of the decision to the parties for the quarter ending September 1991 was 23 days, of which it is estimated that the time taken in processing decisions by administrative staff was 16 days.

  Homicides
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Attorney-General, in prosecutions involving a killing how many successful defences of provocation have been made in each of the last five years, broken down by gender of the defendant.

  The Attorney-General
  This information is not available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Hillsborough Stadium Disaster
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will give urgent consideration to meeting the families of those who died at Hillsborough.

  The Attorney-General
  If the hon. Member will write to me specifying the issues which it is suggested should be raised, I will gladly consider whether any matter falling within my own ministerial responsibilities could appropriately be discussed at such a meeting.

  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Attorney-General if he will quash the verdict of the recent Hillsborough inquest and set up a judicial review.

  The Attorney-General
  My jurisdiction concerning inquests is limited to the circumstances described in section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988. That provision enables me to apply to, or give my authority for an application to, the High Court for an order that an inquest, or a fresh inquest, as the case may be, is held into a person's death. The jurisdiction to make such an order is expressly reserved to the High Court, and my role is confined to deciding whether or not an application to the High Court should be
  309
  made under that section. No material has been placed before me by the hon. Member or by any other person which would justify an application being made to the High Court under section 13 of the Coroners Act 1988 in relation to the Hillsborough inquest.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Regional Assistance
  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will publish the amount of regional preferential assistance paid to each standard region of

  Table 1

  Government expenditure on regional preferential assistance to industry at current prices1

  £ million

  Region

  Northern

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  East Midlands3

  South West

  West Midlands4

  North West

  England2

  Wales

  Scotland

  Great Britain2

  1978–79

  158·8

  37·4

  3·4

  9·6

  0·2

  6114·1

  323·5

  132·1

  156·1

  611·7

  1979–80

  147·8

  32·1

  4·1

  10·3

  0·1

  689·4

  283·8

  112·9

  135·2

  531·9

  1980–81

  151·6

  52·7

  4·7

  12·6

  0·1

  6137·5

  359·2

  175·3

  194·5

  729·0

  1981–82

  176·6

  61·6

  8·6

  14·8

  —

  6173·8

  435·4

  197·5

  232·5

  865·4

  1982–83

  158·5

  52·9

  13·6

  16·4

  —

  6123·8

  365·2

  182·1

  369·4

  916·7

  1983–84

  129·0

  35·6

  16·9

  11·9

  —

  6103·1

  296·5

  120·0

  228·6

  645·1

  1984–85

  122·6

  42·5

  10·2

  14·2

  —

  103·9

  293·4

  147·5

  187·1

  628·0

  1985–86

  94·6

  35·4

  8·3

  12·0

  6·4

  85·9

  242·6

  138·4

  197·0

  578·0

  1986–87

  136·4

  41·4

  10·5

  22·7

  10·0

  128·6

  349·6

  150·7

  242·4

  742·7

  1987–88

  109·6

  39·0

  9·4

  14·9

  19·5

  79·2

  271·6

  132·4

  153·2

  557·2

  1988–89

  134·6

  50·5

  8·8

  14·8

  26·6

  82·6

  317·9

  148·2

  151·2

  617·3

  1989–90

  117·3

  32·5

  9·5

  10·7

  20·0

  74·5

  264·5

  131·7

  144·6

  540·8

  1990–91

  85·0

  29·4

  5·5

  8·9

  18·0

  57·5

  204·3

  133·7

  159·1

  497·1

  Table 2

  Government expenditure on regional preferential assistance to industry at 1989–90 prices1 5

  £ million

  Region

  Northern

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  East Midlands3

  South West

  West Midlands4

  North West

  England2

  Wales

  Scotland

  Great Britain2

  1978–79

  371·9

  87·6

  8·0

  22·5

  0·5

  6267·2

  757·6

  309·4

  365·6

  1,432·6

  1979–80

  296·8

  64·5

  8·2

  20·7

  0·2

  6179·5

  569·9

  226·7

  271·5

  1,068·1

  1980–81

  256·9

  89·3

  8·0

  21·4

  —

  6233·1

  608·8

  297·1

  329·7

  1,235·6

  1981–82

  273·0

  95·2

  13·3

  22·9

  —

  6268·6

  673·0

  305·3

  359·4

  1,337·6

  1982–83

  228·7

  76·3

  19·6

  23·7

  —

  6178·6

  527·0

  262·8

  533·0

  1,322·8

  1983–84

  177·9

  49·1

  23·3

  16·4

  —

  6142·6

  409·0

  165·5

  315·3

  889·8

  1984–85

  161·1

  55·8

  13·4

  18·7

  —

  136·5

  385·5

  193·8

  245·9

  825·2

  1985–86

  117·8

  44·1

  10·3

  14·9

  8·0

  107·0

  302·1

  172·4

  245·3

  719·8

  1986–87

  164·1

  49·8

  12·6

  27·3

  12·0

  154·8

  420·7

  181·3

  291·7

  893·7

  1987–88

  125·3

  44·6

  10·7

  17·0

  22·3

  90·5

  310·4

  151·3

  175·1

  636·8

  1988–89

  143·2

  53·7

  9·4

  15·7

  28·3

  87·9

  338·2

  157·7

  160·9

  656·7

  1989–90

  117·3

  32·5

  9·5

  10·7

  20·0

  74·5

  264·5

  131·7

  144·6

  540·8

  1990–91

  78·8

  27·3

  5·1

  8·3

  16·7

  53·3

  189·5

  124·0

  147·6

  461·1

  Table 3

  Index

  1989–90 prices

  1978–79

  42·7

  1979–80

  49·8

  1980–81

  59·0

  1981–82

  64·7

  1982–83

  69·3

  1983–84

  72·5

  1984–85

  76·1

  1985–86

  80·3

  1986–87

  83·1

  1987–88

  87·5

  1988–89

  94·0

  1989–90

  100·0

  1990–91

  107·8

  1991–92

  115·3

  1992–93

  120·5

  1993–94

  125·0

  1994–95

  128·7

  310
  England, Scotland and Wales in each year from 1978–79 to the most recent available date in (a) cash and (b) constant prices and with an annual index.

  Mr. Leigh
  The requested information with regard to regional preferential assistance from 1978–79 to the most recent year is as follows:
  311
  1 All figures are gross and include payments to nationalised industries.

  2 The totals do not always equal the sum of the component parts because of rounding.

  3 Includes some minor expenditure in west midlands in respect of Oswestry TTWA which ceased to be an assisted area in 1982–83.

  4 Certain TTWAs in the west midlands were designated as assisted areas on 29 November 1984.

  5 Expenditure on a 1989–90 price basis for each year is calculated by applying the appropriate deflator to expenditure at current prices.

  6 Includes expenditure in Cumbria, otherwise shown within the totals for northern region.

  The items included in the expenditure are regional development grants, regional selective assistance and regional enterprise grants; expenditure on lands and factories by the English Industrial Estates Corporation, the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies, the Development Board for Rural Wales, and the Highlands and Islands Development Board.

  Argentina (Exports)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what controls are in force in respect of materials and technology being exported to the Argentine Government for their Argentine Condor II ballistic missile project; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The United Kingdom gives effect to its commitments as a member of the missile technology control regime through the Export of Goods (Control) Order. This requires a licence to export to any destination goods, which it has been agreed with our partners, are sensitive for missile technology reasons. These controls were strengthened in August of this year by the addition of an end-use control which requires a licence to export goods that the exporter knows or suspects are capable of use for missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. No export licences have been granted for the export from the United Kingdom of goods known to be for the Condor missile programme. I understand that the Argentinian Government announced in May 1991 the cancellation of this project.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will list all items that are currently banned for export to Argentina by British exporters.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The embargo on the sale of any military-related equipment, which came into effect during the dispute over the Falkland islands, is still maintained. Following the introduction on 24 September of full-scope safeguards as a condition of nuclear supply, it is our policy not to allow the export of any significant new nuclear equipment or materials to any country which does not have a full-scope safeguards agreement, which includes Argentina.

  Emergency Call Number
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will meet European Community officials to discuss the proposal for the community emergency call number of 112 to be introduced by January 1993; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Redwood
  No. The Council decision on the introduction of single European emergency number 112 was adopted on 29 July. The new number will be introduced in the United Kingdom alongside the existing 999 emergency call number. There are no plans to abolish the 999 number.

  Sales
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will be bringing forward proposals for regulating annual retail sales periods and special offers times of the year, for implementation after 1 January 1993; and if he will make a statement.
  312
  Mr. Leigh
  No. I see no reason to prevent traders offering goods to the consumer at favourable prices.

  Export Control Organisation
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many people are currently employed by the Export Control Organisation; how many applications for export licences were received for each year from 1985. in 1991 to the most recent practicable date; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The Export Control Organisation within the DTI currently employs 115 staff. The annual volumn of individual export licence applications submitted since 1985 to export goods subject to control in the Export of Goods (Control) Order is:

  Number

  1985

  83,863

  1986

  89,705

  1987

  97,842

  1988

  92,280

  1989

  75,925

  1990

  45,897

  19911

  22,594

  1 Up to 30 September 1991.

  Information relating to the activities of the Export Control Organisation during 1990 is to be published shortly in an annual report, a copy of which I will be placing in the Library.

  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many experts on nuclear arms components are employed by the Export Control Organisation to detect components likely to be used in the development of nuclear bomb making programmes.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  In processing export licence applications, my officials have access to advice from appropriate experts in other government departments and agencies covering the full range of goods which are subject to control under the Export of Goods (Control) Order.

  Environmental Congress, Gothenburg
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether his Department was represented at the Ecology '91 environmental congress on the environmental challenges to industry, held in Gothenburg in Sweden on 8 to 11 October; and if his Department made available any assistance to British firms to participate in the congress.

  Mr. Leigh
  My Department was not represented and no assistance was offered.

  Euratom
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the Commission's proposal for a Council decision
  313
  adopting specific research programmes to be implemented by the Joint Research Centre for the European Atomic Energy Community (EU RATOM)—Com. (91) 281 Final —Syn 352 published in the Official Journal No. C. 234, 7 September.

  Mr. Leigh
  The Commission's proposal for the joint research centre's—(JRC)—1992–94 programme is currently being discussed by the council's working group on research. The United Kingdom has been pressing for more detailed information to be included in the draft Council decision on the technical content of the JRC's programmes and on how they will contribute to meeting the objectives of the third—1990–94—framework programme.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Soviet Union
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he received from the Soviet Union of the Soviet economy at the meeting of the G7 in Bangkok; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Finance Ministers of the G7 and central bank governors discussed recent developments in the Soviet economy and the need for urgent economic reforms at sone length with the Soviet team, which included Mr. Yavlinsky, deputy chairman of the committee for the operational management of the national economy, and M r. Geraschenko, chairman of Gosbank. It was clear from these discussions that the Soviet Union is facing a growing economic crisis with output falling and with growing budget deficits at the union and republic levels leading to an increase in inflationary pressures. The Soviet team also discussed the prospects for a new treaty on economic union and prospects for economic reform.

  I refer the hon. Gentleman to my speech of 16 October to the annual meetings of the IMF and World bank, a copy of which has been placed in the Library.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the contributions of each other EEC country in grants, credits and guarantees towards the Soviet Union since 1989; and what percentage these are of their gross national product.

  Mr. Maples
  Amounts of outstanding export credit guarantees are not published, but the following countries have all pledged packages of loans and credits to the USSR recently:Germany. A DM 5 billion general purpose loan was announced in June 1990. A package of loans/grants linked to troop withdrawal from ex-GDR, DM 15 billion over four years, was announced in September 1990. Other loans and credits including recently agreed export credits for the purchase of goods from the ex-GDR were reported at DM 9 billion.
  France. Pledged loans and credits of FF 5 billion in 1990. Italy. Pledged loan guarantees worth Lire 7,200 billion in September 1990, plus export credits worth Lire 3,800 billion up to 1994.
  Spain. Offered loans and credits worth $1.5 billion in 1990 for purchases of Spanish food, consumer durables and capital equipment to be disbursed over two to three years.
  Comprehensive figures on disbursements and their timing are not available, and therefore it is not possible to calculate the percentages requested.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated amount in grants, credits and 314
  guarantees the United Kingdom has contributed towards the support for the Soviet Union since 1989; and what these amounts represent as a percentage of gross national product.

  Mr. Maples
  Much of the United Kingdom's assistance is provided in conjunction with our European community partners through the EC budget. The United Kingdom share of which is currently about 18 per cent. This includes:

  (i) 250 mecu—£175·8 million—in food aid which is now being disbursed, and 500 mecu—£351·6 million —in food credit guarantees, which has not yet been used pending final agreement with the USSR on terms.

  (ii) 1,250 mecu—£879 million—in new standby credits, guaranteed by the EC budget to cover imports of food and medicine. This was agreed in principle in ECOFIN on 7 October, following a United Kingdom initiative.

  (iii) A decision has been made to commit 400 mecu— £281·3 million—in technical assistance in 1991 and a further amount in 1992.

  The United Kingdom provides bilateral assistance to the USSR in the form of the know-how fund. The fund was originally set up in November 1990 and more than doubled to £50 million over three years following President Gorbachev's visit to the United Kingdom in July. The United Kingdom has provided aid following the Chernobyl nuclear accident totalling £255,000.

  In addition the Export Credits Guarantee Department has guaranteed a number of export credits, but it is not normal practice to give details of credits to individual countries.

  It is not meaningful to add up these separate elements, and to provide a figure for percentage of GNP.

  Channel 3 Television
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the actual gross and net amount he expects to collect by way of auction fees from successful applicants for Channel 3 television licences.

  Mr. Mellor
  Precise figures are not yet available. Calculations made by the Independent Television Commission, taking account of the amounts of cash bids submitted and the estimated yield from the percentage of annual qualifying revenue set in advance by the ITC in respect of each regional licence, suggest that the average annual tender payments of licensees in 1991 prices will be approximately £350 million over the licence period.

  Customs Service
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the future of the customs service in Yorkshire and Humberside from 1 January 1992.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  In Yorkshire and Humberside, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, customs controls are being updated to prepare for the single market on 1 January 1993 and to meet developing business needs. The objective is to make continued improvements in effectiveness, particularly in the fight against drugs smuggling, while facilitating the freest possible movement of travellers and freight.

  Customs officers in the region continue to play an important part in protecting society as demonstrated by

  315
  the seizure of drugs at Hull worth £1·8 million in the past year. Flexible anti-smuggling teams will continue to work in the region after 1992.

  Customs and Excise
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many Customs and Excise flexible action teams have been set up at(a) seaports and (b) airports within the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  Flexible anti-smuggling teams are being set up as part of Customs' new anti-smuggling strategy resulting from a review completed in 1990. At present there are 95 teams of which 68 are currently based at seaports and working mainly on maritime activity, 19 are at airports, seven have a mixed responsibility and one covers land boundary work in Northern Ireland.

  The use of better equipped and supported flexible teams will enable Customs to respond more effectively to areas of greatest risk in the fight against the importation of dangerous drugs and other threats to society.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the results of his nationwide study of the Customs service; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  In the last two years there have been several studies of the customs service, looking at anti-smuggling controls, freight processing and the handling of inland customs work.

  Customs are undergoing a period of considerable change with the introduction of 30 executive units on 1 April 1991 under the next steps initiative and in their preparation for the single market. The purpose of the reviews in the customs area has been to update anti-smuggling and freight control systems to meet the challenges of the single market and the developing needs of business.

  Soviet Gold Reserves
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his Department's latest estimate of Soviet gold reserves; and what figures were given by Soviet officials at the recent G7 talks.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  Mr. Yavlinsky, deputy chairman of the committee for the operational management of the national economy, stated publicly on 16 October that Soviet gold reserves would stand at 240 tonnes on 1 January next year. Her Majesty's Treasury has no independent estimate of Soviet gold reserves.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Treasury; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  Expenditure in 1990–91, which is the latest full year available, was £67,012.

  Business Invoices
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The Treasury's policy on the payment of invoices is in line with the guidance issued to 316
  departments in "Government Accounting". Payments are made in accordance with stipulated contract provisions or where no specific provisions exist, within 30 days of the presentation of a valid invoice. The Treasury recognises and supports the principles of prompt payment and consequently is participating in the examination of payment performance being undertaken by the Department of Employment.

  Correspondence
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the Financial Secretary to be in a position to reply to the letter sent by the hon. Member for Berwick upon Tweed on behalf of Alnwick district council on 24 July.

  Mr. Maude
  I replied to the hon. Member's letter on 15 October.

  Income Tax Deductions
  Mr. Rooney
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many companies were prosecuted in the last year for which figures are available for late or non-payment of income tax deducted from employees.

  Mr. Maude
  The Inland Revenue prosecuted 28 individuals for PAYE fraud during the year ended 31 March 1991. Late or non-payment of income tax is not a criminal offence, so there can be no prosecutions for this. Recovery action is taken either by distraint or through the civil courts.

  Economic and Finance Council
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the outcome of the European Economic and Finance Council held in Luxembourg on 7 October.

  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about the outcome of the ECOFIN session of 7 October.

  Mr. Maude
  I refer the hon. Member and my hon. Friend to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Arbuthnot) on 14 October, at columns 15–16.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maples
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year.

  Pension Funds
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will publish his estimate of current United Kingdom pension fund surpluses.
  317
  Mr. Maples
  Figures for the surpluses of United Kingdom life assurance and pension schemes are given in table 4.10 of the 1991 edition of the "UK National Accounts"—the CSO Blue Book—which is available in the House of Commons Library. Separate estimates for self-administered funded pension schemes will be published in a CSO bulletin later this year.

  Duty-Free Goods
  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is Her Majesty's Government's policy on a transitional period for the continuance of intra-European Community duty-free sales at ports and airports, following commencement of the single market on 1 January 1993.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend, the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) on 24 July 1991, at column 605.

  VAT
  Mr. Carrington
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what implications the arrangements for value added tax technical systems now under discussion in the EC Council of Ministers would have for the collection of value added tax.

  Mr. Norman Lamont
  The Council of Ministers has not yet reached final agreement on all the details of the VAT system which will operate after 1992. However, all member states are agreed that, since tax controls at frontiers will be abolished in the single market, it will no longer be possible to collect VAT at importation on goods traded between EC countries.

  The Government have always made it clear that, in these circumstances, we would reintroduce the system known as "postponed accounting" for VAT on goods and related services acquired from the rest of the EC. This will take effect on 1 January 1993.

  This means that, from January 1993, businesses will account for VAT on such goods and services when they make their normal VAT returns. As a result, some 9(1,000 United Kingdom businesses will pay VAT on these goods and services later than at present, and will therefore gain a significant cash-flow benefit.

  Arrangements for paying VAT on imports from non-EC countries will not he affected.

  There will be no change whatever in the amount of VAT which is paid. However, the change in the timing of payments will cause a one-off cashflow loss to the Exchequer in 1992–93.

  In order to prevent any increase in the public sector borrowing requirement, I have decided thast the largest VAT traders should account for VAT monthly, rather than quarterly as at present. This will only apply to traders whose net VAT payments, including VAT on all imports, exceeded £2 million over the period covered by their last four quarterly returns up to and including 31 March 1991.

  This change will not take effect until autumn 1992. It will affect around 1,600 businesses, out of 1·4 million who pay VAT quarterly. Those businesses which are affected will pay over VAT earlier than at present, but none will pay more VAT.

  I am making this announcement now in order to give businesses a full year's notice.
  318
  The change to monthly accounting will bring United Kingdom practice more into line with practice in the rest of the EC. Nine other member states already require their largest traders to account for VAT on a monthly basis. It will also mean that the compliance burden of the VAT system on businesses is more fairly balanced between larger and smaller traders: under the present arrangements, the largest traders derive much the greatest benefit from the interval between payment of VAT by their customers and payment of VAT to Customs and Excise.

  I will be consulting business representives on the details of this change.

  Fruit Machines
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the amount of revenue received by Her Majesty's Government from fruit machines in(a) 1987, (b) 1988, (c) 1989 and (d)

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The amounts of gaming machine licence duty received in the years in question were as follows:

  Year

  £ thousand

  1987

  86,999

  1988

  96,777

  1989

  97,250

  1990

  98,491

  SC60 Scheme
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans he has to reform the SC60 scheme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maude
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: Possible changes to the construction industry tax deduction scheme were outlined in a consultative document earlier this year. Following these consultations the matter remains under consideration.

PRIME MINISTER

  Official Visits
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his recent visits to the Soviet Union, China and Hong Kong.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  During my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's visit to Moscow on 1 September, accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, he had meetings with President Gorbachev, President Yeltsin and members of the committee for the management of the national economy. It was the first visit to the Soviet Union by a foreign Head of Government following the failed coup on 19 August. The Prime Minister expressed our strong support for the continuing process of economic and political reform in the Soviet Union and discussed ways in which we and our partners could assist. The Prime Minister also had a first meeting with the Prime Ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania following their independence, and agreed with them on the desirability of developing close and friendly relations.
  319
  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister visited Peking from 2 to 4 September and met Premier Li Peng, President Yang Shangkun and party secretary Jiang Zemin. The central element in the Prime Minister's visit was the signature of the memorandum of understanding on the Hong Kong airport project. The Prime Minister also raised human rights and discussed international and bilateral issues. We reached agreement on a number of issues related to Hong Kong which we set out in the joint communiqué of 4 September, a copy of which is being placed in the Library.

  In Hong Kong my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had meetings with the Governor and members of the Executive Council and met a wide cross-section of leaders and representatives from the political, municipal and business communities. He also visited the city polytechnic using the mass transit railway—a British export success. The Prime Minister made clear in Hong Kong the Government's commitment to the continued success of Hong Kong, and to the maintenance of effective British administration until 1 July 1997. There was widespread satisfaction that the vital airport project is now going ahead.

  Switzerland (Military Agreements)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the Swiss organisations with which Her Majesty's Government have made any agreement since 1979 to provide military training in combat, communications and sabotage.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  Military training has been provided to personnel of the Swiss armed forces, but it is not our practice to comment on the details of such training.

  Downing Street Office
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Prime Minister what is the latest annual figure for the cost of running the Private Office at 10 Downing street; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  The total cost of all my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's offices in 1990–91 was £8,225,8161
  1 Salaries and wages, notional pension liability, administration costs, the costs of office services and the grant-in-aid to the Chequers Trust are included. The Prime Minister's salary is excluded.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Prime Minister when he intends to return to the Tate gallery, London, the Turner paintings "A Quiet Ruin" and "Sunset", which are currently on loan to his office in No. 10 Downing street.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  There is no set loan period; the paintings will be returned to the Tate gallery when the trustees so request.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Prime Minister what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by 10 Downing street; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  The cost of official hospitality met by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's office during 1990–91 was £20,904.

  Foreign Visits
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Prime Minister what is the most recent figure for the cost of foreign visits made by the Prime Minister since 22 November 1990; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply. The cost of foreign visits made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister since 22 November 1990 is £550,219. including costs of his staff, but excluding outstanding costs of a number of recent visits.

  Zimbabwe
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Prime Minister if. during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Harare, he raised with the Zimbabwe Government the situation of British retirees who worked there as civil servants and/or police officers, and whose occupational pensions, payable by Zimbabwe, have lost much of their value; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  No. I understand that the Zimbabwe Government are meeting their legal obligations on the payment of pensions to their former public servants.

  City Challenge
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Prime Minister what Government Departments have agreed to participate in the city challenge initiative; and what steps he has taken to ensure that their departments give a priority to participating in city challenge.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply. All Government Departments with relevant responsibilities are participating in city challenge. They are assessing their contribution to the initiative as the II city challenge authorities work up their proposals in detail.

  Yugoslavia
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister what is Her Majesty's Government's policy on Yugoslavia.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  I refer the hon. Member to the statement made by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, on 14 October at column 40.

  Energy Conservation
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Prime Minister (1) if his Department has carried out an energy audit of the properties at 10 Downing street and the Chequers estate within the last year;

  (2) what measures have been taken over the last year to improve energy conservation at 10 Downing street and the Chequers estate.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  An energy audit of 10 to 12 Downing street was carried out in late 1990. The implementation of all the audit's recommendations will be completed by the end of the year. The Chequers estate is the responsibility of the Chequers Trust.

  Ozone Layer
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Prime Minister what is his latest information in regard to the policy of the Indian Government towards signing the Montreal protocol to protect the global ozone layer.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  My understanding is that the Indian Government intend to become a party to the Montreal protocol once there are sufficient ratifications to bring into force the amendments agreed at the second meeting of the parties in London last year. It is hoped that we will reach that position by the end of this year.

  UK Nuclear Deterrent
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will set out the basis for his calculation of the minimum size of the United Kingdom nuclear deterrent.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  We maintain our nuclear deterrent at the minimum size necessary to ensure that any potential aggressor is faced by the prospect of intolerable damage if he proceeds.

  Kuwait
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister what matters were discussed in his meeting with Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah of Kuwait in London on 4 October; and what matters were agreed.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's discussions with the amir covered a number of international and bilateral issues and underlined the strength of our relationship. The Prime Minister welcomed the political changes now under way in Kuwait and stressed the importance of fair and humane treatment of foreign nationals in the country.

  BR Fare Increases
  Mr. Adley
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will indicate the criteria he employed in determining which lines should be subject to his intervention in the decision by British Rail on fare increases on individual lines; and what is his policy on intervention in day-to-day decisions on management within nationalised industries.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  The boards of nationalised industries are appointed to manage their industries in accordance with the financial frameworks and objectives set by the Government. The Government have no wish to involve themselves in day-to-day management matters. However, the chairmen regularly consult Ministers about major management decisions which may have an impact on the achievement of their objectives. British Rail's recent fares increases are a case in point. In commenting on British Rail's proposals, Ministers took account of the citizens charter principle that increases should be related to quality of service; the need to fund BR's large investment programme and our general policy that the burden of funding BR should be progressively shifted from taxpayers to passengers.

  French Prime Minister
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister what matters in regard to defence issues were discussed in his meeting with his French counterpart on 24 September in London.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  Mme. Cresson and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister concentrated on European Community questions on 24 September. They discussed the roles of NATO, the Western European Union and the European Council in the defence field. The Prime Minister stressed the importance of Europe doing more for its own defence, in a way which does not undermine NATO. They agreed on the importance of enhanced bilateral collaboration in this sphere.

  Dalai Lama
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Prime Minister if he has any plans to meet the Dalai Lama of Tibet in the near future.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has no plans to do so.

  Environmental Protection Agency
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on progress made over the past three months to establish the central agency for environmental protection and enhancement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: have been asked to reply.

  The Government's proposals for a new, independent environment agency were set out in a consultation paper issued by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 3 October. A copy of the consultation paper, on which views have been invited by 31 January 1992, has been placed in the Library.

  Research and Development
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister when the annual review of Government-funded research and development, "R & D '91", was published; how many copies of the report were printed; at what cost; and what attempts have been made to circulate the report to interested organisations and libraries in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I have been asked to reply.

  The annual review of Government-funded research and development, "R & D '91", was published on 24 July 1991. Two thousand copies were printed and it is on sale through HMSO for £25. The printing and publishing costs totalled £25,800 and are offset by sales to date of 1,396: copies of the review's tables are also available on computer-readable disks.

  A total of 355 copies have been distributed to the Libraries of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, United Kingdom Government Departments, United Kingdom-based embassies, United States National Science Foundation, the Advisory Committee on Science and Technology, research councils, Universities Funding Council, Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council and in response to requests from a number of other interested organisations.

  Soviet Union
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister is he will make a statement on his visit to Moscow in September.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I have been asked to reply.

  During my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's visit to Moscow on 1 September, accompanied by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, he had meetings with President Gorbachev, President Yeltsin and members of the committee for the management of the national economy. It was the first visit to the Soviet Union by a foreign Head of Government following the failed coup on 19 August. The Prime Minister expressed our strong support for the continuing process of economic and political reform in the Soviet Union and discussed ways in which we and our partners could assist. The Prime Minister also had a first meeting with the Prime Ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania following their independence, and agreed with them on the desirability of developing close and friendly relations.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will publish details of the number of telephone conversations, by date, he had with(a) President Gorbachev, (b) President Yeltsin and (c) officials of the Soviet and Russian Federation Governments, respectively, during August; and what was the purpose of these telephone conversations.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke to President Gorbachev on 22 August. President Gorbachev gave an account of his views on the events surrounding the coup and welcomed the prospect of a visit by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to Moscow both in my right hon. Friend's capacity as Prime Minister and as chairman of the G7.

  The Prime Minister spoke to President Yeltsin on two occasions. On 20 August he expressed British concern at the coup attempt, gave details of British and European Community actions and asked what other support the west could give to democratic institutions. On 21 August my right hon. Friend was able to congratulate President Yeltsin on his bravery, and that of the Russian people, in a memorable two days and to express the hope that my right hon. Friend would be able to meet him in the near future.

  China
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Prime Minister what matters in regard to(a) the environment in general and (b) the Montreal protocol and protection of the ozone layer, he had with Ministers of the Chinese Government during his visit to Beijing in September.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I have been asked to reply.

  None, though I understand that China has recently signalled the intention to satisfy the Montreal protocol.

  Ministerial Visits
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Prime Minister when the Cabinet Office drew up rules governing party political activities of Ministers of the Crown when travelling abroad on public business; and if he will place a copy in the Library.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I have been asked to reply.

  Each Prime Minister, on assuming office, issues guidance to Ministers on such issues. It has been the practice of successive Governments not to publish such guidance.

  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list the occasions when he has participated in party political activities when travelling abroad on public business.

  Mr. MacGregor
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I have been asked to reply.

  My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister does from time to time meet fellow Conservatives in the margins of public duties. He also often meets opposition leaders of all political persuasions both in the United Kingdom and abroad.

HOME DEPARTMENT

  Animal Experiments
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what measures he is planning to reverse the decline in the annual rate of reduction of animal experiments since the Animal (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986;

  (2) if he will consider setting a target of 10 per cent. for the average annual reduction in the number of live animals used in experiments.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The use of living animals in biomedical research has been declining for many years. Although the annual percentage rate of decline for 1990, at 3 per cent., was lower than that for 1989, at 5 per cent., these rates of decline are not strictly comparable due to changes in the method of counting animals with harmful genetic defects. This change had the effect of increasing the figures for 1990.

  The way forward does not lie in setting arbitrary targets. The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 imposes strict controls on the use of living animals in research and requires each programme of work to be justified in advance. Provided the requirements of the Act are met, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will continue to grant project licences authorising particular programmes of work under section 5.

  Encouraging progress continues to be made in developing and validating acceptable alternatives to the use of living animals in research. The Home Office has been funding research in this area since 1984 and established its own research scheme with the passing of the 1986 Act. However, reductions in the use of living animals in research depend heavily upon advances in science and it has to be recognised that the development of acceptable alternatives can be a slow process.

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement of progress on his discussions with interested groups on the future of Sunday trading.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer my hon. Friend to a reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) on 14 October 1991 at column 30 and to what I said at the conclusion of the debate on the Adjournment of the House on 14 October on the Shops Act 1950 at column 130.

  Category A Prisoners
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if category A inmates at Her Majesty's prison establishments are now not allowed to attend chapel or leave their wing without the governor's permission.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Such arrangements vary from prison to prison according to the circumstances of individual inmates and the detailed security measures in place at the time.

  European Criminal Investigation Office
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on progress towards establishing a European criminal investigation office.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  At its meeting in Luxembourg on 28 and 29 June 1991, the European Council agreed the objectives underlying the proposal for the establishment of a central European criminal investigation office. The proposal is now being examined further in the Trevi group, and will be considered again at the European Council meeting in Maastricht in December.

  Brixton Prison
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the gateway at Her Majesty's prison, Brixton leading into the prison's works yard has been secured or blocked yet; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend announced on 5 August that the gate to the works compound which proved insecure had been replaced by a sterile area protected by double gates, both manned, and each protected by separate locks not shared with any other part of the prison. Certain further action in relation to closed-circuit television coverage and electronic locking will very shortly be completed.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement as to what action he has taken to end the holding of category A prisoners at Her Majesty's prison, Brixton.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  In my right hon. Friend's statement of 5 August, in which we accepted all the recommendations made by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons in his report into the Brixton escape, my right hon. Friend announced the aim of transferring all high-risk category A inmates from Brixton to Belmarsh by mid-September. These transfers were completed on 3 September since when Brixton has held only standard risk category A prisoners.
  326
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what is the current procedure at Her Majesty's prison, Brixton for the regular training of staff;

  (2) when the last review at Her Majesty's prison, Brixton of the emergency control room operation was carried out; and what were the results.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  My right hon. Friend announced on 5 August that a review of the emergency control room at Brixton prison was being undertaken. This was completed on 16 August 1991. The review made a number of recommendations to improve management, contingency planning, and liaison with the police, and to introduce a new training programme for those staff working in the emergency control room. All the recommendations are being implemented.

  Police Records
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will introduce instructions to all police forces to keep all police records for at least the lifetime of a convicted person; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) what (a) guidelines and (b) regulations cover the circumstances in which official police files may be destroyed; and what changes have taken place in these guidelines and regulations during the last 20 years.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  There are no guidelines or regulations covering the retention or destruction of police files. Policy on retention is a matter for each chief officer of police. It is unlikely for practical reasons that any chief officer would base his retention/destruction policy upon the lifetime of offenders. I see no need for the issue of guidance in this area.

  Channel 3 Licences
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what were the average costs per hour and per programme submitted by the successful applicants for Channel 3 licences; and how many hours and programmes their cash bid represented;

  (2) whether he will list the amounts paid by the successful applicants for the Channel 3 licences; and what these amounts represented in pounds per household within each area.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The Independent Television Commission is responsible for awarding the Channel 3 licences, under the terms of the Broadcasting Act 1990. The commission announced the successful applicants on 16 October. It has published information about the bids and I understand that the commission has sent a copy to every Member and that copies have been placed in the Library.

  Prison Emergencies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will list for each of Her Majesty's prisons in England and Wales, how the duty governor is reached should an emergency arise; and on how many occasions during the last 12 months the procedure did not operate successfully;
  327
  (2) whether the duty governor of Her Majesty's prison Brixton is within reach at all times by very high frequency radio.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  In line with the statement which my right hon. Friend made on 5 August about the report of the inquiry by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons into the serious escape from Brixton prison on 7 July, instructions have been issued to all establishments that the duty governor must carry a radio when in the establishment and a mobile telephone when outside so that he or she can be contacted at any time in an emergency. These arrangements are in force at Brixton. Radio equipment is also available in every other establishment and mobile telephones are being supplied as a matter of urgency to a minority of establishments which do not already have them. Statistical information is not available in the form requested.

  Sara Thornton
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department at what prison Sara Thornton, serving a life sentence for murder, is currently an inmate; why she was transferred from Her Majesty's prison Bullwood Hall to Her Majesty's prison Holloway on 13 August 1991; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Sara Thornton is at present detained in Her Majesty's prison Bullwood Hall. She was transferred to Her Majesty's prison Holloway from Her Majesty's prison Bullwood Hall on 13 August 1991 to ensure that she received full-time medical and psychiatric care in the medical wing while she was refusing to take food. She returned to Her Majesty's prison Bullwood Hall on 30 August 1991.

  Ms. Thornton's case is curently being considered in the light of recent representations made on her behalf. Should any new evidence come to light which casts doubt on the safety of Ms. Thornton's conviction, my right hon. Friend will not hesitate to take the appropriate action.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will refer the Sara Thornton case to the Court of Appeal; and if he will make a statement.

  Ratio of prison officers to inmates: 1 April 1987 to October 1991

  Establishment

  1 April

  1 October

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1991

  Acklington

  0·30

  0·35

  0·35

  0·37

  0·35

  0·32

  Albany

  1·01

  0·98

  0·84

  0·84

  0·92

  0·93

  Aldington

  0·52

  0·35

  0·39

  0·39

  0·44

  0·37

  Ashford

  0·34

  2·88

  0·50

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Ashwell

  0·14

  0·22

  0·23

  0·24

  0·24

  0·24

  Askham Grange

  0·28

  0·29

  0·33

  0·40

  0·41

  0·37

  Aylesbury

  0·45

  0·53

  0·56

  0·60

  0·70

  0·74

  Bedford

  0·55

  0·50

  0·54

  0·56

  0·68

  0·79

  Belmarsh

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  0·89

  Birmingham

  0·33

  0·33

  0·38

  0·42

  0·44

  0·41

  Blantyre House

  1·08

  0·78

  0·48

  0·47

  n/a

  0·43

  Blundeston

  0·32

  0·32

  0·34

  0·36

  0·40

  0·39

  Brinsford

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Bristol

  0·39

  0·41

  0·43

  0·44

  0·71

  0·67

  Brixton

  0·62

  0·57

  0·67

  0·69

  0·66

  0·67

  Brockhill

  0·36

  0·40

  0·43

  0·44

  0·52

  0·49

  Buckley Hall

  0·28

  0·35

  0·46

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Bullingdon

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Bullwood Hall

  0·45

  0·43

  0·47

  0·59

  0·72

  0·78

  328
  Mr. John Patten
  Representations which have been submitted on Sara Thornton's behalf are being considered to decide whether there are any grounds to justify intervention by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.

  Passports
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ensure that in future all passports which indicate that a person is a citizen of the British state also has an appropriate space for indicating the nationality of the passport holder, to enable those who wish to have themselves identified as Welsh, Scottish, Irish or English, can do so.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  No. The United Kingdom passport, whether in the old or the new format, must reflect United Kingdom nationality law; this makes provision for the single definition of British citizen.

  Prisons (Weapons)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what contingency plans are made for staff procedure when a weapon is found in prison.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The action to be taken by staff will necessarily depend upon the circumstances of the particular case, including the nature of the weapon. Governors have been issued with specific instructions about contingency planning for an incident involving a firearm. For reasons of security which the hon. Member will understand, it would be inappropriate to publicise the details.

  Prison Statistics
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for each of Her Majesty's prisons(a) the current actual ratio of prison staff to inmates, (b) what the establishment ratio should be and (c) what the figures were (i) 12 months ago, (ii) 24 months ago, (iii) 36 months ago and (iv) 48 months ago, respectively.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  There are no prescribed ratios between staff and inmate numbers in individual establishments. The information which is readily available about actual ratios over the last four years is given in the table.
  329

  Establishment

  1 April

  1 October

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1991

  Camp Hill

  0·31

  0·32

  0·33

  0·35

  0·39

  0·41

  Canterbury

  0·51

  0·52

  0·51

  0·50

  0·54

  0·55

  Cardiff

  0·37

  0·34

  0·38

  0·47

  0·45

  0·58

  Castington

  0·58

  0·48

  0·52

  0·53

  0·58

  0·52

  Channings Wood

  0·27

  0·25

  0·25

  0·25

  0·26

  0·25

  Chelmsford

  0·42

  0·44

  0·52

  0·54

  0·54

  0·50

  Coldingley

  0·50

  0·54

  0·53

  0·54

  0·58

  0·70

  Cookham Wood

  0·40

  0·43

  0·44

  0·49

  0·48

  0·46

  Dartmoor

  0·35

  0·34

  0·40

  0·36

  0·41

  0·41

  Deerbolt

  0·33

  0·36

  0·38

  0·36

  0·37

  0·37

  Dorchester

  0·33

  0·36

  0·39

  0·61

  0·48

  0·43

  Dover

  0·37

  0·41

  0·42

  0·69

  0·52

  0·49

  Downview

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  0·54

  0·41

  0·40

  Drake Hall

  0·24

  0·23

  0·34

  0·32

  0·34

  0·30

  Durham

  0·28

  0·27

  0·36

  0·40

  0·42

  0·44

  East Sutton Park

  0·31

  0·31

  0·28

  0·33

  0·41

  0·33

  Eastwood Park

  0·74

  0·43

  0·55

  0·51

  0·43

  0·47

  Erlestoke

  0·44

  0·87

  0·40

  0·40

  0·42

  0·42

  Everthorpe

  0·31

  0·28

  0·28

  0·37

  0·38

  1·77

  Exeter Prison

  0·43

  0·40

  0·44

  0·56

  0·58

  0·50

  Featherstone

  0·21

  0·23

  0·22

  0·29

  0·26

  0·26

  Feltham

  0·59

  0·24

  0·51

  0·51

  0·50

  0·52

  Ford

  0·15

  0·14

  0·14

  0·17

  0·15

  0·17

  Foston/Sudbury

  0·18

  0·17

  0·15

  0·16

  0·16

  0·16

  Frankland

  0·93

  0·93

  1·04

  1·03

  0·93

  1·07

  Full Sutton

  n/a

  1·47

  1·18

  0·90

  1·17

  1·09

  Garth

  n/a

  n/a

  0·45

  0·41

  0·42

  0·45

  Gartree

  0·81

  0·86

  0·93

  1·03

  1·05

  1·28

  Glen Parva

  0·35

  0·35

  0·42

  0·43

  0·48

  0·45

  Gloucester

  0·39

  0·45

  0·45

  0·44

  0·48

  0·59

  Grendon

  0·36

  0·33

  0·38

  0·83

  0·45

  0·45

  Gringley

  0·29

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Guys Marsh

  0·39

  0·60

  0·65

  0·58

  0·56

  0·53

  H'Combe/F'Wood

  0·25

  0·25

  0·35

  0·42

  0·46

  0·43

  Haslar

  0·46

  1·05

  0·77

  0·52

  0·46

  0·44

  Hatfield

  0·35

  0·33

  0·39

  0·44

  0·35

  0·38

  Haverigg

  0·16

  0·17

  0·32

  0·29

  0·32

  0·32

  Hewell Grange

  0·30

  0·31

  0·42

  0·34

  0·41

  1·84

  Hind ley

  0·31

  0·57

  0·34

  0·38

  0·41

  0·43

  Highpoint

  0·21

  0·22

  0·24

  0·25

  0·26

  0·30

  Hollesley Bay

  0·41

  0·39

  0·48

  0·56

  0·62

  0·56

  Holloway

  0·81

  0·62

  0·59

  0·61

  0·62

  0·61

  Hull

  0·36

  0·39

  0·38

  0·43

  0·48

  0·53

  Kingston

  0·44

  0·43

  0·41

  0·43

  0·47

  0·68

  Kirk ham

  0·14

  0·11

  0·12

  0·13

  0·13

  0·14

  Kirklevington

  0·42

  0·53

  0·37

  0·58

  0·68

  0·69

  Lancaster

  0·35

  0·33

  0·33

  0·35

  0·36

  0·38

  Latchmere House

  0·39

  0·40

  0·49

  0·59

  0·48

  1·62

  Leeds

  0·28

  0·28

  0·30

  0·32

  0·41

  0·44

  Leicester

  0·50

  0·49

  0·54

  0·63

  0·70

  0·73

  Lewes

  0·32

  0·34

  0·35

  0·40

  0·46

  0·49

  Leyhill

  0·17

  0·18

  0·18

  0·18

  0·19

  0·19

  Lincoln

  0·35

  0·33

  0·37

  0·43

  0·50

  0·46

  Lindholme

  0·27

  0·25

  0·32

  0·31

  0·28

  0·32

  Littlehey

  n/a

  0·31

  0·27

  0·31

  0·30

  0·30

  Liverpool

  0·28

  0·27

  0·30

  0·44

  0·49

  0·45

  Long Lartin

  0·76

  0·75

  0·81

  0·79

  0·81

  0·82

  Low Newton

  0·35

  0·39

  0·45

  0·42

  0·52

  0·37

  Lowdham Grange

  0·23

  0·23

  0·35

  0·58

  n/a

  n/a

  Maidstone

  0·36

  0·34

  0·32

  0·35

  0·40

  0·40

  Manchester

  0·28

  0·29

  0·34

  0·32

  2·26

  1·08

  Medomsley

  0·33

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Moorland

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  0·74

  Morton Hall

  0·16

  0·16

  0·16

  0·20

  0·18

  0·19

  New Hall

  n/a

  0·70

  0·80

  1·22

  1·15

  0·90

  North Sea Camp

  0·62

  n/a

  0·34

  0·24

  0·19

  0·17

  Northallerton

  0·32

  0·39

  0·40

  0·42

  0·48

  0·45

  Northeye

  0·33

  0·31

  0·30

  0·40

  0·33

  0·33

  Norwich

  0·34

  0·37

  0·39

  0·56

  0·54

  0·52

  Nottingham

  0·41

  0·38

  0·41

  0·46

  0·53

  0·59

  Onley

  0·30

  0·33

  0·33

  0·41

  0·36

  0·40

  Oxford

  0·42

  0·47

  0·51

  0·68

  0·79

  0·64

  Parkhurst

  1·09

  1·23

  1·44

  1·32

  1·64

  1·73

  Pentonville

  0·27

  0·39

  0·32

  0·37

  0·43

  0·47

  Portland

  0·31

  0·28

  0·34

  0·31

  0·34

  0·32

  Preston

  0·23

  0·27

  0·28

  0·57

  0·59

  0·67

  330

  331

  Establishment

  1 April

  1 October

  1987

  1988

  1989

  1990

  1991

  1991

  Pucklechurch

  0·52

  0·67

  0·63

  0·64

  1·23

  1·07

  Ranby

  0·23

  0·24

  0·29

  0·27

  0·27

  0·33

  Reading

  0·38

  0·40

  0·51

  0·56

  0·55

  0·50

  Risley

  0·52

  0·54

  0·68

  1·09

  0·67

  0·64

  Rochester

  0·33

  0·42

  0·62

  0·51

  0·57

  0·56

  Rudgate

  0·15

  0·15

  0·16

  0·17

  0·20

  0·19

  Send

  0·30

  0·37

  0·41

  0·47

  0·53

  0·46

  Shepton Mallet

  0·29

  0·29

  0·32

  0·32

  0·32

  0·49

  Shrewsbury

  0·31

  0·33

  0·44

  0·42

  0·53

  0·52

  Stafford

  0·23

  0·24

  0·26

  0·27

  0·30

  0·32

  Standford Hill

  0·22

  0·21

  0·21

  0·20

  0·22

  0·22

  Stocken

  0·35

  0·34

  0·35

  0·42

  0·38

  0·34

  Stoke Heath

  0·27

  0·27

  0·31

  0·37

  0·44

  0·42

  Styal

  0·41

  0·38

  0·44

  0·50

  0·58

  0·57

  Swaleside

  n/a

  n/a

  0·43

  0·39

  0·41

  0·42

  Swansea

  0·41

  0·39

  0·51

  0·57

  0·53

  0·52

  Swinfen Hall

  0·51

  0·50

  0·67

  0·72

  0·58

  0·56

  The Mount

  n/a

  0·95

  0·45

  0·49

  1·44

  0·43

  The Verne

  0·20

  0·23

  0·22

  0·23

  0·25

  0·25

  Thorn Cross

  0·28

  0·30

  0·45

  0·45

  0·35

  0·35

  Thorp Arch

  0·49

  0·44

  0·39

  0·44

  0·48

  0·49

  Usk/Prescoed

  0·38

  0·33

  0·54

  0·57

  0·49

  0·46

  Wormwood Scrubs

  0·34

  0·50

  0·50

  0·53

  0·61

  0·55

  Wakefield

  0·54

  0·55

  0·59

  0·63

  0·66

  0·75

  Wandsworth

  0·25

  0·27

  0·28

  0·30

  0·35

  0·36

  Wayland

  0·26

  0·27

  0·26

  0·30

  0·27

  0·27

  Wellingborough

  0·33

  0·34

  0·41

  0·44

  0·70

  0·55

  Werrington

  0·43

  0·43

  0·42

  0·59

  0·42

  0·40

  Wetherby

  0·35

  0·36

  0·38

  0·47

  0·43

  0·36

  Whatton

  0·30

  0·33

  0·37

  0·62

  0·46

  0·47

  Whitemoor

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  Winchester

  0·38

  0·40

  0·41

  0·50

  0·50

  0·49

  Wymott

  0·25

  0·29

  0·25

  0·26

  0·27

  0·32

  NATIONAL TOTAL

  0·35

  0·37

  0·40

  0·44

  0·48

  0·49

  Prisons (Security)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will list Her Majesty's prisons that have searching and checking X-ray machines that are non-operational;

  (2) if he will list by Her Majesty's prison, those establishments that have searching and checking of (a) visitors and baggage and (b) parcels and items of mail by working X-ray machines.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Following my right hon. Friend's statement on the report of the inquiry by Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons into the escape of two prisoners from HMP Brixton on 7 July 1991, three X-ray machines were supplied to HMP Belmarsh and five to HMP Brixton. Procurement action is currently being taken to provide machines for a further 21 establishments.

  In both prisons equipment is being used to check visitors' baggage, parcels and small items of mail. Visitors themselves are not X-rayed for reasons of health and safety.

  All of the machines at HMP Belmarsh are operational. Two of the five machines at Brixton are non-operational. One has proved to be surplus to requirements and is awaiting removal to another establishment; the other is awaiting the completion of building work prior to installation.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for each high risk prison establishment in England and Wales, the results of the latest standard performance tests of the CCTV system.
  332
  Mrs. Rumbold
  One of the recommendations of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons inquiry into the escape of two category A prisoners from HMP Brixton on 7 July 1991, was that an operational requirement be defined and a standard performance test be applied to the CCTV system at Brixton.

  This is a complex task and although work is well underway it is not yet complete. When the final results are known, consideration will be given to applying the process to other prison establishments which have CCTV.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the result of his Department's latest review of security dogs at Her Majesty's prison establishments.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  In his report on the escape of two high-risk category A inmates from, Brixton on 7 July, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons recommended that the area manager should urgently inquire into the adequacy of the provision of dogs in the manner in which they are used. The review has been completed. the procedures in use confirmed, and an increase in the number of dog handlers agreed.

  John Hilton
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will investigate the circumstances in which John Hilton, a convicted murderer, was released on licence in January 1978.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The circumstances of John Hilton's release on life licence in January 1978 are that following a
  333
  positive Parole Board recommendation and having consulted the judiciary, the Secretary of State authorised the release.

  Remand Prisoners
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has yet held a review of the current policy of not classifying remand prisoners who are an exceptional risk, and requiring them to be held in a special secure unit separate from standard risk prisoners; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  This review is in hand. As my right hon. Friend said in a statement on 5 August following the report of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons into the

  Name

  Date of escape

  Sentence length

  Time served

  Penalty imposed on recapture

  Transfer destination

  Doyle

  7 November 1990

  3 years 6 months

  1 year

  —

  Still at large

  Smith

  7 November 1990

  2 years

  1 year 2 months

  —

  Still at large

  Clarke

  14 January 1991

  2 years 2 months

  6 months

  175 days LOR

  HMP Stafford

  Hunter

  22 February 1991

  2 years 6 months

  4 months

  140 days LOR

  HMP Hull

  Barker

  22 Febuary 1991

  1 year 6 months

  8 months

  190 days LOR

  HMP Hull

  Dewhurst

  27 February 1991

  2 years

  1 year 1 month

  190 days LOR

  HMP Stafford

  Baker

  29 April 1991

  1 year 6 months

  1 month

  150 days LOR

  HMP Everthorpe

  White

  29 April 1991

  3 years

  1 year 1 month

  165 days LOR

  HMP Hull

  O'Neill

  1 May 1991

  1 year

  7 months

  —

  Still at large

  Shannon

  1 May 1991

  4 years 3 months

  2 years 2 months

  190 days LOR

  HMP Liverpool

  Dunne

  23 May 1991

  9 years

  2 years 10 months

  170 days LOR

  HMP Bedford

  Stones

  24 June 1991

  Life

  6 years 7 months

  Charges not proven

  HMP Leeds

  Berseberry

  24 June 1991

  4 years

  11 months

  170 days LOR

  HMP Liverpool

  Rafiq

  24 June 1991

  2 years 9 months

  2 months

  Charges not proven

  HMP Hull

  Wright

  26 June 1991

  1 year

  4 months

  180 days LOR

  HMP Norwich

  Pickering

  6 July 1991

  1 year 7 months

  8 months

  156 days LOR

  Remains at HMP Lindholme

  Winspear

  8 August 1991

  3 years 6 months

  20 days

  155 days LOR

  HMP Hull

  Neale

  27 August 1991

  2 years

  1 year

  —

  Still at large

  Burrows

  6 September 1991

  3 years

  1 year 1 month

  —

  Still at large

  Bradley

  18 September 1991

  2 years 6 months 12 days

  7 months

  142 days LOR

  Remains at HMP Lindholme

  Luttman

  18 September 1991

  3 years

  2 years 3 months

  —

  Still at large

  MacGillivary

  27 September 1991

  5 years

  1 year 10 months

  —

  Still at large

  Charnley

  27 September 1991

  3 years 6 months

  2 years 2 months

  —

  Still at large

  Barratt

  29 September 1991

  3 years 6 months

  1 year 3 months

  —

  Still at large

  Graham

  29 September 1991

  2 years 6 months

  1 year 1 month

  —

  Still at large

  1 LOR = Loss of remission.

  Dogs
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list all outstanding legislation on dogs which has not yet come into force; and if he will indicate when he expects each piece to come into force.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The information requested is as follows:

  (i) Guard Dogs Act 1975, Sections 2–7
  There are no plans for these sections, which provide for the licensing of guard dogs, to be brought into force.

  (ii) Environmental Protection Act 1990,

  Sections 149–151
  These sections, concerning local authorities' responsibilities for stray dogs, will come into force on 1 April 1992.

  In addition, after 30 November 1991 it will be an offence under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 to possess a dog of a type specially controlled by section 1 unless a certificate of exemption is in force.
  334
  Brixton escape, it will need to take account of any comments by Mr. G. H. Lakes and Mr. R. Hadfield who are conducting a security audit into arrangements for holding and managing category A prisoners.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for the last 12 months, in respect of Her Majesty's prison Lindholme, the inmates who have escaped; what sentence had been given; how much had been served in each case; what additional sentence or penalty was imposed on those recaptured; and to what prison they were transferred.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The following information relates to the 25 prisoners who escaped from Her Majesty's prison Lindholme in the 12 months to 15 October 1991.

  Court of Appeal
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will bring in legislation to provide Court of Appeal judges with a full transcript of the trial under review; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  The criminal appeal rules already provide for the recording of any appealable proceedings —although counsel's opening and closing speeches need not be recorded unless the judge so directs—and for the retention of notes for a period and their transcription as necessary when requested by the registrar of criminal appeals or by an interested party.

  Marital Guidance Agencies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list for each marital guidance agency the amount of funding they currently receive; and when he will announce the results of his recently completed funding review of marital guidance agencies.
  335
  Mr. John Patten
  The grants-in-aid to the agencies for the present financial year are:

  £

  RELATE

  1,107,500

  Tavistock Institute of Marital Studies

  352,500

  Catholic Marriage Advisory Council

  144,200

  Family Welfare Association

  22,200

  One plus One (formerly the Marriage Research Centre)

  16,100

  Jewish Marriage Council

  8,000

  Future levels of funding are under consideration as part of the current public expenditure survey.

  Children Act 1989
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what physical adaptations and additions have been made to courts in Wales to ensure the effective implementation of the Children Act 1989.

  Mr. John Patten
  In the case of magistrates courts the provision of accommodation is a matter for the magistrates' courts committee to determine after consultation with the providing local authority concerned. The Home Office has provided capital grant to fund the creation of an extra courtroom for juvenile and family work at Swansea. This is in addition to other improvements to accommodation for children's proceedings in Welsh magistrates' courts for which Home Office project approval was not required which may have been undertaken.

  Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
  Mr. Dunnachie
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will ask the Data Protection Register to investigate the current practice whereby the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency sends out advertising literature on behalf of the British School of Motoring with every new provisional licence; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I understand that the Data Protection Registrar has concluded that this practice does not constitute a breach of the Data Protection Act 1984. However the matter is separately under consideration by the Director General of Fair Trading.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Meacher
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people convicted to date for non-payment of poll tax in each local area were in receipt of income support; and how many received prison sentences.

  Mr. John Patten
  The information requested is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  Prison Riots
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make available to the hon. Member for Don Valley a copy of the Official Report into the riots at Her Majesty's prisons Lindholme and Moorland.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The reports of the inquiries into the recent disturbances at Lindholme and Moorland are 336
  internal management documents which, because of security and other implications, are not intended to be published. I shall however ensure that the hon. Member is made fully aware of the findings.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Home Office; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  My Department's expenditure on hospitality in the financial year 1990–91 was £30,080.

  Invoice Payments
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  The policy of the Department is to pay all invoices within the agreed terms of the contract or order or, in the absence of agreed terms, within 30 days of receipt of the goods or the presentation of a valid invoice, whichever is the later. The Department recognises and supports the principles of prompt payment and is participating in the examination of payment performance being undertaken by the Department of Employment in this financial year.

  Criminal Injuries Compensation Board
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will list the numbers and proportions of Criminal Injuries Compensation Board applications in 1980 and 1990 which led to an appeal(a) against refusal of an award and (b) against quantum, giving in each category the numbers of such appeals that were allowed.

  Mr. John Patten
  The Criminal Injuries Compensation Board does not record details of the number of successful hearings in the form requested and this information could not be obtained without disproportionate cost. Details of numbers of applications received and appeal hearings decided in each financial year are published in the board's annual reports. Information for the years ended 31 March 1980 and 31 March 1990, the most recent for which figures are available, is shown in the following table:

  In year ended 31 March

  1980

  1990

  New applications received

  22,801

  53,655

  Total hearings requested by applicant or referred by board member

  2,450

  7,203

  As percentage of new applications

  10·7

  13·4

  Decision taken at hearing:

  (a) full awards

  786

  1,987

  (b) reduced awards

  82

  362

  (c) No awards

  357

  1,548

  Total hearing decisions

  1,225

  3,897

  Badgers
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions were instigated and how many were successful under the Badgers Act 1973 in the most recent year for which figures are available; and what was the fine in each successful case.

  Mr John Patten
  The information requested is given in the table. The 1990 data are not yet available.

  Number of defendants prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to a fine by amount of fine under the Badgers Act 1973, 1989 England and Wales

  Number

  Prosecutions

  63

  Convictions

  53

  Sentence of a fine

  52

  Amount of fine:

  Under £100

  3

  £100 to under £200

  5

  £200 to under £300

  19

  £300 to under £400

  9

  £400 to under £500

  6

  £500 to under £600

  5

  £600 to under £700

  1

  £700 to under £800

  2

  £800 to under £900

  —

  £900 to under £1,000

  —

  £1,000

  2

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the Data Protection Registrar has been provided with all necessary information so that all the data protection requirements can be considered by him in relation to(a) Schengen, (b) Trevi, (c) the proposal for a national DNA database and (d) the new national police computer; whether he will place in the Library a copy of any briefing material given to the registrar; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The Home Office is committed to keeping the Registrar informed of all proposals with data protection implications for which it has responsibility. I am confident that that commitment is being fulfilled; it would not be appropriate to place copies of briefing material in the Library.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has any plans to contribute to the citizens' charter by including proposals to allow individual voters to consent to disclosures of their personal data from the electoral register to those who obtain the register for marketing purposes, or proposals to stop the export of electoral registers, for marketing purposes, to countries that have no data protection legislation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The whole purpose of the electoral register is to provide a comprehensive and publicly available list of the names and addresses of those who are eligible to vote. The provisions governing the publication and supply of the register reflect this and the fact that its use by commercial organisations, either in this country or overseas, could not effectively be prevented.

  National Prison Survey
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the information from the national prison survey will be made available.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  We plan to make results from the national prison survey available in spring 1992.

  Asylum
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will indicate the basis for his estimate of 50,000 applications for asylum expected in 1991; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will list the number of applications by individuals for asylum received in each month in 1990 end 1991 to the latest available date.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Information on asylum applications in 1990 and 1991 is given in the table. Some of the 1990 figures are likely to understate because of delays in recording. The 1991 figures are based on a new recording system, introduced in January 1991, which counts new asylum applications immediately on their receipt in the asylum and special cases division, and so provides fuller and improved information.

  In the first six months of 1991 applications totalled around 24,000. In the period January to September as a whole, around 34,000 applications have been received. All these figures exclude dependants.

  Applications received1 2 for asylum in the United Kingdom, by quarter and month, 1990–91

  19903

  Number

  Quarter 1

  3,360

  Quarter 2

  3,615

  Quarter 3

  6,800

  Quarter 4

  7,545

  1991

  January

  4,370

  February

  3,450

  March

  3,880

  April

  5,280

  May

  3,805

  June

  3,000

  July

  3,720

  August

  3,350

  September

  3,525

  1Excluding dependants.

  2Provisional figures, rounded to the nearest 5.

  31990 figures are estimates which may understate because of delays in recording, particularly for the fourth quarter. In total applications in 1990, excluding dependants, are estimated at over 22,000 (over 30,000 including dependants). Reliable monthly estimates for 1990 are not yet available.

  Private Security Industry
  Mr. George
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) what plans he has to introduce public regulation for the private security industry;

  (2) if he will place in the Library a copy of the working party's report on the private security industry; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  We are considering a range of options for improving the regulation of the private security industry which goes wider than those considered by the working group. We will make a statement in due course covering all the relevant issues when a decision has been reached.

  Elections
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) if he will set out the fees currently payable to(a) presiding officers of polling stations, (b) poll clerks and (c) counting assistants at (i) local elections and (ii) parliamentary elections in Greater London;

  (2) what representations he has received about the impact of the Returning Officers' Charges Order 1991 on the recruitment of essential election staff in Greater London; and what response he has made.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Current maximum levels of recoverable expenditure at a parliamentary election are specified in the Returning Officers' Charges Order 1991—SI 1991 No. 1687. The fees payable to presiding officers and poll clerks in a constituency in a London borough are £106 and £72 respectively. The fees paid to counting assistants are at the discretion of the acting returning officer, subject to a maximum recoverable amount for the conduct of the count. The fees paid at a local government election are a matter for the local authority concerned.

  We have received representations on this subject from a number of acting returning officers in London and elsewhere, and from the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, the Association of District Secretaries and the London Boroughs Association. The case for an increase in the level of fees before the general election is being considered.

  Immigration (Carriers' Liability)
  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give the number of passengers who have been the subject of a fine imposed under the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1986 in each year since its operation to the latest available date.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The number of demands issued to carriers under the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987 is as follows:

  Number

  1987

  3,921

  1988

  4,211

  1989

  7,863

  1990

  9,532

  19911

  8,260

  1 To end September.

  Mr. Darling
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what is the total amount of fines imposed under the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1986; and what is the total amount unpaid as at 30 September or the nearest available date.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The total amount of charges demanded of carriers to 14 October was £33·989 million, of which £15·222 million had been paid. Liability in respect of £2·497 million has been waived, leaving £16·270 million outstanding.

  Police Force (Computer Misuse)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the level of computer misuse in the police force.
  340
  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The responsibility for security of police computer systems is a matter for chief officers. The code of practice for police computer systems prepared by the Association of Chief Police Officers, provides detailed advice on the security measures to be taken against unauthorised access to, or alteration or disclosure of, personal data. A copy of the code is in the Library.

  Comprehensive information of computer misuse is not available centrally, but I understand that so far this year 23 alleged offences under the Data Protection Act 1984 have been considered by the Director of Public Prosecutions. It was decided to institute criminal proceedings in three of these cases.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating interdepartmental action required to prepare this report so that it may be submitted to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year. The Home Office's contributions meet the timetable for this action.

  Homicides
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many(a) women and (b) men are currently in prison for killing their spouse or partner.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Victim information is recorded centrally only for prisoners received to serve a life sentence for an offence of homicide. According to these records, which are approximate, 299 males and 22 females in prison service establishments in England and Wales on 31 December 1990 were serving life sentences for the murder or manslaughter of their spouse or lover.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will publish the figures for ( a ) the total number of homicides in England and Wales and(b) the total number of homicides in England and Wales in which the victim was a child, in (i) the last complete year in which the death penalty was available to the courts and (ii) each year since the death penalty ceased to be available to the courts.

  Mr. John Patten
  The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 came into operation on 9 November 1965.

  The total number of homicides in England and Wales for each year since 1964 is included in table 4.1 of "Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1989" a copy of which is in the Library. An age breakdown of currently recorded homicide victims is available only from 1967 and the information for 1979 to 1989 is published in table 4.6 of "Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1989"; the figures available for children aged under 16 are shown in the following table.

  341

  Offences currently1 recorded as homicide where victim aged under 16 years

  Year

  Number of offences

  1967–71

  1052

  1972–76

  1002

  1977

  72

  1978

  86

  1979

  90

  1980

  72

  1981

  80

  1982

  90

  1983

  74

  1984

  82

  1985

  103

  1986

  60

  1987

  78

  1988

  100

  1989

  71

  1As at June 1990; figures are subject to revision as cases are dealt with by the police and the courts, or as further information becomes available.

  2 Average per year.

  Source: Criminal Statistics volumes: 1977 Table 9.4; 1987 Table 4.6; 1989 Table 4.6.

  London Traffic
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the extent of the traffic disruption in central London on 20 September; and what steps he proposes to avoid a recurrence.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The management of traffic in London is an operational matter for the commissioner. I understand, however, that the traffic in central London was disrupted on 20 September by an unpredictable combination of the collapse of a crane in Upper Thames street, the reporting of a suspect device in the Victoria area and a broken down vehicle in the Euston underpass.

  Vehicle Excise Duty
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what efforts his Department is making in conjunction with police authorities to curb vehicle excise duty avoidance; what guidance he has given to chief constables on this issue; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The enforcement of vehicle excise duty offences is an operational matter for individual chief officers of police. I understand that police officers and traffic wardens regularly report vehicle excise offences to local vehicle licensing officers for enforcement action and support enforcement campaigns run by DVLA the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency.

  Young Offenders
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many under-17s are presently being detained in adult prisons and remand centres.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Recent information is expected to become available shortly and I shall write to the hon. Member.

  Community Charge
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been convicted for non-payment of poll tax; how many were(a) denied by
  342
  magistrates the right to a McKenzie friend to be present and (b) convicted without review of their eligibility to poll tax benefit; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. John Patten
  In the period 1 April 1990 to 30 June 1991 the magistrates courts made 3,960,111 liability orders in community charge enforcement proceedings. The other information requested is not available.

  Malicious Communications Act
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many prosecutions under the Malicious Communications Act 1988 have been made in(a) 1989, (b) 1990 and (c) 1991 so far.

  Mr. John Patten
  In England and Wales in 1989 there were 49 prosecutions under the Malicious Communications Act 1988. 1990 and 1991 data are not yet available.

  Fishing Vessel Losses
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what guidance is given to police forces on the notification of next of kin of crew members in the event of the loss of British registered fishing vessels in United Kingdom waters.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  There is no such guidance. The police assume responsibility for notifying next of kin in the case of all fatal accidents, although there is no statutory requirement for them to do so.

  Riot Costs
  Mr. Amos
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on Government assistance to meet the costs of the riots incurred by the Northumbria policy authority.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  Northumbria police authority has written to my right hon. Friend requesting a special payment in respect of costs incurred and expected as a result of the recent disturbances. This is being carefully considered.

  Northamptonshire Constabulary
  Mr. Michael Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what was the change in establishments for(a) uniformed police officers and (b) civilians for the Northamptonshire constabulary for each year since 1974.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  I will write to the hon. Member.

  Road Traffic Offences
  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has reached a decision on the setting of new levels of fixed penalties for road traffic offences.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  After considering the results of the consultation exercise on the level of fixed penalties, I have decided that the new penalty levels should be £40 for offences involving obligatory endorsement; £40 for illegal parking on a red route; £30 for illegal parking in London
  343
  outside the red routes and £20 for illegal parking elsewhere and for all other non-endorsable offences. These penalty levels will be brought into effect from 1 April 1992. A statutory instrument subject to the negative resolution procedure will be laid in due course.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

  World Population Day
  Sir Charles Morrison
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps his Department took to mark World Population Day on 11 July; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Chalker
  I gave a speech on the Overseas Development Administration's population policy at a meeting on 11 July organised by the all-party parliamentary group on population and development, to mark World Population Day. In it I emphasised the increasing assistance that we are giving to population programmes in developing countries, and our plans to do even more.

  In August I announced a new ODA initiative, "Children by Choice not Chance", which included proposals for further assistance to strengthen reproductive health services, improve the availability of contraceptive supplies, and enable women to take greater control over their lives in eight identified priority countries. We are now identifying the best opportunities to take these proposals forward.

  Children (Overseas Aid)
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what proportion of overseas aid is earmarked for projects specifically targeted at children.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Our aid programme aims to benefit children by supporting broad-based development, including giving families the opportunities to increase their incomes. In addition, our aid for mother and child health improvements, for enhancing the role of women in development, for giving people the opportunity to have children by choice not chance, and for the education sector has a direct impact on the well-being of children. Earmarking a share of the aid programme for children has not been needed to carry these policies forward.

  UN Trade and Development Report
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the findings and projections of the recently published United Nations Trade and Development report 1991 in so far as it affects the policies of his Department's Overseas Development Administration.

  Mrs. Chalker
  The wide range of issues in the United Nations trade and development report 1991 was discussed at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's trade and development board in Geneva in early October. Resolutions were agreed, by consensus, on debt and sustainable development. The board also discussed the crucial question of good government, which is essential for all development.

  Mozambique
  Mr. Summerson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Government will provide assistance to Oxfam for an airlift in Mozambique.

  Mrs. Chalker
  Yes. In the light of an updated assessment of the situation by our embassy in Maputo. and in response to a renewed request from Oxfam, a sum of £228,000 is being made available for this purpose.

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  French Ministers
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement on his most recent meetings with the French Foreign and Defence ministers.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  My right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Defence and for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs held talks with the French Foreign and Defence Ministers on 13 October. My right honourable Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs explained the thinking behind the Anglo-Italian declaration on European security and Defence and there ensued a very useful exchange of views. The meeting was part of a pattern of bilaterals working up to the WEU ministerial meeting later this month, the NATO summit in November and the European Council in December.

  Hospitality, Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Expenditure by both wings of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on hospitality for the financial year 1990–91 was £6,397,000.

  The figure includes the grant-in-aid to the Government hospitality fund, which meets the costs of ministerial entertainment and guest of Government visits for all Government Departments, the cost of other official entertainment by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and by diplomatic missions overseas.

  Small Businesses (Payments)
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Our policy is to pay all suppliers as speedily as possible within the terms specified on invoices. The Department recognises the special problems experienced by small and medium-sized businesses and is currently participating in the examination of payment performance being undertaken by the Department of Employment this financial year.

  Sofia University
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps the British Council is taking to assist Sofia university to broaden its curriculum.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The British Council English studies resource centre to be based within Sofia university from Easter 1992 will provide staff and students with up-to-date reference material on curriculum development.

  Ethiopia
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, following Zimbabwe's accession to the genocide convention 1946, if he will support a demand for the extradition of ex-President Mengistu Haile Mariam to stand trial for genocide and crimes against humanity.

  Mrs. Chalker
  It is for the Ethiopian transitional Government to decide whether they wish to seek Mengistu's extradition.

  Gibraltar
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what response has been made by Her Majesty's Government to the appeal made by King Juan Carlos of Spain to the United Nations General Assembly on 7 October that a rapid solution be found to outstanding problems concerning Gibraltar.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  We are always ready to consider any constructive proposals for the future of Gibraltar consistent with our long-standing commitment to respect the wishes of the Gibraltarians on sovereignty.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make it his policy to seek further reductions in strategic nuclear weapons.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We have supported throughout United States-Soviet efforts to reduce strategic nuclear weapons. Our policy is to maintain an effective minimum nuclear deterrent. We have always taken the view that, if there were to be further substantial reductions in United States and Soviet arsenals, and no significant improvements in defensive capabilities, we would consider how best we might contribute to the arms control process in the light of the changed circumstances.

  EC Security Policy
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Foreign Affairs Council has discussed conventional arms sales and security policy of European Community member states, pursuant to article 223 of the treaty of Rome since the end of main hostilities of the Gulf war.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Gulf war highlighted the need for restraint in the supply of conventional armaments to areas of tension. Ministers have discussed the issue on several occasions. At the Luxembourg European Council 346
  on 28–29 June, the Twelve issued a declaration on conventional arms transfers and non-proliferation which included a set of agreed criteria to guide national policies on arms exports. The Twelve are also co-sponsoring a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly for the establishment of a register of arms sales.

  EC Foreign Affairs Council
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the issues discussed and the outcome of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Haarzingen on 5 and 6 October.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave to the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) on 14 October, c.59.

  UN Convention on Refugees
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State forr Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he has any plans to withdraw from the 1951 United Nations convention on refugees; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  No.

  Nuclear Non-proliferation
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether, following the failed military coup in the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom has pursued discussions with its two fellow depository states for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the United States and Soviet Union, over the legality of the proposed transfer of control of Soviet nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation, in the context of the provisions of article 1 of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We are not aware of any formal proposal of this nature.

  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what was the outcome of the meeting in Vienna in September between the ambassadors to the International Atomic Energy Agency of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and the Secretary General of the IAEA on the issue of future nuclear non-proliferation controls.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  Vienna-based representatives of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council met the director general of the IAEA on a number of occasions in September to discuss a wide range of issues including the strengthening of the international nuclear non-proliferation regime. The ambassadors and the IAEA agreed on the need to consult closely on the issue of new safeguards approaches in preparation for thorough discussion at forthcoming meetings of the IAEA board of governors.

  Arms Control
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs when his Department next expects to host a discussion form with non-governmental organisations on arms control, disarmament and security issues; whether he will attend the meeting; and if he will give consideration to the provision of travel costs to representatives of those non-governmental organisations not based in or near London.
  347
  Mr Douglas Hogg
  Invitations have already been issued for the next meeting with non-governmental organisations on 26 November. I plan to attend. Funds are not available to cover the travel costs of participants.

  European Political Union
  Mr. Dykes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on progress in the negotiations on European political and economic and monetary union leading up to the Maastricht European Council on 8 December; and what is his policy on the relative priority of Community deepening measures and widening the Community as new member states seek accession.

  Mr. Garel-Jones
  I refer my hon. Friend to the written answers my right hon. Friends the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs gave on 14 October, column 15, and 16 October, column 156, respectively, reporting the 7 October meeting of ECOFIN, and the political union intergovernmental conference ministerial meetings of 29 July and 30 September.

  We support both the deepening and widening of the Community. We are working for the completion of the single market by the end of 1992 and a good outcome at the intergovernmental conferences with which we can all agree. We support the enlargement of the Community to include those states which wish to join, which meet the economic and political criteria and which can take on all the responsibilities of European Community membership.

  Nuclear Weapons (Latin America)
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether Her Majesty's Government have at any time been in breach of their obligations under the treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Latin America.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Kingdom is not a party to the treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons in Latin America. It is, however, a party to additional protocols I and II to that treaty and has always wholly complied with its obligations under those protocols.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating the work among interested Whitehall Departments to prepare a progress report in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action, with the aim of submitting it to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year. At that time a copy of the report will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Children's Rights
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from which dependent territories he has had responses regarding the ratification 348
  of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child; what those responses have been; and if he will make a statement on when the United Kingdom intends to ratify the convention.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  Responses have been received from 10 of the 11 inhabited dependent territories in which they have set out their initial positions on ratification of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. Consultations are proceeding with a view to ratification of the convention as soon as possible.

  Commonwealth Conference
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Commonwealth conference held in Zimbabwe.

  Mrs. Chalker
  As the Commonwealth conference is still in session in Harare, a statement is not appropriate at present.

  United Nations
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the role of the United Nations organisation; and what have been Her Majesty's Government's annual contribu-tions to the United Nations in each year since 1979.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  At the London economic summit in July this year, the G7 stated:"We must reinforce the multilateral approach to the solution of common problems and work to strengthen the international system of which the United Nations, based on its Charter, remains so central a part".

  The United Kingdom continues to play a full and active part in the United Nations. Our contributions to the United Nations regular budget since 1979 have been:

  Financial year

  £'000

  1979–80

  10,386

  1980–81

  10,316

  1981–82

  14,020

  1982–83

  15,711

  1983–84

  18,500

  1984–85

  23,343

  1985–86

  24,628

  1986–87

  23,615

  1987–88

  21,492

  1988–89

  19,358

  1989–90

  20,621

  1990–91

  24,564

  1991–921

  27,122

  1 Estimated.

  Israel
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the United Kingdom ambassador to the United Nations raised the status of United Nations resolution 3379 (1975) on Israel and Zionism during the present meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  UNGA resolution 3379 (1975), which determined that Zionism is a form of racism, has not yet been debated at the 46th session of the United Nations General Assembly. But our position is well known. We have always deplored this resolution. We voted against it at the time. We support the proposal to secure its repeal.

  Iraq
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if, from information presently available to Her Majesty's Government, he will make an estimate of the number of scientists, engineers and technicians that Iraq has devoted to its military nuclear programme; and the resources put into the programme over the past 10 years.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  It is clear that Iraq has devoted considerable resources to its nuclear weapons development programme, both in terms of manpower and funds. The documents recently discovered by the sixth International Atomic Energy Agency inspection may provide the information necessary to make a firmer estimate. The UN has published the sixth IAEA inspection team's first report—document S/23122 of 8 October—and this is available in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will obtain for his Departmental library a copy of the videocassette and transcript of the programme, "The Other War", on famine in Iraq since the Gulf war, broadcast on Channel 4 on 26 September.

  Mr. Lennox-Boyd
  The relevant departments in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office have seen this programme. It would cost more than £150·00 to obtain a copy of the videocassette and transcript for retention. However, a copy could be borrowed from Channel 4 television if required.

  NATO
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is his policy towards associate membership of NATO for former members of the Warsaw Pact.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We strongly support the development of the diplomatic liaison relationship between NATO and the former members of the Warsaw pact, which was launched at the London NATO summit in 1990; but we do not believe that NATO should offer membership or associate membership to these countries: this would involve entering into a security commitment which we could not fulfil.

  Croatia
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what humanitarian aid has been given by Britain to Croatia during the course of the recent fighting.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The United Kingdom has given no bilateral humanitarian aid to Croatia. The European Community has committed 1 million ecu in emergency assistance to Yugoslavia for the purchase of transport and distribution of medicine, medical supplies and essential services to meet humanitarian needs resulting from the present troubles.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has regarding the Yugoslav federal army's targeting of churches for destruction in Croatia.
  350
  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The British Government do not have the information about the Yugoslav federal army's operational targeting.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on his Department's position on the recognition of borders in Yugoslavia set by the use of force.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  In common with its European Community partners, the United Kingdom has consistently stated that it will not recognise any change in borders achieved by violence.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has regarding the ability of the Croatian Government to meet the needs of refugees in Croatia.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The Croatian Government have not provided us with information on this subject.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will give his reasons for deciding not to recognise the independence of Croatia.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The republics which wish to receive independence will have it. But the independence of one republic should not be achieved at the expense of others. We believe that it is right to work for an overall settlement. Without one there can be no effective guarantees for the rights of minorities; unless minorities are being protected, the region will remain unstable.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has on the numbers and situation of refugees from the fighting in Croatia.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  According to the latest information available, between 15,000 and 25,000 Yugoslav refugees were estimated to have travelled to Hungary by late September. There are no doubt far greater numbers of refugees displaced inside Yugoslavia itself.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has on legislation passed by the Croatian Parliament to protect the rights of ethnic minorities within Croatia's internal borders and the extent to which such legislation has met EC recommendations for legislation protecting the rights of ethnic minorities in Croatia.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  The question of minority rights will be crucial in finding a peaceful settlement to Yugoslavia's problems. Satisfactory protection of the rights of ethnic minorities throughout Yugoslavia will need to be negotiated in the peace conference chaired by Lord Carrington in The Hague.

  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has regarding the military weapons and equipment available to(a) the Croatian Government and (b) the Yugoslav federal army.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  A comprehensive answer to this question would involve disproportionate expense and the use of confidential information.

  Hong Kong (Vietnamese Migrants)
  Mr. Carrington
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Vietnamese migrants in Hong Kong.

  Mr. Hurd
  There are now nearly 64,000 Vietnamese migrants in Hong Kong. They are living in camps which, although the Government of Hong Kong have done their best to make the living conditions acceptable, were not designed for long-term stay. The bulk of the immigrants are not genuine refugees: more than 80 per cent. of those screened since screening was introduced in Hong Kong in June 1988 have been determined not to be refugees. Arrivals in Hong Kong this year have been much higher than in 1990.

  Over 20,000 have arrived since January, 250 per cent. more than for the same period last year. No other country in the region is receiving more than a fraction of these numbers. Hong Kong cannot cope with so many migrants. The solution must be to implement fully the comprehensive plan of action (CPA) agreed by 74 countries at the second international conference on Indo-Chinese refugees in June 1989.

  Discussions continue between the British, Hong Kong and Vietnamese Governments on ways to implement the comprehensive plan of action in full and in particular the provision that all non-refugees should return to their country of origin in accordance with international practices. As a first step, agreement has now been reached on the modalities of returning the so-called double-backers. These are non-refugees who have abused the voluntary repatriation system: having volunteered to return to Vietnam from Hong Kong once, thereby benefitting from UNHCR's repatriation payment, they have entered Hong Kong illegally a second time out of economic self-interest. Meanwhile discussion of the detailed arrangements for repatriating other non-refugees in Hong Kong continues.

  The Vietnamese Government have guaranteed that no illegal immigrant who returns to Vietnam will face persecution. They will continue to facilitate the monitoring of all those who return by the UNHCR and others to ensure that these guarantees are fully respected. In the last two and a half years, more than 10,000 Vietnamese migrants have returned voluntarily to Vietnam from Hong Kong without a single substantiated case of persecution.

  As we have always made clear, we have great sympathy for the economic hardship which in many cases has persuaded the migrants to leave their country for Hong Kong. But they have been misled into believing that they will be resettled overseas in countries where they have greater economic opportunities. It is no service to the real refugee if he is not distinguished from those seeking to use asylum as a device to better their standard of living.

  To help those returning to take up their lives in Vietnam, we have made a pledge of £3 million to the $114 million international reintegration assistance programme. This is in addition to our substantial share of the European Community's contribution to this programme.

  Finally, the British Government hope and expect that signature of the comprehensive political settlement of the Cambodia conflict in Paris on 23 October will open a new and more hopeful chapter in the tragic history of Indo-China. If economic conditions improve, this will help to eliminate the root cause of the flow of migrants.

CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

  Clergy Stipends
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, what is the value of the average current stipend and emoluments of a beneficed clergyman; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alison
  I refer my hon. Friend to my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Taylor) earlier today.

  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, if he will make a statement about trends in the level of minimum stipends during the past five years.

  Mr. Alison
  The national minimum stipend set by the commissioners as central stipends authority has increased by 54 per cent. since 1986, compared with an increase in the retail prices index of 36 per cent. Part of that increase relates to a special increase related to the introduction of the community charge, but even if that is stripped out, the relative improvement in stipends compared with the RPI is considerable. But further progress will depend very much on the giving of Church members, as more of the commissioners' income will be needed for pensions.

  Entertainment Expenses
  Mr. Tony Banks
  To ask the right hon. Member for Selby, representing the Church Commissioners, how much the Church Commissioners spent on entertainment expenses in 1990.

  Mr. Alison
  A total of £26,000, although most of this was spent on subsistence for Commissioners who travel to meetings from all over the country and who are not paid.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Council for National Academic Awards
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proposals he has for replacing the CNAA; and if he will make a statement on how he proposes to maintain impartial, academic quality control in the private sector of higher education.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The CNAA's role in validating courses in the private sector will be replaced by private sector institutions and organisations seeking validation from a degree awarding institution. Such validation arrangements will be subject to the approval of the new quality audit unit which the Government will look to higher education institutions collectively to establish. This will, among other things, take over the functions of the CNAA and the academic audit unit of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of monitoring quality control arrangements in institutions. Discussions are continuing within the higher education sector about the future location of other CNAA functions and services.

  Polytechnics
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what controls he is to introduce to ensure that polytechnics calling themselves universities do not adopt titles similar to existing universities; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  Under the arrangements outlined in the White Paper "Higher Education: A New Framework", Cm 1541, proposals from institutions to adopt university titles will be subject to the consent of the Privy Council. The Privy Council Office has written to all polytechnics indicating the general principles to be applied in considering such proposals. These will be that any new name should not be the same as or too like that of another university, and should not be misleading or offensive.

  Higher Education
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he has any plans to widen access for students to the private sector in higher education and to change the funding status of students attending Department of Education and Science designated courses in the private sector; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  My right hon. and learned Friend welcomes the contribution which institutions in the private sector can make towards the provision of higher education. Applications from such institutions for the designation of courses for mandatory student awards and loans are considered in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions, and against the same academic and other standards as are applied to comparable courses in publicly funded institutions. Students on designated private sector courses enjoy the same rates and conditions of mandatory awards and loans as their counterparts in publicly-funded institutions, except that the maximum tuition fee currently payable through the mandatory award at most non-publicly-funded institutions is set at £665. We have no present plans to increase that maximum. Discretionary awards may be available for non-designated courses.

  Student Statistics
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the estimated number of students in(a) advanced and (b) further education in 1991; what were the comparable figures in 1979; and what is the forecast number for the year 2000 at current rates of growth.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  In 1979–80 there were some 778,000 students in higher education in Great Britain. As shown in the May White Paper on higher education, Cm 1541, that is projected to rise to 1,221,000 in 1991–92 and to 1,595,000 in 2000–01. In further education there were 1,078,000 students in 1979–80 in England. By 1990–91—the latest

  Proposals involving the establishment of a tertiary college approved by the Secretary of State

  Proposal

  LEA

  Controlling political party

  Decision date

  16 May 1986

  Essex

  Hung

  27 October 1987

  23 January 1987

  Derbyshire

  Labour

  30 November 1987

  5 March 1987

  Northamptonshire

  Conservative

  3 December 1987

  18 March 1988

  Shropshire

  Hung

  22 March 1989

  9 June 1988

  Sefton

  Hung

  10 May 1989

  6 April 1988

  Cornwall

  Hung

  25 May 1989

  354
  year for which actual data are available—that had risen to 1,973,000. A projection to 2000–01 for further education has not been established.

  A-Levels
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many pupils obtained(a) one or more and (b) three A-levels at grade C or above in 1991; and what were the comparable figures in 1979.

  Mr. Eggar
  Information on the number achieving one or more A-levels at grade C or above is not currently available. My hon. Friend may however be interested to know that 113,450 school leavers achieved one or more A-levels at grade E or better in 1978–79; in 1989–90, the last year for which figures are available, the number was 137,860. If he requires further information I will be happy to write to him once it is available.

  In 1978–79, a total of 37,060 school leavers achieved three A-levels at grade C or better; in 1989–90, the last year for which figures are available the figure was 54,110.

  Pupil Statistics
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children attend(a) grant-maintained schools, (b) city technology colleges and (c) grammar schools.

  Mr. Eggar
  Provisional information on the number of pupils attending grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges and grammar schools in England in January 1991 is as follows:

  Number

  Grant-maintained schools1

  36,445

  City technology colleges

  3,429

  Grammar schools2

  91,116

  1 Includes 3,767 pupils in grant-maintained grammar schools.

  2 Includes local education authority maintained grammar schools only.

  Tertiary Reorganisation
  Mr. Turner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many local education authorities had tertiary reorganisation proposals approved by him in the past five years; and how many were Conservative-controlled local authorities.

  Mr. Fallon
  Since 1 January 1987, a total of 13 local education authorities have had statutory proposals involving the establishment of a tertiary college approved by the Secretary of State. Of these local authorities, two were Conservative controlled at the time the proposals were published. A breakdown of the proposals is given in the table:
  355

  Proposal

  LEA

  Controlling political party

  Decision date

  1 June 1988

  Knowsley

  Labour

  16 June 1989

  13 April 1988

  Rochdale

  Labour

  28 July 1989

  15 July 1988

  Derbyshire

  Labour

  25 August 1989

  17 June 1988

  Derbyshire

  Labour

  13 October 1989

  29 April 1988

  Essex

  Hung

  23 October 1989

  29 April 1988

  Essex

  Hung

  30 January 1990

  7 April 1989

  Barnsley

  Labour

  7 December 1989

  1 November 1990

  Cornwall

  Hung

  15 April 1991

  13 December 1990

  Wandsworth

  Conservative

  25 March 1991

  6 June 1990

  Sandwell

  Labour

  30 May 1991

  1 February 1991

  Southwark

  Labour

  16 July 1991

  22 January 1991

  Lewisham

  Labour

  20 August 1991

  Academic Clinical Staff
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will provide for increases in the salary award of academic clinical staff to create pay award parity with national health service staff.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The Government have agreed an earmarked addition to the grant to the Universities Funding Council for 1991–92 of £2·5 million. This will enable academic clinical staff to receive pay increases in line with those for national health service doctors.

  Expenditure Data
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of gross domestic product is spent on education in the United Kingdom; and what comparable data he has for(a) the United States of America, (b) Japan and (c) Germany.

  Mr. Eggar
  The readily available data are as follows:

  Public Educational Expenditure1 as a percentage of Gross National Product (calendar year).

  1987

  United Kingdom

  4·8

  United States of America

  4·6

  Japan

  24·3

  Germany

  4·4

  Source: UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, 1990

  Education Statistics for the United Kingdom 1990

  1Public subsidies to the private sector are included for United Kingdom and Germany but excluded for Japan and the United States of America.

  2Estimated. Includes some private funding, but excludes fees.

  Local Budgets
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the total budget administered by local education authorities in England; and what is the figure per pupil.

  Mr. Fallon
  In 1989–90, the latest year for which information on actual expenditure is available, local 356
  education authorities' total net recurrent expenditure on education was some £15,800 million. Of this, some £10,000 million related to school-based spending in nursery, primary and secondary schools, which represents an average of some £1,485 per pupil in those schools.

  Business Invoices
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.

  Mr. Atkins
  This Department's policy is to pay all firms by the date on which payment is contractually due. Payment performance is monitored and an annual return is made to the Department of Employment.

  Teachers' Pay
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the current average pay level for teachers in(a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools; and what were the comparable figures in 1979.

  Mr. Eggar
  In September 1991, the average salary of a teacher in a primary school was some £16,800. Among secondary school teachers the average was £18,400. These figures take account of the salaries of head and deputy head teachers. In April 1979, the figures were £5,220 and £5,520 respectively.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Department of Education and Science; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  In 1991–92 the Department has planned to spend £96,000 of its administration budget on providing official hospitality.

  Assisted Places Scheme
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many children have benefited from the assisted places scheme since its inception; and how many are currently in school.

  Mr. Fallon
  Since the inception of the assisted places scheme in 1981, some 48,750 children have benefited from education at some of the best independent schools in the country. In the academic year 1990–91, there were 26,740 children holding assisted places.

  Child Abuse
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science (1) what guidelines his Department has produced for local education authorities to use when teachers are charged by pupils with child abuse;

  (2) if he will make a statement on the present arrangements covering teachers charged by pupils with child abuse.

  Mr. Fallon
  It is for local education authorities and the governing bodies of schools and other establishments to ensure that all cases in which child abuse by a teacher is suspected or alleged are dealt with in accordance with locally established child protection procedures. Revised guidance about the role of the education service and other agencies in child abuse cases is given in the booklet "Working Together Under The Children Act 1989" published on 14 October by the Department of Health, jointly with the Home Office, my Department, and the

  LEA maintained further education colleges1

  Adult Education Centres

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  City of London

  —

  859

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Camden

  —

  3,367

  3,065

  —

  —

  16,789

  Greenwich

  —

  1,836

  2,182

  —

  —

  15,058

  Hackney

  —

  4,761

  4,203

  —

  —

  8,109

  Hammersmith

  —

  4,509

  4,262

  —

  —

  8,759

  Islington

  —

  4,392

  4,630

  —

  —

  8,787

  Kensington

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  9,952

  Lambeth

  —

  7,633

  7,027

  —

  —

  215,965

  Lewisham

  —

  5,287

  5,678

  —

  —

  12,211

  Southwark

  —

  3,268

  3,305

  —

  —

  9,802

  Tower Hamlets

  —

  —

  956

  —

  —

  25,607

  Wandsworth

  —

  8,746

  9,520

  —

  —

  15,763

  Westminster

  —

  2,745

  2,526

  —

  —

  18,105

  ILEA3

  51,393

  —

  —

  185,346

  174,506

  —

  Barking

  2,201

  2,311

  2,459

  4,299

  4,849

  4,475

  Barnet

  15,001

  14,630

  14,284

  4,305

  5,069

  4,865

  Bexley

  1,793

  2,600

  2,337

  13,199

  13,049

  12,445

  Brent

  5,520

  5,739

  5,875

  3,503

  3,640

  5,172

  Bromley

  2,259

  2,143

  2,351

  14,759

  15,569

  15,686

  Croydon

  2,898

  3,542

  3,721

  15,773

  17,613

  18,382

  Ealing

  4,440

  4,703

  4,858

  8,842

  9,405

  9,670

  Enfield

  11,124

  11,741

  12,464

  —

  —

  —

  Haringey

  4,270

  5,064

  5,277

  8,451

  9,274

  43,000

  Harrow

  16,676

  14,462

  14,249

  —

  —

  —

  Havering

  3,014

  4,018

  4,559

  8,655

  8,245

  7,939

  Hillingdon

  2,087

  2,202

  2,433

  8,411

  8,898

  8,632

  Hounslow

  2,056

  2,716

  2,748

  11,320

  12,013

  10,982

  Kingston upon Thames

  1,908

  1,879

  1,686

  9,830

  8,751

  7,333

  Merton

  2,465

  2,129

  2,448

  7,439

  7,890

  8,095

  Newham

  8,334

  8,632

  10,306

  —

  —

  —

  Redbridge

  2,390

  2,435

  2,630

  6,830

  8,035

  7,036

  Richmond upon Thames

  442

  564

  691

  17,000

  18,000

  218,500

  Sutton

  15,096

  13,947

  13,499

  595

  603

  489

  Waltham Forest

  4,312

  4,954

  5,326

  8,952

  8,831

  8,939

  Birmingham

  18,657

  20,030

  22,766

  33,889

  34,433

  35,274

  Coventry

  9,131

  9,526

  11,353

  5,648

  5,341

  5,500

  358
  Welsh Office. This makes it clear that, for all educational establishments, local procedures should cover circumstances where a member of staff is accused or suspected of abuse.

  Local education authorities and governing bodies are required to make a report to the Department if a teacher or other employee working with children is dismissed or resigns on grounds of misconduct, and the police make a report if such a person is convicted of a criminal offence. All cases reported to the Department are considered to determine whether action by the Secretary of State to bar the person from taking up similar employment in the future is necessary.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many teachers for each of the past five years accused of child abuse were subsequently acquitted; and how many convicted.

  Mr. Fallon
  The information requested is not available.

  Adult Education
  Mr. Andrew Smith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what information he has on how many students have enrolled on adult education causes over the last three years, analysed by local education authority.

  Mr. Eggar
  Further education enrolments by local education authorities in England of people aged 19 and over in LEA-maintained FE colleges and adult education centres from 1988–89 to 1990–91 are as follows:
  359

  LEA maintained further education colleges1

  Adult Education Centres

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Dudley

  14,082

  17,901

  19,739

  840

  693

  —

  Sandwell

  7,652

  8,082

  8,317

  5,431

  5,243

  4,233

  Solihull

  3,870

  4,992

  4,840

  6,355

  6,478

  6,296

  Walsall

  4,537

  4,701

  5,170

  12,561

  11,253

  12,716

  Wolverhampton

  8,293

  8,075

  9,645

  9,951

  10,175

  10,611

  Knowsley

  3,586

  4,947

  3,905

  —

  —

  —

  Liverpool

  17,308

  18,225

  17,165

  18,673

  19,268

  19,457

  St. Helens

  8,086

  7,807

  7,026

  —

  —

  —

  Sefton

  8,046

  7,775

  8,454

  2,884

  3,436

  3,746

  Wirral

  17,320

  18,380

  17,214

  —

  —

  —

  Bolton

  14,194

  13,370

  4,503

  —

  —

  2 410,000

  Bury

  2,409

  2,442

  2,787

  6,565

  6,477

  6,555

  Manchester

  32,292

  37,721

  12,613

  —

  —

  512,967

  Oldham

  2,250

  2,456

  2,019

  11,211

  11,204

  9,282

  Rochdale

  8,004

  4,554

  6,098

  1,240

  3,242

  3,232

  Salford

  1,560

  1,929

  9,634

  6,743

  7,123

  —

  Stockport

  3,985

  4,726

  5,281

  13,059

  13,514

  13,359

  Tameside

  9,585

  9,744

  8,700

  —

  —

  —

  Trafford

  8,273

  10,647

  10,702

  —

  —

  —

  Wigan

  9,431

  9,893

  10,316

  3,153

  3,584

  2,453

  Barnsley

  3,122

  3,137

  3,485

  5,047

  5,269

  422

  Doncaster

  14,159

  14,473

  13,875

  —

  —

  —

  Rotherham

  13,001

  14,083

  12,898

  —

  —

  —

  Sheffield

  23,828

  25,459

  25,801

  —

  —

  —

  Bradford

  22,307

  22,501

  21,107

  —

  —

  —

  Calderdale

  2,782

  3,410

  3,882

  7,336

  8,394

  7,924

  Kirklees

  6,918

  7,400

  12,647

  9,681

  10,542

  5,361

  Leeds

  15,052

  15,541

  19,925

  23,734

  22,949

  21,600

  Wakefield

  5,024

  5,556

  5,561

  7,056

  7,125

  6,953

  Gateshead

  4,000

  5,032

  5,153

  1,430

  1,710

  1,251

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  5,802

  6,445

  5,880

  7,264

  5,923

  5,540

  North Tyneside

  4,985

  4,093

  4,110

  6,131

  8,374

  6,524

  South Tyneside

  4,306

  5,461

  5,889

  800

  1,119

  1,030

  Sunderland

  5,017

  5,759

  7,087

  3,334

  3,673

  3,191

  Avon

  25,199

  29,665

  31,794

  17,846

  17,892

  19,094

  Bedfordshire

  10,299

  12,059

  12,047

  15,747

  19,271

  18,917

  Berkshire

  26,712

  28,213

  29,593

  6,421

  5,601

  5,967

  Buckinghamshire

  7,088

  6,324

  7,542

  25,189

  21,369

  30,900

  Cambridgeshire

  12,030

  12,128

  11,583

  20,871

  30,471

  20,921

  Cheshire

  22,960

  23,335

  26,212

  21,599

  18,124

  16,152

  Cleveland

  18,205

  18,869

  19,341

  19,150

  19,169

  19,427

  Cornwall

  1,918

  3,790

  4,474

  15,038

  16,322

  17,385

  Cumbria

  7,501

  8,025

  7,841

  14,385

  13,178

  13,383

  Derbyshire

  12,108

  14,326

  19,171

  28,887

  25,311

  27,399

  Devon

  13,363

  15,769

  16,209

  31,224

  34,103

  33,180

  Dorset

  8,063

  9,797

  9,301

  20,673

  21,240

  22,572

  Durham

  14,149

  16,700

  17,023

  3,254

  3,217

  3,129

  East Sussex

  23,892

  25,777

  24,121

  5,139

  4,913

  7,843

  Essex

  25,322

  25,418

  28,350

  57,042

  61,709

  60,832

  Gloucestershire

  15,730

  18,196

  20,997

  563

  539

  317

  Hampshire

  22,288

  25,714

  26,666

  62,095

  65,481

  58,553

  Hereford and Worcester

  20,097

  22,623

  23,993

  1,321

  404

  347

  Hertfordshire

  53,445

  60,520

  55,598

  —

  —

  —

  Humberside

  22,484

  24,265

  22,115

  23,663

  25,260

  32,119

  Isle of Wight

  4,931

  5,788

  5,958

  —

  —

  —

  Kent

  11,569

  12,298

  13,685

  65,165

  61,934

  64,600

  Lancashire

  63,993

  71,610

  71,823

  9,391

  4,851

  5,081

  Leicestershire

  15,306

  16,011

  16,087

  32,844

  34,506

  34,840

  Lincolnshire

  6,313

  7,453

  7,645

  13,305

  14,574

  13,596

  Norfolk

  7,634

  8,637

  8,873

  27,260

  29,418

  29,770

  North Yorkshire

  20,361

  25,008

  20,903

  8,695

  8,157

  8,058

  Northamptonshire

  9,896

  11,399

  12,752

  20,893

  19,199

  15,753

  Northumberland

  3,067

  3,369

  3,473

  9,672

  10,537

  11,486

  Nottinghamshire

  50,022

  43,162

  52,056

  5,053

  4,640

  5,081

  Oxfordshire

  15,816

  16,900

  15,982

  18,832

  20,665

  20,108

  Shropshire

  18,506

  17,587

  18,929

  —

  —

  —

  Somerset

  22,269

  18,308

  16,110

  8,807

  10,000

  8,008

  Staffordshire

  24,412

  25,313

  26,390

  17,721

  16,791

  16,947

  Suffolk

  20,694

  21,659

  21,082

  7,227

  6.521

  6,869

  Surrey

  7,292

  7,965

  7,753

  57,227

  56,872

  57,018

  Warwickshire

  14,348

  13,305

  15,703

  8,078

  10,976

  9,952

  West Sussex

  6,315

  7,878

  7,725

  36,821

  39,655

  38,588

  Wiltshire

  28,808

  30,320

  32,392

  —

  —

  —

  ENGLAND

  1,216,938

  1,289,920

  1,306,394

  1,284,623

  1,303,652

  1,266,216

  360 361
  1 This table excludes enrolments on further education courses in PCFC colleges.

  2 Includes students aged 16 to 18.

  3 Adult education centre data are not available for individual London boroughs prior to the abolition of the Inner London Education Authority on 1 April 1990, and data on colleges are not readily available prior to 1 November 1989.

  4 Provisional.

  5 Figures subject to confirmation.

  Deaf Children
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement summarising the provision which is currently made within the education system for deaf children; and what plans he has to improve that provision.

  Mr. Fallon
  The Education Act 1981 focuses on the special educational needs of the individual child, including deaf or hearing-impaired children, and places the responsibility for making appropriate educational provision for them with each local education authority. While that Act places on each local education authority a duty to keep its special educational needs provision under review, many of this Government's current policies, notably the national curriculum, as well as my Department's grants for education support and training scheme to support specialist training for teachers of the deaf, are acting to lever up the standards of educational provision for children with these needs.

  Scientific Research
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether the Science and Engineering Research Council(a) currently or (b) has sought permission to fund scientific research in European Community countries by non-United Kingdom national scientists.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The Science and Engineering Research Council cooperates scientifically on a bilateral and multilateral basis with scientists in a wide range of countries. including EC countries. Research supported will frequently involve collaborative working by scientists from a range of countries. Decisions of this kind are matters for the council's scientific judgment and will rarely involve formal consultation with this Department. Further information on SERC's current activities can be obtained from the council's most recent annual report, a copy of which I am sending to the hon. Member.

  National Curriculum
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he will be issuing any guidance as to the balance between course work and terminal examination for the proposed pupil assessment at key stage 4 of the national curriculum.

  Mr. Eggar
  My right hon. and learned Friend is expecting to receive advice shortly from the School Examinations and Assessment Council on the balance between course work and terminal examinations for key stage 4 assessment of the national curriculum. Once that advice is received, my right hon. and learned Friend will respond as soon as possible, and it will then be for SEAC to devise criteria for the approval of syllabuses which will give effect to these decisions.

  GCSE
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will list the representations he has received since January in favour of limiting the percentage of course work in GCSE examinations.

  Mr. Eggar
  Since January 1991, my right hon. and learned Friend has received a number of letters in support of further limitations on the percentage of GCSE marks acquired through course work. These letters were private and it would not thus be appropriate to list the correspondents.

  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he last met(a) the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals, (b) the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics and (c) the Confederation of British Industry to discuss the integration between GCSE and A-level examinations.

  Mr. Eggar
  My right hon. and learned Friend meets these organisations from time to time to discuss matters of mutual interest, including aspects of education for 16 to 19-year-olds as a preparation for higher education and employment. The question of integration between GCSE and A-level examinations has at no time arisen.

  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether his Department has made any assessment of the impact of course work upon(a) standards and (b) pupil motivation in relation to GCSE.

  Mr Eggar
  HM inspectorate has reported that course work is of a variable quality, may fail to bring out the best in pupils at both ends of the ability range, and may be inadequately moderated. The HMI, however, reported that it has a generally positive effect on pupil motivation.

  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on trends in A-level results since the introduction of the GCSE examination.

  Mr. Eggar
  In the first year that candidates with GCSEs sat A-level examinations, 1989–90, the overall proportion of entries resulting in grades A to E rose by 1 per cent. to 77 per cent. In 1990–91 there was a further rise to 78 per cent.

  In 1989–90, 20 per cent. of school leavers had achieved two or more A-levels at grades A to E: a rise of 2.7 percentage points on the previous year. Figures for 1990–91 are not yet available.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall
  363
  departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year. My Department is liaising closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the preparation of this report.

  Unplanned Pregnancy
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has received a copy of the report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists working party on unplanned pregnancy; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Atkins
  My right hon. and learned Friend has noted the findings of this report with interest.

  City Technology Colleges
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will set out the number of pupils at each of the city technology colleges at the start of the September term, and the number of full-time and part-time teachers employed in each of the city technology colleges on 1 September.

  Mr. Eggar
  The latest available pupil figures from city technology colleges, collected in January 1991, are set out in the table. No figures for September are available.

  It is for each college individually to determine its own teaching complement.

  College

  Pupils

  Kinghurst

  706

  Djanogly

  377

  Macmillan

  373

  Dixons

  180

  Harris

  744

  Leigh

  899

  Emmanuel

  150

  Data Protection Act
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the cause of the delay in providing guidance to head teachers, school governors and local authorities about the Data Protection Act; what plans he has to recompense schools for the costs of registration under the Act; whether he has estimated the costs of registration; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Eggar
  The delay in providing guidance on the implications of the Data Protection Act was caused by the need to amend the draft guidance as the result of further advice from the data protection registrar. No information is available on the extent to which schools make use of computer-held personal data which would make registration necessary. Revised draft guidance on the financial and other implications of the Data Protection Act for schools will be issued shortly.

  Rugby League
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will call for a report from the chairman of the Sports Council on the reasons for his remarks about rugby league football at the recent launch of the Rothmans rugby union yearbook.
  364
  Mr. Atkins
  I do not intend to call for a report on the matter raised by the hon. Member. I understand that, on the occasion of the USA v. Italy rugby union game at Otley on 5 October, the chairman of the Sports Council discussed the press accounts of his remarks with the chief executive of the Rugby League. The full text of the statement made at the launch of the rugby union yearbook contains a substantial endorsement of the management skills of the Rugby League, not least in promoting its sport. I understand that both governing bodies now regard the matter as closed.

  Student Loans Company
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what arrangements the Student Loans Company has made to publish annual accounts for the period 1990–91 and an annual report; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Howarth
  The "Student Loans Company's Report 1989–91", containing the company's accounts for the periods 1989–90 and 1990–91, has been published today. Copies have been placed in the Library. The report records the company's achievement in preparing for the start of business in September 1990 and issuing loans to 180,000 students in the academic year 1990–91. The company has established a firm foundation for further development and for the recovery of loans. I pay tribute to the staff and management.

WALES

  Aviation Industry
  Dr. Kim Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the level of employment in the aviation industry in Wales.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The last census of employment, carried out in September 1989, estimated that there were 9,800 employees in the aviation industry in Wales.

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Ray Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give the present unemployment figure for Ogmore, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, and the unemployment figure for June 1979 for the same areas.

  Mr. David Hunt
  On 12 September, there were 3,236, 25,445 and 118,952 unemployed claimants in the Ogmore constituency, Mid Glamorgan and Wales. Comparable data for June 1979 for Ogmore and Mid Glamorgan is not available. The comparable number of unemployed claimants in Wales in 1979, seasonally adjusted was 66,100 and 120,200 in September 1991.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is the latest unemployment rate for Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  On 12 September, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Wales was 9.3 per cent. of the workforce.

  Council House Sales
  Mr. Butler
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how many council houses and flats have been sold in Wales since 1979 under the right-to-buy provisions and on a voluntary basis.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  There have been about 91,500 local authority sales between 1979 and June 1991. Just over 85,000 were under the right to buy and the remainder were voluntary sales.

  Primary Schools
  Mr. Knox
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much was spent per pupil in primary schools in Wales in the most recent year for which figures are available; and what was the comparable figure for 1978–79, at constant prices.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  In 1989–90, current expenditure per pupil in primary schools in Wales was £1,191. The equivalent constant price figure for 1978–79 was £899.

  Orthopaedic Surgery
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will approve the bid by South Glamorgan health authority significantly to raise the throughput capacity for major joint surgery at the Prince of Wales orthopaedic hospital, Rhydlafar.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Additional funding has been made available to the authority to increase the number of hip and knee replacement operations undertaken at the treatment centre. A bid to increase capacity at the hospital was not successful under the 1991–92 waiting times initiative.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he proposes to have with the chairman of the South Glamorgan health authority concerning waiting lists for orthopaedic surgery.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  I met the chairman and consultant surgeons in May to discuss waiting lists in South Glamorgan. My officials are in regular contact with the chairman and the authority's managers and I will bear in mind the possible need for further meetings.

  NHS Spending
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what are the current totals of spending on the national health service in Wales; and what the figures were in 1979.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Total provision for the NHS in Wales this year is now £1,769 million. In 1979–80, total expenditure was £481 million. The increase since 1979 is almost 60 per cent. in real terms.

  Welsh Water (Investment)
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he next intends to meet the Director-General of Water Services to discuss the implications of Welsh Water's investment policy for the regulatory framework.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  My right hon. Friend will continue to meet the director general whenever there are matters of mutual interest to discuss.

  Channel Tunnel
  Mr. Anderson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what efforts he is making to ensure that Wales is able to take advantage of the channel tunnel.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Wales enjoys good links into the motorway system leading to the channel tunnel. Planned improvements are set out in "Roads in Wales: Progress and Plans for the 1990s" and the 1991 supplement. Further major schemes to improve communications in Clwyd and South East Wales were announced earlier in the year.

  The provision of rail links is a matter for British Rail who are now working up the plans which they announced in 1989 as required by section 40 of the Channel Tunnel Act 1987.

  Economy
  Mr. Alan W. Williams
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his latest estimate of the date at which economic activities in Wales will begin to increase.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Our forecast is that recovery will take place during the second half of this year. All the conditions for recovery are right—inflation and interest rates have reduced dramatically in the last few months and surveys show that confidence is growing.

  Tourism Grants
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his estimate of the value of grants under section 4 of the Development of Tourism Act 1969 in the current year; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The Wales Tourism Board estimates that in 1991–92 grants amounting to around £3·6 million will be paid under section 4. This is expected to generate capital investment of £22 million and create 435 full-time equivalent jobs in the Welsh tourism industry.

  Local Government Reorganisation
  Mr. Murphy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he last met leaders of councils in Wales to discuss his plans for local government reorganisation.

  Mr. David Hunt
  I met the Assembly of Welsh Counties on 24 September. I am to meet both local authority associations early next month.

  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Mr. Grist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will cause to be published at regular intervals the waiting list for each consultant working in national health service hospitals.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  I am considering my hon. Friend's suggestion.

  Local Government
  Mr. Raffan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will extend the consultation period on the Welsh Office paper "The Structure of Local Government in Wales".

  Mr. David Hunt
  No, but I have made it clear to the local government associations that I want a continuing dialogue until final decisions are reached.

  Beef Sector
  Mr. Livsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the present state of the beef sector in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  From my recent discussions with the farming unions and farmers in Wales I am well aware of the concerns of beef producers. As part of the annual autumn review, I am currently assessing the economic conditions and prospects for producers in less favoured areas in Wales. More generally, the Government will seek to ensure that measures for the beef sector included as part of the reform of the common agricultural policy do not discriminate against our producers.

  Local Government Funding (Cardiganshire)
  Mr. Geraint Howells
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to visit Cardiganshire during the next six months, to discuss local government funding.

  Mr. David Hunt
  The Welsh Consultative Council on Local Government Finance, a meeting of which I chaired on 8 October, is the appropriate forum for discussing local government finance.

  Physical Education
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has on the number of teachers in primary schools(a) in Mid-Glamorgan and (b) in Wales who hold a qualification in physical education.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Information on the numbers of teachers and their qualifications is given in the Welsh Education Statistics Bulletin: No. 5 Primary School Staffing Survey (1987), copies of which are available in the House of Commons Library. Table 15 provides an analysis of teachers by subject of qualification.

  Information for Mid Glamorgan is not available.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate he has made of the time to be allocated per day and per week within the national curriculum to physical education.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  My right hon. Friend has no power to specify time allocations for any national curriculum subject and is specifically proscribed by law from doing so.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what information he has of the average number of hours per day and week allocated by primary and secondary schools to physical education.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The 1987 primary school staffing survey showed that an average of 8 per cent. of class time in the rvey week was spent on physical education, games and swimming. The 1989 secondary school staffing survey showed that an average of 6 per cent. of periods in the survey week were spent on physical education.

  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what assessment he has made of the ability of primary schools to deliver the national curriculum in physical education; and what extra staff will be required to implement the curriculum.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The consultation on our proposals for physical education specifically seeks views on the 368
  practicability of introducing the subject as part of the national curriculum. Our proposals were based on the physical education working group's final report and we are currently considering the resource implications of their recommendations.

  Some primary schools might experience difficulty in meeting the requirements for swimming. A survey of current provision and access for swimming is being carried out in order that the timing and costs of its introduction can be accurately assessed.

  Sports
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what estimate he has made of the number of youth and employment training schemes currently in operation assisting in the stimulation of sports participation.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Training and enterprise councils (TECs) are responsible for ensuring that the training needs of their local labour markets are met and that an appropriate range and supply of youth training (YT) and employment training (ET) are available.

  TECs are not required to provide information about specific types of training but it is estimated that across Wales there are at least 18 schemes which contribute to the stimulation and development of sport and leisure.

  Asthma
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will take steps to ensure that within every general practice in Wales there is either a nurse or a doctor who has been specifically trained to deal with asthma; and if he will issue guidelines to general practitioners regarding the need for regular monitoring of treatment of asthma patients.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The general education and vocational training of a general medical practitioner encompasses training in the management of asthma, including an awareness of when referral for specialist opinion and help is needed. Screening for asthma may be recognised as appropriate for health promotion clinics in general practice, and family health service authorities are empowered to pay for these if they are satisfied with the protocol provided.

  Instruction in the caring for patients suffering with asthma is an integral part of the education of nurses caring for patients suffering with respiratory disease. In the practice environment, in-service training and clinical updating is available for nurses as part of planned professional development. To specify more narrowly the exact type of service that is provided within each practice is neither desirable nor practical. The monitoring of patients who suffer from asthma is primarily a matter for the clinical judgment of the doctor.

  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will issue guidelines to every school in Wales giving specific advice to teachers on how to deal with children suffering from asthma, in order to safeguard the well-being of asthma sufferers and to minimise the loss of school time on account of asthma.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Such advice should be provided locally by principal school medical officers in their role as
  369
  advisers to the local education authority. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular concerns in this matter I should be happy to discuss them with him.

  Sea Fishing Industry
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much regional financial assistance has been paid out by the Welsh Office to assist the sea fishing industry in the counties of Gwynedd and Dyfed, respectively, in the current financial year; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  In the current financial year one application has been received for regional selective assistance on a fishing industry project in Dyfed and an offer has been made. No applications have been received from Gwynedd. The Welsh Office is always ready to discuss potential projects in the fishing industry with the promoters.

  Limestone Pavement
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much limestone pavement has been damaged since the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 came into force in(a) national parks, (b) areas of outstanding natural beauty and (c) elsewhere in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  We are not aware of any damage to limestone pavements in Wales.

  Empty Properties
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish a table showing the most recent estimate of the number of void dwelling units which fall below the minimum tolerable standards in the ownership of(a) Government agencies or Departments, (b) local authorities, (c) private landlords and (d) housing associations.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The information is not available centrally.

  Invoice Payments
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  Our Department's policy is to pay all invoices, after validation, within the suppliers' credit terms.

  Burns Units
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy to ensure that patients from the Gwent health authority currently treated at the burns unit located at St. Lawrence hospital, Chepstow will be treated at Morriston hospital, Swansea, when the new burns unit opens there.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The service currently located at St. Lawrence is for the treatment of patients who require more specialist facilities than can normally be provided at a district general hospital. It is the Department's policy that patients in this category from the south Wales area, including those from Gwent, should be referred for treatment to Morriston hospital, Swansea when service is transferred to the new burns unit there.
  370
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales to which hospital the Gwent health authority will send patients requiring specialised treatment following the planned closure of the burns unit at St. Lawrence hospital, Chepstow.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer that I gave on 21 October 1991.

  Oystermouth Bus Station
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish in the Official Report in relation to the public inquiry to be held On the Oystermouth bus station, Swansea (a) the date of the inquiry, (b) the number of days set down for the inquiry, (c) the venue of the inquiry and (d) the name of the inspector he has appointed.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  The applicant and the local planning authority have requested that the application should be held in abeyance to enable further discussions to be held. Arrangements for the public inquiry have therefore not yet been made.

  South Glamorgan Health Authority
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much the revenue and capital spending of South Glamorgan health authority was in 1979 and at the latest available date in cash terns and in real terms.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett.
  The information requested is as follows:

  South Glamorgan Health Authority

  Outturn expenditure (£'000)

  1Expenditure at constant 1990–91 prices (£'000)

  Percentage increase

  Revenue

  1979–80

  70,655

  152,766

  —

  1990–911

  199,928

  199,928

  31

  Capital

  1979–80

  2,092

  4,523

  —

  1990–911

  15,673

  15,673

  247

  1 Provisional

  Source:

  Health authority annual accounts

  Outturn prices adjusted by the "gross domestic product" inflator

  Notes

  1. Expenditure given in accruals rather than cash terms as this is more representative of the real level of spending incurred in each of the respective years.

  2. Pattern of expenditure as between years can be affected by virement between revenue and capital, the incidence of capital receipts brokerage with other authorities and other non-recurrent factors.

  Burial Charges
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the county councils which charge relatives or deceased AIDS victims more than the standard burial charge; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Information on the fees charged by burial authorities in Wales is not held centrally. The level of fees is a matter for the burial authorities to determine.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The Welsh Office is represented on the official working group preparing the United Kingdom report and information relevant to Wales will be included in the final document.

  Psychiatric Hospital Closures
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will provide a list of hospitals caring for mentally handicapped or mentally ill patients that have closed in Wales over the last five years.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  [holding answer 14 October 1991]: Throughout Wales, inappropriate services for those with mental handicaps or mental illnesses are progressively being phased out as new patterns of more local and accessible services are developed under our all-Wales strategies. Since September 1986 the Allt-y-Mynydd mental handicap unit in East Dyfed and a unit for those with mental handicap at County hospital, Gwent have closed.

  Radioactive Materials (Imports)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list by year for the last 10 years, and for each port in Wales, the number of tonnes of radioactive material that was imported.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  I have been asked to reply.

  My Department does not collect such information on a routine basis. I will write separately to the hon. Member on this subject.

ENVIRONMENT

  Bank of Credit and Commerce International
  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment further to his answer of 25 July,Official Report, column 751, to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), if he is yet able to give (a) the numbers and (b) the names of the local and public authorities that had deposits in BCCI and the amounts deposited.

  Mr. Key
  My Department wrote to local authorities in the United Kingdom on 27 September 1991 asking them about deposits with BCCI. Returns are due to be submitted by 7 November. The information we have received to date is as follows.

  £000

  Western Isles

  23,000

  Bury

  6,500

  Med way

  4,000

  Westminster

  3,575

  Southwark

  3,000

  Lisburn

  3,000

  Mansfield

  2,400

  Wigan

  2,150

  Three Rivers

  2,000

  372

  £000

  Banff and Buchan

  2,000

  Ross and Cromarty

  1,800

  Greater Manchester Fire and Civil Defence Authority

  1,783

  South Bedfordshire

  1,350

  York

  1,300

  Barrow in Furness

  1,200

  Stockport

  1,150

  Allerdale

  1,050

  Alnwick

  1,050

  Mid Bedfordshire

  1,000

  Rother

  850

  Dover

  750

  Clackmannan

  700

  Bristol

  600

  Guildford

  600

  Fareham

  500

  Harlow

  400

  Durham

  300

  Mr. Vaz
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he is taking to alleviate the difficulties for those local authorities which had deposits in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International.

  Mr. Key
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 11 July 1991 to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) at column 1082 and to the answer I gave on 24 July 1991 to the hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) at column 660.

  Officials from the Department have met representatives of the local authorities affected by the closure of BCCI to clarify the implications for authorities of the bank's closure, and to identify possible measures which the affected authorities might wish to consider. We have also received a number of requests from individual authorities for various forms of assistance and we are considering these.

  Competitive Tendering
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he proposes to extend the list of services to be subject to compulsory competitive tendering under the Local Government Act 1988; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  My right hon. Friend intends to announce shortly his proposals for extending the list of services to be subject to compulsory competitive tendering.

  Turney Road Residents Association
  Mr. Fraser
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will place in the Library a copy of his reply to Turney Road Residents Association to its letter of 19 March 1991 about compensation for environmental damages.

  Mr. Yeo
  My Department replied to the association's letter at official level on 23 April. Although it is not the custom with correspondence of this kind, I have on this occasion placed copies of the reply in the Library.

  Limestone Pavements
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how much limestone pavement has been damaged since the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 came into force in(a) national parks, (b) areas of outstanding natural beauty and (c) elsewhere in England.

  Mr. Baldry
  I will write to the hon. Member when English Nature has collated such information as is available.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many people have been prosecuted in the last 10 years for damaging limestone pavements.

  Mr. Baldry
  I am not aware of any prosecutions.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to improve the protection of limestone pavements in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Baldry
  We have no such plans. The measures introduced by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 have proved effective.

  Leisure Developments
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what planning controls his Department is considering for countryside leisure developments, such as(a) new theme parks, (b) hotel and holiday complexes and (c) golf courses, respectively.

  Mr. Yeo
  As with any other development, proposals for leisure developments in the countryside are subject to planning controls and require planning permission. Planning policy guidance note 17 on sport and recreation published on 25 September this year gives guidance on golf courses and other sporting facilities. Other current guidance from the Department of the Environment is contained in circular 13/79 "Local Government and the Development of Tourism" and Development control policy note 12 "Hotels"—1972. Further advice to local planning authorities on how they should approach applications for tourism developments is to be provided in a later planning policy guidance note.

  Void Dwelling Units
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table showing the most recent estimate of the number of void dwelling units which fall below the minimum tolerable standards in the ownership of(a) Government agencies or Departments, (b) local authorities, (c) private landlords and (d) housing associations.

  Mr. Yeo
  The information is not available centrally in the form requested.

  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish a table showing the most recent estimate of the number of void dwelling units in the ownership of(a) Government agencies or Departments, (b) local authorities, (c) private landlords and (d) housing associations; and if he will make a statement.
  374
  Mr. Yeo
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning gave to the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) on 28 February 1991,Official Report, columns 589–91.

  Toxic Waste
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by location the proposed new sites of high temperature incinerators for dealing with inland toxic waste in England.

  Mr. Baldry
  Industry could have a variety of such proposals at various stages of consideration. Planning proposals for merchant incinerators of which the Secretary of State is aware are those currently before him for decision:

  Leigh Environmental, Kirk Sandall, Doncaster

  Ocean Environment, Seal Sands, Cleveland

  Northumbrian Water/ITE, Portrack, Cleveland

  Northumbrian Water/ITE, East Howden, Tyne and Wear

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by location for England the current sites of high temperature incinerators for dealing with inland toxic waste.

  Mr. Baldry
  High-temperature incineration of waste can take place within factory premises, where so authorised, or in merchant plant available for disposal contracts. The merchant incinerators in England are:—

  ReChem, Fawley, Hampshire.

  Cleanaway, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.

  Leigh Industrial Services, Killamarsh, Sheffield.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list by location, all the sites where chromium powder and chromium waste is dumped; and what precautions are taken to ensure that it is not(a) inhaled and (b) allowed to come into contact with the general public.

  Mr. Baldry
  This information is not available centrally. The nature of wastes going into specific landfill sites and suitable operational precautions are matters for local authorities under the licensing provisions of the Control of Pollution Act 1974.

  Nature Conservancy Council
  Mr. Dalyell
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many applications for compensation have been made to the Nature Conservancy Council; how many have been(a) successful, (b) unsuccessful and (c) undecided; and on what grounds the applications were (a) made and (b) decided in each of the past two years.

  Mr. Baldry
  Details of the management agreements concluded by the Nature Conservancy Council are contained in tables in its annual reports, which may be found in the Library. Such agreements are subject to negotiation. The NCC has never had to use its powers of compulsory purchase because of failure to reach a conclusion. The three councils which succeeded the NCC assumed responsibility on 1 April for any continuing negotiations.

  Nitrous Oxide Abatement Technologies
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to publish the final report on nitrous oxide abatement technologies for large combustion plants; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  For the purpose of part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution continually reviews techniques that contribute to BATNEEC—best available techniques not entailing excessive costs. The technology for the control of emissions of nitrogen oxides from large combustion plant is included in such a review. The report to which the hon. Member refers is being taken into account in the review. My right hon. Friend has no plans at present to publish the report.

  Vacant Land
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made with the review of his Department's consultation paper dealing with public sector and possibly private sector vacant land; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  Since my hon. Friend's interim announcement on 7 May we have required local authorities under section 230 of the Local Government Act 1972 to supply the Department with aggregate information about their holdings of unused and underused land. We also propose to make regulations to require them to make registers of such land available to the public in accordance with the code of practice published in 1989. My officials are writing to local authority associations to consult them as the Act requires. My right hon. Friend is considering what further measures might be appropriate and our conclusions will be announced in due course.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps he will take to ensure that planning appeals, following the directed disposal of public sector vacant land, will be dealt with impartially by his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  Directions issued under part X of the Local Government and Planning Act 1980 require public sector owners to dispose of particular vacant sites; they make no presumptions about the future use or development of those sites. Any subsequent applications for planning permission would go through the same procedures as those for any other sites. Where a case comes before my right hon. Friend on appeal it would be determined on its merits in the normal way.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration is being given to the serving of direction orders upon central Government Departments in order to release underused land; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  My right hon. Friend's powers of direction under part X of the Local Government and Planning Act 1980 do not apply to Crown land. However, we seek to ensure with the Departments concerned that where appropriate such land is released or brought into effective use.

  Individual Departments are responsible for monitoring and managing their own property holdings. The
  376
  rationalisation of holdings, the disposal of surplus land and the improvement of systems are encouraged through the public expenditure survey discussions and in other ways.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) pursuant to the reply to the hon. Member for Wakefield on 15 April,Official Report, column 56, how the figure of 150,000 acres of vacant land was calculated; and what methodology and criteria were established in order for this figure to be achieved;

  (2) what estimates are now available to his Department from the national sample of vacant land in urban areas in England; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  The figure of 150,000 acres is based on the results of a pilot survey carried out in preparation for the Department's national sample survey of the stock of vacant land in urban areas in England. The sample for the pilot survey was drawn from a set of 25-hectare map squares covering England, entirely enclosed or intersected by the Department's digitised urban area boundaries and stratified by region. The sample squares selected were visited by Ordnance Survey surveyors who recorded details of the number of vacant sites and amount of vacant land per site. The definition of vacant land used in the pilot survey is consistent with that used in the Department's land use change statistics.

  The national sample survey of the stock of vacant land in urban areas in England has been completed and the contractor's draft report to the Department is under consideration. It would be premature to release figures out of context at this stage.

  Isle of Dogs
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has on the percentage of office space on the Isle of Dogs which is occupied.

  Mr. Yeo
  This information is not held centrally.

  Greenfield Sites
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action he will take to protect greenfield sites from development.

  Mr. Yeo
  The Government's policy is to encourage the effective use of unused and underused land in urban areas and thus reduce the need for development of greenfield sites. Proposals to develop such sites are determined through the planning system. Our current guidance emphasises the importance of protecting the countryside while diversifying the rural economy, and particularly stringent controls exist in especially designated areas such as green belts.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Department of the Environment; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Heseltine
  Total expenditure by my Department, including Property Services Agency Services, the Building Research Establishment Agency, the Historic Royal Palaces Agency and the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Agency, in 1990–91 was £0·144 million.

  Solent Wetlands and Habitats
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made in designating the Solent wetlands and habitats under the Ramsar convention.

  Mr. Baldry
  The former Nature Conservancy Council identified Southampton Water and Solent marshes as a potential Ramsar site but the Government have not received a formal recommendation from English Nature.

  Homelessness
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the street homelessness initiative in central London; whether it is his intention to sanction the use of coercion to remove homeless people from London streets; and whether he intends to use the Vagrancy Act 1824 to prevent homeless people from sleeping rough.

  Sir George Young
  The initiative continues to make encouraging progress. Nearly 500 places have been made available in hostels and 800 in flats and houses. A significant impact has been made on the numbers sleeping rough on the streets of central London and those numbers should further decline as more accommodation becomes available. The use of Vagrancy Act powers in central London is a matter for the Metropolitan police.

  County Councils (Specific Grant)
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list for each county council(a) the specific grant for 1990–91 and 1991–92 and (b) the specific grant on a per head basis.

  Mr. Key
  The information is as follows:

  Specific and Supplementary Grams

  Specific and Supplementary Grants per head of relevant population

  County

  1990–91 revised estimate £'000

  1991–92 budget estimate £'000

  1990–91 revised estimate £

  1991–92 budget estimate £

  Avon

  86,189

  95,823

  121

  134

  Bedfordshire

  43,268

  48,899

  110

  126

  Berkshire

  57,214

  60,384

  104

  109

  Buckinghamshire

  54,264

  64,762

  116

  140

  Cambridgeshire

  48,378

  63,157

  101

  131

  Cheshire

  74,307

  87,839

  104

  123

  Cleveland

  55,894

  63,953

  136

  156

  Cornwall

  40,001

  45,596

  114

  129

  Cumbria

  38,670

  41,753

  101

  112

  Derbyshire

  70,679

  80,414

  99

  113

  Devon

  73,881

  95,632

  97

  123

  Dorset

  50,188

  62,423

  100

  124

  Durham

  49,611

  56,517

  109

  125

  East Sussex

  56,775

  65,076

  105

  122

  Essex

  115,496

  127,105

  99

  110

  Gloucestershire

  45,208

  52,575

  113

  132

  Hampshire

  125,575

  145,189

  107

  125

  Hereford and Worcester

  63,843

  78,005

  126

  154

  Hertfordshire

  81,544

  87,429

  111

  120

  Humberside

  68,995

  80,814

  106

  124

  Isle of Wight

  9,090

  11,387

  92

  117

  Kent

  111,247

  126,610

  97

  110

  Lancashire

  130,075

  149,195

  124

  143

  Leicestershire

  74,218

  87,173

  114

  135

  378

  Specific and Supplementary Grants

  Specific and Supplementary Grants per head of relevant population

  County

  1990–91 revised estimate £'000

  1991–92 budget estimate £'000

  1990–91 revised estimate £

  1991–92 budget estimate £

  Lincolnshire

  46,836

  53,315

  104

  119

  Norfolk

  58,024

  66,188

  101

  115

  Northamptonshire

  39,155

  51,192

  93

  120

  Northumberland

  15,507

  17,842

  68

  78

  North Yorkshire

  62,498

  71,825

  116

  134

  Nottinghamshire

  86,427

  90,367

  114

  119

  Oxfordshire

  45,470

  55,280

  111

  137

  Shropshire

  32,471

  35,811

  107

  117

  Somerset

  38,926

  47,240

  111

  135

  Staffordshire

  86,996

  95,410

  111

  122

  Suffolk

  44,745

  49,715

  95

  106

  Surrey

  77,232

  89,340

  99

  117

  Warwickshire

  48,758

  56,977

  134

  156

  West Sussex

  52,963

  67,361

  97

  125

  Wiltshire

  46,388

  57,409

  110

  136

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list for each local authority for(a) the end of August 1990 and (b) the end of August 1991 the percentage of uncollected community charge.

  Mr. Key
  Local authorities are currently returning forms from which the information requested for August 1991 could be derived. The latest available information showing the difference between community charges collected and the amounts authorities budgeted to collect as a percentage of the latter is for the end of June 1991. I am placing this and the information for the corresponding month of 1990 in the Library of the House.

  Mr. Paice
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the individual categories of population and pupil statistics together with the date applicable to each category which he will be using to calculate the standard spending assessments for local authorities for the financial year 1992–93.

  Mr. Key
  My right hon. Friend will be making an announcement shortly about the provisional revenue support grant settlement for 1992–93 which will include detailed proposals for standard spending assessments.

  Environment Policy
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on his plans for a total environmental policy for the countryside; and how it relates to the coastline and estuaries of Britain.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Government's White Paper "This Common Inheritance: The First Year Report", Cm 1655, published in September 1991 provides an up to date statement of our environmental strategy. Many issues affect the coastal zone, including those relevant to the marine or land environments, and the interaction between them. These issues relate to not only countryside but also climate change, land use and planning, heritage and the cleanliness of air, water and land, all of which are included in the White Paper.

  Renovation Grants
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has to review the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 in respect of renovation grant procedures.

  Mr. Yeo
  On 24 July my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning announced the terms of reference for a review of the new house renovation grant system. Written comments were invited from local authority representatives and other bodies and these are now being analysed. We hope to announce the results of the review early next year.

  Home Ownership
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has further to assist young people into home ownership.

  Mr. Yeo
  Help for all home buyers will come from the Government's policies for a sound economy with stable prices and lower interest rates. Specific measures for helping first-time buyers include increased assistance from the Housing Corporation to housing associations to provide housing for sale on shared ownership leases; encouraging local authorities to release land to housing associations and other private developers of housing for sale at discounts or on shared ownership terms; encouraging more local authorities and housing associations to offer grants to tenants to purchase on the open market; the experimental "rent to mortgage" schemes at Basildon and Milton Keynes. Consideration will be given to extending rent to mortgage arrangements in the light of the outcome.

  City Challenge
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps are being taken to ensure that the reserve costs arising from city challenge will be discounted for capping purposes.

  Mr. Portillo
  As my right hon. Friend told the House on 23 July he intends to announce provisional capping criteria for 1992–93, having the same sort of format as the principles adopted for 1991–92, in advance of authorities' taking their budgeting decisions. That remains his firm intention.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will give an undertaking that urban programme money will continue at existing levels for the foreseeable future for those local authorities that are not city challenge winners.

  Mr. Portillo
  Decisions on the level of funding for inner city programmes are taken and announced in accordance with the Government's annual consideration of public expenditure.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what level of resources devoted to city challenge is new money; and what arrangements he has made for the funding of city challenge in the next financial year.

  Mr. Portillo
  We will make available, from within existing inner city and housing resources, £82·5 million for pacemaker city challenge schemes in 1992–93.
  380
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list those authorities he intends to invite to bid for city challenge; and when he will be sending out formal invitations.

  Mr. Portillo
  This year local authorities in 15 areas were invited to bid in the city challenge competition and the following 11 authorities have been chosen to work up detailed plans for schemes starting in 1992.

  Bradford

  Dearne Valley (Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham)

  Lewisham

  Liverpool

  Manchester

  Middlesbrough

  Newcastle

  Nottingham

  Tower Hamlets

  Wirral

  Wolverhampton

  On 20 July my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State confirmed that we intend to hold a further competition next year which will open to all 57 urban programme authorities. No timetable for the competition has yet been fixed.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he has for those local authorities which, because of a lack of development potential, are unable to secure material private sector involvement in city challenge schemes.

  Mr. Portillo
  All of our inner cities have development potential, as has been shown by the success of urban development grant and city grant, among other programmes. City challenge offers the opportunity for local authorities to establish effective and wide ranging partnerships with the private sector and others which draw on additional resources, and local enterprise, knowledge and imagination.

  Price Fixing Cartels
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action his Department intends to take to ensure that local authorities are able to avoid becoming the victims of price fixing cartels.

  Mr. Portillo
  This is properly a matter for the Office of Fair Trading. Any authority which suspects that it may be the target of a price fixing cartel should report the circumstances to the Director of Fair Trading.

  Flue Gas Desulphurisation
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the sites used for limestone quarrying to provide material for the flue gas desulphurisation programme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy is responsible for consents necessary to fit flue gas desulphurisation plants. I understand that at present, two such consents have been granted, at Ratcliffe-on Soar in Nottinghamshire and Drax in North Yorkshire. Individual sites for extraction of limestone to be used in the process have not been identified. However, my right hon. Friend has stipulated in his consents that the limestone will not be obtained from within the national
  381
  parks. Any planning applications for limestone extraction for this purpose will, of course, be dealt with on their individual merits.

  Water Quality
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many people are currently supplied with water which does not comply with the standards of the EC water quality directive in(a) each region of the United Kingdom and (b) each of the other European Community countries.

  Mr. Baldry
  The drinking water inspectorate's report for 1990, a copy of which has been placed in the Library, showed that 99 per cent. of the 3·3 million analytical determinations made in England and Wales confirmed compliance with the relevant standard in the Water Quality Regulations, which incorporate the requirements of the EC drinking water directive and are in some respects more stringent. The report also gives information about non-compliance in individual supply zones, but statistics of the actual populations served are not readily available.

  Similarly in Scotland and Northern Ireland the whole of the population receive water which complies with the overwhelming majority of the EC directive's standards. In Scotland, 391 supply zones serving a population of about 2·7 million do not at present fully comply with the standards. In most cases, non-compliance is intermittent and in respect of only one or two parameters. In Northern Ireland there is the potential for non-compliance with the aluminium standard in 39 supply zones serving a population of approximately 383,000 and a general potential for non-compliance with the iron standard because of the number of iron mains still in service.

  The information requested is not available on a Community-wide basis nor, so far as we are aware, for any other member state. We hope that the standardised reporting directive, agreed by the Environment Council on 1 October. will in due course considerably increase the information available about non-compliance in other member states.

  In all parts of the United Kingdom a programme of work is in place to remedy existing breaches of the standards as quickly as possible taking practicalities into account. We believe that no other member state has such a rigorous, committed and fully funded programme for compliance.

  Water Abstraction
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, in tabular form, the latest available figures for water withdrawal from(a) ground water sources and (b) surface water sources for (i) the United Kingdom and (ii) each of the other European Community countries.

  Mr. Baldry
  The latest available figures for water abstraction in England and Wales and the percentage that were from ground water are set out in table 7.2 (p. 98) of issue No. 13 of the "Digest of Environmental Protection and Water Statistics", HMSO, 1991. Water in Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for my right hon. Friends the respective Secretaries of State. My Department holds no comparable figures for other European Community member states.

  Municipal Waste
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, in tabular form, the amount of municipal waste per capita produced in(a) the United Kingdom and (b) each of the other European Community countries for the latest year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Baldry
  Based on OECD statistics for 1989, the information is as follows:

  Municipal waste produced per capita per annum

  Country

  Tonnes

  United Kingdom

  0·31

  Republic of Ireland

  0·31

  Belgium

  0·31

  Denmark

  0·47

  Germany

  0·32

  Greece

  0·31

  Spain

  0·32

  France

  0·30

  Italy

  0·30

  Luxembourg

  0·27

  Netherlands

  0·47

  Portugal

  0·23

  It should be borne in mind that the term municipal waste may be defined differently by different member states.

  Energy and Land Use
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he has any plans to issue a draft planning policy guidance note on energy and land use.

  Mr. Yeo
  In the environment White Paper the Government proposed a joint Department of the Environment/Department of Transport study to look at the relationship between land use and transport and the part planning could play in reducing fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions. The study was commissioned in February this year and should be completed in May 1992. The research findings will feed into planning guidance on the relationship between energy conservation and the location of development.

  The Government has published planning policy guidance note No. PPG15 about the preparation of development plans which asks planning authorities to have particular regard to the conservation of resources such as land and energy. That approach has been considerably amplified in annex A to a draft revision combining planning policy guidance notes 12 and 15. issued for public consultation on 4 September.

  Draft policy guidance on renewable energy and the planning system is being prepared by officials in the Department of Energy, the Welsh Office and in my Department. I hope to issue a draft for public consultation later this year.

  World Habitat Day
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what contribution Her Majesty's Government made to World Habitat Day on shelter and the human environment, on 7 October.

  Mr. Baldry
  A habitat day seminar was organised to focus attention on the main issues raised by rapid urbanisation in developing countries. The seminar drew
  383
  together experts from government, aid agencies and non-government organisations. A report of the seminar proceedings will be distributed widely.

  Green House Programme
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total value of the bids he received from English local authorities under the 1990–91 green house programme; and what sum he allocated.

  Mr. Yeo
  In 1991 the Department received £150 million worth of bids for the £10 million available in the first year of the green house programme, 1991–92. Up to £50 million is currently earmarked for the programme in 1992–93.

  Water Pollution
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the progress towards reducing toxic substances in the aquatic environment by 50 per cent. by 1995.

  Mr. Trippier
  Good progress has been made in meeting the targets agreed at recent North sea conferences for reducing inputs to the sea of substances that are toxic, persistent and liable to bio-accumulate. Data collected as part of an international exercise organised by the Paris Commission show the following reductions of inputs to the United Kingdom's coastal waters between 1985 and 1990:

  Estimates of percentage reductions of inputs of substances to the North sea between 1985 and 1990

  Per cent.

  Mercury

  51

  Cadmium

  61

  Lindane

  30

  Copper

  28

  Zinc

  0

  Lead

  89

  I am confident that further substantial reductions will be achieved for these substances and other red list substances during the 1990s through controls on discharges by the National Rivers Authority, and through the application of integrated pollution control by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution.

  Racial Attacks
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what action his Department has taken in response to the recommendations in paragraphs 27 and 28 of the 1989 Home Affairs Select Committee report on racial attacks and harassment which are his responsibility; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  We agree with the Home Affairs Select Committee that local authorities should be encouraged to follow the recommendations of the racial attacks group —RAG—report and its good practice guidance on tackling racial violence and harassment in local authority housing. We sent copies of the report and the guidelines to all housing authorities in England, in July 1989.

  Earlier this year we initiated research to see how far local authorities had acted on this advice. The results have been encouraging and a report has been made to the RAG which I understand that the Home Office hope to publish by the end of the year.
  384
  The existing grounds for eviction in the Housing Act 1985 were considered adequate by the Home Affairs Committee who saw no need for separate provisions specifically concerned with racial harassment. However. we have said that if evidence should come to light that the existing law was ineffective, we would look at it again.

  Chlorofluorocarbons
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will publish the scientific evidence for the impossibility of maintaining an immediate freeze in the level of CFC emissions at the 1990 level; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  The Montreal protocol, and the European regulation which implements it, control production and consumption of CFCs rather than emissions. Between 1986 and 1989 the United Kingdom cut its consumption by 50 per cent. and consumption continues to fall. CFCs are still needed in some applications where substitutes are not yet available. We will be pressing for the earliest possible phase out of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances in the negotiations towards the 1992 protocol revision which start early next year.

  Tyre Disposal
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what he assesses will be the implications for environmental protection of future programmes of tyre disposal.

  Mr. Trippier
  Future programmes of tyre disposal will need to meet the environmental standards set by current and forthcoming waste management legislation. including the "duty of care" regulations due to be introduced in April 1992. These regulations and other provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 should lead to higher scrap tyre recycling rates.

  The European Commission is also now considering scrap tyres as a "priority waste stream" and it is likely that this exercise will result in the introduction of tyre recycling targets.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the number of obsolete tyres awaiting disposal: and what proposals he has for their disposal.

  Mr. Trippier
  We have no information at present on which to base an estimate, but my Department intends to conduct a survey of local authorities shortly to assess the numbers of tyres awaiting disposal.

  The Government's new environmental legislation makes the use of scrap tyres as a fuel or secondary raw material more commercially viable. As a result, the prospects for using scrap tyres productively have increased in recent years and a number of companies are now developing schemes to use tyres.

  We will be monitoring the situation to see whether these initiatives make sufficient inroads into the stockpiles of used tyres or whether further action is necessary.

  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what steps the Government are taking to ensure that carbon black waste from tyres is safely
  385
  disposed of; and what assessment he has made of the danger that can occur if such waste is left exposed to the environment.

  Mr. Baldry
  Carbon black waste is released from tyres only if they are burnt. If allowed into the air it can be visually offensive, but could only be harmful to the environment if contaminated with other constituents of rubber tyres such as phenols. Incineration schemes for tyres would need appropriate gas cleansing and residue control measures and any disposal of contaminated carbon black waste to landfill would need to be properly licensed by local authorities and subject to suitable safeguards.

  Organic Solvents
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the decision to set an inspection level of the use of 2 tonnes of organic solvent within a 12-month period under the pollution control regulations; and what representations he has received seeking a lower figure at 0·25 tons.

  Mr. Baldry
  Under the Environmental Protection (Prescribed Processes and Substances) Regulations 1991, the new system of local authority air pollution control provided for in part I of the Environmental Protection Act will apply to road vehicle respraying processes which are likely to use two tonnes or more of organic solvents in any 12-month period. The Vehicle Builders and Repairers Association—VBRA—and 19 of its members have made representations seeking a reduction in the exemption threshold to 0·25 tonnes per year. The Department have sought further information from the VBRA, when r.his is to hand, my right hon. Friend will consider its representations further.

  Council Tax
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has held on the council tax and the application for section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1984 with the Data Protection Registrar; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Key
  Officials in my Department have had discussions with the Data Protection Registrar's office on all aspects of the council tax.

  Walpole Estate, Woolwich
  Mr. Cartwright
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what proposals his Department's estates action team has considered for improving the Walpole estate, Woolwich; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) whether officials from his Department's estates action team will visit the Walpole estate, Woolwich to discuss a programme of possible improvements with tenants' representatives.

  Mr. Yeo
  Officials from my Department's London region office visited the Walpole estate on 14 June 1991 to discuss with council officers and tenants a proposed scheme for Walpole and the adjacent Connaught estate which the London borough of Greenwich had been invited to work up for the 1991–92 estate action programme. The scheme was subsequently withdrawn by the authority. I386
  understand that a more comprehensive scheme for both estates is likely to be the subject of an estate action bid in a future year. Approval would depend on the quality of the proposed scheme in competition with other bids received.

  Ivory
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is Her Majesty's Government's policy towards the continued ban on the export of ivory from southern African countries under the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species; and whether Her Majesty's Government will raise the matter at the forthcoming Commonwealth conference in Harare.

  Mr. Baldry
  We are firmly committed to maintaining the ivory trade ban for as long as it is necessary to ensure the survival and recovery of elephant populations. The United Kingdom would not support any proposal to relax the current restrictions unless we were fully satisfied that it met the criteria established at the last conference of the parties to the convention.

  This issue was not raised at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

  Carbon Dioxide Emissions
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list, in tabular form, the latest figures available for(a) carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross national product and (b) carbon dioxide emissions per capita in (i) the United Kingdom and (ii) each of the other OECD countries.

  Mr. Trippier
  Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from energy use, per unit of gross national product and per capita for OECD countries, 1989, are as follows:

  tonnes C1 per capita

  tones C1 per thousand US$

  Canada

  5·2

  0·26

  United States of America

  5·9

  0·29

  Japan

  2·3

  0·10

  Australia

  4·5

  0·27

  New Zealand

  2·4

  0·20

  Austria

  2·2

  0·14

  Belgium

  3·4

  0·22

  Denmark

  3·2

  0·16

  Finland

  3·7

  0·16

  France

  2·0

  0·12

  Germany

  3·6

  0·23

  Greece

  2·3

  0·42

  Iceland

  2·4

  0·12

  Ireland

  2·3

  0·27

  Italy

  2·0

  0·14

  Luxembourg

  7·1

  0·29

  Netherlands

  3·6

  0·24

  Norway

  2·5

  012

  Portugal

  1·3

  0·29

  Spain

  1·6

  0·17

  Sweden

  2·5

  0·12

  Switzerland

  1·8

  0·06

  Turkey

  0·8

  0·54

  United Kingdom

  2·9

  0·20

  Sources: OECD Environmental Data Compendium 1991; OECD Annual National Accounts, Volume 1.

  1Calculated using amount of carbon released.

  Defective Housing
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make it his policy to increase the amount of usable housing capital receipts available to Congleton borough council to enable it to proceed with the rebuilding of Airey type properties in Solly crescent. Congleton.

  Mr. Key
  The Local Authorities (Capital Finance) Regulations 1990 already provide for certain relaxations in the normal rules requiring a proportion of capital receipts to be set aside for debt redemption. In the case of houses that are designated as defective within the meaning of part XVI of the Housing Act 1985 the provisions allow authorities to offset the cost of the replacement dwellings against the capital receipt received from the disposal. It is for individual local authorities to determine whether their proposals meet the requirements of the regulations.

  Lead Shot
  Sir Hugh Rossi
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if his Department has conducted any research into the development of environmentally less damaging alternatives to lead shot;

  (2) what representations he has received concerning the effects of lead shot on the environment; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  Hon. Members have raised questions in this House or have written to my right hon. Friend about the effects of lead shot on the environment. Conservation bodies have also drawn attention to lead shot poisoning of waterfowl.

  My Department has not itself conducted research in this specific area but officials met recently with interested bodies to discuss the introduction of non-toxic alternatives to lead gunshot in wetland areas. A working group was established to develop proposals for a programme for introducing non-toxic shot.

  Lead
  Sir Hugh Rossi
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) what criteria will be used to determine whether land contaminated with lead will be included in the contaminated land register;

  (2) whether areas of land on which shotguns are frequently discharged will be considered for inclusion in the contaminated land register.

  Mr. Trippier
  Local authority registers of land which may be contaminated will be compiled in accordance with regulations under section 143 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. The regulations will specify contaminative uses of land. Consideration is being given to the inclusion of any use of land which results in its being contaminated with lead, including land used for shooting.

  Green Belt
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the Government's policy towards the maintenance of the green belt.

  Mr. Yeo
  We remain firmly committed to the purposes of the green belt in checking unrestricted urban sprawl,388
  safeguarding the surrounding countryside, preventing neighbouring towns from merging, preserving the special character of historic towns, and assisting urban regeneration. Since 1979 the extent of green belts in England has more than doubled. Policy on green belts remains as set out in planning policy guidance note 2; updated guidelines on redundant hospital sites are in DOE circular 12/91.

  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if a public inquiry will be held in respect of the planning decision to allow factory building in the green belt at Woodlands in Bradford South; and what account is taken in such inquiries of whether proposals depart from the relevant local authority's planning map.

  Mr. Yeo
  Bradford city council has referred to the Secretary of State a planning application for industrial development at Woodlands for Ramfield plc. He is considering whether to call it in for his own determination. If he decides to do so a public inquiry will be held, and he will determine the application in accordance with the development plan unless material consideration indicate otherwise.

  Environmentally Friendly Buildings
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will set out in the Official Report the details of the scheme for the certification of environmentally friendly buildings launched on 23 September.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 17 October 1991]: Two versions of the Building Research Establishment environmental assessment method for new building designs were launched on 23 September 1991. BREEAM 2/91 relates to new superstores and supermarkets; BREEAM 3/91 relates to new housing. The assessment of a design is carried out with respect to a number of environmental issues and a certificate is given to illustrate the environmental performance of the design. This scheme is voluntary and financially self-supporting. BREEAM has been developed with sponsorship from the private sector. Further details are available from the Building Research Establishment.

  Departmental Reports
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when his Department published its report "Monitoring Environmental Assessment and Planning"; how many copies were printed on the initial print run; and what has been the cost of production of the report.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: The research report by the EIA centre, Manchester university, "Monitoring Environmental Assessment and Planning" was published by HMSO on behalf of the Department on 2 August 1991; a copy was placed in the Library of the House at that time. A total of 3,000 copies of the report have been printed. The printing and publishing costs are borne in full by HMSO and the costs recovered through revenue from sales.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many copies of his departmental MINIS 12 document on plans and objectives for his Department have been printed; and where copies can be obtained by the general public.
  389
  Mr. Heseltine
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: I informed the House on 23 July 1991, Official Report column 524, that MINIS 12 would be published on that day. Copies were placed in the Libraries of both Houses. To date, 45 sets of MINIS 12 have been printed. Members of the public can purchase copies from the Department's publications sales unit, building 1, Victoria road, South Ruislip, Middlesex, HA4 0NZ.

  Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answers to the hon. Member for Newport, West,Official Report, 14 May, columns 67–68, (a) how many meetings of the advisory committee on business and the environment have been held, (b) on how many occasions Ministers or officials of his Department have met the committee, (c) whether the committee has produced any reports to Ministers on its work to date and (d) if he will make a statement on progress made by the committee.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]The advisory committee on business and the environment has had two full meetings since it was established by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in May 1991. It has also established three working groups on recycling, global warming and environmental management, each of which has met several times. My right hon. Friends and I. and other ministerial colleagues, have met members of the committee on several occasions, and our officials have done so frequently. We have received an initial report from the chairman of the committee, John Collins, to which we intend to respond shortly.

  East Thames Corridor
  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment in the light of experience in other areas of high development, what measures he proposes to take to ensure that any development of the east Thames corridor has adequate strategic transport infrastructure.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has announced his intention to commission consultants to make an appraisal of the development capacity of the east Thames corridor. They will also consider the transport implications. The consultant's findings will be considered in close liaison with the Department of Transport.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he proposes to allow planning authorities in the south of England to revise their structure or local plans during the 1990s if there should be significant additional housebuilding in the east Thames corridor.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: Local planning authorities revise their structure and local plans when they consider it appropriate to do so. Those plans need to conform with the current regional guidance.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the scope of the study which he proposes to commission into the development possibilities of the east Thames corridor.
  390
  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: The proposed terms of reference for the consultant's study of the east Thames corridor have been published and I am placing a copy in the Library.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what consideration he will give to representations about the desirability of development in the east Thames corridor from local authorities and planning bodies not directly affected by any such development.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: SERPLAN, which represents all the local planning authorities in the south-east region, has already made representations about the desirability of development in the east Thames corridor. The development capacity of the corridor will now be considered by consultants. In due course my right hon. Friend will issue draft revised regional planning guidance on which there will be full consultation.

  Mr. Hunter
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his policy regarding development in the east Thames corridor on open sites not currently earmarked for development in local plans.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: It is for the local planning authorities concerned to consider, in the first instance, any proposal for development on open sites in the east Thames corridor not currently earmarked for development in local plans. In doing so they will have regard to national planning policy guidance, regional guidance, relevant policies in structure and local plans, for example on the green belt, and any other material considerations.

EMPLOYMENT

  Low Pay
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will estimate the number of part-time and full-time employees earning(a) below the PAYE threshold and (b) below the national insurance contributions lower earnings limit in 1989, 1990 and 1991, respectively.

  Mr. Jackson
  Broad estimates, based on the new earnings survey and estimates of the number of employees in employment, are as follows:

  Number (millions) earning less than

  April each year

  PAYE threshold

  National insurance lower earnings limit

  1989

  3·5

  3

  1990

  3·5

  3

  1991

  3·5

  3

  It is estimated around 10 per cent. of these employees are full-timers, most of whom fell below the amounts specified because their earnings were affected by absence in the survey period.

  Labour Statistics
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish the number of employees, broken down into full-timers and part-timers who are(a) under 18 years, (b)Ayears and over and (c) 21 years old and over in the following standard industrial

  Employees in full or part-time employment by age and industry—Great Britain

  Spring 1990 (thousands)

  Full time1 Age

  Part time1 Age

  Industry (SIC 1980)

  16 or 17

  18 or over

  21 or over

  16 or 17

  18 or over

  21 or over

  0–92

  All industries

  259

  16,905

  15,599

  350

  4,697

  4,465

  0

  Agriculture

  3—

  194

  178

  3—

  49

  46

  1–5

  Production and construction

  101

  6,517

  6,038

  15

  528

  514

  2–4

  Manufacturing

  73

  4,880

  4,533

  13

  419

  408

  43

  Textiles

  3—

  180

  168

  3—

  23

  23

  45

  Clothing footwear

  3—

  230

  197

  3—

  42

  42

  6–9

  Services

  154

  10,194

  9,384

  331

  4,121

  3,905

  6

  Distribution, hotels

  72

  2,517

  2,198

  283

  1,511

  1,343

  64/654

  Retail distribution

  44

  1,267

  1,089

  202

  927

  823

  66

  Hotels and catering

  12

  428

  375

  75

  468

  406

  661

  Restaurants, cafes etc.

  3—

  110

  93

  44

  111

  88

  662

  Public houses and bars

  3—

  68

  61

  13

  131

  110

  663

  Night clubs

  3—

  28

  26

  3—

  49

  44

  664

  Canteens and messes

  3—

  80

  73

  3—

  101

  99

  665

  Hotel trade

  3—

  129

  109

  14

  68

  60

  667

  Short stay accommodation

  3—

  13

  12

  3—

  3—

  3—

  8

  Banking finance and insurance

  37

  2,074

  1,857

  3—

  375

  370

  91

  Public administration and defence

  3—

  1,357

  1,299

  3—

  178

  175

  92

  Sanitary services

  3—

  144

  137

  3—

  91

  90

  93

  Education

  3—

  1,068

  1.055

  3—

  625

  622

  95

  Health

  3—

  697

  659

  3—

  516

  512

  96

  Other services

  3—

  449

  428

  3—

  431

  422

  97

  Recreation

  3—

  321

  291

  3—

  134

  123

  98

  Personal services

  3—

  113

  84

  3—

  46

  44

  1 Based on the respondent's own assessment, not on the number of hours usually worked.

  2 Includes those who did not state their industry.

  3 Sample size too small for reliable estimates. (Note that any estimates below 10,000 applying to the age group 18–20, obtained by differencing the figures for 21 and over and 18 and over, are not reliable for the same reason).

  4 Figures for sub-groups of SIC 64/65 are not available.

  Source: Labour Force Survey.

  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many employees have been in employment for each of the last 10 years.

  Mr. Jackson
  The number of employees in employment in the United Kingdoms for each of the last 10 years were as follows:

  Seasonally adjusted

  Thousands

  June 1981

  21,870

  June 1982

  21,395

  June 1983

  21,054

  June 1984

  21,229

  June 1985

  21,414

  June 1986

  21,379

  June 1987

  21,586

  June 1988

  22,266

  June 1989

  22,670

  June 1990

  22,864

  1June 1991

  22,201

  1 Latest available estimate.

  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will indicate the unemployment rates for September 1991 and September 1979 using(a) the statistical methodology in operation in 1979, and (b) the current statistical methodology; and if he will make a statement.
  392
  classifications (i) zero to nine, (ii) one to five, (iii) two to four, (iv) six to nine, (v) zero, (vi) 43, (vii) 45, (viii) six, (ix) 64 and 65 and their subgroups, (x) 66 and its subgroups, (xi) eight, (xii) 91, (xiii) 92, (xiv) 93, (xv) 95, (xvi) 96, (xvii) 97 and (xviii) 98, respectively.

  Mr. Jackson
  Estimates from the 1990 labour force survey, as requested, are given in the table:

  Mr. Jackson
  Prior to 1982, seasonally adjusted unemployment was compiled on the basis of a count of registrants at jobcentres, excluding school leavers, and expressed as a percentage of employees in employment plus the unemployed. Using this methodology, seasonally adjusted unemployment in the United Kingdom stood at 5·2 per cent. in September 1979. No comparable estimate is available of what the corresponding rate of unemployment would have been in September 1991 using the same basis. However, the United Kingdom's seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment, based on the current claimant count and expressed as a percentage of the workforce (the sum of unemployed claimants, employees in employment, self-employed, Her Majesty's forces and participants on work-related government training schemes) was 8·7 per cent. in September 1991 compared with 3·9 per cent. in September 1979.

  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the change in male full-time employment since 1983 to the latest available date.

  Mr. Jackson
  There were 12,881,000 males in full-time employment in Great Britain in June 1991, the latest date for which information is available. This compares with 12,740,000 males in full-time employment in June 1983, an increase of 141,000 or 1·1 per cent.
  393
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give the unemployment figures for Nottingham, North for each of the months since March 1979.

  Mr. Jackson
  The information requested, for the Nottingham, North parliamentary constituency, can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library and is available from June 1983.

  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will provide the most recent figures on the percentages of people on the unemployment register who have been unemployed for over one year by the standard regional classifications within the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Jackson
  The information requested can be obtained from the NOMIS database in the Library.

  Soviet Union (Ministerial Visit)
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on his recent visit to the Soviet Union.

  Mr. Howard
  I visited St. Petersburg and Moscow from 29 September to 2 October to explore the scope for providing assistance from the know-how fund in the development of small business and enterprise in the Soviet Union. During my visit I was able to reach agreement with the Government of the Russian Republic, with the St. Petersburg city council and with the Pervomaiskii district council in Moscow for the establishment of small firms advisory centres. with know-how fund support, in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In the case of two of the centres to be established, there will also be a British private sector partner; International Computers Limited (ICL) in the case of St. Petersburg and Trade Advisory Service of Glasgow in respect of Pervomaiskii.

  I also discussed in both St. Petersburg and Moscow other areas in which United Kingdom assistance might be provided, including the establishment of employment services. As a result of these discussions a team from our employment service, led by its director for Scotland, is likely to visit the Soviet Union shortly to explore further the scope for practical assistance and cooperation.

  During my visit I was also able to visit both a number of small businesses operating in the Soviet Union and also a number of ventures involving British interests, including that being set up by Littlewood's in St. Petersburg. I was also able to hold discussions on a wide range of issues with leading figures in the newly emerging political and economic structures in the Soviet Union. These included discussions with representatives of a number of independent trade unions.

  Training and Enterprise Councils
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how the training and enterprise councils will be integrated into the citizens charter.

  Mr. Jackson
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State wrote to all training and enterprise council chairmen on the 22 July to encourage them to establish a citizens charter for the activities for which they are responsible.
  394
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what arrangements exist for the transfer of pension rights, continuity of service and allowances for civil service staff seconded to training and enterprise councils.

  Mr. Jackson
  All Employment Department staff on secondment to TECs remain civil servants employed by the Department. As such, they have the same terms and conditions of service including pension entitlement and allowances, as any other members of staff within the Department. Their continuity of service whilst on secondment is guaranteed.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how he will introduce employment action into areas where training and enterprise councils do not take part in the scheme; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  In those few areas where the local TEC has declined to participate in employment action my officials will arrange contracts direct with providers.

  Employment Action Scheme
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make it his policy to amend the employment action scheme to ensure(a) trainees are paid the rate for the job, (b) trainees are given full contracts of employment, (c) full-time and part-time places are available and (d) off-the-job training leading to recognised qualifications is provided; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  I have no plans to change the rules for employment action. Under the current arrangements part time places may be available for some participants and those seeking training leading to a vocational qualification are able to apply for a place on employment training.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what response he has received from local authorities, trade unions, voluntary organisations and organisations representing the interests of the unemployed, concerning the introduction of the employment action scheme.

  Mr. Jackson
  Employment action has been generally welcomed by all those with the interests of unemployed people at heart. The decision of the TUC to oppose employment action is regrettable but will not prevent the schemes success.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many bids have been received from training and enterprise councils and other agencies in order to run employment action schemes.

  Mr. Jackson
  Seventy five training and enterprise councils are already running employment action or are negotiating contracts with my Department. Where TECs have declined to participate, my officials will be arranging contracts direct with providers. There has been strong interest from providers in such cases.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps he has taken to ensure that employment action does not result in job substitution; and if he will make a statement.
  395
  Mr. Jackson
  Employment action is delivered locally. Training and enterprise councils with their solid base in the local community, are ideally placed to ensure that there is no substitution.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if employment action participants will receive similar employment rights to employment training and youth training trainees under the provisions of health and safety, race relations and sex discrimination legislation; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  The provisions of health and safety, race relations and sex discrimination legislation will indeed apply to employment action participants. Trainees on employment training and youth training are similarly covered.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how employment action will result in employment creation or vocational training; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  Employment action will help unemployed people to maintain their existing skills, as well as giving them help in searching for and securing a permanent job. I am confident that employment action will improve the prospects of those who take part.

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps he intends to take in the case of claimants who refuse to take part in employment action programmes.

  Mr. Jackson
  As I have frequently made clear, participation in employment action is entirely voluntary. Refusal to accept a place on the initiative would not in itself result in disqualification from receipt of benefit.

  Employment Action Programme
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people have accepted places on the employment action programme at the latest date.

  Mr. Jackson
  Employment action has only recently started and information on participants is not yet available.

  Performance-related Pay
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what percentage of the Employment Department group staff are on performance-related pay.

  Mr. Jackson
  Over 98 per cent. of Employment Department group staff are covered by performance pay arrangements; 30·2 per cent. have had pay awards under these arrangements.

  Redundancy Payments
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what responsibility his Department has assumed for redundancy payments to civil servants who moved from his Department to TICC skill centres, on that company having gone bankrupt in August.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Department met the commitments it made to former staff to oblige purchasers of skill centres to 396
  write into staff's new employment contracts an entitlement to redundancy payments at civil service rates. This is now a matter between the employees, the company and its liquidators, although I do recognise the difficult position of former civil servants and am giving the issue serious consideration.

  Employment Training Schemes
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if priority training moneys, within employment training, will be ring-fenced in order to ensure priority groups receive assistance.

  Mr. Jackson
  Training and enterprise councils are obliged under their contracts to ensure that priority in recruitment to employment training is given to persons in the guarantee and aim groups.

  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the change in the numbers of the guarantee and aim groups for employment training over the past 12 months.

  Mr. Jackson
  The change in the numbers of ET participants in England and Wales between the first quarter of 1990–91 and the first quarter of 1991–92 has been as follows:

  Guarantee group: +2,641

  Aim group: -5,125

  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will outline future funding levels for employment training.

  Mr. Jackson
  Planned expenditure on employment training in Great Britain as published in the Employment Department group expenditure plans, Cm 1506, is £792 million in 1992–93 and £811 million in 1993–94.

  Claimants
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many unemployed claimants there were in the London borough of Newham, Tower Hamlets and Southwark in 1981 and at the latest available date.

  Mr. Jackson
  Unemployment data for local authority districts is available only from June 1983.

  The tables show the unadjusted number of unemployed claimants in the London boroughs for June 1983 and September 1991.

  June 1983

  September 1991

  Newham

  15,226

  16,894

  Tower Hamlets

  15,230

  14,282

  Southwark

  17,309

  18,833

  Job Interview Guarantee
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many interviews have so far taken place under the job interview guarantee; and how many got jobs.

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

  London Docklands
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many unemployed claimants there were in the London Docklands development corporation urban development area in 1981 and at the latest available date.

  Mr. Jackson
  Comparable figures are only available from June 1983. In June 1983 there were 6,631 unemployed claimants, on the unadjusted basis, in the London Docklands development corporation urban development area. This compares with 7,100 in September 1991.

  Comparisons are affected by the changes in the coverage of the count that have occurred over the period and by seasonal influences.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave the hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. Redmond) on 14 June 1991 at column 703.

  Engineering Apprentices
  Mr. Leighton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the percentage change in the recruitment of apprentices in the engineering industry over the last year.

  Mr. Jackson
  Information on the recruitment of apprentices is not collected. However, the most recently available results from the annual labour force survey show that there were an estimated 73,000 apprentices in metal goods, engineering and vehicles in spring 1990. This represents an increase of 33 per cent. on the 1989 figure. Apprenticeships are only part of the system of delivering vocational training. The 1980s saw the introduction and expansion of training of young people through the youth training scheme. In addition, many young people opt to acquire vocational training through the further education system.

  Coal Mines Inspections
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State. for Employment if he will make a statement on the death of Mr. Lewis in the Glen colliery Cwmllynfelly, on Friday 11 October; and what action is being taken to check safety in other private mines in the Neath constituency.

  Mr. Forth
  I note with regret the death on 11 October of Mr. Lewis a 44-year-old colliery faceworker at the Glen colliery licensed mine in South Wales.

  The incident resulted from a fall of a roof while the deceased was working in a narrow seam. Two inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive's mines inspectorate were immediately sent to the mine where they carried out a full investigation. Their report, together with any recommendations is being considered by HM Chief Inspector of Mines.

  Licensed coal mines in the Neath constituency are included in a systematic inspection programme drawn up
  398
  by the Inspector in charge of the district weighted in line with local circumstances and knowledge. All working licensed coal mines are inspected at least once per year, usually more frequently.

  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the frequency of inspections of private licensed mines in(a) south Wales and (b) the Neath constituency for each year since 1979.

  Mr. Jackson
  Operating licensed mines in south Wales which includes those in the Neath constituency are visited by the Health and Safety Executive's mines inspectorate at least once each year and usually more frequently.

  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give figures for the number of inspectors of mines in south Wales per 100 employees in both private licensed and British Coal collieries for each year since 1979.

  Mr. Forth
  The available information, which relates to British Coal employees only, is as follows:

  Year

  Ratio of MIs per British Coal employees

  1979

  n.a.

  1980

  n.a.

  1981

  0·05

  1982

  0·05

  1983

  0·06

  1984

  0·06

  1985

  0·08

  1986

  0·08

  1987

  0·12

  1988

  0·13

  1989

  0·22

  1990

  0·37

  Reliable information about the number of employees at private licensed mines is not available.

  National Insurance Fraud
  Mr. Rooney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many staff in the Employment Service numerically and proportionately are engaged in fraud detection relating to national insurance contributions.

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

  Earnings
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will state separately for full-time workers, part-time workers and all workers(a) the number and (b) the percentage earning less than £130 per week for (i) women, (ii) men and (iii) all workers, excluding overtime pay in (1) Leyton, (2) Walthamstow, (3) Chingford and (4) Greater London, for the last year for which figures are available.

  Mr. Jackson
  The information available from the April 1991 new earnings survey is given in the following table.
  399

  Employees on adult rates whose pay was not affected by absence with weekly earnings excluding overtime below £130.

  April 1991

  Waltham Forest1

  Greater London

  Number in survey

  Per cent.

  Number in survey

  Per cent.

  Full-time women

  8

  8·3

  347

  4·4

  Full-time men

  6

  3·9

  268

  2·1

  Full-time adults

  14

  5·6

  615

  3·0

  1 Due to small sample numbers, the information may be unreliable.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jackson
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall Departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year.

  Unemployment Benefit
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many unemployed people were disqualified for unemployment benefit in the South Gwent and Islwyn district in September 1991 under each paragraph of section 20(1) of the Social Security Act 1975; and in how many cases disqualification was imposed for the maximum period of 26 weeks.

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

SCOTLAND

  Incomes
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what was the number of people in Scotland with incomes less than half the average income after housing costs(a) in 1979 and (b) in 1988; and what percentage of the Scottish population this represented in each year.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  It is not possible to provide the requested information, except at disproportionate cost. Analyses for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England showing the number of households, by decile group below median household incomes, for the periods 1980–1982 and 1983–85, are given in the publication "Households and Families Below Average Income: A Regional Analysis 1980–1985". This study was commissioned from the Institute for Fiscal Studies by the House of Commons Social Services Committee. The publication is available from the Library.

  Woodland Grant Scheme
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to issue guidelines to local authorities to promote the woodland grant scheme; what is the planned budget of the scheme in the current and next financial years; how many applications have been received from within Renfrew district; how many of these have been approved; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Forestry Commission has the responsibility for promoting the woodland grant scheme; it consults local authorities about planting proposals in their area.

  The budget in 1991–92 for grants under the woodland grant scheme is £17·6 million, and the estimate for 1992–93 is £20·4 million.

  The Forestry Commission has received 23 applications in Renfrew district, of which 17 have so far been approved.

  Mortgage Repossessions
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many court actions relating to mortgage repossessions there were in(a) Paisley sheriff court and (b) Scotland for each year since 1978; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  This information is not held centrally.

  Strathclyde Police
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a table showing the level of specific grant given to meet the revenue costs of Strathclyde police in each year since 1979, expressed(a) in cash terms and (b) as a percentage of the total revenue budget; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The information requested is set out in the following table:

  Police specific grant

  Total revenue budget

  Police specific grant as a percentage of the total revenue budget

  Year

  £

  £

  Per cent.

  1979–80

  37,829,242·21

  793,478,000·00

  4·77

  1980–81

  45,104,503·48

  989,304,000·00

  4·56

  1981–82

  52,590,064·66

  1,149,077,000·00

  4·58

  1982–83

  57,071,448·97

  1,257,054,000·00

  4·54

  1983–84

  61,946,461·13

  1,315,068,000·00

  4·71

  1984–85

  66,998,770·33

  1,358,433,000·00

  4·93

  1985–86

  67,241,352·98

  1,418,429,000·00

  4·74

  1986–87

  73,150,030·24

  1,501,838,000·00

  4·87

  1987–88

  82,076,843·87

  1,635,650,000·00

  5·02

  1988–89

  86,759,855·81

  1,763,655,000·00

  4·92

  1989–90

  97,768,399·14

  1,876,880,000·00

  5·21

  1990–91

  1108,118,400·95

  1,977,241,000·00

  5·47

  1 Provisional.

  Community Policing
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has any plans to review the need for additional community policing initiatives within the Paisley, South constituency; and if he will make a statement.
  401
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Responsibility for decisions on the operational deployment of police officers within Paisley, South rests solely with the chief constable of Strathclyde police.

  Police Manpower
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will publish a table showing, for each police authority in Scotland, the number of trained policemen and women required to bring each authority up to official recommended levels of qualified police personnel; the number of civilian administrative staff short; and the difference between the bid for equipment budgets to meet existing demands to combat crime in Scotland and the amounts awarded; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Table 1 shows the difference between the number of police officers in post and the authorised establishment level for each force. Table 2 provides a breakdown of civilian staff in each force and the difference between establishment and strength.

  Allocations for equipment are not distinguished separately within the consent which police authorities receive to incur capital expenditure. Authorities may augment the sum for which consent has been given by proceeds from the sale of assets. The figures in table 3 set out the capital allocations issued in 1991–92 together with the maximum amount of grant, at 51 per cent. of expenditure, that can be obtained by those authorities meeting some capital expenditure from current revenue.

  Table 1

  Total police establishment and numbers in post as at 30 June 1991

  Authorised establishment

  Number of officers in post

  Difference

  Central

  643

  623

  -20

  Dumfries and Galloway

  361

  361

  —

  Fife

  780

  757

  -23

  Grampian

  1,158

  1,139

  -19

  Lothian and Borders

  2,487

  2,426

  -61

  Northern

  631

  624

  -7

  Strathclyde

  6,954

  6,700

  -254

  Tayside

  1,057

  1,023

  -34

  Total

  14,071

  13,653

  -418

  Table 2

  Police civilian strength compared to establishment as at 30 June 1991

  Establishment

  Strength

  Difference

  Central:

  Traffic Warden

  22

  22

  —

  Clerical Staff

  72

  72

  —

  Technical Staff

  45

  44

  -1

  Dumfries and Galloway:

  Traffic Warden

  22

  12

  -10

  Clerical Staff

  45

  45

  —

  Technical Staff

  36

  36

  —

  Fife:

  Traffic Warden

  38

  36

  -2

  Clerical Staff

  132

  123

  -9

  Technical Staff

  41

  33

  -8

  Grampian:

  Traffic Warden

  57

  51

  -6

  Clerical Staff

  185

  179

  -6

  Technical Staff

  110

  107

  -3

  402

  Establishment

  Strength

  Difference

  Lothian and Borders:

  Traffic Warden

  173

  164

  -8

  Clerical Staff

  497

  483

  -14

  Technical Staff

  163

  154

  -9

  Northern:

  Traffic Warden

  23

  23

  —

  Clerical Staff

  129

  129

  —

  Technical Staff

  47

  44

  -3

  Strathclyde:

  Traffic Warden

  214

  179

  -35

  Clerical Staff

  615

  590

  -25

  Technical Staff

  593

  558

  -35

  Tayside:

  Traffic Warden

  40

  35

  -5

  Clerical Staff

  126

  103

  -23

  Technical Staff

  122

  115

  -7

  Total

  Traffic Warden

  589

  522

  -67

  Clerial Staff

  1,801

  1,724

  -77

  Technical Staff

  1,157

  1,091

  -66

  Table 3

  Capital allocation for 1991–92 and maximum CFCR grant

  Capital allocations £000

  Maximum CFCR grant £000

  Central

  326

  —

  Dumfries and Galloway

  2,250

  82

  Fife

  543

  —

  Grampian

  196

  202

  Lothian and Borders

  400

  416

  Northern

  406

  —

  Strathclyde

  3,447

  —

  Tayside

  1,202

  —

  Total

  8,770

  700

  Radioactive Contamination, Dumbarton
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what information he possesses on the levels of radioactive contamination at the Riverside boatyard, Balloch in Dumbarton; and what steps are being taken to decontaminate the site.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The Scottish Office Environment Department has information about the site of the former radium works at Balloch including records of radiological surveys. All such information has been made available to Dumbarton district council and has been taken into account in a recent survey instigated by the district council in relation to its responsiblity for land use planning. The results of this survey have been sent to Her Majesty's industrial pollution inspectorate which is assisting the district council in its consideration of the findings.

  Remedial action was taken at the site in 1963 in order to remove the health hazard which had been identified. Any further action taken in respect of the ground contamination must have regard to the proposed future use of the land. The responsibility for any such action would rest, in the first instance, with the owner of the land. The planning authority could attach appropriate conditions to the grant of any consent for development of the site.

  A7
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will undertake a design study for a major improvement scheme on the A7 trunk road at Colterscleuch south of Hawick for implementation in advance of the completion of the current studies on the A7 route action plan.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  There are several overtaking schemes on the A7 south of Hawick which have been identified as candidates for early implementation. Consideration is presently being given as to which is the most appropriate choice in terms of value for money, location, and local acceptability to take forward to the next design stage. I will write to the hon. Member when that decision is reached.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targetted in the declaration and plan of action which resulted from the World Summit for Children. The aim is to submit the report to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year. The Scottish Office is contributing to the preparation of the report.

  Coastal Flooding
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what plans he has to protect coastal and island communities from flooding and damage from severe weather in the coming winter; and if he will make a statement.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Protection of communities is essentially a matter for local authorities which already have wide powers to act in emergencies such as flooding and damage from severe weather. They also have powers under coast protection and flood prevention legislation to undertake protective work which may attract Government grants.

  Mortgage Defaults
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many mortgage defaults have taken place with Scottish Homes former tenants who availed themselves of finance from Scottish Homes or the Scottish Special Housing Association.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  None.

  Scottish Bus Group
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the price obtained for each company through privatisation of the Scottish Bus Group and the principal conditions of each sale.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  Information on the sale prices obtained for each of the bus companies sold under the Scottish Bus Group disposal programme will be made available to Parliament as soon as possible.
  404
  The principal conditions contained in each sale relate to property clawbacks, employee pensions and concessionary fare arrangements for employees, former employees and their families. These conditions reflect criteria set out in the disposal programme.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list the property assets involved in the privatisation of the Scottish Bus Group which are(a) leased to the buyer companies and (b) subject to claw-back if resold.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  The information is as follows:

  Name of Subsidiary and Property

  Leased Properties

  Eastern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Part of St. Andrew Square Bus Station, Edinburgh.

  2. Depot and Offices, New Street, Edinburgh.

  Scottish Citylink Coaches Ltd.

  1. Part of St. Andrew Square Bus Station, Edinburgh.

  2. Buchanan Bus Station, Glasgow.

  Lowland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Berwick-Upon-Tweed bus Station.

  Properties subject to clawback

  Lowland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Bus station, Stirling Street, Galashiels.

  Eastern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Depot and Bus Station, Eskbank Road, Dalkeith.

  2. Depot, 1 The Mall, Musselburgh.

  3. Depot and bus Station, Almondvale South, Livingston.

  Midland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Bus Station, Callendar Riggs, Falkirk.

  2. Depot and House, 81–87 High Street, Linlithgow.

  Kelvin Central Buses Ltd.

  1. Depot, Connor Street, Airdrie.

  2. Depot, Milton Road, Kirkintilloch.

  3. Depot, Airbles Road, Motherwell.

  4. Office, Traction House, Motherwell.

  5. Depot, Gavinburn, Old Kilpatrick.

  6. Depot, Cumbernauld Road, Stepps.

  Northern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Depot and Works, Gairn Terrace, Aberdeen.

  2. Bus Station and Offices, Guild Street, Aberdeen.

  3. Depot, Pinefield, Elgin.

  4. Depot and Offices. St. Peter Street. Peterhead.

  Strathtay Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Depot and Bus Station, Seagate, Dundee.

  2. Depot, Rossie Island, Montrose.

  3. Depot, Riggs Road, Perth.

  Fife Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Depot, St. Leonards Street, Dunfermline.

  2. Depot and Bus Station, City Road, St. Andrews.

  3. Workshop and Office, Esplanade, Kirkcaldy.

  4. Depot, Esplanade, Kirkcaldy.

  Highland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Depot and Offices, Seafield Road, Inverness.

  2. Bus Station, Farraline Park, Inverness.

  Western Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.

  1. Bus Station and Offices, Sandgate, Ayr.

  2. Depot, Port Glasgow Road, Greenock.

  3. Depot, Greenock Road, Inchinnan.

  4. Depot and Bus Station, Main Street, Largs.

  5. Depot, Gordon Street/Saucel Street, Paisley.

  Ministerial Visits
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many times a Scottish Office Minister has visited the constituency of Renfrew West and Inverclyde in each year since 1987.

  Mr. Lang
  Information on all Scottish Office Ministers' visits since 1987 could be obtained only at dispropor-tionate cost.

  Training Funds
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many jobs have been lost in Renfrew district and Inverclyde due to the cut back in training funds by his Department; and how many trainee places have been cut.

  Mr. Allan Stewart
  The number of training places in Renfrewshire district and Inverclyde is a matter for the local enterprise company, Renfrewshire Enterprise, and Scottish Enterprise. I have asked the chairman of Scottish Enterprise to write to the hon. Member on this point.

  Environmental Agencies
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland ( I ) if he will make a statement on the plans and financing for the Scottish environment protection agency, announced on 23 September;

  (2) if he will make a statement on the future of the Scottish industrial pollution inspectorate, the river purification authorities and the hazardous waste inspectorate, respectively.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: The Government will be issuing a consultation paper explaining the precise functions which we believe should be undertaken by the Scottish environment protection agency. The purpose of the proposed changes is to provide more effective pollution control through a single, integrated organisation.

  The proposed agency would assume responsibility for the existing functions for air quality and radioactive waste exercised by The Scottish Office Environment Department through Her Majesty's industrial pollution inspectorate —HMIPI; for the prevention and control of water pollution exercised by the river purification authorities—seven river purification boards, RPBs, and three islands councils; for the regulation of waste disposal and for local air quality exercised by the 53 district and three island councils. It would also incorporate the waste regulation monitoring activities of the Scottish Office Environment Department through its hazardous waste inspectorate—HWI.

  Primary legislation to set up the new body will be needed. The RPBs, HMIPI and HWI would cease to exist as separate entities once the new agency was established. It would be a non-departmental public body with a board appointed by my right hon. Friend and funded by the Scottish Office. A substantial proportion of its running costs would be recovered through the charges now being introduced for authorisations and licences under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the Control of Pollution Act 1974, as amended.

  Salmon
  Mr. Maclennan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to protect Scottish salmon growers from the impact of the dumping of Norwegian salmon on European markets; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  The Government fully recognise the seriousness of the threat to salmon farming in Scotland posed by large-scale imports of Norwegian salmon to European markets. This is not a matter where the United Kingdom Government can act unilaterally; we have to work through the European Community. We have therefore pressed the EC Commission to consider the matter urgently and to meet the undertakings which it gave earlier this year, when it announced the closure of the anti-dumping case brought by Scottish and Irish salmon producers. These undertakings provided for further consultation with the Norwegians and, if necessary, consideration of a renewed anti-dumping investigation.

  We are now working closely with representatives of the Scottish industry, and with the Commission, to consider what steps need to be taken to restore stability to the market for farmed salmon.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Health Clinics
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland which health clinics for general medical practices are being(a) built and (b) extended in Northern Ireland.

  Mr. Hanley
  I presume from the terms of the question that the right hon. Member's inquiry relates to health centres rather than health clinics. Health boards have so far provided 72 health centres under the Northern Ireland programme which began in 1965. No new health centres are being built but schemes are underway to extend those at Armagh and at Stewartstown road, Belfast.

  I also understand that accommodation at the following locations is being built by general practitioners who wish to provide services from their own premises under the cost rent scheme provided by my Department:

  Cushendall, County Antrim

  Armoy, County Antrim

  Annalong, County Down

  Loughbrickland, County Down

  Banbridge, County Down

  Ballyward, County Down

  Downpatrick, County Down

  Holywood, County Down

  Ballynahinch, County Down

  Plumbridge, County Tyrone

  Belleek, County Fermanagh

  Newtownstewart, County Tyrone

  Londonderry, County Londonderry

  Deaths
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons were killed as a result of(a) acts of terrorist violence and (b) road accidents in each of the months of April, May, June, July, August and September 1991.
  407
  Dr. Mawhinney
  The information requested is as follows:

  Number of deaths

  1991

  Acts of terrorism

  Road accidents

  April

  6

  7

  May

  9

  14

  June

  5

  18

  July

  4

  19

  August

  11

  13

  September

  7

  121

  1 There is a statutory requirement to include in the monthly total of road accident fatalities any deaths which occur up to and including 30 days after an accident; as a result this figure is still liable to upward revision.

  Gosford Castle, Markethill
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when Gosford castle, Markethill, was registered as an hotel; when it ceased to be registered as an hotel; which public grants and loans it received; and what were the conditions of this public funding.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  Gosford castle, Markethill was registered with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board as an hotel from 28 February 1984 until 31 March 1986.

  Between June 1983 and July 1985 grant aid was paid for general repairs and maintenance totalling £34,797. On 12 May 1989, following a change of ownership, further grant aid in respect of its status as a listed historic building was offered totalling £17,630, of which Gosford Castle Ltd. received £6,574·21, the balance being paid to the Department of the Environment Northern Ireland, under the Payment of Debt (Emergency Provisions) Act (NI) 1971, in respect of rates arrears.

  All grants were paid under the Planning (NI) Order 1972 articles 31–36.

  Heart By-pass Operations
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many people are presently on the waiting list for heart by-pass operations; what was the total number of such operations carried out during the most recent 12 months for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The total number of patients waiting for cardiac surgery at 30 September was 991. In the year from September 1990 to September 1991, a total of 660 cardiac operations were carried out. Current information on the numbers waiting specifically for by-pass grafts and on the number of such operations carried out is not held centrally.

  Fish Quotas
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what effect the European Community fish quotas for 1991 have on employment in(a) the fishing industry and (b) the fish processing industry; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  There are no indications that there have been any significant changes to employment levels in the Northern Ireland fishing and fish processing industries during 1991.
  408
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what the effect of the European Community fish quotas has been on the Northern Ireland fishing industry so far in 1991; what tonnage of each fish species has been landed; what is the value of the landings to date; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  Information on the tonnage and value of the main species of fish landed into Northern Ireland is shown in the table. Comparative figures are provided for 1990.

  Landings into Northern Ireland

  1 January to 30 September 1990

  January to 30 September 1991 (provisional)

  Tonnage

  Value £ million

  Tonnage

  Value £ million

  Nephrops

  4,585

  6·30

  5,017

  6·48

  Cod

  2,883

  3·25

  1,942

  2·44

  Hake

  1,085

  1·95

  937

  2·22

  Whiting

  2,594

  1·53

  2,048

  1·01

  Others

  7,135

  3·01

  6,150

  2·84

  Total

  18,282

  16·14

  16,094

  14·99

  The lower landings of cod and whiting in 1991 are consistent with the reductions in the total allowable catch for Irish sea cod and whiting set by the EC Commission. There was no reduction in the hake TAC or quota.

  Advertising
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how much the Southern health and social services board paid for the advertisement "Let's eat well on a tight budget", on page 9 of the September issue of "Brownlow Matters"; when it commenced such advertisements; how many have been placed in other publications; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Hanley
  The Southern health and social services board paid nothing for the advertisement in the September issue of "Brownlow Matters", which was the first of its kind. No such advertisements have been placed in other publications.

  Political Talks
  Mr. John D. Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what was the total cost to Her Majesty's Government, including travel abroad and secretarial facilities, of the Northern Ireland talks which were brought to a conclusion on 3 July.

  Mr. Brooke
  Final figures are not yet available but the total additional cost is expected to be in the region of £0·9 million.

  Sports Development Officers
  Mr. Pendry
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the total number of sports development officers in Northern Ireland for each of the past 10 years.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 18 October 1991]: The number whose salaries/wages are met in full or in part from public funds is as follows:

  409

  Number

  1981

  24

  1982

  23

  1983

  23

  1984

  22

  1985

  26

  1986

  32

  1987

  29

  1988

  28

  1989

  31

  1990

  30

  Information on the number of sports development officers working for voluntary sports bodies and who are paid entirely from the resources of such bodies or who work on a voluntary basis is not held centrally.

  Police and Criminal Evidence Order
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many suspects detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order requested a solicitor; and how many had such access delayed for each year since the inauguration of the order and to the latest convenient date in the current year.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 15 October 1991]: In the year beginning 1 January 1990, the day on which the relevant provisions of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order came into effect, 22,848 arrests were made under the order. On 5,554 occasions the suspect requested a solicitor and in 20 cases such access was delayed. From 1 January 1991 to 14 October a total of 18,399 arrests have been made. The central collation of statistics relating to requests for a solicitor was part of a pilot study to monitor the new legislation and the information has not been collated this year. It could be obtained now only at disproportionate cost.

  Forensic Tests
  Mr. McNamara
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many persons were remanded in custody pending the results of forensic tests in cases involving scheduled offences during (i) 1989 and (ii) 1990; how many such persons were(a) convicted, (b) acquitted and (c) not proceeded against; and what was the length of time such person spent on remand in custody.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  [holding answer 15 October 1991]: This information is not available; I understand, however, that the police would not normally request remand into custody solely to await the results of forensic tests.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Pension Scheme
  Mr. Cran
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what steps he has taken to assure himself that in all respects the parliamentary contributory pension scheme treats men and women equally.

  Mr. MacGregor
  As hon. Members will know, from the start our pension scheme has provided equal pensions, at the same age, to all Members. An inequality in the treatment of widowers' pensions was removed in 1984.

  Computers
  Mr. Bowis
  To ask the Lord President of the Council when he expects to renew the computer system for his office.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I have no plans at present to do so.

  Terrace Dining Rooms
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what representations he has received in the last six months about the rules relating to use of the terrace dining rooms.

  Mr. MacGregor
  Apart from questions raised by the hon. Member, there has been one other representation during the last six months relating to the operation of the banqueting facilities.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Blue-ear Pig Disease
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the number of man hours spent on blue-ear pig disease at each of the veterinary investigation centres; and what findings have so far been established.

  Mr. Maclean
  It has not been necessary for veterinary investigation centres to make a substantial input to measures for dealing with the disease since it became notifiable on 13 June. However, the staff hours spent on blue-eared pig disease at each of the veterinary investigation centers since the first occurrence of suspicious symptoms to the end of September was as follows:

  Centre

  Hours

  Newcastle

  16·00

  Thirsk

  12·50

  Norwich

  37·00

  Preston

  20·00

  Worcester

  3·50

  Bangor

  3·00

  Aberystwyth

  3·00

  Truro

  4·00

  Winchester

  27·00

  Reading

  13·50

  Penrith

  3·00

  Cambridge

  3·00

  Lincoln

  103·00

  Shrewsbury

  2·00

  Sutton Bonington

  2·00

  Carmarthen

  2·00

  Starcross

  7·50

  Bristol

  11·00

  Wye

  3·00

  The key research work has been carried out by the Central Veterinary Laboratory. For the findings I refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) on 16 October, Official Report column 153.

  Grain Stores
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the highest tonnage of(a) wheat and (b) barley that has been held in central storage in the current year; what were the highest levels in each of the previous five years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  Tables showing EC and United Kingdom intervention stock levels have been deposited in the Library of the House at monthly intervals throughout the period in question.

  Farmers
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what representations have been made to the European Commission about the new Community rules that farmers who are in a partnership have to declare their percentage interest in their ownership of flocks that are the joint property of the partnership; and what assessment he has made of the impact of this measure on United Kingdom farmers.

  Mr. Maclean
  These rules are contained in EC Commission regulation 2385/91 which lays down a number of measures designed to reinforce the application of ewe premium headage limits which were introduced by the Council in 1989. The United Kingdom played a full part in the discussions on the regulation in management committee and sought in particular to ensure that its provisions were fair and did not discriminate against United Kingdom producers. It is not possible except at disproportionate cost to assess its precise impact.

  Business Invoices
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium sized businesses.

  Mr. Curry
  The policy of MAFF in payment of invoices to small and medium sized businesses is to comply with this Department's standard contractual terms which are 30 days from receipt of a correct invoice. The only exception is when prompt payment terms are negotiated; on such occasions the Department pays within 14 days of receipt of invoice.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  The final figure for expenditure in the financial year 1990–91 is £65,229. This shows a modest increase over the previous year of just under £3,000.

  CAP Fraud
  Mr. Kilfedder
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the estimate of the amount of money which has been paid out as a result of fraud in the common agricultural policy during the last financial year; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  It is not possible to estimate the extent of fraud in the common agricultural policy, since, by 412
  definition, undetected fraud cannot be measured. In 1990, 819 cases of irregularity, the definition of which goes wider than fraud, in EAGGF guarantee expenditure were reported by member states, with a value of 138 mecu—£98 million. These cases represent about 0·5 per cent. of EAGGF guarantee expenditure in that year. However, fraud is clearly a serious problem and must be tackled vigorously.

  Departmental Reorganisation
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as a result of his plans to reshape the Ministry's organisation(a) how many divisional and regional offices will close and (b) how many staff will be made redundant giving the grades in each case; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  The Ministry will maintain a presence at all its regional and divisional offices. Those which have not been designated as regional service centres will serve as animal health offices or ADAS—Agricultural Development Advisory Service—business centres or both. Detailed complements for the new regional service centres and for the provision of administrative support for the state veterinary service and ADAS are currently being established. We shall be doing all we can to avoid compulsory redundancies. Where posts are to be lost every effort will be made to find staff alternative jobs.

  Canthaxanthin
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the countries which currently place bans or restrictions on the use of canthaxanthin in commercial egg production; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  I am not aware that any countries have banned the use of canthaxanthin in commercial egg production. However, EC legislation restricts the amount that may be added to poultry feed in member states.

  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proportion of commercial egg producers he estimates use canthaxanthin.

  Mr. Maclean
  I have no information on which to base an estimate.

  Departmental Staff
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many staff were employed in his Ministry in(a) 1980 and (b) 1990 in (i) regional and divisional offices, (ii) the Agricultural Development Advisory Service, (iii) the state veterinary service, (iv) publicity and (v) total.

  Mr. Gummer
  The position at 1 April 1980 and 1 April 1990 was as follows:

  1980

  1990

  Regional and divisional offices

  3,324·0

  2,079·5

  Agricultural Development and Advisory Service

  3,813·0

  12,625·5

  State veterinary service

  1.627·0

  2855·0

  Publicity

  131·5

  383·0

  1 Excludes 164 staff in the Plant Health and Seed Inspectorate and the Horticultural Marketing Inspectorate who are no longer part of

  413
  ADAS.

  2 Excludes 663·5 staff now in the Central Veterinary La boratory and Veterinary Medicines Directorate Executive Agencies.

  3 These figures cover all Information Division staff, including librarians and translators because the staff-in-post records for 1980 do not distinguish between staffdealing with press and public relations matters and other Information Division staff. Of the 83 staff in Information Division in 1990, 23 were engaged on publicity related work.

  Total MAFF staff in post were 13,758 in 1980 and 9,848 in 1990.

  Sheep Dips
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many reported incidents arising from exposure to organophosphate sheep dips have been reported in each year since 1985; what were the occupations of the people involved; how many incidents each year involved persons aged under 16 years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Maclean
  The information relating to reported suspected incidents involving humans is as set out in the table. This covers the period from 1985 to 2 September 1991. A number of further reports are currently being assessed. Reports are shown in the year in which they were received, regardless of the year in which they occurred.

  Year and number of reports

  Occupation

  1985–8 (involving 35 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  12

  Unknown

  23

  No children

  —

  1986–10 (involving 19 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  12

  Trading standards officers

  4

  Unknown

  3

  No children

  —

  The percentage self sufficiency figures requested for the United Kingdom

  Total milk

  Calendar year

  Butterfat

  Solids—not-fat

  Butter

  Cheese

  Fresh cream

  Sterilised cream

  Skimmed milk powder

  Sweetened condensed

  Unsweetened condensed

  1984

  88

  104

  71·5

  67·1

  99·2

  85·3

  132·2

  84·0

  143·5

  1985

  88

  105

  70·2

  68·0

  99·0

  86·2

  137·0

  88·3

  134·8

  1986

  90

  109

  80·9

  66·3

  99·6

  83·0

  188·6

  97·3

  130·4

  1987

  87

  105

  65·8

  66·3

  100·9

  79·1

  146·8

  100·0

  146·1

  1988

  84

  106

  49·6

  68·5

  101·9

  107·1

  199·0

  88·3

  137·1

  1989

  86

  105

  63·4

  64·6

  104·8

  130·8

  183·2

  89·4

  160·8

  19901

  90

  107

  64·5

  68·3

  nya

  100·0

  218·3

  163·8

  1 Provisional.

  Veterinary Investigation Centres
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the most recent estimates of closure dates of the veterinary investigation centres, including those that have already closed, since 1979; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  The veterinary investigation centre located at the Central Veterinary Laboratory Weybridge closed in December 1980. In November 1985 the Liverpool centre was relocated to Barton Hall Preston. As a result of the efficiency study of the veterinary investigation service in 1984–85 the Cardiff centre closed in March 1986, the Gloucester and Leeds centres closed in June 1986 and the Northampton centre in July 1986. A small laboratory at Chester was closed in April 1986.

  As a result of the recent review the Wye centre closed in July 1991 and the Bangor and Lincoln centres closed in September 1991.
  414

  Year and number of reports

  Occupation

  1987–10 (involving 17 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  14

  Unknown

  3

  No children

  —

  1988–19 (involving 23 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  21

  Unknown

  2

  No children

  —

  1989–9 (involving 10 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  4

  Children under 16

  3

  Unknown

  3

  1990–5 (involving 6 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  5

  Unknown

  1

  No children

  —

  1991–61 (involving 66 people)

  Farmers/farm workers

  51

  Policeman

  1

  Children under 16

  8

  Unknown

  6

  Of these 122 reports, 16 related to sheep dips which are no longer licensed, involving 40 people—13 farmers/farm workers, two children, one trading standards officer, and 24 unknown.

  All reports are followed up and the results brought to the attention of the Veterinary Products Committee.

  Dairy Produce
  Mr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the percentage level of self-sufficiency in dairy produce in the United Kingdom for each year since the introduction of milk quotas in 1984.

  Mr. Gummer
  The information is as follows.

  The Cambridge and Norwich centres will be amalgamated at a new centre in Bury St. Edmunds in mid to late 1993. The Worcester centre will be relocated to a new centre in Warwickshire and the Reading and Winchester centres will be amalgamated when this new centre is completed.

  Departmental Reorganisation
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his estimate of the change in the level of expenditure for 1992–93 as a result of the reorganisation of his Ministry outlined in his answer to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Irvine) on 23 July,Official Report, columns 455–56; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Gummer
  The projected once-off cost of the reorganisation in 1992–93 is £7·5 million. The projected annual saving, which will not come fully on stream until 1993–94, is about £3 million.

  Ministry Expenditure
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will list the amount spent in cash terms by his Ministry in 1980–81 and 1990–91, voted and non voted where applicable, on(a) intervention board and EC expenditure, (b) domestic agriculture, fisheries and food, (c) operation and running costs of the Ministry, (d) departmental research and development, (e) commissioned research and development, (f) support for the fishing industry, (g) national market support, (h) structural measures for agriculture, (i) publicity, (j) Food From Britain and (k) total expenditure of the Ministry.

  Mr. Gummer
  The way in which the supply estimates and, consequently, the appropriation accounts were set out in 1980–81 differ so significantly from that used in 1990–91 that it is generally not possible to provide figures on a comparable basis. A full set of outturn figures for 1980–81 and for 1990–91 is set out in the respective appropriation accounts for those years, which are in the Library of the House.

  Rats
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what surveys his Department has carried out or commissioned in the past five years on the rat population in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Maclean
  The last Government survey into rodent population was carried out in 1978. A new survey to assess rat populations in England and Wales is being planned by this Department, in collaboration with the Institute of Environmental Health Officers. This survey is due to commence early in 1992.

  Pesticides
  Mr. Speller
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will require manufacturers of pesticides to publish the data upon which field tests have been based.

  Mr. Maclean
  Companies are required to submit a wide range of studies including field studies in support of their applications for statutory approval for pesticides. This material forms the basis of an evaluation which is considered by the independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides. The data underlying the published evaluation are available for public scrutiny on application to the registration authorities.

  Suckler Cow Premium
  Mr. Robert Hicks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to authorise payment of the suckler cow premium; and if he will explain the reasons for the delay that has occurred.

  Mr. Curry
  We have carefully considered the rate of premium to apply in 1991–92, in the light of the continuing high cost of support for the beef industry, and the continuing rise in the size of the suckler herd. Matters are now complicated by a Commission proposal to amend the maximum rates of premium payable, which, if adopted, will oblige us to reconsider the issue.

  Bodmin Moor
  Mr. Robert Hicks
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he hopes to announce the designation of further environmentally sensitive areas; and whether the Bodmin moor submission satisfies the relevant criteria.

  Mr. Curry
  My right hon. Friend has no plans to make an announcement at present, but is currently considering the scope for designation of further environmentally sensitive areas. Bodmin moor is one of many areas that have been suggested and full account will be taken of the evidence submitted in making any future announcement.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year.

  Poultry Meat
  Mr. Hardy
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many different officers of his Department are involved in the consideration or processing of an application for approval under EC directive 88/657 in order to export poultry meat preparations to other member states.

  Mr. Maclean
  Applications are originally submitted to the Ministry's regional meat hygiene adviser—RMHA— who requests a veterinary officer to make visits to the premises in order to offer advice on the changes needed for compliance. Plans are sent to the plans unit at Wolverhampton for scrutiny. After the necessary work has been completed, the final visit, leading to his recommendation for approval, is carried out by the RM HA. This recommendation is endorsed by a senior veterinarian at meat hygiene division's headquarters in Tolworth. These steps are aimed to ensure that the premises complies fully with EC requirements, that approval is likely to be endorsed by any future inspection carried out by EC Commission inspectors and that consistent standards are achieved across the country.

HEALTH

  Operating Theatres
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer to the hon. Member for Don Valley of 20 June,Official Report, column 297, if he will make it his practice to keep central records of lists by regional health authority on how many operating theatres are closed, listing the reasons in each case.

  Mr. Dorrell
  No.

  Dental Health
  Mr. Shersby
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the cost to public funds of preventive dental health programmes in England, for the most recent 12 month period for which figures are available.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Responsibility for arranging for the provision of dental health education and preventive programmes is delegated to district health authorities. Information on the total cost of such programmes is not available centrally. In 1990–91, £538,000 was provided from central funds to support local fluoridation schemes and oral health education programmes.

  Children Act
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the likely additional resources required to implement the Children Act 1989 in a full year.

  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much money has been allocated, and to which local authorities, specifically for implementing the Children Act 1989.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Central Government do not specify in detail how local authorities should allocate the overall resource available to them but rather indicates its view of the appropriate spending through standard spending control totals. The total covering personal social services for children (including specific grants) was £1,540·9 million for 1991–92, an increase of £239·9 million (18·4 per cent.) over the equivalent figure for 1990–91. This increase allows for the part-year implementation of the Children Act from 14 October 1991. Information about personal social services standard spending assessments for

  Region

  Ashworth

  Broadmoor

  Rampton

  Total

  Northern

  5

  —

  2

  1

  Yorkshire

  7

  1

  5

  13

  Trent

  1

  —

  14

  15

  East Anglian

  1

  1

  1

  3

  North West Thames

  2

  3

  5

  10

  North East Thames

  2

  6

  5

  13

  South East Thames

  —

  10

  3

  13

  South West Thames

  —

  5

  3

  8

  Wessex

  1

  6

  2

  9

  Oxford

  —

  6

  8

  14

  South Western

  1

  4

  3

  8

  West Midlands

  12

  3

  5

  20

  Mersey

  15

  —

  —

  15

  North Western

  9

  —

  1

  10

  Wales

  8

  1

  —

  9

  Total

  64

  46

  57

  167

  1 Defined as those detained under section 3 of the Mental Health Act 1983—that is, their detention did not arise from criminal proceedings or a prison sentence.

  Health Authority, Barnet
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the level of expenditure by the Barnet district health authority in each year since 1982–83.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Following is information derived from the annual accounts of the Barnet health authority.
  418
  children by individual local authority is given in the Department of the Environment's Standard Spending Assessment Handbook for 1991–92, a copy of which is in the Library.

  The full-year cost implications of implementation have been discussed with the local authority associations and were taken into account in the proposals announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment on 23 July at columns 1052–1065 on the level of total standard spending for 1992–93. The standard spending control total for personal social services for children for 1992–93 will be announced later this year.

  A new specific grant of £5·7 million will be introduced in 1992–93 for the guardians ad litem service to help provide independent representation for children in court. Specific resources will be made available within the training support grant to ensure that all officers in charge of children's homes are suitably qualified by 1995. The grant will be increased by nearly 17 per cent. to £29 million in 1992–93.

  Special Hospitals
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many mentally ill patients in the special hospitals at(a) Ashworth, (b) Broadmoor and (c) Rampton who have not committed offences, come from each health authority region or board in the United Kingdom; and how many from elsewhere.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The numbers of patients from each region with a diagnosis of mental illness who have not committed offences' are given in the table. The special hospitals provide a service for England and Wales only. Patients from Scotland and Northern Ireland requiring treatment under conditions of maximum security would normally be admitted to the state hospital, Carstairs.

  Barnet health authority—total revenue expenditure on hospital and community health services (HCHS)

  £million (cash)

  1982–83

  59·8

  1983–84

  61·8

  1984–85

  64·1

  1985–86

  65·6

  1986–87

  74·3

  1987–88

  80·5

  1988–89

  90·2

  419

  £ million (cash)

  1989–90

  100·8

  11990–91

  110·3

  1 Provisional (as yet subject to audit).

  Note: HCHS covers all services directly managed by the authority including hospital, community health and other services. The figures for the years from 1986–87 include the expenditure of the north London blood transfusion centre which previously was managed by the North West Thames regional health authority.

  Health Service, Barnet
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many patients were treated in Barnet health authorities each year since 1982–83.

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

  Barnet health authority Number of patients treated, NHS hospitals

  Ordinary admissions

  Day cases

  Total

  Discharges and deaths1

  1982

  36,495

  2,907

  39,402

  1983

  36,623

  4,719

  41,342

  1984

  37,361

  5,414

  42,775

  1985

  37,322

  5,725

  43,047

  1986

  35,715

  6,090

  41,805

  1987–88

  38,083

  5,174

  43,257

  1988–89

  36,482

  7,106

  43,588

  Finished consultant episodes2

  1988–89

  40,763

  7,106

  47,869

  1989–90

  40,138

  9,534

  49,672

  1 Discharges from hospital (or death in hospital) or transfer to another hospital.

  2 Completed periods of care of a patient using a bed (including healthy babies born in hospital), under one consultant, in a particular district/special health authority.

  Nurses
  Mr. Rowlands
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the numbers of newly qualified nurses currently seeking employment in the national health service.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The number of nurses who completed pre-registration nurse training in England during the year ending 31 March 1991 was 19,006. Information on how many of those are currently seeking employment in the NHS is not held centrally.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recommendations about tackling racial inequality in nursing have been made by the pay review body in the health service; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The function of the review body is to advise my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on the levels of remuneration for nursing staff, midwives and health visitors in the NHS. The review body has made no recommendations concerning race in any of its eight reports.

  Air Pollution
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what studies he has made of the quality of air and the levels of air pollution, and the effect this has on the incidence of 420
  asthma; and if he will publish any figures available to him on the level of asthma suffered during the months of 1991, together with any indication of correlation to the quality of air.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The advisory group on the medical aspects of air pollution episodes has completed a detailed report on ozone and its effects on health. The full report was published on 1 August by HMSO and a copy is available in the Library.

  The main conclusion of the group is that although individuals with asthma or other respiratory disorders appear to be no more likely than healthy individuals to be sensitive to ozone, the effects of ozone may be more troublesome in individuals who already have some impairment of lung function. The group is now considering the winter pollutants with particular regard to sulphur dioxide.

  Figures on the levels of asthma suffered during 1991 are unavailable. However, there are approximately 2 million asthmatics in the United Kingdom, of whom 700,000 are children and adolescents under the age of 16.

  It is not currently possible to determine whether air pollution episodes have any bearing on the numbers of sufferers experiencing difficulties.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what response he has made to the first report on ozone of the advisory group on the medical aspects of air pollution episodes published in July.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The report and its recommendations have been accepted by the Government.

  In response to the advisory group's recommendations. the air quality bulletin system, set up by the Department of the Environment and the Meteorological Office, now includes a separate air quality health advice telephone line which, in the summer months, offers advice on the effects of current ozone levels and on how those who are particularly sensitive to ozone can minimise their exposure.

  Sick Children
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list by(a) regional health authority and (b) district health authority the number of seriously sick children being treated in adult intensive care units instead of paediatric intensive care units for the latest date for which he has figures; and what was the comparable figure 12 months ago.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  This information is not collected centrally.

  The benefits of treating children in paediatric intensive care units were described in our recent guidance document, "The Welfare of Children and Young People in Hospital". a copy of which is available in the Library.

  A survey carried out in 1985–86 by a working party of the British Paediatric Association showed that, of 6,000 children who were admitted to intensive care, 4,000 were treated in paediatric intensive care units, and the remainder in adult facilities. The working party has now been reconvened and is expected to consider the organisational and training arrangements required to meet in full the requirement for the intensive care of children.

  Community Health Councils
  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the annual cost of community health councils.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The summarised accounts of regional and district health authorities in England for 1989–90 record expenditure on community health councils totalling £8,603,170. This represents an increase of 7·5 per cent. over the previous year.

  Prescriptions
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list all the items that general practioners will no longer be able to prescribe for their patients under his Department's health regulations, with effect from 1 November.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Ealing Hospital
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what funding was provided to Ealing hospital in the financial years(a) 1978–79 and (b) 1990–91 in real and money terms; how many (i) doctors, (ii) nurses arid (iii) other staff were in post at the hospital for the same years; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  This information is not collected centrally. My hon. Friend may wish to contact Lady Eccles of Moulton, the chairman of Ealing district health authority for details.

  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health upon what criteria he has approved self-governing status for Ealing hospital; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The criteria for the establishment of Ealing hospital as an NHS trust, as for all applicants, were:that it would deliver tangible benefits to patients and improvements in the quality of its services;
  that it had effective leadership and management:
  that key professional staff were involved in management;
  that it was financially viable.

  Residential Care Homes
  Mr. Alton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the ending of topping up payments to voluntary and privately run homes for the aged; what alternative arrangements will be made for residents unable to afford the cost of remaining in their present accommodation; and what assessment he has made of how much additional money district health authorities will need to find if they now seek to meet the cost of topping up payments.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  There has been no change in the type of arrangements which health authorities may make with independent sector homes caring for elderly people and how these relate to individual residents' eligibility for social security benefits. A recent executive letter to health authorities, EL(91)108, restated the long standing legal position, a copy of the letter is available in the Library.
  422
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he has any plans to visit Mossley Hill hospital to discuss the run-down of hospital places for elderly people and their transfer to Kelton Grange.

  Mr. Dorrell
  No.

  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the number of(a) residential care homes and (b) nursing homes in operation for each year since 1979.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The numbers of residential care homes (registered homes and local authority homes) and private nursing homes, hospitals and clinics in England for each year from 1979 are shown in the table.

  Residential care homes

  Nursing homes hospitals and clinics

  1979

  7,167

  —

  1980

  7,565

  —

  1981

  —

  —

  1982

  —

  1,214

  1983

  9,131

  1,316

  1984

  10,009

  1,491

  1985

  11,363

  1,833

  1986

  12,552

  2,266

  1987

  13,800

  (1987–88)

  2,821

  1988

  14,684

  (1988–89)

  3,288

  1989

  16,026

  (1989–90)

  3,746

  1990

  16,743

  —

  Notes:

  No reliable data is held in respect of residential care homes for 1981 or 1982.

  Figures in respect of residential care homes are as at 31 March each year. From 1987 onwards they include homes dealing primarily with alcohol and drug misusers and others, about which data was not previously collected.

  Prior to 1982 information was not collected centrally in respect of nursing homes.

  Cot Deaths
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what research he has commissioned into the causes, epidemiology, and cure of cot deaths;

  (2) what research he knows of and has commissioned in the United Kingdom on cot death syndrome.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  While these deaths remain unexplained, the main focus of research has been on the epidemiology of cot deaths with the purpose of understanding the factors that are associated with these deaths. From these may come a better insight into the specific causes and the introduction of successful preventive strategies.

  The Department commissioned a multi-centre study of postneonatal mortality which was carried out by Professor Knowelden of Sheffield university and completed in 1985. More recently, the Medical Research Council was commissioned to review existing research into sudden infant death and related matters. Its report has been submitted to the Department and is receiving careful consideration. A study in Avon into infant deaths has recently been completed and the findings are awaiting publication. Much research is also funded by other agencies, particularly the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. The Department values greatly the work that they do, not only for research but also in support of bereaved parents.

  The nationwide confidential inquiry into stillbirths and deaths in infancy that I announced on 2 July will in due

  423
  course provide an additional means of studying the circumstances surrounding the deaths of individual infants.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what study he has made of New Zealand research into cot deaths and of the methods used in New Zealand to reduce the incidence of cot death;

  (2) what advice is issued by his Department on the way in which young babies should be laid to sleep to avoid cot death.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  After the first month of life, most deaths in infancy are cot deaths; they are sudden, unexpected and a tragedy to the bereaved family. They are still unexplained.

  The Department is therefore particularly watchful of research into cot deaths, both in this country and abroad. Although the incidence and circumstances vary between countries and change over time, a number of factors have been shown to be associated with an increased risk of cot death; for example, where someone in the family smokes or the mother is alone or very young. But in many instances such factors are absent. Studies of recent research findings, from New Zealand and elsewhere, including this country, suggest that the prone sleeping position is also a risk factor.

  Because of the importance of any advice given, especially to parents and parents-to-be, the new findings require authoritative assessment. The Chief Medical Officer has asked a group of experts to examine the evidence and report within six weeks. He will then be in a position to make a statement containing whatever further practical advice is needed. If necessary, the existing advice in the Pregnancy Book, which all new mothers receive, will be amended.

  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the incidence of cot deaths each year since 1969.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information that is available is set out in the table. Since 1971, OPCS has identified deaths in England and Wales where the term "sudden unexpected death in infancy", "cot death" or similar term was mentioned on the death certificate.

  Following the introduction of this diagnostic category, there has been a change both in diagnostic and certification practice. It is believed that deaths which were attributed previously to respiratory disorders are now identified as cot deaths. This is consistent with the reduction over the same period in the number of deaths attributed to respiratory disorders. The reduction in the number of cot deaths over the last two years is particularly welcome.

  Number of infant deaths with any mention of sudden infant death on the death certificate for all ages. England and Wales 1971–19901

  Number

  1971

  524

  1972

  798

  1973

  951

  1974

  965

  1975

  929

  1976

  907

  1977

  937

  1978

  995

  1979

  1,099

  1980

  1,260

  424

  Number

  1981

  1,304

  1982

  1,375

  1983

  1,358

  1984

  1,285

  1985

  1,338

  1986

  1,530

  1987

  1,574

  1988

  1,629

  1989

  1,410

  1990

  1,280

  1Comparable data for earlier years are not available.

  AIDS
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what have been the number of deaths due to AIDS in each year since 1985.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Reports received by the Public Health Laboratory Service's communicable disease surveillance centre and the communicable disease (Scotland) unit show that the number of deaths due to AIDS in each year from 1985 to 1991 is as follows:

  Number

  1985

  119

  1986

  266

  1987

  345

  1988

  405

  1989

  651

  1990

  750

  11991

  524

  1 First nine months only.

  Seventy one deaths occurred earlier than 1985 and 25 deaths have been reported where the year of death is not known.

  Deaf Children
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement summarising the provision which is currently made within the national health service for deaf children; and what plans he has to improve that provision.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The wide range of service provision for deaf children embraces prevention, screening surveillance, diagnosis and treatment. These services are located partly in the community and partly in hospitals and are managed and delivered by a variety of professionals. It is for district health authorities to ensure that services develop in the light of their assessment of local health needs.

  Children's Homes
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what steps he is taking to implement the recommendations of the Utting report;

  (2) which organisations have made representations to him regarding the Utting report; and if he will make the representations public.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  We have received representations from a number of organisations about Sir William Utting's report, "Children in the Public Care: A Review of Residential Child Care". It is for those making representations to consider whether they should be made public.
  425
  Local authorities have been asked to address some of the recommendations in the report and the Department will issue further guidance as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the Department has taken steps to start a new initiative in 1992–93, within the training support programme, on the training of officers in charge of local authority maintained and controlled residential homes for children. A local authority circular on the training support programme for 1992–93 will he issued shortly.

  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what additional resources he has allocated to local authorities specifically to implement the recommendations of the Utting report.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Central Government do not specify in detail how local authorities should allocate the overall resources available to them but rather indicates its view of appropriate spending through standard spending control totals. The standard spending control total for personal social services for 1992–93 will be announced later this year. Specific resources will be made available within the training support grant to ensure that all officers in charge of children's homes are suitably qualified by 1995. The grant will be increased by nearly 17 per cent. to £29 million in 1992–93.

  Medical Data
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) whether the confidentiality of medical data may be breached for billing, policing, protecting national security and tax collecting purposes; and whether he will make a statement;

  (2) what guidance he has given as to the circumstances in which implied consent of the patient for the use of a medical record can be assumed; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Personal health information in the NHS is strictly confidential, and all those who work in the NHS are under a legal duty to safeguard its confidentiality. Patients have the right to expect that information about them is used within the NHS only for authorised purposes, and only by authorised personnel. The information so used must be only such as is strictly necessary for the purpose in question. Administrative and financial control, without which the NHS could not function, are authorised purposes, and the use of such personal health information as is strictly necessary for these purposes does not constitute a breach of confidentiality.

  Under the common law, there can be a justification, in the public interest, for confidentiality to be breached. It is generally held that the prevention, detection and prosecution of serious crime, and the protection of national security, provide such justification. Tax collection and general policing do not fall within this category.

  The Department is working on the production of guidance on these issues for the NHS which will be issued soon in draft form for consultation.

  School Nurses
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many school nurses were employed in the United Kingdom in(a) 1975, (b) 1980, (c) 1985 and (d)

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information for England is given in the table.
  426
  The fluctuation in numbers reflects the substantial growth in family practitioner services. The number of general practitioners has increased by 20 per cent. since 1979 and the wider range of primary care services available to families with children has led many health authorities to review the role of their school health services and direct these resources more specifically towards health promotion and support to children with special health care needs in schools.

  The information relating to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland is a matter for my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales, for Scotland and for Northern Ireland.

  NHS School Nurses1 in post at 30 September each year England

  Whole-time equivalents2

  31975

  3,290

  1980

  2,690

  1985

  3,110

  1990

  2,850

  Source: Department of Health (SM13) Annual census of NHS non-medical manpower.

  1 Includes school health visitors. Statistics on the number of nurses in particular areas of work are prone to errors in employing authorities' coding procedures. The above figures should therefore be treated with caution.

  2All figures are independently rounded to the nearest ten (10) whole-time equivalents.

  3Figures are not adjusted for the reduction in nurses working hours during 1980–81 (from 40 to 37·5 hours per week).

  Unplanned Pregnancy
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health whether he has received a copy of the report of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists working party on unplanned pregnancy; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Yes. The working party's report on unplanned pregnancy is a helpful and positive contribution to the current debate on family planning. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists is currently sending copies of the report to regional, district and family health service authority general managers. In July regional health authorities in England were asked, as part of the NHS management executive's 1992–93 initiative for securing better health services for individuals, to review family planning service provision and to ensure effective coordination of services offered by GPs and family planning clinics. Later this year we shall be issuing guidelines to help regions in their reviews.

  Battered Women's Refuges
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many refuges for battered women there are; and how many places exist.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  According to information provided by the Women's Aid Federation (England) Ltd., there are an estimated 200 independent women's refuge groups in England, some of which are responsible for two or more premises. It is not possible to estimate the number of places because of variations in occupancy rates and family size.

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he has taken through contact with the Data Protection Registrar to ensure that the use of the contract minimum data set is consistent with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1984; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Data Protection Registrar was informed prior to 1 April 1991 of the contents of the contract minimum data set. He is still considering the matter.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targetted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating all interested Government Departments to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targetted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year. The Department is liaising closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the preparation of this report.

  National Health Service Trusts
  Mr. Michael Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what are the care services required of national health service trust acute hospitals.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  National health service trust acute hospitals provide those services determined and contracted for by health authorities and other purchasers. In the unlikely event of a trust's failing to provide a vital service, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has power to direct them to do so. He can also direct them to provide facilities for medical education.

  NHS Equipment
  Mr. George Howarth
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is his policy towards the transfer of national health service equipment from hospital to voluntary sector housing.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Transfer of equipment from a hospital to a voluntary housing association is a matter for local arrangement by the health authority concerned, and will depend on the circumstances of each case. General guidance has been issued to health authorities on the disposal of surplus equipment.

  Table 1: The change in average real net incomes1 and total purchasing power of pensioner units between 1979 and 1988

  Average real net incomes (£pw, 1988 prices)2

  Number of pensioner units in United Kingdom (thousands)3

  Total weekly purchasing power of all pensioner units (£ million pw at 1988 prices)4

  1979

  79·70

  6,980

  560

  1988

  106·30

  7,360

  780

  Change 1979–1988

  + 26·70

  + 380

  + 230

  Percentage change 1979–1988

  + 34

  + 5

  + 41

  Surgery
  Ms. Harman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many operations have been cancelled in national health service hospitals during the financial year 1989–90.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  This information is not available centrally.

  General Practice
  Mr. Michael Morris
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the number of vocational training places in general practice(a) available and (b) taken up in each of the last five years.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The number of vocational training places available is not held centrally. The following table details the number of trainee places taken up in each of the last five years.

  Year

  Trainees (England)

  1 October 1987

  1,710

  1 October 1988

  1,685

  1 October 1989

  1,735

  1 October 1990

  1,562

  General practice remains a popular career choice for doctors and the supply of trainees amply exceeds the needs of the service.

  Mr. Amos
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the reimbursement of general practitioners computing costs in Northumberland health authority.

  Mr. Dorrell
  Funding for the direct reimbursement of part of general practitioners' computing costs is provided through allocations from the Department to regional health authorities. They, in turn, make specific allocations to family health services authorities who administer the scheme in accordance with guidelines issued by the Department. My hon. Friend may wish to write to Mr. Peter Carr CBE, chairman of Northern regional health authority, for further details.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Pensioners
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the additional purchasing power of pensioners since 1979.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information is given in the table.
  429
  1 Estimates of average real net incomes are based upon data from the 1979 and 1988 FES's. Population estimates are based upon estimates provided by OPCS.

  2 Estimates are for the United Kingdom.

  3 A pensioner unit is defined as a single person over state pension age or a couple in which the husband is over state pension age.

  4 Monetary figures have been rounded to the nearest 10; Percentage change figures have been calculated on unrounded monetary figures.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the maximum additional amount payable to a state pensioner on SERPs this year and each year to 2000; and what percentage of those pensioners his Department estimates will receive this amount in each of those years.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information requested is given in the table. The assumptions of the annual increase in earnings and prices are consistent with those used in the Government Actuary's "Quinquennial Review: National Insurance Fund, Long Term Financial Estimates".

  The number of pensioners likely to be in receipt of these maximum amounts in the future cannot be accurately estimated.

  Weekly amounts of maximum1 additional pension at award In cash terms

  Tax year

  Amount payable

  1991–92

  55·90

  1992–93

  65·55

  1993–94

  75·35

  1994–95

  85·20

  1995–96

  95·75

  1996–97

  107·35

  1997–98

  119·95

  1998–99

  133·50

  1999–2000

  141·45

  2000–01

  148·20

  1 The figures quoted are based on a person paying 52 contributions a year at the upper earnings limit from the 1978–79 tax year.

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many individuals currently(a) contribute towards a state earnings-related pension, (b) do not pay SERPs because they are in an occupational scheme and (c) do not pay SERPs because they are in a private pension scheme.

  Miss Widdecombe
  During 1989–90, the latest year for which provisional information is available, employed earners paid national insurance contributions as follows:

  Millions

  (i)

  At the standard not contracted out rate

  11·9

  (ii)

  At the contracted out rate because of membership of an occupational pension scheme

  8·5

  (iii)

  A mixture of both (i) and (ii) above

  1·6

  (iv)

  At the standard not contracted out rate (included in (i) and (iii)) but subsequently had a rebate of contributions paid into an appropriate personal pension

  3·5

  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the rise in the basic retirement pension proposed for April 1992.

  Miss Widdecombe
  I refer the hon. Member to the statement made today by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the growth on average in pensioners' incomes over the past 10 years.
  430
  Miss Widdecombe
  Between 1979 and 1988, the last year for which figures are currently available, the average total net pensioner income grew in real terms by 34 per cent.

  Mr. Pawsey
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the estimated percentage of pensioners who own their own homes.

  Miss Widdecombe
  In 1988, 46 per cent. of pensioners owned their homes outright.

  National Insurance (Women)
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement on his Department's policy on crediting married women with national insurance contributions so that they can draw a pension in their own right and prior to their husband's 65th birthday.

  Mr. Jack
  The national insurance scheme introduced in 1948 contained provision for married women to opt out of compulsory insurance and to rely on their husbands' insurance for pension purposes. This provision remained in effect until May 1977, when the right to opt out was abolished in line with the introduction of the new pension scheme which established the principle of equal contributions for equal benefits. However, women who were currently opted out were allowed to remain so, subject to certain conditions. In 1978 home responsibilities protection—HRP—was introduced to help safeguard the basic pension entitlement of individuals who were unable to work because of domestic responsibilities.

  Married women who pay full rate contributions are awarded credits on the same basis as any other contributor. They also have the same access to home responsibilities protection. Such women may draw any pension to which they are entitled in their own right as soon as they reach age 60. Married women who choose to exercise an existing right to pay reduced rate contributions, rather than the full rate are neither awarded credits nor do they have access to HRP although they are free to start paying full rate contributions at any time. However, they can usually expect to receive a pension based on their husbands' contributions. In these circumstances, the pension will not be payable before the husband's 65th birthday.

  Residential Homes
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish a table showing expenditure on residential homes for the elderly operated by(a) local authorities, (b) voluntary organisations and (c) the private sector, showing (i) the number of elderly people resident in each sector, (ii) the total Government financial support for each sector and (iii) the per capita Government expenditure on the clients of each sector, for each year since 1985.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The information is not available in the form requested. The numbers and income support expenditure on all residents in residential care and nursing homes in the independent sector are as follows:
  431

  Date

  Numbers of customers (thousands)

  Annual equivalent expenditure (nearest £ million)

  December 1985

  70

  348

  February 1986

  90

  459

  May 1987

  117

  671

  May 1988

  147

  878

  May 1989

  176

  1,105

  May 1990

  189

  1,270

  February 1991

  210

  1,542

  The total number of residents over 65 in local authority and independent sector homes in England are shown in the following table:

  LA Homes

  Voluntary Homes

  Private Homes

  1985

  101,528

  25,818

  66,143

  1986

  101,704

  25,121

  77,557

  1987

  99,750

  25,105

  84,945

  1988

  97,380

  25,633

  96,161

  1989

  95,335

  25,858

  111,301

  1990

  89,340

  26,633

  119,883

  Residential care (Thousands)

  Date

  Over pension age

  Under pension age

  Elderly

  Mentally ill

  Mentally handicapped

  Total

  December 1985

  45

  10

  42

  3

  5

  55

  February 1986

  55

  15

  51

  4

  8

  70

  August 1986

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  75

  May 1987

  67

  18

  62

  5

  10

  84

  May 1988

  81

  22

  71

  6

  16

  103

  May 1989

  93

  26

  85

  6

  17

  119

  May 1990

  98

  27

  89

  5

  18

  125

  May 1991

  108

  29

  98

  6

  21

  137

  Nursing homes (Thousands)

  Date

  Over pension age

  Under pension age

  Elderly

  Mentally ill

  Mentally handicapped

  Total

  December 1985

  12

  2

  12

  1

  <1

  15

  February 1986

  18

  2

  17

  1

  <1

  20

  August 1986

  —

  —

  —

  —

  —

  28

  May 1987

  28

  4

  21

  3

  2

  32

  May 1988

  39

  4

  29

  4

  1

  44

  May 1989

  51

  5

  36

  5

  2

  56

  May 1990

  61

  2

  30

  5

  1

  64

  May 1991

  87

  7

  37

  4

  2

  94

  Notes:

  1. Information before 1985 from Annual Statistical Enquiry.

  2. Information from 1985 from Quarterly Statistical Enquiry.

  3. Numbers under 5,000 are not statistically reliable.

  Family Credit
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many individuals in the Nottingham area are(a) entitled to family credit and (b) are claiming family credit.

  Mr. Jack
  Operational issues in family credit branch are a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member with such information as is available and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  Severe Weather Allowance
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will bring forward proposals to allow everybody over 60 years of age to have the right of winter heating allowances from October to March.
  432
  Mr. Frank Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the number of people receiving supplementary benefit or income support who were(a) residents in residential care homes, (b) residents in nursing homes, (c) residents over pension age, (d) residents under pension age, (e) elderly residents and (f) mentally ill residents, for each year since 1979.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Such information as is available is shown in the tables. For the period before 1985 only information for the total number of residents in both residential care and nursing homes is available.

  (Thousands)

  Year

  Total

  December 1979

  12

  December 1980

  13

  December 1981

  13

  December 1982

  16

  December 1983

  26

  December 1984

  42

  Mr. Scott
  We have no plans to do so. The Government have already announced significant improvements in the cold weather payments scheme for the coming winter. Targeting cold weather payments on income support recipients ensures that the resources available are directed to those people in most need.

  Homelessness
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish a table showing the most recent estimate of expenditure by his Department on accommodating homeless families in temporary or bed-and-breakfast accommodation for(a) Scotland, (b) Wales and (c) England; what proportion of this was expended through local authorities; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  All such expenditure by the Department comprises housing benefit subsidy. It is
  433
  expended through local authorities. The table shows to the nearest £5,000 the total amounts of subsidy claimed in respect of homeless people in bed and breakfast accommodation, short term leased accommodation and hotel annexes for 1989–90. This is the latest year for which such information is available.

  £

  Scotland

  435,000

  Wales

  340,000

  England

  18,585,000

  National Insurance
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what items of expenditure are meant to be covered by income from national insurance contributions; and how much of current expenditure on those items is met in this way.

  Mr. Jack
  The full costs of the following items are currently met from the income from national insurance contributions:

  Retirement pensions (categories A and B)

  Widows' benefits

  Sickness benefit

  Invalidity benefit

  Maternity allowance

  Unemployment benefit

  Guardian's allowance

  Child's special allowance

  Pensioners' lump sum payments

  Rebates and incentives in respect of personal pensions

  Incentives in respect of new occupational pension schemes

  Redundancy payments

  The appropriate allocation to the National Health Service

  The relevant costs of administration

  Full details are set out in the "National Insurance Fund Account 1989–90"—HOC 617—and the Government Actuary's report on the drafts of the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 1991 and the Social Security (Contributions) (Re-rating) Order 1991 (Cm 1366), copies of which have been placed in the Library.

  Unemployment Benefit
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what entitlement to unemployment benefit exists for the self-employed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  Since the introduction of unemployment benefit it has never been available to those in business on their own account, who are free to set their own patterns and conditions of work. This position is reflected in the lower rate of class 2 contributions paid by the self-employed. Entitlement to unemployment benefit is based on class I employed earner's contributions. A formerly self-employed person who does not qualify for unemployment benefit may qualify for other benefits such as income support.

  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security whether he will arrange for statistics to be collected on a regular basis concerning the length of periods of disqualification for unemployment benefit imposed by adjudication officers.

  Mr. Jack
  Studies by the Department and by Social and Community Planning Research have been undertaken and reports were placed in the Library in November 1989. The 434
  Chief Adjudication Officer reports on standards of adjudication, as required under section 97 of the Social Security Act 1975. Copies of his published annual reports are also in the Library. We have no plans to change these arrangements.

  Local Offices
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list his Department's offices that have the provision of answerphones for use after hours, to receive and impart information.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The provision of answerphones in Benefits Agency offices is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many(a) permanent and (b) temporary staff were employed in each category for each of his Doncaster offices on 1 January; what were the numbers in each category at 1 May under the district management unit; and what is the current position for the latest date for which he has figures.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The staffing levels of district management units is a matter for Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency. He will write to the hon. Member and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  EC Concessions Card
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the current position on the European Community's over-60s concessions card; and if he will make a statement.

  Ms. Richardson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what steps he is taking to implement the European Commission's recommendation agreed in Ma. y 1989 to provide people over 60 years with a standard type of card to enable them to take advantage of concessions available for the elderly throughout the Community; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The EC recommendation of May 1989 was for the introduction by all member states of an over-60s card by 1 January 1991. No country has yet implemented the proposal and some have expressed reservations about the need for such a card. The United Kingdom has responded positively and is keen to see in place an effective scheme which could benefit the elderly. The Department is continuing discussions with officials of the Commission and other member states in an effort to resolve outstanding problems.

  Income Support
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many income support claimants in percentage and number of individuals(a) in each of the Nottingham social security offices and (b) nationally are repaying social fund loans, (ii) repaying gas or electricity arrears, (iii) repaying rent arrears, (iv) repaying water charge arrears and (v) repaying poll tax arrears from their income support.
  435
  Mr. Scott
  The information requested is given in the table.

  Income support customers with deductions for debt by number and percentage of total customers

  Nottingham (West) district office

  Nottingham (East) district office

  National figures

  Number

  Percentage of total number

  Number

  Percentage of total number

  Number

  Percentage of total number

  Total number of income support customers

  27,919

  30,290

  4,927,860

  Fuel

  2,110

  7·56

  1,625

  5·36

  259,718

  5·27

  Rent

  1,616

  5·79

  1,316

  4·34

  100,162

  2·03

  Water

  510

  1·83

  521

  1·72

  82,794

  1·68

  Community charge

  567

  2·03

  526

  1·74

  89,098

  1·81

  Social fund

  3,571

  12·79

  2,898

  9·57

  523,630

  10·63

  Notes:

  1. The figures used in the table are based on DSS Management Information Statistics for the month of August 1991.

  2. The Social Fund figures are based on the number of people making repayments over the whole of August and not at the end of the statistical month. It is not possible to exclude from the figures repayments made by people not in receipt of Income Support.

  3. The information for rent, fuel and water includes cases where a deduction is being made for current charges only.

  Lone Parents
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security when he will publish the research study on lone parents, conducted by Professor Bradshaw and Dr. Millar for his Department; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  The report "Lone Parent Families in the UK" by Jonathan Bradshaw and Jane Millar was published by HMSO on 4 June. Copies were placed in the Library.

  Death Grant
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will bring forward proposals to allow everybody over 60 years to have the right of a minimum of £400 death grant to help with funeral expenses.

  Mr. Scott
  I am satisfied that the present arrangements are effective because they target help on those who need it most and we have no plans to change them.

  Local Office, Paisley
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he has selected a site for the construction of a new office in Paisley; what is the proposed timetable for establishing such an office; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  We have identified a potentially suitable site for construction of a new office in Paisley, but we are unable to give details at present since this information is confidential for commercial reasons.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Department of Social Security; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The cost of hospitality provided for the financial year 1990–91 was £75,778.

  Invoice Payments
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.
  436
  Miss Widdecombe
  The importance of prompt payment for small and medium-sized firms is recognised and consequently the Department is participating in the examination of payment performance being undertaken by the Department of Employment in this financial year.

  Standing instructions on the timing of payments for goods and services to all businesses require that, providing the necessary checks have been carried out, payment should be made as follows: where there is a contract—when payment falls due; where there is no contract—within 30 days of the receipt of goods and services or on receipt of a valid invoice or demand, whichever is the later.

  Incomes
  Mr. Maxton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will publish a table showing the rise in real household incomes between 1979 and the most recent years available(a) for the average and for all decile groups, broken down by family status, in the manner of his answer to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South, 26 July 1990, Official Report, columns 498–502, and (b) broken down by economic type, for all decile groups and the average; if he will publish a table showing the rise in real income between 1979 and the most recent year available, broken down by (1) family type and (2) economic type for all decile groups after housing costs; and if he will provide as much comparable data as is available in each category for Scotland.

  Mr. Jack
  The figures provided on 26 July 1990 at columns 498–502 are the latest available.

  Chronic Bronchitis and Emphysema
  Mr. Eadie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what input his Department intends to make as a result of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council decision to reconsider the prescription of chronic bronchitis and emphysema; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Scott
  The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council is an independent statutory body which advises Ministers directly on matters relating to the industrial injuries scheme, particularly on the prescription of occupational diseases. The Department does not normally make any formal input to the council's investigations, although it
  437
  would endeavour to assist with any information which the council might request. We shall, of course, consider carefully any recommendation on the prescription of chronic bronchitis and emphysema which the council might make as a result of its investigation.

  Deaf Children
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will make a statement summarising the provision which is currently made within the social security system for deaf children and those who care for them; and what plans he has to improve that provision.

  Mr. Scott
  Social security provision for all children applies equally to those who are deaf. Entitlement to social security benefits depends generally on the effect which a condition has on the claimant rather than the specific condition itself. Deafness alone does not trigger entitlement to any particular benefit, although a deaf child who also has other disabilities may be entitled to mobility allowance or attendance allowance. When one of these benefits is received in respect of a child, and he or she is included in a claim to an income related benefit, the disabled child premium is payable. Someone looking after a child receiving attendance allowance may qualify for invalid care allowance and, if that person also receives an income-related benefit, the carer premium.

  Notting Hill Resettlement Unit
  Mr. Austin Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) when notice to residents of Bridge House resettlement unit, Notting Hill was given; and what arrangements were made to place them in other facilities;

  (2) if he will place in the Library the reports and video study of the drains on the basis of which Bridge House resettlement unit, Notting Hill was closed;

  (3) what were the reasons for the closure of Bridge House resettlement unit, Notting Hill.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The management of resettlement units is a matter for Mr. Tony Ward, the chief executive of the Resettlement Agency. He will write to the hon. Member and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  Benefits Agency
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security (1) whether, and at what stage, copies of letters from the chief executive of the Benefits Agency in response to parliamentary questions are submitted to his office;

  (2) whether, and at what stage, drafts and copies of letters from the chief executive of the Benefits Agency in response to parliamentary questions are submitted to his office.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Ministers generally see a copy of the letter which the chief executive proposes to send in response to a parliamentary question at the time at which the proposed answer to that question is submitted to the Minister for approval. A copy of the final reply is submitted to the Minister's office on the day the letter is despatched.

  National Insurance Contributions
  Mr. Rooney
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many companies in the last year for which figures are available were prosecuted for late or non-payment of national insurance contributions.

  Mr. Jack
  The late or non-payment of national insurance contributions is a matter for Miss Ann Chant. the chief executive of the Contributions Agency. She will write to the hon. Member and copies will be placed in the Library and the Public Information Office.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall Departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan for action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year. The Department is liaising closely with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the preparation of the report.

  Data Protection
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans he has to ensure that the regulations made under the Child Support Act strengthen, from a data subject's viewpoint, the Child Support Agency's approach to the first, third, fourth, and sixth data protection principles; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Jack
  As with all the business conducted by the Department, any provisions relating to the Child Support Act will comply with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. Consultations are being held with the data protection registrar to ensure this.

  Attendance Allowance
  Mr. Nellist
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is his estimate of the number of attendance allowances in payment for children under the age of two years at the latest convenient date.

  Mr. Scott
  The information requested is not available. Such information as is held shows that between April 1990, when the lower age limit in attendance allowance was abolished, and the end of September this year there have been 8,400' awards of AA for children under two years.

  Note:1 This figure includes any second and subsequent awards, awards made to children who are now over two years and awards no longer in payment.

DEFENCE

  Harrier Aircraft
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by date, for 1991 to date, the number of(a) fires and (b) electrical malfunctions reported during

  439
  sorties involving the Royal Air Force's (i) Harrier GR5s and (ii) Harrier GR7s; and what was the result of the subsequent investigations.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The information is as follows:

  HARRIER GR5

  Date and outcome of investigation

  FIRE

  29 July 19911—Under investigation

  ELECTRICAL MALFUNCTIONS

  24 January 1991—Technical fault

  9 March 1991—Technical fault

  3 May 1991 Technical fault

  13 May 1991—Technical fault

  29 May 1991—Technical fault

  4 June 1991—Technical fault

  13 June 1991—Technical fault

  18 June 1991—Technical fault

  19 June 1991—Technical fault

  8 July 1991—Technical fault

  29 July 19911—Under investigation

  23 September 1991—Technical fault

  27 September 1991—Technical fault

  HARRIER GR7

  Date and outcome of investigation

  FIRE

  15 July 19912—Under investigation

  ELECTRICAL MALFUNCTIONS

  29 May 1991—Under investigation

  15 July 19912—Under investigation

  30 July 1991—Under investigation

  1Same flight.

  2 Same flight.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if any RAF Harrier II GR5 and GR7 aircraft have not returned to peacetime flight operations; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Over half of the RAF's Harrier II aircraft have now been cleared to resume daytime flying, subject to some restrictions.

  Tornado Aircraft
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the results of his Department's investigations into the seven Tornado GR 1s lost during the Gulf war; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  A summary of the findings of the investigations into the circumstances in which six Tornado GR1 aircraft were lost in combat during air operations against Iraq was placed in the Library of the House on 15 October. A seventh Tornado GR I was lost on 20 January 1991 shortly after take off from Tabuk in Saudi Arabia on an operational mission. Both crew ejected, suffering minor injuries. Investigations concluded that the aircraft suffered a major control restriction which denied the crew the ability to land safely. The cause of the restriction could not, however, be positively determined.

  Warship Replacement
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current position on the replacement of HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My right hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, announced on 440
  15 October, Official Report, column 138. that we expect to place a contract for project definition of the replacement next month.

  Challenger 2 Tank
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what percentage of(a) the weapons systems and (b) the navigation and other systems of the Challenger 2 tank, will be contracted to (i) United Kingdom companies and (ii) overseas companies; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  We have only one contract for the Challenger 2 tank and this is with Vickers PLC. The nationalities of sub-contractors are a matter for that company.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what was the original specification for inertial navigational aids on the new main battle tank; whether there have been any changes in the specifications; and whether the FIN 11–55 meets(a) the original and (b) the revised specification;

  (2) what inertial navigation system is to be procured for use on the Challenger 2 main battle tank; at what cost; and whether it will be fitted in every such tank.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  The original specification for the Chieftain replacement included an inertial navigation system which we believe FIN 11–55 would have met. However, experience of operating Challenger 1 in the Gulf using a much simpler global positioning system—GPS—demonstrated that an inertial navigation system would not be essential to meet our operational needs and therefore, on cost grounds, could no longer be justified. Challenger 2 will therefore be fitted only with the GPS.

  Surface-to-air-Missiles
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the cardinal points specification for a future medium surface-to-air missile system, to replace the Bloodhound; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  This information is classified. A future RAF medium surface-to-air missile system will not be a direct replacement for Bloodhound.

  Stored Aircraft
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by aircraft type for the three armed forces, the number of aircraft, including helicopters, they have in store.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Thirteen RAF Tornado F2 aircraft are held in long-term storage at RAF St. Athan. In addition, a variable number of aircraft and helicopters from all three services are held in temporary storage from time to time. These are awaiting maintenance, repair or conversion, or are awaiting disposal pending withdrawal from service.

  Radio Frequency Radiation Weaponry
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which armed forces are equipped with radio frequency radiation weaponry; and if he will make a statement.
  441
  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  We cannot confirm that radio frequency radiation weapons are currently deployed by any of the world's armed forces.

  Nuclear Submarines
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the final destination of the nuclear reactors for(a) HMS Churchill, (b) HMS Dreadnought and (c) HMS Swiftsure.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  The defuelled reactors from HMS Churchill and HMS Dreadnought remain within the vessels' hulls at Rosyth naval base. HMS Swiftsure remains in commission and has had neither reactor nor fuel removed.

  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his policy on Anglo-French collaboration in a nuclear-powered attack submarine development programme.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement explained during the defence debate on 15 October (Official Report, column 173), our new class of nuclear-powered submarines will be based on the existing design of the Trafalgar class submarines. The scope for collaboration as part of this programme is likely to be very limited. We will keep the scope for co-operation, where this makes sense in operational and value for money terms and is compatible with our bilateral arrangements with the United States, under review as studies proceed.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on his assessment of the effects in the United Kingdom of a worst case accident involving British nuclear weapons.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The worst credible accident involving a British nuclear weapon could lead to the explosion of the conventional explosive component of the warhead, accompanied by the local dispersal of plutonium. Weapon design ensures that, even if such an explosion did occur, this could not lead to a significant nuclear yield. The chances of any such accident occurring are extremely remote: there has never been an accident involving a British nuclear weapon which has produced any hazard to the public.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will clearly outline the nuclear weapons the United Kingdom Government now have at their disposal; and what systems these weapons are to be carried on.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to paragraphs 405 and 408 of the "Statement on the Defence Estimates 1991". Subsequently, we have announced our intention to give up our Lance missile and nucleaer artillery capabilities, to withdraw maritime tactical nuclear weapons from our ships in normal circumstances, and substantially to reduce the number of our WE177 free fall bombs.

  Sellafield
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) if he will list for the past 12 months, the armed forces units that have visited Sellafield; for what purpose; and what anti-radiation protective clothing was worn;

  (2) if he will list for the coming 12 months, the number of proposed armed forces units due to visit Sellafield. the units concerned, and for what purpose; and what anti-radiation protective clothing will be worn.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Personnel from the Catterick detachment of 11 ordnance battalion, explosive ordnance disposal, were called in to investigate a suspect package found in a building on the Sellafield site on 1 September 1991. In line with normal operational procedure the men wore coveralls. The package was found to be harmless. Government Departments, the nuclear installations inspectorate and the Cumbrian constabulary were fully informed about this event which was also publicised through the Sellafield site newsletter, copies of which are available in the Library of the House.

  Service personnel are also able to visit the Sellafield site as are all members of the general public.

  Red Arrows
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the cost to the Exchequer in respect of the Royal Command air display at Balmoral castle on 20 September, in which the RAF's Red Arrows display team participated.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  On 20 September, the Red Arrows and the Russian Knights, a Soviet Air Force aerobatic team visiting the United Kingdom for the first time, performed a flypast over Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's Scottish residence at Birkhall, on the Balmoral estate. Both aerobatic teams were in transit to RAF Leuchars where they participated in a Battle of Britain "at home" day the following day. There was therefore no additional costs to defence funds.

  Exercise Elder Joust
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by(a) locations and (b) dates, the number of complaints that were received during the NATO exercise Elder Joust; and if he will show in his answer the nature of the complaints.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Elder Joust 91–2 was an air defence exercise which took place from 9 to 12 September 1991. It involved low flying between 10 and 12 September in parts of Scotland, the borders and north-east and eastern England from Northumbria to East Anglia. My Department received the following numbers of complaints and inquiries about low flying in these areas, not all of which were necessarily connected with the exercise, during that period:

  10 September

  11 September

  12 September

  Northern and central Scotland

  3

  8

  3

  Borders

  —

  1

  5

  North-east and eastern England

  —

  1

  —

  East Anglia

  5

  —

  1

  443
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the(a) countries and (b) aircraft types and numbers involved, that took part during NATO exercise, Elder Joust.

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

  Lord of the Isles Ferry
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what was the result of the investigation into the near-miss on 30 April involving a Buccaneer jet and the Caledonian-MacBrayne ferry Lord of the Isles.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The investigation of the incident to which the hon. Member refers, which occurred on 29 April 1991, established that there had been no risk of collision between the ferry and the aircraft and that there had been no breach of low flying regulations.

  Gulf War
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assistance his Department has given to the relatives of the nine British service men who were killed in the Gulf war friendly fire incident.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Each family was allocated a casualty visiting officer; the officers have remained in close contact, providing advice, support and practical assistance. CVOs are normally appointed from the same regiment or corps as the deceased and have expert local knowledge of welfare facilities both within the MOD and outside.

  Lump sums were paid as appropriate to the estates of the service men under the provisions of the armed forces pension scheme which cover the death of serving soldiers who leave neither a widow nor a child eligible for a family pension.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many multiple rocket launch systems were used by the British armed forces during the Gulf war.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  Including the war maintenance reserve, 16 multiple-launch rocket systems were deployed to the Gulf.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many Hunting BL 755 bombs were dropped by the RAF during the Gulf war.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) on 18 October 1991,Official Report column 302.

  Near-misses
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by(a) date for the last 10 years, and 1991 to-date, (b) by location and (c) aircraft type, near misses involving military jet aircraft and shipping.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Records are not maintained in a form which would enable the information sought to be provided.

  Z-Berths
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list for each Z-berth in the United Kingdom(a) the ports so designated, (b) the dates they first became operational and (c) how many nuclear-powered submarines have visited each berth to-date.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The locations of all UK Z-berths are listed in the reply I gave to the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) on 2 May 1991,Official Report columns 290–91. The dates on which each Z-berth was established and the number of visits to each one to date cannot be provided without incurring disproportionate cost.

  Radioactive Material (Transport)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list by year for the last four years, and for the current year to-date, the number of vehicle journeys on the(a) A1 (M), (b) M18, (c) M180, (d) M1 and (e) M62 involving the transport of (i) medium and (ii) high-level radioactive material.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  It is our policy not to give details of the movement of defence radioactive materials. Responsibility for the transport of civilian radioactive material lies with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.

  RAF Finningley Air Show
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many(a) registered charities and (b) unregistered charities applied for licences to collect money from members of the public at the current year's air show at RAF Finningley; and who authorised the licences;

  (2) how many instances there were of unauthorised collections of money for charity being made at the current year's air show at RAF Finningley; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will w rite to the hon. Member.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Ministry of Defence; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The amount spent on official hospitality by the Ministry of Defence in financial year 1990–91 amounted to some £3·9 million and in financial year 1991–92, to September, some £1·7 million. These figures include expenditure incurred by the Ministry of Defence itself, by formations and establishments of the armed forces at home and abroad, and by individual officers occupying command and international appointments for which entertainment allowances are payable.

  Business Invoices
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.
  445
  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My Department's policy is to pay all contractors' bills promptly.

  The Government accounting manual requires Departments to pay within 30 days of the receipt of goods or on the presentation of a valid invoice. My Department's bill-paying branch seeks to pay such bills within 10 days of receiving a claim from contractors. The majority of bills are paid within seven days.

  MOD contractors may submit bills against specific contracts once a month. During 1992 arrangements to allow fortnightly claims will be introduced. I believe that the new arrangements will be welcomed by all contractors no matter what the size of their business.

  Miscellaneous bills, that is, those which are not the result of a formal contract, are submitted through MOD branches as they arrive. They are paid weekly and normally payment is made within 10 days.

  Royal Irish Rangers
  Mr. Trimble
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many(a) officers and (b) men currently serving in the Royal Irish Rangers were born in (i) Great Britain, (ii) Northern Ireland and (iii) the Republic of Ireland indicating in each case the percentage of Roman Catholics.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will write to the hon. Member.

  Royal Navy Auxiliary Service
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes he proposes to make in the Royal Navy Auxiliary Service; and if he will give the reasons for the changes.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) on 24 July at column 705. Seven RN XS training centres will close—Isle of Man, Broughton Moor, Stornoway, Scarborough, Stranraer, Lowestoft and Canterbury.

  RN Reserve
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the current role and annual cost of the Royal Navy Reserve communications training centres HMS Hallam, Paragon, Palatine and Essex; why they are to be paid off; and what Royal Navy Reserve training in communications is to be retained.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will write to the hon. Member.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the future of the Royal Navy Reserve port diving branch.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Further to the answer my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) on 24 July, at column 705, the Royal Naval Reserve port diving branch will be disbanded from 31 March 1992.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reason Royal Navy Reserve sea training 446
  centres HMS President and HMS Camperdown are to lose the use of HMS Humber and HMS Helmsdale; and what sea training facilities will he available to Royal Navy Reserve personnel in London and Dundee after the disposal of these ships.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Further to the answer my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces gave my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Bruce) on 24 July 1991, at column 705, the majority of HMS President's sea training is provided at Portsmouth which is where HMS Humber is based. In future, access to sea training for HMS President personnel will be available at HMS Sussex in Brighton and HMS Wessex in Southampton. As for HMS Camperdown, sea training facilities will be shared with HMS Claverhouse in Edinburgh. Both HMS Humber and HMS Helmsdale will be placed in reserve.

  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list those Royal Navy Reserve branches which are to be abolished, showing the numbers of volunteers affected in each case, and the annual cost.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will write to the hon. Member.

  HMS Vanguard
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if the in-service date for HMS Vanguard, announced after the March 1988 North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit, will be met.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Construction of SSBN 05 Vanguard, is making good progress, and remains on schedule to meet her planned in-service date in the mid-1990s.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made regarding the tactical weapons system for HMS Vanguard; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Satisfactory progress continues to be made with the tactical weapons system for the Vanguard class submarines. Integration and testing of the various elements of the system in SSBN 05 Vanguard is well under way, and remains on course to meet the overall requirements of the Trident programme.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects HMS Vanguard first to enter the water; and when the formal launch and naming ceremony will take place.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  It is not our practice to make public the precise dates of submarine construction and related programmes.

  Trident
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will provide a list of all contractors and sub-contractors working on contracts related to the Trident programme that have ceased trading over the last two years; and which contracts they were working on.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The information is not available in the form requested and could be provided only al disproportionate cost.
  447
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will take steps to ensure that the problems that have been encountered with the shore construction programme at Royal Navy armaments depot, Coulport and Clyde submarine base Faslane do not occur with the ongoing Trident-related construction programme at Rosyth.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Where appropriate, lessons learned from Coulport and Faslane are being taken into account at Rosyth.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the overall progress of the Trident shore construction programme.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Significant progress continues to be made. A number of facilities at Coulport and Faslane have already been completed and handed over to the Ministry of Defence.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to place the order with Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd to construct the fourth Trident submarine.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  We expect to receive the tender for the fourth Vanguard class submarine very shortly, and plan to place the order following the successful completion of negotiations with the company.

  A91 Building, Aldermaston
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) when he now expects the A91 building at Aldermaston to be fully operational;

  (2) what progress has been made in rectifying the problems with the pipework in the A91 building at Aldermaston; and if he will make a statement;

  (3) if he is now able to provide a full explanation of how contaminants were placed in the pipework of the A91 building at Aldermaston;

  (4) what is the latest estimate of the total cost of rectifying problems in the A91 building at Aldermaston.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The corrosion problems in building A91 at AWE were discovered during commissioning using simulant materials. A detailed technical investigation into the cause and extent of the problems found that the corrosion resulted from attack by chloride in the commissioning material and naturally occurring microbes. The final report of the investigation has not yet been received and it is, therefore, too early to say what work is required to rectify the problems; the cost of such works; or to give an estimate of its completion date.

  Nuclear Submarine Refit Yards
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he is having regarding the possibility of closing one of Britain's two nuclear submarine refit yards.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The Ministry of Defence is conducting a study into the future requirements for ship refitting and repair. A number of possible solutions are being considered, including proposals put forward by each of the royal dockyard management companies.

  Faslane Base
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) when he expects the magnetic treatment facility at Clyde submarine base Faslane to be completed;

  (2) if he will make a statement on progress of the design and construction of the magnetic treatment facility at Clyde submarine base Faslane;

  (3) if he has had any discussions with the United States Government on the possibility of using the United States Navy magnetic treatment facilities for Trident while those at Clyde submarine base Faslane are under construction.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 26 June 1991,Official Report, column 496.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement regarding construction progress of the shiplift at Clyde submarine base Faslane.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Steady progress is being made on the Shiplift's construction; its superstructure and cladding are largely completed.

  Explosives Handling Jetty, Coulport
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement regarding construction progress of the explosives handling jetty for Royal Navy armaments depot, Coulport.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Following action to overcome earlier difficulties, it is expected that the explosives handling jetty will be completed in 1992–93, in time to meet the operational requirements of the Trident submarine programme.

  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects the explosives handling jetty to sail from Hunterston to Royal Navy armaments depot, Coulport.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  On current plans, the explosives handling jetty will leave Hunterston in 1992.

  WE177 Bomb
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he is considering replacing the nuclear depth bomb variant of the WE177 nuclear free-fall bomb at some time in the future.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As I said in my answer to the hon. Member on 15 March 1991,Official Report, column 719, our future requirement for nuclear depth bombs is under consideration.

  Construction Work Audits
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will place an edited or complete copy of the Bovis audit of construction work at Clyde submarine base Faslane and Royal Navy armaments, depot, Coulport in the Library.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Due to the commercial sensitivity of extensive sections of the Bovis report, it cannot be made public. However, its main recommendations will be
  449
  summarised in the Government's forthcoming response to the 1990–91 House of Commons Defence Committee report on the progress of the Trident programme—HC286—which will be presented to the Committee shortly.

  HMS Revenge
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if there are plans to give HMS Revenge a third refit.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  It is not the practice of this or previous Governments to publish details of nuclear submarine refits.

  Drug-related Offences
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) how many service men and women serving in Northern Ireland have been court martialled for drug and drug-related offences in the last 10 years for which information is available;

  (2) how many service men and women serving in Northern Ireland have been convicted after court martial of drug or drug-related offences in the last 10 years for which information is available; and of these how many have been dismissed from the service.

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

  Queen Victoria School, Dunblane
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement about the future of the Queen Victoria school, Dunblane.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Queen Victoria school Dunblane is one of several areas which my Department has under review for agency status, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement announced on 22 July,Official Report, column 449. If the outcome of this work is positive, we would aim to establish the school as an executive agency by the end of this financial year.

  Air-to-Mr Missile
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make it his policy to make an early decision on the advanced short-range air-to-air missile; and what factors will influence that decision.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  We are evaluating tenders with a view to reaching a decision in the spring of next year. All relevant factors are being taken into account.

  Seawolf
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what were the considerations which prompted the cancellation of the lightweight four-barrel launcher Seawolf close-area defence system programme.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  Cancellation of the lightweight Seawolf programme was a consequence of the examination of the forward equipment programme in the light of changes required to support the force levels envisaged in "Britain's Defence for the 90s".

  Electronic Warfare
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will commission a study into the effectiveness of electronic warfare equipment used on Royal Air Force aircraft during the Gulf war.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  This is being studied as part of our detailed assessment of the operation.

  European Fighter Aircraft
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his policy on the proposal that the European fighter aircraft should be built on a single assembly line.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  When it is appropriate to take decisions on the production phase of the European fighter aircraft programme, we shall consider how manufacture might be carried out most cost effectively.

  Direct Fire Simulator
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he expects to announce a decision on the direct fire weapon effects simulator for the British Army.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  I hope to do so in the near future.

  RAF Tankers (Information System)
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of Stale for Defence when he expects that the programme to install joint tactical information distribution system terminals in the RAF tanker fleet will be completed.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  We are currently conducting studies into the fitting of joint tactical information distribution systems terminals into RAF tanker aircraft. No final decision will be taken as to their installation until these have been completed.

  South Korea
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what subjects were discussed at the meeting September of the joint committee of defence officials of the United Kingdom and South Korea; what decisions were taken; and when the committee is next due to meet.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  A number of matters of mutual interest were discussed relating to industrial co-operation in the area of defence procurement. It is expected that the committee will meet again next year.

  RAF Stand-off Weapons
  Mr. Menzies Campbell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is his policy on the procurement of a new stand-off weapon for the Royal Air Force for use agains: hardened targets.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  We are currently considering the purchase of stand-off weapons for the RAF, taking into account experience gained in the Gulf. We recently raised a request for information with industry in order to identify any off-the-shelf weapons systems that might be suitable.

  Animal Experiments
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the numbers of animals used in experiments carried out by his Department or undertaken on a contract basis for each year since 1975.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The number of Ministry of Defence animal experiments recorded by the Home Office under the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 and the subsequent Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act which became effective on 1 January 1987 are as follows. 1990 represents the last full year for which figures are available.

  Year

  Number returned lo Home Office

  1982

  13,400

  1983

  9,400

  1984

  10,900

  1985

  6,900

  1986

  6,600

  1987

  9,200

  1988

  8,100

  1989

  9,000

  1990

  8,100

  I regret that figures for the period prior to 1982 are not available.

  Contractors have the same reporting responsibilities as MOD under the Act and their procedures are reported to the Home Office, not to MOD.

  Meteorological Satellites
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what support has been given by Her Majesty's Government to the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites; and what benefits have accrued to the United Kingdom from participation in EUMETSAT.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  This is a matter for the Meteorological Office under its framework document. I have therefore asked the chief executive of the Meteorological Office, Sir John Houghton, to reply direct to the hon. Member.

  Arms Control
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of the scientists employed by his Department's Atomic Weapons Establishment are working on verification of arms control agreements and initiatives.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  It is not our practice to reveal the numbers of personnel employed on specific tasks.

  Anglo-Italian Defence Plan
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will set out the strategic and financial implications of the Anglo-Italian defence plan for the United Kingdom armed forces.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The recent Anglo-Italian declaration on European security and defence was offered as a contribution to the debate on future European security arrangements currently underway in the political union inter-governmental conference, in NATO, and in the Western European Union, rather than as a defence plan for the United Kingdom armed forces.

  Iraq
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what equipment or technology of United Kingdom origin was found at the Jabal Hamrayn site north of Baghdad by the United Nations special inspection team in Iraq.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The United Nations inspectors found a 350 mm calibre gun at the site. It is believed that the barrel tubes and seals were made in the United Kingdom.

  B52 Bombers
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what information was available to him on the accident on 15 September 1980 in North Dakota involving a B52 bomber prior to agreeing to the stationing of these aeroplanes in the United Kingdom; what safeguards have been taken by the USAF to ensure no repetition of this accident in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I understand that this accident involved a B52 aircraft on strategic alert, carrying nuclear missiles. There is no agreement permanently to station United States Air Force B52 aircraft in the United Kingdom, and when such aircraft have deployed temporarily to the United Kingdom they have exercised or operated only in their conventional role. The circumstances of the North Dakota accident are therefore not relevant to the deployment of B52 aircraft to the United Kingdom.

  Procurement Projects
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list all procurement projects abandoned over the last five years for which at least £1 million had been incurred; and if he will give the amount actually incurred for each such project.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  The information requested is not held centrally and could be obtained only with disproportionate cost and effort.

  Nuclear Arms Reductions
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list in the Official Report the interviews he gave to the media following the announcement by President Bush on 27 September of nuclear arms reductions; and if he will summarise the main points in regard to the United Kingdom nuclear weapons capability and future plans.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend gave interviews to Sky TV, TV-am, BBC TV and radio, I RN and ITN concerning President Bush's announcement on 27 September. He pointed out that, while the Government are committed to the maintenance of a minimum nuclear deterrent, we are reducing our strike aircraft squadrons from 11 to eight, giving up entirely the Lance and nuclear artillery capability, and withdrawing maritime tactical nuclear weapons from our ships in normal circumstances.

  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what facilities exist in the United Kingdom for the dismantling of the delivery vehicles and warheads from United Kingdom short-range battlefield nuclear weapons
  453
  and United Kingdom nuclear depth charge bombs; and what plans his Department has for the storage and disposal of plutonium recovered from nuclear weapons withdrawn from deployment.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The United Kingdom has the appropriate facilities for any necessary dismantlement of United Kingdom nuclear weapons. It is not in the national interest to give details of the processes involved.

  Home Defence
  Mr. John Browne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence (1) what was the military planning figure for the length of warning time for military home defence battalions in 1984; what it is now; and what it is expected to be in 1997;

  (2) what were the estimated response times for military home defence battalions from (a) the regular Army and (b) the Territorial Army in 1984; what they are now; and what are the comparable estimates for 1997.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The information requested is classified.

  Mr. John Browne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many regular Army battalions are committed to military home defence; and how many will be committed in 1997.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There are currently 21 regular infantry battalions committed to military home defence; in 1997, the number will be 16.

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among interested Whitehall departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The Ministry of Defence has no direct interest in this process.

  River Clyde (Radiation)
  Mr. Graham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the radiation leaks from submarines in the River Clyde.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There has never been a significant accidental discharge of radioactive material to the environment from a Royal Navy nuclear submarine in the Clyde. If any such accidental discharge were to occur, it would be reported to the relevant statutory authority. For the Clyde, this would be the Scottish Office Environment Department.

  Low Flying
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will assess the likely decrease in overall low flying throughout the Scottish Highlands during the next three 454
  year period; if he will clarify to what extent the different types of aircraft to which he referred will undertake low flying sorties there over the same period; if he will give further information as to the impact of his policy announcement upon the level and nature of low flying sorties associated with the Tain bombing range, Ross-shire; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  It is not possible to say how the proposed changes in low flying will affect individual areas, but our aim will continue to be to spread the burden of low-flying training as fairly and as widely as possible.

  Infantry Costs
  Mr. Churchill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the estimated saving in costs of disbanding an infantry battalion.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  We do not plan to disband arty infantry battalions and have therefore not costed such measures.

  Hardened Aircraft Shelters, Stornoway
  Mr. Macdonald
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when the decision on whether to proceed with the RAF Stornoway hardened aircraft shelters project will be made; by what body the decision will be made; and what information about the decision will be communicated to non-governmental bodies.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The question of the future survival measures for RAF Stornoway is still under consideration. My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces will inform the hon. Member of any significant changes to our current plans.

  Foinavon Mountain
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the height of the summit of Foinavon mountain, Sutherland officially shown on Ordnance Survey maps; what height has been recorded by the satellite mapping system; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  I have been asked to reply.

  I have asked the chief executive of the Ordnance Survey to write to the hon. Member with the details requested.

TRANSPORT

  Railway Stations (Security)
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many passengers and staff were assaulted on British Rail stations in Scotland in each of the past five years; and how many of those assaults took place on unstaffed stations.

  Mr. Freeman
  The numbers of assaults on British Rail stations in Scotland were as follows:

  1989

  1990

  11991

  Passengers

  84

  118

  96

  Staff

  45

  73

  32

  1 1991 to date.

  455
  Figures for earlier years were kept on a different basis and are not comparable.

  A breakdown of the figures by staffed/unstaffed stations is not readily available. British Rail and British Transport police are considering ways in which such an analysis could be provided in the future.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list those British Rail stations in Scotland which are unstaffed for all or part of the day and which have security cameras and emergency telephones for use by passengers.

  Mr. Freeman
  There are no unstaffed British Rail stations in Scotland equipped with security cameras and emergency telephones. Some unstaffed stations do have special telephones for obtaining train information.

  Lower Thames Crossing
  Mr. Moate
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what interest has been expressed by the private sector in the development and operation of a lower Thames crossing; and when he hopes to announce a starting date for this project.

  Mr. Chope
  Private sector firms have indicated to the Department their potential interest in the proposal for a lower Thames crossing to be provided on a privately financed basis.

  This is a long-term project. Consultants will be appointed to examine the need, location and type of river crossing and to investigate possible road links to serve it. The study will also address the feasibility of a crossing as a privately financed toll road.

  Light Dues
  Mr. Moate
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what action he intends taking to ensure a more reliable system of forecasting light dues revenue in the future, in view of the unexpected interim increase in September;

  (2) to what level it is his objective to reduce the liquid reserves of the general lighthouse fund by March 1992 and by 1993; and what effect the recent increase in light dues will have on the level of the general lighthouse fund's reserves;

  (3) what was the state of the liquid reserves of the general lighthouse fund at the financial year end over each of the last five years;

  (4) what forecasts of trade through British ports during 1991–92 were used when determining the levels of light dues in April 1991 and September 1991, respectively;

  (5) what have been the increases in light dues in both money and real terms, together with the annual percentage increases over the last five years;

  (6) what representations he has received from ports and shipping interests regarding the commercial disadvantages imposed on them by the levy of light dues; and what plans he has for the transfer of light dues to central Government funding;

  (7) whether the recent change in light dues regulations, whereby only one chargeable voyage is incurred within a 30-day rolling period, has affected the spread of the receipt of revenue through the year; and whether this factor was taken fully into account before the interim increase in light dues was decided upon;
  456
  (8) what were the reasons for the interim increase in light dues imposed on shipping using British ports in September 1990;

  (9) why his Department's methods of forecasting revenue from light dues did not indicate that the 6·7 per cent. annual increase in April would prove insufficient.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My right hon. Friend regrets the need for the additional increase in light dues from 1 September, which was necessary to secure the original revenue objective for 1991–92 and to protect the viability of the general lighthouse fund. The increase took account of the changes in the basis of payment made in April of this year.

  Reforms made to the dues system between April 1989 and April 1991 have added to the difficulties of forecasting annual revenue. The changes introduced this spring posed the greatest uncertainty, but they have assisted payers generally by spreading the dues liability more evenly over the year and, in many cases, relieving the shipowner of some voyage payments altogether. Now that the main reforms have been implemented, I expect revenues to settle to a more predictable pattern. Trade patterns have only a limited bearing on the forecasts, given the basis of dues collection.

  On the liquid reserves of the general lighthouse fund, the Department proposed in 1988 an interim objective of reducing these to £10 million (1988 prices) by the end of 1993. The level planned for March 1992 is about £20 million, allowing for the recent increase, but may fall below this. The reserves stood at £21·9 million on 15 October. The lights finance committee will shortly be reviewing what considerations should determine the level of the reserves for 1993 and beyond. At the end of the following financial years the liquid funds stood at:

  £ million

  1986–87

  27·8

  1987–88

  30·3

  1988–89

  32·9

  1989–90

  33·3

  1990–91

  31·5

  The information on light dues increases over the last five years is as follows:

  Basic tariff (cargo) (per NRT ton)

  Total annual revenue (all vessels)

  Cash

  1991–92 prices

  Cash

  1991–92 prices

  Pence

  Per cent.

  pence

  £ million

  £ million

  1987–88

  34·6

  45·6

  56·1

  73·9

  1988–89

  31·2

  -10

  38·3

  51·3

  62·9

  1989–90

  30·6

  -2

  35·3

  47·1

  54·3

  1990–91

  30·0

  -2

  321

  44·8

  47·9

  1991–92

  April

  32·0

  + 6·7

  32·0

  145·0

  145·0

  September

  35·0

  + 9·4

  35·0

  1 Estimate.

  Note: The tariff comparisons do not fully reflect reforms to the regulations implemented over the last three years.

  Port and shipping interests have frequently made representations that the cost of navigational aids should be borne by the Exchequer, but the Government have no plans to make these a charge on the taxpayer.

  British School of Motoring
  Mr. Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has received from registered driving instructors on the promotion and advertising of the British School of Motoring on the provisional licence form DVLA; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  Several representations have been received about the BSM literature which was enclosed with provisional driving licences as separate inserts together with a market research questionnaire between 6 September and 4 October.

  The DVLA has been aware for some time of the potential for adding to its revenue to help offset the costs of its work by offering space within its mailing facilities to companies and organisations who may wish to publicise their activities and products. Market research was therefore commissioned to help determine whether this facility should he offered and specifically whether DVLA's customers would welcome or object to this.

  DVLA joined with a marketing company who were prepared to help with a study on making the best use of agency's data base to generate income of which a major part might be the use of the mailing facilities. The marketing company provided DVLA with consultancy help at no cost to the public purse, and for the purpose of the trial, DVLA included inserts from BSM who were part of the company's existing client base. Recipients were asked to complete a questionnaire to be returned to DVLA indicating whether they would welcome similar mailshots in the future if this helped keep down the cost of the driver licence.

  The BSM material did not carry any departmental or Agency logo and this was reinforced during the trial by the inclusion in the questionnaire of a specific disclaimer.

  The market research undertaken has provided sufficient evidence to enable DVLA to take a judgment on the future of the mailing service. In evaluating the results careful account will he taken of representations which have been received.

  Radioactive Materials (Imports)
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) if he will list by year for the last 10 years, and for each port in England, the number of tonnes of radioactive material that was imported;

  (2) if he will list by year for the last 10 years, and for each port in Scotland, the number of tonnes of radioactive material that was imported.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  My Department does not collect such information on a routine basis. I will write separately to the hon. Member on this subject.

  Passenger Ferries
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the total number of radio officers employed on British passenger ferries.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The information is not available in the form requested. There are 80 radio officers employed by the ferry operators based in this country.
  458
  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport from how many passenger ferries radio officers will be withdrawn when the global maritime distress and safety system is implemented in February 1992.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The number of passenger ferry radio officers which will be withdrawn when the global maritime distress and safety system is implemented in February 1992 is unknown. This is a commercial decision to be taken by the owners after consulting the marine directorate.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport on what grounds Caledonian MacBrayne was granted exemption from the requirement to have a radio officer on board the MV Lord of the Isles.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Exemption from the requirement to carry a radio officer on board M V Lord of the Isles was granted on the grounds that the ship is fitted with equipment that will be required under the terms of the amendments to the 1974 SOLAS convention concerning radio-communications for the global maritime distress and safety system and that the necessary shore facilities for distress and safety communications are in place.

  Mr. Wilson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the safety implications of the withdrawal of radio officers from the Caledonian MacBrayne ferries Lord of the Isles, Suilven and Hebridean Isles.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The introduction of the amendments to the 1974 SOLAS convention concerning radio-communications for the global maritime distress and safety system will provide a level of safety which is at least equivalent to that provided by the earlier system which called for radio officers on passenger ships.

  InterCity 225s
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list for the latest date he has available how many InterCity 225s have been cancelled on the east coast route between(a) Scotland/north-east England-London King's Cross and (b) London King's Cross-Scotland/north-east England routes.

  Mr. Freeman
  Since the introduction of InterCity 225 services on 8 July, I understand that four Scotland/London and five London/Scotland services have been cancelled. This represents less than 0·5 per cent. of the scheduled service.

  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list for the last 12 months how many InterCity 225 services have been cancelled on the(a) Leeds/Bradford-London King's Cross and (b) London King's Cross-Leeds/Bradford service.

  Mr. Freeman
  During the last 12 months both 125 and 225 services have been operated on the London-Leeds/ Bradford route. A breakdown of cancellations between 125 and 225 services is not available. Taking both services together, I understand that over this period 58 London-Leeds/Bradford and 69 Leeds/Bradford-London services were cancelled. This represents approximately 1 per cent. of the scheduled service.

  Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Report
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what consultations his Department has had with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors following the publication of their report, "Shaping Britain for the 21st Century, a Land Use and Transport Strategy."

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Department of Transport was represented at the launch of this publication in July 1991. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have written to us inviting comments on their report. We shall respond in due course.

  Hospitality Costs
  Mr. Skinner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is the latest annual figure for the cost of hospitality provided by the Department of Transport; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The cost of hospitality for the Department of Transport (excluding its agencies) in 1990–91 was £117,045. Expenditure recorded on 16 October for this financial year was £72,296.

  Invoice Payments
  Mr. Simon Coombs
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what is his Department's policy on the payment of invoices to small and medium-sized businesses.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Department's policy, in line with the principles of the citizens charter, is to pay all invoices within the contracted period, unless delay is unavoidable because of a dispute or for some other legitimate reason. Where there are no agreed terms the policy is to pay invoices within 30 days.

  Marine Safety
  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the numbers of marine accidents in British waters in 1990 involving ships masters with foreign qualifications and list their countries of origin.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The information in respect of accidents in United Kingdom territorial waters involving ships masters with foreign qualifications is not available since there is no requirement for non-United Kingdom vessels to report such accidents to the Department.

  Mr. Steinberg
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list the number of ships entering British ports in 1990 commanded by ships masters with foreign qualifications; and what steps he has taken to satisfy himself that ships masters certificates obtained in foreign countries are comparable with British merchant marine standards.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Information is not available about the number of ships entering British ports under the command of masters with foreign qualifications.

  The international convention on standards of training, certification and watchkeeping for seafarers 1978 established international standards of training and certification for seafarers. Under the system of port state control, the Department's marine surveyors may ascertain that ship masters certificates have been issued in accordance with the convention.

  Private Bills
  Mr. John Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he intends to bring forward legislation to alter the Private Bill procedure.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  At the earliest opportunity.

  Marchioness
  Mr Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if, further to the letter sent to him by the hon. Member for Newham, South dated 19 August concerning the report on the Marchioness disaster, and the reply sent to that hon. Member by a Minister dated 19 September. he has anything to add to his reply on that topic given to the hon. Member for Newham, South of 14 October.

  Mr. McLoughin
  No.

  Explosives (Transport)
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to lay before Parliament the revised regulations on the packaging of explosives for carriage: what information will be made publically available on methods of compliance on the regulations; and when the regulations will come into force.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Packaging of Explosives for Carriage Regulations 1991 were laid before Parliament on 26 September. A Health and Safety Executive Guide containing the text of the regulations and guidance on how to comply with them is due to be published in November. The regulations will come into force on 1 March 1992.

  Speed limits
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many sections of improved trunk road exist where a permanent 50 mph speed limit is currently in force; and if he will list them.

  Mr. Chope
  The information is not readily available in the form requested.

  European Transport Council
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the issues discussed and decisions taken at the European Transport Council in Luxembourg on 7 October; and if he will list the occasions over the past year where the Council has discussed the implications for global warming of transport policies.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer given by my right hon. and learned Friend on Wednesday 16 October in which a full statement was made on the outcome of the Luxembourg Transport Council held on 7 October.

  The Transport Council has not specifically discussed global warming. The EC Commission has only recently come forward with ideas for controlling CO2 and further ideas relating specifically to transport are expected by the end of the year.

  These are all likely to be discussed at a joint Environment/Energy Council on 10 December. We are working closely with the Departments of the Environment and Energy in preparing for this meeting.

  Traffic Changes Project
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, further to his answer to the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey of 18 June,Official Report, columns 71–73, what will be the research brief for the methods of assessing numbers of pedestrians and the effect on them of traffic changes project; who are the consultants appointed to carry it out; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Chope
  This project is being carried out in two parts. The project brief for the first stage, which commenced in 1986, was to investigate the sampling aspects of pedestrian counting at a number of selected sites; to test and develop models to predict pedestrian numbers; and to study the factors affecting the quality and suppression of pedestrian journeys. The consultant appointed for this phase of the project was the Institute of Transport Studies (Leeds University).

  The second stage of the project is being handled by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. Their brief is to interview pedestrians before and after traffic change, in order to gauge the effects on pedestrians of changes in traffic flows; and to bring together any relevant information available from other sources.

  The results of stage one are to be presented in two reports. The first of these, covering the measurement and prediction of pedestrian numbers, has already been published (TRRL reference CR149). The second. on pedestrian amenity, will be available shortly. The report on stage two of the project is expected in 1992.

  Freight Trains
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if, pursuant to his oral answer of 14 October concerning the utilisation by bodies, other than the British Railways Board, of track for freight trains, he will list those length of track rail route in the United Kingdom where capacity exits for such uses.

  Mr. Freeman
  Capacity is determined by timetabling and operational factors in each individual case.

  Road Development
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will list all the National Trust properties which have been directly affected by road developments within the last 10 years.

  Mr. Chope
  The information on individual schemes is not held centrally and could be obtained only at a disproportionate cost.

  London Transport Pay
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many employees of London Transport earned £30,000 per annum or more in 1990–91; and how many are estimated to have those earnings in 1991–92.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Government do not hold detailed information on the remuneration of London Transport employees. Nor would it be appropriate for us to do so. This is a management matter for London Transport and its subsidiaries.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport whether he has determined the salary levels for 1991–92 of 462
  the chairman and board members of London Transport with effect from April 1991; if he will list them and provide the total; and what were the equivalent figures for 1990–91.

  Mr. Freeman
  My right hon. and learned Friend is still considering the recommendations on salary levels for 1991–92 for the chairman and board of London Transport. details of the emoluments received by all members of the board for 1990–91 are given in London Transport's annual report for that year.

  London Underground
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make a statement on the effect of the extent of water seepage under the Thames on the operation of the Tube on rainy days.

  Mr. Freeman
  Effective measures to tackle the incursion of water are a matter of major importance for London Underground as they are for other deep-level metro systems. I understand that they have plans for a five-year pumps and drainage renewal programme, which is estimated to cost £42 million.

  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will seek from the managing director of London Underground Ltd. a copy of the LUL internal inquiry into the incident of 19 February which resulted in the evacuation of approximately 1,100 passengers; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Freeman
  I have seen a copy of London Underground Ltd.'s (LUL) investigation into the incident. It was caused initially by a security alert. Suspect packages had been left on trains at Bond street and Liverpool street which meant that the service had to be suspended until the packages were declared safe.

  Six full trains were stopped in tunnels between Mile End and Liverpool street. In the process of moving one train close behind another in order to evacuate the passengers through the trains to Bethnal Green Station, the two trains were unintentionally coupled, without the necessary precautions being taken to isolate their electrical connections. This caused overheating of the motor control equipment in one of the trains which resulted in a considerable amount of smoke issuing into the tunnel for a short time. The fire brigade was called, traction current was switched off, and 6,700 passengers were evacuated through the tunnel.

  Unfortunately, one section of the tunnel lighting failed between Bethnal Green and Liverpool street and emergency arrangements had to be made to repair it. Despite this, no passenger was injured during the evacuation, but 33 people were taken to hospital suffering from heat exhaustion, stress and respiratory conditions. None was detained.

  The Health and Safety Executive's railway inspectorate has kept closely in touch with the investigation and is continuing to discuss the matter with LUL. A number of lessons have been learnt; some improved safety measures have been implemented and more are planned.

  Mr. Evennett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the answer of the Minister of State, on 14 October,Official Report, column 9, if he will publish details of the investment in the London Underground system for the coming year.
  463
  Mr. Freeman
  London Underground's investment programme for the coming year (1992–93) is subject to the outcome of the current public expenditure round. However, London Underground is currently forecasting investment expenditure for this year (1991–92) as follows:

  Project

  1991–92 outturn prices £ million

  Central line modernisation

  125·3

  Jubilee line extension

  101·0

  Stations

  44·9

  Engineering asset renewal

  41·7

  Lift and escalators

  29·8

  Trains (existing)

  28·4

  Signalling renewals

  17·1

  Crossrail

  11·6

  Depots

  3·2

  Passenger security

  1·8

  Other

  44·5

  Contingency

  18·2

  Total

  467·6

  World Summit for Children
  Miss Lestor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if his Department has completed the review of its policies for inclusion in the progress report on action in the areas targeted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is co-ordinating an exercise among all interested Whitehall Departments in order to prepare the United Kingdom's progress report on action in the areas targetted by the World Summit for Children's declaration and plan of action. The aim is to submit this to the UNICEF secretariat by the end of this year.

  MV Ocean Hound
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects to publish the findings of the inquiry into the loss of the MV Ocean Hound in August; and what progress is being made in his inquiries.

  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if, pursuant to his answer concerning the wreck of the Ocean Hound,Official Report, 14 October, column 111, he will state the results of the most recent surveys including any evidence suggesting that its loss was due to a particular cause.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  On 15 October a further underwater survey was carried out using remotely controlled video cameras. Fortunately, conditions were much more favourable than at the time of previous inspections, allowing a much fuller examination, and for the first time considerable damage was found.

  The inspection is recorded on video films which are being studied by marine accident investigation branch inspectors. The nature of the damage is such that a very thorough analysis will be required before it is possible to conclude exactly how it was caused; this analysis is being undertaken as speedily as possible, but experience suggests that it may well take some considerable time.
  464
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he has any plans to seek to raise the MV Ocean Hound from the seabed; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  No. The Department will not contemplate salvaging a wreck except where there are firm grounds for surmising that raising a wreck would establish the nature and cause of the accident and there are no other means of achieving this.

  Shipping Accidents
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what guidance is given to the coastguard with regard to the notification of next of kin in the event of the loss of life on a British registered ship in United Kingdom waters; and if he will make a statement as to usual practices currently in operation.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Coastguard officers have instructions to pass all details of any known or potential fatalities occurring on British registered ships in United Kingdom waters to the local police authorities who are responsible for informing the next of kin.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will introduce legislation to make it compulsory for owners of fishing vessels to insure their crew against loss of life or permanent disability whilst they are at sea.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  In common with all other employers, the owners of fishing vessels have a duty to exercise reasonable care to ensure the safety of their crews and, if fishermen should suffer injury or death as a result of the owner's negligence, they or their relatives can sue for compensation. However, while recognising the risks inherent in fishing, I could not justify a requirement that employers in this industry should be required to insure their crews against risks for which they cannot be held responsible when a similar obligation does not arise elsewhere.

  London Buses
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will ensure that provisons will be made for residential complaints procedures, and environmental assessments of applications for operating centre licences, following the deregulation of London Buses.

  Mr. Freeman
  The need for environmental assessments and procedures for representation in respect of applications for public service vehicle operating centres is under review. Any changes resulting from this review would require primary legislation, which would apply nationally, not just to London.

  Channel Tunnel Rail Link
  Mr. Trotter
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many extra minutes the journey from Paris to Newcastle on the through rail passenger services will take as a result of the trains travelling through Stratford to King's Cross rather than through south London.

  Mr. Freeman
  Current estimates indicate that it will take an extra four minutes to reach King's Cross.

  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what studies have been undertaken concerning the
  465
  feasibility of constructing dedicated high speed rail links to the regions of the United Kingdom, and in particular to Scotland, to link up with the proposed high speed rail link from Folkestone to King's Cross.

  Mr. Freeman
  British Rail has concluded that its existing network beyond London has sufficient capacity. The east and west coast main lines already provide high speed routes from Scotland and will have good connections with the channel tunnel line at King's Cross.

  Driving Licence Renewals
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has had concerning the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency proposals to introduce a fee of £6 for the renewal of driving licences from the age of 70 years.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer Friday 18 October 1991]: The proposal formed part of a detailed consultation process the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency held with appropriate organisations on the necessity for a comprehensive revision of the driver licensing fee structure because of demographic trends. Several representations about various elements of the new fee package were received. The majority were against introducing a fee for short period licences issued for medical reasons. This has now been removed from the proposals.

  Rail Freight Services
  Mr. Fearn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what representations he has had from small industries concerning single wagonloads on railways.

  Mr. Freeman
  [holding answer Friday 18 October 1991]: Since British Rail closed its loss-making Speedlink wagonload services on 8 July this year, we have received representations on behalf of five wagonload freight users. BR has retained more than 70 per cent. of domestic Speedlink and more than 85 per cent. of European Speedlink traffic on rail.

  Accident, Walton-on-the-Naze
  Mr. Spearing
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects the publication of the report of the inspector of railways consequent to his inquiry into the accident at Walton-on-the-Naze in August 1987; on what date the inspector concerned concluded his inquiry; and if he will make a statement explaining the factors governing the timing of its publication.

  Mr. Freeman
  [pursuant to his reply, 14 October 1991, Official Report, column 112]: On 12 August 1987, the 13·05 train from Thorpe-le-Soken to Walton-on-the-Naze formed by a single class 313 electric multiple-unit failed to stop at the terminal station and collided violently with the buffer stop. The leading vehicle overrrode the buffers and became embedded in the station buildings. There was one major injury to a passenger who suffered a broken leg, but only minor injuries were suffered by the train crew and other passengers. Subsequent examination of the train revealed that the code conversion unit (CCU) which
  466
  transfers signals from the driver's brake lever into instructions for the electrical and disc brakes of the train had a welded contact. The disc brakes are air-activated, the actual brake force being controlled by combinations of two diaphrams. One diaphragm is twice the size of the other and it is therefore possible to provide three equal increases in brake force. Hence the use of the term three-step brake. The effect of the welded contact was that step I was ineffective, step 2 was fully effective, but step 3 gave no further increase in braking effort over step 2. There is, however, an emergency position on the brake lever. In this position the signals to the CCU are, in effect, bypassed and although no extra braking effort is produced it does ensure that the maximum possible effort is available. Hence in this case selection of the emergency brake position would have ensured the full application. that is step 3, of the brakes would have occurred.

  It was not possible during the inquiry to obtain a story from the driver as to how he handled the braking of his train on the approach to Walton which could be matched to the technical evidence of what braking effects were available to him. Suffice it to say that he was unaware of the difference between the step 3 and emergency positions of the brake handle and the full application of the brakes was made only when he left his driving position and released the driver's safety device shortly before impact occurred. Subsequent experiments at British Railways research centre enabled a reasonably accurate picture of the actual running of the train to be determined and hence it was possible to conclude that, despite the brake fault, the driver mishandled the braking of his train and then failed to make use of the emergency position of the brake level which would certainly have lessened the impact, if not avoided it altogether.

  Immediately after the accident, a campaign check of all classes of vehicle fitted with the particular type of CCU was made. It should be noted that this type is no longer being fitted to new vehicles and later classes of vehicles have a different type. The result of the check showed that only one other CCU had a welded contact. The likely cause of this welding is external to the CCU and BR has taken measures to reduce the current rating of the controlling miniature circuit breaker and hence reduce the possibility of achieving a welding current.

  The type of three-step brake fitted to class 313 units (and others) gives a maximum retardation in step 3 of 9 per cent g with, as explained earlier, no increase in brake force in the emergency position. British Railways has reviewed this and, in future, use of the emergency position will give an increased braking effort resulting in a retardation of 12 per cent. g. This new three-step-plus emergency brake will be fitted to all new builds of multiple unit rolling stock and retrospectively to all existing builds of electric multiple units.

  The inspecting officer of railways who held the inquiry is satisfied that immediate action was taken to determine whether similar faults of the trains' brakes were present elsewhere and to limit still further the likelihood of their occurring in future. He is also satisfied that the newer CCU is an improvement on the old and he welcomes the decision to provide increased braking effect when the emergency position of the brake lever is used.

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

Personal Statement: The Viscount Ullswater
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater): My Lords, I should like to make a personal statement regarding the question from the noble Lord, Lord Dorm and of Easington, during Starred Questions on Thursday, 17th October. In response to a supplementary question from my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter about the number of people in employment (Col. 1215 of the Official Report) I said that the workforce in employment stood at 26,177,000. I also said that this figure did not include the 1.4 million increase in the number of self-employed since 1979.
I regret that the latter part of that statement was incorrect. The workforce in employment does include the 1.4 million increase in the number of self-employed. I apologise for any misunderstanding I may have caused.

House Building Figures
2.38 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
What are the latest figures for new starts and completions of house building for 1991.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, in Great Britain during the eight months up to August 1991 there were 115,200 new dwellings started and 111,800 new dwellings completed.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. However, does she agree that with repossessions and the number of homeless still increasing, together with the number of people sleeping rough—who are not recorded in any figures—also still increasing, those figures are insufficient and do not deal with the problem? Is the Minister aware that her colleague, the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, when answering a Question on Monday stated that by 1993–94—two to three years hence—the housing associations will be building a maximum of 40,000 houses'' Bearing in mind that the figures of the Minister's own department indicate the need for more than a million new houses by the turn of the century, is not that performance appalling? Will the
1308
Government at last end their vendetta against local authorities and let them once again build corporation houses to let, mainly from their own funds which the Government are holding in bond?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, neither I nor my department underestimate the seriousness of the difficulty of people seeking homes. However, I refer the noble Lord to a number of measures that have been taken. Total expenditure by local authorities is at £4.5 billion; housing revenue subsidy is now at £3.7 billion; housing corporation expenditure is set to rise to over £2 billion by 1993; there is an extra £50 million for low cost rural housing; an extra £268 million for estate action; £25 million which was announced only a couple of weeks ago to bring empty flats over shops into use—an extra £300 million over two years, on top of mainstream housing programmes, to help relieve statutory homelessness in London and the South East. There is a further £96 million to help to provide accommodation for the single homeless living rough in London; and that is not all of the measures.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, did I hear my noble friend aright on the figures which she gave in her principal Answer? Do the figures relate to the whole of the United Kingdom, to Great Britain or merely to England and Wales? How do they relate to the number of empty properties?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I cannot say how they relate to the number of empty properties. However, I can say that there are too many empty properties and that measures are being established to bring them back into use. The figures to which I refer are for Great Britain.
Lord Mellish: My Lords, we recognise that there are many bad councils, some of which have far too many empty properties. However, let us ignore those and consider the good councils. Why do not the Government allow them to build new houses with the money they get from the sale of homes to sitting tenants?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, on the first point made by the noble Lord, yes, of course there is some bad management. The hope is that measures will be taken to improve the management of housing stock. With regard to capital receipts, I have said several times at the Dispatch Box that those authorities with the highest capital receipts are not necessarily those authorities with the greatest need. Therefore, capital allocations—credit allocations—is the Government's way of making sure that resources are targetted on those authorities with the greatest need and that surplus moneys from receipts are used to reduce debt.
Lord Stallard: My Lords, I certainly welcome the announcement of the measures to be taken. However, they certainly are not enough when put into perspective. Does the Minister accept that in 1979 there were 50,000 homeless households. That figure had doubled by 1991 to 145,000. In 1978–79 the building of 92,000 houses commenced. By last year the number had fallen to 13,000. That is a huge reduction. As has already been mentioned, local councils have

1309
been prevented from spending on new houses the £5 billion that was set aside from council house sales. Does not that put everything into perspective and prove that the Government are not doing anywhere near enough in the present crisis?
Baroness Blatch: No, my Lords, I do not accept that the Government are not doing nearly enough, although there will always be a time when more could be done. Perhaps I may throw the question back to the noble Lord. Is he saying that the amount of money being spent on providing houses for people will be exceeded by the noble Lord's party should it come to government? If the noble Lord is saying that his party will allow all receipts to be used by local authorities, a great deal more money will be necessary to allow those authorities that do not have the receipts to provide for those in the greatest need.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, notwithstanding the encouraging part of her initial Answer, is the noble Baroness aware that local authority representatives of all political complexions are expressing in their magazines, month in month out—last month being the most severe—the savage problems that they have to face and the cruelty of the fact that their endeavours in trying to give homes to those who are badly in need are being frustrated? Would it not be wise to discuss these matters with representatives of all our local authorities?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that my department constantly discusses these matters with local authorities. The role of local authorities is to work as enablers with housing associations, private sector developers and private landlords, so that people are provided with housing from a variety of sources.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that the completion figure for new houses, whether provided by local authorities, private enterprise or housing associations, is about 100,000 per annum lower than the number achieved by previous governments, including governments of her own political persuasion? Is she further aware that this shortage of housing is leading to additional claims being made on the National Health Service by people suffering from all the mental and physical effects of living in bad housing or being without housing?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord is referring, as noble Lords opposite frequently do, to what local authorities are doing in the area of housing. It is important to take all providers of housing—
Lord Bruce of Donington: I have, my Lords.
Baroness Blatch:—and not to ignore that there are 2 million more houses in the housing stock than there were in 1979 and that 69 per cent. of people own their own homes; a figure infinitely comparable to that achieved by the party of the noble Lord.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that I included those figures?
Baroness Young: My Lords, I welcome what my noble friend said in answer to some of the very difficult questions that have been raised. Can she tell the House how many empty properties there are today? Is it a fact that there are well over 100,000 empty council houses? How many empty properties are there in the private letting market? Could not all these properties be brought back into use?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. I cannot be specific—I shall write to her with specific answers to those questions—except to say that far too many houses stand empty in both the public and private sectors. We are looking at ways and means of making sure that they are brought into use. Better management of stock in the public sector would go a long way to bringing some of those houses into use. They could then be lived in by people who are in great need.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that far too large a proportion of the houses being built are in the £150,000 to £200,000 bracket whereas the need is for houses to rent and for houses for first-time buyers? Builders are building more expensive houses because they make more money out of them. That is depriving people who are in the greatest need. Can the Government do anything to tilt the programme in favour of people whose need is greatest?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord raises an important point on which I shall try to give him some reassurance. First, the exceptions policy makes available in rural areas land that would not otherwise be used for housing. Secondly, a circular put out by my department requires local authorities, when giving planning permission to developers, to include as a condition of planning permission the making available of low-cost housing as part of the development.
Lord Winstanley: My Lords, is not one of the problems of the renovation of empty properties, especially empty properties in the private sector to which the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred, that, in London in particular, they are renovated to such a high standard that no one can afford to live in them?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, in terms of the way in which the capital receipts system works, the local authority is allowed to deduct the cost of refurbishment of empty houses being brought back into use before the capital receipts system is applied.

HMS "Endurance"
2.48 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have now taken a decision to replace HMS "Endurance" for duty in the Falkland Islands.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence (The Earl of Arran): My Lords,

1311
the Government announced on 14th October that MV "Polar Circle" had been chartered to replace HMS "Endurance" in the Antarctic this season. "Endurance" is no longer fit to deploy in Antarctic water; and is to be decommissioned.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. Does he recall that in the late hours of Wednesday night, when he announced what he has repeated today about "Polar Circle", he indicated only that she would operate for this forthcoming season? Can he now say that it is the firm intention of the Government that either "Polar Circle" or some other ship will carry out these duties in future years? Will he consider also whether that other ship or "Polar Circle", as the case may be, could very appropriately be renamed HMS "Endurance", both as indicating continuity and also as a very proper tribute to Lord Shackleton?
The. Earl of Arran: My Lords, in response to my noble friend's first question, I have already said that the Government are committed to maintaining the programme carried out by HMS "Endurance". Longer-term arrangements will naturally depend in part upon the operational experience which will be gained this year in operating in those waters. As regards the name of the ship, certainly no decision has been taken at present. However, a decision will be taken before she sails, which will be towards the end of November or at the beginning of December.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, I must tell the noble Earl that my noble friend Lord Shackleton much regrets not being able to be present in the House on this occasion. However, does he recall that the motto of the Shackleton family is:
"By endurance we conquer"?
Can the noble Earl give us an assurance that the decision to commit the Government must and will be taken by 24th January, and not at the end of the season? If a positive decision to renew the charter is not taken by that time, the owners are prepared to put the "Polar Circle" up for rechartering. As I understand it—and I understand that my noble friend is so informed—there is an Italian authority waiting even now with cheque-book in pocket to take over the ship. Further, will the noble Earl agree that it would have been much better if the Government had taken a permanent decision and had gone for a long-term charter, or purchase of the ship, and renamed her appropriately?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I take the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Williams, concerning the great part that the Shackleton family has played in the history of HMS "Endurance". In relation to the future commitment of a ship in those waters, a decision will be taken at a time that the Government think appropriate. I take note of what the noble Lord, Lord Williams, said about 24th January. However, I should remind him that the end of the season is towards April-May time.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, in view of the last answer given by my noble friend, perhaps I may ask the question again. Is it the policy of Her Majesty's Government to fly the flag in the Antarctic?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I have just said that during the forthcoming season we have committed the "Polar Circle" to take up the programme previously carried out by HMS "Endurance" in those waters.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that that is really not good enough? The question is: has Her Majesty's Government made the decision to maintain a long-term naval presence in the Antarctic? Is not the noble Earl aware—I am sure that he is—that this is an area of growing strategic importance? It is not good enough to say that the programme of HMS "Endurance" is to be continued. Are the Government committed to a long-term presence in the Antarctic?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont, is fully aware that all government departments, including the Ministry of Defence, regularly and annually review their commitments and therefore their expenditure.
Lord Shepherd: My Lords, surely that response is unacceptable. The need for a replacement for HMS "Endurance" is essential for our position in that part of the Antarctic. Apart from the political and international reasons, there is a need for a ship of this sort for a reasonable length of time. Is it not now time for the Government to say that they will replace the ship either by charter or by building a ship of the right standards for that particular task? I think that the Minister could well lead others to believe that we are not serious in our intentions in that part of the world.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, says. However, equally, I must give the same indication to him as I gave to previous speakers. I repeat, the Government are committed to maintaining the programme carried out by HMS "Endurance". As I said, the season ends at April-May time. After that, obviously the matter will be very carefully reviewed as regards the future. We shall learn a great deal from the point of view of our ability or otherwise to operate in those waters.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, can my noble friend remind the House as to the duration of the charter of the "Polar Circle"? More particularly, in the light of the initial Question put by my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter, can he say whether the charter is a time charter or a bareboat charter? That would have a significant effect on the ability to change the name of the ship.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I am not precisely certain as to which kind of charter is involved. However, I can inform my noble friend that the name of the ship will be decided upon before she sails.
Lord Kennet: My Lords, does the noble Earl remember that the withdrawal of a ship called HMS "Endurance" was commonly regarded at the time, and later, to have been among the causes predisposing Argentina to invade the Falkland Islands more or less

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immediately thereafter? If that is the case, what reason do the Government have for believing that the withdrawal of a ship in that area in a year's time will not predispose Argentina to invade the Falkland Islands again?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, that I have just returned from a visit to the Falkland Islands. I can confirm that there is a very significant garrison presence in the area. There is also a very strong naval presence and an airstrip which would provide for rapid reinforcement. The situation at present is totally different from that of nine years ago.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, will my noble friend bear in mind that any apparent hesitation or doubt about the continuance of the presence of such a ship will simply be an encouragement to those who may wish to repeat the efforts of Argentina in 1982?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, as I just mentioned, there is a very strong military presence in the area. The "Polar Circle" is committed much more for hydrographic and scientific survey.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, perhaps I may press the noble Earl on my major question. Is it not the case that, if the Government do not commit themselves by 24th January, the owners will put the "Polar Circle" back on the market on a short-term charter?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord that such matters are still under consideration.
Lord Greenway: My Lords, is the noble Earl able to confirm whether the Government looked at any ships other than the "Polar Circle", or was she the only one that seemed to fit our requirements?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, she was the only ship thought appropriate to sail down to those waters.
Lord Glenamara: My Lords, why is the noble Earl making such heavy weather of the matter? There is a perfectly simple solution and that is to ask Swan Hunter's on Tyneside to build a new ship. The company would be delighted to do so.
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I can only take note of the noble Lord's comments.
Lord Chalfont: My Lords, I apologise for prolonging the matter still further. However, will the noble Earl at least go back to the Ministry of Defence and put the following question with the utmost seriousness? It is not good enough to say that long-term commitments are subject to annual costings. We are aware of that fact. It is possible for the Government to make a long-term commitment to NATO. Therefore, why is it not possible for them to make a long-term commitment concerning the strategic importance of the Antarctic?
The Earl of Arran: My Lords, I take on board the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Chalfont.
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However, I remind him again that all our commitments, and thus our expenditure, are regularly and responsibly reviewed.

Banana Imports
3 p.m.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein Viscount Montgomery of Alamein asked Her Majesty's Government:
When they will permit bananas from Latin America to compete on equal terms with imports from the Caribbean.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, we have long established arrangements which give preferential treatment to our traditional suppliers in the Caribbean. The Community also has commitments to ACP suppliers under the Lomé Convention. The Commission has yet to produce proposals on bananas in the single market but we shall continue to press for arrangements which maintain our trade in bananas with our traditional suppliers.
Viscount Montgomery of Alamein: My Lords, I recognise that Britain has obligations to Caribbean producers, but is my noble friend aware that bananas arrive from the Caribbean under a specially protected regime whereas Latin American bananas are subject to a quota and to a 20 per cent. tariff? Is my noble friend further aware that in Germany, which has a free market, prices are 25 per cent. lower, and per capita consumption is higher, and that therefore the consumer benefits considerably? Does she agree that from 1992 when a single European market comes into force a more level playing field would be more appropriate?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, Latin and South American countries benefit from a range of concessions under the EC's generalised system of tariff preferences. Additional concessions were recently granted on a number of products to encourage production of legitimate alternatives to narcotic crops. Bananas were excluded because of Lomé commitments. Dollar bananas enter Germany tariff free. Exemptions specific to Germany were granted in the Treaty of Rome. They are subject to a quota which is roughly equal to demand. Of course, we want the best quality bananas for our people. Quality in all countries is variable, but we have been working with Caribbean producers on a programme to improve quality. The programme has been successful although there is still room for improvement.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, is the Minister aware that there has never been any complaint about the standard of bananas from Latin America? That is not the point. The point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery, is that with fair trading and with so-called free enterprise Latin America should not be subject to inhibitions which do not apply to the Caribbean. As I understand it, the noble Viscount is saying that there should be fairness on all sides. What is wrong with that?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, dollar bananas are important in the UK market. On average, over the past five years they have accounted for 22 per cent. of the market. The Government are firmly committed to maintaining effective preferential access for our traditional suppliers. We have a duty to ensure that those upon whom we have depended for so long are not left unprotected.
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, I thank the Minister for affirming the Government's commitment to ACP suppliers under the Lomé Convention. Will she confirm that the Lomé Convention provides that no ACP state shall be placed, as regards access to its traditional markets and advantages in those markets, in a less favourable situation than it has enjoyed in the past or enjoys at present? For many Caribbean countries access to the UK market for their bananas is vital. Is she aware that bananas represent 70 per cent. of Dominica's export earnings; 60 per cent. of St. Lucia's export earnings; 40 per cent. of St. Vincent's export earnings; and that there is no country in central or south America in which bananas represent such a high percentage of their export earnings? Will she further confirm that the banana industry in those islands is in the hands of small farmers and that consequently the crop is more expensive to produce than in the larger states of Latin America?
Noble Lords: Speech!
Lord Pitt of Hampstead: My Lords, it is not a speech, I am asking a question. I am asking the Minister to confirm that the loss of the market can be balanced only by diversification into other crops, which will require several years to fructify, and so any loss of the UK market can only create unnecessary hardship for the people of those islands.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, what I and the noble Lord have said bears out the fact that bananas have an important role to play in the economies of the places that he mentioned.

The British Library
3.4 p.m.
Lord Strabolgi Lord Strabolgi asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why they have decided to abandon plans to contribute to the purchase fund for works of art for the new British Library.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the overall priority for the British Library at present is to complete the new building at St. Pancras on time and within budget. Against that background, the Government are unable to authorise at this stage the allocation of public funds for the purchase of new works of art.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for that Answer. Is he aware that important art commissions were planned by the architect as an integral part of the new library building? Is he also aware that a clear undertaking was given by the Government that Treasury funds would be available
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towards the cost of those commissions? Is it the Government's intention that the new national library should open without any artistic enrichment?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, no. The Government undertook to consider some public funding. It was hoped that the British Library would also obtain some sponsorship. I believe that it has been unable to do so. The British Library has many important paintings and sculptures which will be used in the building. It will continue to seek sponsorship for new works of art. It is also investigating the possibility of loans from other institutions. The library has many objects of its own. In fact it will be unable to exhibit all its own works of art even in the much larger space that will be available.
Lord Annan: My Lords, does the noble Viscount agree that in this case the Government have their priorities right, and that the first thing that must be done is to complete the programme for the building of the library? While great sympathy may be expressed for the concern felt over this matter by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, surely the embellishment of the library could come second? Should we not consider that neither Rome nor the British Library was built in a day?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I must agree with the noble Lord. The new British Library is the largest civil public sector project commissioned in Britain this century. It will cost £450 million. It is within budget and within target. Phase I will be completed in 1993 and the final phase in 1996. Future government funding for works of art is not ruled out. We shall consider the point in the future.
Lord Morris of Castle Morris: My Lords, is the noble Viscount aware that we on this side of the House find the situation currently facing the British Library little short of scandalous in that the latest problem is part only of a long history of mismanagement by the Treasury and the Office of Arts and Libraries in the funding of what is possibly one of the largest civil projects undertaken in the past 100 years? Is he further aware that we view with incredulity this latest example of penny-pinching parsimony? If any of those works of art have already been commissioned, who will pay for them?
Viscount Astor: My Lords, many noble Lords on both sides of the House view the British Library as a major project of great importance. It will bring together most of the British Library's books under one roof, which will be a huge advantage to the public. The British Library accumulates some five miles of additional books each year. Space is needed. The project is a fine one, and we look forward to it opening.
Viscount Eccles: My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Annan, said, but does my noble friend agree that the Government gave some indication to those on the committee that they would receive some money? While I am not in favour of decorating a new building all at once, with art of one period, there should be a statue in the forecourt, which is what the plan intended that it should have.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I said that we undertook to consider some public funding. I can only repeat that we have not ruled out funding in the future.

Business
3.9 p.m.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, at a convenient moment after 3.30 p.m. my noble friend Lord Henley will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement that is being made in another place on Social Security Benefits (Up-rating).

London Underground (Kings Cross) Bill
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Aberdare): My Lords, this Motion standing in my name and the one that follows are carry-over Motions as a result of Messages received from another place. I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That this House do agree with the orders made by the Commons set out in their Message of 17th October—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and it was ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

London Underground (Safety Measures) Bill [H.L.]
The Chairman of Committees: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the Commons Message of 17th October be now considered; and that the promoters of the Bill have leave to suspend any further proceedings thereon in this session in order to proceed with the Bill in the next session of Parliament, notice of their intention to do so having been deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than 12 noon o Tuesday 22nd October next;
That such Bill be deposited in the Office of the Clerk of the Parliaments not later than 3 p.m. on the second sitting day in the next session with a declaration annexed, signed by the agent, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill at the last stage of the proceedings thereon in this House in the present session;
That the proceedings on such Bill in the next session of Parliament be pro forma in regard to every stage through which the Bill has passed in the present session, and that no new fees be charged to such stages;
That the Private Business Standing Orders apply to such Bill in the next session only in regard to any stage through which the Bill has not passed during the present session.—(The Chairman of Committees.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and it was ordered that a Message be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.

Export and Investment Guarantees Bill
3.11 p.m.
The Lord Advocate (Lord Fraser of Carmyllie): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Export and Investment Guarantees Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill. I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third time.
Although the Bill is relatively short, its importance has been recognised by the thorough debate in this House at both Committee and Report stages, as well as in a number of important contributions and Second Reading speeches. The legislation provides the framework for the most radical change in the way in which export credit insurance will in future be provided within the United Kingdom since the establishment of ECGD over 70 years ago. It is therefore not surprising that your Lordships have wished to understand why the Government believe these changes to be essential, to probe the details of the Bill itself and in particular to be reassured that the changes will not be damaging to the interests of our exporters.
I hope that I have been able to satisfy your Lordships in all these respects and to demonstrate, as I indicated at Second Reading, that the Government's primary motivation has throughout been to ensure that the benefit of the services currently provided to our exporters by ECGD's Insurance Services Group can be safeguarded for the future against current and prospective challenges. The chief and immediate challenge is a commercial one: how to meet the growing competition from private sector insurers for better quality business, the retention of which is essential if the Insurance Services Group is to be able to continue to support the rather more difficult risks and maintain a financially viable scheme. There is also the need to meet the increasing demand from exporters for insurance packages covering both export and domestic business.
The secondary but no less real threat is that of a legal challenge to the continued involvement of the state in the provision of short-term export credit insurance on the grounds that this constitutes unfair competition to the private market incompatible with the Treaty of Rome. I hope that your Lordships were persuaded that the only sensible response to these challenges was to privatise ISG.
At Committee stage, attention focused on two concerns. The first was the desire on the part of a number of noble Lords for the firm ministerial assurances concerning the provision of reinsurance facilities after privatisation which I and my honourable friend the Minister for Trade had given at various stages during the passage of this Bill to be enshrined in the Bill. Your Lordships' concern persuaded the Government to look again at the possibility of writing these into the Bill, and I was pleased to be able to bring forward amendments

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which met the anxieties expressed and which imposed a permanent new obligation on the Secretary of State to keep the need for these facilities under review. As a result, we will send the Bill back to another place with two important amendments to Clauses 11 and 13. I am sure that these amendments will be considered sympathetically there since they respond to concerns similar to those expressed by your Lordships voiced in that place during the early stages of the Bill's passage through Parliament.
The second concern was to safeguard the interests of those of ECGD's staff who will be leaving the service of the Crown to work in the private sector. I have emphasised the Government's commitment to ensure that these highly regarded staff should be employed in the new company on terms at least as good as those which they enjoy at present. I was therefore pleased to be able to announce at Report stage that 590 of ECGD's staff have now expressed a preference to join the new company on the terms offered by NCM, the Government's preferred purchaser, rather than to remain in the Civil Service. This is the real proof that the Government's objective on terms and conditions has been achieved.
We have perhaps been less concerned about those aspects of the Bill which will provide the Secretary of State with revised powers in relation to the activities of the continuing ECGD. I am sure that this is because the House has recognised that the intention of those powers is to enable the continuing and new ECGD to carry out its primary and vital function of supporting UK project exports even more effectively than is possible under the existing legislation.
I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Henley, who also contributed to the debates from this side of the House, and to other noble Lords who participated. While much of our debate concerned itself directly with I he provisions in the Bill, I have no doubt that my honourable friend the Minister for Trade has also taker clear account of the expressions of concern about the performance of our exports from the United Kingdom if there is not the proper insurance to support them. I commend the Bill to the House.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a third time.—(Lord Fraser of Carmyllie.)
3.15 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble and learned Lord for introducing the Motion that the Bill be now read a third time.
I apologise if I take up rather more of your Lordships' time than he did. If I do so it is because we on these Benches still have serious objections to the Bill which have not been at all alleviated by the debates that have taken place in your Lordships' House. On Second Reading I asked this question: does the Bill help UK exporters or does it hinder them? Even after all the successive stages through which the Bill has passed in this House I am bound to come to the conclusion that on balance it will hinder UK exporters rather than help them. Even with the inclusion of the two government amendments to which the noble and learned Lord referred, it still lacks
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the assurance of support which UK exporters seek, in that the previous role of ECGD of encouraging exports has been discarded. Furthermore, the Government will not have a role in determining what short-term export credit insurance will be available to UK exporters. The provisions for government-backed reinsurance for the privatised ISG are, in our view, far from adequate. I wish to take these points in turn.
On support for UK exporters, during the passage of the Bill we tried—and I recognise that your Lordships did not accept this—to make sure that the primary function of any export credit insurance activity was to encourage exports, not simply to facilitate them.
Perhaps I may turn to Part I of the Bill as it leaves your Lordships' House. I am sad to see that the noble Viscount, Lord Weir, is not in his place. He supported an amendment that we moved requiring that premium rates charged by ECGD should be subject to annual review. The noble Viscount said:
"I wish only that it had gone further and not merely sought a review but sought that the review he published".—[Official Report, 14/ 10/91; col. 988.]
I am again sorry not to see the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, here. He also felt strongly enough to press for a Division on the amendment, presumably to register a protest at the high premium charges currently being levied by ECGD. There is clearly a great deal of support from noble Lords on the other side for our position that there should be a review and that it should be published. Such a review would compare ECGD's premium rates with those offered by other credit insurers. It could examine the effects of those premium rates on UK project exports.
I recognise that the Government have proclaimed their view that they are mounting a campaign to persuade OECD credit insurers to charge rates comparable to those of the ECGD. In the course of time that may or may not achieve a certain measure of success. However, it must be recognised—and noble Lords opposite who are at the forefront of our exporting industries have done so—that most of the major ECGD competitors such as COFACE in France, Hermes in Germany and SACE in Italy currently charge much lower rates. Therefore any increases on their part will still leave UK exporters paying considerably more than their non-UK competitors.
I recognise that ECGD will continue, through the various international export credit for a where it is represented, to campaign for other export credit agencies to charge what they would regard as unsubsidised rates. But I must echo the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, on Report last Monday when he said that exporting was a nasty and difficult business and any disadvantage to which our exporters were put could rebound only in the form of a deficit on our balance of payments which, goodness knows, is bad enough as it is.
I continue to direct my remarks to Part I of the Bill as we have it. The future of ECGD is a matter of considerable suspicion. We still do not have an assurance from the Government that the ideal of what is known as the zero option is not part of the Government's programme. The implication of that, in the light of relatively high current premium charges, is

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that in future the business of ECGD on project finance could easily be provided on a strictly commercial basis with every effort being made to ensure that the prospects of ECGD having to pay a claim are minimised before ECGD commits itself to providing cover for an export transaction. That is not the way that our competitors operate. I understand that the Government are extremely concerned about the effect of this measure on public expenditure, but our exports are fundamental to our future prosperity. I hope that the Government will give us a further assurance on that matter.
On the subject of support for UK exporters, I should add that we moved an amendment on Report which would have enabled ECGD in its residual form to provide short-term cover on business which might be rejected by ISG when privatised. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate replied that that power was still contained in Clause 1(1) of the Bill as it stands at present. He said that the amendment was unnecessary. That is possibly the case but the question is: How will the Government exercise these powers to require ECGD to offer short-term credit insurance should ISG in its privatised form fail to do so, or not wish to do so, or be unable to do so in the case of bankruptcy? We do not know what would happen in those circumstances. If ECGD is not able and is not instructed by the Secretary of State to provide such short-term cover, exporters are likely to lose the support they need not on OECD markets—those markets are easily insured—but on the riskier markets. It will be perfectly sensible for the new company to concentrate on OECD markets. It is the riskier markets that will be difficult for our exporters. Are the Government prepared to state categorically that the powers contained in the Bill to provide short-term export credit insurance cover will be used? Or is it the Government's intention to allow those powers to remain dormant?
I now turn to the matter of the new company. The noble and learned Lord has rightly said that there have been negotiations between trade unions and NCM, which is the preferred bidder. However, in the staff information pack which has been jointly produced by NCM and ECGD, NCM has stated that its primary objective is to turn ISG into a profit-making company. Apart from reducing staffing levels, other ways in which profitability could be increased are premium rate increases, withdrawal of the less profitable facilities and cover for the least cost-effective markets, tighter examination of claims and even a refusal to take on exporters with poor claims records. Any such measures would be disadvantageous to UK exporters. In support of those remarks I refer to a report which has lain behind the thinking on this Bill. I refer to the report as the Kemp Report for brevity. That report did not, as your Lordships have understood, recommend immediate privatisation. The Kemp Report outlined the problem thus:
"The private-sector facilities are generally felt to be inferior to those available from ECGD as regards: continuity…accessibility…and underwriting approach".
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The new company will have no obligation to encourage UK exports. In contrast, NCM's relationship with the Dutch government as its agent on political risk reinsurance places it in a different position with regard to Dutch exporters. I must again state that I regret that the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, is not present today. On Report in your Lordships' House he asked time and time again what would happen when NCM was faced with requests for cover from both British and Dutch companies for a single project. He asked which company would have preference, the Dutch company or the British company. I am sad to say that the noble and learned Lord could give no clear undertaking that the British company would receive proper encouragement.
I now turn to the matter of the staff. It is true that there have been negotiations between NCM and the trade unions on staff conditions. However, secondment to the new company—that is secondment from the Civil Service—will only be offered to a small number of ECGD staff who have specifically opted for secondment. I fully understand that staffing flexibility will be required by the new company and that will be achieved by employing on short-term contracts some 80 casual staff currently employed by ECGD. I hope the noble and learned Lord will be able to tell me that the Government will give an assurance that only the staff who had chosen secondment rather than a permanent transfer to the new company will be seconded and that no ECGD staff will be compelled to be seconded.
Finally, I wish to deal with possibly the most vexed question that your Lordships have dealt with which has been the subject of Government amendment. It is the matter of reinsurance. On Second Reading many noble Lords said that the major flaw in the Bill was the inability of the Government to provide reinsurance on political risk. In my view the Government have gone some way towards meeting those concerns. I recognise that that was done under pressure from noble Lords on the Benches opposite who have been vocal on the matter. However, the difficulty still remains that the Government seem to have confidence that their initial placement of reinsurance in the private market will continue. As I said on Second Reading, the reinsurance market in the commercial sector is not a fixed quantity. It is like a concertina; it goes up when business is good but it is the first thing to be retracted when business is bad. I have absolutely no confidence—even after the three-year top-up programme is phased out—that the privatised ISG will be able to secure a reinsurance line in the commercial market that will be satisfactory.
I accept that the Government have gone some way to meet that particular problem and have introduced two amendments which, as the noble and learned Lord said, addressed the problem. However, it is very difficult to know how those amendments will operate. Even those experts who have read the text of the amendments are divided in their opinion as to whether there is a serious and real obligation on the Government to act as reinsurer of last resort or whether it is an optional arrangement subject, as the noble and learned Lord said, to the commercial

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operation of the scheme, to whether the financial performance of the facility proves satisfactory and to whether the Government consider it essential to meet the reasonable needs of exporters. It is impossible to know how it will operate.
I believe that when the Bill leaves your Lordships' House and goes to another place debate will focus on the government amendments on reinsurance. I very much hope that the Government will recognise that those need to be beefed up.
Earlier I raised the question of whether the tendering process should be reopened. As I have explained in correspondence with the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate and to your Lordships, I believe that the Government have a fiduciary responsibility in respect of the sale of this business. I believe that the government amendments already materially change the nature of the business that was originally offered. That being the case, I can only invite the Government to reconsider their position on tendering. It was a mistake to go out to tender even before the Bill came to your Lordships' House. In my view it is a mistake to continue the process now that the Bill is leaving your Lordships' House.
I have referred the noble and learned Lord to the National Audit Office. I am sure that the National Audit Office will wish to examine the matter very carefully. I hope that it will feel able to consider carefully the terms on which the Government are privatising the business. The National Audit Office will have to think very carefully about whether the Government have performed their fiduciary responsibilities under this Bill.
I have taken up enough of your Lordships' time and I apologise. I said at the beginning that I had a great deal to say on the subject. I still believe that this is a bad Bill and that it is a pathetic little thing. The only courtesy that I can pay to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Advocate—which I do with great sincerity—is that he has persisted in defending this pathetic little thing to the best of his considerable ability. I am most grateful for the courtesy that he and the noble Lord, Lord Henley, have shown to the Opposition Front Bench in our debates.
3.32 p.m.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, the noble and learned Lord will recall that when this Bill was debated at Second Reading on 11th June virtually everyone who spoke, apart from the noble and learned Lord himself, was critical of the Bill. Serious apprehensions were expressed about the Bill. Those on all sides of the House who spoke represented exporters or those concerned with export promotion and knew what they were talking about. Many of the doubts expressed then still persist.
The importance of this Bill is that the Insurance Services Group provides insurance services for £13 billion worth of British exports—10 per cent. of our total exports. It is a very material factor in our export business. There is still a feeling, even after the amendments to which the noble and learned Lord referred, that British exporters will be disadvantaged
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as a result of the changes proposed. Whereas they were fairly secure in the knowledge of the basis on which they would obtain short-term insurance, now that that is moving to the private sector, and particularly likely to be moving to a firm which is involved in assisting exporters in another, competitor country, that certainty will no longer exist.
It is extremely surprising that the Government, having said that they supported the recommendations contained in the Kemp Report of 1989 following its thoroughgoing review of all the activities of export credit, should have ignored the report's main recommendation that a period of at least five years should be allowed before private capital was introduced into the Insurance Services Group. Had the Government pursued such a course very few of us would have objected. We would have said, "Let's have a look at it, over a long period, and we shall see whether or not what the Government now propose is desirable". The Government resisted that. For reasons which never became clear, they were determined to rush into this. They have done so in a way which has provoked a good deal of apprehension and anxiety.
I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that the undertaking which was put out to tender initially is no longer the same undertaking as a result of the revisions which the Government have since introduced into the Bill. That matter also needs to be looked at again.
The Government will have one final opportunity to listen to those, both in this House and in another place, who retain serious reservations about this proposition. The best thing that the Government could do when the Bill goes to another place is to say that they will have another look at it.
3.36 p.m.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, perhaps I may respond briefly to the two contributions to this short Third Reading debate. At Committee stage we spent some considerable time considering the phrase in Clause 1 of the Bill relating to "facilitating" supplies. The noble Lord is still concerned that the word "encouraging" was taken out of the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord and those who are concerned about exports will appreciate that the words "encouraging exports" were replaced with "facilitating supplies" because, legally, the original phrase was considered too restrictive. There was no intention whatever to put out a signal that this Government did not encourage exports.
The position of NCM was also raised, and its desire to make a profit. Indeed it does, and it is to be welcomed that the company adopts such an approach. The noble Lord suggested a number of undesirable means by which it might achieve that objective. I remind the noble Lord of what I said in my opening speech. One important factor in the insurance market at present is that a number of exporters wish to have a package whereby they can combine their export insurance business with domestic business. Under statute ECGD in its present form cannot do that. NCM will be able to do so.

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Turning to the question of reinsurance, the private reinsurance market has, contrary to what seems to be understood, received ISG reinsurance proposals very willingly and positively. There is no reason to believe that that will change. I repeat that the Government's power to undertake reinsurance of various kinds for ISG is not time limited.
Finally, the noble Lord returned to what he believes to be an important matter; namely, that given the changes introduced into the Bill with the amendments, the matter should go out for retendering. I stress again that the advice received from all the Government's advisers, is that that is not necessary or desirable. I also stress that none of the companies on the shortlist which the Government approached has made any approach to the Government to suggest that they wish the tendering process to be reopened.
With those few remarks I commend the Bill to the House.
On Question, Bill read a third time.
Lord Fraser of Carmyllie: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Fraser of Carmyllie.)
On Question, Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Social Security Benefits Up-rating
3.40 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Security on social security benefits up-rating. The Statement is as follows:
"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a Statement about the up-rating of social security benefits. This will take place for most benefits, as is now the normal practice, in the first full week of the tax year—that is, the week beginning 6th April. The statutory instruments to implement my proposals, applying to both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will in due course be laid before both Houses for debate, and a full schedule of the new benefit rules is being placed in the Vote Office.
"I will as usual deal first with the main national insurance benefits, including in particular the retirement pension which now goes to some 10 million people. The basis for the up-rating will be the latest available information about the increase in the retail prices index over the past year; that is to say, the rise of 4.1 per cent. in the 12 months to September.
"Our firm and continuing commitment is to increase the pension fully in line with prices. Next April, therefore, the basic pension will go up by £2.15 a week for a single person—from £52.00 to £54.15—and by £3.45 a week for a couple—from £83.25 to £86.70. This will increase expenditure on retirement pensions by around a billion pounds.
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"Public service pensions will also be increased across the board by 4.1 per cent., as will war widows' pensions and war disablement pensions. And I am glad to be able to tell the House on behalf of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence that the special Ministry of Defence payment to the pre-1973 war widows will similarly go up from £44.36 to £46.18 a week. This special payment will of course remain tax-free and continue to be disregarded in calculating entitlement to income-related benefits.
"All other national insurance benefits will be increased by 4.1 per cent.; for example, taking unemployment benefit for a single person from £41.40 to £43.10, and from £66.95 to £69.70 for a couple. Maternity allowance and lower rate statutory maternity pay, both of which were increased in real terms in the last up-rating, will be increased from £40.60 to £42.25 and £44.50 to £46.30 respectively.
"National insurance sickness benefit will go from £39.60 to £41.20 for a single person and from £64.10 to £66.70 for a couple. As the House knows, however, most short-term sickness is of course now covered by statutory sick pay administered by employers, in which a number of changes were made last year. The new arrangements, including the special provisions for small employers, appear to be working well, and I do not propose to disturb them except to increase the lower rate of SSP, which goes to employees currently earning between £52 and £185 per week. This will be increased by the RPI, from £43.50 to £45.30. The higher rate, which goes to the better paid employees of whom the great majority are in any case covered by occupational sick pay schemes, will remain at £52.50, since I judge that the cash required to increase it can more sensibly be used to improve the position of sick and disabled people in other ways.
"I turn next to the income-related benefits—income support, housing benefit and community charge benefit. By convention, since the main housing costs of income support claimants are met separately and directly, these benefits have been up-rated by an index which seeks to exclude such costs.
"As the House is aware, since these benefits were up-rated last year there has been a £140 reduction in the community charge, which in turn has meant a reduction of £28—over 50 pence a week—in the amount which those on income support are expected to meet from what was included in their benefit for this purpose. There is therefore a strong case for adjusting benefit rates accordingly to produce an expenditure saving of £200 million. I do not propose to do that.
"I have, however, concluded that it would be right in these circumstances to align the calculation of what is called the Rossi index more exactly than at present with the items whose costs people are expected to meet from their benefit. This entails including within it not only 20 per cent. of community charge but also certain miscellaneous housing costs, and water rates, which have not

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previously been covered in the calculation. This will put the index on a more logical basis for the future—and indeed the inclusion of water rates responds directly to a number of representations that we have received from welfare rights bodies and others.
"The result is to produce an up-rating index of 7 per cent.; nearly 3 per cent. higher than the full RPI. Other things being equal, that would entail a small reduction in the cost of the up-rating, by comparison with the use of the previous less comprehensive calculation. But that will not in fact happen because I propose to devote rather more than the sum involved to an additional increase in the income support premiums for pensioners who are disabled or who are over 80.
"These premiums will be increased, over and above the 7 per cent., by £1 a week for a single pensioner and £1.50 for a couple, contributing to overall increases in income support for this group of £5.10 a week, from £58.10 to £63.20 for the single person and of £7.70 a week, from £88.45 to £96.15 for the couple. The cost will be £60 million.
''Nearly 600,000 pensioners will gain to the full extent through income support, and over 400,000 through increases in housing benefit and community charge benefit. It will thus build further on the series of measures we have taken in recent years to give extra help to the less well-off pensioners, and especially those who are older, which have already increased the pensioner premiums by some £300 million in real terms in the past two years.
"All other income support rates will go up by 7 per cent. Thus, benefit for a single person over 25 will go from £39.65 to £42.45; for a couple with two children aged 10 and 12 from £104.55 to £111.85; and for a pensioner couple aged under 74 years from £83.15 to £88.95.
"Before leaving the income-related benefits, there are three further issues to which I should refer. The first concerns what are called the non-dependant deductions in housing benefit and income support for housing costs—that is to say, the contribution expected from the income of a non-dependant, living in the household of a claimant, in calculating the householder's benefit. Here I have received representations that these deductions, however reasonable in concept, are at too high a level for those on lower incomes.
"I shall therefore shortly be consulting the Social Security Advisory Committee and the local authority associations on a proposed restructuring of the deductions from next April. Its effect would be to reduce the contribution expected from anyone whose income is below £130 a week—including a reduction of over a quarter, from £5.70 to £4, in that applying to a non-dependant who is not in full-time work or whose income is below £65—but to expect a somewhat larger contribution than at present—£18 instead of £13.50—from those in full-time work with incomes above £130 a week.
"While giving what I believe will be widely seen as a fairer and more sensible structure, and once again helping the least well-off, these proposals
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would reduce benefit expenditure by about £50 million. This, however, helps me to make much more substantial increases than would otherwise have been possible in the second area on which I need to touch—the income support limits for residential care and nursing homes.
"Unlike other income support rates, these do include provision for housing costs. But I intend to make increases significantly greater than inflation, raising support in this field by nearly £200 million, or some £80 million more than would come from simply up-rating the limits in line with the retail prices index.
"After the very large increases made last year in the limits for nursing homes I have concluded, in the light of the available evidence and the representations made to me, that the right course is a general increase in virtually all the limits of £15 a week, thus giving a proportionately larger increase this year to people in residential care homes. And for the residential care limits in two categories—those for the very dependent elderly and for the mentally-handicapped—who between them cover almost 40 per cent. of all residential care home cases I propose an increase of £20.
"In only one case do I propose an increase below £15, which is in respect of the limit sometimes known as the terminal illness limit for nursing homes. Originally intended principally to give additional help to hospices, it has not proved very effective for that purpose, since many hospices do not make charges and there is therefore no basis on which their patients can claim the special rates of income support. As a basis for distinguishing between nursing homes it has become increasingly artificial and difficult to operate. I therefore think it right to make only a £5 increase in this limit, thus narrowing the gap between it and other nursing home limits, and to steer additional help to hospices in two other ways.
"One is to make changes in the rules for attendance allowance, and from next April also the new disability living allowance, which will give over £2 million of additional benefit to people in voluntary hospices. The other is to make available from the social security budget a further £1 million towards the direct funding of hospices as part of the Government's commitment to increase their contribution to the movement. This sum will be made available through the Department of Health. I believe these moves will be widely welcomed.
"With the one exception to which I have referred, all limits will increase by over 5 per cent., with the limit for the very dependent elderly in residential care homes going up by around 10 per cent., making a total increase in this important category, covering around a third of all elderly people in residential care homes, of 32 per cent. in three years. The Greater London additions for both residential and nursing homes will also be increased to £25 and £35 a week respectively.
"Finally, in relation to the income-related benefits, I should tell the House that the additional resources for the Social Fund which my right

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honourable friend the Minister of State announced in August, increasing this year's grants budget by some £10 million and the loans budget by some £30 million, will be fully carried through into provision for 1992–93, when the budget for the two elements together will be almost £300 million—30 per cent. higher than the budget initially made available in 1991–92. This is of course in addition to the greatly improved arrangements for cold weather payments, which are outside the budget and where, should the need arise, payments will now be made automatically and some 400,000 more people than previously would be eligible for payments.
"I turn now to families with children. As I said in my Statement this time last year, child benefit is and will remain a strong element in our policies for family support. That has been underlined by the further increase which has taken place this month, announced by my right honourable friend the Chancellor in his Budget, together with the undertaking that the benefit would in future be increased in line with prices.
"Having reviewed the benefit levels in accordance with my statutory duty, I have decided that the right course for next April is to increase each of the rates which have just come into payment by the full 4.1 per cent. RPI increase for the whole year to September, even though they will have been at their present level for only six months. This will raise the payment for the eldest eligible child by 40p. to £9.65 and the rate for other children by 30p. to £7.80. One-parent benefit will also rise, by 25p. to £5.85 per week.
"At the same time we shall continue with our policies to give greater help to low-income families with children, including not least those in work whose earnings are modest. This too has been underlined by the increases in income support and family credit made in parallel with this month's child benefit increase. The relevant benefit rates, including the family premium and the age-related amounts for children, will all be increased in April by 7 per cent.
"On the latest figures, family credit is now going to a record 356,000 families, 30,000 more than a year earlier, at an average level of over £30 a week. This gathering success will be further reinforced next April by reducing from 24 to 16 the number of hours of work needed to qualify, which we expect to enable another 30,000 families to benefit immediately and a further 35,000 in due course. I shall shortly be consulting the Social Security Advisory Committee on proposals designed to ensure a smooth transition to these new arrangements and more generally to improve the speed and accuracy with which claims are processed.
"While these changes will help families of all kinds, they are likely to be of particular help to lone parents who wish to work, who already account for over one third of those helped by family credit. We have already improved the earnings disregard in housing benefit and community charge benefit; and the introduction of the £15 maintenance disregard
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in these benefits next April will mean that lone parents receiving maintenance will still be better off in work on family credit with earnings up to £50 below what they would need at present.
"The changes in family credit, together with this new maintenance disregard, will increase expenditure next year by some £70 million. This will mean that since 1988 we have made available some £600 million extra in real terms through the income related benefits to improving the position of less well off families with children.
"I come now to benefits for sick and disabled people, to whose needs we have consistently sought to give special attention both in promoting and improving existing benefits and in developing new ones. All the main disability benefits will go up by the 4.1 per cent. increase in the RPI, thus raising invalidity benefit in line with the retirement pension and both severe disablement allowance and invalid care allowance from £31.25 to £32.55. The invalidity allowances payable with invalidity benefit, and since December 1990 the similar additions payable with severe disablement allowance, will also be appropriately increased.
"The main disability premiums in income support, including the greatly enhanced premium for disabled children introduced 18 months ago, will of course rise by 7 per cent., so that, for example, the benefit for a family with a disabled child of 12 will increase from £107.60 to £115.10 a week.
"Apart from the strategic improvement in benefits for disabled people, to which I shall come in a moment, I have a number of detailed changes to make which will be of significant benefit to those affected. The residence qualifications for severe disablement allowance will be brought into line with those for comparable benefits, making it easier for people coming or returning to this country to qualify. Families with children under 16 who receive social security help with care costs will when the child has to go into hospital keep that help for up to 12 weeks instead of four. Also the earnings limit for invalid care allowance will be further increased from £30 to £40.
"A number of possibilities for simplification of the war pensions scheme are currently under discussion with representative bodies in a joint effort to improve the working of the scheme. While I do not intend to make decisions on most of the issues involved until those discussions have been concluded, I have decided to add the war pensioners dependency allowance into the basic war pension for all war disablement pensioners, which is not only a helpful simplification but will give small gains to some 50,000 people. This group of small improvements involves a total additional cost of about £4.5 million.
"I am also able to inform the House of our plans for further substantial increases in resources for the independent living fund which is providing assistance to over 10,000 severely disabled people. The provision for next year will rise by some 40 per cent., adding more than £20 million to this year's

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level of £54 million. This will ensure that the fund continues to play an important role in helping people with disabilities to live independently in the community in the run-up to the full implementation of community care.
"Although not strictly an up-rating matter, I should also take this opportunity to tell the House, following consultation with the Social Security Advisory Committee, that I am today laying a revised regulation to re-establish the original policy intention underlying the income support severe disability premium, whose purpose is to give extra help to severely disabled people living independently of their families but which has in some cases been extended well beyond that by the creation of artificial tenancy arrangements within one household. While accepting that the regulation re-establishes the clear policy intention when the premium was introduced, the committee has asked that steps should be taken to ensure that no disabled person should lose an already established entitlement. I gladly accept that. Appropriate protection will be provided in those cases at an additional cost of £5 million compared with the proposal originally referred to the committee.
"From next April, mobility allowance and attendance allowance for those under 65 will be replaced by the new single extra costs benefit—disability living allowance (DLA). Those entitled will be automatically transferred to the new benefit and the relevant rates will be set at 4.1 per cent. above those of the existing allowances. Thus, the higher mobility component of DLA will be £30.30 —£1.20 above the current mobility allowance—and the two upper rates of the care component will be set at £43.35 and £28.98—£1.70 and £1.15 respectively above the current attendance allowance rates. Attendance allowance itself will be similarly increased for those over 65, for whom it continues.
"At the same time two new tiers of DLA will be introduced, giving extra help with care or mobility costs—or both—for the first time to some 300,000 people for whom the existing benefits do not cater. Among the gainers will be 10,000 severely mentally handicapped people with serious behavioural problems, who cannot at present get help with their mobility costs—and who will qualify for the top rate of the mobility component.
"These new DLA lower rates will be set not at the £10 per week on which discussion of the new structure was based, but at £11.55—in effect, applying both this year's up-rating and last year's to the original figure. And of course for those on the lowest incomes receipt of even one of the lower rates of DLA will bring entitlement to the disability premium in the income related benefits—so those on income support will be nearly £30 a week better off.
"We shall also in April introduce the new disability working allowance, helping up to 50,000 disabled people who wish to work, but have limited earning capacity, by enabling them to top up those earnings with benefit. The rates governing its
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assessment are set out in the schedule to my Statement. They will mean, for example, that a single person would be able to earn as much as nearly £100 a week, while still being entitled to some disability working allowance—and with it the disability premium in housing and community charge benefit—together with the reassurance which disabled people have been seeking of a much extended linking period back to their old incapacity benefit should they be unable to continue working.
"These new disability benefits mark a further important stage in a programme which, in the past two years, has already included real increases in the disability premiums, both for adults and children, the introduction of a carer's premium and of additional payments with severe disablement allowance, the extension of mobility allowance to the deaf-blind, and the extension of attendance allowance both to severely disabled babies and to the terminally ill.
"Overall, by 1993–94, the better part of a million disabled people will be gaining from this programme, either through real increases in existing benefits or entitlement to new ones, to a total of some £300 million. With earlier changes and the massive expansion which has taken place in the coverage of mobility allowance, attendance allowance and invalid care allowance, it will mean that next year expenditure on benefits for disabled people and carers will be no less than two and a half times greater than in 1979.
"Mr. Speaker, despite the difficult circumstances, we have been able to commit ourselves to the up-rating I have outlined today, at a cost of over £3 billion. We have honoured and confirmed our pledge to retirement pensioners. We are doing more for those who are older and least well off, more for families with children, and more for disabled people. Those are our priorities, and I believe they will be widely endorsed".
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
4.3 p.m.
Lord Carter: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made in another place. It is a complicated Statement containing a mass of figures. There should be a better way of dealing with it than responding with about 30 minutes' notice. I received the Statement at, I think, 20 minutes past three. That is surprising since the press and television were clearly briefed for Sunday's and Monday's newspapers and television bulletins. We welcome the increases in benefits laid out in the Statement. I am sure that those who depend on social security benefits will wish that there were an election every year.
On a general note, a number of increases are correctly quoted as being in line with inflation. That should be the appropriate level of inflation for the claimant group concerned. As we all know, if we continue to increase benefits in line with inflation rather than in line with average earnings, it means that the incomes of social security claimants will automatically fall further behind the incomes of those

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in work. That is demonstrated by the fact that income support is now worth less in relation to average wages than at any time since 1948.
To increase retirement pensions in line with an RPI of 4.1 per cent. is not good news for pensioners. The headline RPI has fallen because of the welcome fall in mortgage rates but very few pensioners benefit from that. The increase for pensioners' RPI should be about 5.7 per cent. The increase in the poorest pensioners' RPI is of the order of 7.2 per cent. rather than 4.1 per cent. Is the increase over and above the RPI—the 7 per cent.—restricted to disabled pensioners and those over 80? Perhaps the Minister will answer that question when he responds.
If the Government had not broken the link with earnings, as they did, the single person's pension would now be £64.85 instead of £52 and a couple would receive £103.75 instead of £83.25. As we know, the Labour Party is pledged to increase both the single person's and married couple's pensions and to restore the link between pensions and earnings.
The increase in child benefit is welcome. There is a genuine difference of opinion between the Government and the Labour Party on this. We still believe that it is wrong to target the bulk of the increase on the first child, as the Government have done. The freezing of child benefit for four years means that with regard to the second and subsequent child parents are still receiving about £2 a week less than they would have received if child benefit had not been frozen.
I refer again to the increase in benefit for the over 80s. That is welcome but puzzling. Only this year the Prime Minister, Mr. Major, said that that was a badly targeted benefit. I presume that the Government have been able to overcome their earlier reluctance to increase benefits. Perhaps the Minister will explain the reason for that change of heart in this last Session of Parliament.
The increase in the lower rate of the DLA to £11.55 from the original figure of £10 a week that was first mooted is welcomed by all sides. We were expecting the Government to do that and we are not disappointed. However, as the Minister knows, there is a real problem with the new disability working allowance. It is hard in the time available to tease out the answer from the Statement. Thresholds for earnings have been set in such a way, and the benefit so heavily means tested, that some recipients could have an effective marginal tax rate of 96p in the pound. Does the Minister agree with that calculation, or do the figures in the Statement alter that alarming state of affairs?
The increase of £15 in the residential care grant is also welcome. However, we know that it still leaves many elderly people with a large gap to fill. The Minister will be aware that only last week Price Waterhouse—the Government's advisers in the matter—calculated that the shortfall was still about £37 to £72 a week depending on the nature of the care. How are elderly people who face such a shortfall supposed to manage with an increase of £15 a week?
Perhaps I may refer to specific points raised in the
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Statement. I shall refer to the paragraph numbers as there are no page numbers. Paragraph 6 refers to the changes in the statutory sick pay and the freezing of the higher rate of SSP. That seems to be a version of the two-card trick. Last year a large number of people were removed from the higher rate. This year those who have left have had the rate frozen. Does the Minister agree that that is correct?
I have already asked the question on paragraph 11. Will the Minister confirm that the increase in pensions over and above the 7 per cent. is for disabled pensioners and the over-80s only? I believe that that is what the Statement provides.
With regard to the latter part of paragraph 16, what is the effect of the larger contribution for the non-dependants from £18 instead of £13.50 from those in full-time work with incomes above £130 a week? I ask that because in the next paragraph the Government state that such proposals will reduce benefit expenditure by about £50 million.
Paragraph 21 relates to the £5 increase in residential and care grants for the terminally ill. How does that saving compare with the increased funding of £3 million referred to in paragraph 22? Is there a net saving or a net increase?
Lord Henley: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene. Will the noble Lord indicate which paragraph he refers to?
Lord Carter: My Lords, I refer to paragraphs 21 and 22. I have to do so because there are no page numbers. Paragraphs 21 and 22 relate to the increase in the residential care grant. Those in hospices have been limited to an increase of £5 a week. There is obviously a saving. How does the saving compare with the £3 million extra funding for hospices which is referred to in the next paragraph?
We know that the Government have done nothing to deal with the problems of the Social Fund which we discussed only last week. How does the total increase of £40 million in grants and the loans budget compare with the inflation effect on the total budget of the Social Fund? Will the total budget increase during the year be more, or less, than the rate of inflation?
Those are the points that I have been able to tease out in the short time available. As always, items which are left out of Statements provoke the most questions. There is still nothing to help with the problems of 16 to 17 year-olds that we have debated many times. There remains the requirement for 20 per cent. of the poll tax to be paid by people receiving benefit, although they will receive a 100 per cent. rebate for the council tax when it is introduced. Why is there that distinction? There is nothing in the Statement to help the homeless youngsters in Nottingham who were reported in yesterday's Observer as starving. Sometimes they have to live without food for several days and when they do eat they spend only £1 to £2 per day on food.
In the final paragraph of the Statement the Minister gave the global increase in the budget. As he often quotes the Government's total spending on social security can he say how much is due to the increased expenditure on unemployment benefit, how much is

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due to an increase in the number of claimants for all benefits and how much is due to an increase in benefits in real terms over and above inflation? In other words, how much true new money is there in the increases about which we have heard?
There is one welcome feature of this year's Statement. It is certainly the last in this Parliament and equally certainly the next Statement will be made by a Labour Government.
Earl Russell: My Lords, when one considers the Statement in the present circumstances it deserves the verdict of Sir Alan Herbert, Bishop of Ipswich: "Well, it could have been worse". In a larger context I cannot help Feeling that the Statement has fallen resoundedly between two stools. On the one hand, I do not believe that the Government are up-rating benefits by sufficient to meet real needs. On the other hand, they are spending too much money on social security to be able to exercise a proper control of public spending. My noble kinsman may feel that that is a paradoxical combination. I am sure that he has spotted the resolution. The combination of those two factors marks the failure of the economic policy of many successive Chancellors of the Exchequer.
It has been characteristic of this Government that even in boom years they have run unemployment at a much higher level than their predecessors of all parties. By "unemployment" I do not mean only registered unemployment: looking at income support figures the distinction shows. It means that social security as a percentage of government spending has continued to rise rapidly throughout this Government's period of power. The number of people dependent on social security makes it more difficult to pay adequate benefit levels to each of them. We need to be giving more money to fewer people and that means getting the country back to work.
I should like to draw my noble kinsman's attention to the recent report on benefit levels produced by the Family Welfare Association. It found, following a dietetic test carried out by the London Hospital, that 53 per cent. of the people receiving income support who visited it did not have the money to buy enough food. The association tried to work out the lowest benefit level at which such people could buy an adequate amount of food for the week. It said that the level did not square at all with what the applicants had to spend. The association also drew attention, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, to problems of ill health among those receiving benefit. The same findings were shown in the survey carried out by the Nottingham Hostels Liaison Group referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Carter. It found problems of physical and mental ill health, epilepsy, diabetes, scurvy and chronic chest complaints.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, said on Thursday, keeping benefits too low carries costs to other ministries. My noble kinsman rashly said that he would never be convinced by that argument. "Never" is not a political word. Benefit levels are too low, the number of people receiving benefit is too high, and more work is the only cure.
I do not believe that the Government's treatment of the pensioners is as generous as they like to make out.
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The point about the different indexes has been made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and I shall not elaborate. It is perfectly fair; the indexes are not disputed. However, the way that the issue has been worked out on this occasion is unfortunate. Among pensioners there will be a real sense that it is inequitable. I do not envy the Government the task of explaining on the doorsteps why the situation is otherwise. The increases in pensions fall well short of those which the Liberal Democrats would have proposed; that is, £5 for single persons and £8 for married couples. Does my noble kinsman believe that the figures that he has given for the cost of these increases may be affected during the year by legislation to implement the Barber judgment, or does he believe that in that respect we are running before we can walk?
I deeply regret the failure to remove the 20 per cent. requirement for the community charge. I also regret, as does the noble Lord, Lord Carter, the failure to increase the higher rate of statutory sick pay. I am extremely unhappy about the arrangements reducing the part-time work definition from 24 hours to 16. The problems which arise when we are dealing with family credit where we are encouraging people to go to work, which I welcome, are different from those which arise when we are dealing with unemployment benefit where we risk discouraging people from going to work, which I do not welcome. I was delighted to hear that those problems were being referred to the Social Security Advisory Committee. Can my noble kinsman give me a hint of the timetable for that? It is a matter to which Members of this House ought to give their attention at some time and it would be easier with the Social Security Advisory Committee's report in front of us.
There are also a number of aspects of the Statement which I warmly welcome. In particular, I am pleased to see that many of them mirror changes that have been argued for by Members of this House, some of whom are in the Chamber today. In that context I thank my noble kinsman for being prepared to pass on arguments from Members of this House. It appears sometimes to be to good effect.
First, I mention the noble Baroness, Lady Faithfull, in the context of child benefit. I should have liked to see further increases above the rate of inflation in family premium on income support and child credit in family credit. On that matter I speak for my party. I welcome the inclusion of water costs in the Rossi index. That is a small concession to representations in which I joined last Thursday when I spoke on behalf of my party. I welcome the concession to the over-eighties. I also welcome the proposal to review the system of non-dependent deductions which needs a great deal of thought. I hope that my noble kinsman and his right honourable friends will take the opportunity to look at the inclusion of prisoners in those for whom there are non-dependent deductions. The logic of that has not escaped the notice of this House. I hope that the department may take the opportunity to do something about that.
I welcome the concession on residential homes. In that regard I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord

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Carter. I welcome the concession on hospices and the small mercy which we have been offered as regards the Social Fund. Having asked for that as recently as last Thursday, I must offer my thanks when it comes. How much of that will be swallowed by rising unemployment, I do not know. However, I am glad that that concession is there.
I welcome the concession on residential qualification for severe disablement allowance, which we owe largely to the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen. I am particularly delighted by the concession on the independent living fund, for which we owe thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton.
A lot, though by no means all, of the small matters in the Statement are satisfactory. The blame for what is not satisfactory in the Statement does not rest particularly with the Secretary of State. Any Secretary of State for Social Security inevitably has to clear up the mess which has been made elsewhere. The blame for what is wrong rests fairly and squarely on successive Conservative Chancellors of the Exchequer.
Lord Henley: My Lords, a large number of points have been made and I cannot guarantee that I shall be able to answer all of them in the time available. I begin by saying to my noble kinsman that I would rather not speculate on the Barber judgment at present. We are committed to achieving equal treatment as regards pensions and in particular to achieving equalisation of the state pension age. However, it would be wrong to make decisions in advance of Barber and in advance of the discussions which we intend to initiate, as my noble kinsman will know as a result of the Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State last summer.
My noble kinsman asked also about referrals to the Social Security Advisory Committee, items on family credit and the timetable. Referrals will be made as quickly as possible so that the committee has sufficient time to consider and, more importantly, to consult others if it is felt necessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, objected to the fact that he received his copy of the Statement rather late. I apologise for that. However, I assure the noble Lord that there was no prior briefing to the press as to the contents of the Statement. The noble Lord knows that must be true because most of the press reports were somewhat inaccurate. If the noble Lord had based his remarks on reports he read in the press he would have been fairly wide of the mark. I suspect that one reason why the noble Lord was wide of the mark was because he asked me about the new £1/£1.50 increase for the enhanced rate of income support for pensioners—that is, for pensioners on income support—which does not abolish the 25p age addition for the over-eighties. As the noble Lord rightly said, my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said that was a badly targeted benefit. Where possible it is far better to add to the enhanced rate of income support for the older and disabled pensioner so that the benefit goes to those in need rather than adding to the 25p age addition.
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The noble Lord suggested also that we are not using the right index when we base the uprating of the retirement pension on the RPI. It was difficult to understand what the noble Lord was asking but I believe he was suggesting that we should use either the pensions prices index or Rossi. Neither the noble Lord nor his party demanded that pensions should be uprated in line with Rossi last year when that index was less than RPI. One cannot ask for Rossi this year when it was not asked for last year. In the main, over the years RPI has given better increases to pensioners than the pensioners prices index or Rossi. We believe it is correct to use the RPI again this year. It maintains our commitment to up-rating the state retirement pension in line with prices.
The noble Lord also referred to his party's commitment to restoring the link between earnings and/or prices, whichever is the higher. That is not the key to improving basic pensioner income. As I have already said, we have consistently maintained the value of retirement pensions and at the same time—and this is more important—because of our economic policies we have seen a growth in their income from all sources (and it is income from all sources which the pensioner finds relevant) of some 33 per cent. in real terms in our first eight years in power. That is an increase in real terms of 3 per cent. per year. Under the last Labour Government the total increase was 3 per cent. in their entire period in office, which is an increase of less than 0.5 per cent. in real terms. At the same time during our years in office there has been an increase in occupational income pensions of almost 100 per cent. and we have seen an increase in pensioners' saving income of 110 per cent. Under the last Labour Government, pensioners' income from savings fell.
I now turn to the question of DWA and the allegations by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, that at its highest that could amount to a marginal tax rate of 96p in the pound. It is possible that one can suffer that marginal deduction rate but that only applies when a person claiming disability working allowance is receiving also housing and community charge benefits. Otherwise, the maximum rate is 70p in the pound. I am afraid that high deduction rates are inevitable if income related benefits are to be made widely available. DWA recipients will still be better off for every extra pound earned.
I turn now to the question of income support rates for registered care and nursing homes. The noble Lord cited a report by Price Waterhouse. I do not have as much faith in that report as I had in the study which we commissioned from Price Waterhouse over a year ago. The report mentioned by the noble Lord used a much smaller sample, with those included in the sample selected by the Registered Care Homes Association rather than by Price Waterhouse. I am not sure that as much credence can be placed on that report as can be placed on our report of last year.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked about the shortfall for people where the income support limits do not cover the cost of residential homes. No government can ever meet those costs in full, however high they may be set. It would be wrong to continually

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increase the fees, thereby encouraging homes to increase their charges. That would have a deleterious effect for those not on income support who have to pay fees led by our income support rates. Those rates have been increased dramatically over the past few years and I am glad that there was a partial welcome for those increases.
The noble Lord had doubts about changes to the terminally ill limit. There is no established convention for increasing those limits. I remind the noble Lord that the terminally ill limit is still to be increased, albeit by a lower figure than the others. An increase of £5 still involves a substantial increase in costs.
On non-dependant deductions and the increases for those with incomes over £130, a claimant with a single non-dependant with income over £130 will see a decrease in benefit of £4.50 per week from our increases in these rates. That will be mitigated by increases in the applicable amounts. For those on incomes below £65 the decrease will be only £4; for those with incomes between £65 to £99 the decrease will be £8; and for those with incomes of £100 to £129 it will, be £12. Therefore, there is certainly an increase for claimants with non-dependants living with them.
In passing, perhaps I may answer the question of my noble kinsman Lord Russell. It is intended that we shall be able to make adjustments for those who are non-dependants but who are temporarily absent in legal custody. The intention is that in hospital cases, where the absence is more than six weeks, the non-dependant deductions will not apply.
The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked how much of the £3 billion quoted resulted from higher unemployment claimant numbers, and so on. That figure relates to the costs of giving benefit increases compared with retaining the existing rates. The noble Lord is right to draw attention to other factors which affect the total level of expenditure. But the noble Lord must wait for the Autumn Statement of my right honourable friend the Chancellor to hear of the new planning total for social security.
A considerable amount of new money is entering the benefit system in the proposals that I have been able to repeat on behalf of my right honourable friend; for example, £57 million for pensioners on the higher pensioner premium—the £1 and £1.50 I mentioned. There is £2.2 million for attendance allowances and hospices; the grant I mentioned of £1 million from the Department of Health; and the increase in the budgets for the Social Fund of £67 million. The cost of relaxation of the SDA residence test is £1.1 million. There are further changes in the increased budget of the independent living fund of over £20 million. SDP transitional protection is £5.4 million. The add-in costs of registered care and nursing homes—increases above RPI—are £80 million. On top of all that, various measures were announced in the past which will come into effect next year; for example, the introduction of disability living allowances (first year costs only) of £120 million, £15 maintenance disregard, which I mentioned, totalling £20 million and a reduction in the hours rule in family credit totalling £49 million.
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Those are real increases and noble Lords should welcome the increases we have been able to announce that are specifically targeted at the elderly pensioner, the less well-off elderly pensioner, families and the disabled.
4.32 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, perhaps I may first thank my noble friend for reading a long and complex Statement to your Lordships. It is a Statement which is of more importance to more people in this country than any other Statement that is made in the course of the year. In that respect I am reminded that I should perhaps declare a modest interest.
I am glad that my noble friend and his right honourable friend stuck to the RPI as the guideline. There is always a temptation to follow other guidelines. However, there is a great deal to be said for continuing consistency in deciding the guideline to be adopted. The RPI is the best tried and all-round most sensible method of deciding what increases should be made generally across the board. I am glad that the Government stuck to that.
I was glad also to see that the Statement emphasised what is being done for the disabled in a number of ways. The needs of the disabled, taken as a whole, are probably more real and certainly more unpleasant than that for the great majority of beneficiaries under the scheme. The concentration by the Government, generally speaking, on the disabled appears to me to be a thoroughly humane and sensible way of administering the vast apparatus of the scheme.
I must express one small disappointment on which I ask my noble friend to comment. I was sorry that the opportunity was not taken to increase the pensions of the pre-1973 war widows to bring them into line with the pensions of the post-1973 war widows. In general, a pre-1973 war widow is likely to be older than a post-1973 war widow and therefore her needs likely to be the greater. In any event, to stick to an arbitrary date which derives simply from a decision of the Ministry of Defence to make improved provision for the services is a mistake. I had hoped that on this occasion, when the whole system was being reviewed, a decision would be taken to equalize—that is, to bring up to the post-1973 widow's standard—the payment made to the pre-1973 war widows. They are now a decreasing number and will of course decrease further over the years. In adopting that line the Government would be taking on not an increasing but a decreasing liability—a liability which would ease the conscience of many people in this country who feel strongly for those who lost their husbands in its service.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his observations. I am grateful for his remarks on our use of the RPI as an index and particularly grateful for his comments on our policies for the long-term sick and disabled. As I said in the Statement, in real terms we are spending 2.5 times more on the long-term sick and disabled and their

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carers than was the case in 1979. On occasions the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has said that that was the result of more people being in receipt of benefits, but even the noble Lord would not descend to arguing that it was the result of 12 years of a Conservative Government. It is the result of our reaching far more people with our policies for the disabled.
On the question of war widows, also raised by my noble friend last year, I believe he forgets that two pensions are involved. One pension is paid by the Department of Social Security to all war widows irrespective of when the husband died. That is the same for all of them, though there are some age additions. In 1973 the Ministry of Defence introduced an attributable service scheme which, in a sense, is an occupational scheme and varies according to the rank and length of service of the individual soldier who died and whose wife is left a widow. When the problem arose we responded to the needs of pre-1973 war widows who were left out of the occupational scheme, but it was always realised that it would not be possible simply to copy that scheme retrospectively for all war widows.
The solution that we hit upon—I believe it to be the right one—was welcomed by most people at the time. It involved a special payment of £40 per year which would be disregarded in relation to income-related benefits and totally untaxed. We have continued to up-rate that payment in line with the RPI. However, it will not be possible to replicate the Armed Forces attributable service scheme in a retrospective manner for pre-1973 war widows.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, perhaps I can ask the Minister why the over-eighties still receive only 25p extra? I had the privilege of introducing that figure 26 years ago. In 1965 25p meant a good deal more than it does today.
I am not in the least grateful to the Minister for giving that long Statement. It is a disgraceful habit that has been introduced in this House. How can one take in all those figures? There should be a proper debate and the subject should be properly introduced. I hope that the Government will not continue with that practice until the next general election.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I assure the noble Baroness that there will be an opportunity for proper debate when the various regulations and orders are placed before both Houses. The noble Baroness will be aware that in the past we have always had a debate on the up-rating regulations, of which there are a number.
The noble Baroness referred to the 25p age addition paid to all pensioners over 80. The noble Baroness is quite right to say that it was introduced a number of years ago and it has not been up-rated by any government since then. We have always taken the view that it is far better to try to add to the income-related benefits for the older and poorer pensioner rather than make a special addition across the board to all pensioners, which would not make the best use of available resources. It is far better to make an
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addition, as we have been able to, over and above the 7 per cent.—an addition of £1 or £1.50 depending upon marital status—to less well-off pensioners.
Baroness Faithfull: My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter in saying that the country will welcome this Statement. I shall not go into details but we welcome the change of attitude and mind of the Government in considering those in trouble and in need in this country.
Perhaps I may ask my noble friend three questions. I suggest that he does not answer them now but asks his right honourable friend the Minister to write to me. I refer, first, to the concession on residential homes. I realise that for the country to meet the full cost of nursing and residential homes would be very expensive. However, I think there are certain cases which need special consideration—the very elderly who are suffering from Alzheimer's disease, where there is no accommodation for them and where it is almost impossible for families to look after them. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister will ask his right honourable friend the Secretary of State whether concessions can be made in special cases, where a family has no money. Secondly, will my noble friend ask his right honourable friend to reconsider the question of housing benefits for students? Many students are now in great difficulties. I very much hope that he will reconsider that matter and write to me.
Thirdly, yet again I support the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on the question of 16 to 18 year-olds. I ask his right honourable friend the Minister to consider yet again those young people who need money, who are homeless and who are sleeping on the streets because they cannot find anywhere to live at a price they can afford. Because they have no address they cannot get a job and because they have no job they cannot get accommodation. I hope my noble friend will reconsider this matter, which has been put to him so many times.
On the question of child benefit, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his comments. I should also like to add that the great fight that we have put up over child benefit was very much due to the late Lord Seebohm. I pay tribute to him for the help that he gave to me from the Cross-Benches. I do not ask my noble friend to answer those questions now but perhaps his right honourable friend will write to me.
Lord Henley: My Lords, I take note of what my noble friend said. As she requested, my right honourable friend will certainly write and answer her various questions. Perhaps I may make one or two points. As regards nursing care for the very dependent, elderly and mentally handicapped I must stress that we have increased that by some £20 this year, which is higher than the increases on the other limits.
My noble friend also asked whether we would consider a scheme whereby special cases were treated somewhat differently. I shall certainly ask my right honourable friend to look at that aspect. However, I must point out to my noble friend that expenditure in this field runs at a considerable rate. It has increased over the past 12 years from some £10 million, with just

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12,000 payments, in 1979 to over £1.5 billion in February this year; that is, catering for some 210,000 people. I accept the fact that my noble friend might nevertheless argue that it is still not meeting all needs. However, I refer back to the point I made earlier that it is impossible to go on and on increasing the limit without having somewhat strange effects on the pricing of many of these homes.
I note the points made by my noble friend about housing benefits for students and I shall certainly pass those on. Again, I note what my noble friend had to say about income support for 16 and 17 year-olds. That is a matter we debated last July. I repeat what I said then, that we do not seek and never have sought to take the cheap option of taking income support away from 16 and 17 year-olds. There is, of course, the training option; the YT guarantee. We consider that it is far better that young people between the ages of 16 and 17 should take the opportunity to remain in full-time education or take up the YT guarantee rather than introduce themselves to income support and a permanent life of dependency.

Political Union: ECC Report
4.45 p.m.
Lord Oliver of Aylmerton Lord Oliver of Aylmerton rose to move, That this House takes note of the report of the European Communities Committee on Political Union: Law-Making Powers and Procedures (17th Report, HL Paper 80).
The noble and learned Lord said: My Lords, in introducing to the House the report which is the subject matter of the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper, I should like to begin by thanking the members of Sub-Committee E who prepared the report and the witnesses who so freely gave of their time and expertise in helping the committee. I would also like to say a preliminary word about the purpose of the, report. It may have come as something of a surprise to some or all of your Lordships, as it certainly did to some members of the Select Committee, that the sub-committee should have undertaken to consider and report on certain aspects of proposals which are still under active negotiation between Her Majesty's Government and the governments of the other member states of the Community and which concern the terms of a treaty proposed to be entered into.
The negotiation of and entry into international treaties is the prerogative of the Crown. While Parliament may criticise, approve, disapprove or endorse and ratify what has been done, it is no part of the parliamentary function in our Constitution to participate in negotiations which are normally conducted on a diplomatic level away from the glare of publicity.
What prompted the sub-committee in this instance to undertake a task which might be thought perhaps to be unconventional, and which certainly was not without its critics, was the unusual manner in which the preparations for the inter-governmental conference were made. The open submission of a working
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draft of the actual terms of a proposed treaty to general public discussion by the publication of the Luxembourg Presidency text, both in its original and its amended form, created a situation for which, so far as I am aware, there was no readily available precedent.
A year ago the European Communities Committee reported upon the implications for the United Kingdom of proposals for economic, monetary and political union. It is certainly no part of the purpose of the present report—and I do want to emphasise this—to question, amend or detract from any of the conclusions in that earlier report. However, the text, if agreed in anything approaching the form in which it was proposed, would not only confer upon the Community a much wider power to legislate than at present exists but would confer upon the European Parliament equal rights with the Council in important areas of legislation, and would introduce new procedures for co-decision and give new powers to the Council both in foreign and security policy matters and in relation to co-operation in home affairs and judicial matters, so that the powers would then be lost to national legislatures. We felt that all this raised issues of such legal significance that the committee ought to consider and report upon them.
That was not, I stress, for the purpose of influencing negotiations, but simply to ensure that the implications of the proposals and the legal and practical consequences should be fully appreciated well before the debate which would ordinarily take place only after negotiations had been concluded and Parliament was asked to ratify what has been done. After some informal consultation with United Kingdom Ministers, therefore, it was considered that the legal issues did indeed call for inquiry and report.
I hope that what I have said adequately explains the genesis and purpose of the report and that I can turn to a summary of the contents. There was, of course, a time in the recent past when it seemed that the effect of other and even more controversial proposals of the Netherlands presidency might have the effect of rendering the report of purely academic interest, but those proposals having now, as I understand it, been decisively rejected as an acceptable basis for negotiation, we are back to the revised working draft proposed in June of this year by the Luxembourg presidency. In preparing what I have to say to your Lordships, I have tried to summarise the report as shortly as is consistent with intelligibility. It has not been easy and if I run a few minutes over what might be considered to be the normally expected time in an opening speech of this nature, I must ask your Lordships' indulgence.
I have already largely anticipated what is said at greater length in Part 1 of the report which contains the introduction and incorporates reverentially what I hope readers of the report will find very useful material in appendices 3 and 4. The former contains a comparative analysis of the text set against the recommendations in earlier reports of the committee, which indicates that a good many of the recommendations have in fact been reflected in the text, while the

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latter consists of what I hope will be a useful exegesis of the role of the United Kingdom Parliament in relation to the conclusion of treaties.
Part 2 is concerned with definitions. The role played by semantics in both domestic and international misunderstandings is not always appreciated although it became perhaps more widely understood with the publication, many years ago now, of Ogden and Richards' work on the Meaning of Meaning. The report uses three key terms, widely used—and frequently misused—in press reports and in political speeches. It is crucial to an intelligent understanding of the report that those who write and those who read should use the words in the same sense. "Subsidiarity" is a word which seems to mean different things to different people. A small section of the report —paragraphs 90 to 92—is devoted to it. But there are two other expressions which are frequently employed in argument with a more or less emotive appeal. Those are "sovereignty" and "federalism". Part 2 of the report is devoted to clarifying, at any rate so far as is possible, the senses in which those words are used in the argument and in the conclusions.
Our concern in preparing the report has been primarily with proposed alterations in the balance of power between the Council and the European Parliament and between the Community and its member states. Those, we felt, raised important matters of policy and principle to which the attention of the House should be drawn. The report concentrates on the legal and practical implications of particular areas of the revised text. Those are, first, the proposals for what is called "co-decision" in law-making procedures; secondly, the introduction of the principle of subsidiarity as a substantive obligation in the exercise of powers; thirdly, the proposed extensions of Community competence; fourthly, the proposed extensions of the power to adopt legislation by qualified majority voting; and fifthly and finally, the future structure of the Community, in particular, common foreign and security policy and co-operation on home affairs and judicial matters.
As regards the first of these, co-decision, the report contains a discrete section—Part 3—devoted to summarising the existing law-making procedures of the Community and describing the role of the European Parliament in Council legislation. The Parliament has for some time regarded that role as being too restricted, and by a resolution passed in July of last year it sought to introduce a procedure for co-decision for certain classes of Community legislation. What has now emerged in the Luxembourg text is a new draft Article 189A. It purports to create a new category of law called a "Community law" in addition to the existing measures of regulation, directive, and decision. This is envisaged as applying to "important matters", whatever that may mean, as having general application and as either binding directly on member states or as binding as to the result to be achieved and to be implemented by national legislatures. Page 14 of the report sets out in diagrammatic form the complicated stages through which such legislation is envisaged as proceeding.
I do not intend to take up your Lordships' time by going through this in detail. The convoluted nature of it can be seen at a glance. The salient feature is that if, at the end of all, the Council and the Parliament fail to agree—and neither of them is supreme—the legislation simply falls to the ground. One cannot help feeling that that result at the conclusion of a laborious and tedious procedure would leave the members of both bodies sharing the frustration experienced by the daughters of Danaus as they filled their bottomless buckets; but at least they had done something to deserve it.
What was urged in favour of what might be thought to be a cumbersome and inconclusive proceeding was, first, that it draws a needed distinction between primary legislation and implementing measures more properly the province of the Commission; and, secondly, that it increases the democratic accountability of the Community legislative process. The committee did not feel that either argument carried any real weight and concluded that the whole concept of co-decision is inherently unsound. We concluded that the real object of the exercise was to increase the legislative power of the European Parliament. That is a perfectly proper and understandable objective, but we did not feel that it could be satisfactorily effected by a procedure under which nobody has a decisive say, which can only lead in the end to conflicts between the Council and Parliament, which involves substantial delays in introducing what may be critically important legislation and which is likely to lead to more and more compromise texts or deliberately ambiguous provisions resulting in more and more litigation before an already overburdened European Court.
As regards democratic accountability, the members of the Council are, of course, accountable to their own governments and thus to their national parliaments. The members of the Parliament are, of course, democratically elected, although accountable only in the sense that they must ultimately submit themselves for re-election. The Commission, however, is its own master and the committee would certainly favour a procedure for scrutiny so that proposals for legislation delegated to the Commission would be laid before the Parliament, as suggested in paragraph 154 of the earlier report on economic, monetary and political union, and the formalisation also of the existing practice under which the Parliament can call upon the Commission to initiate legislative proposals. The latter is in fact proposed in the new Article 137A of the Luxembourg draft. This is an area which really does deserve some attention. As matters stand the Community is swamped with a mass of regulatory material churned out by industrious bureaucrats in Brussels without anyone having a real opportunity to scrutinise it or question its effect before it comes into operation.
The committee also draws attention to the urgent need for the provision of stable and efficient working conditions for the Parliament and the agreement between member states on a site for a single seat for the Parliament where members can have access to the parliamentary staff, to its files and to other

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institutions. The present situation in which the Parliament has no permanent pillow upon which to lay its head is both unworthy and absurd.
However, it was our conclusion that there is no need for a radical restructuring of legal procedures, although we have ventured to call attention to the need for the introduction of procedures for making minor amendments to existing legislation and the need for consolidated code to replace the almost impenetrable proliferation of individual measures. We also wholeheartedly welcome the power which draft Article 171 proposes to confer on the European Court to impose penalty payments on those member states which fail timeously to comply with directives and previous judgments of the court. Your Lordships will be aware that the United Kingdom has an excellent record in this regard, but that does not apply to all member states.
I turn now to subsidiarity. There is an important point here which is more than merely semantic. To some people the word means that organs at the highest level should do only those things that they can do better than organs at a lower level; to others it means that organs at the lower level should do only those things which they can do better than organs at a higher level. The Luxembourg text seeks to include in the treaty a specific provision that the Community shall take action in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. In the committee's view, this would open up a limitless vista of disputes about whether particular Community measures were or were not authorised. But how does one decide whether one organ or another can do something better? It would also provide a fertile ground for the creation of new legislative powers in the Council by enabling it to act in any case where it thought that it could do so more effectively than member states acting separately.
In the committee's view, subsidiarity, however construed, is properly no more than a political principle. It is certainly right that it should permeate Community activity. However, in our view it would be quite inappropriate that its application should constitute a positive legal requirement to be determined judicially. In effect, that would be to hand over t3 the European Court an important aspect of the legislative function. So the committee remained even more strongly than before of the view expressed in the earlier report on monetary and political union that, if there is to be any reference in the treaty to the principle of subsidiarity, it should not be expressed in the legislative provisions or substantive articles but rather stated as an objective only in the preamble.
As regards the extensions of Community competence which are proposed in the draft, these broadly divide into two categories. First, there are those areas —such as environment, energy research and consumer protection—where the Community competence has already been expanded in reliance upon Articles 100, 100A and 235 of the treaty—articles upon the use of which the committee has traditionally kept, and still keeps, a carefully watchful eye. We have all been very much aware of what has been styled the "creeping competence" of the Community in matters formerly consicered to be in the exclusive domain of domestic
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legislatures. However, the committee's view here is that the precise specification of such areas in the treaty is not only unobjectionable but actually would be useful as regards defining more precisely the objects and limits of Community action.
The other category consists of matters such as transport safety, workers' rights, health and safety at work, co-ordination of rules on animal experiments and human health protection which may be described as "borderline". Here again, if these are acceptable to all member states, the committee sees the minor delimitation of boundaries as unobjectionable. In general, for instance, the committee welcomes the proposals for Community co-operation in education and cultural matters. Similarly, the proposed rights for "Union Citizens" in Articles A to E (on page 42 of Appendix 3) do not intrude upon member states' nationality legislation and should, in the committee's view, be broadly acceptable.
The proposals for measures within the specified areas of Community competence to be adopted by qualified majority voting are, however, rather more controversial. These will be found on pages 45 to 47 of Appendix 3 to the report. The qualified majority voting procedure is a useful one, both where there is a need for a large number of decisions in a limited time and where there is a clear and overriding Community objective which ought not to be impeded by a single dissentient voice. Beyond this, however, it is the committee's view that it is likely to lead to unsatisfactory legislation because it accelerates the process unduly and limits the possibilities both of injecting alternative views and of resolving differences by negotiation from equal bargaining positions. The committee is particularly concerned that it may lead to the more frequent adoption by the Commission of a practice—which has sometimes been adopted in the past and against which we have protested on several occasions—of adopting so tight a timetable that proper scrutiny by national parliaments simply becomes impracticable. In place of this suggestion, we should like to see a systematic analysis of the cases where qualified majority voting is appropriate and its application in such cases through the body of legislative powers in the treaty.
Finally, paragraphs 105 to 113 deal with the proposals for the future structure of the Community. What may be thought to be the really controversial article is Article A which speaks of progression towards:
"a Union with a federal goal".
That is a phrase calculated to excite the highest suspicion; but it has to be said that the clear implication of the text is that member states remain independent sovereign states, so that any further move towards "federation" in the true sense of the word would require a new treaty providing for the Community's constitution as a federal entity. So it would be wrong, I think, to see the text as, in itself, an attempt to incorporate member states into a single federal entity or even perhaps as a significant step along that road.
However, the danger in employing expressions indicative of an ultimate objective of a truly federal

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constitution, albeit requiring a new treaty for its implementation, is that it opens the door to the suggestion that such a constitution is not merely an imaginative ideal to be contemplated as a possible future, but is a positive commitment. To that extent, as it seems to me at any rate, one is entitled to say very firmly, "That wasn't part of the deal" or, if one is classically inclined, "non haec in foedera veni".
Although the draft text leaves the member states with the essential liberty of action in international affairs appropriate to truly sovereign states, it will, if adopted, undoubtedly impose upon member states a substantially stronger obligation to seek to conform to a common position than is the case under the European Political Co-operation as formalised in the Single European Act. Nevertheless, any legal obligation to conform to a joint line of action would be one arising under international law only and not —this is the critical point—one enforceable through the juridical organs of the Community.
Therefore, the committee was satisfied in the end of the correctness of the view of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that the draft, although very much open to improvement, is compatible with the retention by member states of their sovereign status in international affairs. If adopted, the provisions are likely to lead to an increase in the external competence of the Community, assuming always the willingness of member states to formulate a joint line of action. But that is a prerequisite and the competence will flow from it as a matter of evolution. The committee favoured that evolutionary approach. I should perhaps mention that this was one of the principal departures proposed by the rejected Netherlands draft which proposed that foreign policy be fully integrated and brought within the Community competence, giving jurisdiction to the European Court,
"over the legality of the application of procedures for deciding upon joint action."
As regards co-operation in home affairs and judicial co-operation, the committee broadly welcomed that but felt that co-operation on matters such as asylum, visa and immigration policy should remain on an inter-governmental basis and not be brought within full Community competence.
I have—I fear at some length—endeavoured to summarise the main points covered by the report in a way which will, I hope, demonstrate to your Lordships why the committee has been concerned at proposals involving a substantial shift in the balance of power both between the Council and the Parliament and between the Community and its member states. Its view is best summarised in the last sentence of paragraph 134 of the report:
"A shift in the existing balance of power should take place only following an informed debate as to the probable consequences and not in pursuit of some imagined destiny."
It is the committee's hope that the report has made and will make a positive and useful contribution to that debate and it is in that light that I commend it to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the report of the European Communities Committee on Political Union: Law-Making Powers and Procedures (17th Report, HL Paper 80) —(Lord Oliver of Aylmerton.)
5.10 p.m.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, your Lordships are greatly indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, for that most admirable and intensely interesting summary of the committee's report. We are equally indebted to the Select Committee itself for the enormous amount of work that it has put into dealing with those complicated and potentially important issues. The noble and learned Lord said that it was unusual for the committee to go into matters which were not yet formalised and which were still under discussion. I am glad that the committee so decided, because part of the difficulty for many of us in dealing with such matters is that their very complexity and elaboration means that unless one spends a great deal of time studying them one is incapable of forming sensible opinions upon issues which, for better or worse, will affect our country's future in considerable degree.
I feel that your Lordships' House, and the country, is indebted to the Select Committee. I shall later suggest further bases upon which that gratitude could be further earned. The noble and learned Lord explained how the Select Committee went to work. He succeeded in greatly clarifying the issues involved. It is gratifying to those of us who, like myself, favour your Lordships' House in its present form and composition, that it is a Select Committee of this House, rather than of another place, which has done this remarkable work. I doubt whether a House differently constituted could have produced a Select Committee able to devote so much time and intellectual authority to discussion of such issues. It reflects to the credit of your Lordships' House—I stress in its present form —that we should have this report.
There are one or two issues that I should like to raise with which I hope the noble and learned Lord will deal when he replies. He dealt first—it arises at paragraph 130 of the committee's conclusions—with the use of the word "federal". It is unfortunate that that word should creep into any of the provisions that we may be called upon in the future to accept. I am aware that it is possible to argue different meanings of the word "federal". There was some interesting correspondence in The Times recently on that issue, but the fact remains that if we use the word "federal" in connection with the European Community we are carrying the implication that we are creating a body which will be the superior of its constituent members, able in the ultimate to tell them what they should or should not do. For every reason, or if only for the avoidance of misunderstanding and anxiety and perhaps of international friction in the future, it would be useful if the word "federal" could be eliminated from all the documents.
I do not believe that in this country the great majority of our people wish to enter a federal Europe. I believe that there are some European countries that would like that idea. They are entitled to their

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opinions; but unless and until people in this country make it clear that they are prepared to contemplate entering a federal set up, with all its implications of the superiority of the federal authority over the national one, it would be much wiser to keep the word "federal" firmly out of any of the documents.
Paragraph 134 of the report—again to which the noble and learned Lord referred—refers to the balance between the Community and individual states. The summary of the position, to the effect that there should be no transfer of power from national states to the Community, without a clear decision to that effect having, been adopted, is right. We are at risk—given perhaps the activities of the Brussels bureaucracy—of having, our independence gradually eroded and the Commission, in particular, and perhaps the European Parliament assuming greater authority over the affairs of this country than most of us desire to see happen.
It may well be in future years that opinions will change, but a British government can operate now only on the basis of what is prevailing opinion in this country. As I understand it, that opinion favours the closest co-operation with our European friends but does not wish to allow the rights and independence of this country to be overriden in that way.
One cannot help sometimes feeling in that context that our European friends are apt to forget that if it were not for this country and the resolute line that it took 51 years ago there would be no free Europe to be discussing such matters. The fact that in 1940 we, and we alone, stood up to Nazi Germany, when the whole of the rest of Western Europe was conquered and subservient to it, is a fact that younger generations at any rate of our European friends are apt to forget. It would perhaps do no harm on occasion to remind them that a free Europe, able to discuss these matters in freedom, able to negotiate what seems to it to be best has been possible only because this country, and this country alone, for 18 months resisted tyranny.
I turn now to another point. I expressed gratitude a moment ago to the Select Committee for the immensely valuable work it has done. I remind your Lordships that gratitude has been defined as "a lively anticipation of favours to come". I hope that the Select Committee will examine a matter that has arisen since the report was drawn up and even since it was printed. During the past few days we have had the intervention by an EC commissioner in writing to the Minister of Transport demanding, as I understand it, that seven schemes for road and rail improvements in this country should be halted because in his belief they conflicted with European standards for the environment.
Leaving aside the fact that it appears to me that Mr. Ripa di Meana has no authority whatever in the matter, it would be enormously serious if our control of our road and rail system should be eroded in this way. I speak with interest and enthusiasm because, as some of your Lordships may remember, I was at one time responsible for our roads programme. In the middle 1950s I was responsible at the time of the introduction of the motorway system. It was difficult enough, I can tell your Lordships, to secure a sensible
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degree of compromise between the need for an efficient road system and the need not to damage the environment or upset local feeling.
If a superior authority intervened and demanded that work already started should be halted, we should be in great difficulty. I do not see how the views of the EC or Mr. Ripa di Meana himself can be of binding importance. After all, in any road or rail programme one has to decide on a compromise between an efficient system of transport and the acceptable degree of damage to the countryside and in particular the amenity of life for those who live near the work. This is a difficult exercise of judgment at any time. Our present Minister of Transport is admirably handling a difficult problem at this time in connection with the seven proposals.
If one examines those proposals solely from the point of view of amenity and the environment, as Commissioner Ripa di Meana seems to, one ignores the other vitally important factor—the contribution which these developments can make to our economy. Presumably that is of no interest to the Commissioner for the Environment, but it is of considerable interest to the British Government and people, and also to your Lordships' House.
It is important to get it clear and well established that Mr. Ripa di Meana's letter to the Minister of Transport has no binding authority at all behind it and that there is no reason whatever to believe that even with the next stage in the development of the European Community we shall hand over control of our road and rail systems and their planning to the Commission. It is essentially a matter for this country alone to decide, as parallel issues are only for other members of the Community.
I suggest to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, that it would be helpful if at the next round the Select Committee were to examine the issue and help your Lordships and the country by giving a clear assessment of the position, the rights and wrongs of the matter and suggestions for the line we should take.
This debate is very important indeed. I know that a number of your Lordships will have serious contributions to make. I believe that we are greatly assisted by the Select Committee. If I have ventured to suggest any further employment for it, I hope that the committee will take it as a compliment rather than insulting interference.
5.25 p.m.
Lord Jay: My Lords, I fully agree with the noble Lord that this is an excellent analytical report, all the more so for being unconventional. The House should be grateful for it. However, by implication it perhaps underrates the extent to which all the legal and bureaucratic devices are a vehicle for the long-term aim of turning the European Community into a centralised super-state. I emphatically agree with the committee's view that a transfer of power from the EC Council to the Strasbourg Parliament would not make the Community any more democratic. In paragraphs

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78 to 80, the report rightly states that members of the EC Council are ultimately accountable to their national parliaments.
After the UK originally joined the EC in 1973, some of us in the other place laboured long and hard in the scrutiny committee and elsewhere to establish the principle that in all major EC legislation Parliament must have effective control over what Ministers do and how they vote in the Council. We have made some progress, but in my view not enough, even yet, in the other House. In this House, everyone agrees that the Select Committee on the European Communities has carried out invaluable work in scrutinising the legislative proposals so that they can be sensibly debated, as I hope we are doing now.
Transfer of power from the Council to the Strasbourg Parliament would not be democratic for the following reasons. The basic, root principle of democratic government is surely this: that people must not be bound and coerced by laws which they have had no share, however indirect, in making. Of course our own representative Parliament is indirect and imperfect, but those of us here who have spent some years in the other place know, to their cost, that contact with and pressure from their constituents of a pressing, variegated and persistent kind is a reality. It is not just a constitutional myth. A parliament in Strasbourg whose members have half a million or more constituents would be only a ghost of representation as we know it.
The popular political feeling everywhere today, especially in Europe, is for more closeness and not more remoteness between the government and the governed. After all, that is the argument for having local government. It is also why most of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have revolted against blind, remote control from Moscow by rulers who had no real contact with the people whom they purported to rule.
Indeed, today from the Baltic states to the Ukraine, from Poland to Croatia and beyond people are calling for closer and not more remote government control. It is a rather strange irony that at this moment, when the demand everywhere is for closer and more democratic government, the Brussels machine should appear all the time to be seeking to drag us into what can only really be called an out-dated system of bureaucratic centralism. As has been mentioned, Brussels is even now trying to intrude into the controversy over the Winchester by-pass. That hardly seems to be in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, however one interprets that.
As the report rightly points out, the proposals for more authority for the Strasbourg Parliament are intended not really to improve methods of government but rather to increase the power of the centre. For these cogent reasons the British Government should, in my view, resist any further transfer of legislative or other power away from the British Parliament and electorate.
However, there is another pressing reason for that policy, which is that every further twist of the legislative and official network shackling EC member
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states to the centre will make it harder for the emerging Eastern European countries—and indeed the EFTA countries—to join the EC. After all the upheavals and the struggles for freedom they have experienced during the past two years, those countries will hardly want to reshackle themselves once again. What is needed in the real Europe today is a much wider, looser and more liberal Community embracing all these countries with free trade between them. However, the countries concerned should be able to make their own decisions on internal affairs. The Community should embrace any country that is genuinely democratic and wishes to join it. That is what the British Government should aim for as long as Britain is a member of the Community.
The EC has indeed no right to shut out the Eastern European countries and to continue, as is now the case, to impose tariffs, restrictions and other measures on their goods. Those countries are often far poorer and needier than the states within the EC. Far from uniting Europe the exclusion of those countries from the EC would divide Europe with a new legalistic curtain. Unfortunately a looser, more liberal, decentralised Community is not what M. Delors and his colleagues seem anxious to establish as their long-term goal. M. Delors was reported last week as saying that the long-term aim is a new European superpower.
In the 1950s M. Monnet and M. Spaak admitted quite candidly that the economic aspects of the Treaty of Rome were only a cloak to conceal the fact that the real aim was to supersede national independence in Europe altogether. The long-term objective was to rival the Soviet Union and the United States as superpowers.
The mainspring of French policy today in all this is to tie down a resurgent Germany by legalistic ties. Frankly in French policy there lurks an ominous streak of anti-Americanism which can be dangerous. That is one reason why there is now an emerging impulse for the EC to indulge in security and defence policies. The urge to create a second and rival United States is potentially dangerous. It can damage NATO and it can discourage American co-operation with Europe. That co-operation has, after all, guaranteed peace over the past 45 years. I hope the Government will firmly resist any more intrusion by Brussels into security or defence matters under the guise of WEU or anything else. Certainly I hope the Government will resist any plans to place UK Armed Forces outside the control of the British Government.
Meanwhile if Britain wishes to remain still an independent country, we should remember that it is not just parliamentary sovereignty that is at stake but the sovereignty of the electorate. After all, Parliament derives its legitimacy only from its claim to be representative. For that reason—and because few other countries can make drastic changes in their constitutions without some special procedure involving the electorate—I believe Parliament has no right to endorse any treaty emerging from Maastricht which alters our constitution substantially until the electorate has been specifically consulted. The noble and learned Lord rightly called for an informed

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debate. I think the electorate and Parliament should join in that informed debate, particularly if the treaty contains provisions which would dishonour the pledges given to the electorate in the 1975 referendum.
5.35 p.m.
Lord Wilberforce: My Lords, following on what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, I too am glad that this House has decided to debate this report We in this House are particularly well equipped to consider all aspects of Euro law-making. We have among our body a number of Members of the European Commission. We also have former Members of the European Parliament, two of whom were Members of Sub-Committee E. I am glad to note that they will speak this evening. We also have among our body a former president of the European Court of Luxembourg. Shortly we shall have two former members of that court among us when Sir Gordon Slynn joins us.
We are considering a single process which starts with a decision to legislate on some area of Community competence, continues with the drafting of legislation and debate upon it, and ends, one hopes, with enforcement. That is a general process which in the end has to be commended to public opinion. The report which the sub-committee has produced—I had the honour to participate in it—deals with the whole of the process.
As regards the decision-making process, I am particularly happy to agree with the conclusion suggested by the report against co-decision. One has only to look at the chart on page 14 of the report to realise that co-decision would introduce a process of absolutely unbearable complication. The existing process is shown on page 13. That process is elaborate enough, but it is well established and seems to work. It can sensibly be improved without impairing its essential character. Moreover, I am convinced that Article: 189, which is the key article defining the types of European legislation, should not be replaced or even supplemented by a new article defining something called a Community law. Article 189, as interpreted and somewhat expanded by the European Court of Justice—one may frankly admit that that is the case—is the whole foundation of the legal structure of the Community.
Article 189 contains two letters "i" and "n", making the word "in". The word "in" appears in relation to the phrase "in all member states". Mr. Philip Allott of Trinity College, Cambridge, has said that that phrase has changed the course of European history, having terminated the supremacy under the constitution of national parliaments.
The previous Netherland proposals, which introduced other proposals, have, I am glad to see, been omitted from the June draft with, however, a suggestion that they might be revived in 1996. I am sure that we should oppose a change in the existing article, either now or then.
I should like to comment briefly on three further points. First, there is the question of enforcement. As my noble and learned friend has said, there are different standards throughout the Community
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between those who, like the United Kingdom, are meticulous in carrying out Community legislation or directives and others who take a more relaxed attitude. Whether the divide is a north-south divide or a divide between the Protestant and Roman Catholic ethos I do not know, but it certainly exists in a very intense form. It may have a serious effect on our competitive power if it remains.
The report addresses the issue in paragraph 121, and the Luxembourg proposal does so in Article 171. So far I support the recommendations. There should be a mechanism of fines by the European Court. However, I doubt whether it is enough to require a decision by the Commission to prosecute followed by a decision of a busy court to impose the fine. The occasional sledgehammer may not be enough to overcome what is a pervasive practice. While I welcome the UK proposal for a resounding declaration to be made by member states underlining the importance of implementing Community directives, I doubt whether that will penetrate far into the minds of French farmers or the more lawless elements in Sicily or Greece.
Fines and a declaration are all very well as far as they go, but we may have to contemplate a separate compliance agency within the Community, with its own staff and with a specific duty continuously to monitor observance of Community legislation, to influence public opinion in member states and to change the ethos from a comfortable disregard of EC regulations to one of reasonable compliance to a common standard, which will not be possible overnight but must be done.
My second point relates to home affairs and judicial co-operation, which is dealt with in paragraphs 111 to 113—somewhat skeletally and even blandly. That is not the fault of the sub-committee. There was little time to prepare our supplementary report and we could make conclusions only on the basis of the evidence that we had heard. The so-called third pillar ("pillars" have entered into the jargon) may be becoming of importance. People in this country and in other countries are sensitive about their criminal and civil law. From another angle, co-operation or harmonisation in suitable cases ought to extend beyond the EC mechanism. There are the sensitive areas of asylum, immigration, border control and others. On that point I agree with the Foreign Office evidence that most of those matters would best be dealt with by co-operation outside the European Community mechanism, either by administrative co-operation or by negotiation of conventions.
I see particular objection to the suggestion that those should be the subject of European Community legislation, with implementation regulated by qualified majority voting. I also very much doubt the expediency of automatically entrusting jurisdiction over these matters, either by way of interpretation or enforcement, to the European Court of Justice. In some cases that may be acceptable and useful; in others, especially where the subject matter may extend beyond the European Community, it may not be so. I made that point a few months ago in discussions about international contracts.

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I am glad to see that in Articles B and C the June draft omits some of the more troublesome proposals contained in the April draft. However, they may be revived and this area needs to be watched carefully and taken seriously.
Finally, I should like to say a word on subsidiarity, which one cannot keep out of any debate. I was in favour of the line taken in the report that subsidiarity should be regarded as an underlying political principle rather than be stated in a prescriptive text which could then be justiciable in the European Court of Justice. However, like others who have spoken, I am alarmed by the reported proposals from Brussels relating to certain current projects in the United Kingdom concerning the environment—motorways and the Channel Tunnel. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Jay, that here, if anywhere, subsidiarity ought to have full effect, particularly since subsidiarity was introduced into the treaty mechanism in the Single European Act precisely in relation to environmental matters, and we are now concerned with environmental matters. If those particular proposals proceed I should be inclined to change my mind and let the European Court of Justice decide whether or not they or other similar proposals respect the principle of subsidiarity. Perhaps we are unduly alarmist; we must hope that we are.
With those brief comments I express my sense of privilege at having been able to work under the brilliant chairmanship of my noble and learned friend and having taken part in the preparation of the report.
5.46 p.m.
Lord Beloff: My Lords, in adding my thanks to the chairman of the sub-committee which prepared this admirable report I have to point out that I am the third successive Fellow of All Souls to take part in the debate. For that reason I do not propose to argue with my two predecessors, both of whom are senior to me. However, I wish to draw on experience of the college which is different from theirs because it is part of its functions as a teaching and research body. I have spent a great number of years, until my retirement, studying federalism, teaching about federalism and writing about federalism. For that reason I find some of the arguments about the European Community—and they arose while I was a member of Sub-Committee E—a little remote from the reality.
After watching the evolution of the Commission and of the Community, I am inclined to think that it might have been better to have a genuinely federal structure in Europe as there is in the United States, Switzerland, Canada or Australia. Then there would at least have been a democratic legitimacy for all the various levels of government. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, mentioned, the Community has contrived to get round the problem that no one wanted a federal structure by creating a set of institutions designed, and exploited, to create a centralised form of government without democratic controls.
It is, after all, a part of human nature. If one appoints a number of distinguished persons who may have held high office in their countries or who hope to
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hold high office in the future and tells them that they are Commissioners for Europe, is it likely that they will remain content with the original competence which they have been assigned and will not try by every legitimate means to extend their competence? It would be curious if they did not.
Furthermore, because the activities of the Commission are in a broad sense what we would call legislative—one could come to whether those forms of legislation are appropriate, but let us assume that the activities are legislative—you must then have—this is where the parallel with the federation comes in—interpretation by a court. It seems to me, without any disrespect to learned men from this and other countries who have served on that court, that the jurisprudence of the European Court is different in its nature and in the way that it is carried through from the jurisprudence of the courts with which we are familiar, including your Lordships' House in its appellate capacity. That is to say—this point is freely admitted by members of the court in lectures, debates and discussions—that they look not merely at the text before them and consider whether it corresponds to a power actually conferred upon the Community, but they look at it also in the light of the way in which their decision will assist in the growth of Community powers.
There has therefore been—I am no lawyer; I shall give one simple example—a blurring by the court of the distinction between a directive and a regulation and a gradual assumption of the view that a directive, which was supposed to be something for individual governments wholly to carry out into their national law, already has some direct effect on not only the governments but the citizens of member countries. It is as a result of that that we had the imbroglio with Mr. di Meana to which reference has been made. There are therefore two powerful instruments of centralisation.
Against that, we are told that the democratic deficit must be made up by the European Parliament. If I have any quarrel—and it is the mildest of quarrels —with the report of the Select Committee, it is that, although it points out the weaknesses of that parliament, it does not quite sufficiently point out the way in which, because of those weaknesses, it is wholly disqualified from acting in a serious capacity as giving democratic legitimacy to the activities of the Community.
What would be said of the United Nations if it had not been given a building of its own in New York but told that it could use the City Hall whenever Mayor Dinkins and his associates did not happen to need it? What would be said of the United Nations if it was told that there was no room in the building for its archives or its staff and that they could not be accommodated in New York, but that room could be found for them in Atlanta, Georgia? Finally, what would be said of the United Nations if it was told that its committees would have to meet alternately in Cincinnati and Louisville? We see at once if we look at that parallel—you could take a similar parallel from our own Government if our Parliament sat in York and its committees in Derby or wherever—that the

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European Parliament is an expensive farce. Only Aristophanes could do justice to that peripatetic service.
But why is that so? As we know, the European Parliament has tried to fix its location. The French Government, who are the main source of inspiration and the driving force in the Community and have been so ever since Jean Monnet and Schuman, will not sacrifice having an important institution in Strasbourg. Strasbourg has always been a problem for the French ever since Louis XIV grabbed it in the 17th century. They can make the citizens happy by having the European Parliament there. On the other hand, it is quite understandable that the citizens of Brussels—a city in which nothing important had happened before except for a ball on the eve of Waterloo—want to have as much as they can in that city. As for Luxembourg—or, as one might call it, the Ruritania of Western Europe—no one could be surprised that it gets what it can.
You therefore have a parliament that is in effect non-existent. Quite apart from the point about representing constituencies of half a million, attendance there is spasmodic; it has no inner structure for developing policy; it has no leader of the house and no leader of the opposition; and it is not a serious legislative body.
We must therefore face the fact that we are being asked, and will be asked at Maastricht and have been asked n the Luxembourg document and in the Dutch document, to hand over further powers to institutions which, apart from the Council of Ministers, have no democratic legitimacy. How can the Council of Ministers and the busy colleagues of the noble Earl —not only those in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office but the Prime Minister himself and the various government departments—act as a legislature in addition to carrying out their primary responsibilities for administering the affairs of this country?
We do not realise the extent of the talk about federalism—I agree with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter; I do not want the word "federal" there either—but we have given away a great deal already. I now regret that when I was a member of Sub-Committee E—and from what I said it can be seen why I have never been asked to serve on it again —I was not sufficiently forthright in pointing out that the so- called Single European Act, with its majority voting, was yet another breach in our affairs.
There is a great deal of talk about sovereignty. One is very much mocked if one talks about sovereignty. I am not worried about sovereignty. It is an abstraction in the same way as subsidiarity. What is important is whether the citizens of an individual country are getting what they have the right to expect from the government whom they elect and the taxes that they pay.
I do not know how many noble Lords were in the House at Question Time last Tuesday. I know that my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls was there because he raised the point. We were then told that, because of a European Community directive, the British Government were unable to pass legislation which would force manufacturers of motor cars to
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incorporate safety devices. We were told by the Minister who answered the Question for the Government that we could not have more safety, as it were, in our cars than was generally acceptable across the length and breadth of the Community. I have no doubt that this will be argued for elsewhere on the grounds of the freedom of trade, level playing fields and all the rest, but it comes to this: if someone steals a car—and there have been many sad cases of that recently—he may destroy property and, alas, as we have seen, he may destroy life—his own life or the lives of other citizens whom he happens to run down when propelling a motor car which he is unable fully to control.
Going back again to when I taught a little political philosophy, I would have thought that the first business of a government is the life and property of their citizens. It is difficult to see how we can worry about entering a federal system when in so many ways we already admit that our Government have sacrificed their primary role of protecting our lives and property. Therefore I believe that when the crunch comes—though it may deal with matters upon which perhaps other noble Lords may touch, apart from questions of aligning policies in foreign and defence affairs—we have to decide whether we want to be part of a federal structure or would rather find some way to retain our ability to deal with the problems which our own society asks us as a legislature to tackle.
6 p.m.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to express agreement —possibly for the first time—with both the noble Lords, Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Beloff, at the same time. From my point of view that is even more poignant, since in my few remarks I shall seek to extricate Her Majesty's Government from their present difficulties, which is a rather unusual role for me to play. Before doing so, I should like to express my pleasure at having been able to serve as a part-time member of Sub-Committee E under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton.
I welcome the report because it gives the House an opportunity to consider these vital matters and help formulate judgment upon them before the Government arrive at any decision in Maastricht. I must immediately say that I was a little surprised that the report spent so much time in justifying the previous decisions reached by the Select Committee. It seemed to me that in reproducing the Luxembourg text and alongside it the opinions of previous sessions of the sub-committee, there was an assumption that the Select Committee on the European Communities must have some kind of sequential history. I do not believe that that is the right way to proceed. Every committee, whose members change from time to time, should have the opportunity in the light of changing circumstances to reach its own conclusions, whatever its predecessors may have decided. Having said that, I found the report most valuable and the evidence and deliberations most helpful.
I must protect the Council of Ministers. It is responsible because it is the only final authority which,

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as the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, said, with legitimacy makes various changes to the treaty. There were the Hanover and Strasbourg meetings and the Dublin inter-governmental conference; now there is Maastricht. Each of those inter-governmental conferences resulted in amendments to the treaty, each time, oddly enough, giving more powers to the Commission.
I must absolve the Council of Ministers and therefore Her Majesty's Government from any real responsibility for that because within the terms of the treaty the Council can act only on proposals coming from the Commission. It has no independent right of action at all. So the Council of Ministers is all in a tizzy about what to do at Maastricht on the basis of a series—a whole cascade—of proposals that have proceeded from time to time from the Commission.
As it is described in its recent booklet, the Commission has been the real driving force behind the whole thing. First, one finds that these proposals originated not in the Council. The members of the Council, representing their own countries, have had no electoral pressure from below—or even representations from their own Members of Parliament—to bring forward these alleged improvements to treaties. They have come entirely from the Commission. True enough, they have been amended in consultation if they have sometimes been outrageous. But such is the origin and that is their main characteristic. On examination each new amendment to the treaty—as, for example, the Single European Act—is found always to have some "whereas" at the beginning or some proviso that may be quoted in the next step forward that the Commission desires to be made.
The final common characteristic is that in no case prior to amendment to the Treaty of Rome has there been consultation with the public or the agreement of Parliament. In every case the people have been presented with what has already been accomplished —a fait accompli—and Parliament has been invited to ratify a treaty that has already been agreed in its name by the Government without any kind of consent beforehand.
So the Commission is the driving force. Indeed, over the years that is what the Commission has been doing. I do not wish to minimise the activities of the Commission although, in his last speech to the European Parliament the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Hillhead (Mr. Roy Jenkins as he then was), somewhat summarily described the attitude of the Commission in administering the EC as running the Common Market and a few peripherals. I should not wish to go so far.
The Commission has been responsible for bringing forward proposals on harmonisation. There was a disastrous proposal about the standardisation of the sausage, a little later a ripple (shall I say?) over the standardisation of ice-cream and last week a terrific argument about the colour of tomato paste and what shade of red should ultimately be decided for circulation within the Community. Those may appear to be frivolous matters, which they truly are. But progress has been made in the harmonisation of
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company law; and measures have been taken and much time spent in apportioning the contributions that the Community receives from member states and reallocating them in the form of regional aid or as part of the Social Fund. I have no doubt that those have been admirable opportunities which have occupied a good deal of time. They have also occupied a good deal of paper. Your Lordships will be interested to know that in 1990 no fewer than 539 directives, regulations and directions were issued to the parliaments of the various member states. They were literally submerged, as are the sub-committees from time to time, under a deluge of paper.
Those are all admirable activities. However, unfortunately proper accounts were not kept. If the Commission wish to do something constructive at present in the best traditions of Government and Opposition, it could account for the money that it has received and spent. Year after year it is criticised by the Court of Auditors. Year after year it ignores such criticism. Even last year it still could not produce satisfactory accounts for the Community as a whole.
What has been the principal activity of the commissioners? It has been to increase their own powers. That has been the main drive behind all the activities of the Commission. In this House we are familiar with the best practices as exemplified in the series, "Yes, Minister". It is very easily accomplished. The Commission issues its various proposals to the Council. There is a sea of them. At the same time it issues them to the COREPER, the Committee of Permanent Representatives which sits permanently in Brussels. It meets on an informal basis not only together but with members of the Commission. It is COREPER's duty to prepare for the next Council meeting and, if possible, to arrive at a consensus. That it invariably does. Therefore when the Council members meet, whether it be ECOFIN, or whatever, there is a ready made series of proposals to which their consent is invited and which has already been agreed by all the principal civil servants involved in the Commission, COREPER and the Council secretariat. We reach a situation where the civil servants run the show.
I could not agree more with the noble Lord, Lord Beloff. Every member of the Council has his own ministerial responsibilities at home. Sometimes they are very onerous. Over the past few weeks we have seen how zealously ordinary Ministers behave in the conduct of their departments. It is common knowledge that when Ministers attend the Council meetings the first time they look at their papers is on the plane. They cannot possibly assimilate the detail that has already been worked out in COREPER. That is why we are now progressively becoming ruled by an unelected bureaucracy.
I have no particular comment to offer on individual members of the Commission. I am well aware that the European Parliament has the right to dismiss the lot of them. That is a very illusory power because that would make no difference to the function of the Commission. There are 23 directorates in the European Commission each headed by a civil servant. Quite a number of them would probably welcome the

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departure of the Commission members, who very often commit them to matters with which they may not be, entirely in agreement. That constitutes the drive towards rule by bureaucracy.
We have to make up our minds whether we should go further along that road. There are some who complain that unless we do, unless we are zealous Europeans, we shall be catching the second-class train, or that we shall be part of a two-tier Europe. Most of the people who talk in such terms have a vested interest in the further extension of economic monetary union and of political union. The large City interests, in particular banks and financial institutions, and large corporate bodies would love it. They can move anywhere they wish in Europe. They can do exactly as they wish and will not be subject to any particular democratic control. Of course they say that otherwise we should be in a two-tier Europe.
I venture to think that that is bordering on nonsense. There is already a two-tier Europe. For example, there is a group of states which obeys European law and carries it out to the letter. The leader of that group is the British Government. There are others who do not give a hang for such law, in particular Italy, at the bottom end, with several gradations in between. There is already a two-tier Europe.
Even in financial terms there is a two-tier Europe. There are those who pay into the Community funds and those who take. Britain and Germany are among those who provide the money for the remainder to take. They are in the second class, but they have been giving first-class service. Could we therefore have a little less of this two-tier myth that somehow if we do not put ourselves under the control of the bureaucracy, if we do not concur with the increase in their powers over democratically elected governments, we shall be inferior citizens? I do not believe that that is right.
I wish to get the Government off the hook if I can. The Government have divisions in their own party; indeed we have in ours. But the noble Lord is a Member of the Government and it is the Government to which I wish to address myself. Is there any real reason why the Government should compromise at Maastricht on any of their principles for the sake of being known as, or thought to be, good Europeans? It is quite ridiculous. If the Government have principles, and I presume they have—I feel very charitable today towards the Government—why do they not stand up for them? Why do they not decline to enter into any fight? Why do they not say, for example, that they will not submit to any control of their expenditure, or their fiscal or budgetary policy by the European Community? We have always understood in the popular press, and, yea, even unto The Times, that the Government were quite adamant that they would not surrender any financial control over their own finances. We have been told that repeatedly.
I have a specific question to ask the noble Lord. For greater convenience I gave him notice of it before the debate. I observed that it was stated in the Telegraph—which does not originate in Walworth Road—on 9th July:
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"Mr. Lamont … yesterday agreed to submit Budget plans for taxation and expenditure to an annual EC 'star chamber' of Finance Ministers responsible for bringing the 12 disparate national economies into line".
That sounds suspiciously like a surrender of budgetary authority. Even more recent is an article in the Financial Times of 8th October. It is stated that at a prior meeting:
"EC ministers discussed the degree of budget discipline needed to bolster a single currency. … On the table were … A ratio of national debt to GDP of not more than 60 per cent. An annual budget deficit amounting to more than 3 per cent. of GDP. An annual budget deficit exceeding its capital investment".
The concluding paragraph of the article stated:
"None the less, Mr. Lamont's active participation in the debate led Mr. Christophersen",
who is the budget commissioner,
"to comment that 'the British are clearly in their minds deep in the final stages of Emu".
I do not believe everything that I read in the press, although from time to time I incline towards the Telegraph and The Times. I shall be glad to have the Government's specific undertaking that under no account will they surrender any governmental exercise of budgetary powers, subject to the approval of their own Parliament.
I am well aware that what I have said today may be regarded by some as being old hat or by others as being the noble Lord in his usual robust manner. That is the expression normally used to avoid making any specific comment about anything that I say. However, I hope that today the noble Earl will take the matter seriously because the electorate most certainly will. There is nothing wrong in believing that democracy in one's own country is most important and that national identity and national power means something. That is the case in particular when one bears in mind not only what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, about the war but also the fact that we in the United Kingdom, whatever the imperfections, have a long history of active democracy among our people. Most of the continental countries' experience of democracy in its modern form is limited to about 40 years. We have a right to ask the Government to speak and act for Britain before anything else.
6.23 p.m.
Lord Monson: My Lords, I too wish to thank my noble and learned friend Lord Oliver for the clarity with which he introduced this excellent report. I apologise for the fact that I shall deal only with a few selected features. Although I was certain that, as always, the report would be well written and well presented, I confess that I began to read it with a heavy heart. On past precedent I expected that the general thrust would be in favour of acquiescence in, even if not necessarily enthusiasm for, still further erosions of the right of national self-determination, subject only to minor reservation about means rather than ends.
It was a gratifying surprise to find myself in broad agreement with almost every speech made today. It was also a gratifying surprise to detect in the report signs at least of seeming consensus—if not quite of actual Euro-scepticism—that things are moving too fast and, above all, too far. My final feeling was one

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of slight dejection because, albeit in strict accordance with its brief, the committee confined itself to questions of how, when and, occasionally, if. Now that the framework for the single market is firmly in place—that is, the single market from which we may expect economic benefits to flow to all consumers throughout the Community, even if not to the extent that the optimists imagine—the most important question is no longer how, when or even if. The most important question is: why? Why is it automatically assumed by so many people that the curious and ill-defined goal—that is, ever-closer unity—is self-evidently desirable? What is so desirable about unity, fusion, conformity, harmonisation for the sake of harmonisation? In what way do those goals accord with human nature as we know it? In what way do they contribute to the sum of human happiness, to the limited extent that government actions have any influence in that sphere? What is wrong with nations, whether acting individually or through the agency of a supra-national organisation such as the EC, following the old injunction, "Mind your own business", as every well brought-up adult has been taught?
One would have thought that the old maxim, "Live and let live", within the minimum requirements of a just and democratic society, is far more compatible with the traditions of a liberal democratic western civilisation than is an artificial and doctrinaire unity. An artificial unity certainly does not prevent conflict, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, will confirm. Perhaps one may—perhaps paradoxically given its provenance—repeat Chairman Mao's exhortation, "Let a thousand flowers bloom".
I do not extol variety simply for the sake of variety as a counter slogan to calls for harmonisation for the sake of harmonisation. The argument goes far deeper than that. In a thoughtful and powerful article in The Times on 3rd October Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien pointed out:
"nationalism goes back to the roots of our Judaeo-Hellenic civilisation".
He went on to point out that when members of a nation begin to feel that they are being pushed around by foreigners the result will not be harmony, friendship or tolerance but rather xenophobia.
The Government have promised that the word "federalism" will be resisted to the last. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, the British people are not interested in words but in deeds. As was pointed out by the Institute of Directors in its evidence to the committee (page 42), European federalism has already taken root whether officially described as such or not. The Institute of Directors expresses fears that:
"a federal structure could degenerate into a unitary European state".
I must tell the institute that in far too many respects such degeneration has already occurred.
It has never been explained satisfactorily why a Labour Government of the late 1970s effectively gave Greece, Denmark, Spain and other countries, whose shores are hundreds of miles from our own, control over the purity of our drinking water; especially since not one Greek, Dane or Spaniard in ten thousand
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gives a damn about the quality of our drinking water. As usual a handful of zealous ideologues in Brussels pulled the strings. What in essence has resulted from the acceptance of that directive is that the British people have been ordered to spend their own money, whether through higher taxation or higher water rates and charges, to improve the quality of their water by people who have no personal interest in the matter whatever. According to public opinion polls members of the general public approve of that because, naive and gullible as they are, they fondly imagine that the EC is paying for the improvements out of its own capacious pockets. Little do they realise that they will have to pay the extremely hefty bills.
But since May 1979 the record of the Conservatives has been far worse. Why have they condoned interference by the Community in such purely domestic matters as the hygiene of food sold only within the United Kingdom, the weights and measures of food and drink sold only in the United Kingdom, the shooting of magpies and similar pests, road safety, the size, shape and layout of new taxis, the type of paint to be applied to the exterior of historic houses? We now hear that the Germans intend to prevent us from adopting Sunday trading. Above all, why do the Government condone interference in our domestic planning decisions? As has already been mentioned, albeit after the stable door is well and truly closed, the Prime Minister has rightly been complaining vigorously in Harare. This interference may cause delays which could cost the people of this country millions of pounds.
In answer to that rhetorical question it seems to me that the inescapable reality is that there are large numbers of zealots on the Continent who sincerely subscribe to the view that Britain belongs just as much to the French, Germans and Spaniards as to the British. In fairness they also believe that Germany belongs as much to the British, French and Spaniards as it does to the Germans, and so on. They are fully entitled to that view; but the overwhelming majority of people in this country totally reject it, and I hope the Government will make that clear without equivocation to the Continentals who take that line.
In many respects the proud historic nations of western Europe now have less control over their domestic affairs than do Alberta, Tasmania, Idaho or Rhode Island. That is why I submit that the EC is already going far beyond mere federalism and is rushing towards a centralised unitary state, even if the outward trappings of ostensible national independence remain in place for the time being.
From that it follows that the Select Committee must be on dangerous ground when it urges the Government to yield to the Community over what the committee describes at para. 97 of its report as "minor delimitation of boundaries", for the appetite of zealous ideologues grows with the feeding. Far from the EC's powers being extended, those national governments which value their traditions and independence—and we accept that many countries on the Continent do not take a particular pride in their independence, particularly those which are 19th

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century creations—should start claiming back their rights, certainly in those matters which have no cross-border implications.
Apart from securing a reasonably level playing field for the single market—it is quite unnecessary for the playing, field to be as flat as a championship billiard table—what are the legitimate, as opposed to bogus, concerns of the Community as a whole? I submit that they are relatively few in number: pollution of the seas and the oceans; large scale pollution of the air; drug smuggling; terrorism; large scale Mafia-type organised crime; mass immigration and asylum seeking; serious contagious diseases, which nowadays are mainly diseases of animals—foot and mouth, rabies and so on—because apart from tropical diseases most human contagious diseases have disappeared; and cross-border consumer protection in, for example, timeshare and the peddling of other dubious investments. Almost everything else should revert to the competence of national parliaments. There is no case for giving the Community the right to dictate matters in the fields of health, education, research and development, tourism or "culture", whatever the latter may mean in this context.
Unless and until purely internal matters revert to national parliaments, there should be no question of extending the fields in which qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers can be exercised, particularly as the ostensible safeguard of requiring a 71 per cent. vote in favour before change can be effected is not quite the safeguard it seems.
Because of the weighting in favour of the smaller countries, a situation could arise in which—and I use pre-Gelman unification figures—the vital interests of 119 mil ion people (in other words, 37 per cent. of the Community's population) can be outvoted by the representatives of the other 63 per cent.
It may be said that that imbalance is not totally unfair. That may be so though I would argue otherwise. But it must surely be agreed that there is an unfair imbalance in the European Parliament. As I have said on previous occasions, in the European Parliament Britain can be outvoted on a matter affecting its vital interests by a coalition of other countries whose total populations are less than 53 per cent. of ours. Therefore, there is no case for any extension of the parliament's legislative powers until that is rectified. I am glad to see that at page 46 of the evidence Mr. Alan Tyrell wholeheartedly agrees with me on that point.
As regards the parliament's powers of scrutiny, there may well be a good case for widening those powers, but not in the field of initiating or vetoing legislation.
Looking at the visible balance of trade figures, it is obvious that the United Kingdom holds most of the cards at Maastricht. The pro-federalist countries need us far mare than we need them. Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, that the Prime Minister should politely but firmly make it clear at Maastricht to the pro-federalists and the secret enthusiasts for a unitary super-state that we decline to hand over any more of our powers to the EC; but that subject 10 the single market proceeding to plan, there
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is no objection at all to those countries which lack pride in their own statehood—for example, 80 per cent. of Italians despise their own government and would much rather be ruled from Brussels than from Rome—forming a closer association or amalgamating with one another, provided that those of us, which would include the United Kingdom, France (whatever the French may say at present) Denmark, Portugal and probably Spain, who are proud of our nationhood, are permitted to retain it unsullied. Mr. Norman Tebbit made an interesting suggestion on those lines in the Sunday Telegraph two or three weeks ago.
I conclude by referring to a remarkable article in the Independent on October 14th by the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, who I am sorry is not here this evening. I do not believe that anyone would claim that the noble Lord, Lord Rees-Mogg, still less the Independent, is in any way anti-European, either in the correct sense or the more restricted incorrect sense used by pro-federalists. What did the noble Lord write? Among other things, he wrote:
"A Brussels-based federation would … resemble a tall ship with too much sail and too little ballast, a candidate for capsizing. Only if the European system is built on loyalties that already exist will the system be stable. President de Gaulle was right. The concept of l'Europe des patries is not just preferable; it is the only viable concept".
He went on to say:
"The good Europeans now are those who want to build a European Community of independent nations, as broad as possible in terms of its membership, defined only by European culture and open in its trade with the rest of the world".
To that, one can only utter a heartfelt "hear, hear".
6.38 p.m.
Baroness Elles: My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, for his chairmanship and helpful introduction to this report. I should also like to associate myself with the thanks for the invaluable work of the legal adviser and clerks to the committee who enabled the report to be produced in such an excellent manner. It has clearly aroused a great deal of discussion this evening.
It has been a difficult operation to carry out this report because, in the first place, as the noble and learned Lord pointed out, it is not usual for parliaments to discuss documents which are part of the negotiations for a treaty. It was, so to speak, by default that the Luxembourg version of the treaty was let loose on the European Parliament. It gradually found its way to the Select Committee in the House of Lords which enabled it to be seen and members of the Select Committee on the European Communities to realise that Sub-Committee E would have a real task in being able to give an opinion on the legal effects of the draft as it stood.
The operation was further complicated by the fact that there were two versions. There was the version in April—the Luxembourg draft treaty—and a further version which appeared in June. That was at the time when Sub-Committee E was drawing its conclusions to an end. Consequently, it has not been easy for the sub-committee to draw up such a report. I repeat, therefore, that I am extremely grateful for the help we received from the clerks and the legal advisers to

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enable such a comprehensive report to be produced. I pause to add that there was a slight fear when the Dutch presidency produced a third version. There was general relief when that third version was withdrawn and is no longer the subject of discussion.
Underlying the texts which we have had before us there appear to be at least two main causes of tension. First, the three institutions involved in the Community law-making process—the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament—are all worried. The Council is anxious to retain its existing powers and the other two seek to increase their powers.
A second cause for tension derives from the conflict between those who seek, eventually if not now, a federal solution to the European Community and those who wish to retain such powers as remain to member states. Many noble Lords emphasised how far down the road the member states have gone. A large majority in the European Parliament support the federal goal—I add that I was not one of those when I was a member—and consequently favour the Commission as the eventual government in a federal structure, with the European Parliament and Council as a bicameral legislative body. It is therefore not surprising to note the tendency in the draft treaty to seek to give further decision-making powers to the Commission and increase the role of the European Parliament in the legislative process. That underlines the direction towards a federal system as originally envisaged in the structure of the Community.
The view of the Committee, which I fully share, is that it is more appropriate to consider the law-making process on its merits, to examine whether it conforms with democratic principles of openness and consultation, than to seek a determined conclusion on the future shape of the European Community. One of the difficulties is that one feels rather like the person who was asked the way to Connemara who replied, "Of course, if I was going there I wouldn't start from here". That applies to many of the problems with which we are faced in analysing the law-making process in the Community and its results.
In parenthesis, for those who are afraid of a federal solution it should be observed, as was touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Monson, that some aspects of European Community law remove the law-making powers from member states on a number of issues that are not within the law-making competence of the federal government in relation to individual states in the United States; the recent second banking directive, rights and establishment of lawyers and a common base for VAT are a few examples.
I should like to comment on two or three specific issues discussed in the report without going through the whole of it. An analysis of the provisions of the draft text on co-decision shows that the consultation procedure thereby introduced would unnecessarily delay the legislative process. Should there fail to be agreement, the proposed legislation would fall, as has already been pointed out. The European Parliament would again be granted merely a negative power, whereas the co-operation procedure which was
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introduced in the Single European Act in July 1987 has worked rather better than was originally envisaged or as many people feared. The European Parliament made a positive contribution to European Community law to the extent that 45 per cent. of amendments were accepted—these figures are up to December 1990—on first reading by the Council of Ministers and 25 per cent. on second reading. Although that is quantitative and not qualitative, it gives an impression of the contribution that the European Parliament can make to the law-making process.
I was saddened to hear the somewhat derogatory remarks of my noble friend Lord Beloff, who does not seem to be aware of the valuable work that the European Parliament is able to do from time to time. Whether the representatives from the United Kingdom step on a plane to Strasbourg or Brussels does not make much difference. They do so in order to represent the interests of the United Kingdom, whichever party they come from.
I should like to make a point in view of the kind of remarks aroused by the European Parliament. The representatives spend at least 120 nights outside the United Kingdom on duties designed to enable them to look after not only the interests of the country but also their electorate. As in the United States where there are large numbers of electors within a constituency, it is possible to receive a considerable number of letters from one's electorate, as I know myself having been a member of the European Parliament. For example, I was away for one week and on my return to the United Kingdom found 400 letters on my table regarding the culling of baby seals. That may not appear to be an important matter to many people but it was obviously important to my electorate. That meant 400 replies to explain why I did not vote in the way they wanted and involved a considerable amount of work. It is the duty of a MEP, as it is the duty of a Member of Parliament, to answer all letters from his electorate. That is sometimes not made known to the public in general and I take the opportunity of saying that we should be grateful to those members from this country who attend the European Parliament. Perhaps, without being too chauvinistic, I can repeat comments from other member states: that it is the British representatives of both parties who are the best attenders and contributors to the work of the parliament.
Having said that, it appears to be a question of extending the co-operation procedure to a greater number of areas where the European Parliament was formerly only consulted; in other words, though amendments were tabled to proposals, they were often ignored. That opens up the involvement of the European Parliament in some areas where there is not even consultation. Extension of the powers of the European Parliament to the granting of the assent procedure in all cases of international agreements, or perhaps as a modified version for minor agreements, would remove the valid objection to the present situation of the provisions of Article 113 of the treaty dealing with external commercial policy. That is an important policy both in relation to the Community as

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a whole and to the United Kingdom, particularly where there is no democratic consultation. Therefore, if the parliament was seized of the matter at least both the issues and the subject matter and conclusions of the treaty would be made known to people who may be affected by the legislation before it came into force.
I am happy to find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Monson, which may surprise him. I quote again from page 46 of the written evidence. I entirely agree also with the conclusions of my former colleague of the European Parliament, Alan Tyrell, when he said,
"the European Parliament, though steadily growing in weight and responsibility, is not yet ready to take sole legislative authority".
There are various reasons for that—the volatile attendance at committees, the volatile attendance in the plenary sessions and, above all, the fact that there is not yet a single seat. That is not the fault of the parliament; it has been pressing for many years for a single seat. It is governments which have not been able to come to a unanimous decision in accordance with the treaty. However, the parliament is seizing the matter and taking it into its own hands. It is hoped that there will be meetings in Brussels in a building near to the parliament which will be able to provide for plenary sessions.
The current legislative process to be extended in accordance with the draft treaty provisions gives considerable powers to the Commission in the drafting and adoption of secondary legislation, much of which goes completely unscrutinised by any democratic process except by government officials. Although government officials may come to a conclusion in the advisory committees, the Commission does not have to take the opinion of the advisory committees though there may be a majority of members against the proposal.
The proposed extension of competences to the Community raises the fundamental question of adequate scrutiny as well as the removal of further areas of competence from national parliaments. As the economies of the Twelve become more closely integrated it is almost inevitable that new legislation will be required at Community level. But that should be at the unanimous request of the member states. The present definition contained in the draft treaty, which has been referred to by many noble Lords, on the application of the principle of subsidiarity, would have a contrary effect; a place which gives the originating power to the Community.
It is suggested that some form of wording should be contained in the preamble along the lines of the 10th amendment of the United States' constitution which states:
"Powers not delegated to the United States by Constitul ion, nor prohibited by it to the State are reserved to the States".
Something along those lines should be included in a draft treaty which is adopted at Maastricht. If it should be agreed that further competences should be allocated to the Community and that the practice of qualified majority vote be increased there will be further justification for the accusation of a democratic deficit in the law-making process, because the
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Minister, while he has lost the vote cannot be fully accountable to the Parliament even though he may have represented his country at that vote. It will be essential for new and efficient structures, or an adaptation of existing structures, to be established between relevant committees of national parliaments and the European Parliament both to allow full discussion of legislative proposals and for the public, above all, to be able to be aware of future legislation and the shape it is taking in the process of being adopted.
From my own experiences as a former Member of the European Parliament I know that is one of the areas where an enormous number of questions were asked, particularly by industry, business, and by manufacturers. The question was constantly put: "What is going to happen with this directive?". Everything was kept secret, apart for a short period during which it appeared before the European Parliament. But even while we were discussing papers in the European Parliament we knew full well that there were Government officials in the process of coreper who were making their own negotiations and arrangements. It was very difficult as an elected member of a parliament, whichever view one takes of that parliament, if you are not able to say what is happening on a particular draft directive or regulation because so much of the practice of the Community takes place in private and in secret.
That is one of the reasons why the Commission, which after all is the drafter of legislation as well as being a guardian of the implementation and enforcement of the laws of the European Community, has become the focus of lobbying on an ever-increasing scale. The Commission itself is comprised of very able, efficient and competent officials. The Commission has an extremely open process and the officials are very willing to give information. But it is not the role of an non-elected body to be lobbied in order to take sides or to take views on draft legislation.
It is clear that my noble friend the Minister will probably be unable to give detailed replies to the kind of comments we have been making today since the Government are in the process of negotiating on behalf of this country at Maastricht. However, I am sure that my noble friend Lord Caithness will take very great care to study what has been said today. I conclude by wishing the Government well in the negotiations and in bringing them to a satisfactory conclusion for the United Kingdom.
6.56 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, this has been an interesting and well-informed debate and somewhat surprising in that support for a point of view which I have held for a long while has come from some unexpected quarters. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver, need not apologise for discussing this matter in his committee and for bringing forward its recommendations. In fact, the committee has done us a service; indeed, it was fortunate to have been able to do this service and bring out the full implications of what is proposed for the summit at Maastricht.

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I should like to thank the sub-committee for its report, especially where it expresses opposition to measures which would stimulate the present regime of creeping federalism to a full-blown rush towards western European super-statism. I particularly welcome the recommendation against the proposal for co-decision between the Council and the European Parliament not only because, as the Select Committee envisages, it would lead to disputes between the two bodies but, more importantly, because it would give a huge boost to the powers and importance of the European Parliament and a reduction, therefore, in the powers and influence of the national parliaments with a consequent boost to the creation of a centrally controlled super-state.
I very much regret the credence given by the Select Committee to the concept of union citizenship. Again, this lends support to those who wish to see individual states subsumed into a western European state. The very idea of being a citizen of Europe—a continent —appalls me. Can one imagine a Japanese person, an Indian person, or a Pakistan person agreeing to become a citizen of Asia? I was born a citizen of the United Kingdom and that is how I want to die, whenever that may be. I do not want to be a citizen of a continent. I want to be a citizen of a nation of which I am proud. So I am sorry that credence should have been given to the idea of substituting the nationality of a person to some "being" on a large continent.
I should say that I also fundamentally disagree with the committee in its support for the proposal to give the European Court the power to fine member states. How will that work? It would be unprecedented in history that a state a nation—could be fined by some outside body or some internal body, for that matter. Who is going to enforce the fine? How is it to be collected if the state says it is not going to pay? Are we going to have the new European army marching through the tunnel to arrest the Prime Minister or the Queen? How is it possible to impose such a fine on a state or nation? Let us suppose that Parliament—which I presume will still raise the money—says, "We are not going to pay the fine". Will all 650 Members of the House of Commons be arrested? Of course not. It is absurd that this should even be suggested and I sincerely hope that it will not be proceeded with.
The Select Committee's overall view seems to be that the extension of Community competence is acceptable provided its achievement is by evolutionary means. That seems to me to mean that everything is acceptable, including the sacrifice of control by Britain over economic and monetary policy, taxation, defence, and foreign affairs, provided it does not come about too soon. I disagree profoundly with that. I believe that it is fundamentally wrong in that it would tend to conceal from the people the full extent of their loss of the capacity to govern themselves in the future. That approach plays into the hands of the Euro-federalist fanatics since it has been their policy all along to conceal their real objectives behind a wall of untruth and misinformation and to obtain their objectives by concealment and stealth.
It happened in 1972, during the passage through
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both Houses of the European Communities Act, when Parliament and the country were assured that there was no possibility of a loss of sovereignty and certainly no possibility of the formation of a federal state or anything like it. Again, in 1985 we were assured when the Single European Act was going through both Houses of Parliament that union did not mean union. My noble friend Lord Bruce of Donington and I opposed the Bill from the Opposition Front Bench. My noble friend will know as well as I do that time and again we were told that the preamble to the Single European Act did not really mean what it said and that union did not actually mean union. But now we find that it really did mean union.
My noble friend Lord Bruce and I warned of the dangers of the Single European Act. Those warnings were reinforced by the powerful and expert voice of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, by the noble Lords, Lord Moran and Lord Monson, and indeed by other noble Lords. We tried, because we wanted to be helpful, to warn the then Prime Minister, Mrs. Thatcher, of the decision-making she was surrendering to the EC. However, in spite of that and in the face of the fine fight put up by a handful of Conservative and Labour MPs who had the guts, commitment and intelligence to acquaint themselves with the full implications of the provisions of the Act, it was forced through the House of Commons, despite the opposition of the official Opposition, on a guillotine, just as was its predecessor, the European Communities Act 1972. Thus, the people had no say and these wide-ranging and important Acts were forced through without proper discussion by Parliament or anyone else.
It seems that we are in the apology-making season. However, if Mrs. Thatcher has any apology to make, it ought not to be to some snivelling TV tycoon because he did not get his franchise, but to this Parliament and the people for her failure to understand the real implications of the Single European Act and for turning a deaf ear to all the warnings issued to her that she was leading the country further down the federalist path. However, it is interesting that in paragraph 93 of its report the Select Committee, with hindsight, now agrees that Article 100A is being used too widely. In fact it is being misused. It is a great pity that many people did not understand that right at the beginning. I must not be too hard on Mrs. Thatcher.
Lord Monkswell: Why not, my Lords?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I shall tell the House why not. A year ago the poor lady was stabbed in the back by the Tory Party and only last week she was stabbed in the back by a TV tycoon to whom she had written a letter of solace. I do not think that we should be too hard on her. She has had a bad time just lately. In any event she has repented. She now understands what the whole thing is all about. I hope that she will now assist in the battles ahead to prevent any further erosion of British sovereignty.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for allowing me to intervene. Does he also recall that during the proceedings in this House on the Single European Act we were repeatedly assured from the Government Front Bench that the right of veto by the United Kingdom would remain untouched?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: Yes, indeed, we were, but we know that the Ministers did not understand the implications of the Act. I feel quite sure that they were not seeking to mislead the House and therefore we must assume that they did not understand that the British veto was being removed. That was most unfortunate.
We must not overlook the fact that Ministers and their civil servants often give away powers by their own edict. They make agreements in secret but, unfortunately, those agreements sometimes come back to haunt them. One such haunting occurred last week, on an issue referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter. The Environment Commissioner told Her Majesty's Government to halt work on seven important projects which have absolutely nothing to do with the EC. How on earth can this commissioner pretend that the redevelopment of King's Cross station or the extension of the M.3 have a real EC interest?
I find it most offensive that some Italian bureaucrat should seek to issue instructions to a properly and democratically elected British Government that they should stop work on projects which are vital for Britain's well-being and which have been through all the democratic procedures laid down by our planning laws. If Signor Carlo Ripa Di Meana is so concerned with matters environmental, perhaps he can turn his attention to Italy, where his fellow countrymen slaughter millions of birds every year and, indeed, seem to have a policy of shooting anything that moves to satisly their bloodthirsty hunting appetites.
I have already said that the Select Committee concedes too much to the federalists and that it has too easily accepted that further amendments to the treaty are necessary. There has certainly been no call from the people or Parliament for any such revisions. All the pressure is coming from our so-called partners who, I am afraid, so often sound more like our enemies than our friends and seem to enjoy embarrassing the British whenever the opportunity arises. The evidence of the frenetic desire of other member states to gallop towards federal union was contained in the Dutch proposals which were published after the committee reported. Apparently they have now toned down their demands but the very fact that those extreme proposals saw the light of day shows that some countries of the EC want to go in for the formation of a West European state, come what may.
The proposals that are to be discussed at Maastricht will be very far reaching indeed. They will probably be a precursor to even more erosion of our sovereignty. The people of this country will not have been consulted in any way. We are told that referenda are alien to our constitutional process and that the best place for these matters to be discussed and
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decided is in Parliament itself. But, unfortunately, experience thus far has shown that the decisions are taken not on the basis of freedom but of whipped votes on a guillotine Motion. Therefore, it is essential that at this point Members of Parliament of all political parties, and indeed of none, should combine to ensure that before further erosions of our sovereignty are embarked upon the people of this country are consulted in a wide, properly conducted, fair and properly financed referendum. That is the only legitimacy that can be given to any further loss of our self-governing powers. I sincerely hope that the Government will consider the matter and reconsider their opposition to such a referendum.
7.11 p.m.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, I was surprised to learn from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver, that it was unusual to have this sort of debate on a report while negotiations were still taking place. That was something I did not know. Therefore, if by accident we are doing so now, I hope that, by accident, we have started what will become the usual case in the future. If Members of either House can make any contribution in terms of letting the Government know what is the general feeling through their contact with constituencies, that ought to be put into use before the negotiations have been completed. That is what is happening today. As I said, I was surprised to learn that it was not usual, but I hope that we are treading on a path which will become normal procedure in the future.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, finished his speech by making a great appeal for a referendum. To me it was always nonsense that when we had a referendum on the Common Market it took place after we had signed up and joined and when there was nothing anyone could do about it. It seemed to me to be a complete waste of effort, other than to give a sort of smokescreen of legitimacy to what the Government had done when they perhaps had doubts as to whether or not they were representing the real views of the people.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, and I battled hard for many years, long before any signatures were given. We pointed out the weaknesses as we saw them in the Treaty of Rome. They were pretty obvious, but many of them, especially those concerning the common agricultural policy, have come home to roost. What a pity that that warning was not taken fully into account before the signing and the referendum on that occasion. It was very important. Some of us felt strongly as to whether we should proceed with the Treaty of Rome long before it reached the signing stage.
I was normally ambitious and had taken some trouble to become a parliamentary candidate. This happened in 1938. I fought several elections to be elected in 1950. To my joy and, I suppose, to my satisfaction I had only been in the other place for four years when I was made a junior Minister. Despite all that effort I resigned from that office because I thought that the issues which would flow from the Treaty of Rome were dangerous enough and big

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enough for me to do so—whatever my personal ambitions might have been. I believe that a debate such as this, trying to make a contribution before the document is signed, sealed and delivered, is a sensible way of dealing with important matters.
The report of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver, is the best to have come from Sub-Committee E in terms of facing up to the facts as the majority of people see them. I hope that the Government will pay a great deal of attention to it and will base any negotiations on the knowledge which the report provides.
However, having said that, the noble and learned Lord said, in terms of the negotiations and the future, that provided we are bargaining from equal bargaining positions he could see some hope that we could perhaps, even now, arrive at a point which would be beneficial to Europe and to this country. I am only concerned about it being for the benefit of this country. There are many issues on the table regarding problems surrounding the EC where I can see that, if one looked at it as a theory, what is being suggested would be good for Europe. However, when I look at it again and discover that being good for Europe will mean that it will be pretty detrimental, in my view, to Britain, I do not think that that is something about which we should start cheering.
If we can get to a point where we have a settled line which is fair and in the interests of Britain as well as Europe, then we can go ahead. We have not yet reached that position. I do not think that it is possible to achieve equal bargaining positions with the European Twelve as it now is.
Having opposed the Treaty of Rome and having been very critical of many parts of it after it had been signed, I thought that if one wished to be so critical one had better find out what it was all about, or at least as much as one could. Therefore, although I had had my fill of having to fight elections, I put myself forward and was elected to the European Parliament.
The message I bring back from that parliament is one of which I hope the Government will take heed and which I believe to be very well based. The reason we must not go further along the road now being set out (and the reason I support the noble Lord, Lord Monson, in what he said about us having gone too far too fast) is that the one ingredient essential for the theory of the EC to work and which is absolutely vital is not there: the affinity between the 12 nations does not exist. There is a definite, deeply felt difference which has nothing to do with logic or with many of the theories which were put forward and argued in the report. But it is vital if the EC as we see it is to be capable of replacing to any great extent the job that our present home Parliament carries out.
I believe that we were misled—partly deliberately —in those years by people who were what the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, called "European fanatics". In order to get the legislation through they said things and promised things that gave assurance to people who had not dug as deeply as some of us had tried to do.
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The question just put during the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, is relevant: why have we allowed the power of the veto to be removed? When we were offering sound criticisms about the dangers which would flow from the theory put in front of us, we were told, "We've got the veto. It is there. It can't happen. We don't want it to". But we have moved away from that. All down the line we have seen that the safeguards which we were told were there and which, therefore, made nonsense of some of our criticisms have been allowed to be removed. They are there no longer.
The Government will be going into important, detailed negotiations in Maastricht. We know that they have reached a certain point. The only thing we can do today is to hope that they will take into account the overriding feeling that has been expressed during this short debate. I have heard no enthusiasm at all for moving further along the road which removes the power from the Westminster Parliament to somewhere else. There has been no sign of it. That fact ought to be taken into account.
We must also be careful that we are not being outmanoeuvred. This game of national, and certainly international, politics is surrounded by manoeuvres.
We must bring home the message that there is no question of federation being included in any of the decisions that are taken. We must be certain that although the word may not be included neither is its meaning. One of Europe's top legal experts has been charged with a nearly impossible task: the elimination of the dreaded word "federation" from the new Common Market treaty. He has allowed himself to be quoted. He refuses to have his name mentioned but he has not denied the quotation:
"If at the end of the negotiations on political union, it is quite clear that the word federal is not acceptable to some delegations, we have to think of ways of improving the text MPs have this feeling of belonging to a sovereign body which is threatened by the powers of the Community … Britain genuinely was sovereign until so recently … If 'federal' is to be excised, something equally ambitious must be found in its place".
It is not good enough to remove the word but to retain the intention which it contained.
I give my noble friend another warning to pass on. It may sound cynical and melodramatic, but I wonder how genuine is the Dutch proposal and its withdrawal. I wonder whether it was ever believed that the Dutch proposal, with its federalist approach, would be accepted. In the event it was turned down by 10 votes to two. Your Lordships may call me cynical but one is aware that similar things happened in regard to matters of equal importance. They resulted in war. I wonder whether the Dutch proposal was included to make the Luxemburg proposal, upon which they had to fall back, appear more respectable. It is rather like the chap who put his foot out of the warm bed so as to have the joy of feeling the warmth when he brought it back in again.
Those who believe in federation—there are some who do and they are entitled to—are likely to gain if that happens. We talk about sovereignty, but many people have never had a parliament with the

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sovereignty that our Parliament has enjoyed which has been built up over the centuries. That is why we are sometimes looked upon as the odd man out.
Let us consider what was said about the single currency. I was looking at this matter the other day and I found it interesting. Belgium said, "Oh yes, we believe in it". Denmark said, "Yes, but you have to be tough about the convergence criteria". Germany said, "Yes, put be tough on the convergence criteria". Greece said, "Yes, but little hope of joining this century". Spain said, "Yes, but we want more cohesion money". They want the cash. Ireland says the same, "Yes, but we want cohesion money". That is not a level playing field.
Ireland provides a good example. I am fond of Ireland. I have friends with businesses there. Ireland is being financed by European money to an unbelievable level. When the principle of a single currency is brought up Ireland says, "Yes, we will have that, provided we receive the cohesion money that makes it worth while". I am not making those points out of cynicism but out of a true belief. It is because I believe that we have moved away from the principles to which we said we would stick when we first joined the Community that we must give the Government, and in particular the Prime Minister, who will be the main negotiator, the message that we expect him to stand by what he has said. He has spoken clearly. He must not be beguiled by the reaction to what he said about style. People were always unfair when they spoke about Mrs. Thatcher's megaphone diplomacy. She was supposed to have spoken truculently. It was not how she said it but what she said that mattered.
We have a new Prime Minister who recognised that megaphone diplomacy had become unpopular, effective though the arguments behind it were. He should not be led astray by having his back slapped for having adopted a more persuasive attitude. He is thought to be a kind chap, a good fellow, who is interested in cricket and therefore works only in accordance with the highest principles. We want him to be tough, whether he talks loudly or softly, when he is looking after this country's interests.
I ask that the message given by my noble friend Lord Whitelaw last Wednesday during the defence debate is taken into account when this matter is considered. I use his words:
"There is therefore time for reflection by the Government. I hope, therefore, that there will not blow up … an obstinate determination to cling to the present plans whatever the changes i n circumstances."—[Official Report, 16/10/91; col. 1130.]
He finished by saying that he hoped that the opportunity would be taken to change the plans if there was good reason to do so. Previous plans have not passed the test. We were promised an economic partnership, and all sorts of extreme political manoeuvres which would rob Britain of its independence have been foisted upon us. I hope that that fact is recognised and that my noble friend's words will be taken into account and acted upon by the Government at Maastricht.
7.28 p.m.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I am sorry that I was not present at the start of the debate. I had intended to take part but, having arrived late, I thought that I would not bother as there seemed to be enough people speaking. However, having listened to a few speakers I felt compelled to contribute. First, I thank the committee for producing an interesting and useful report. I was asked a couple of years ago whether I was for or against Europe. I replied that that was an irrelevant question; that it was not a question of whether I was for or against Europe but rather whether we should work with the people of Europe to develop democracy and to achieve positive results. That is one of the main reasons why I am contributing to the debate.
Let me give two practical examples of how we can work together. First, there is water, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Monson. I was curious as to why he was against European standards of clean water. It seems to me that we all hope that the water which we are given to drink and the water which we bathe in when we go to the seaside is clean. Whoever draws up the standards and however they are extended across nations and continents, we hope that the standards will be high.
Lord Monson: My Lords, the noble Lord asked me a question so perhaps I may reply. At any time during the past 50 years the British people, if they had so chosen, could have voted in a government who had promised to spend more taxpayers' or water rate payers' money on cleaner water. The fact that they did not choose to vote in such a government indicates that they are quite happy with the situation.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I take the noble Lord's point, although I am not sure I agree with it.
The noble Lord asked why the people of Greece should be interested in the standard of British water. One reason I can think of is that there is far more travel across Europe now than in the past. People who live in Greece or Denmark can quite easily visit this country and vice versa. When we travel in Europe we hope that the tap water we drink is of a high quality. We have a vested interest right across Europe in high standards. I hope that there will be common standards of, dare I say it, environmental quality for water, air and other things.
Having agreed that that is a desirable aim because of the movement of people, one is faced with the ultimate decision on how to arrive at common standards and how they should be implemented. It seems to me logical, partly because we are used to it and accept it as good, to devise democratic mechanisms whereby we can agree among ourselves on the standards we wish to see and implement enforcement regimes which are common under a democratic procedure. I put it to your Lordships that that is what we are trying to do with the evolving political structures of Europe.
Another useful example is ice-cream; interestingly, it has been in the news recently. I gather that during the war the production of ice-cream was banned so for

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a number of years people had no experience of it. When production resumed it was not real ice-cream but a mass produced product which did not include much cream because there was not much around just after the war. The product was sold as ice-cream and people became used to it.
Then a young research chemist devised the injection of air into ice-cream and we had plastic ice-cream filled with air. It is unfortunate that children have grown up over the past few years without the opportunity of consuming real ice-cream. They have been given an adulterated product that has been messed about. It is interesting that it was Margaret Thatcher who was involved in blowing air into ice-cream. She was responsible not only for reducing the amount of ice-cream that children enjoy but reducing the amount of milk they were given in schools. That seems to run right through her history. If the EC can bring in standards so that British children are given proper, decent, wholesome ice-cream, three cheers for the European Community.
As concerns democracy, I agree that we do not need a federal state to achieve that. But all we have at the moment, as I see it, is the European Community and we have to consider how to develop it in a democratic way. One or two people have a curious attitude to democracy. The noble Lord, Lord Beloff, was not sure whether he wanted us to talk about "citizens" or "subjects".
Lord Beloff: My Lords, if the noble Lord comes in late and takes up time when we are waiting to hear the official responses of the political parties he might at least refer correctly to what was said. I never mentioned "citizens" or "subjects" in my speech, as he will see if he reads Hansard tomorrow. He ought not to behave in this way but let us get on with the serious debate in which we were engaged.
Lord Monkswell: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Lord but I was here for his speech and thought I heard him hesitate in mentioning "citizens" and "subjects". But I shall take his word for it and read Hansard tomorrow. The point I was trying to make is this. My concept of democracy is the ability of people to work together—not one group of people telling another what to do.
Another issue raised is where the European Parliament should meet. That is an interesting point. We need to bear in mind that over the past few years the European Community has grown. With the changes that have taken place in central and Eastern Europe, there is every likelihood of the European Community growing even more. I wonder whether we should think of alternative sites for meetings of the European Parliament. Strasbourg or Brussels could be too far to the west if we consider central and Eastern Europe being included within a wider European Community. We may have to think in terms of Warsaw or Budapest as the natural seat of the European Parliament. I hesitate to mention Berlin; there has been one attempt this century to use that city and no one found it satisfactory so the idea was abandoned.
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Finally, I am concerned about concentration on the nation state as the sole expression of democracy. We do ourselves a disservice and we do the strength of our own local democracy, local government, a disservice by that. We must be more relaxed when we think in terms of democracy. We need local and national institutions of democracy; we need continental systems of democracy. Eventually I hope that we could aspire to a world system of democracy which would make the world a better place. That is why I hope that we shall make progress in building on the admittedly imperfect democratic mechanisms within the European Community. We should aim to make them better and not argue that we should do away with them altogether.
7.40 p.m.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I had the privilege of being a Member of the sub-committee that produced this report. As most noble Lords have done, I too wish to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, for chairing the sub-committee. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, in thanking our legal adviser for his role in producing the report with such enormous speed and so efficiently.
Many noble Lords have said that it is unusual to study proposals which have not yet been formalised or decided upon. It has become apparent during this afternoon that there is tremendous concern about these proposals among Members of your Lordships' House. That concern has been shown by the number of speakers who have taken part in this debate on a Monday afternoon the day before Prorogation.
Before I highlight a number of areas in the report, I must refer to the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said that the concept of Europe only became possible as a result of Britain's action in the war. I agree 100 per cent. with that statement. I was not born in this country and I learnt more about Britain in the period during the war than I have ever learnt since. I remember vividly travelling from Tring to work in the Ministry of Information in 1940, the day after France fell. I entered the train compartment to find the usual five or six people I travelled with. Not being a British person I was deeply depressed at the state of affairs that then persisted and I wondered what would happen. The other people in the compartment said, "Thank God we are on our own. We now know what we can do". I felt enormous admiration for the British resilience and for their belief in themselves.
I feel it is a pity that, having led Europe back to freedom during the war, we opted out once the war ended. We did not attend the Messina Conference and we did not think it was worth while taking part in discussions aimed at achieving an ever closer union in Europe. That thinking applied to both political parties after the war. It is a pity that we did not maintain that wartime spirit.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, has said that he values his UK citizenship, as we all do. The noble Lord said he did not want to be a citizen of Europe and that he was born a UK citizen and wished

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to remain that way. I agree with that sentiment. I was not born a UK citizen but I have been one since 1940. I want to remain a UK citizen. However, people who are born in Scotland, Wales or Ireland will declare that they are Scottish, Welsh or Irish respectively as well as being UK citizens. I claim that we can be UK citizens and also citizens of the European Community. The Name analogy applies in both cases.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, I simply do not agree with that sentiment because Scotland and Wales have been nations in their own right for a long period of time. The point I was making is that nationhood makes a person feel that he belongs somewhere, whereas a continent does not convey that feeling of belonging. That is the point I was making. I am happy to be a citizen of Europe in the wider sense and I want more co-operation with Europe. However, I hoc e the noble Baroness now understands how I feel about being a United Kingdom citizen.
Baroness Robson of Kiddington: My Lords, I feel the same way about being a United Kingdom citizen, but that does not prevent me from also wanting to belong to a greater Europe. The report considers the most important aspect of the matters raised by the Luxemburg document concerning co-decision between the European Parliament and the Council. The proposal is based on the assumption that the European Parliament is more democratic than the Council. I do not believe that that is the case. Apart from the lack of transparency of the Council's deliberations—that situation could be improved upon and does not have to remain the way it is—both the Council and the European Parliament are democratically legitimate bodies. The co-operation procedure introduced in the Single European Act has enabled bodies monitoring and seeking to influence Community legislation to make their views known not only to Ministers but to others exercising legislative powers.
The proposal for co-decision between the Council and the Parliament, with neither party having the final say, would undoubtedly lead to prolonged wrangles and often to a state of affairs where no decision is taken. It is possible that the most desirable legislation would not be implemented because of lack of agreement. How many organisations where co-decision is involved have no final arbiter? We cannot accept, therefore, the co-decision proposal.
It is a pity that this proposal appeared so quickly after, mother change to the system—the introduction of the co-operation procedure. That procedure has only been functioning for four years and it needs to run for a longer period before it can be fully assessed. Another problem to be confronted is that of the working conditions in the European Parliament. That matter was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Elles, and deserves the most urgent attention of member states. The European Parliament must be empowered to make its own decisions on that matter before we even consider giving it new powers or procedures.
The sub-committee received evidence from Mr. Alan Tyrell, who said,
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"Parliament is in no position to carry the responsibility for legislation whilst it is segregated from its staff, its files and the other Institutions, and only has the use of its rented building one week in four".
He pleads for the European Parliament to be able,
"to decide where it should meet and where its secretariat should be located".
That problem is not new and has been raised year in and year out. The working conditions of the parliament is one of the most important matters that must be decided at Maastricht.
A further matter of great importance to all the countries in the European Community concerns the principle of subsidiarity. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, has recounted how the sub-committee came to the conclusion that subsidiarity as a principle should be added to the objectives in the preamble to the EC treaty. It should be the guiding principle in all legislation and the principle should be based on an understanding that Community action should be taken only when it is necessary to achieve a specific objective. It is essential that subsidiarity remains a political principle which should influence all the legislative processes in the Community. The responsibility for the definition of subsidiarity should lie with legislators and not with judges.
The next item is the extension of qualified majority voting. It is agreed that that is necessary when a large number of decisions have to be implemented within a limited time. It is being used to complete the internal market. In the case of financial decisions such as the budget, the CAP and commercial policy, qualified majority voting has been used and agreed upon. However, we must guard against further extension of qualified majority voting in case it comes to be used purely to speed up decisions. It can often prevent true criticism being voiced and the resolution of differences between nations.
Qualified majority voting should not be used solely as a process for speeding up decisions where there are major differences within the Community. If used in that way it can disregard the democratic process. Although qualified majority voting has its place, it is essential that it is not extended in such a way as to remove the possibility of questioning and in some cases slowing down decision-making where that might be necessary to enable people and nations to think carefully about the next step towards closer unity.
I have listened to all the speeches that have been made—except for one when I disappeared for a few moments. As a dedicated European, but not so dedicated that I cannot see the pitfalls, I have been saddened by the number of speeches which were not in favour of the Community. There appeared to be a feeling in the House that we have got into this situation, we have agreed to certain things but we do not want to go any further. As a European I feel that if we went into Europe purely for economic advantage and for no other reason we should not have done so. I hope that the impression that I gained is not representative of this House.
7.54 p.m.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, the Select Committee on the European Communities has, under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Serota and her predecessors, produced many important reports since it was first established some years ago. Those reports are appreciated both in this country and abroad.
The report we are debating today is of truly critical significance because it deals with the development of the democratic process in the Community, with the powers of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission and their relationship with national parliaments, including our own. It goes to the heart of the problem which many people in this country are discussing; namely, the extent to which the powers of our own Parliament will be affected if the proposals currently under discussion are passed and implemented.
This excellent report, for which we are much indebted to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver, and the noble Lords who sat with him on the committee, recognises and analyses that in paragraph 12. It also helps us to clarify our minds about the structure and powers of the European Community at a crucial moment in its development. For that reason it is immensely valuable to all of us and especially to the Government.
In the impressive speeches we have heard in this debate—and I tend to agree with the noble Baroness that there was some lack of balance—noble Lords have dealt with the main issues in the report. My comments will therefore be brief, bearing in mind also the debate which is to follow.
The House will recall that we had a debate nearly 12 months ago, on 22nd November 1990, upon the report of the committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Aldington. At that time, as my noble friend Lord Stoddart has reminded us, Mrs. Thatcher had just resigned as Prime Minister and Mr. John Major had assumed the office. Noble Lords will recall that Mrs. Thatcher held and still holds very firm views on the amount of power which Britain should concede. I remember that she argued very strongly that monetary union in the form of a single currency would detract substantially from the sovereignty of this country. That caused a division in the Government at that time and a great deal of debate. It would be helpful if the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, would explain the Government's present attitude when he winds up the debate.
The report deals very sensibly with the issue of co-decision and concludes that the concept as between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament is "inherently unsound". In referring to that issue the noble and learned Lord summarised the report cogently and clearly in his excellent speech. We are grateful to him for that.
The report argues that the concept contains a fundamental flaw because if the Council and the Parliament disagree on a text neither has the last word. There could thus be endless argument between them and that is clearly undesirable. We know what happens when this House and the other place are in
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disagreement. In the past that has had profound constitutional consequences. That must be avoided at all costs in the development of the European Parliament and the Council.
We—the Labour Party as a whole—think that there is a strong case for giving the European Parliament powers to initiate legislation and for it to have some form of co-decision with the Council. That would obviously need further thought but it is worthy of consideration and I should value the noble Earl's reaction.
Further, on the important question of subsidiarity, which has been mentioned in most speeches, we note that in paragraphs 90 to 92 the report favours including the principle in the preamble to the treaty only. Here again is a strong argument for at least stating the principle formally in the treaty with clear references to the areas in which it should apply. There is, of course, the question of finding a clear definition of subsidiarity, and I should appreciate the noble Earl's views. The report gives a good definition of subsidiarity and I shall be grateful if the noble Earl will tell us whether the Government accept that interpretation on that important point. Otherwise we could well find ourselves in very deep water, as the noble and learned Lord has indicated.
The area of which the House will wish to take special note is the possible extension of EC competence. That is dealt with on page 21 and in Articles 2 and 3 of the treaty on the union. That also deserves our very careful attention, as the noble and learned Lord suggested in his speech. We must understand that conferring important new tasks upon the Community would remove legislative power from this Parliament and others. The new tasks are listed in paragraph 58 of the report. Noble Lords will have noted that they are extensive and of central importance, including energy, the environment, consumer protection, economic and monetary union, and so on.
Noble Lords have referred to an area which needs to be handled very carefully, as the European environment commissioner's letter to the Secretary of State for Transport, Mr. Malcolm Rifkind, last week illustrates. Noble Lords have referred to that point. The commissioner alleged that Britain had violated an EC law requiring detailed environmental assessment of construction projects. A number of roads, including the Twyford Down scheme, are objected to as well as projects such as a soft drink manufacturing plant in Northampton.
Those matters must be clarified carefully not only in the interests of Parliament but in the interests of the people of this country. I am worried about those matters. We have noted the criticism in some quarters and I hope that the Minister will let us know the Government's views and what action they propose to take. I should also be grateful if he would tell us precisely how the procedures work. Do inspectors from Brussels investigate every project in detail, and are there discussions between them, the construction companies, local authorities and Government representatives which give an early indication that objections will follow?

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As the House knows, we on this side are not averse to amending existing co-operation procedures to include, for example, social matters, but we recognise the real difficulties that will inevitably arise when clashes occur between the actions of the British Government and the Commission. However, it must be said that Britain has a good record when it comes to observing European Community directives and laws including environmental directives. This cannot, regrettably, be said of other countries. The Commissioner, Signor di Meana, could have handled the matter rather more carefully against that background.
Perhaps I may now turn to the future framework of the treaty, bearing in mind that the implication of the draft political union treaty is that the member states remain independent and sovereign. This again is a sensitive area and is dealt with on pages 33 and 34 of the report. Any further moves towards the diminution of independence or sovereignty and towards federation would, as I understand it, require another treaty.
Much confusion, irritation and argument has arisen over the past few years because of a failure to agree upon the meaning of certain crucial words; for example, sovereignty and subsidiarity are two that I mentioned earlier. Federalism is another, as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, and his colleagues have been helpful in seeking to define those words, as in the case of federalism on page 9 of their report. As they say—this point is of interest—some countries in the Community would regard Britain as a federation if there was devolution to Scotland and Wales, whereas constitutionalists in this country would not go so far. Incidentally, we should ponder carefully the interesting and thoughtful remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, on federalism and the weaknesses of certain aspects of Community administration as he sees it at present.
Common foreign and defence policy is another area where clarity of definition is essential, as otherwise we may find ourselves at odds with France and Germany. All of us in this House agree that a policy of "Europe goes it alone regardless of NATO" is not acceptable. France can contemplate that without difficulty because France is not a member of NATO, but this country's long and close association with the United States makes it unthinkable that we could sever or wantonly damage that relationship. Let me put it plainly, as did the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter: if it w, Tire not for the United States as our ally, there might well have been no democracy and no individual freedom in Europe or Asia during the past 45 years. I say that with the utmost respect to all our partners in the Community.
Of course, there have been profound changes in Europe and NATO must adapt to that, and Europe, for its part, must assume more responsibility for its own defences. However, uncertainties in the world make it essential that there should be a close relationship between the two, based properly on the Western European Union, and that there should be open and public debate on this matter. That has been lacking over the last two years or so.
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Finally, the report could not appear at a more convenient moment as the 12 European Community leaders prepare for the Maastricht summit. They have a huge task before them. The reaction to the Dutch draft treaty on political union showed that. I wish the Prime Minister well in his task and I hope that he will take this report, well-thumbed, with him to Maastricht. There is a change in Government attitudes. That is indeed necessary because it would be fatal if Britain became marginalised in relation to decision-making in Europe. On the other hand, the implications and complexity of the work that lies ahead calls for a measured approach and a willingness to listen to Parliament and to the people of this country. This valuable report assists us in that direction.
8.5 p.m.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (The Earl of Caithness): My Lords, this has been, as one would have expected of such a subject at such a time, a most stimulating debate. That is partly due to the range of views expressed and the cogency, clarity and commitment with which noble Lords on all sides of the House have made their case. But it is also due, despite the difficulties mentioned by my noble friend Lady Elles, to the quality of the report before us from the Select Committee on the European Communities. I too should like to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, and the members of the Committee for the excellent work that they have done. I can assure the House that my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State will read today's debate with care and interest.
This report on law-making procedures is only the latest in a series of valuable and informative documents produced by the Committee spanning the Community's development through the Single European Act and beyond. Their report on political union and economic and monetary union published in October last year was a particularly valuable and timely introduction to the negotiations then about to commence, even though the Government did not agree with all the report's conclusions.
This latest report comes at an equally critical moment and belies its limiting subtitle in the depth and scope of its analysis of the political union debate. It is a most valuable contribution to the debate, clearly argued and thankfully lacking in the emotive responses which have in the past tended to make discussion more rather than less difficult. I particularly welcome the clear exposition of the notions of sovereignty and federalism which preface the body of the report. I agree with my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter that the word "federalism" is inappropriate in an international treaty. That point was echoed by a number of your Lordships. I only hope that such clear-minded, objective thinking will also inform debate elsewhere.
The range and depth of our debate today, and even more so of the negotiations between member states in the IGC, show that there is still a great deal to resolve and time to reflect before a treaty acceptable to all can

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be agreed at the Maastricht European Council in December. We want an agreement, and believe it is in Britain's and Europe's interests to achieve one; but not on any terms. No doubt some members states wish to move towards federation, as my noble friend Lord Harmar-Nicholls suggests, but I must tell my noble friend that the Community will march in step or not at all. The Prime Minister will simply not sign a treaty which he does not feel he can commend to Parliament. Our partners should have no illusions about that. Of course, we are negotiating constructively, but the detail matters.
There is a daunting agenda of substantial problems which we have yet to resolve. They include: powers of the European Parliament, both legislative and non-legislative; extensions of Community competence, whether extension of existing practice, or bringing substantial new policy areas within the treaty; whether or not to extend the use of qualified majority voting and, if so, in which areas; a major debate about the extent to which the Community should legislate on social policy; how to give effect to the principle of subsidiarity, which all agree should in principle apply to Community activity; how to make the Community institutions more effective and efficient, and to strengthen the rule of law; and, how to involve national parliaments more closely in the work of the Community—a substantial agenda in a short period of time.
The Committee's report, while focusing on the concept of co-decision and the law-making procedures of the Community, also offers views on all these difficult and contentious issues. Your Lordships have likewise raised these central points during the course of our debate, and I should like to respond to some of the questions asked.
The noble Lord, Lord Jay, referred to the existence of a democratic deficit in the Community. The committee's report rehearses succinctly the argument that legislation enacted as a result of a decision taken in the Council by qualified majority voting lacks democratic legitimacy, which should be restored by incorporating a greater role for the European Parliament into such decision-making. The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that we remain unconvinced by that argument.
The use of qualified majority voting in the council cannot blithely be equated with the loss of democratic legitimacy. National parliaments exert considerable influence on the debate leading to qualified majority voting decisions, and whatever the voting arrangements, decisions taken by representatives of 12 member states will inevitably involve compromises, great and small.
While on the point of qualified majority voting, I am reminded that the noble Lord, Lord Monson, spoke on what he considered the detrimental influence of other countries' views on the United Kingdom as a result of qualified majority voting. Yet he did not balance that with the influence of the United Kingdom on other countries. Perhaps the single market, which
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is of such benefit to us, is the best example of something which would not have been agreed without qualified majority voting.
My noble friend Lady Elles raised the special case of a supposed democratic deficit in trade matters under the treaty, Article 113. I cannot accept her view. As she will know, the Article 113 committee appointed by the Council of Ministers maintains a very close watch on progress in negotiating the international trade agreements to which she referred. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and the noble Baroness, Lady Robson, remarked, the democratic legitimacy of the Community rests on both the Council and the European Parliament, on the responsibility of members of the Council to national parliaments and on the directly elected representative character of the European Parliament. In our view, both those expressions should be reinforced and the links between them strengthened.
There is a tendency in discussing the role of the European Parliament to dwell exclusively on its powers to legislate. But, as we know, that is not the only role of the European Parliament or indeed of any other parliament. In the IGC we have suggested ways in which the European Parliament can play a greater role in scrutinising the activity of the Commission in two important areas. The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, will be pleased to know that ensuring financial probity is one of the areas in which we seek to strengthen the powers of Parliament to scrutinise the Commission. The other area which will commend itself to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, will be monitoring the way in which the Community's commitments are honoured throughout the member states—something that is lacking at the moment. Those are important tasks which the European Parliament could perform more effectively, although I listened with care to the case made by the noble and learned Lord for a separate compliance agency.
There are a number of other less headline-grabbing proposals for enhancing the European Parliament's role in the non-legislative sphere, which we can support. Taken together, those measures add up to a significant enhancement of the powers and responsibilities of the European Parliament. They are not powers for taking decisions or for making laws and may therefore disappoint European parliamentarians; but they are the meat and drink of parliamentary government, the checks and balances on policy makers and policy implementers which are at the heart of any democratic system. They are the foundation on which Westminster has been built.
Let me now turn to the legislative powers of the European Parliament, which are the focus of the committee's wide-ranging report and our debate today. In the heat of a complex negotiation which I hope is now nearing its conclusion, it is easy to lose the necessary sense of perspective. Let us be clear that, despite the strongly argued case of my noble friend Lord Beloff for the parliament being no more than a figment of our imagination, the European Parliament has developed gradually over the years to play an ever more important role in Community affairs.

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The Single European Act of 1987 substantially increased its role, notably in the legislative sphere, with the introduction of the co-operation procedure. We tend to agree with the feelings of the committee that the co-operation procedure itself is only now bedding down into the structure of the Community and we wonder whether we or the parliament are ready for a further step change in its legislative role so soon after the last one. In practice the parliament already has considerable influence over Community legislation in many fields.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos, stated that his party's policy was to give the right to the European Parliament to introduce legislation. We do not go that far but we do not rule out some change in the arrangements for the European Parliament's involvement in legislation. However, we wish to avoid too great a shift in the institutional balance at a time when the Community needs to be strong, stable and ready to face the challenges elsewhere in Europe. We believe that that is a view shared by the committee. Indeed the committee concluded, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, reminded us earlier, that the concept of co-decision between the Council and the European Parliament is inherently unsound.
My noble friend Lady Elles endorsed the point made by the committee that instead of co-decision it favours extending the involvement of the European Parliament in Community law-making through further extension of the co-operation procedure. We recognise the force of that argument. The cooperaijon procedure was introduced under the Single European Act in association with qualified majority voting for measures designed to implement the single market. To extend the use of the co-operation procedure to other areas where qualified majority voting applies, on the face of things would be less of an upheaval in present procedures than the introduction of substantial new powers.
However, that is not a positive argument in its favour. There are large areas of decision-making by qualified majority voting where it would be impractical to employ the co-operation procedure. I think n particular of the many measures taken under the common agricultural policy where the involvement of the European Parliament would inevitably cause delay. Therefore we are not convinced that any significant areas exist in which it would be beneficial now to extend the co-operation procedure.
A number of noble Lords raised the matter of national parliamentary scrutiny. In the United Kingdom all Commission proposals are subjected to parliamentary scrutiny. That is true of a number of other member states, notably Denmark, but by no means all. While we do not suggest that all member states should adopt procedures identical to our own, we consider it desirable that national parliaments should be involved in the scrutiny of Commission proposals in all member states. Those who complain of a democratic deficit in the Community might usefully examine their own procedures and fill the gaps that in some cases exist closer to home.
In recent months we have heard much about the
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structure of any union. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, spent some time on this matter earlier in our debate. This is not a theological discussion. It is a very real question about the extent of Community competence. The debate is between those who want all common activities of the 12 to come within a unitary structure, that is, under the Treaty of Rome, and those who wish to maintain distinct areas of co-operation outside the treaty. Some have likened the latter approach to the architecture of the temple with its separate pillars of co-operation holding up an overarching pediment: the European Council. Others see all co-operation falling under the Treaty of Rome: branches of the co-operation growing from the same trunk, if one likes. That would effectively make all co-operation between member states justifiable with a greater role for the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament.
That is unacceptable and I know that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, will support us on that. It was the approach adopted in the recent Netherlands presidency draft text tabled in the IGC in September and subsequently withdrawn. We and others argued instead for an approach with some areas under the Treaty of Rome but maintaining common foreign and security policy and interior and justice co-operation outside the treaty and outside Community competence on an inter-governmental basis. That follows the Single European Act structure and maintains the diversity of forms of European co-operation. We do not agree that co-operation on an inter-governmental basis rather than under the Treaty of Rome is any the less European for that.
The Presidency's draft text of 18th June, on which basis negotiations are now proceeding, follows the pillared approach, which is good. But it also contains references in the sections on CFSP and interior/justice co-operation which link them to the Treaty of Rome. These blur the distinction we wish to maintain and, in our view, carry the danger of extending Community competence, Community rules and ECJ jurisdiction into these areas, in spite of our desire to exclude them. That desire is reflected in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council which agreed that there should be,
"procedures appropriate to the requirements of the various spheres of action".
We wish to see those procedures kept distinct.
The key underlying issue—and I stress that—is one of Community competence. It is that which we have to get right, among other issues, if the Government are going to be able to commend a final treaty to the House.
I mentioned two areas which we wish to maintain on an inter-governmental basis. One is the nexus of interior and justice matters with cross-border implications which need to be tackled at the European Council: immigration, asylum, police co-operation and combating international crime and the drugs trade. These are areas where clearly a greater degree of co-operation across Europe would be helpful. We want that as much as others do. But to attempt to

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squeeze that co-operation too into the Community competence would not in our view be acceptable at this stage of the Community's development.
I would advance similar arguments with regard to the policies of our European partners in the foreign policy and security fields. Like the committee and like a number of noble Lords, we find difficulty with the concept of a CFSP within Community competence. We want a stronger CFSP and have made proposals to bring that about. However—and the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, can be reassured—we will not accept a CFSP which falls within Community competence. Foreign policy must remain a subject for inter-governmental co-operation. We see no argument for extending the role of the Commission or the European Parliament in this field. Nor should the European Court of Justice have jurisdiction in the CFSP.
It is clearly right that we should make Europe a greater force in world affairs for the promotion of the values that we share together with our partners. It would be wrong if the effect of the procedures and obligations we devise is to slow down our decision making and create disunity among us. That is why in the debate on the CFSP we have consistently made the case for retaining consensus as the basis for decision making. Most recently it has proved its worth in our common approach to events in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Introducing mechanisms such as majority voting would weaken, rather than strengthen, Europe's voice. Where a common will exists, so will a common policy. There is no substitute for that.
The noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos asked specifically about the question of subsidiarity. If—and indeed it is a big "if"—a satisfactory definition can be obtained, it should be in the treaty text itself. We like the definition in the report. We have to get others to agree to that too.
The noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, specifically asked about the question of economic and monetary union. I can reaffirm to him, as I have done before when wearing a different hat, that the IGC is not negotiating on whether the Community should adopt a single currency now. Any decision will be a long way down that road. Our participation in the negotiations has been and will continue to be constructive. We have put forward our own ideas and views throughout in order to help ensure that whatever emerges is workable. But we have made it clear that the United Kingdom cannot accept a treaty which binds us to move to a single currency without a separate decision by the United Kingdom Parliament and the Government.
My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter first raised the question of Commissioner Ripa de Meana's Article 169 letter, as did other noble Lords. I know the commissioner well from my time as a Minister with responsibility for the environment. I emphasised to him then as I emphasise to him today that the UK is second to none in the thoroughness with which we consider the effects of major projects. We wholly reject the Commission's implication that the United
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Kingdom is failing to consider environmental matters. Indeed my right honourable friend the Prime Minister today said that it was an astonishing intervention.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, raised the question of a referendum before Parliament made up its mind on the matters of the IGC. We do not think that a referendum is either necessary or appropriate. As the noble Lord will recall, the 1975 referendum on Europe was a political expedient by the then Labour Government. It is not a precedent that we find attractive. Any treaty on European union which may be agreed at Maastricht will indeed cover a host of issues rather than a single issue. That is a major factor to be borne in mind. In that case it is surely the job of Parliament to weigh those matters and to decide.
Those are the views which inform our settled policy. The Community is not, and cannot be, a static organisation. Its very nature as a uniquely close alliance between 12 member states means that the Community must be a flexible and adaptable association if it is to flourish in a changing world. The prospect of further enlargement will place additional strain on the Community's ability to adapt. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Jay, we wholeheartedly support such enlargement of the Community to include other states which wish to join, which meet the economic and political criteria, and which can take on all the responsibility of EC membership. Adapt and develop the Community must, and the outcome of the IGC in December will mark an important new stage in that development. However, I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, and the committee that we must beware that the Community's reach does not exceed its grasp. Nobody will thank us for devising and erecting a shining new Community machine only to discover afterwards that the machinery simply does not work. Our vision, as I have described, must be tempered with pragmatism.
Some will argue that our views make us appear reluctant to change. Some would even say that it makes us reluctant Europeans. They are wrong, my Lords. That is not the case. We are deeply committed to British membership of the Community and will work, as we have done in the past, to ensure that the Community brings benefits to all. We do not think that those benefits will derive from realising a federal vision, from filling an imaginary democratic deficit, or from pandering to selective interest groups in individual member states.
What will help is that the Community emerges from this latest round of internal examination more efficient and more effective in what it does, and with the Twelve wholeheartedly committed both to widening and deepening their range of co-operation in practical ways that will benefit all Europeans.
8.28 p.m.
Lord Oliver of Aylmerton: My Lords, in replying to this interesting and instructive debate I first thank noble Lords not only for taking part in it but for their kindness in the compliments that they paid to Sub-Committee E, which are deserved, and to me personally, which are not. I am sure that the noble

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Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, will have demonstrated to the House that the committee is not composed 100 per cent. of those devoted slavishly to the institutions of the Community.
I am grateful, as will be the committee, to those noble Lords who have spoken not only for their interesting and in some cases controversial views but for demonstrating in the most practical and convincing manner that the report has succeeded in contributing to the debate by stimulating discussion. That it has done so successfully is due not primarily to the efforts of the committee or its chairman but, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Elles and Lady Robson, so rightly said, to the untiring efforts and constant guidance and hard work of our legal adviser and staff. They produced the first draft at very short notice and guided our wandering footsteps—sometimes wandering in different directions—throughout.
I do not wish to take up time by traversing ground that has already been gone over. Nor would it be appropriate for me to expand upon the reasons for the conclusions in the report. The report stands on its own base, warts and all. In this debate it has provided an opportunity for second, and sometimes perhaps better, thoughts, as in the case of my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce in relation to the status of the principle of subsidiarity in the treaty.
I hope that I shall not be considered to be discourteous if I do not reply to all the issues raised. However, out of courtesy I must refer to three specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, for whose remarks I am grateful. He referred to the word "federal" in paragraph 130. I agree with his comments. The danger of using such language might be that it is thought to create a commitment. The United Kingdom should not be criticised as being a dinosaur if it regarded that with suspicion. I also agree with the noble Lord's comments on paragraph 134. The Select Committee was conscious of the danger of a creeping transfer of power from the states to the Community. There are two ways in which that can be combatted—the first by definition and the second by uncertainty. The committee considered that that definition was the better way.
The noble Lord asked for an assurance that the committee would look into the action of the European Commissioner in writing to challenge on environmental grounds the proposals relating to rail and road systems. My days as chairman of Sub-Committee E are strictly numbered and I can give no assurance. However, I can assure the noble Lord that at present Sub-Committee F is inquiring into the implementation of environmental measures. It began last week with evidence from the head of the directorate.
I note the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, but mention only two. First, united union citizenship is no more than a label. It does not detract from national citizenship but it confers certain privileges as set out on page 42 of the report. Secondly, the noble Lord mentioned the suggested power of the European Court to impose financial penalties. I follow what he said but I do not believe that the committee envisaged the departure of
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the members of the offending government to some European gaol. The plain fact is that the unevenness of the implementation of measures by different member states within the Community creates problems. That can and does lead to unfairness in trading conditions between member states. I am the first to accept the fact that there may be more than one way to counteract such problems, including the suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, of the establishment of an enforcement agency. It is clear that something must be done to counter deliberate and continued breaches of the obligations of the treaty.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord HarmarNicholls, I say that the unusual aspect is not that the general nature of international proposals should be made the subject matter of debate but that there should be submitted to parliamentary and public scrutiny the actual text of the treaty under discussion.
I have taken up enough of your Lordships' time. I conclude by expressing my satisfaction and that of the Select Committee that the report has prompted the expression of so many stimulating views. If it had done no more it would have succeeded in its purpose. I ask the House not necessarily to accept it, not necessarily to agree with it but, as the Motion asks, to take note of it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Food Protection (Emergency Prohibitions) (Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning) (No. 12) Order 1991
8.34 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Strathclyde)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scottish Office (Lord Strathclyde) rose to move, That the order laid before the House on 13th September be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee].
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the No. 12 order before the House today bans fishing for velvet and green crabs in areas of water around the Orkney Islands. The decision to make this order was based on test results from our PSP monitoring regime which were over the 400 unit, internationally agreed, action level. Our aim in making the ban is to ensure effective protection of the public from PSP toxin with the minimum disruption of the shellfish market. I should like to assure your Lordships that the order will remain in force only for as long as is necessary and no longer. As with previous orders, it will be revoked as soon as the results of continued sampling indicate that the toxin has subsided to a safe level. I beg to move.
Moved, That the order laid before the House on 13th September be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee] —(Lord Strathclyde.)
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his remarks and for his explanatory notes on the order. This is the third order that has been made recently on the subject and I shall refer to what I said in earlier discussions. I wish to make two points. The first relates to the commercial gathering of the shellfish. One assumes that

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commercial traders will be aware of the borders and will be conscious of the fact that they must not damage their businesses by stupidly trying to gather the shellfish under such conditions. However, I am more anxious about causal visitors who may pick up such shellfish. I should like to be reassured that notices and posters will be displayed widely in the area. Perhaps it may be possible to display maps in, say, local post offices. The casual visitors to the Orkneys who go down to the shore and see the wonderful expanse of water will think that because it is so clean it is bound to be all right. They do not know the meaning of latitude 59 degrees 25 minutes north and longitude 3 degrees 33 minutes west. Therefore, it will be helpful if a rough map can be displayed in addition to signposting.
I was pleased to hear the Minister say that there will be no delay in revoking the order when the area is declared to be clear after suitable tests and sampling. Is the situation helped by the onset of winter. It may appear to a layman that the problem is more likely to arise during the summer. Can the Minister say whether it is unusual to see such prevalent diseases during the winter? If he cannot answer today I shall be grateful if he will write to me.
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove, raised a number of important points. Perhaps I may deal first with commercial fishermen. When an order is made they are told immediately by the fishery protection officers and advisers from my department, the Department of Fisheries in Scotland. Maps are issued with the original order showing a brief outline of the area. In order to stop the casual beach walker who might be interested in eating a velvet crab or bivalve mollusc, warning posts are displayed on the beaches ensuring that such people understand the risks involved. In addition, warnings are broadcast on local radio stations and appear in local newspapers and the national press. The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that we have no indication of trouble being caused to the casual eater of an infected bivalve mollusc or crab.
The noble Lord also asked about the seasonal aspect of the problem. We understand that the toxin begins to grow in the spring when it goes through the bivalve molluscs. It goes down to the velvet and green crabs towards the end of the year. As we are nearing the end of October we believe that the problem will cease to exist during the coming weeks.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may ask him this question. Does the notice specifically refer to the bivalve crab?
Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, the notice specifically refers to the creature which it affects. If it is bivalve molluscs, those are laid out in terms of mussels, cockles, scallops, queens and so on. If it is just crabs, then just crabs are mentioned.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Hallmarking
8.40 p.m.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes Baroness Gardner of Parkes rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to ensure that the high standards of the British hallmarking system will be maintained after 1992.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity of raising this matter this evening. I wish to thank those noble Lords who have put down their names to speak in the debate. I know that they all have great knowledge of the subject and I am grateful to them.
A hallmark is defined in the dictionary as a mark used at Goldsmith's Hall and by UK assay offices for marking the standard of gold, silver and platinum. To most of your Lordships hallmarks will be so familiar that no further explanation is necessary. However, many people do not know exactly what a hallmark is, and what its value is. For that reason, I shall briefly describe how it comes to appear on, for example, a silver trophy. Be it a school cup, an award for the local flower show or the prize trophy for a horseracing classic, it goes through the same process of independent assessment. The cup is made and submitted to the assay office for testing. The definition in the dictionary for assay is, "trial of metal or ore for quality". A scraping of the metal is taken and submitted to chemical analysis. Although technological progress continues to improve the system, hallmarking has been in existence for nearly 700 years. Methods of assaying have stood the test of time.
For the mark to be placed on, for example, a silver cup, that cup must be proven by assay to be of the required standard. The marks identify the metal used —for example, the lion for sterling silver—the manufacturer by his mark, the assay office and an initial to indicate the year of the mark. Each assay office has its own mark: the London leopard; the Birmingham anchor; the Sheffield rose; and the castle of Edinburgh. Hallmarks are fascinating in themselves because they give an accurate record of the age of any piece and add special value to antique silver.
Most importantly, they protect the purchaser and ensure that the purchaser is purchasing the quality of metal for which he is paying. Hallmarking is probably the oldest form of consumer protection. It is impossible to tell from appearance what proportion there is of a precious metal in any article. Assaying is an accurate process. Hallmarking is visible confirmation of the standard. That means that the consumer has a sound basis for choice and confidence that value for money is being obtained.
The British hallmarking system is recognised and held in high esteem throughout the world. The usual standard for British silver is sterling; that is, 925 parts of silver per 1,000. Sterling is the name universally used for that grade of silver. On the Continent, 800 parts of silver per 1,000 is more usual.
Assay officers in Britain deal with about 20 million articles per year. If a gold piece is submitted claiming to be 18 carat but fails to meet the required standard, it would be stamped 14 carat, the next step down the

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scale. If it is claimed to be nine carat, that is the lowest gold standard. A failed nine carat article cannot be downgraded and is usually returned to the maker. Powers exist to destroy such a defective article but those powers are hardly ever used. The piece may still be sold in the United Kingdom but not as gold. That is the important point for the consumer. If it is not marked, then it is not gold or silver by UK standards. There are some rare antique exceptions.
A league table is published by the Hallmarking Council. In 1990 Italy was top of the league with the highest number of items rejected—18,196. Items were either rejected or marked at a lower standard. Thailand follows with a figure of 2,883; and then follow Hong Kong, the United States and Israel in that order. Although the Italian number seems high, the percentage of rejections scarcely differs from the others named, as Italy produces so much more. All manufacturers are having about 1 per cent. rejected.
Let us stop a moment to think. Those items are failing to reach a standard now at a time when the makers and importers know that standards must be met. What would it be like if everyone knew that standards were unimportant? It would be possible to call anything gold and get away with it.
Outside Knightsbridge tube station today—and I regularly see this sharp practice—salesmen are selling a "real" gold, as they call it, pair of earrings, bracelet and necklace, all for £10. Of course that is illegal trading and anyone who buys those items believing them to be real gold is foolish. There are always many customers. By the time the thin piece of gold plate wears through to show the base metal underneath and the metal goes green against one's skin, there is no hope of any comeback. However, at least the financial loss is not great.
On a "Watchdog" programme on television recently a woman had paid £200 in Greece for a gold chain which was stamped 14-carat gold. It was found to be a thin piece of gold plate on a base metal. When the matter was looked into further it was found that that was one of many chains, and an £800,000 fraud was involved.
Instead of losing merely £10, how much worse is it if the buyer has paid a high price from what appears to be a reputable shop? The shop obtains its stock from a dishonest maker or importer which the shop had trusted to provide the genuine article. By the time the customer discovers the defective quality and has returned to the shop, the supplier of the goods may have made his pile and vanished.
An independent assay office with hallmarking prior to sale gives assurance to both retailer and customer. Recently Sweden has introduced a two-tier system with some articles being marked and some not. There has been quite a rise in the number of offences under trading standards law.
The situation of hallmarking in terms of the European Commission is far from clear. Is it the Commission's intention to issue a directive on the marking of precious metal? I hope that Her Majesty's Government will press it to do so in order to protect our consumers.
There are international standards. The International Standards Organisation—ISO—has a standard No. ISO 9202 which is recognised world wide as a standard for precious metal alloys. Those ISO 9202 standards would be acceptable to the UK if taken as a CEN norm. CEN is Le Comité Européen de Normalisation. That is important because initials are always so confusing.
ISO standard No. 9202 covers a range of grades including 800 and 835 silver which at present is not recognised in this country. The United Kingdom would need to recognise those as silver but there would be a mark to show the content. Therefore, it would be quite clear that sterling is 925 or has the lion mark but the 800 silver would be marked 800.
I point out that the ISO standard not only confirms the level of precious metal but plays a valuable protective role in that the inclusion in an alloy of noxious metals is not permitted. That can, particularly in the case of jewellery, produce an adverse reaction on the wearer.
I understand that in Germany a White Paper has been produced prior to consideration of a new law of compulsory hallmarking. Six EC countries already practise compulsory hallmarking the UK, France, Netherlands, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Voluntary hallmarking exists in Belgium and Denmark. Not all of those countries use the same standards of metal, and that is where the ISO 9202 would be important as being universally acceptable.
The second essential is to establish recognised laboratory standards for testing. The UK system of an independent assay office is long established and reliable. On the Continent some manufacturers may be large enough to have their own laboratories capable of carrying out tests. They would need to be large and successful firms as extensive scientific facilities are required. However, it is necessary also that there should be an independent check on such laboratories. It is essential to avoid any system which would allow some "fly-by-night" maker or importer to stamp goods to suit themselves and then sell such goods as genuine.
Standards EN 29000, BS 5750 and ISO 9000 all exist and are all equivalents one of the other. They could cover the organisations undertaking the testing. The figures relate to the procedures for assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of the testing laboratories.
As your Lordships will be aware, I have had a long-standing interest in consumer affairs and I piloted a small Bill through the House. I was therefore pleased to see that the Consumers' Association carried out a survey in 1990 in which 59 per cent. of those questioned considered the UK hallmarking system to be "very important". The Consumer Associations' considered opinion is:
"the most stringent requirements should be applied to precious metals, not least because they are products where consumers are generally unable to judge for themselves the quality and value of the goods they are seeking to purchase. Moreover, any variance in fineness from the stamp or mark will significantly affect the value of the product".
Article 100a obliges the Commission to incorporate a high level of protection into any proposal that it tables on consumer protection issues. That would

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logically seem to rule out any undermining of an effective system of consumer protection which is well established in half of the Community's member states. Protection is needed particularly in this field as consumers are not in a position to judge the quality of articles of precious metal. Special techniques are necessary to assay and consumers would be vulnerable to spurious claims of quality.
The British hallmarking system has worked well for almost 700 years. Quality is guaranteed as marked. I ask Her Majesty's Government to press the Commission to introduce a directive on the marking of precious metals based on the criteria of the UK's hallmarking system under three headings. First, all articles of precious metal should be presented for random testing to an independent EC accredited laboratory. Secondly, they should be presented prior to placement on the market. Thirdly, the articles should be stamped by the independent testing laboratory. The mark should attest to fineness, identify the manufacturer, the laboratory and the year and be recognisable throughout the Community.
8.55 p.m.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Parkes, for introducing the debate this evening and for the competent way in which she presented the case. I declare an interest, though not a financial one. I was a warden of the Birmingham Assay Office for over 10 years and I sit on the hallmarking council.
Perhaps I can start in the same way as did the noble Baroness. Seven hundred years ago it was recognised in this country that consumers needed protection with regard to the silver and gold being manufactured at that time. Bearing in mind that in those days silver and gold were a form of currency, it was important that the currency was of the value of the precious metals contained in it. Therefore the first consumer Act placed on the statute book in the UK was a consumer protection Act connected with hallmarking.
The debate today asks Her Majesty's Government to defend our long-held precious metal safeguards. As the noble Baroness said, hallmarking in the UK is performed by the four assay offices which she mentioned. It is important to remember that the prime purpose of the Act and of the assay offices is the protection of the consumer, although coincidentally it protects members of the trade from unscrupulous competition.
The Act uses the assay office but it also uses the trading standards officers. Those officers are the enforcers of the Act and their's is a wide role. Last year 3,178 infringements of the legislation were detected and 548 instances of formal caution were issued to traders. One of the main problems is the traders that commit a technical offence by not displaying to the general public in the places where they are selling items of precious metals, the statutory notice. It should be displayed for the customers to inspect so that they can look at the hallmark. It is a
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large notice and should be easily available for all customers. In addition to those infringements three persons were imprisoned for failing to honour the Act.
All that protection for the consumer may change and the whole system is under threat due to the difficulties experienced by the Commission. It is true that the Commissioner, Herr Bangaman, is perhaps not very sympathetic to the idea of hallmarking. Hallmarking is independent testing of precious metals to decide the metal fineness. Therefore it gives a guarantee of quality. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Cockfield, when he was Commissioner, was rather more sympathetic to the idea of hallmarking of precious metals. He asked the relevant service to study the matter and to make recommendations for a common policy on the free circulation of precious metal articles. That reported at least two years ago and the suggestions included the proposal that precious metal articles being placed on the EC market after 1992 should carry identification for metal fineness and the makers' or importers' marks.
Further, there was the Progress Report on completing the Internal Market issued by DG III in November 1988. That put greater emphasis on the consumer. Paragraph 64 states:
"Consumer protection provides an example of a policy area which will take on an enhanced importance in the completed internal market. Consumers will need to be reassured that their interests are properly represented".
That is what hallmarking is all about—the proper safeguarding of the consumer.
As I said, an international convention with seven members is already operating. The convention was originally part of EFTA. When the convention met it was in Vienna and the Vienna Convention is open to all member countries of the United Nations which agree to use agreed common standards to determine whether or not a quality guarantee mark should be applied. So it is not a difficult process to make quite sure that the customer, the purchaser, gets value for money.
As the noble Baroness said, it is impossible for lay persons to be able to test whether they have bought an item which is nine carat or 22 carat. One cannot bite and spit out such products because that is horrible. They are not products that are worn for two days and then fall in rags around you; though they can go green on the skin, as the noble Baroness said.
It is crucial that any proposals which the trade, consumers, manufacturers or the trading standards officers put forward to the Government regarding hallmarking, because they feel that deregulation will be damaging, should command the support of the Department of Trade and Industry. Its Ministers should argue the UK case more forcefully at the European Commission. There is no barrier to trade, as we often hear from those people who are not thinking of hallmarking.
The greatest number of wares that come into this country and are marked to start with but which are sent to assay offices are the chains from Italy. These are the attractive chains that one sees around the necks and wrists of young girls. Unfortunately I only have one. But one sees girls on the tube with as many as four or five chains jingling away. That is terribly

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worrying as the chains may be stolen. Most of those chains come from Italy and the importer automatically sends them for halimarking. I see thousands of them going through the Birmingham assay office so it is no barrier to trade. They still keep sending them in because traders know they can sell them once they are hallmarked.
In the United Kingdom around 30,000 people are employed in an estimated £2 billion retail trade in jewellery and around 13,000 people on the £16 million manufacturing side. On the manufacturing side, a number are small businesses. When I was a member of the other place, in my constituency in Birmingham was an area known as the jewellery district. It was in the very centre of the city. If when visiting Birmingham and the international convention centre you take a walk along the canal—an area which has been made very pleasant—you will come to the jewellery district. The district is now becoming a real tourist attraction as visitors can see manufacturers at work and the many shops and exhibitions in the area.
I feel I have to speak very strongly about this because I am a Brummie and I do not want us to lose what is a vital part of industry in the city of Birmingham and one of which we are very proud. It was Matthew Bolton who made Birmingham an area for silver when he began his silver-smithing. He appealed to the House of Lords for an assay office to be built in Birmingham because many of his wares which were travelling from Birmingham to Sheffield to be hallmarked were often either stolen for the silver content or stolen for the patterns, because his patterns were very fine.
Those people working in the jewellery district in Birmingham and in similar places throughout the country, and those who work in assay offices, make as great a contribution to the community as anyone else. We must fight for the retention of the industry. I am not saying that the British system, or the United Kingdom system, should be introduced throughout Europe. However, a compulsory system which is independent of the manufacturer is necessary. That is the important point. It requires a strategic approach to ensure that the level playing field is achieved in the interests of the consumer, consumer protection and fair competition for business. While harmonisation could be described as desirable the fear of the lowest common denominator is a very real possibility in this case.
I hope that having listened to this debate the Minister will express the Government's sincere support for the continuation of hallmarking. I finish as I began by saying that the value of compulsory hallmarking rests overwhelmingly on its function as a safeguard for the interests of the consumer. To destroy 700 years of unbroken consumer protection which compulsory hallmarking has provided is not, in my view, the answer to European unification.
9.7 p.m.
Lord Broadbridge: My Lords, in view of the complete disarray within Europe on hallmarking, this debate is timely and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for introducing it. I declare an
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interest in that I am a Liveryman of the Goldsmiths Company which runs the London Assay Office, I am an amateur silversmith with my own hallmark and a collector of early English spoons.
Hallmarking has been with us in this country since 1300 when a statute passed by Edward I required that all silver articles were to be of the sterling standard, the same as the coinage, but also that they were to be assayed by the Wardens of the Goldsmiths Guild, as it then was, and marked with a leopard's head before they left the hands of the workers. Furthermore, gold articles were to be 191/5 carats. That was 691 years ago, and halimarking has continued here ever since.
As a general principle it is with some trepidation that hallowed practices should be abandoned and then surely only if they do not meet present requirements. The primary purpose of hallmarking, as we have already heard, is to protect the public. Surely the present is the very age of consumer protection, a time when labelling is every day becoming more and more informative. How perverse it would therefore be to abandon a 691 year-old practice which does just that.
Not only does it protect the public but it serves the interest of the trade since it creates a favourable image and shields the genuine manufacturer from unfair practice by less scrupulous competitors, for a hallmark is a complete fingerprint. In 1300, the place of assay mark was first made, in that case the leopard's head for London. Today we also have the anchor for Birmingham, the rose for Sheffield and the castle for Edinburgh. In 1363 makers were ordered to stamp their own distinguishing mark alongside the leopard's head. In 1478, a date letter, changed annually, was added. Finally, in 1544, a lion passant—rampant for Edinburgh—was added. Thus, in that year, 447 years ago, the four distinctive marks of the fingerprint were in place: town, maker, standard of metal and date.
I believe that there are two aspects and issues to be fought for in the continued marking of precious metals: first, what the marks are; and, secondly, who puts them on. To my mind our present system in this country is ideal. It lacks nothing and nothing could reasonably be added that would be beneficial. But a number of European countries do not mark precious metals nearly so informatively. I would argue to the Government, who I believe are sympathetic, that anything less than our present full set of four marks would be to the detriment of the protection of the public and the trade. It is one of those curious accidents of fate that a system set up as long ago as medieval times is nonetheless ideally suited to the modern requirement that a manufactured article should clearly state what it is made of, who made it and where and when. Anything less is partial and for practical purposes ranges between the flawed and the totally inadequate. I urge Her Majesty's Government to strive to continue what I have called the complete fingerprint which has historically been and continues to be the glory of English silver and gold and, more recently, platinum.
Secondly, my other concern is with who does the hallmarking. The alternatives are by an independent authority, as in this country with our four assay offices, or by the manufacturer. It is to me the

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regrettable practice in a number of EC countries that the maker also does the marking. Human nature does not change much with time, and very large sums of money are involved here. This is endorsed by the fact that today, under the Hallmarking Act, counterfeiting or transposing a mark carries a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment. The penalty for infringement of the laws of halimarking has always been severe. At one period in the 18th century the death penalty could be invoked for forgery, although the pillory, with the severing of ears, was more common. That was the fate of silversmiths John Moore and Robert Thomas in the reign of the first Elizabeth. My point is that if makers have been prepared to take the risk in the past, surely in an unregulated market they will do so now in view of the financial gain involved. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, has already told us about Italian imports. It is independent halimarking which has found them out in the past, so what of a future without it?
Marking one's own production is to be an unregulated market in this rather special field. For example, if one of your Lordships buys a fairly heavy signet ring for £200 in the belief that it is 18 carat gold and it is in fact only 9 carat, then he has only half the gold he has expected. He has been swindled out of approximately £100 and an unscrupulous maker has pocketed that sum. But how many of us, by simple inspection, could tell 18 carat from 9 carat?
However, there are watchdogs, as some of your Lordships may feel. Yes, indeed, but first the London Assay Office alone handles some 50,000 items a day; and, secondly, such other consumer watchdogs as there are are hardly geared to the examination of precious metals, an extremely exacting art developed over centuries. For example, the laboratories of the Consumers' Association may be well equipped to investigate a tin of baked beans or the fireproofness of a sofa, but are they really likely to be prepared to equip themselves with furnaces and crucibles and, more important, the great skill needed to use them effectively? I am sure that they are not, and I mean no disrespect to them.
I deprecate maker-marking because I believe that in a real world some people are always prepared to take risks to make money at the expense of the public where large sums are involved and members of the public are unable to judge the quality of what they are being offered. That is the observed position throughout history, and surely present day o City financial pages almost daily attest to the fact that human weakness continues.
In conclusion, therefore, I also urge Her Majesty's Government to maintain our present practice of independent assay offices testing the quality of precious metals to be offered for sale rather than trusting makers to do it themselves. The latter is to offer temptation to the unscrupulous, and offering temptation is bad law. Broadly in life we hope that we get what we deserve, and unregulated marking is a recipe for temptation and swindle, albeit by the few; but a few is a few too many. We have an excellent and well-tried regulatory system. Let us stick to it.
9.15 p.m.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I share the views of previous speakers in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for raising this issue tonight. As 1992 draws nearer and the prospect of a free market in these matters is likely to come about, I believe that it is important for us to understand the issues at stake. I do not think that there is any great danger in our having to abandon our hallmarking system. Those who are battling for that have really not understood the dangers and disadvantages which we are likely to face.
Of course I fully support our system and if it could be the same in all member countries of the EC that would be perfection. Moreover, if there were an equivalent system in the other countries that would also be satisfactory. However, all the signs are pointing the other way. That is the nature of the problem. The noble Baroness told us about the countries in the EC which have similar systems to our own. She mentioned two of them which had adopted them voluntarily. However, she did not mention the four which do not have any system of independent classification or hallmarking; namely, Germany, Italy, Greece and Luxemburg. Germany and Italy in particular are substantial manufacturers of precious metals. As things stand, if we are obliged under Article 30 of the treaty to permit such items to come into the country unrestricted, the Italian necklaces to which my noble friend Lady Fisher referred would not need to be hallmarked; they could be sold as silver without that protection. Indeed, who is to say what the standard of the gold or the silver in them would be? That is the nature of the problem.
I understand that the Commissioner, Martin Bangemann, announced to the International Confederation of Jewellery, Silverware, Diamonds, Pearls and Stones in November 1990 that the Commission would not be advancing a proposal for a directive on articles of precious metals. The reason was that the Commission thought it fit to have such a directive only if there was a question regarding the safety or health of consumers. Otherwise, it was to be left to the market and to the old doctrine of caveat emptor. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, pointed out, it is a difficult, if not impossible, matter for the ordinary customer to decide. Indeed, I think that many of the experts in the trade would be hard put to identify precisely on sight whether the amount of gold in an article was 800 or 925, which is the standard required. Under Article 30 of the treaty we would be required, without the establishment of minimum criteria, to allow the free passage of such items.
Our French friends, always ready and vigilant to maintain the interests of their people, have already refused to accept German goods on the ground that there is an inferior consumer protection system there. The Commission has taken the French Government to the European Court of Justice because they are not prepared to allow unregulated, unmarked goods into their country. The result of the crazy system that exists is that that decision is not likely to be known for at least two years. The whole question is difficult.

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As the noble Baroness said, as well as the fineness and quality of such articles, one of their characteristics is that they are readily transportable across frontiers. The hallmarks can be sent by post and put on in a third country. The goods do not need to be physically present in that first country. They can be shipped to another country and sold as German or Italian goods and so forth.
I compliment the Consumers' Association, which has been active on this matter. I am sure that the Minister will be able to answer many of my questions because I understand that on 29th May this year the Department of Trade was sent a copy of the letter that I have which raised all these points. The DG III (the direct orate concerned) has apparently said in discussion with the European Bureau of Consumer Unions that there could be some rethinking. That was way back in May. Will the Minister tell us what has been the outcome of that rethinking? Will he give us an assurance that our people in Brussels, especially the DTI man there, are keeping a close eye on what is going on in DG III and are reporting regularly on what in going on in that department? There is nothing to show that it is prepared to move. The Consumers' Association has, as the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, said, made clear the three points which it finds the minimum acceptable. Even that will mean a complete revolution in our hallmarking system.
The Government must tell the Commission that the hallmarking system is good—something with which we all agree—and that it is what we want. There is no sign at the moment that we shall succeed. We want to know what the Government are doing in that direction. A German manufacturer went to the Dutch courts and argued that their system was a contravention of the Treaty of Rome. He received a dusty answer. When the Minister's colleague answered Questions on this subject in the summer he informed us that there was a case before the courts in this country. Will the Minister tell us whether it is continuing? I hope that the DTI will stir itself on this case, unlike many others, and keep an eye on what is happening, and that the Minister will keep the House informed.
This is a matter that is being dealt with by the Commission behind closed doors. It is not a matter that goes to the Council of Ministers. I do not believe that the European Parliament—active as it is, especially in respect of overseas visits—has concerned itself much with this issue which is of importance to consumers and the trade. I hope we can receive a positive answer tonight from the Government. To say that hallmarking is splendid is not good enough. We wish to know what they are doing to make sure that when the free market comes other people will not use Artick, 30 to put us all at a grave disadvantage.
9.25 p.m.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, the House will be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for raising this important Question. We on these Benches have little to add to what my noble
1408
friend Lady Fisher of Rednal said. We believe that compulsory hallmarking should be a feature of any future European arrangement.
I understand that, as my noble friend Lord Mulley said, there is legal action by a German company, Kohle, which failed in the Netherlands. Also, the Commission is taking France to the European Court on these matters. I should be grateful if the Minister could tell us exactly what is the state of those court suits. I believe that in the Netherlands the case has failed.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, remarked, Germany relies merely on mandatory marking by manufacturers and does not favour the continuation after 1992 of the British system of independent hallmarking in the precious metals which we are discussing. Britain, France, Holland, the Republic of Ireland, Portugal and Spain require compulsory independent hallmarking. In Belgium and Denmark hallmarking is voluntary; in Germany, Italy, Greece and Luxemburg only a mandatory manufacturer's mark is required. There is a clear difference between these practices.
In pursuit of trade harmonisation within the European Community, unless I am mistaken all Community countries other than Germany voted at the Dublin conference in June 1990 for a compulsory uniform system of British type hallmarking for 1992. I should be grateful if the noble Lord could confirm that my information is right.
However, then Dr. Bangemann, the vice-president of the Commission, said that there would be no directive on the subject. It was decided that the present law would continue to prevail, Britain running the risk of being taken to the European Court by foreign manufacturers of jewellery because we were imposing unfair trade barriers as a result of the failure of the Commission to implement the decision at Dublin in June 1990.
It seems to us that independent hallmarking of gold, silver and platinum, in whatever form, as my noble friend Lord Mulley said, is absolutely essential for the protection of the consumer. If there are different forms, as he suggested, then let us discuss them. However, we cannot be put at a disadvantage simply because Germany votes against us because it has different views and different manufacturing imperatives.
I believe that the Question of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, was directed essentially to the Government. We from the Opposition have made our point clear and I hope that the Minister will be able to give the noble Baroness and other noble Lords reassurance on the points I have raised.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Henley: My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, and other noble Lords I wish to thank my noble friend for raising this matter as it gives me the opportunity to reaffirm the Government's support for the British hallmarking system. I also thank my noble friend for her description of the

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process of hallmarking and for giving a history of the process. That has saved me the trouble of providing that information.
The House shows a great depth of experience and knowledge on this subject. The noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, declared her interest as a member of the Hallmarking Council. The noble Lord, Lord Broadbridge, declared his interest as a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. I believe I can say in response to the noble Lord, without pre-empting anything that the Queen's Speech may contain, that we have absolutely no plans to bring back the robust sentences that used to be meted out for fraudulent hallmarking in the past.
I shall now deal with the specific points raised by my noble friend. She asked what the Government intended to do to defend hallmarking after 1992. My noble friend Lord Astor informed the House in June, in response to a Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, that there were at present no Community proposals to end or modify the British system of hallmarking. As the noble Lord, Lord Williams, remarked, there are no plans to introduce a Community-wide regime. I wish to reassure the House that the completion of the single European market in 1992 will not in itself have any effect on the legislation currently in force in this country and in the other member states regarding this matter. That means that all precious metal articles, including imports, will still need to be hallmarked before being put on sale, just as they do at present.
Nevertheless it is clear that agreement on a Community-wide regime for precious metals will have to be reached at some stage so that gold and silver articles accepted for sale in one member state are accepted in another. Many noble Lords are aware that the precious metals industry has been active both in this country and in Brussels in pursuit of its aim to have a harmonised Community system in precious metals established through the medium of a directive. However, the Commission has not brought forward any proposals, nor has it yet indicated that it intends to do so. It is therefore important that the Commission is made aware of the need for a system of compulsory—I stress the word "compulsory"—marking of precious metals, preferably by third parties. I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher, referred to that.
The Government have strongly supported the principle of hallmarking in Community discussions when the opportunity has arisen, and will continue to do so. Moreover I urge all those who are concerned about the future of the UK system of hallmarking —that is, manufacturers, assay offices, retailers and consumer groups—also to press the case for compulsory third party marking in Brussels. However, I suspect that the Commission itself will not move in this area until the trade gets its act together. As things stand at the moment it would be almost impossible to put forward proposals that could be acceptable to all member states.
I wish to reaffirm that the Government's objective in any negotiations which may be held in the future
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within the Community will be to retain as much as possible of the UK hallmarking system. At the same time noble Lords must recognise that hallmarking is an area subject to the rules on majority voting. Therefore to achieve our objective in any Community negotiations will require extensive lobbying of the individual member states and of the European Commission.
I wish to say a few words about the White Paper from Germany that my noble friend Lady Gardner referred to. As I understand it, this was not a government White Paper but was a document produced by the trade and it has no official standing. We do not believe that the German Government are prepared to proceed with a hallmarking law at the moment.
The legal challenges in the Netherlands were referred to by the noble Lords, Lord Williams and Lord Mulley. Therefore it might be appropriate to say a little about those challenges. I understand that the German case mounted in the Netherlands by a German company, Kohle, failed. However, I understand that an appeal has been made and therefore it is not appropriate for me to say anything more about that case at this stage.
I can say that the Government will strongly defend the British hallmarking system against any challenges which are made against it in the courts, either in this country or in Europe.
In response to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, my noble friend Lord Astor reported to this House on the application for judicial review which had been made by that same German jewellery manufacturer which challenges, among other things, the compatibility of the Hallmarking Act with Article 30 of the EC treaty. He stated that the case raised complex legal issues and the Government were considering their legal position. Those issues have yet to be resolved, but I repeat that the Government will strongly support any defence of the British hallmarking system.
I can certainly give the assurance that the noble Lord requested that the Department of Trade and Industry will, as the noble Lord, Lord Mulley, put it, stir itself on this issue.
It is not clear how Community agreement on the marking of precious metals will be brought about or the precise form that it will take. One thing is certain: the Government are in no doubt that hallmarking has served the consumer and the trade well over the seven centuries to which noble Lords have referred. It will therefore be our objective in any discussions on a harmonised Community-wide regime to retain as much as possible of the British hallmarking system. However, as I said earlier, it is a matter which is subject to the rules on majority voting and it is therefore a matter of defending our own interests.
Lord Mulley: My Lords, I am obliged to the Minister. Is it not surprising that the application for judicial review should give rise to so many complexities, and that some five months later the Government are still uncertain as to what their position is? Secondly, since the noble Lord has been good enough to refer to these matters, can he say

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whether any thought has been given to effective changes in the future in relation to items which will be alleged to have been made many years before 1992?
Lord Henley: My Lords, as I said, any legal case raises complex issues. The Government are considering their position but will mount a strong defence of the British hallmarking system, which we believe is a good system.
I hope that industry and consumer organisations will support the Government and keep stressing both in Brussels and throughout Europe the value of our hallmarking system and the need for a very strong consumer protection regime in the precious metals field.
I am grateful for the remarks made from all sides of the House. We speak with some unanimity on this matter. I hope that that will strengthen our position and indicate the unanimity of this House and the country as a whole on this issue.

Severn Bridges Bill
A Message was brought from the Commons that they have considered the Lords Message of 15th October and have made the following order—
That further proceedings on the Severn Bridges Bill shall be suspended until the next Session of Parliament;
That if a Bill is presented to this House in the next Session in the same terms as the Severn Bridges Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in this Session—

(a) the Bill shall be deemed to have been read the first, second and third time; and

(b) the Standing Orders and practice of the House applicable to the Bill, so far as complied with in relation to the Bill in this Session, shall be deemed to have been complied with in relation to the Bill in the next Session:

That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.
House adjourned at twenty-two minutes before ten o'clock.

  THE RAF REGIMENT
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  BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN: COMMEMORATION
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  HMS "SHEFFIELD": ALLEGED INCIDENT
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  SALMON NET FISHERIES: REVIEW
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  VETERINARY MEDICINES DIRECTORATE: ANNUAL REPORT
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  SHEEP DIPPING
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  PUBLIC ORDER OFFENCES: CONVICTIONS AND PROSECUTIONS
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  THE RADIO AUTHORITY: PROGRAMME OUTPUT
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  ROAD TRAFFIC OFFENCES: FIXED PENALTY LEVELS
  ROAD TRAFFIC OFFENCES: FIXED PENALTY LEVELS
  ARTS FUNDING IN LONDON
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  PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE: FLOOD PROTECTION MEASURES
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  TRUSTEES: INVESTMENT POWERS
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  VIETNAMESE MIGRANTS IN HONG KONG
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  COMMUNITY ALONE AGREEMENTS
  COMMUNITY ALONE AGREEMENTS
  REGISTER OF ARMS SALES PROPOSAL: RESPONSE
  REGISTER OF ARMS SALES PROPOSAL: RESPONSE
  EXECUTIONS: DATA
  EXECUTIONS: DATA
  BIOLOGICAL AND TOXIC WEAPONS: PROTOCOL REVIEW
  BIOLOGICAL AND TOXIC WEAPONS: PROTOCOL REVIEW
  INTER-GOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE ON POLITICAL UNION, 29th JULY AND 30th SEPTEMBER
  INTER-GOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE ON POLITICAL UNION, 29th JULY AND 30th SEPTEMBER
  FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCILS, 29th JULY AND 6th AND 30th SEPTEMBER.
  FOREIGN AFFAIRS COUNCILS, 29th JULY AND 6th AND 30th SEPTEMBER.
  UN NEW MEMBERS: UK RELATIONS
  UN NEW MEMBERS: UK RELATIONS
  INCOME SUPPORT: DEPENDANTS AGED 16 AND 17
  INCOME SUPPORT: DEPENDANTS AGED 16 AND 17
  UNEMPLOYMENT: COMPARISONS
  UNEMPLOYMENT: COMPARISONS
  PLUTONIUM STOCKS IN THE UK
  PLUTONIUM STOCKS IN THE UK
  EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE HEARING
  EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE HEARING
  UK-SOVIET COMMERCIAL CO-OPERATION
  UK-SOVIET COMMERCIAL CO-OPERATION
  POLITICAL DONATIONS FROM COMPANIES: POLICY
  POLITICAL DONATIONS FROM COMPANIES: POLICY
  ROYAL PARKS: STAFF ACCOMMODATION
  ROYAL PARKS: STAFF ACCOMMODATION
  ROYAL PARKS: STAFF REDUNDANCIES
  ROYAL PARKS: STAFF REDUNDANCIES
  DoE: LEGAL ADVICE TO INSPECTORS
  DoE: LEGAL ADVICE TO INSPECTORS
  ANCIENT VEHICULAR WAYS
  ANCIENT VEHICULAR WAYS
  HEVENINGHA M HALL
  HEVENINGHA M HALL
  HEDGEROWS IN GREAT BRITAIN
  HEDGEROWS IN GREAT BRITAIN