Sitting of 4 February 1992

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

    Low Flying
    Mr. Kirkwood: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received on low flying; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Kenneth Carlisle): My Department has recently received a number of representations from hon. Members and the general public on matters relating to military low-flying training.
    Mr. Kirkwood: May I add to those representations the ones that haw been made to me locally by committees responsible for organising the summer common riding festivals in the central Borders and Scotland? It does not take much imagination to understand the effect of a Tornado flying at 250 knots and at 250 ft, on a cavalcade of 200 horses on top of the Border hills. Will the Minister consider increasing the current exclusion zones of 1 nautical mile to about 5 nautical miles in order to give those cavalcades some protection?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice of his question. I have considered the point carefully. As he knows, we are always ready to give an avoidance of 1 mile on each side of the tracks used by these riders. The problem is that there are 75 ridings a year and to give a wider berth would concentrate our low flying over other parts of the countryside to the detriment of the inhabitants there. We have had few complaints from those taking part in the ridings and nearly half the ridings take place at weekends when there is little low flying. I do not believe that the case has been made for a change in our policy.
    Mr. Quentin Davies: Do my right hon. and hon. Friends agree that if we are to have an effective Royal Air Force, it is essential that our pilots are given the best possible training, including training in operating at below the level of enemy radar? Do my right hon. and hon. Friends agree that the magnificent and heroic performance of our pilots in the Gulf thoroughly vindicates the training programme that we have had up to now? Will they accept that in Lincolnshire, where we have more RAF stations than any other part of the country, there is wide appreciation of those facts?
    Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the realistic way in which he faces the problem. In Lincolnshire we are proud of the role of the RAF and its life in our county. It might be helpful to know that it is planned that low flying by jets will decline by about 30 per cent. over the next three years. In the worst-affected areas, such as the Lake District, the Borders and Wales, we are establishing community relations officers to provide a closer link with local people.

    Trident
    Mr. Salmond: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the progress of the Trident programme.
    Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he now expects to place the order for the fourth Trident submarine.
    The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Tom King): The Trident programme continues on time towards its in-service date at an estimated final cost of £10,518 million. This marks a further small reduction against last year's estimate and an overall real reduction of £3 billion against the original 1982 forecast.
    We plan to place the order for the fourth Trident submarine with VSEL at Barrow as soon as contract negotiations have been satisfactorily completed.
    Mr. Salmond: Does the Secretary of State accept that the debate on Trident in Scotland is not on whether we should have three or four boats or on the number of warheads per missile but on whether we should proceed with expenditure which, over its lifetime, could amount to £23,000 million on a useless, dangerous military white elephant? Does the Secretary of State accept that there has not been, is not and will not be a majority in Scotland for the Trident missile system and that, ultimately, its deployment will depend on the consent not of the Westminster Parliament but of the Scottish people, and it will not be forthcoming?
    Mr. King: I have not met many Scottish people who wish to be left exposed to the nuclear blackmail that could come from the huge nuclear arsenal which will remain for many years on the continent and in Russia. The Scottish people whom I meet who work in the shipyards at Yarrow take pride in building ships for the Royal Navy whose orders would presumably be lost to them if they had the pleasure of being represented by an SNP policy. I do not think that the 23,000 people presently involved in the Trident programme think that their efforts are wasted. They are proud of their contribution to the essential safeguarding of our country.
    Mr. Arnold: What does the Secretary of State believe to be the Russian assessment of our Trident programme and, indeed, their assessment of British public opinion on the subject?
    Mr. King: The whole world had the opportunity of hearing on television what President Yeltsin thought. He said that the number of nuclear weapons at the disposal of the United Kingdom was not comparable with theirs and that, therefore, the matter was not worth discussion. The Opposition have complained for years that our determination to maintain an essential minimum

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    safeguard for our country with a nuclear deterrent was somehow an obstacle to the necessary task of reducing the overblown nuclear arsenals of the super-powers, but President Yeltsin dealt with their arguments in one wholly destructive answer.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Will the Secretary of State confirm that fully two thirds of the costs of Trident have already been spent or contractually committed by the present Government? Will he further confirm that the consequences of the Scottish National party's policies would be to deprive many hundreds of people of their employment at Rosyth and on the Clyde while still leaving Scotland at risk from the consequences of a nuclear attack on Barrow or on the north of England? We would have all the risk but none of the advantages.
    Mr. King: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's support which I take to be absolutely unequivocal support for the Trident programme. I wish I thought that his colleagues were beginning to share that idea—perhaps we have an alliance here. Not all the expenditure is committed. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues can save money if they do not believe in the nuclear deterrent, and it is high time that they told the country what their priorities are.
    Mr. Franks: The Secretary of State will be aware of the further 600 redundancies announced yesterday in the shipyards in Barrow which will bring to 4,500 the number of jobs lost since "Options for Change" was announced about 18 months ago. Will he therefore take this opportunity to emphasise the employment aspect as well as the strategic importance of the fourth submarine? Will he also note the observations of Barrow Labour party which has described the Opposition's promise to give work equivalent to that involved in a fourth submarine as ignorant and ill-informed?
    Mr. King: Clearly, I heard with disappointment the announcement made by VSEL yesterday. I note that 10,400 are presently employed. It is a disappointment that there are to be 600 redundancies, but there is a continuing significant level of employment in defence at Barrow which is dependent on it and which has been sustained by the Government's commitment to a strong defence. I weep for Barrow's prospects were there conceivably any change in Government, because the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has said that the Opposition would replace a cancelled fourth boat with equivalent work only to be denounced by his own candidate in Barrow who used the words "ignorant and ill-informed".
    Mr. O'Neill: Will the Secretary of State explain to the House the confusion that arose yesterday following the Prime Minister's statement on the United Nations meeting? The confusion arose between the subsequent press briefings given by the hon. and learned Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Prime Minister's statements about what were likely to be the maximum number of warheads on the Trident programme. Although I recognise that for obvious reasons the Secretary of State will not want to be locked or painted into a figure of 512 as the maximum, which is what it would be, will he tell the House whether, in the light of last week's discussions with President Yeltsin and the changes that have taken place
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    since Christmas, the Government are now considering the minimum deterrent to be somewhat lower than they had previously considered it necessary to be?
    Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman knows the situation perfectly well. We have never gone beyond the statement that we will have a maximum of 128 warheads per submarine. That is our position and that is where we remain. We have also made it absolutely clear that we will ensure that our deterrent is effective and absolutely credible, and that it puts real fear into any potential aggressor about the damage that he could suffer if he were to attack this country. That is our position and we have made it absolutely clear that we will do that within the terms of operating a minimum deterrent, which is obviously the sensible way to go.
    The hon. Gentleman seems to be totally ignorant of and unable to adjust to President Yeltsin's announcement in which he made it absolutely clear that our determination to maintain a minimum deterrent is no obstruction to the determination that he and President Bush have to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the super-powers.

    Defence Expenditure
    Mr. Paice: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what estimates he has made of the effect on the reactive capability of United Kingdom defence industries of a reduction in defence expenditure to the Western European Union average.
    The Minister of State for Defence Procurement (Mr. Alan Clark): We have no intention of reducing defence expenditure to the WEU average; we have made no estimate of the implications of such a reduction.
    Mr. Paice: I thank my right hon. Friend. Does he agree that in this very uncertain world, if such a reduction were to take place, it would seriously jeopardise this country's ability to defend itself? That policy would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs in defence industries, including many in my constituency, yet it has been endorsed on no fewer than three occasions by large majorities at the Labour party conference.
    Mr. Clark: Yes, that is right. That policy has been endorsed by majorities of more than 2 million pounds—[Interruption.]—members on each occasion. It is especially interesting that, leaving aside the damage that such a policy would do to the services by wiping out 10 frigates, four submarines and four squadrons of Tornados, there has never been a suggestion in any of the texts that money would be returned to the taxpayer. In every resolution, there has been a reference to making the money available for other "social and economic priorities", thus confirming that the Labour party is the party of high taxation. Labour regards reducing taxes and defending ourselves as equally sinful.
    Mr. Rogers: It is a bit hypocritical both for the questioner and for the Minister, who is a representative of the Government of unemployment, to criticise potential job losses under a Labour Government. The Secretary of State has presided over the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the defence industry in recent years. Since June 1990—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question!"] Since June 1990, 74,000 jobs have been lost in the defence industry. Since the Prime Minister came to power, 1,000 jobs have been

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    lost each month. Some 4,500 jobs have been lost in Barrow. What a bunch of hypocritical mealy-mouthed people! When will the Minister stop the cuts in the defence industry or at least set up a defence diversification agency to help people such as those in Barrow who will be put out of work?
    Mr. Clark: It is always interesting to note that the moment one reminds Labour Members of their party's commitment to high taxation, they lose control of the argument completely and deliver tirades along the lines of that to which the hon. Gentleman has just subjected the House. We regret very much the fact that there have been job losses in the defence industry—of course—and the figure is 25,000—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will not even listen to the reply to his argument it is his loss. The total losses have been of the order of 25,000, but the fact remains that there are still more than 140,000 people directly involved in the defence industry and more than 120,000 indirectly involved. Every one of those workers knows exactly what his likely fate will be should the Labour party ever return to power.
    Mr. Wilkinson: Is not it a strong strategic interest of the United Kingdom to maintain an effective and comprehensive defence industrial base, in case international circumstances change? In that regard, does my right hon. Friend support the WEU proposal of a European surveillance satellite system to engender confidence and ensure that arms control measures are adhered to?
    Mr. Clark: It will be increasingly important to ensure that all surveillance is comprehensive and very widely directed. In no sector is that more important than in the field of nuclear proliferation. All countries that are committed to non-proliferation and all the signatories to the treaty must be prepared both for greater resources to go into the inspection process and to submit to greater surveillance.

    Nuclear Weapons
    Mrs. Fyfe: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps he is taking to encourage non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
    Mr. Tom King: The greatest immediate risk of proliferation follows the disintegration of the Soviet Union with its massive nuclear stockpile and large number of nuclear scientists. We are actively involved in discussion with all the former Soviet republics where nuclear weapons are at present located—particularly with Russia. We are also giving full support to the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 687, for the elimination of the Iraqi nuclear weapons programme.
    Mrs. Fyfe: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Does he want the British public to realise that 128 warheads per submarine equals 512 warheads for four submarines, and that that equates to 2,560 Hiroshimas? Even if he seeks to deploy fewer warheads per boat than the maximum possible, why should not other countries follow his example and say that that is also their ideal of a minimum deterrent? Does non-proliferation apply to everyone else but not to us?
    Mr. King: The hon. Lady seems quite unaware of the fact that, not long ago, I announced from the Dispatch
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    Box what is effectively a halving of our sub-strategic nuclear weapons. NATO will now restrict itself to only one nuclear system, as opposed to the Soviet Union—or Russia now—with three, and we in NATO can point to the fact that we will soon have about one tenth the number of nuclear warheads that we had 10 years ago. I hope that the hon. Lady will recognise the changes that have taken place. I remind her that, following President Yeltsin's recent visit and the welcome changes in connection with what is a hugely large arsenal of nuclear weapons, the top priority of proliferation at present is to ensure that we take action in the ways that I described in my answer. The fact that the hon. Lady rose with a prepared supplementary, ignoring the significance of the massive problems of the time, does her little credit.
    Mr. Nicholls: Does my right hon. Friend agree that even if one ignores what is happening in the former USSR, there are other countries in the world that are potential aggressors and which either have nuclear capacity or may be near to acquiring it? Would not it be the height of folly to give away our own independent nuclear deterrent while any potential aggressor has the ability to strike at us?
    Mr. King: I entirely agree. I was asked about proliferation. We have to face the fact that there is a bigger risk of nuclear proliferation at present than the world has ever known. As a result, while the right approach is to take the most positive steps that we can to help to deal with that problem, we have a duty to our own people also to ensure that we maintain that elementary, basic, minimum safeguard of our own nuclear deterrent. Anybody who dreamt of surrendering that basic safeguard at this time would be doing the gravest disservice to current and possibly to future generations in Britain.
    Mr. O'Neill: May I welcome the attempts that the Government are making, in conjunction with the Russians and the Confederation of Independent States, to reduce and dismantle the nuclear weapons arsenals? That is a most welcome and urgent step. In the current discussions about the size of the nuclear arsenal, is the Secretary of State still committed to bringing on stream another replacement for the WE177 free-fall bomb? Although that may not be against a literal interpretation of the wording of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, would not such a move be a gross affront to the potential proliferators who are reconsidering the need to indulge in the acquisition of nuclear weapons? Would it not be better for the country and for the nuclear proliferation process for the Government to abandon their next generation of air-launched cruise missiles?
    Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman's supplementary question ignored the fact that we are talking about NATO policy. In fact, we are talking about a proposed change in NATO policy, that is what matters—not about a unilateral decision by the Government—which was agreed at the London NATO summit. We are considering the options at the moment, and I have nothing to add to that.
    Mr. Dickens: Will my right hon. Friend please confirm that it is absolutely necessary for us to have a minimum deterrent so that the people of the United Kingdom are safe? In terms of that deterrent, is it not right that when a submarine is cruising anywhere in the world's oceans, any

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    potential aggressor who attacks the United Kingdom will stand the risk of unacceptable and devastating retaliation from us?
    Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend; that is precisely the point. Indeed, that is precisely the point which was so clearly recognised by President Yeltsin. We have criticised the building-up of such a huge nuclear arsenal, but my hon. Friend may have noticed that President Yeltsin is talking of reducing the number of warheads to 2,500, which he regards as reducing to a deterrent. We believe that it is right to have a minimum deterrent so that no potential aggressor can think that this country could be attacked and that they could be unaffected by any retaliation.

    Ex-Service Personnel (Housing)
    Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has to consult local authorities on housing requirements for ex-service personnel.
    The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton): In consultation with the Department of the Environment and the Scottish Office, which are represented on MOD's housing task force, my Department has recently been in contact with all local authorities, seeking information on their arrangements for the provision of housing for ex-service personnel.
    Mr. Michie: The Minister has said that his Department has contacted the local authorities, but when will the Government accept that the local authorities have the strategy and the enabling powers to make provision for housing, especially for the homeless and perhaps for some of the 40,000 personnel who will be leaving the armed forces in the near future? Why is the task force in consultation with the Housing Corporation but refusing to consult the local authorities which have that power? Is it not a fact that the Government still have such a bigoted bias against local authorities that they will even put at risk the future housing of our ex-service families?
    Mr. Hamilton: Let me first put the hon. Gentleman right about the figure of 40,000—40,000 is the number that we have put on the reduction of personnel in the Army, but much of that reduction will be achieved by natural wastage. I remind the hon. Gentleman that about 30,000 people leave the armed forces every year anyway. We are expecting in excess of 10,000 redundancies, which will be spread over three years. We must put those numbers in perspective.
    On the housing task force, we feel that the representatives of the Department of the Environment are well aware of the position of the local authorities in relation to housing. Their representations have been valuable. In addition, Lady Anson, the chairman of the Association of District Councils, has been in touch with my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces.
    Sir Giles Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his contact with the Housing Corporation must be the best way forward and can be usefully developed? Will he further accept that service men are looking for the opportunity to obtain a rung on the ownership ladder and that the Housing Corporation and its satellite housing associations can most assuredly provide that? Is my right
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    hon. Friend confident that nationwide assistance will be available to enable those excellent people to be rehabilitated in our community?
    Mr. Hamilton: Yes. We are in touch on that. The question arises whether some of our married quarters may be sold to housing associations who will give priority to service men. Many different options are being considered. My hon. Friend might be interested to know that we sent out a questionnaire to 5,293 people who volunteered for redundancy and 76 per cent. of them returned it. Of those people who had volunteered for redundancy, 49 per cent. already owned their own homes and another 34 per cent. intended to buy. Therefore, the majority of those who are to be made redundant will either have their own homes or will buy them shortly after.
    Mr. Cartwright: When the Minister next talks to the local authorities about this issue, will he point out that many of them no longer give rehousing priority to ex-service personnel, but expect them to go through the normal homeless families procedures? Does he agree that that is a pretty poor way in which to treat people who have given their lives to the service of their country?
    Mr. Hamilton: I absolutely accept everything that the hon. Gentleman says. One of our concerns is that our ex-service men should not be in temporary accommodation. That is why we are considering the use of our married quarters to ensure that that does not happen.
    Sir Peter Emery: Will my right hon. Friend consider further the approach that I have made to the Secretary of State that vacant married quarters in civilian areas around army camps should be co-ordinated into my right hon. Friend's scheme? If they are to remain empty at any particular time short-held leases could be used so that the barracks could be used for local housing rather than stay vacant.
    Mr. Hamilton: Yes, this has always been a problem, but it has become worse recently, I am afraid, because of the people who have been made redundant and who have come back from Germany. The stocks of empty houses may be larger at this time. I take that point and we are keeping in close contact with local authorities.
    Mr. Boyes: Does the Minister accept that there is a real need and opportunity for bold and radical measures? Local housing authorities have been starved of cash for a number of years by the Government. However, local authorities and the Ministry of Defence have empty sub-standard housing on their books. Will the Minister release MOD votes to allow local authorities, in collaboration with the MOD, to bring empty housing owned by the local authorities and the MOD up to acceptable standards and then transfer it to local authority control for the express purpose of providing homes to ex-service personnel? Or will this Government's ideological opposition to council housing prevent them from doing that?
    Mr. Hamilton: Most of what is being done by my Department—[HON. MEMBERS: "Reading".] It is a blank piece of paper. Most of that work is carried out in conjunction with housing asociations and is financed by the Housing Corporation. On the whole, we would prefer to dispose of blocks of married quarters to housing associations rather than to local authorities. We do not

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    exclude that possibility, but we find that when we talk to local authorities that they do not have the money to buy married quarters in the first place.

    "Options for Change"
    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what further consultations he has had regarding "Options for Change", in the light of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
    Mr. Tom King: We have set out our plans in "Britain's Defence for the 90s" and we are proceeding to implement those over the next four years. I do not propose future reductions in the light of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and given the continuing instability in Europe and elsewhere.
    Dr. Goodson-Wickes: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House, nevertheless, that the validity of the arguments behind "Options for Change" will be kept under constant review, not least because of the disintegration of the Warsaw pact, followed by the emergence of new power structures within the Soviet Union?
    Mr. King: I appreciate that concern. One of the bases that underpinned "Options for Change" was the disintegration of the Warsaw pact, the establishment of independence in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and other former allies, the reunification of Germany and the disappearance of East Germany. We did not anticipate the rapid disintegration of the Soviet Union. There are some who advocate that, now that that has happened, the world is somehow a safer place. We do not believe that that is correct. We believe that the world is passing through a period of considerable instability and therefore we do not propose further reductions in our defence forces.
    Sir Patrick Duffy: In any further consideration of "Options for Change" will the Minister take into account lessons from the Gulf war such as heavy lift, better intelligence especially on targeting, mine countermeasures, which may have inhibited an amphibious operation, and, above all, fire from friendly forces, which underlines the need for the IFF—identification, friend or foe—system which has so far eluded NATO?
    Mr. King: I am glad to confirm that these lessons have been learnt from our consideration of the Gulf conflict. They have been discussed by both NATO and the Western European Union. Heavy lift and enhanced intelligence capability are two very specific matters that have been considered in those forums.

    Defence Contracts (Devon)
    Mr. Speller: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will visit factories in north Devon which have been involved in defence contracts and seek to maintain this link.
    Mr. Alan Clark: I should be very happy to do so.
    Mr. Speller: I thank my right hon. Friend for his brisk but satisfactory reply. Will he please bear in mind the fact that it is essential that, where possible, we buy from British manufacturers across the country? May I commend to him a visit to north Devon and ask him to remember Coutant's of Ilfracombe and firms like High Temperature of South
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    Molton, Hobart's, CQC and others? It is important that we retain these excellent companies even if some of the swords become ploughshares.
    Mr. Clark: My hon. Friend makes a very good point. All the firms that he has mentioned contribute to the employment of the 130,000 people who are directly concerned with the defence industry. He did not mention Cray Marine, a firm in his constituency that provides the Torpedo-handling system for the type 23s. That firm will have welcomed the recent announcement of an order for a further three of these ships.
    Mr. Ashdown: When the Minister visits north Devon will he consider the matter of British equipment and pay a visit to RAF Chivenor, which is waiting for the SAR Westland helicopters that have been on order for two years? The Minister promised that this order would be taken care of shortly after the new year. Surely that time has arrived. The Minister should remember that Westland will hold its annual general meeting on 13 February. An order announced now would not only fulfil the SAR requirements but also be very welcome to Westland.
    Mr. Clark: I am glad to confirm that an announcement about this order will be made shortly. Important though the right hon. Gentleman is, he is not yet in a position to issue invitations to visit Royal Air Force stations.
    Dame Janet Fookes: If my right hon. Friend is going on a tour I hope that he will not forget our mutual home territory on Plymouth, which is very anxious indeed to maintain close links with the armed services. It has provided excellent service in the past, and wishes to do so in the future.
    Mr. Clark: I visit Plymouth every weekend.

    Plutonium
    Mr. Skinner: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if there are currently any contracts with the Atomic Energy Authority for research into the fabrication of weapons components using plutonium; and whether any such work has been carried out at Harwell.
    Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: There are no contracts with the AEA for research into the fabrication of weapons components using plutonium. We do place contracts with AEA, which exploits its expertise in a range of matters, including plutonium handling.
    Mr. Skinner: Why is it that £40 million is being spent on the 220 building at Harwell? Does this have something to do with the transfer of work on Trident warheads from Aldermaston, which is not big enough? Is not the cry of every potential bomb-making third-world country that its nuclear work is entirely civil, even though it is, in fact, for defence purposes? It is time Britain gave a lead by stopping its nuclear proliferation.
    Mr. Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman excites himself without cause. Most of the work that is done at Harwell is for the civilian sector. Indeed, the refurbishment of the 220 building results from AEA's commercial considerations and is not necessitated by Ministry of Defence contracts. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about the Ministry is the one that I have just given. Far more

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    interesting is whether the hon. Gentleman and his Back-Bench colleagues support Labour's new nuclear defence policy—so far as anyone can understand it.
    Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend will be aware of reports coming out of Russia of grave concern about the maintenance and decommissioning of the vast ex-Soviet nuclear stockpile. Is it possible for us to provide facilities, skills and help from the Atomic Energy Authority to help them with that difficult problem?
    Mr. Carlisle: My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Safety is always paramount to us in those matters and we are in discussion with them to see how best we can help.

    Territorial Army
    Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received about the future strength of the Territorial Army in Scotland.
    Mr. Archie Hamilton: A number of representations have been received.
    Mr. Wallace: Can the Minister confirm that they included representations to ensure that any rundown in the Territorial Army in Scotland will not mean there being insufficient units in Scotland, to the point at which the TA will lose the goodwill of the scattered communities, particularly in the highlands and islands, in terms of recruitment? Did he also receive representations about 15 Parachute regiment to the effect that it should be allowed to continue at its five locations in Scotland? Will he take this opportunity to confirm that sufficient resources will be made available to ensure that full establishment is maintained at each of those locations for men and resources, for training and administration?
    Mr. Hamilton: I am always fascinated to hear Liberals going on about resources being made available for defence, when they are committed to cutting them by 50 per cent. by the end of the century. I am never sure how their inquiries fit in with that commitment.
    The reduction in Scotland will be 13 per cent. compared with a United Kingdom average of 17 per cent. So Scotland is being treated well under the measures.
    The geographical spread will be very much a question of how the highland and lowland TAVRAs—the Territorial Army volunteer reserve associations—decide to allocate their resources. My hon. Friend has made it clear that no willing volunteer will be turned away and that anybody who wants to continue to serve with the TA will be able to do so, maybe not with the unit in which he is now serving, but with another unit.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Scotland's contribution to the armed forces, including the TA, far exceeds its proportion of less than 9 per cent. of the United Kingdom population? That has been recognised by the Government. That is why Scots who are interested in military and other matters will always be best served by a Conservative Government.
    Mr. Hamilton: That is absolutely right. It is amazing what we hear from Opposition Members, when they intend to cut defence expenditure. The effect that that
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    would have on Scottish defence would be devastating in terms of procurement and the employment of people in the armed forces.
    Dr. Reid: Is it not a fact that on 3 July last year the Minister of State told my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) that the recruitment figures for individual battalions in Scotland would not be released on the ground of security, yet when it suited the Secretary of State's purpose, he was prepared to release figures showing 67 per cent. recruitment to 15 Parachute regiment? Can he therefore confirm that either the Secretary of State has breached the security rules or that the excuse of national security has been used merely to cover the fact that the Government made the decisions on political rather than on military grounds? Is that not why there is so much concern in Scotland among supporters of the regiment? Is he aware that there will be a wide welcome for my assurance that an incoming Labour Government will review each and every one of these decisions to ensure that the size and structure of the regiments in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom reflect our military needs, and not the political expediency of the Tory party?
    Mr. Hamilton: If the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that a review of defence by an incoming Labour Government, should we happen to have such an Administration, would mean more money being spent on defence, I am a Dutchman.

    Defence Hot-lines
    Dr. Michael Clark: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what offer of assistance he has given to the member states of the former Soviet Union to assist in establishing defence hot-lines.
    Mr. Tom King: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agreed with President Yeltsin in London last week that a secure direct telephone link between No. 10 and the Kremlin should be established. I also discussed with Marshal Shaposhnikov the ways in which we could establish clearer links between us and our staffs. I hope to make a further announcement about that very shortly.
    Dr. Clark: Does my right hon. Friend accept that unambiguous communication is just as important now as it was during the cold war, and perhaps even more important? Will he also accept that the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union may from time to time have some apprehension, and that there may be need to give them reassurance?
    Mr. King: That is precisely why my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary visited each of the nuclear republics of the former Soviet Union. With regard to the need for direct and close contact, I do not think that we could have had a clearer example of that than the visit of President Yeltsin and the very straight talking between my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the president. In one very short and clear comment, President Yeltsin demolised all the arguments of the Labour party that somehow our deterrent is an obstacle to the reduction of the nuclear arms of the super-powers.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Sir George Gardiner: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major:) This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Sir George Gardiner: Does my right hon. Friend agree that to suggest that there is one kind of school that can cater for the needs of all kinds of pupils is an example of the naive theorising that has caused so many problems in education, which we are seeking to address today? Will he continue to press for diversity in education through grant-maintained schools, through city technology colleges and through local management of schools responsive to parents' wishes?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with the premise underlying my hon. Friend's question. We will certainly continue to encourage diversity through grant-maintained schools, CTCs and locally managed schools, all of which give greater opportunity and choice to parents and pupils. We will continue to offer that choice.
    Mr. Kinnock: At the time when the Prime Minister said that if his policies
    "were not hurting, they were not working,"
    did he realise that those policies would cause the longest recession since the 1930s?
    The Prime Minister: We have taken action to ensure that we come out of this recession in a way that will ensure sustained recovery. As the Governor of the Bank of England said only yesterday,
    "the conditions are now in place to underpin a … sustained recovery."
    Mr. Kinnock: Having caused the longest recession since the 1930s, does the Prime Minister agree with the words of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said last month:
    "the policy would not have been different even if we had known the outcome."?
    The Prime Minister: Caused the recession?—Did we cause it in the United States, in Sweden, in Japan, in Australia, in New Zealand? If the right hon. Gentleman believes all that, he is certainly not capable of leading his party, let alone this country.
    Mr. Kinnock: There is no question of doubt that this Government caused the recession in this country. Since the Prime Minister made the statement that I quoted, nearly 1 million jobs have been lost, there have been over 100,000 repossessions and 80,000 businesses have been lost, in those two years. This Government caused the recession, they continued the recession, and now they have not got a clue how to get out of the recession.
    The Prime Minister: What the right hon. Gentleman has to say—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    The Prime Minister: What the right hon. Gentleman has to say is economic illiteracy. If the right hon.
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    Gentleman is genuinely concerned about recovery, what does he think that higher taxes would do to it? What does he think that his jobs tax would do to it? What does he think that his investment tax would do to it? What does he think that his minimum wage would do to it? The policies which the right hon. Gentleman pursues would mean perpetual recession for this country.—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members please settle down?

    Chancellor Kohl
    Mr. Hunter: To ask the Prime Minister when he will next meet the Chancellor of Germany; and what issues he intends to discuss with him.
    The Prime Minister: Chancellor Kohl and I are in frequent contact by telephone to discuss matters of mutual interest. I expect to meet him again soon, but I have no immediate plans to do so.
    Mr. Hunter: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the extent to which the German economy has suffered from the worldwide slowdown and the fact that German output has decreased during the past two months for which figures are available? Does not that conclusively show that economic difficulties are not confined to the United Kingdom, as the Opposition try to claim?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend's question is more apposite than he might have imagined. He is entirely right. I have noticed that fact, even if the Opposition have not. Again, the Governor of the Bank of England noted yesterday that the recession has proved unexpectedly persistent in north America and that in continental Europe, Japan and elsewhere economic activity has slowed and unemployment has begun to rise. Only the Opposition adopt their typical stance. They ignore other countries' difficulties and concentrate solely on those in this country, to the damage of our interests.
    Mr. Radice: After the two opt-outs negotiated by the Prime Minister at Maastricht, does Chancellor Kohl still think that the Prime Minister is a good European?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman had better ask Chancellor Kohl that question. I have enjoyed the closest possible co-operation with Chancellor Kohl in the past year and I intend to continue to do so in the same capacity in years to come.

    Engagements
    Mr. Lee: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Lee: The massive growth at Manchester airport since the Government have come to power—a 1,100 per cent. increase in fixed assets—has given a tremendous boost to the economy and pride of the north-west. Indeed, the north-south divide has now ceased to exist as an issue. When my right hon. Friend next has a free Saturday, will he fly up to Manchester, look at what has been achieved by the airport, and then pop over to Old Trafford to watch a

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    first-class football side in action? It will win the first division championship, just as my right hon. Friend will certainly win the next general election.
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not respond to one part of his question. Manchester airport, however, is a success story. It has benefited especially from the growth in the liberalisation of air services and, as a result, three times as many passengers now use the airport as when the Government came to office. That is a direct result of liberalisation introduced by the Government. The concept of a north-south divide was always too simplistic and sweeping. Many areas of prosperity and some of difficulty exist in each and every part of this country—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us have less barracking.
    Mr. Cohen: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Cohen: Is the Prime Minister aware that, in my constituency of Leyton, unemployment has risen by 84 per cent. in the past 18 months? As last night the Governor of the Bank of England backtracked over the duration of the slump, will the Prime Minister now institute an urgent programme of recovery? Failing that, will he explain to my unemployed constituents why the Government consider them a "price worth paying"?
    The Prime Minister: Clearly, the hon. Gentleman was not listening a few moments ago when I quoted directly the Governor of the Bank of England saying that the conditions necessary to underpin a sustained recovery are now in place.
    Mr. Allason: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that a review is to be undertaken of the use by the security and intelligence agencies of informants and other sources? When he receives that final report, will he bear in mind the fact that the security intelligence agencies rely on the use of informants, and the intelligence that they receive will never be any good unless a measure of protection can be granted to those sources?
    The Prime Minister: We do, of course, constantly keep these matters under review and I believe that it is important that we continue to do so.
    Mr. Winnick: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Winnick: Is the Prime Minister proud of the fact that since the Government came into office in 1979 nearly 2·5 million full-time jobs in manufacturing have been lost, 34 jobs for every hour this wretched Government have been in office? In view of the devastation, the unemployment and the misery caused to our people, is it any wonder that the Prime Minister is so reluctant to hold the general election?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is joining the Opposition trend of seeking to talk down what manufacturing and other industries are doing. He should remember that export volumes of manufactured goods
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    grew faster than in the United States throughout the 1980s, that manufacturing grew faster than in France or Italy during the 1980s, and that Britain exports a larger proportion of its national product than Japan, a point recognised by even the Scottish National party.
    Mrs. Peacock: Will my right hon. Friend join me in sending congratulations to a Yorkshire manufacturing company, Spring Ram plc, which at the end of the month will open two new factories in my constituency, creating 400 new jobs, which is at present building two new factories in Barnsley which will create 400 new jobs, and which has a plan to create 1,100 new jobs in Bradford over the next four years?
    The Prime Minister: I am delighted to send my congratulations to my hon. Friend's constituents. There are, of course, many other companies up and down the country which are similarly investing and growing, and laying the foundation for prosperity in the 1990s.
    Mr. Carr: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Carr: Can the Prime Minister tell the House how he squares his vision of a classless Britain with the experience of a constituent of mine from Fulwood, who was told last May that she needed a hip replacement but that she would have to wait 14 months for the operation under the national health service, and who was told that she could have had the operation immediately had she been able to cough up £4,300?
    The Prime Minister: There were no hip replacements available just a few years ago. It is now a relatively routine operation available in the national health service. Hip replacements are becoming more widely available month after month. That is the direction in which we must go to provide the best health service, the best opportunities and the best element of the classless society that I have talked about.
    Mr. Norris: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the last thing that business needs is for business rates to be brought back under the control of uncapped, loony Labour authorities who will send rates sky rocketing, as they did during the early 1980s? Will he give the House a pledge that such a crazy proposal will never be included in a manifesto issued by the Conservative party?
    The Prime Minister: I can give my hon. Friend that undertaking. It is well known to every hon. Member that under the old system, councils could put up rates by more than the rate of inflation. They did and, among other evils, they forced many jobs out of inner city areas by doing so. Those who doubt that might remember the rate rise of Labour-controlled Ealing council of 57 per cent. in 1987. They might also recollect the wriggling of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) on television the other day on precisely that problem. It would be a problem, he said. It would be a problem not just for the Labour party but for business men up and down the country.
    Mr. Andrew Welsh: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Welsh: Since the Government have supported independence in Russia, Lithuania and other parts of the world, when the people of Scotland democratically and peacefully vote for independence, what will the Government say to them?
    The Prime Minister: This Union has served both Scotland and England well, and I would not wish to see it undermined. The proposals of the Labour party, the Liberal Democratic party and the Scottish National party would undermine that relationship that has served us so well in the Union. Devolution is not just a matter for Scotland; it is a matter for the whole United Kingdom. If an Assembly were given tax-raising powers, how would that fit in with the other fiscal arrangements? What would the increased taxation do to prosperity in Scotland? The hon. Gentleman should put a fair proposal before the Scottish people, not the half-baked one that he has made.
    Mr. Gregory: Will my right hon. Friend—[interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has not yet asked a question of the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Gregory: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government will continue as the party of denationalisation, and confirm to the electorate of York that the Conservative party will not take away the shares of those who have invested in Northern Electric, British Telecom and other such denationalised companies?
    The Prime Minister: I can give that assurance to my hon. Friend. The denationalisation programme has been good not only for the consumer, but for share owning and the improvement of both investment and wealth in this country. We believe in those propositions and we shall continue to support them.
    Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Jones: I am sure that the Prime Minister will have enjoyed reading the Western Mail last Saturday, where he will have seen the results of a telephone survey showing that the people of Wales now support the setting up of a Welsh Parliament by a margin of four to one. When will the Prime Minister acknowledge that the aspirations of the Welsh and Scottish people cannot be sidelined for ever, and when will Parliament act?
    The Prime Minister: I seem to recall that there was a referendum once before on devolution in Wales when there appeared to be a majority in favour. But the reality was that the referendum showed that there was no majority, and the people of Wales recognised that it would be in the best interests of their country and the United Kingdom to sustain the present arrangements.

    Security Forces
    3.31 pm
    Mr. Kevin McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, on matters appertaining to the rule of law, the primacy of the police and confidence in the security forces in Northern Ireland? You will recall, Mr. Speaker—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That matter is for the Government, not me.
    Mr. McNamara: Mr. Speaker, you will recall that at Question Time last Thursday the Government were twice asked to make a statement on the subject at the conclusion of the Nelson trial. I had privately written to the Secretary of State about that. The matters related to the honesty and integrity of the British Army, connivance in terrorist offences, the role of the police and security forces, and plea bargaining to prevent full public scrutiny of the issues in the House and before the British public.
    May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to seek some way to force, make, persuade or otherwise cajole the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who has responsibility for such matters to make a statement to the House?
    Mr. Speaker: I have received no request for a statement, but the hon. Gentleman's point of order will have been heard by those Ministers with responsibility for such matters.

    WELSH AFFAIRS
    Ordered,
    That the Matter of education in Wales, being a matter relating exclusively to Wales, be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee for its consideration.—[Mr. Sackville]

Caravan Sites (Amendment)
3.32 pm
Sir Michael McNair-Wilson (Newbury): I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend Part II of the Caravan Sites Act 1968; to make further provision in respect of encampments of travelling people; and for connected purposes.
I am asking—[interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members who are not remaining for the ten-minute Bill leave the Chamber quietly, particularly those below the Gangway?
Sir Michael McNair Wilson: I ask the House to give my Bill a First Reading, conscious that many hon. Members also face problems arising from the illegal encampment of people who may be gipsies, but, who, as in my constituency, often belong to other groups variously titled —hippies, travellers, new age travellers, tinkers, dropouts, didicoys and peace people. I submit that the Caravan Sites Act 1968 is no longer relevant to meet the difficulties that such people create.
The ineffectiveness of the present law was vividly illustrated in west Berkshire recently when we faced the encampment of people who described themselves as new age travellers and who decided to park 20 vehicles illegally on a county council byway. The local people were infuriated by the camp and asked the police to move the travellers on. The police demurred on the ground that, as the county council had not designated a site according to part II of the 1968 Act, there was nowhere for the travellers to go. That prompted me to write to Berkshire county council asking when it intended to designate a site in the west of the county to meet the travellers' needs. The council responded that the Act referred only to sites for gipsies and that, as the travellers were not gipsies, the council had no responsibility for the matter. I then wrote to the council asking how it identified a gipsy from a traveller, but I did not receive an answer.
Strictly speaking, the county council is right. Within the strictest interpretation, the 1968 Act applies to gipsies and not to travellers. It seems to me that the Act should be amended, the word "gipsy" dropped, and the phrase—suggested, I think, by the National Gipsy Council—
"persons of a nomadic way of life"
substituted. At the very least, it would mean a reappraisal of the numbers of people involved in travelling, and thus a reassessment of the number of sites required. The figure of 11,544 gipsy caravans given in 1990 could increase dramatically, and the sooner that we know the scale of the problem, the sooner we can do something about it.
Despite the fact that the 1968 Act is now 24 years old, the Department of the Environment has set no time limit within which county councils must meet their statutory responsibility to designate sites. That would be another requirement of my Bill. Every county should have at least one site, and I suggest that that should happen within the next 12 months.
I go further. The number of people who have taken up a nomadic way of life has increased, and it is probably still increasing. I do not know why they choose that way of life, but that is their right in a free society and we must recognise it. If we are to avoid the endless aggravation that such people as travellers cause virtually wherever they go, the illegality of their encampments, the mess and rubbish that they leave behind, their lack of sanitation, and the fear
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of local people that travellers pay little attention to the law, cut timber at will, and poach—in other words, if we are to create some measure of harmony between modern nomads and the community—local authorities should be required to appoint a travellers' liaison officer whose task, much like that of community relations officers, would be to liaise with travelling groups, farmers and their representatives, such as the National Farmers Union, local land owners, and the police. I believe that some counties already have such a person.
In turn, such groups of interested people, working with a local authority, could seek to create a pattern of short-stay transit sites, inconspicuous to the public but maintained by the local authority for travellers. Travelling groups should be able to discover from the local authority where sites are located, and those refusing to use them could be made subject to severe fines.
Clearly, the size of transit sites would vary according to the neighbourhood, but at least some should be able to cope with large vehicle convoys, such as those which make their way to Stonehenge, or which have over the past two years chosen the common around Hungerford as a weekend site.
Present police powers need revising. Currently, policing illegal encampments is a costly business. A large site can tie down as many as 100 constables and cost tens of thousands of pounds, yet the police have limited powers. Generally, they use section 39 of the Public Order Act 1986 to move people on, but that legislation does not apply to vehicles, animals, or the travellers' other belongings. As the assistant chief constable of Thames Valley wrote in a recent letter to me:
"It follows therefore that if we were to exercise a power of arrest in circumstances which warranted it, then the families of the persons arrested would still be able to remain with their property on the land."
It was put to me that there should be a new offence of aggravated trespass on land to meet that problem. As matters stand, a district council can obtain an eviction order from a local court when dealing with illegal encampments on common land, but for the police to move illegal encampments from private property requires a much more drawn-out procedure. I know that the police would welcome a simplified court order system.
I wonder whether showmen's vehicles, and the right or otherwise to park them at the side of the road, really belong in the 1968 Act as it is presently drawn.
I have outlined some of the changes to present legislation that, in my opinion, could bring some order to a situation that is rapidly getting out of control. I hope that it is clear from my remarks that the law should strike a new balance between the obvious rights of ordinary people living in towns and villages to be spared the nuisance, aggravation, and hooliganism associated with illegal encampments and the fact that many thousands of people prefer a nomadic way of life—and that simply to try to move them on to somebody else's patch is no solution. Quite simply, the Act must be amended.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Michael McNair-Wilson, Sir Anthony Durant, Sir Patrick McNair-Wilson, Mr. Robert G. Hughes, Mr. Mark Wolfson, Mr. Tim Smith and Mr. John Watts.

Caravan Sites (Amendment)

  CARAVAN SITES (AMENDMENT)
  Sir Michael McNair-Wilson accordingly presented a Bill to amend Part II of the Caravan Sites Act 1968; to

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  make further provision in respect of encampments of travelling people; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 14 February and to be printed. [Bill 64.]

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Speaker: In view of the large number of right hon. and hon. Members who wish to participate in the debate, I propose to put a 10-minute limit on speeches between 6 pm and 8 pm. I hope, however, that those who are called before and after those times will bear the limit in mind, so that all who wish to speak may be called.
  3.40 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): I beg to move,
  That the Revenue Support Grant Report (England) 1992–93 (House of Commons Paper No. 188), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  It may be convenient also to consider the following motions:
  That the Revenue Support Grant Distribution (Amendment) (No. 2) Report (England) (House of Commons Paper No. 190), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  That the Population Report (England) (No. 3) (House of Commons Paper No. 189), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  That the Special Grant Report (No. 3) (House of Commons Paper No. 191), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  Many of us have taken part in these annual debates before, but they should not be seen as any sort of ritual. The House should explore thoroughly and carefully the allocation of £33 billion of taxpayers' funds: that is the element of Government support for some £42 billion of local authority expenditure.
  It is appropriate on occasions such as this to remind the House of the difference between the Labour party's approach to taxation and expenditure levels, and that of the Government. We know from long and bitter experience that high levels of taxation are the hallmark of the Labour party in national government and that rising taxation levels are characteristic of that party in local government.
  This year, the average community charge is some £60 higher in Labour-controlled metropolitan boroughs than in those controlled by the Conservative party. In London, the gap is even wider. It is exactly the same story in the shire counties: average charges are £80 higher in Labour districts than in Conservative districts. In independent and Social and Liberal Democrat-controlled authorities, they are £37 higher. This is a national pattern, which both the House and a wider audience will no doubt wish to bear carefully in mind.
  Mr. Barry Field: Last year, the Isle of Wight received a higher settlement than any other shire county in England. The authority has nearly £3 million on its balances, but the Liberal Democrats are considering cutting £1·5 million from the education budget—although, when they fought the last county election, they ran down the county balances to £250,000 and ignored the advice of the district auditor. I wonder whether my right hon. Friend could spare the time to join me in a rally and march in Newport, Isle of Wight, this weekend, when we shall go to county hall to protest to the Liberal Democrats about this exhibition of sheer political spite.
  Mr. Heseltine: That is a most generous invitation, I must say. I feel torn between two options. Perhaps I can combine making a speech in Eastbourne on Saturday to the Young Conservatives, the largest political youth

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  organisation in the country—we shall also have to deal with the problems caused by Liberal Democrats in the House, if only temporarily—with a dash across country to support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence in his constituency, and a detour to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field).
  On mature reflection, that will be stretching the ingenuity of the transport infrastructure in this country further than is credible, despite the remarkable improvements in that infrastructure for which the Government, alone, are responsible. I must leave it to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight to use his customary eloquence to put the case, which is obviously a formidable one. I look forward to reading the coverage in the national and local press, which I am sure is well deserved.
  Where was I?
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: Why does not the right hon. Gentleman stand against the grey man?
  Mr. Heseltine: On the rare occasions that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) stands to say anything, he seeks to cause the maximum possible trouble for his party, which it claims has abandoned all the political views that the hon. Gentleman, at least, has the integrity still to advocate.
  Mr. Skinner: Unlike the Secretary of State, I have never stood against the leader of my party. I was not one of those who decided to act as a stalking horse so that the Ken Barlow replica could get the job, turning out the previous Prime Minister like a dog in the night. The net result is that the right hon. Gentleman has finished up with the poll tax brief, which he did not want. He begged for the Chancellor of the Exchequer's job and was kicked into touch.
  Mr. Heseltine: I am sorry to have bothered the hon. Gentleman. He should reconsider his position. By standing against the leader of the Labour party, he would cause exciting consequences for this country. If he were the leader of the Labour party, at least we would know that he was saying the things that most of his supporters still believe. We would know where we are and we would find it easier to keep the Labour party in opposition than we will otherwise. I do not want to trespass on your generosity, Mr. Speaker, by straying from the important revenue support grant debate.
  Mr. John Greenway: Before my right hon. Friend tours the entire country from the Isle of Wight to Basildon, may I bring him back to the point that he was making? Whether we are dealing with metropolitan authorities or shire districts, Labour authorities set community charges that are substantially higher than in Conservative-controlled areas, and that is as true in the north as it is in London. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the low community charges set by Wandsworth and Westminster are proof of the generous revenue support grant settlements for all inner London boroughs, which are partly subsidised by the settlement for the shire districts represented by the Conservative party?
  Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend is right. As I have made clear, we have provided an additional 7·2 per cent. cash to support local authority expenditure in the coming year
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  when inflation is just over 4 per cent. That is a considerable real-terms improvement in the support for local authority services. It is characteristic that, despite the additional support from the Government, the overall level of charges in all classes of authority will be significantly higher in Labour-controlled authorities than in Conservative-controlled authorities. Interestingly, more money being spent is not the same as people getting a better standard of service.
  Mr. Dennis Turner: The right hon. Gentleman talked about a 4 per cent. uplift for all authorities next year. Would he care to tell us about Wolverhampton's predicament? We will have to take £15 million from our budget, cut hundreds of jobs and reduce services that have been built up patiently over many years. We have an uplift of 3·5 per cent. when inflation is 4 per cent. How can my authority balance its books and do what it should for the people of our town, when the Government are not granting it sufficient resources to maintain the level of services? How can you say that the people of Wolverhampton—[Interruption.] I shall finish, Mr. Speaker, because this is important for the people of Wolverhampton. They want to know why the Government are not supporting them. We have the—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must take his chance later in the debate.
  Mr. Turner: The people of Wolverhampton will suffer as a result of the right hon. Gentleman's policies.
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Turner: I apologise, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: Thank you so much.
  Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that the West Midlands police authority will receive an increase of about 15 per cent. in next year's allocation—that is an important concentration of support where people care most about the quality of service that they receive.
  I was going to make the point that high community charges and high expenditure levels do not necessarily mean that the quality of service is high. That is clear from the analysis. Lambeth has one of the highest community charges in the country, but its cumulative rent arrears are now more than £17 million. That means that £17 million which should have been spent on maintaining the local authority housing stock is not being spent, because the local authority has not collected it. It is another example of inefficient management denying local authority tenants the service to which they are entitled.
  Haringey's rent arrears are the equivalent of almost 20 per cent. of its rent roll—
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Heseltine: No.
  All analyses show the same disregard for the quality of service, although the levels of expenditure are often very high. I have been less than impressed by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) during the past few days. He has been trying to suggest that one can make easy comparisons between one authority and another. He indulged in a very selective process and produced a

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  number of statistics to try to show that some Labour authorities spend more than some Conservative-controlled authorities on some services.
  That reflects only the fact that Labour controls some authorities where there are significant levels of need and the Government, through the standard spending assessment system, provide encouragement to meet that need. Therefore, it is not surprising that some Labour authorities spend more in areas of need.
  Mrs. Maureen Hicks: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Heseltine: That is precisely what the Government intended should happen.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: What about meeting needs in North Derbyshire or South Derbyshire?
  Mrs. Hicks: Is it not difficult for my right hon. Friend to come to the aid of Wolverhampton in the full knowledge that its authority has more than £5 million of rent arrears, numerous empty council houses and 10,000 surplus school places? Although we hear what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner) says, is it not a difficult situation for my right hon. Friend to comprehend?
  Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend's point seems to be a most telling case, with which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner) should deal. It is very important, but it is perhaps not a debate which should be conducted over my head during my introductory speech.
  I was intrigued to discover that the hon. Member for Dagenham alleges that the collection cost of 1 tonne of rubbish is £39·38 in Wandsworth and £16·62 in Haringey, but I understand from inquiries in Wandsworth that that figure is for collection and disposal—£30 per tonne for disposal alone under an old expensive contract inherited from the borough. The House will by now have guessed from where the authority inherited that contract—it was the old Labour-controlled Greater London council.
  The most interesting point in the analysis by the hon. Member for Dagenham, in which he sought to produce figures to prove that Labour was more effective than others on an independent analysis, is why he does not therefore bring pressure to bear on Labour-controlled authorities, especially in London, which do not provide up-to-date returns on which their cost analysis can be compared. It is obvious that the hon. Member for Dagenham will not do anything to encourage Labour authorities to keep their returns up to date, so that their analysis of spending can be known to their electors and to a wider public. I can understand why. Those authorities are the ones which do not collect rents, which did not collect the rates and which do not collect the community charge.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
  Mr. Heseltine: I must confess that I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a non-payer of his community charge. I can see no case for a Secretary of State giving way to him when he advises his constituents that they should not maintain the law of this country.
  Mr. Barnes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The statements made by the Secretary of State are absolutely incorrect. [HON. MEMBERS: "Apologise."] He should give me a chance to talk about North East Derbyshire. It is a Labour-controlled authority—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. Is this a point of order for me? If the hon. Gentleman is patient, he may get the chance to talk about North East Derbyshire later in the debate.
  Mr. Heseltine: If the hon. Gentleman is now advising people to pay their community charge, I apologise unreservedly.
  Mr. Harry Barnes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker: The Secretary of State has now given way to the hon. Gentleman. I would far rather that he put his question to the Secretary of State than to me.
  Mr. Barnes: I never advised people not to pay their community charge. I might not have paid my own for a certain period, and there are strong arguments and analyses in connection with that, which I have explained in the House on numerous occasions. That chap over there knows nothing about them.
  Mr. Heseltine: Do I understand that the hon. Gentleman's argument is that if he did not pay his own community charge—I believe that he said he would not do that—
  Mr. Barnes: Rubbish.
  Mr. Heseltine: Ah. Having said that he would not pay and having given the worst possible signals, under pressure he has now given way and changed his mind. It sounds to me like the worst possible deal.
  Mr. Barnes: Will the Secretary of State explain why the standard spending assessment for North East Derbyshire places it 365th out of 366 authorities in England? It receives only £81 per head for poll tax payers in the area by way of grant, whereas other authorities receive two or three times that amount. If the right hon. Gentleman wants a discussion later about the principles of non-payment and why hon. Members may not have paid because of the damage done to the electoral register, that is another matter.
  Will the right hon. Gentleman give an answer about the position of North East Derbyshire? It is not a well-heeled authority, yet it is at the bottom of the league in terms of the money that it is allowed to spend and the amount of grant that the Government provide.
  Mr. Heseltine: I was trying to hear whether the hon. Gentleman paid his community charge because he was taken to court or whether it was because he was convinced that the case that he first advocated was wrong. He has not made that position clear to the House. The House would like to know whether the hon. Gentleman's sudden conversion to keeping within the law came because he changed his mind or because he was taken to court.
  Mr. Barnes: The change occurred because there was a vast change in the Government's position. They decided to get rid of the poll tax, although they have not lived up to that promise properly and correctly. A change took place. The action taken by various people, including myself, advanced the position of the Secretary of State and led to the demise of the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs.

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  Thatcher) as Prime Minister. She was destroyed by the flagship of the poll tax. No one else on the Conservative Benches has produced arguments to explain why they wish to get rid of the poll tax and introduce a council tax in its place.
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman is being more than frank with the House. In effect, he is arguing that it is perfectly legitimate to defy the law as long as one gains by doing so. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that his is exactly the sort of case that led to authorities' inability to collect the community charge on the scale that was appropriate. It was a deliberate decision and strategy of some Labour Members that they would pursue that policy, and it does not lie in their mouths now to blame the Government for the effects of that deliberate strategy.
  Mrs. Edwina Currie: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in Derbyshire, more than 90 per cent. of the money raised is spent by Derbyshire county council, which subsidises school meals at 1981 prices while sacking teachers, ending swimming lessons and closing libraries, which sends its leader and his cronies on an expensive trip to China while we have fewer police officers than 10 years ago, and which plays around with the pension fund? In those circumstances, is my right hon. Friend surprised that the leader of the council has just announced that he is to resign and that the deputy leader is facing charges? Does my right hon. Friend think that things will improve in future? With "friends" like the hon. Members for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) and for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), will they not remain exactly the same?
  Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The debate has taken on a most intriguing dimension. Any minute now, the hon. Member for Dagenham will be on his feet asking for higher levels of public expenditure by local authorities. He will be citing—I have no doubt that he will paint a dramatic picture of harrowing cuts—the local authorities' case for an extra £2 billion, over and above the 7·2 per cent. increases that the Government believe to be appropriate.
  The House will want to know exactly where the Labour party stands on the issue of increased public expenditure. It does not require a great deal of calculation to work out that, if the hon. Member for Dagenham argues the local authorities' case for an additional £2 billion of public expenditure—which is what the authorities want—that will have to be paid for somehow. The money will not come from extra support from the Government, so it can come only from either 1p extra on income tax or £60 on every poll tax bill. Before the debate ends, we shall want to know which argument the hon. Gentleman advances: does he support the levels of expenditure that the Government believe to be justified or would he put another 1p on income tax or £60 on poll tax to support the local authorities in their request for additional expenditure?
  Mr. Richard Tracey: Surely, as reports from the Audit Commission have repeatedly proven, the answer to everything is greater efficiency. That is why Wandsworth is able to return for a second year no community charge while receiving the lowest level of
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  support of all the inner-London boroughs—hundreds of pounds less than the London borough of Lambeth next door.
  Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend raises a central issue. The Labour party wants to get rid of the Audit Commission because, for the first time, the commission has put a spotlight on inefficiency in service delivery and on cost per unit of output in a way that is in the end likely to improve efficiency. The moment the Labour party sees genuine discipline imposed on local authorities, it wants to get rid of the agency that is achieving that discipline.
  Mr. Tony Banks: I despair of the Secretary of State ever treating local government matters in the House seriously. He reduces everything to drag-out dirty politics, as though he was addressing the Conservative conference.
  The right hon. Gentleman is looking around for reasons why local authorities will be asking for extra money. I put it to him that, in the case of the London borough of Newham, it will be because we have to find £6 million this year out of revenue as a result of decisions taken by the valuation court on old rate rebates. That had nothing to do with the London borough of Newham. We are not the only borough in London—or, indeed, elsewhere—facing that prospect. What help can the Secretary of State offer us? Or does he intend to carry on kicking the thing around like a cheap party political football?
  Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that he went to see my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities yesterday and that they had a discussion about the matter. It would be quite wrong for me to anticipate what my hon. Friend might recommend by way of response. Frankly, when the hon. Gentleman uses that sort of debasing language—I have to use those words—to misrepresent the courteous reception that he received yesterday at the Department of the Environment, he does not encourage my hon. Friend the Minister of State to continue to see people so courteously.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham has also been misleading the public about the target community charge for next year. All hon. Members know that the figure that we produced in the settlement provides for standard spending of just over £257. That is not a prediction; it is a target. Efficient authorities will be able to set charges at or near that level, and a significant number of authorities will do precisely that. However, inefficient local authorities will charge more. It is interesting to note that, once again, 18 of the 20 highest community charges this year have been set by Labour local authorities.
  The latest evidence is that the gloomy predictions about collection rates that were made by the hon. Member for Dagenham and his colleagues are not being realised. Returns for the third quarter of 1991–92 show that 29 per cent. of the annual budgeted income was collected in that quarter, making a total of 68 per cent. of the budgeted yield for the year. The figure for that quarter is marginally better than for the same quarter in the previous year. There is no reason why, in the year as a whole, local authorities should not improve their overall level of collection. Indeed, the latest figures for 1990–91 show that authorities have now collected 97 per cent. of the budgeted income for that year. As always, however, the average disguises the failure of the worst authorities—and the

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  worst authorities are Labour authorities. As far as we can see on the latest information, in about nine cases a quarter or more of last year's budgeted income still remains to be collected. I hope that that position will have improved, but that is the latest information available to me.
  The essence of the point that I wish to stress to the House is that that problem is not unique to the community charge. The self-same authorities generally had the worst record for rent collection also. They would do no better under "fair rates" proposals of the hon. Member for Dagenham , if they were ever to be introduced. Indeed, they are the same authorities that cannot collect their rents either. One keeps coming back to the same authorities— Lambeth, Haringey, Hackney and Liverpool. Time and again, the same authorities do not collect their bills—whatever those bill happen to be.
  Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: May I take my right hon. Friend briefly back to the figure of £257 that he quoted? I believe that, if it put its mind to it, my authority in Nottingham could achieve that figure —but with one exception. Will my right hon. Friend address the problem that affected all my constituents last year when an extra £44·75 was imposed on them to pay for the slow payers and non-payers who were encouraged in their actions by the Labour Members, and especially by Labour Members such as the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes)? I make that point because the neighbouring authority to the city of Nottingham, Conservative-controlled Gedling, imposed only an extra £3·50. That shows clearly that the surcharge had nothing to do with Government legislation but was due entirely to the difference between Conservative and Labour-run authorities. What protection can we give our constituents?
  Mr. Heseltine: The simplest solution, as I am sure my hon. Friend will persistently advocate, is to vote those Labour authorities out of office. That is incomparably the best way in which to deal with the issue.
  Mr. Allen McKay rose—
  Mr. Heseltine: Please forgive me, but I shall not give way because many other hon. Members wish to speak.
  I wish to say a few words about non-payment. The House has heard me say before, and I repeat it now, that there will be no amnesty for non-payers. We are taking further steps to ensure that authorities have the necessary powers for the proper enforcement of the community charge. On 23 January, I announced that we would be extending from two to six years the period during which enforcement proceedings may be commenced. I announced last week that we are moving swiftly to put beyond doubt the admissibility of computer evidence in proceedings for community charge recovery in magistrates courts. We will table amendments to the Local Government Finance Bill, now in another place, to ensure that admissibility.
  Last week, the hon. Member for Dagenham put it to me that we should put a short Bill through the House in rapid time to deal with the issue. I considered that offer with fairness and in deference to his position of responsibility as a leading member of the Labour party. When his letter arrived, I spent a great deal of the day exploring all the problems of putting through a Bill of the sort that he had
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  in mind. He could not, for example, carry all the House with him. There could easily have been filibustering by the Scottish nationalists or who knows what. He could not command a majority in another place and I had to take those issues into account, but I did not dismiss the possibility out of hand.
  I was beginning to talk to the business managers about moving in that direction, which could have saved a fortnight of the House's time and would have been possible in the best of all possible worlds. However, I came to the House to find that a principal piece of Government legislation, the Education (Schools) Bill was being subjected to a filibuster. As a consequence, we lost a day's business.
  That displays, as clearly as one can, the cynical disregard the Labour party has for proper relations between the Opposition and the Government. They had no intention of enabling us to get our legislative programme through with dispatch. It was done to try to cover up the embarrassment of the Labour party at the refusal of its own members to try to collect the community charge. Therefore, I was not prepared to deal with the matter in the way that the hon. Member for Dagenham suggested.
  My Department has written to local authorities about how to proceed in the short period before the Bill which we are amending is enacted and about the position of existing liability orders. In the intervening period, authorities will wish to consult the clerks to the justices about how to proceed. We believe there is no obstacle to authorities continuing to apply for liability orders where they consider that their procedures for the presentation of cases meet the requirements of existing law. I understand that a number of authorities are continuing to do so.
  In any event, it is our view that summonses for non-payment of the community charge, with return dates after new powers are in place, can continue to be issued. When cases have been or are adjourned, they can be considered under the new powers when they are in place. Our proposed amendments will not be retrospective, but they will apply in proceedings to enforce payment of the community charge whenever the liability arose, including cases in which a summons was issued before the Local Government Finance Bill takes effect.
  Our understanding in relation to liability orders, which have been made under existing powers, is as follows. The new provisions will not in themselves invalidate any order previously made. Local authorities can continue to act on orders which magistrates courts have granted. An individual may of course apply to challenge a liability order in a higher court—for instance, by applying for leave to seek judicial review if the order was granted within the past three months. Each case would need to be looked at separately on its merits. If the only ground on which an individual sought relief was the inadmissibility of computer evidence, and he had not raised the issue in a lower court, it seems unlikely that the court, in the exercise of its discretion, would entertain an application.
  I understand that, if it came to a hearing, it is equally unlikely that the court, in the exercise of its discretion, would quash a liability order solely on the grounds of procedural defect if no injustice had been done and the community charge remained unpaid. Let us be clear; we would be dealing with individuals who have failed to pay a community charge properly due and who would be seeking to avoid or delay payment through a technicality.

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  I hope that hon. Members will believe that, in addressing the legitimate interests of the crucial services provided by local government for the forthcoming year, and having regard to the current levels of inflation and the ability of the Government to afford whatever sum is appropriate, this settlement is one for which they can vote. We believe that it is coupled with a realistic capping regime to contain excessive levels of expenditure. The House will know of the regime that follows the determination by any authority that its budget comes within that capping regime.
  The House would do well to support this set of proposals, which I commend. In so doing, it would urge local authorities not to seek to justify higher levels of expenditure, which can only put pressure on their community charge payers and others in the area affected by such charges, but to seek improvements in the output values that they can attain, which are being attained by many authorities of all political persuasions up and down the country.
  The settlement that we are finalising today reflects the Government's continuing commitment to ensuring a proper level of funding for local authority expenditure. It provides sufficient resources for local authorities to provide a full range of services at a price that both their charge payers and the country as a whole can afford.
  4.10 pm
  Mr. Bryan Gould: This debate brings us to wearisomely familiar territory, even if our only guide to that territory so far has been a typically rambling and shambling speech from the Secretary of State. It is territory littered with the wrecks of failed Government policies. It is a familiar catalogue of Government mistakes, which have dogged local government for more than a decade, undermined its morale, slashed its resources and virtually extinguished its independence.
  Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gould: The hon. Gentleman must be joking.
  Last year the Secretary of State had an excuse of sorts. The more generous among us were inclined to say that, in the decade since his first stint at Marsham street, he appeared to have mellowed somewhat. While others pointed the accusing finger at him as the progenitor of the "Whitehall knows best" approach, we tended to point to his attack on the poll tax—the "Tory tax", as I think he called it—and to his robust opposition to universal capping. Even his commitment, at this time last year, to a manifestly inadequate RSG settlement could be excused on the ground that he had inherited the settlement from his predecessor and had had no chance to recast it. A year later, none of those excuses will wash any more.
  This revenue support grant settlement is the Secretary of State's settlement; the poll tax bills are his poll tax bills; the capping is his capping; the consequences for local government, disastrous as they are, are consequences that he has willed as a deliberate act of policy. The great centraliser of the early 1980s, the great hostile opponent of the whole concept of local government, is again alive and well in Marsham street. It is little wonder, therefore, that we heard only the merest token of any analysis or defence
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  of the RSG settlement. The Secretary of State spent the bulk of his speech on a typically wild assault and denunciation of local government in general.
  So it is that this RSG settlement shows all the flaws of its predecessors. It is, first of all, simply inadequate. It represents a full £2 billion less than local authorities—I refer not only to Labour authorities but to all local authority associations, including those under Tory control —calculated were needed to maintain services, to take account of inflation and to discharge the new obligations imposed by statute.
  Mr. Oppenheim rose—
  Mr. Gould: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman very shortly.
  Mrs. Mahon: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Gould: I shall give way to my hon. Friend, too.
  To justify the settlement, the Government persist in using figures based on calculations that are irrelevant and misleading. They point to a rate of increase over last year's settlement, when everyone knows that last year's settlement was itself inadequate, that the actual level of local government expenditure was much higher.
  They base themselves on a rate of inflation of 4£5 per cent., which is lower than the 7·3 per cent. which local government calculates it actually has to face and which is higher than the general rate because of the importance of wage settlements beyond the control of local government.
  They fail to take account of demographic changes, of new service pressures, of the impact of recession or of the rise in homelessness. No wonder local government as a whole regards this RSG settlement as unsatisfactory.
  Mr. Oppenheim rose—
  Mr. Gould: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly, but I give priority to my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon).
  Mrs. Mahon: Probably because the Secretary of State anticipated the question that I wanted to ask him, he refused to give way to me.
  Labour-controlled Calderdale, recently named the second most efficient metropolitan council, has recently given official figures for the loss of rate support grant since 1979. More than £167 million has been lost as a result of RSG cuts under the Conservatives. That represents £13 million a year for each of the 13 unlucky years that the Conservatives have been in office. That is why the area is facing another massive round of cuts, which leaves it unable to build homes for the homeless and explains why we have crumbling schools and face the prospect of the closure of old people's homes. That has nothing to do with councillors but everything to do with the Conservatives removing £13 million a year in RSG in the way I have described.
  Mr. Gould: The testimony of my hon. Friend is persuasive because what she tells us about the experience of Calderdale, important and damaging though that has been, is by no means limited to that authority, to Labour local authorities or to local authorities of particular categories. It has been the general experience of local government as a whole, and Conservative-controlled local

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  authorities are almost as damning in their judgment of Conservative treatment of local government as are my hon. Friends and I.
  Mr. Oppenheim: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I understand his commitment to positive discrimination in giving way first to the hon. Lady the Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon).
  If the settlement is really so inadequate, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to give the House an unequivocal commitment significantly to increase funding for local government within two years? Yes or no?
  Mr. Gould: I will gladly give the hon. Gentleman a commitment that we shall put an end to the £25 million of taxpayers' money wasted every day on maintaining the poll tax in being. That must be added to the £14 billion of taxpayers' money so far thrown at the poll tax. It is the most breathtaking cheek on the part of the Conservative Members to pretend that, in some way, they are the guardians of prudent management of the taxpayers' money—[Interruption.] This deliberate self-delusion as to the true value of the RSG settlement may convince those who want to be misled, but it cannot alter the real consequences in the real world of reduced services and higher poll tax bills.
  The size of the settlement is not the only problem. There is also the question of the distribution of the grant and the whole system of standard spending assessments, a system which even the Secretary of State's predecessor admitted was flawed and needed reform but which has remained unreformed and consequently open to fundamental objection.
  Mr. Roger Knapman: Is the £4·2 billion of additional public expenditure that the hon. Gentleman is recommending within the £37 billion already promised, or is it a new and separate promise?
  Mr. Gould: The hon. Gentleman must have been asleep at the time of the Budget and Finance Bill last year, when the House appoved that expenditure because it at least made some attempt to redress the short-changing of local government over a long period under the Conservatives.
  I was speaking of the flaws of the standard spending assessments. Virtually no one has a good word to say for SSAs. Even the Audit Commission warned that the Government should not underestimate the lack of confidence in SSAs among local government politicians and professions.
  Everyone knows that SSAs measure the wrong things. Why, for example, are needs measured but not resources, and why is this done in an arbitrary, capricious and over-complicated way? Why is it assumed that it costs £1,148 per adult to deliver a standard level of service in Manchester, but only £857 for the same standard level of service in Wigan? Why is it assumed that a 300-pupil secondary school in Sheffield needs £300,000 less than a similar school in Wandsworth?
  Why does Barnsley, with all the problems of a declining mining area, receive an SSA ranking it 251st out of 366 English authorities—below that of such supposedly deprived areas as Epsom, Sevenoaks and Bath? Why are so many well-run Labour authorities in the north—Wigan, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and so on—victims of the capping axe on the basis of a manifestly inappropriate
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  set of SSAs? Do Ministers dispute in public what they have admitted in private—that the SSA system discriminates against those authorities?
  Mr. Eric Illsley: My hon. Friend has referred to Barnsley, which is 36th out of 36 metropolitan districts. What is his view of a settlement that puts Manchester's SSA 78 per cent. higher than Barnsley's for the provision of a standard level of service?
  Mr. Gould: My hon. Friend chooses one more of a veritable myriad statistics which could be adduced. There is a huge range of statistics which show how ludicrous and irrational is the system of SSAs. I pointed out on 26 November that there must be something wrong with a system which concluded that Harrow, with 15·4 days of snow each year, had more snow than Cumbria, with only 12·6 days. At least that nonsense, we understand, has been partially remedied, with two days added to Cumbria's total. But that is only one of the many inconsistencies.
  Can either the Secretary of State or the Minister tell us how many local authorities—is it dozens or is it scores? —have been so concerned about their treatment that they have been to see them to try to get their assessments changed?
  Mr. Michael Carttiss: I agree with some of the hon. Gentleman's comments about the standard spending assessment; he has made many points which I believe many Conservatives throughout the country would make. Nevertheless, will he find time this afternoon to spell out some of the alternatives which the Labour party might think it could find to improve the situation?
  Mr. Gould: We are at least making some progress. I very much welcome the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman not only concedes that there is common ground between us in the criticisms that I am making of the SSAs, but also demonstrated a willingness to learn from the excellent policies that we have published. I will gladly send him a set of the policy documents, which I am glad to say are in great demand by letter writers from all over the country.
  It is not just the capricious nature of the system that is unacceptable; it is, I am sorry to say, the scope which the system offers to an unscrupulous Secretary of State to manipulate it for party advantage. It is not just the introduction of criteria, such as foreign visitor nights, which are plainly calculated to benefit Westminster; it is the pattern of the increase in SSAs, with a plain divergence along party lines, that gives real cause for concern. The figures are quite startling in their implications.
  For local government in England as a whole, SSAs increased by 21£6 per cent. more for Tory-controlled authorities than for Labour-controlled councils. The figure for shire districts, where the comparison is least affected by differences in the nature of the authorities, is even clearer. The SSA for Tory authorities increased by 24£6 per cent. more than for Labour authorities and the same pattern is found for counties. The only exceptions are metropolitan authorities, where the comparison is impossible because there is only one Tory metropolitan authority, and London, where the rate of increase shows little variation according to political control.
  Mr. Heseltine: The House may wish to know that the average SSA for every class of Labour-controlled authority is higher than it is for Conservative-controlled

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  authorities. The hon. Gentleman is talking about shire districts. Labour-controlled authorities have SSAs which, per adult, are 27 per cent. higher than the average for Conservative districts.
  Mr. Gould: The Secretary of State uses a statistic that simply shows that need tends to be greater in inner-city areas served by Labour local authorities, as he pointed out earlier this afternoon. Significantly, he did not deal with the figure that I presented to him. We are not discussing the absolute level of SSAs. The charge that I level against him is that, between the current and the coming financial year, he has sanctioned an increase in SSAs that is nearly 25 per cent. faster for Tory authorities than for Labour authorities.
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gould: I shall give way in a moment, once I have concluded this point.
  The pattern revealed by those figures is too consistent and unmistakable to be accidental. The contrast is sometimes breathtaking.
  Mr. Heseltine: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gould: The Secretary of State wants a second bite at defending his indefensible position.
  Mr. Heseltine: That allegation amazed me when the hon. Gentleman first uttered it, so I looked up the figures. The most startling discovery was that one of the largest improvements was made in the neighbouring constituency to mine—Labour-controlled Oxford, East—and one of the lowest improvements was made in my district authority.
  Mr. Gould: I am delighted that I have at least induced the Secretary of State to look at the figures. I am prepared to concede that the figures that he has just quoted are exactly accurate. However, although that is the second time that he has come to the Dispatch Box allegedly to deal with the point, he has still not denied the basic charge that we level against him.
  Sir Anthony Grant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Gould: No, I am sorry, but I wish to complete the point before I give way.
  Sir Anthony Grant rose—
  Mr. Gould: I have not yet made the point, so the hon. Gentleman will perhaps sit down and listen to it for a change.
  The conclusion must be that the Secretary of State has found a way, in election year, of providing an advantage to authorities of the right political colour. After all, we are operating in a highly charged, pre-election context and we are dealing with a Secretary of State who is, above all, a ruthless and unprincipled party politician. He could not tell someone the time without warning him that, under Labour, every hour would be reduced to 58 minutes. But even for him, it is a piece of breathtaking cheek that he should seek to link the Labour party with high local government taxation.
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  What brought lawful citizens on to the streets? What induced Tory councillors to resign? What forced £14 billion-worth of taxpayers' expenditure to be thrown at it? What destroyed the former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher)? It was the poll tax. The poll tax forced up bills and was one of the most painful aspects of the Government's already pathetic record on personal taxation.
  Mr. Heseltine: I suppose that all Members of Parliament are used to being accused of party political chicanery. What worries me is the hon. Gentleman's assault on my competence. He suggests that I have somehow tried to fix the revenue support grant to help the Conservative party. Again, my further inquiries into the matter, in which I am supposed to have been working for the benefit of the Tory party, show that I managed to arrange a situation in which the SSA for Barking and Dagenham is higher than the average for all the Conservative-controlled outer London boroughs.
  Mr. Gould: I am glad to say that that is yet one further reason why no doubt I will be returned with an increased majority. Again, for the third time, the Secretary of State comes to the Dispatch Box and makes another irrelevant point, but he does not deal with the central charge, which remains on the table.
  Sir Anthony Grant: I want to take up the hon. Gentleman on the point which he made about the shires. He said that my right hon. Friend has been generous to the shires. Cambridgeshire is the one part which I know; the hon. Gentleman knows Cambridgeshire too, because he has been gadding about there quite a lot. Will he explain why, for months on end, the Labour and Liberal parties in Cambridgeshire have been bellyaching about the skinflint nature of my right hon. Friend? What does the hon. Gentleman say about that?
  Mr. Gould: With every intention of being well meaning, the hon. Gentleman misunderstood the point that I was making. I was not saying that the Secretary of State had deliberately favoured shire districts. Let me reiterate the point. What I said was that, as between Labour-controlled shire districts and Tory-controlled shire districts, the increase in SSAs was 24·6 per cent. higher in the case of Tory-controlled authorities. We may have made a little progress and got that point across to the hon. Gentleman.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Gould: When I am confronted with a barrage of intending interveners, I am less likely to give way.
  The significance of the SSA is that it determines the level of grant and therefore the size of the poll tax bill. It is also the basis for applying the cap on spending which will determine the cuts in services which will have to be made by each local authority. That is why the intricacies of the SSA system, which may seem arcane and remote from the concerns of most voters, are of great importance to those self-same voters.
  The minds of voters will be concentrated wonderfully on local government finance by the arrival of poll tax bills at the beginning of April. We expect that the Secretary of State will try everything he can to shuffle off the blame for those high poll tax bills on to the local authorities, but we

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  also know that the voters, by a huge majority, will agree with the Secretary of State in viewing the poll tax as a Tory tax.
  Mr. James Paice rose—
  Mr. Gould: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I ought to give notice that I do not intend to deliver the same unstructured mess of a speech as the Secretary of State.
  Mr. Paice: I wanted to take up the hon. Gentleman on precisely the point about poll tax bills. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Mr. Oppenheim), the hon. Gentleman said that, if elected to office, he would immediately do away with what I think he referred to as the £25 million a day waste of the poll tax. Bearing in mind that the House has already passed the legislation to abolish the poll tax, and bearing in mind also that the poll tax bills will have gone out and that the financial year will probably have started by the time the general election takes place, is the hon. Gentleman saying that at that stage, with 10 or 11 months of the financial year and the poll tax still to run, he would abolish the poll tax? If so, will he tell the House how he would finance local government for the remaining months?
  Mr. Gould: The hon. Gentleman's intervention simply shows how right we and most people are to regret the fact that the opportunity which the Government had to abolish the poll tax for this April was thrown away. I might add that that opportunity was aided by our offer of co-operation on the legislation required to do it, but that offer was turned down.
  Many authorities, of whatever political control, will have to make substantial cuts to stay within the cap. That is the consequence of the universal capping which the Secretary of State now supports, in direct contradiction to his earlier and principled opposition to it. Many authorities which have hitherto escaped the threat of capping because their budgets fell below the £15 million threshold will be caught. No one should imagine that councils such as Derwentside or Elmbridge can make the huge cuts in their budgets now demanded of them without great damage being done to services.
  Ms. Hilary Armstrong: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of the major reasons that Derwentside's standard spending assessment is so far beyond the needs of that authority is the direct action of the Government in closing the Consett steelworks 10 years ago, which resulted in the local authority working to enable some industrial activity to continue? The chairman of the Tory party continues to say how well Consett is doing. He may like to know that male unemployment in the town is now about 20 per cent., and without the support of local government, the prospects of the town and its surrounding district are exceptionally bleak.
  Mr. Gould: My hon. Friend speaks eloquently about the problems of a local authority that is the victim of the combination of capping and inappropriate SSAs in relation to the district's basic economic problems.
  The significance of the SSA lies in its implications for the poll tax levels. The poll tax is a sort of residuum: the poll tax payer picks up the bill for whatever expenditure is not covered by another source of income. If central
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  Government grant is set too low, the poll tax must rise. That has happened consistently throughout the short, unhappy history of the poll tax.
  It was originally projected that the poll tax bills would be relatively low, but then the ideologues took charge. The great virtue of the poll tax was always said to be that it would increase accountability. Its impact was deliberately increased by cutting other sources of finance and loading the burden of any further spending on the hapless poll tax payer—the familiar problem of gearing.
  Last year, even Ministers took fright at what they had done. They suddenly reversed gear and raised value added tax by 2·5p—a 16·6 per cent. increase—in order to reduce poll tax bills. However, Ministers have still not learnt the lesson that, if they short-change local government by way of grant, the inevitable consequence is higher poll tax bills.
  Ministers have now taken such a grip on all aspects of local government finance that they can no longer escape the blame when things go wrong. The Secretary of State decides the amount of grant, central Government set the level of the business rate—and we have heard again today how damaging that has been for businesses, particularly small ones. The Secretary of State for Education and Science decides teachers' pay. The Home Secretary sets the pay for the police and firefighters. Through his capping powers, the Secretary of State for the Environment fixes the size of every authority's budget. As a result, every one of the 38 million poll tax bills to arrive in March and April will bear the fingerprints of the Secretary of State.
  That proposition becomes even more apparent when one considers the size of the bill. The Government have already abandoned their prediction—they said so again today—that the average bill would be £257. Even Ministers seem to concede that their record on the issue is so lamentable and lacking in credibility that it is preferable to admit error early. It now seems inevitable that the bills will be closer to £300 on average than the Government's previous over-optimistic figure.
  Mr. Frank Haynes: It is even worse than that —[Interruption.] I have been present, and I shall not take a crack like that from a Conservative Member.
  A coal mine contributes towards a local authority's affairs. The recent Rothschild report suggested that there would be hardly any pits left in Nottinghamshire. My constituency will probably lose many pits, which will mean that the local authority will lose a lot of money. Where will the money come from to provide the necessary services? It seems incredible that the Nottinghamshire Tory Members supported the Government's policy on pit closures.
  Mr. Gould: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. One of the most regrettable and astonishing aspects of the poll tax fiasco is that Tory Members have been so disloyal to the local authorities that have been lumbered with the problems of dealing with the tax and its associated effects. I cannot help but think that local communities will know what action to take when they get the chance to ascribe the blame.
  The Government have no one but themselves to blame for poll tax bills that seem likely to lose them the general election. The study by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy published last week suggested that bills in England would include a non-collection surcharge of, on average, £21—sadly, even that figure seems likely to be an underestimate.

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  Those problems could have been avoided if the Government had abolished the poll tax immediately instead of taking the Walter Mitty view that the wish was as good as the deed. Presumably, when the Secretary of State announced last year that the poll tax would go, he never thought that he would be held to account for that promise before a general election. As it is, local authorities face all the difficulties of collecting what the Prime Minister has described as a "virtually uncollectable" tax. Not only will the Prime Minister's assurance in October that the Government had "abolished the poll tax" be ringing in people's ears, but there will be two additional Government-created handicaps.
  First, the 20 per cent. contribution rule remains in force, even though the Government have conceded the principle that it can no longer be supported. That rule means that local councils have to continue to try to squeeze blood out of stones while trying to collect the poll tax from people with literally no income. Even the Audit Commission found that the tax cost £15 in administration for every £6 of net revenue it raised. The problem is much worse in inner-city districts, where the Audit Commission found that up to 60 per cent. of the entries on a poll tax register were likely to change in the course of one year.
  The second handicap is even more bizarre. The Labour party and local government in general have warned for some months that there is a legal difficulty in persuading magistrates courts to accept computer records as evidence. The Government, who were responsible for the oversight in the first place, have been remarkably complacent in dealing with the problem. Even now that they have been persuaded that action is needed, they propose a change that will take six weeks to have any effect. That is simply not good enough. It is hard to fathom what the Secretary of State is playing at, and even harder when he writes to me saying that he was prepared to consider a short Bill, but abandoned the idea because the passage f the schools legislation was delayed. That almost beggars belief. Either there is a need for a short Bill or there is not.
  The Secretary of State is responsible for the poll tax mess and for getting local authorities out of it. It is his duty to act to resolve the problem, not to make silly party points while local authorities are forced to mark time and poll tax defaulters get a six-week holiday.
  Mr. Ian McCartney: The metropolitan borough of Wigan, represented by myself and my hon. Friends the Members for Wigan (Mr. Stott) and for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe), contains three completely different situations. The magistrates in Leigh refuse to deal with the council's applications, Wigan magistrates courts implement them and in my constituency, Makerfield, the magistrates adjourn them. Local authorities have to attend court each day and, depending on which magistrates are in court, they may or may not be able to make an order. This is a shambles, which the Government know about and about which they do nothing.
  Mr. Gould: I gladly adopt my hon. Friend's word: the position is a shambles. No local authority can be assured that it can successfully pursue poll tax defaulters in the courts. The Labour party's offer of co-operation on a short Bill still stands, and if the Government wish to plug the loophole they can do so in just one day. If the Government
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  still ignore that offer, local government and poll tax payers will know who is to blame for the bills that will have to increase still further as defaulters are again let off the hook by this lazy and incompetent Government.
  True to form, local government will be left by the Government to clear up the mess. They have already had to issue 10·5 million summonses—the biggest debt collection exercise in the history of the world. Local government has at least £1·5 billion of poll tax still outstanding. The Government do nothing to help, but make matters worse by their intransigence and stupidity. The Government have given up on local government. They have given up any hope of remedying their terrible mistakes. They have given up the intention of doing anything but hang on by their fingertips until a general election puts them out of their misery. When that finally happens, the loudest cheers will come from poll tax payers and local government as a whole.
  4.49 pm
  Mr. John Biffen: For just over an hour, the House has been entertained by highly contentious exchanges between occupants of the Government and Opposition Front Benches, but I confess that my contribution will be extremely limited and considerably less exciting. I have no doubt that the moment I resume my seat, normal hostilities will be resumed.
  I refer to the point made by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) concerning the standard spending assessment and the difficulties that that system is encountering. Even in these somewhat excitable circumstances, the House ought to reflect on that aspect fairly calmly. Whatever may be the outcome of the general election that confronts us, it is clear that the future pattern of local government will again be disturbed.
  There is no prospect of continuity. Nothing is more depressingly certain than a continuation of the provisional. Therefore, the SSA will be with us for quite a while. I see no prospect of root-and-branch reform, which makes all the more necessary detailed consideration of the system's application and a preparedness to make adjustments where it is manifestly inequitable in its operation.
  I have in mind in that respect the experience of the county of Shropshire in the recent past. Under the measure that we are debating this afternoon, Shropshire's SSA will increase by 5£9 per cent.—the fifth lowest figure for shire counties. In the previous year, Shropshire had the lowest increase. I do not believe that anyone making a reasonably detached judgment of local authority affairs in Shropshire would conclude that it is a profligate county council, but on the SSA arithmetic, it is faced with a number of stark options that naturally fall predominantly on the educational sector of the council's spending.
  One of the options that it demonstrated was to use its SSA resources to meet statutory but not non-statutory educational obligations—which of course meant the loss of nursery education in the county. Naturally and understandably, that brought a sharp reaction. I do not believe that anyone involved in the campaign which that decision prompted considered that there was any party political dimension to it. I say that because, in recent

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  weeks, I have been associated with others of my hon. Friends representing Shropshire constituencies and with councillors across the political divide.
  The county council resolved to use £4·6 million from its reserves to ensure that nursery education as currently conducted can be maintained for the year in prospect. In my view, that decision was wholly justifiable, although no one can relish the running down of balances on that scale. Above all, no one can have any faith in the certainty of nursery education in the county, knowing that there is no prospect of running down balances on that scale for another year.
  I return to the question of how SSAs will be calculated in future and the way in which the methodology can be applied in respect of nursery education in a county that has to meet the needs of sparsely populated rural communities. I ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities to take account of the difficulties created by the current year's SSA settlement; to take note of the considerable gesture represented by the running down of the county's balances; to show proper sympathy with the problems that exist; and to ensure that, when next year's settlement is considered, the sword of Damocles will not be held over the future of nursery education in Shropshire. The county council's behaviour has been exemplary, and I do not believe that it is the canons of good government that such a threat should exist.
  4.54 pm
  Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe: Over the past three years, we have attempted to put before Secretaries of State and Ministers the special financial plight confronting the metropolitan borough of Wigan. Recently, we had extended to us the courtesy of an all-party delegation being received in the very best spirit by the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities and his staff. Its members placed before him the books, as it were, of the metropolitan borough of Wigan, of which my constituency is a part.
  For three years, before any rate was fixed, or any capping criteria were set, we systematically placed before the Minister for his consideration and that of his staff a request to be advised how best Wigan could achieve maximum efficiency, value for money, good housekeeping, and everything else that speaks well of local government services.
  That gesture was accepted by the Minister to the extent that he sent one of his civil servants to Wigan for several months to examine its books. Even the Minister himself concedes that authority's excellent quality of services and first-class housekeeping. However, when I put questions to the Minister, he says that that is not relevant to the standard spending assessment formula. What on earth are we supposed to do in such a case, which has been examined by the Audit Commission and by The Sunday Times, whose league table showed Wigan to be the third most efficient metropolitan district in the country?
  Referring to the district's value-for-money educational services, the Association of Metropolitan Authorities states in the parliamentary brief sent to all right hon. and hon. Members that the teachers' pay award will have implications:
  "Teacher jobs will have to be sacrificed to meet capping criteria. The Government claims that it wishes to improve
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  standards and hails the SAT 7-year-old test results as a move in this direction. Yet Wigan, which produced above-average results, is being forced to consider reducing its teaching staff."
  Impartial assessments by two highly professional organisations clearly state that that metropolitan district is again being discriminated against under a system that militates against good housekeeping and accountability.
  When the poll tax was first introduced, I understood that it was about ensuring greater accountability to ratepayers, Parliament, and Ministers. The bit about accountability to Ministers may well be true. It appears to be their exclusive preserve, regardless of the case that authorities may present, to ordain that an unfair, unworkable and discriminatory formula must remain the norm.
  Since the introduction of standard spending assessments, my borough has been capped three times. In the past three years, £38 million has been taken from its budget. An all-party delegation, including the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal groups and the chairman of the chamber of commerce, presented the case to the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities recently, but no financial relief has yet been received. We now face a further deficit of £15 million to meet the capping criteria. It is estimated—again, the position has been examined by a Minister—that between 750 and 1,000 redundancies will follow.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: In local government?
  Mr. Cunliffe: Yes, in local government.
  Only last week, 625 miners lost their jobs at the Bickershaw colliery, and the week before, 220 people were made redundant at a textile mill. The borough is already involved in a grim economic scenario, and needs all the help and encouragement that it can get.
  What will the proposed cuts mean? A minimum of about 400 teachers will lose their jobs somewhere along the line; social services will be decimated; 25 or 30 youth officers will suffer. The aged, the sick, the chronically disabled, the young and the unemployed will all be affected by this stupid SSA.
  My Tory opponent in Leigh has said that he will fight the next election on home rule and the breaking up of Wigan metro—a unitary authority, which has built in the new local government criteria. I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not present. According to an item in the Leigh Reporter, Mr. Egerton—the Conservative candidate—has spoken to the Secretary of State, and has approached various other people. He says that he has special access to the right hon. Gentleman's advisers, and that the intention is to restore Leigh's status as a non-county borough and to make Atherton, Tyldesley and Hindley into urban district councils.
  Perhaps the Minister will confirm or deny that that is the plan. It entirely contradicts the criteria laid down for local government, including the elimination of two-tier authorities. It is, of course, understandable that a Conservative candidate will need a little help when the Labour majority is 17,000.
  The Government claim that the SSAs are scientifically calculated, and represent a real measure of the need to spend. The Minister is still the patron saint of the original poll tax—as opposed to the new Whitehall council tax—and I saw him on television the other day making such claims.

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  Is it not true that all the professional associations in local government—bodies that did not involve themselves in the political debate until this corny formula came into effect—have condemned the system? It has militated against the lives of local people—against their trades, their associations, their business acumen and, above all, their employment prospects. It has been proved to be unfair, unworkable, discriminatory and indefensible; it has been utterly discredited.
  If this is an example of the new Tory "charterism", heaven help the nation. The sooner the Government have the guts to grant the country sweet relief, the sooner we can provide hope and consolation. Under a Labour Government, the SSA formula will be destined for the dustbin, along with its architects, the Tory legislators.
  5.5 pm
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes: I was intrigued by the fact that the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) devoted so much time to the utterances of his Conservative opponent. I should have thought that, with a majority of 17,000, he would not be all that worried, but perhaps his anxiety is an indication of the impact that the Tory candidate is making. I am less worried, as Labour would have to gain 22,000-odd extra votes in my constituency. One never knows, however; the electorate might change their minds.
  Let me say a word about the tone of today's debate.
  Mr. David Blunkett: One word: rubbish.
  Mr. Hughes: As the hon. Gentleman has not yet spoken, it is not entirely rubbish.
  It has been the case during my time in local government and since then—and I suspect that it has always been the case—that every local authority grant settlement has been greeted with the chorus, "It is not enough." It is inconceivable that after the Secretary of State had announced the amount that would be available, an authority would ever say, "Thank you very much; that is exactly what we were looking for." That certainly did not happen under the last Labour Government.
  Mr. Allen McKay: The hon. Gentleman is not comparing like with like. In the days of the rates, before the poll tax regime was introduced, local authorities would complain to the Secretary of State that they had not enough money, irrespective of which party was in government. Then, however, they were allowed to collect the extra money that they needed after going to the people to ask them for it.
  Mr. Hughes: I was living in the London borough of Ealing when it put up its rates by 57 per cent. The borough was allowed to collect the money all right, and I remember who it collected it from.
  I was a member of Hounslow borough council, which was then Labour-controlled, under a Labour Government. The borough complained then that it did not have enough grant. The complaints of Opposition Members should be put into context. We should bear it in mind that many local government leaders—members of different parties and different local authority associations
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  —will be saying, partly as a way of bargaining and protecting their position, that they would like more money.
  Of course my own borough, the London borough of Harrow, could use more money. School rolls are rising and our first schools are crammed. There are no empty places in them, as there are in other local authority areas. My local authority is financing one first and middle school, and seeking to finance a second.
  I know that eventually the money comes back, but it has to be financed in the short term. There is also the problem of the rapid increase in the Metropolitan police precept. Of course we want more money to be spent on policing, but that money has to be added to the community charge bills of people in my constituency and elsewhere. In Harrow, people would like more money, but they recognise that they cannot just have more money without paying the price for it.
  The standard spending assessments have increased by 6·8 per cent.—that is above the level of inflation. It is important to recognise that it should be possible for each local authority to be able to spend at least what it spent last year, plus inflation, without making any cuts in services. Surely, the art of government, as the noble Lord Wilson said when he was Prime Minister, is summed up in the phrase:
  "Politics is the art of the possible,"
  Sir Anthony Grant: It was the late Lord Butler who used that phrase.
  Mr. Hughes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who used to represent part of my constituency. I thought that it was a wise phrase to have been used by the noble Lord Wilson.
  Anyone in government, whether local or national, must choose priorities. If money is spent in one area, it robs money from another. Money given to local authorities used to be given in watertight compartments and if it was not spent in one area, it could not be transferred straight across to another. That has changed under this Government. There is greater flexibility for virement under the budget headings. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Thompson) may not have had experience in local government. I am talking with direct experience of local government during the previous Labour Government.
  Mr. Jack Thompson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that for three years I was leader of my county council and that my service on local authorities extends over 15 years? I was the chairman of the policy resources committee of my council and money was switched around and is switched around by every local authority.
  Mr. Hughes: Yes, but there were limitations. If the hon. Gentleman cares to go to the Library, he will see that that is confirmed.
  Since money can be transferred between budget heads, if money is wasted in one area, it is because the local authority has made a choice not to spend it elsewhere. When Labour-controlled Birmingham council—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) said, "Here we go." When I have finished this catalogue of examples, will the hon. Gentleman defend it?
  Mr. Blunkett: Is this to be the same catalogue that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) put on the Order Paper yesterday? If it is, all who can read can be spared the hon. Gentleman's comments now.
  Mr. Hughes: I am delighted to say that this is a different catalogue. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pointing out that there are more things on the Order Paper that one can look at, including buying wedding rings for two stone statues at a cost of £50,000. I was not going to mention that.
  I want to talk about the 149 trips to foreign countries paid for by Birmingham council. There were 29 trips to France, as well as trips to Puerto Rico, the Gambia, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, the United States of America, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Soviet Union and Italy. The trip to Italy took place during the world cup and was supposedly a fact-finding trip to look at football grounds. Birmingham council decided to spend its money in that way and not on sweeping the streets, social services or education. That was the Labour-controlled authority's choice.
  Derbyshire spent £1 million on its information department. That is another example of the Labour party making a choice in government. It felt that it would rather spend £1 million on information than on social services or education. Haringey was told that its £3·8 million vehicle bill could be reduced by £1 million if it was properly managed. It has not bothered to try to do so. That money is wasted when it could have been spent on social services or education.
  Lambeth has many problems, but last year it spent £42,000 on a stretched limousine for its mayor. Perhaps some local authorities can afford that. I agree with the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Ms. Hoey) who was incredulous that money should be spent in that way.
  Mr. Haynes: Will the hon. Gentleman now criticise the Government for wasting £10 billion on the introduction of the poll tax? How about that one? Have a go at that.
  Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has many admirable qualities, but being able to add up is not one of them. That figure is conjured out of mid-air. It includes money that has been used directly to help reduce the size of people's bills. If the hon. Gentleman believes that that is money badly spent, he should say so. That money is also included in the fraudulent figures given by the Labour party for its council tax. The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways.
  There are many problems in the London borough of Haringey. It could have chosen to spend money on social services or education, but it has chosen to spend £500,000 a year on luxury cars for 98 council officials.
  I have a flat in Lambeth, as does the Labour party Whip. He and I both know how rotten the services are. Because it provides such rotten services, it is important to be able to telephone the council. One may need something done to one's flat or house. Therefore, it would have been a good use of money for Lambeth to pay its telephone bill to prevent the council being cut off 30 times in one year. That is a waste of money, and its typical of the choices made by Labour councils. It is no wonder that, for three years running, two Labour-controlled councils in London failed to close their accounts by the statutory deadline. If
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  I were running a council like that, I would be embarrassed to close the accounts and let people see what had been done.
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell: My hon. Friend has been talking about Lambeth. Does he agree with the Local Government Chronicle which, when commenting on the district auditor's report, summed up Lambeth as
  "an unresponsive organisation where action is generally achieved only after inordinate delays or in response to a crisis"?
  Does that sum up Labour government in Lambeth?
  Mr. Hughes: I have some good news about Lambeth. I was told by a senior council official that things were improving and that there were fewer than 10 nutcases left in the Labour group. Things might get better.
  Mr. Allen McKay: Say that to those outside.
  Mr. Hughes: The official said it outside.
  The Labour party has continued with its policy over the past few weeks. Just over a week ago, the Labour party claimed that massive cuts could be made in the defence budget without any redundancies. I thought that that was clever. Also, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) claimed that as Home Secretary he would put many more police on the beat without adding a penny to the Home Office budget. I thought that that was also clever—I do not know whether he does not intend to pay them, but he will have to take that up with the Police Federation.
  What have we heard today from the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)? It is implicit in what he has been saying to his friends that whatever grant system applied—whether it was the standard spending assessment or something else—and were Labour to form a Government, every council would be top of the league. They would all have the same grant as those which currently receive the most. One could not read anything else into his words. However, we know that that is not only impossible but flies in the face of Labour's pretty tawdry record in government.
  A Labour Government's agenda for local government has been made clear, at least to me. It is a bit like a Labour acid house party—what matters about an acid house party is not what goes on inside but the fact that one does not tell anyone where it is happening. All the Labour party's policies are conducted in whispers: that has now been revealed in Sheffield, where the Labour authority has plainly done a deal with the Labour Front Bench. The deal was to ask whether, if the authority set a budget that could not be met and if there was a Labour Government—Labour say, when there is a Labour Government—that Government would meet its deficit. In private, those on the Labour Front Bench have plainly said yes, and they have not said yes only in Sheffield.
  I have spoken to Conservative council leaders across the country and received some interesting responses. Labour spokesmen are travelling around the country speaking to Labour councillors or Labour groups and echoing the words of Labour's deputy leader who told, I think, Motherwell's Labour council group, "You won't get as much money as you want, but you will get more." In other words, Labour is promising that the election of a Labour Government would be accompanied by more money.

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  Labour refuses to specify how much money or how it would be raised, but we know that it can be raised from only two people, or from one group of people in two different ways. It can be raised by increasing direct taxation, which Labour pretends that it would not do, or by allowing the local government tax bill—the council tax, or its version, which it laughably calls "fair rates"—to soar. That is the reality of Labour party policy.
  Mr. Blunkett: The hon. Gentleman speaks as the chairman or vice-chairman—
  Mr. Hughes: Vice-chairman.
  Mr. Blunkett: —as the vice-chairman of the Conservative party's local government committee. In that prestigious role which the Conservative party grants to such a post, he has already made a statement in a press release last week about members of Labour's Front Bench travelling up and down the country making promises. Will he give us examples—other than the one he has dreamed up about Motherwell and the fictitious and erroneous statement about Sheffield—of the figures, statements and promises, and how much?
  Mr. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has given me some good news—I did not think that anyone had picked up my press release. I am delighted that he has read it. It has a better circulation than I thought and that will encourage me to publish more. I am enormously grateful to him. He must be patient, because I shall reveal all—he need not worry about that. There are examples from Kent, the west country and the north and they will all be revealed.
  The hon. Gentleman should seek advice about the quotation from the deputy leader of the Labour party. Some Labour advisers might be lurking in the precincts of the Chamber to advise him precisely what the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook said, but I have cited his exact words—they were spoken in public. If that is what the right hon. Gentleman says in public, God alone knows what he says in private in a smoke-filled room, because it is in the privacy of that smoke-filled room that other words are being used. Unfortunately, Labour council members are revealing all to their Conservative counterparts, and we are receiving the information.
  The Labour party, with the tawdry and lacklustre performance of the members of its Front Bench, refuses to face one simple truth. It is fine to say that it will spend more money and that it wants to improve services, but we and the people of this country know that promises have a price and that, unless one can pay the price, the promises are completely empty.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I remind the House of Mr. Speaker's appeal for brief speeches.
  5.24 pm
  Mr. David Bellotti: I am glad to have heard all but three minutes of the speeches made so far. I begin by dealing with the overall finance available to local government and the Government's decision to make provision of £41·8 billion for the total standard spending assessment for 1992–93. If we consider that figure and the
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  different services that different local authorities need to deliver, we can conclude only that that figure is inadequate for the job.
  The Secretary of State spoke about a 7·6 per cent. increase, but that misleads many people outside the House, because it implies that that is an increase on the services that they enjoyed last year. That is not so. There will be only a 4·8 per cent. increase in the level of services that they had the pleasure to enjoy in 1991–92. We need to establish the facts and not listen to the figures, which I believe are sometimes deliberately intended to mislead so that any blame for subsequent action and mismanagement of services will be attached to local authorities, not to the Government. Let us nail that issue at the outset.
  I think that the House has now concluded that 4·8 per cent. is the real sum of money about which the Secretary of State spoke. We need to bring into play the amount of new service provision which local authorities have agreed to provide after Government legislation. I refer briefly to three pieces of legislation—the Education Reform Act 1988, the Children Act 1989 and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. If three are not enough, I could mention care in the community policies.
  The provisions of those Acts add to the costs of local authorities, which are expected to bear the additional service demands against a background of a 4·8 per cent. increase. That figure is wholly inadequate for the job, as was demonstrated by the number of local authorities whose representatives have met the Minister at the Department during the past few months. They were of all political persuasions, and they brought home to him the inadequacy of the sums available. It would be interesting to hear from the Minister how many local authorities have written to express their concern about the inadequacy of the financial settlement or have been to see him. That in itself would be quite revealing.
  A further problem is that, during the coming year, local authorities will have to pick up other costs which have not been allowed for. There is a 1·3 per cent. tail-end teachers' pay award from 1991, which will come into effect in 1992–93. That does not appear to have been taken into account in the settlement figures. In addition to that 1·3 per cent. carry-over, the Government will fairly soon settle teachers' pay for next year. The allowances for inflation in the figures given for local authorities will be very much below the level of the pay settlement for teachers which local authorities no longer have a say in fixing.
  Therefore, local authorities are being asked not merely to begin with a level below the rate of inflation or to deliver extra services, but to deal with decisions taken later which they will find it difficult to meet. They will have to meet them even if they find it impossible: it will be the law, because the Government have centralised the decision-making processes for teachers' pay. Therefore, all local authorities of every political persuasion will conclude that the settlement is wholly and utterly inadequate for the job.
  The majority of local authorities will stay within their capping limits. By and large, local authorities want to observe the regulations and do not wish to go outside the law. In a sense that makes it worse, because they pass on to the people in the local community the result of the Tory cuts—and cuts they are.
  The position is made worse by central Government trying to interfere in some of the service delivery. Is the Minister aware of a letter sent from the Home Office by Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary to all chief

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  constables, requesting details of budgets from 1992–93? The letter's effect is that each local authority that funds a police authority should spend up to its SSA on services for the police. Many hon. Members may agree with the figure, but the impact for many local authorities will be that they will have to make cuts in education, in social services, in housing and in other services if they spend that amount on services for the police.
  West Midlands was mentioned earlier as a county council that is also a police authority which did not intend to spend up to its SSA on the police. The only alternative would be the wholesale closure of a number of schools. I stress that it would be the closure of schools, not merely the cutting of hundreds of teachers' jobs.
  I know that Ministers often do not listen when I speak about local government. All I can do is to cut out Hansard tomorrow, send them the statistical information and invite them to dispute the figures. I like to present the figures so that at least I give Ministers the chance to have an intellectual argument. They never enter intellectual arguments with me and I can only assume, as did other hon. Members earlier, that they do not like to listen to people who have actually been in local government for a number of years, because they are afraid that they might learn something.
  There is an additional problem which the settlement does not take into account, which is money that local authorities cannot collect through the poll tax. It is not money that they do not want to collect, but money that is uncollectable. Southwark, part of which is covered by the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), has applied for 2,500 liability orders. It is a matter of regret that the Minister and the Secretary of State were not able to support the Opposition proposal in that regard, which could have been put quickly on to the statute book.
  As a result of the position in the courts and because the Government could not get their legislation right to begin with, Southwark could lose up to £500,000 of revenue in the short term. No local authority can afford to lose such money. It is not that Southwark does not intend to collect the money; it is doing its best.
  The Conservative chairman of the Association of District Councils has said that the response by the Secretary of State to the matter is not enough:
  "We need immediate action to change the law and it must be retrospective."
  Co-operation on the matter has been offered by the Opposition, but it has been turned down.
  The Minister courteously received a delegation from Eastbourne, my local authority. We outlined the cuts in services that would be necessary in the Eastbourne borough council area. We face a poll tax of about £315, and we told the Minister that a month ago. The response of the Minister and the Secretary of State in the press was that the figures would not be reached, but they will. One reason is that the county council will now spend up to its SSA, which it has never done before. It will put £1·43 million into its budget to increase provision for special educational needs. It must do that; if it does not, it will be taken to court by many parents for failing to provide the special education which families need in East Sussex.
  It is all very well to receive a courteous response when one goes to the Department of the Environment. In the group from Eastbourne, we had the Liberal Democrat leader of the council, the Conservative leader of the
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  opposition group, the chairman of the chamber of commerce, the president of the Eastbourne Industrial Association and the chief executive. All gave the same message and the Minister gave the same answer: "I will have to look at it. If I give you anything, I will have to take something from somewhere else." Surely the Minister should conclude that there is not enough money in the pot and that the pot is not big enough. Not only Eastbourne, but other areas should have more consideration.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) tells me about Northumberland county council. He draws attention
  "to the crisis in education in Northumberland where the inadequate SSA has led to cuts of £6·5 million including £3·7 million from the education service. Severe cuts are being imposed on schools which were already providing education at much lower costs per pupil than the rest of the country. Last week, the head teachers of every Northumberland … school came to the House of Commons to protest about the effect of the cuts and about the system that has produced them."
  Those head teachers were not from one political party, but from the schools, and spoke on behalf of the children in those schools. How can an SSA system and settlement work like that in Northumberland? That county council does not appear on the Government's list of profligate authorities.
  Sutton is also controlled by the Liberal Democrats. The Government are imposing limits on Sutton which will lead to an £8 million cut in next year's budget. Sutton has the fourth lowest net expenditure per head of all the London boroughs. It spends less per head than almost all the London boroughs, yet it will have to cut £8 million from its budget next year. In 1991–92, it is spending £561 per head. Kingston upon Thames spends £629, which is much nearer the average. If Sutton spent at the level of Kingston, it could spend another £11 million without being affected by legislation. The cuts in Sutton and the blame for them lie clearly at the door of the Tory Government.
  The revenue support grant per adult in Sutton is £485. In Wandsworth, the figure is £977. It is no wonder that Wandsworth can have a nil poll tax for 1991–92 when it gets so much extra per adult compared with most other London boroughs. That is why people keep referring to Wandsworth. However, Conservative Members do not often refer to the services that Wandsworth delivers, although Wandsworth was mentioned in an earlier exchange.
  If Conservative Members did refer to the services, they might draw attention to the fact that Wandsworth borough council was taken to court and ordered to pay £12,000 in legal costs after the court heard of an infestation of cockroaches in the York Road estate and in the St. James Grove estate had made tenants' lives a misery because the cockroaches crawled into food, drinks, beds and shoes. If that is the level of services provided in Wandsworth, it is no wonder that the council tax is nil. We should not talk only about the spending, but about the level of services. Every time a Conservative Member starts to shout about Wandsworth, the Opposition will start to shout about cockroaches.
  The Isle of Wight has also been mentioned. The Government have successively reduced support to the Liberal Democrat-run county council, which has always provided cost-effective services.
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell: I wish that the hon. Gentleman had spent a little longer looking at the example of

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  Wandsworth, whose services he decried. Is he not aware that there is an excellent comparison between Wandsworth and Lambeth? The comparison has been made by many independent bodies, including the Audit Commission. Does that not show that people in Wandsworth get a better service across the board, respect their council more, feel that they get a better service and pay a great deal less for it?
  Mr. Bellotti: I did not want to return to the subject of Wandsworth. I will compare Wandsworth to all other local authorities. I am not prepared to join in a Government attack on a small number of local authorities when we have the interests of all local authorities at heart. However, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) has given me the opportunity to say that, when one of the tenants approached the council about the cockroaches in her flat, the local authority bribed her to drop her complaint and offered her another flat. The council should have investigated the complaint rather than moving the person, because the problem was then present for the next tenant.
  I was talking about the Isle of Wight. The county council there has always delivered services cost-effectively. The SSA which the Government are imposing on the local authority makes it more difficult for the services to be delivered. The choice is stark, not only for the Isle of Wight but for other local authorities: should one exceed one's SSA and inflict a high poll tax—soon to be the council tax—on members of the community, or should one see whether services can be cut?
  Mr. Barry Field: I think that the hon. Gentleman heard my intervention in the speech of the Secretary of State. When the Liberal Democrats last fought the county elections, they ran the balances down to £250,000. Balances now stand at nearly £3 million, because the Isle of Wight had the highest shire county settlement of any English county last year. This year, per capita, we have moved up from 14th place to 1lth.
  I know that the hon. Gentleman has heard me make the point many times before, but in 1962, the Edwards committee considered that, in terms of local government finance, the Isle of Wight was underfunded. Successive Members of Parliament have led delegations to the Department of the Environment to argue the case for an increase in rate support grant or standard spending assessment. None of us disagrees that there is a problem, but it is not something that has suddenly visited us from outer space this year. The cuts that the Liberal Democrats are imposing on the Isle of Wight in this election year are purely political and not dictated by economic or financial necessity.
  Mr. Bellotti: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion, but the facts stand. If the Government had not taken increased central control, the Isle of Wight local authority—like all other local authorities—would be in a better position to take its own decisions.
  The hon. Gentleman is inconsistent. It seems that today he intends to support the Government and accept the SSA figures, yet he proposes to join a march on Saturday against the cuts—which are really Tory cuts imposed by the Government on Newport and the Isle of Wight. Those actions are wholly inconsistent, and I am sure that people
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  living on the Isle of Wight will realise it. One day the hon. Gentleman votes to support his local authority's SSA, and a few days later he marches against cuts that are the result of Tory action. The hon. Gentleman deserves any conclusion that those on the Isle of Wight may draw. [Interruption.] I can only hear the word "balances".
  Mr. Barry Field: Three million pounds-worth of balances.
  Mr. Bellotti: Those with experience of local authorities know that, in successive years, balances vary—up and down—but the services provided are the key factor in deciding whether the local authority is doing the job that it should.
  Before I conclude my remarks—I must say that I am rather enjoying the debate—I want to refer to voluntary organisations. In debating local authorities, we often overlook the role that the voluntary sector plays in our community. The more centralised capping powers and increased restrictions on SSAs the Government put in place, the more the voluntary sector feels the pinch, because the voluntary organisations cannot enter into partnership programmes.
  The National Council for Voluntary Organisations ably drew that to our attention in its response to "Competing for Quality". The Government's compulsory competitive tendering proposals do nothing to help their situation—in fact, they make it worse. The voluntary organisations are being squeezed out of the partnership programmes that they have provided as a result of the Government's action on compulsory competitive tendering and as a result of the SSAs before us today.
  If we really want the voluntary sector to enter into the provision of programmes in our local communities, we must do far more to encourage them. All that happens at present is that local authorities shift their money to items such as special needs—which I mentioned in connection with East Sussex, and which is very important—away from, for example, the provision of play facilities, because the provision of such facilities is not a statutory responsibility. The voluntary sector, which could provide very cost-effective play facilities if it had a grant, no longer receives a grant and cannot provide them.
  The Government have not only attacked local authorities; they have attacked councillors of all parties. The latest information we have is that many councillors of all parties are leaving local authorities because they blame the Government for interfering in the provision of services that they were elected by local communities to deliver.
  The Government are having such an adverse effect that 42 per cent. of all councillors are standing down after only one term of office. That is an amazing statistic. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about you?"] I can tell the Minister that, in every election that I have fought since 1977, my vote has increased, and that I have no intention of losing that record. When I stand down from my local authority membership, I shall do so with reluctance, because I believe that many of our councillors do a much better job than many of us in the House. Their role is very important and should never be underestimated.
  The forced service cuts, the Government's attacks on local councillors and the fact that the Government have given local authorities an uncollectable tax base all lead us to the conclusion that the Government do not value local authorities' work. What we must do is to put into place

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  something that will give local authorities the confidence to deliver services. The Government cannot give them that confidence. We must look elsewhere. We must have people who will serve their local communities.
  The people in those local communities know who to blame for the poll tax: they know who introduced it and who is responsible for it. They know who to blame for the cuts in local services; they are in no doubt whatever about that. Those self-same people cannot wait for the opportunity to put the blame on the Government. The earlier we have an election and give them that opportunity, the better.
  5.46 pm
  Mr. Lewis Stevens: Opposition Members have implied—indeed, have stated directly—that the SSAs will work to the advantage of Tory councils. I wish someone would explain to me—coming from Warwickshire as I do and knowing the problems that we have had there in the past 12 months, which appear likely to be repeated to some extent—how that can be the case.
  Questions have also been raised about the quality of the SSA system. There has been too much writing off of the formula as a Tory ploy dreamed up by the Government—not worth while and not logical. That view needs to be countered. The SSA system is an objective system applying in a fair and proper way to every authority in the country.
  It is quite ludicrous to think that one might choose another system for the distribution of central Government resources which would not of necessity involve some formula that would almost certainly appear to benefit one local authority against another. But perhaps the Labour party prefers total patronage, so that it can dish out the money to councils that it thinks should have it and withhold money from councils that it thinks should not.
  That would be a much more unfair system. We need a system, such as the SSA system, which can be worked on a formula and which takes into account many of the factors that statistics show have a direct correlation to what one might spend on various services. It is a sensible and logical system.
  Having said that, however, I emphasise that any system that serves local government must be fine-tuned and tinkered with continually, because we do not live in a static world—in local government finance or anything else. To cope with changes—whether demographic changes or changes in what the Government require of local government—we need to update and change the arrangements.
  Under the present system, Warwickshire almost inevitably seems to come off not very well, to say the least, and distinctly badly in some areas, to put it at its worst. The Audit Commission puts groups into families. The families that it has chosen for us in terms of SSAs and grants invariably put us very near the bottom. No one would suggest that Warwickshire, given the type of county that it is, would normally expect to receive very high levels of grant. By most criteria, it could not be said that the county shares the problems of the inner cities; nor does it have the problem of sparsity of population that is faced by counties such as Northumberland. Nevertheless, we believe that we should have more money than the amount that is distributed to us.
  Indeed, distribution is the key. The Government have substantially increased the amount that is available to
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  local government overall, but there has been great difficulty in satisfying each local authority that it has received a fair amount in the distribution. In his usual eloquent manner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) explained the problems facing north Shropshire in terms of the distribution. Those problems are common to some of us in the midlands.
  Last year, we in Warwickshire had to take a look at all our services, and because education was the big spender, it got the biggest look and was put right at the top of the list. The county council eventually said that it could protect nursery education, but that it would have to make savings elsewhere. This year, it has decided that it will protect the schools' budgets and police spending, but inevitably that means that other services come under pressure. The local authority must consider how its provision of those services can be changed, which may mean staff reductions. Great pressure is placed on local government.
  I appreciate that this year, like last year, some changes have been made to the SSAs, and that some are slightly to the advantage of the county of Warwickshire. However, although any swingeing changes may benefit some, they will be to the detriment of others and, by its very nature, local government is totally incompetent to deal with big and quick changes. Warwickshire found the change from grant-related expenditure to the revenue support grant system a big change which was difficult to cope with. That is the nature of local government—
  Mr. James Pawsey: My hon. Friend has an entirely deserved reputation in Warwickshire as an assiduous Member for Parliament. I readily acknowledge that he defends his constituents through thick and thin. Will he join me in asking our hon. Friend the Minister of State whether, if Warwickshire should produce a budget that is reasonably above the level of the SSA, he will give helpful consideration to lifting the cap, as he did last year? Such action would be much appreciated by all Warwickshire Members.
  Mr. Stevens: I appreciate what my hon. Friend says, and hope that our hon. Friend the Minister of State will listen sympathetically. I am sure that, when we know Warwickshire's budgets, the Minister of State will be willing to meet delegations to explain the position in Warwickshire with the same courtesy as previously.
  The effect of the SSA being, as we think, rather low, is that that directly puts pressure not only on services but on the level of the community charge. Depending on how the SSA works, that in turn can affect the district councils as well as the county council.
  The Opposition have sought to give the impression that they would do away with the local authority expenditure limits that the Government have suggested. They have implied that a Labour Government would provide as much extra money as the local authorities say they need. The Opposition approach is: "Don't worry, we'll provide a system of local government finance that will work without restrictions. We do not want to restrict local government, but to give it a free hand."
  There is no way in which any responsible financial approach is compatible with taking the lid off local government. Many years ago, a senior Labour politician told local government, "The party's over." The Opposition will not be able to bring back that sort of party again.

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  In answer to the point that counties such as Warwickshire are being unfairly treated under the SSA system, the Labour party says, "Don't worry, we'll find a way round it. There will be no problem." However, we know from the Labour party's past practices—this is the implication of what the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said—that the Labour party may well shift the distribution, but that it will almost certainly do so in favour of the urban areas, not the shires, which we believe are the areas that get the weakest deal at the moment.
  I hope that, when my right hon. and hon. Friends talk to the local authority associations in the near future, by which time they will be able to take into account data from the 1991 census, they will look carefully at the formula for the SSA. Some of us in the north and the midlands believe that the area cost adjustment gives too much to certain areas but not enough to others. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State and his officials and Warwickshire council officers for taking the time to go through SSA calculations in some detail. Nevertheless, we feel that some factors are over-compensated for and that that problem needs to be addressed.
  We should like the SSA to be refined but, to do that, further studies may need to be carried out. The decision on reallocation should not be taken off the cuff. We may need to refine the area cost adjustment—and not only for the south-east. Perhaps we should introduce a graduated area adjustment, but it may not be possible to do that with any accuracy at the moment on the information that is available. However, I am sure that my hon. Friend will consider setting up studies that may lead us to a better, more refined SSA system in the years to come because it—or something very similar—will form the basis of all future distributions of finance to local government.
  Local government is in a difficult position, but some of its problems are self-made. My county authority is not profligate, but we believe that the SSA should be adjusted in the next and subsequent years and that it should be refined in an attempt to make it more equitable. I know that my hon. Friend is aware that some changes have only small effects on some authorities but large ones on others. I hope that, in the months ahead, he will look carefully at the ways in which we can adjust the SSA—perhaps to make minor changes, as has happened recently, but perhaps also with a view to making more extensive changes to try to find something that appears more obviously fair to all the local authorities in England.
  Finally, the Government's proposals take a realistic view of the total amount that should be given to support local government in the coming financial year, and lay down a good guideline on the amount that local government should be aiming to spend overall. Local government's job must be to provide a base to allow the area to take advantage of its services and to build the community it wants. Local government's job is not to establish the grandiose schemes that we have seen in some authorities, which some people think are good and should be established irrespective of whether the Government think that local government should do that job.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members, that, between 6 pm and 8 pm, speeches will be limited by the 10-minute rule.
  5.58 pm
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: I gather from the speech of the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) that Warwickshire is in trouble, and from the earlier speech of the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) that Shropshire is also in trouble. Those councils are drawing on their balances to maintain nursery education. Presumably those councils operate in counties where the Minister's friends abound. I ask the hon. Member for Nuneaton and the right hon. Member for Shropshire, North to contemplate what the effect of reducing nursery education would be in east London—in Silvertown, Custom House, Upton Park and such places, where employment is more difficult to find.
  One principle in the arithmetic is politically neutral, and depends upon equity and justice. I hope that such high-sounding words prove attractive to the Government. We have heard a lot about SSAs not covering costs, but one SSA is particularly important and has not been named hitherto. It is that on the estimate of capital repayment and interest arising thereon. One should remember that that represents a heavy burden and that roughly 80 per cent. of local authority income comes from Government. That is lower than it should be, and the effects are considerable.
  The borough of Newham spends about £28 million a year on paying interest on capital borrowing. I am told by the borough treasurer that, last year, Newham had just over £20 million in its SSA to cover that. This year, we have experienced a shortfall, and the borough has only £18 million in SSA for capital costs. Therefore it has to make up £10 million from other services to cover what is surely an assessable need. The borrowing of £28 million was not sudden or profligate. It was something that any Government, particularly the one that we have had for the past 10 years, would say was necessary. It was approved and known borrowing, with a known repayment. Therefore, the £10 million that the borough is down must be obtained by cutting other services—taking from other SSAs—which is a very difficult job indeed.
  I should like the Minister to tell us the basis of the calculations for SSAs and for capital interest. I cannot conceive of any equitable formula that would come up with such a deficit and with such an unjust burden on those services that have to carry it. We have already heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House about the unjust imposition on services. I want the Minister to comment on that, because that expenditure is, by definition, necessary.
  Another and perhaps more complex point is equally bizarre and requires some explanation. All over the country, commercial and industrial premises are applying, quite properly, for rate reviews and reductions. Valuation courts have come up with the figures, but we do not know the total yet. In a written answer to me, which appeared on 24 January at column 387, the Government said that they too did not know all the figures.
  The borough of Newham put some money aside against such losses, but suddenly, this year, it had to pay for borrowing £6 million to repay rates that were overpaid. That was due not to the rating valuation done by the council but to the valuation of the Government's own agency. If there was an error, it was that of the Inland

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  Revenue's estimate of rateable values. It had nothing to do with the council. The council has been told by the Government that that money has to be paid back to those firms that have paid too much in rates, despite the fact that the £10 million non-domestic rate pool cannot be touched as a result of legislation passed by the Government.
  In my constituency, the council has made two large repayments; one to Tate and Lyle—the big sugar firm—of about £2 million and one to the Post Office, which has a large sorting office in my constituency, of about £1 million. Another £5·8 million must be paid on top of that to other organisations in the borough. That must be paid back in addition to the £10 million I mentioned earlier. All the increases in grant which the Government claim, despite the problems of inflation, will be more than absorbed by those repayments.
  The unhappy borough councillors of Newham have been placed in an awful dilemma. That experience is shared by other councillors of all parties in different parts of the country. My councillors have asked whether Newham can capitalise on the money owed in respect of services. That deficit has built up over many years and they want to know whether Newham can take it forward. No, say the Government, it cannot, but they say that it may be possible to capitalise £3 million for two years. It is all up in the air, and I hope that the Minister can give us the proper answer tonight. The Government have said that, if Newham could capitalise, they would not allow it to spend the interest necessary to sustain that capital. I am shocked at that.
  In Silvertown, a mother who worked at Tate and Lyle might ask me whether the £2 million that Tate and Lyle had received—big money—could not be spent on school books at Drew road school. We have had to cut the provision of school books. It is also rumoured—believe it to be true—that teachers will be without nursery classes. We have heard that Shropshire has already had to make such a decision.
  That mother may ask whether it will be possible to send teachers on courses for the new national curriculum which the Government have imposed upon them. She will want to know whether the quality of her children's life will be reduced because the borough are paying her employers, the Post Office and X and Y company money that the borough should not have received five years ago. That is the position into which the Government have put us. They will not even allow the council to borrow the money to pay those organisations. That seems extraordinary.
  All of us receive in the post advertising asking us to borrow. That is part of the Government's philosophy of the free market. However, the Government will not allow Newham borough council to borrow money to ensure that children and teachers get the services which the Government say, by statute, that they want them to have. That is the position. I do not understand why the Government will not allow the council to borrow. I am reminded of the scriptural story of the unjust steward, who was let off his debt by the king but who would not let off his own debtor.
  The mechanism hits teachers and children and the future of any community—not just Newham but everywhere else. I have only one answer to that—the Government are ignorant of the effect of their own machine. They are ignorant of what the rules and regulations mean in practice to communities and societies —and yes, society does exist, particularly in east London.
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  The Government are ignorant of injustice, but they must be conscious of it. If the Government are ignorant, they must accept that, and the injustice must be remedied. If the Government are knowledgeable of that injustice, they must remove it, because they would not want that millstone to hang around the necks of children into the next general election.
  6.9 pm
  Mr. Graham Riddick: From the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) we heard the usual Opposition parrot cry for more money. The hon. Gentleman said that there was not enough money in the pot, and we have heard similar noises from other Opposition Members. The one difference between the hon. Member for Eastbourne and other Opposition members is that his party deserves credit for having the honesty to say that it would increase taxes. The Labour party denies that it would increase taxes to pay for the enormously boosted local government spending that it advocates.
  This is the last year of the community charge or poll tax. I do not particularly like the council tax, but I like it a lot more than the alternatives—the poll tax, which is going; the rates, to which Labour advocates a return; and the Liberal Democrats' local income tax. The council tax will be seen as sensible and fair. A return to a rates system —something that the Labour party would regard as fair —would unleash an explosion of local government spending. People who have significantly improved their homes and those who live in houses with high market values would be penalised enormously. Of course, that is exactly what Opposition Members want.
  As usual, the Liberals try to pretend that butter would not melt in their mouths. They advocate a local income tax. The hon. Member for Eastbourne smiles sweetly, just to prove the point. I am sure that my constituents would not want the Kirklees council to have access to their tax returns. In any case, a local income tax certainly would not be cheap. On the basis of the current spending of Kirklees council, a working couple on average incomes would pay £850 to £900 a year.
  The systems being advocated by both Opposition parties have a common additional flaw: they would both remove the capping powers of the Secretary of State. Once again, it would be party time for Labour local authorities. We know how socialist politicians love to spend other people's money. Both main Opposition parties would give those politicians the green light to do exactly that. I have no doubt that, in this respect, the Kirklees local authority would be no different from other high-spending Labour authorities.
  In my part of the world, the scare stories for the next financial year have already started. On the one hand, council leaders are threatening to increase the poll tax by 17 per cent.; on the other, the chairman of the education committee is promising cuts in the education service.
  Mr. Pawsey: Disgraceful.
  Mr. Riddick: Indeed it is disgraceful.
  Those education cuts are proposed despite the fact that the education standard spending assessment in Kirklees has been increased well ahead of inflation and the fact that Government grants to Kirklees as a whole are to increase in line with, or slightly ahead of, inflation. The trouble is that Labour's scare stories have a nasty habit of coming

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  true. I very much hope that Kirklees will stick to the Government's guidelines and set a poll tax of no more than £257, which would represent an increase of 7 per cent. Local people would not like it, but I think that they would regard it as fairly reasonable.
  It would be an absolute disgrace if Kirklees socialists were once again to cut the education budget, as they are threatening to do. A number of schools in my constituency are struggling to make ends meet. There are two main reasons for this. First, Kirklees council, which is run by the Labour party, cut the education budget last year. Secondly, the local education authority is holding back far too much money for its own central administration. Far more money should be passed down to individual schools.
  There are two further reasons for the fact that schools provision—indeed, the authority's budget as a whole—is under pressure and for the fact that Labour authorities throughout the country are setting community charges higher than those of Conservative authorities. First, there is poor management of the available resources and of the services that are provided. Secondly, many Labour authorities set wrong priorities. The rent arrears in Kirklees amount to more than £4 million. It is disgraceful that that money has not been collected. Almost 1,000 council houses are empty.
  Mr. Pawsey: Does my hon. Friend's council have a housing problem?
  Mr. Riddick: Indeed we do have a housing problem, to which I shall refer later.
  On the question of management, I should like to relate an interesting little episode. When it comes to the repair of local roads, the local authority has insisted that it will carry out permanent reinstatement. I have discovered that between £2·5 million and £3·5 million is awaiting payment to the Kirklees council by utility companies. The reason for the delay is that the council has not yet carried out the permanent reinstatement. Some of the work has been outstanding for four or five years. That is pure bad management.
  Let me come now to priorities. Like many other Labour authorities, Kirklees council spends almost £1 million on equal opportunities projects and peace committees. Recently, it advertised in the local newspaper six vacancies for equal opportunities officers. I estimate that the cost of that advertising is about £250,000. Secondly, the joint venture company that Kirklees council and a private company have set up is costing an amount well into seven figures. But the joint venture company is not developing derelict sites; it is developing decent sites that could quite easily be developed by private undertakings.
  Another interesting fact is that housing associations have lost about £12 million-worth of investment in Kirklees over the past five years. Let me explain why. The council's Labour group is, or has been, very hostile to housing associations. As a result, it has refused to co-operate with the Housing Corporation and the associations. The £12 million that could have come to Kirklees has gone to other local authority areas in the north of England. It is an absolute disgrace.
  Let me refer to another interesting local issue. The council is imposing smokeless zones on rural areas, at a cost, this year, of £250,000. This is highly unpopular and
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  totally unnecessary. I should like to go into more detail, but I am running out of time. [Interruption.] It is difficult to hear hon. Members.
  Mr. Pawsey: My hon. Friend is not missing much.
  Mr. Riddick: I can quite believe that.
  I have heard people say that many young electors have never experienced a Labour Government. What is more, many people have forgotten what a Labour Government are like. I shall tell my constituents that they have had a taste of Labour government in the shape of Labour local authorities up and down the country. At the general election, my Labour opponent will be the leader of the council. I am very happy about that, as I shall have an opportunity to demonstrate that a Labour Government would mirror the antics of Labour local authorities. They would put taxes up as high as possible. It would be profligacy—the expenditure of money on all sorts of madcap schemes. I am confident about the outcome.
  6.20 pm
  Ms. Joan Walley: I am sick and tired of hearing Conservative Members attack Labour-controlled local authorities. We just heard such an attack from the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick). We heard from the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) what is likely to happen in Warwickshire.
  My main purpose tonight is to explain what the settlement, if confirmed, will mean to Staffordshire, where we could be talking about £20 million-worth of cuts, a large proportion of which will have to be found from services. Much will depend on how much can be found locally from reserves, but I fear that as a result of the Government not listening to Staffordshire's representations, we could suffer cuts locally of up to £12 million. The people of Staffordshire, including those I represent, should not have to suffer cuts of that magnitude.
  It is clear that if the people I represent lived in a county such as Bedfordshire, instead of experiencing an increase of 29·4 per cent. in their standing spending assessment, they would get as much as 45·4 per cent. more. It is not as though the Secretary of State is not aware of the concerns in my area. Delegations and representations to Marsham street from Staffordshire county council have set out those concerns in no uncertain terms. Indeed, it seems that the Secretary of State has not only not listened to our concerns but has not even taken note of the views of his Government colleagues.
  Special difficulties have arisen in Staffordshire as a result of the pindown affair. All concerned have been critical of what happened in that case. I pay tribute to the work that Staffordshire county council is doing now in trying to put right what was clearly a wrong. In that process, discussions have taken place with various Ministers, including with those at the Department of Health. There has been much sympathy from the Government about the way in which the wrongs of pindown must now be put right.
  That being the case, how can it be that, in addition to not listening to the representations from Staffordshire county council, the Minister has not heeded the advice of his Government colleagues? They have said that they share our concern about the additional resources arising out of the pindown experience which must be made available within the local services budget to meet the costs of

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  additional training and so on for those in need of social services. None of those extra resources will now be available to Staffordshire as a result of the SSA.
  Presumably the Minister has not heeded the views of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. It is clear from letters that I have received from parents and others, and in representations made to me at meetings with local head teachers—it seems as though I have been locked into such meetings for whole weekends—that the Secretary of State's pronouncements about the national curriculum and the need to improve educational standards will not be implemented in Staffordshire because of this SSA fixed by the Government.
  I am anxious, in the limited time available to me, to consider comparative spending in other areas because the debate is not simply about the overall amount of money available. It is about the distribution of that money and where it should go in terms of social need. We in Staffordshire have a combination of a rural area with high needs combined with the inner-city area of Stoke-on-Trent, which receives little recognition from the Department of the Environment.
  The Government should explain why the SSA that has been set will enable Staffordshire to spend only £23 per child within the social index, when some authorities can spend as much as £220 per child. That state of affairs cannot be right. What has Staffordshire done to deserve such treatment?
  We hear much about care in the community, about how we shall need to provide more from the social services, and, at the same time, do more to help the carers. I hope that it will not be necessary for Staffordshire county council to go ahead with its proposal to close Tan-y-Bryn, a place of respite for the disabled and their carers. There are proposals to close two workshops for the blind and disabled serving the entire county area, one in Fenton and one in Newcastle-under-Lyme, each of them providing employment for a large number of my constituents. I have visited the workshops and spoken to the people there. I hope that, in the process of setting its budget, Staffordshire county council will find a way to save those workshops. Let it be known that, if they have to close, the blame must be laid squarely at the door of the Government.
  I have never received so many letters from pupils, parents, governors and head teachers about education issues. At a time when we are hearing so much about the delivery of the national curriculum, it is being asked locally how it will be possible for Staffordshire to undertake the extra commitments when it may be forced to make cuts of as much as £7 million because of the SSA set by the Government. How will my area finance as many as 400 teaching redundancies? About 190 have already been notified to the Department of Employment.
  Imagine the effect of those redundancies on children's education in Staffordshire. I am almost having to write to myself on the subject, for my children go to school in Staffordshire. The local budget has already been reduced. We recently had one of the lowest staying-on rates in the country. Gradually, those rates are being improved by the county council. Schools had to accommodate increased numbers without extra money. Now we seem to be crucified by the Government for making those improvements.
  The people of Staffordshire are angry. They do not deserve the cuts that are having to be made. As I say, we have visited Marsham street to make our case, as we have
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  in the past, but nobody listens to us. The Government should redistribute money rather than remove it from areas such as mine. More money should be allowed to Staffordshire because we cannot afford to make the cuts that are being demanded.
  Had Staffordshire been another area, such as one of those selected by the Government in their positive discrimination towards some county areas, my county council could receive as much as £38 million more. That would be extra money to spend on necessary services. Instead, we could be suffering cuts to the tune of £20 million. Those cuts will hit us hard. It is impossible to consider cuts of that magnitude in expenditure on highways, schools and the social services without admitting that people will be hit hard.
  The people of north Staffordshire appreciate that the Government are responsible for those cuts being made. We all want to do all we can locally to cushion the blow. I hope that the Minister will at least address the problems that we in Staffordshire are experiencing, particularly over pindown, and say that the Government will listen to some of the representations that have been made by Staffordshire county council.
  6.29 pm
  Mr. Michael Carttiss: To many people the annual debate on the RSG settlement must be one of the most boring in the House. I rise with no great expectation that the next 10 minutes will add anything to the interest of these proceedings [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] However, it is one of the most important debates that takes place in this Chamber. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was absolutely right in emphasising, when he opened the debate, that the House should explore thoroughly how £33 billion of taxpayers' money is spent.
  Local council spending touches the lives of our constituents more directly than does almost any other item of expenditure upon which Parliament has to vote each year. It is inevitable that the Government should seek to control local authority spending, given the proportion of the gross national product devoted to local government services.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) recalled the former Labour Secretary of State, Tony Crosland, saying many years ago that the party was over in local authority spending. With a large Conservative majority on Norfolk county council in those days, we did our best to follow the Labour Government's programme of restraining local council expenditure. That, I might add, was in the teeth of the opposition of the Labour group at county hall. I recall our sending a deputation in 1979 to protest about the rate support grant settlement announced by the then Secretary of State for the Environment, my right hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who is now back in that job.
  Seven years ago, I made my maiden speech in the RSG debate and, while I sought to observe the convention of not being too controversial, I could not avoid criticising the way in which the Conservative Government, just elected, had treated the Conservative county council in Norfolk. This may be why these annual debates on local authority expenditure are boring: we have to keep on saying the same thing over and over again. Here we are with another RSG settlement that is patently unfair in the

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  way it treats the people of Norfolk, who send to this House seven Members in the Conservative interest, of whom three are prominent members of this Administration on the Treasury Bench.
  I wish that the accusation by the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) that the Secretary of State helps Tory authorities over and above Labour-controlled councils was near the truth. It is not true for Shropshire, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) said. It is not true for Warwickshire, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton said and as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) will have a chance to say later. It certainly is not true for Norfolk.
  On 9 December, the county treasurer's report to the county council about the RSG provisional settlement, announced by the Secretary of State on 26 November, concluded:
  "Overall, the proposed settlement can be described as a difficult one which hopefully, subject to the level of future pay awards and inflation, will enable us to maintain our existing services"—
  that is loyalty, and I draw it to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government—
  "but which is unlikely to leave any room to tackle many, if any, of the new demands on our services."
  Norfolk's provisional SSA for 1992–93 was£446·460 million, which was a 6·8 per cent. increase over the 1991–92 figure of £417·945 million. That is a cash increase of £28·515 million, for which we are very grateful. This increase for Norfolk of 6·8 per cent. compares with the average increase nationally of 6·8 per cent.—so we are on a level playing field there—but the average county increase —and, as my hon. Friends representing shire counties have said, which shire counties have benefited remains to be seen—has been 7 per cent. The figures for the neighbouring East Anglian counties, which have much in common with Norfolk, are: Cambridgeshire, 7·5 per cent., Lincolnshire, 6·9 per cent., and Suffolk, a disastrous 5·9 per cent.
  However, the settlement announced on 24 January robbed Norfolk—that is, my constituents—of about £0·5 million. The county council confidently expected an increase because of the change in the rules which allows any addition to the police establishment—and we had an increase in our police establishment, approved by the Home Secretary—to be included in the first year; normally a council would have to finance the first year on its own. Despite this, Norfolk's RSG has gone down by nearly half a million pounds, and the capping limit is reduced in line. This reduction at this late hour, as the leader of the Norfolk county council has pointed out, makes a nonsense of sound planning. It also undermines the claim by spending departments in Whitehall that it is all in the SSA.
  Incidentally, Cambridgeshire, which had the most generous settlement announced in November for the East Anglian counties, has gained from the January settlement. So a relatively poor county such as Norfolk has lost money to a rich area such as Cambridgeshire. I am sure that has nothing to do with the fact that one of the Members for that county is my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) and another is my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant).
  Sir Anthony Grant: If what my hon. Friend says is true, and I am sure it is, does he not find it absolutely astounding that, with one accord, Labour and Liberal politicians in Cambridgeshire have been spending months complaining how mean the Government are, and are still doing it?
  Mr. Carttiss: What people in Cambridgeshire do does not surprise me, especially the Liberal and Labour people there. Fortunately, there are not many Liberal and Labour people in Cambridgeshire.
  The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) drew attention to the effect of the teachers' pay award. Norfolk has a relatively low SSA, and the county council has had minimal room for manoeuvre within its budget, bearing in mind the pressures that we have in our county from a rising local population and additional crime. The teachers' pay award will cause budgetary difficulties if it is significantly above inflation and if the Government do not then make the appropriate upward adjustments to the SSA and the RSG.
  As a former member of the teaching profession, I am very happy for the Government to approve a pay award above the rate of inflation, but they must make that extra pay award feature in the RSG settlement. In other words, Her Majesty's Treasury must look after that above-average pay rise, if it comes, and not expect local authorities to find that extra money from within their own budgets at the expense of other services, given the point that has already been made about local authorities having no say in or control over that item of expenditure.
  Speaking of teachers prompts me to comment on the capital allocation for education in Norfolk, which has been limited to £3·1 million. That is an extremely low allocation, particularly compared with our neighbours in the rest of East Anglia: Suffolk, education capital allocation £11·3 million; Lincolnshire, £12·4 million; and, once again, Cambridgeshire £13·9 million. Norfolk, I repeat, has only £3·1 million. It would be monstrous if, having spent just above SSA, we had charge capping.
  I have one minute left, I am advised, to draw the attention of the House to the problem that arises from sea defences. The people of Great Yarmouth and Norfolk are not expected to pay for the Navy. The last time that we helped with the cost of the Navy from our local expenditure in Yarmouth was in 1338, when the town magistrates provided money for men-of-war against the nation's enemies. In 1340, we provided half the fleet for Edward III's battle against the French at Sluys, which we won.
  Flood defences are a nationwide responsibility, as they should be, yet they feature within the local authority budget. If the Yarmouth borough council spends over its SSA, including the cost of sea defences, it will lose money.
  No doubt, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will call me to order when I reach the absolute limit of my time, but I want to say that in Great Yarmouth we want to spend £150,000 on a coastal strategy defence study. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will eventually pay for it. MAFF is constantly urging us to increase expenditure. The levy from the National Rivers Authority is 8·7 per cent., yet the Department wants to limit us to 6·5 per cent.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I am sorry, but I must call the hon. Gentleman to order now.
  6.39 pm
  Dr. Ashok Kumar: I wish to highlight the major impact that the Secretary of State's announcement on standard spending assessments will have on the local councils that cover my constituency.
  My constituency is served by Cleveland county council and two borough councils, Langbaurgh and Middlesbrough. Those model local authorities have all been the subject of favourable comments by the district audit service. I am proud to say that they are all controlled by the Labour party, as demonstrated by their continuing electoral success. They will all be severely affected by the Secretary of State's announcement.
  Langbaurgh borough council has been allocated an SSA increase of 1·5 per cent. and Middlesbrough borough council's SSA has been decreased by 0·2 per cent. The chief executive of Cleveland county council, in a letter to me dated 20 January, said that the SSA announcement for Cleveland county council has
  "required some very difficult decisions. The need to stay within the overall limit is complicated very substantially by the pressures arising from other government legislation, especially in Social Services where the implementation of the Care in the Community and the Children Act are estimated to cost £4·9 million in the perfect world".
  He goes on to say that, unfortunately, we do not live in that perfect world—how right he is—and that only £1·6 million can be spent in those areas. That budget decision will adversely affect some of the most vulnerable in our society—people living institutional lives and young children, possibly in peril. The fact that new duties have been imposed on local councils while cuts have been made in resources is plainly an example of double dealing.
  The chief executive of Cleveland council also tells me that he is "unlikely" to be able to meet new statutory legislation for trading standards inspections and that he will be unable to recommend the allocation of additional funds to schools for the implementation of future stages of the national curriculum. That means that our children's futures will suffer and local people may find that the consumer watchdogs on which they rely to protect them from sharp practices will be left toothless—a grim prospect.
  Although the position within local councils is obviously grave, amazingly, Cleveland county council is comparatively fortunate because its SSA is relatively close to its actual expenditure under the arcane Department of the Environment rules apparently agreed to by the Secretary of State. For the two borough councils in my constituency, the situation is far worse. Langbaurgh is perhaps the worst affected, being in the unique position of covering some of the poorest urban areas in mainland Britain and an ex-mining area of rural villages. Consequently, it is designated by the Government as both an urban programme authority and a rural development area, a position that is unique to Langbaurgh. I hope that that gives hon. Members some idea of the problems with which that authority must grapple.
  The announcement of an SSA for Langbaurgh of £12·16 million—an increase of 1·67 per cent. over 1991–92 —has come as a body blow to Langbaurgh. That is not a knee-jerk reaction. The council previously employed a leading firm of accountants, Peat, Marwick, McLintock, to examine the SSA and its impact on the authority. The accountants found that the low SSA was due to two specific factors. The first is the ward-weighted density
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  factor. Langbaurgh has undergone a ward boundary exercise, but the new wards were not used by the Department of the Environment. Peat, Marwick, McLintock argued that the use of census enumeration districts would give the Department a better picture of the borough's needs. Secondly, the all-ages social index lost the borough some £1·2 million, whereas the borough had expected to gain because of its pressing social problems.
  Langbaurgh cannot use its reserves, because almost all of them have been used to alleviate heavy payments in last year's budget exercise. The district auditor has told the council that the balances are now dangerously low and should be increased from £500,000 to £1 million. That is a difficult, if not impossible, task to accomplish, but it has not deterred the Secretary of State from telling Langbaurgh that he is ready to use his capping powers, which would discriminate against some of the poorest people in one of the poorest boroughs in Britain. If the rules are not relaxed, people in Langbaurgh will suffer this winter.
  Langbaurgh's grim problems will intensify as the full impact of the recession begins to bite. In the past year, we have continually seen news of sackings in the borough's traditional industries of steel and chemicals. Those sackings come on top of the already high unemployment figures, which, incidentally, are not used in devising the borough's SSA and they can only mean more pressure on the borough's local services and council aid.
  Middlesbrough, too, will suffer. Along with Langbaurgh, it has all the problems associated with long-term unemployment, poverty and ill health, It wants desperately to work to remedy those social evils and create a living environment that is fit for the 21st century.
  Given that the statutory housing responsibilities of Langbaurgh and Middlesbrough borough councils are effectively ring-fenced, their grave problems have led to a new round of rent rises, and their highways duties are managed on an agency basis for the county council. That can only mean massive budgetary cuts in their work in non-statutory areas.
  Another aspect that will have a severe impact on our people is the possible loss of bus passes, which will be particularly resented by local senior citizens in my area. The secretary of the Cleveland Pensioners Association said that any cuts
  "will have a devastating effect on old people."
  For some, it could mean virtual imprisonment in their own homes and a charge in their daily lives that could mean a difference between life and death.
  Two weeks ago, a typical local senior citizen visited me in my surgery. Tom Miller lives in the village of Carlin How in east Cleveland and suffers from heart and chest problems. He told me that the withdrawal of bus passes would make him and his wife virtual prisoners in their village. For Tom Miller and his neighbours, many of the facilities that we take for granted, such as visiting a doctor, supermarket or local market, involve a bus journey of many miles. Mr. Miller has written to the Secretary of State for the Environment, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman's reply will not be an attempt to fob him off with the usual feeble rhetoric or an attempt to divert the blame on to our hard-pressed local authorities, because Mr. Miller and his neighbours have already rumbled him.
  Only last week, I attended a public meeting of senior citizens who expressed deep anxiety about the cuts in Langbaurgh borough council's SSA. The council's work

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  and that expression of local pride and autonomy are threatened by the Secretary of State's announcement. The real agenda is obvious. At heart, the Secretary of State does not like the idea of local people deciding their futures and destinies. At heart, he is still an enthusiast for the view that the man in Whitehall knows best, so long as that man is the Secretary of State for the Environment.
  I give the Secretary of State notice that, in a few short weeks, his record and views will be judged by the electorate. From my day-to-day work and my life in my constituency, I know what the verdict of the thousands of local voters living in Middlesbrough and Langbaurgh will be. They want an end to the callous disregard for local government, and an end to the Government who have fostered and nurtured that disregard.
  6.49 pm
  Mr. David Martin: Any debate on local government finance is liable to tax people's understanding even more than central and local government tax their purses. It is an arcane subject, mainly because central Government pick up the lion's share of the bill. There is therefore a complex relationship between local and central Government at the heart of which is the revenue support grant system, SSAs and all the rest, with a myriad mathematical equations, incomprehensible to normal people, amongst whom I count myself.
  Therefore, I intend to take a broad-brush approach in raising first a specific matter involving local government structure and expenditure, where change could be made to achieve a cheaper system, more accountable to local people and less expensive in central Government grants. Too many powers are exercised by county councils which ought to be carried out more locally. I appreciate that the Local Government Commission is being created to investigate the best future structure for local authorities. I very much welcome that.
  In the meantime, however, county councils continue to exercise very wide overlapping planning powers which brings them into conflict—sometimes serious conflict—with district or city councils which also have fully-fledged planning departments. It is true, of course, that the system allows for an application to my right hon. Friend to call in a planning application so that conflicts can be resolved. However, this is a most expensive procedure which falls on local charge payers and on the grant system.
  There is a good example of serious planning conflict in Portsmouth in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths), who cannot be here because of Select Committee duties. The problem affects his constituency, but also mine because many of my constituents live in the vicinity.
  In Quatremaine road, Hilsea, there is a waste incinerator site. On it stands an incinerator which has been shut down. Adjoining the site is land belonging to Portsmouth city council. A planning application is before the county council, the planning authority—not Portsmouth city council—for an enormous new energy-from-waste incinerator. Its size and scale are such that it would require also the adjoining site belonging to the city council which would need to be compulsory purchased.
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  The new incinerator would dominate the landscape like some hideous, belching, secular cathedral—tower, chimney and all.
  Portsmouth city council is unanimously against it, not on the ground that Portsmouth is not prepared to see a reasonable size state-of-the-art waste disposal system on the existing site which will deal with the waste of Portsmouth and perhaps Havant, Gosport and Fareham too, but because the proposal is intended to deal with waste from all over Hampshire, and no doubt from West Sussex as well under contract, with the massive environmental impact that will have, not least on a densely populated residential area but also on the road system. Portsmouth wants other areas to take responsibility for their waste disposal and not have it all transported in one direction.
  That is precisely the sort of example which underpins my conviction that dual county-city planning powers should not exist. Further, if on 9 March the county council planning committee does not take account of the strength of feeling in Portsmouth by rejecting the proposal, it will serve as the most eloquent support from Portsmouth to look after all its own council affairs again, as a unitary authority, rather than being subsumed in a remote, out-of-touch, over-blown, administrative and political structure in Winchester which costs far too much money —our money—for all the good it does.
  Incidentally, sensible local government reform is one of the best reasons for supporting the return of a Conservative Government at the general election. The proposals of the Labour and Liberal parties would result in a whole new tier of regional government—heaven forbid —with all its increased bureaucracy and bloated cost in grant and so on.
  In Portsmouth, where we have a Labour administration propped up by Liberals, we have learnt the lesson that I hope the whole country will heed: there is nothing to choose between Labour and Liberals. There are two ways of getting Labour national or local government—by voting Labour or by voting Liberal. Just as in local government their policies are barely distinguishable, in this place eight out of 10 times they vote in the same lobby.
  In another area of local government expenditure which involves considerable central taxation support—housing —housing revenue account subsidy and housing investment programme capital grants are only obliquely connected to revenue support grants, but a council's housing policies and programmes have a great impact on taxpayers and local charge payers.
  Portsmouth has not only done well this year out of the revenue support grant but also the HIP allocation, which in a difficult year has risen by 3 per cent. in real terms— recognition by the Government of the extra help required and deserved to meet housing needs in Portsmouth. To its credit, the Labour administration has continued the sensible housing enabling strategy of its Conservative predecessors, hence the increased Government support. Of course, we shall never get to the bottom of housing need, however deeply the taxpayers and charge payers dip into their pockets, until we mobilise the private sector by taking a further look at the destructive workings of the rent Acts in that vital area.
  The Labour party and the Liberals suggest that housing needs could be met by a new spending spree, including allowing councils to spend all the proceeds of council home sales, which in their hearts they still oppose, instead

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  of having the present restriction of 25 per cent. of the product of such sales. Allowing 100 per cent. expenditure would certainly lead in the short term to more council houses being built. However, apart from the horrendous effects on public expenditure and inflation, it would have only a temporary influence on waiting lists. As we saw in the 1960s and 1970s, virtually unrestricted council building just does not cure waiting lists and brings in its wake massive debt and expenditure on maintenance to be borne by future generations. We are still paying off the massive debts built up in that era, when it was thought that those policies would cure the housing problem.
  The enabling policies being pursued at present, with sensible building for particular social purposes in partnership with housing associations, is sensible and defensible. I am glad that those policies are being carried out in Portsmouth, with Government grant to help in various ways to address the problems of the city's homelessness and inadequate shelter.
  The revenue support grant system will never please everyone, but I am delighted to pass on to my right hon. and hon. Friends the news that their support for Portsmouth has been noted.
  6.56 pm
  Mr. Ian McCartney: I always enjoy following the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin), not just because occasionally we are paired, but because he is never one to underwhelm the House. He puts his case boldly and fully, although I rarely agree with what he says. However, he is one of the few Conservative Back Benchers whose views on local government are clearly understood by the Opposition.
  In the past four months, the Minister of State and I have spent much time together, in Committee on the Local Government Finance Bill and the Local Government Bill, and also in discussions in his office in Marsham street. So that I do not put him to sleep, I do not intend to go over the ground that I have already covered with him about my own authority.
  I wish to highlight the reasons why my local authority, with other metropolitan authorities, feels let down by the Minister of State's announcement about standard spending assessments. The views that I shall express have already been expressed by others, such as the local chamber of commerce, the leader of the Conservative group in my local authority and The Times.
  Recently, The Times did a survey of local authorities, covering value for money, quality of service, efficiency of service and the way that Government perceives the development of services. The Times found that Wigan borough council gives value for money and that its services are run efficiently. In answer to questions, Ministers use my local authority as an example of best practice to other local authorities on how to run departments such as education, housing and social services. However, for the second time, my local authority will face substantial cuts of more than £10 million in its budget. In the past two financial years it has had to cut £37 million from its budget simply because of the way in which the Government calculate standard spending assessments.
  On Monday 3 February, under the heading "Spending curbs land thrifty Wigan with 20 per cent. poll tax rise", The Times local government correspondent said:
  "Wigan, run by Labour moderates,"—
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  the Minister of State knows from my speeches in Committee that I am a moderate person who always puts his arguments moderately—[Laughter.] I knew that hon. Members would be tickled by that—
  "has become a by-word for the inadequacy of the grant system. Praised by ministers and the Audit Commission for its efficiency, the borough council has had to make £37 million worth of cuts in the past two years. It has been forced to shed 1,250 staff from a workforce already smaller than the national average and spends less on services than many Conservative councils. It also has one of the best records of poll tax collection."
  The authority also has the third lowest level of council house rent arrears. It has proved to the Government time and again that it provides value for money in the way that it manages and produces its services.
  However, last night my local authority was meeting in emergency session to decide where to make substantial cuts that will include redundancies of about a further 1,000 staff in the housing, direct labour, community care and education departments. There is the possibility of hundreds of teachers being made redundant in order to meet the Government's spending targets. Given the funds it receives and the amounts allocated in SSAs, how can my authority provide the same level of care for children at risk as Wandsworth council, which receives eight times the amount of grant?
  Just a few miles down the road is Manchester, another inner urban authority. My authority receives less than £900 per person to spend on local services, while Manchester has £1,448. Yet my regional authority is placed twelfth out of 104 in terms of the number of GCEs obtained. It receives £510 per head for local schools, compared with an average of more than £700 per head in the other metropolitan authorities, including the inner London authorities, which receive many hundreds of pounds more to provide the same basic services.
  How can an authority that is so efficient in the level and spread of services it provides find itself losing millions of pounds of resources due to the way in which the Government calculate SSAs? I am not the only one to be puzzled; The Times agreed with me. The chambers of commerce also agreed, and when their representatives met the Minister of State, they made it absolutely clear that they supported the authority and were dismissive of the Government's attitude to SSAs. They said that the Government's position was undermining the local economy.
  The representatives understand that many of the services provided by the local authority are supplied in conjunction with the private sector. When the authority has substantially to reduce its service budgets, the people to lose will include not just those who receive the services, but local companies involved in the tendering to provide those services.
  Councillor Chadwick, the leader of the Conservative group on Wigan borough council, agreed that the way in which the SSAs are calculated was wrong. He agreed with the authority that the Government are manipulating and massaging the figures to produce the assessments, to the detriment of authorities such as Wigan. He was bitterly disappointed at the failure of the Minister of State to show any recognition of the level, delivery and value for money of services provided by my local authority.
  Therefore, it is clear that not just the Labour party, but local industry, the local Conservative party and a Conservative-backed newspaper—The Times—hold the

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  same views. One cannot get a broader consensus. The Minister cannot say that the view is held only by the bleeding hearts of a socialist council, supported by Labour Members of Parliament. Many local authorities in the north, in Yorkshire, Lancashire and particularly Greater Manchester are aggrieved as they witness the effects of SSAs, which always result in their receiving a lower level of grant.
  In previous debates the Minister has alluded to the marked discrepancy in the way in which SSAs are calculated. In meeting with the local authorities he recognised that there is a need to consider marginal aspects, but he is not prepared to accept the substantive argument that major problems exist. As a result, growing numbers of local authorities are being caught in the net of the SSA calculations which do not take into account the large, rural hinterlands attached to many metropolitan boroughs, the social deprivation of many of those boroughs and the fact that the transport system precepts now come out of the district council local budgets.
  We in Wigan have to pay the capital cost of the new rail link to Manchester airport and the introduction of the metrolink in Manchester. That is because the Minister of State, in his days at the Department of Transport, removed the precepting powers of the Greater Manchester transport authority. As a result, if Wigan wants to maintain its bus system, it must take the money from schoolkids, pensioners, industrial development and the promotion of jobs—the same is true of Yorkshire. If money is not taken from those sectors, the investment in public transport will be dramatically reduced. Either way, local authorities cannot win.
  I see that the light is flashing, which means that I must sit down—and Mr. Deputy Speaker is making circling hand signals for me to sit down. I feel as though I am in a television studio.
  If not this evening, then at an early stage in Committee, will the Minister of State give us an idea of when the Government will take seriously the issue of SSAs and look for a change in the system? The Minister has the excuse of the introduction of a commission to review local government. Therefore, he could take that oppportunity to change the SSA system.
  7.7 pm
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: Local government in many parts of the country has still not accepted the words of Mr. Anthony Crosland about the party being over for local government spending. However, this local government spending settlement is reasonable, and the Government have been more than generous to local government. Total spending for 1992–93 is £41·8 billion —an increase of 7·2 per cent. That represents the maximum amount that the Government think it will be necessary for local authorities in England to spend in 1992–93 to provide a standard level of service.
  In order to encourage local government, we must ensure that we get the best value for our money—that is what it is all about. It is not good enough to say, "Spend, spend, spend"; consideration must be given to obtaining good value.
  The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), like many Opposition Members, constantly whinges about
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  the amount of Government grant. He does not apply his mind to the issue of generating the tax income that goes into local authority expenditure or consider the community charge payer, who has to fork out for those services, or the income taxpayer and business taxpayer, who have to provide the money, through the Treasury, to make up the grant. One must generate wealth to spend it, and only my right hon. and hon. Friends understand the necessity to create the financial resources that allow grants to be made.
  Overall standard spending assessments have increased by 6·8 per cent., which is well above the rate of inflation. Local government should be able to live with that figure. The average increase in respect of specific grants—such as for the police—is even higher, at 11·9 per cent. The increases in most SSA totals are also well above the inflation rate—14·7 per cent. for the police; 15·2 per cent. for all other services; 8·3 per cent. for fire services; 7·2 per cent. for social services; and 7·1 per cent. for education. Those major increases reflect the circumstances and represent a prudent and sensible settlement.
  Mr. McCartney: The hon. Gentleman should tell the truth.
  Mr. Hind: I will tell the truth also about Labour-controlled local government.
  A large number of whingers in local government and in the House constantly complain about spending levels, but they never worry about how the money will be raised or about the impact that higher expenditure will have on the individual and the business community.
  The authorities in the top 20 for uncollected rent are all Labour controlled. Liverpool is sixth, with some 26 per cent. of its tenants behind with rent totalling £16·4 million. Imagine what a local authority could do with that sum. Labour-controlled Preston is in 16th place. Some 9 per cent. of its tenants owe rent totalling £1·56 million.
  Of the 20 local authorities with the highest proportion of empty dwellings as a proportion of their total housing stock, Liverpool has 9·7 per cent. of its properties vacant; Manchester, 6·47 per cent.; Salford 6·23 per cent.; Burnley, 5·84 per cent.; and Knowsley, on the edge of my constituency, 4·49 per cent.
  Mr. Irvine Patnick (Lords Commissioner to the Treasury): Not to mention Sheffield.
  Mr. Hind: My hon. Friend is right, because Sheffield also has one of the worst records in that respect.
  At a recent local government conference, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) complained that the 1989–90 revenue support grant was £6 billion to £7 billion short of the sum needed. Is that a measure of the amount that a Labour Government, in the unlikely event that one were elected, would ask the electorate to pay? That would require a tax increase of 2p or 3p in the pound. We should add that to the £37 billion of excess spending that Labour has promised in its documents and in the House.
  We must consider also the impact of Labour's local government proposals on those who would have to pay. Labour would end tendering for services, which would create a large loss that would have to be met by the council tax or whatever form of rates applied. Labour would also sweep away the Audit Commission, which identified £1·2

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  billion of potential local government savings and has seen £650 million of them actually achieved. Under Labour, there would be no watchdog to exercise such control.
  Labour would create large numbers of new quangos, with all their excessive costs, and increase costly new bureaucracy at the expense of the local taxpayer. Above all, Labour would abolish the capping restrictions that Parliament placed on local authority spending, which protects local government taxpayers from being milked and imposes a degree of necessary prudence. In the past, certain local authorities served as milch cows for irresponsible left-wing councillors. They did little for the community, but drove out jobs.
  The uniform business rate is controlled by central Government and is currently set at the rate of inflation. Labour would hand back the uniform business rate to local authorities. In the late 1980s, we saw in places such as Liverpool and Manchester a sharp increase in business rates. Jobs and investment were driven out, with the consequence that the actual take went down. Massive unemployment followed in those areas, but constituencies such as mine benefited from businesses moving from profligate, high-spending Labour-controlled areas to low-cost areas run by Conservative councils, where they could make better profits, expand, invest and create new jobs.
  The future under Labour would be spend, spend, spend. Local authorities already spend an enormous amount of money and certain limits must be imposed. We must ensure responsible control if there is to be sensible local government budgeting in future.
  The capping rules were changed recently and many councils that spent more than £17 million found themselves caught as a consequence of using their investments to balance their budgets. Under the new capping criteria, many of them will be required to reduce their expenditure. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities to allow such councils two years in which to reduce their expenditure to the required level. When my hon. Friend gives that matter his consideration in April, he may agree that that is a reasonable provision.
  Capping is a necessary mechanism of central Government, and I am sure that the public recognise that we finance local government sensibly and do not take advantage of those who have to pay local government tax. The public can look to a Conservative Government to ensure that will continue to be the case in future. In those circumstances, I urge all my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the motion.
  7.17 pm
  Mr. Ron Leighton: Our annual debates on local government finance are replete with esoteric jargon and initials—such as SSA, meaning the standard spending assessment. The operative word is "standard". Everything is to be standardised across the country. There is no local decision-making, but everything is centralised; the man in Whitehall knows best. Local manifestos and the wishes of local voters do not seem to matter. Instead, a standard is set at the centre. There is no local discretion or judgment, and democratically elected councils are told what to do. Even committees are told what are their individual SSAs and how much they can spend. All local freedom of choice is eliminated.
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  How does this affect the London borough of Newham? If it rolls forward its existing programme and does not add anything new, it will spend £11 million in excess of the cap set by the Department of the Environment. It will therefore have to make painful cuts in its services—but not because the council is profligate or loony. First, the capital financing SSA is inadequate. This covers the cost of servicing the capital debt, and to service the capital debt costs £30 million. The borrowing is Government approved, but the Government-approved SSA is only £18 million: there is therefore a £12 million deficit.
  Secondly, there is no procedure for recognising the existence of homelessness in the SSA, which is a major problem in my part of the world. Council housing provision has virtually come to an end; there have been many repossessions, and we have many refugees. Homelessness costs my borough roughly £5 million, but, although the SSAs do not provide for that, the Government have imposed a legal duty on us to deal with the problem. So we should have an extra £12 million for capital financing, and £5 million for homelessness—£17 million more.
  If my authority had that extra £17 million, it would find itself in a reasonably comfortable position, but instead it is having to make major cuts. A meeting took place last night to discuss the matter. As education represents 50 per cent. of our local expenditure, cuts are inevitable. My area is not doing well in the education league table; the east end is struggling, in difficult circumstances, to raise education standards. Now, however, we are being forced to make these painful cuts.
  Parents and teachers object to the cuts. Last night a demonstration took place outside the town hall; my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) was present. The councillors, who do not want to make the cuts, are being forced to do so. They are also having to sack members of staff, who are resisting by going on strike: Newham's poll tax department is on strike now.
  I congratulate the Minister on having sat through the debate so far, and thank him for his courtesy in meeting us last night. I believe he knows that the people who run Newham council are honest people, and that the council is honest, too. It is not a loony council in any respect; yet, although it is situated in a part of east London that has many problems, it is having to endure these agonies. I wonder that those councillors are even willing to remain in local government. It is not their fault that cuts are being made in essential services, but they are taking the stick. Every night they are barracked by crowds outside the town hall; but they are only the messenger boys—the tools of the Government. They have no local discretion.
  The Government do not want local government, which involves discretion and democracy, the issue of manifestos and voting by the local electorate. What they want is more local administration, as applies in the health service: those who run the health service are appointed, not elected—and most seem to be card-carrying members of the Conservative party. They do what they are told; the law is laid down centrally. The Opposition want proper local government.
  The story gets worse. There are also the rate refunds resulting from backdated rateable value adjustments. The Minister listened very patiently to our views on that last night. At the time when the rates were abolished, a number of commercial ratepayers had appeals outstanding against the rateable valuation of their properties. Such appeals are

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  determined by valuation courts. In Newham, the valuation court's decisions have resulted in an estimated reduction of £6 million in rate income. This is on top of all the other problems that I have mentioned.
  Let me stress that Newham has no control over the refunds. The original rateable value was set by the Inland Revenue; it had nothing to do with the council. The appeals had nothing to do with the council either. The council comes in only when it has to pick up the costs. This has made the local position almost impossible.
  Something must be done. Last night, the Minister was willing to listen to a number of options, and I hope that since then he has come up with a solution. The first option was that the cost of the refunds should be chargeable to the Collection Fund, and be met from the non-domestic rate pool. That is Newham's favoured option. The second was that the cost should be treated as a disregard for capping purposes; but that would merely raise the poll tax level, and I see little point in such a move.
  A third option was to ask the Department of the Environment to increase Newham's temporary revenue borrowing limit for 1992–93. That would spread it over two years; I should prefer it to be spread over a longer period. The final option was for the authority to be allowed to capitalise the refund costs. That would help Newham only if the Department provided additional credit approvals to enable the capitalisation to take place, because the council's capital programme is already fully committed. We are asking only for approval to borrow, to make payments staggered over five or six years, so that our position is not made untenable. We are not asking for cash from the Government.
  The Minister of State listened very carefully to our submissions, and I hope that he will be able to give some good news to a council that is struggling, in good faith and with the best will in the world, to find a way through its terrible difficulties.
  7.27 pm
  Sir Anthony Grant: I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton): all our debates on local government finance, whether the community charge or the rating system is involved, are a nightmare. That has been true for as long as I have been in the House. It is very difficult for us not to become extraordinarily confused, so I shall confine my remarks to East Anglia; I shall not move an inch north of Norfolk, or take a step along the road to Wigan pier.
  I referred to Norfolk because my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) made a powerful speech on behalf of his constituency in particular and Norfolk generally. He pointed out how differently Cambridgeshire had been treated in regard to the revenue support grant. Let me explain the position.
  I wish that some of the socialist and Liberal politicians who make such a clamour in Cambridgeshire about the tight-fistedness of central Government were present now. If they had heard not only the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, but those of hon. Members representing such areas as Wigan, Sheffield and so forth, they would have realised that Cambridgeshire's settlement is not at all bad.
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  For many months, my hon. Friends representing other parts of Cambridgeshire have had to point out that Cambridgeshire has been unfairly treated in the past, because it has been one of the fastest-growing counties in the country. At one time, it was the fastest growing in population terms, because so many people wanted to move to such an excellent place.
  I am not saying that we are the fastest-growing area, but we are the fastest growing in terms of population, certainly much faster than Norfolk. We have had a bad deal in previous years, but this year we spent a long time talking to the Government about the problems. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister of State and to the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) who have been extraordinarily patient and have looked into this in enormous detail and listened to us carefully when we explained the problems.
  As a result, we have achieved a 7·5 per cent. increase in RSG, which is a satisfactory solution and a reasonable compromise. We are not top of the list of counties, but we are ninth out of 39 and fourth in the list of shire counties in terms of percentage per head of population. Therefore, we have nothing to complain about. There is to be a 7·5 per cent. increase in education. In that respect, the county council has wisely and sensibly made primary education its priority and has not put the full burden on secondary education. I commend the county council for its wisdom.
  The police are important and it is necessary to have an adequate Government precept for them. Cambridgeshire has embarked upon a policy of civilianisation of the police as vigorously as possible under the excellent chairman, Councillor Kenneth Spink. The council has done a splendid job and it is important that it should not be penalised for indulging in civilianisation. It should be praised for doing so, because it is entirely in keeping with proper and sensible Government policy.
  I disagree slightly with some of my hon. Friends on the uniform business rate. The many small businesses in my constituency are finding it onerous. It is all very well for people in the north, including Lancashire, to say that it is better than the ghastly things that happened under the old rating system and loony councils in Liverpool and other places. They are certainly better off. However, the uniform business rate bites hard on people in the south and east, and they should not be neglected at times of economic difficulty.
  Another issue is the ridiculous area cost adjustment system. That results in the absurd circumstance of Oxford benefiting from that system when Cambridge does not. I have never heard of anything so ridiculous. The reason is that the incredible formula is worked out not on a county basis but on some arbitrary boundaries that result in Oxford and some other parts of East Anglia being caught up in the so-called highly expensive places in the south-east and Cambridge being caught up in the not-so-expensive places. I do not know who drew up those mad boundaries, but it time that the Government looked at them.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look at this matter, because the boundaries are absurd. It is said, "Oh well, you in East Anglia and Cambridgeshire do not have very high costs." That may be true of parts of north Cambridgeshire and the northern parts of East Anglia, but it is not true of Cambridge, of the rest of my constituency or of that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice). It is damned expensive, just as expensive as in Oxford or Hertfordshire.

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  Huntingdon district council, which is part of my constituency, and Cambridge council are very responsible authorities. Those councils embarked vigorously on the sale of council houses. That is an excellent policy and has given people homes of their own. It has transformed much of my constituency and those surrounding it. Those councils have accumulated a number of balances. As I have said, they are responsible local authorities which run sensible and tight ships. They do not waste money or embark upon lunatic ventures. The time has come for a release of some of that money, the retention of which I find it increasingly difficult to justify. I realise that it is not a matter entirely for my hon. Friend the Minister, but I hope that he will talk to the Treasury and the Chancellor, as I have done, as it is a way to give a much-needed stimulus to the housing market.
  On balance, the Department of the Environment has done a good job on the RSG. It is a good team under my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. The Department has achieved a sensible RSG in times of great difficulty. I have not heard a word from Opposition Members about how they would make it better if they were in office. I leave my hon. Friend the Minister with the message that no situation is so bad that a Labour Administration could not make it infinitely worse.
  7.35 pm
  Mr. Eric Illsley: The Secretary of State mentioned the annual ritual of these debates, and I make no apology for again attacking the standard spending assessments because of the effect that they will have on my constituency. In the past, I have attacked the level of grant that we have received and the standard spending assessment which has denied my area adequate levels of funding. Once again, my local authority is bottom of the list of 36 metropolitan districts. When we ask why we are so low, the Secretary of State says that somebody has to be at the bottom. There is no justification and no sensible argument why my local authority should receive such a low standard spending assessment. In fact, I do not think that the Government know the reason why.
  The calculation of standard spending assessments defies logic. Last year, my local authority provided a report that was commissioned by Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte. It was sent to the Minister explaining why we should have a better standard spending assessment. There was no response. I am sure that all the representations from Opposition Members will meet a similar fate.
  The revenue support grant is tied into the Government's calculation of total standard spending assessments. After we remove special grants from the total figures, the total SSA for 1992–93 shows a 6·7 per cent. increase. However, when we look in a little more detail, we see that the shire areas will receive 6·75 per cent., London will receive 7·84 per cent., but the metropolitan districts will receive 5·96 per cent. That is a lot lower than the average figure. Given the current level of inflation, if we compare the 1991–92 total budgets with those for 1992–93, the increase in SSAs falls to as low as 4·8 per cent. So the figure of 6·7 per cent. being bandied about by the Secretary of State is obviously wrong. The figure becomes even smaller if we consider balances and reserves that local authorities have to take into account.
  Time and again my local authority has asked for changes to the SSA methodology. This year, there has
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  been a change in methodology—an extension to cover foreign visitors and a change in relation to interest receipts. Both those changes will have no effect on my constituency and my local authority. Extensions to cover foreign visitors will probably make the position worse. The special area protection grant will be reduced by £25 per adult. Again, because of the position of my local authority, that will probably make things worse.
  The SSA for Barnsley for 1992–93 is £140·74 million— an increase of 4·6 per cent—not 6·7 or 7·2 per cent. but 4·6 per cent. That is 89 per cent. of the average increase for metropolitan districts. It equates to 68 per cent. of the national increase, to 65 per cent. of the average increase for shire counties and to 55 per cent. of the increase for Westminster council, which will receive double the standard spending assessment of my authority. Why is Barnsley metropolitan borough council required to provide the same level of service as all the other authorities but with half the resources? How can that be justified? It cannot.
  My metropolitan district will rank 36th out of 36. Manchester's standard spending assessment is 78 per cent. greater than that of my authority. Why does Manchester need 78 per cent. more finance to provide a standard service? Why does my authority have to do it far more cheaply than Manchester? Why is there no capping criterion for the level of SSAs when, of the 36 authorities, the one at the bottom receives 78 per cent. less than the one at the top? The Government are quick to impose a cap on budgets and to restrict the level of the council tax in relation to the bottom and top levels, but, when it comes to the SSAs, the top authority is 78 per cent. ahead of my authority which languishes at the bottom. Why is there no cap on such an expenditure level?
  If we consider previous settlements of the revenue support grant, we find that, from 1991–92, there has been an increase of about 13·4 per cent. There will be a decrease in the national non-domestic rates because the rateable base has fallen. However, all in all, when one considers the RSG and the business rates, my authority will receive a net increase of 1·6 per cent. taking into account external financing. My authority will receive not 6·7 or 7 per cent. but 1·6 per cent. Bearing in mind the Government's capping criteria that allows an increase of about 4·6 per cent. on the budget for 1991–92 and gives us a capping avoidance target of £147·7 million. That will leave us £5 million short of our budget requirements to maintain the level of expenditure of this year.
  It has already been said that the teachers' pay settlement will be about 5 or 6 per cent. I do not intend to go into the details of the ideas that Barnsley will have to consider for cuts. We tried that before with the Secretary of State's predecessor who complained that there would be a procession of bleeding stumps. I know darned well that that Secretary of State will ignore any information I give about cuts.
  If Barnsley's SSA had been increased by the national average, we would have £3 million more to spend. If our SSA had been increased by the same amount as that of Westminster, we would have a further £5·2 million and I would not be standing here making the same speech that I made just a year ago and the year before that.
  It is inevitable that there will be budget reductions and that my constituents' poll tax bills will increase by more than the rate of inflation, and this at a time when we are being denied the funding to which we are

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  entitled from the European Commission because the Government will not allow it to be additional to the 1·6 per cent. increase. The Government say that we cannot have it because of inflation and other factors, but it is additional to nothing.
  Finally, I mention the South Yorkshire fire and civil defence authority. In 1992–93, its SSA will be about £28·6 million, against a budget cap of £30 million. To maintain the current level of service, it would need £31·8 million. It would need £33 million for a reinstatement budget. A current service level budget means training cuts, no use of the fire service college, equipment cuts and the fire authority being 28 posts below establishment. A reinstatement budget would allow it to train officers and to have an establishment closer to Home Office minimum levels.
  Let us compare South Yorkshire's fire and civil defence authority's SSA to that of other areas. Greater Manchester has received a 10·2 per cent. increase, Merseyside a 7·4 per cent. increase, Tyne and Wear 11·5 per cent., London 8 per cent., the West Midlands 7·6 per cent. and South Yorkshire 4·5 per cent.—bottom of the list again. Only South Yorkshire's fire authority has an SSA lower than the capping limits. There will be a £2·4 million shortfall between the cap and the minimum standard of fire cover. Clearly, that will lead to a poorer level of fire service provision in my constituency and, as I have said, higher poll tax bills. I again ask the Government to get rid of this stupid SSA methodology.
  7.44 pm
  Mr. James Pawsey: Hon. Members representing Warwickshire have argued consistently for more than 12 months that the standard spending assessment formula is flawed, and I shall give the House three examples.
  First, there is no reduction in the percentage of the education SSA which refers to additional educational needs. I am advised that Warwickshire county council, if able to decide for itself, would certainly not distribute 20 per cent. of its schools budget on the basis of figures produced by the 1981 census.
  Secondly, the use of the current SSA formula highlights a serious difference between the Home Office and the Department of the Environment on fire service spending. Despite representations made by Warwickshire county council, there are no changes being made to the formula, which results in a gap of about 25 per cent. between the permitted SSA and the standstill expenditure on the fire service.
  The SSA which is produced by the Department of the Environment's computer apparently identifies Warwickshire as an overspender, but Her Majesty's inspector of fire services has serious doubts about the service's ability to meet the operational requirements laid down by the Home Office. Therefore, it seems likely that Warwickshire county council will be making two command apearances—first, before the Home Secretary for not spending enough to ensure an adequate quality of fire service and, secondly, before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment for overspending on its SSA.
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  The third flaw that I have identified is in anticipated revenue. In the equivalent debate last year I drew attention to the fact that there is an assumption made within the formula for the amount of anticipated revenue that the authority receives from interest on receipts. I freely admit that my right hon. and hon. Friends have made an adjustment which reduces the size of the anomaly, and I am grateful for that. However, despite that adjustment, the county does not receive the amount, and, indeed, cannot receive the amount, laid down by the SSA formula because Warwickshire county council's balances are much lower than the assumed figure. Low balances equal low revenue.
  Hon. Members will be aware that counties are grouped by the Audit Commission into families. Warwickshire had the lowest revenue support grant per adult in its Audit Commission family for last year and this year. Let me illustrate that shortfall by again referring to the Audit Commission family. In 1992–93, top-of-the-pops Bedfordshire receives a massive £475 per head in revenue support grant. Bottom-of-the-league Warwickshire gets £286, a shortfall of almost £200 per head.
  Earlier I referred to the discrepancy between the deemed interest and the interest actually received by the authority on its receipts. But we also have a problem with the area cost adjustment, which is known to local government buffs as the ACA. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens), who is sitting in his customary place. I acknowledge once more his hard work in seeking to obtain a sensible level of revenue support grant.
  The ACA directs more than £1 billion each year to the south-east, which is not so much a brain drain as a bullion drain. It is based on general data and applies to employees whose pay is, in the main, determined not by area but by national pay scales, which apply to the midlands and to the south alike. The practical results of the ACA show that county councils in the south have standard spending assessments £200 million more than the amount that they believed it appropriate to spend in 1991–92. In other words, the lucky and favoured south-east underspends when judged by SSA. If Warwickshire could join that favoured grouping, Warwickshire's problems would be over. If that is not acceptable to my right hon. and hon. Friends—and I understand why it may not be—may I point out to my hon. Friend the Minister that there is a second possibility, advanced by the Association of County Councils, which is to abolish the area cost adjustment.
  There can be little justification for the ACA when £200 million is not spent. In a table giving the increase of this year's SSA compared with the figures for the last year of the old formula of general rate expenditure, Warwickshire is second from the bottom. I suggest to my hon. Friend that, by any criterion, Warwickshire and its charge payers are suffering pretty rough justice.
  Like most hon. Members, I know that there is a pretty tenuous relationship between quantity of spending and quality of service provided. In education, for example, Newham spent the second largest amount per child, but came second from the bottom in terms of results. That can be contrasted with North Yorkshire, which was fourth in results, but 81st in terms of money spent per child. I remind my right hon. and hon. Friends that Warwickshire is not socialist Newham or Brent, which are run, or have been run in the past, by left-wing Labour councillors.

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  Warwickshire is run by sensible, responsible, Conservative councillors who genuinely do their best for their communities.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Pawsey: No, because I am limited to 10 minutes.
  Last year, Warwickshire was capped, but thanks to the efforts of all Warwickshire Members and to the understanding of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and of my hon. Friend the Minister, the cap was lifted by almost £3 million. That made a most significant contribution which did much to prevent draconian cuts being made in Warwickshire services. This year, Warwickshire finds itself in a broadly similar position to last year's. I shall not therefore, be able to support the Government in the Lobby. The fact that for two years running I find myself opposing the proposals may give some food for thought.
  I ask that should Warwickshire set a budget marginally and reasonably above SSA—and I made this point in an intervention in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton—my right hon. Friend will show understanding and sympathy similar to that which he showed last year. He measured that sympathy not so much in words, but in money. Similar funding will this year protect the quality of service in Warwickshire. That plea comes from Warwickshire Members. I know that my right hon. Friend has done much to help and I, like other Warwickshire Members, am grateful for that help. However, I ask him, his hon. Friends and the Department of the Environment again to consider the SSA and to devise some method of producing an SSA which is fair not only to other counties but to Warwickshire.
  7.54 pm
  Mr. Allen McKay: It is time that the House, the Government and the Secretary of State stopped denigrating local government. It is time that we acted like grown-up people and recognised local government for what it is and for what it does. It is time that we recognised the work, the time and the service of local councillors, and it is time that we recognised everything that has been and is done by local government. It does the House no credit wholly to denigrate local government.
  I ask myself why local government is denigrated. I do not say that the Government have been allowed to carry out the principle that I am about to explain, but I must give some examples. Salazar of Portugal had to do two things to move power from local authorities to the centre: get rid of trade unions and get rid of local government. Franco in Spain had to do two things to move power o the centre: get rid of the trade unions and get rid of local government. Hitler in Germany had to do two things to move power to the centre: get rid of trade unions and denigrate local government. I do not wish to compare anything in my country with those examples, but I believe that the principle is the same. To move power to the centre, one has to make the trade unions impotent, and one starts gradually to move the power from local authorities to central Government.
  Since 1979, the Government have pursued a vendetta against local government. Why? I have always said and always will say that it is central Government's duty to decide how much to give local authorities. After that, it is
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  local government's duty, in consultation with the citizens whom it represents, to decide how much it can go above that to provide proper services. In 1979, the Government set out to cut central Government grant to local government. They thought about all the power in the Labour authorities, which they despised, and they wanted people to turn against the local authorities. That did not work, so the Government gradually brought down the revenue support grant, which meant that the local authorities put up the rates to provide the same level of services—never mind an improvement in the services.
  Central Government decided that they must do something else, so they dissolved the counties because they were providing bus services which were next to none. Everybody loved the bus services, but they were being subsidised and the Conservative Government did not like that. They got rid of the counties.
  The Government considered what to do next, and that is how rate capping came about. The Government realised that, although they had caused the problem for local authorities of having to ask the people for extra money, people accepted that, so they put a cap on. That meant not only that local authorities could not get money, but that they could not provide services. The Government are looking for ways in which to draw attention away from their own centralised policies, so they ask people to make local government the whipping boy. That is where we start.
  My local authority has more or less managed in that period, but the Government are treating local government like the proverbial donkey, whose owner decided, in the interests of economy, not to feed it. He was very disappointed when it died just when he had got it going without giving it anything to eat. That is what central Government are doing to local government: they are trying to make it manage without anything to eat and, if they are not careful, it will die.
  Given all the sacrifices that local councillors have made, I do not know how they can take what is happening—all the brickbats that have been thrown at them both by those they represent and by central Government. I shall not go into the facts and figures, because my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley) has already done so. Suffice it to say that, as a result of this year's SSA, my authority will lose £5 million. We need £150 million to break even, and there is no way that we can find that money. Not only will every poll tax payer in my area have to pay a lot more; they will get fewer services.
  That money can only come from what hon. Members on both sides of the House have always recognised as the two largest spending areas—social services and education. In 1974, the authority decided to embark on a rolling programme to provide nursery education throughout its area. In 1979–80, that programme had to stop: the authority had to find the money to meet its statutory obligations, so non-statutory obligations had to go. As a result, half of those living in my constituency are saying, "Hey, wait a minute; you've provided nursery education for that half of the area, so why not for this half?" My concern is that the half of my constituency that does enjoy nursery provision may find it gradually eroded because, as a non-statutory duty of the authority, its funding may have to be reconsidered.
  Those are some of the problems that local government faces. In addition, further responsibilities are being placed

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  on local government by central Government. Where is the funding to be found for child care, care in the community and extra education?
  If this Government or any future Government, of whatever political persuasion, do not get down to examining what has happened to local government over the past few years and attempt to put it right, the problems will remain. I honestly believe that the Secretary of State recognises the problem. The problem facing him, however, is how to extricate himself from his present difficulties and save face at the same time. The time for saving face has gone. It is time to co-operate to put local government back on the pedestal where it belongs, and for the Government along with local government and local people, to find funds once again to provide services that have been lost.
  The local authorities provided employment. All the little construction firms that depended on local government contracts for their survival have died because of central Government's action. Local government also provided enterprise and industrial estates. Firms have come from Japan as a result of local government enterprise. I am the first to admit that they would not have come without central Government help and that we have received central Government grant for regeneration. Having provided that assistance, the Government should not kill the area.
  As the Secretary of State is here, I want to make a plea about RECHAR. The Secretary of State smiles, but let him answer my question. The unified business rate will bring to my authority an increase not of 7 per cent. but of 1·6 per cent. The poll tax will bring to it an increase of 4·6 per cent., not 7·8 per cent. The police and the teachers are to receive an increase of about 10 per cent. Where will the money come from for that? All those items of expenditure will have to be looked after. If the Secretary of State can say that RECHAR will come in, under present Government rules, in addition to the 4·6 per cent. and the 1·6 per cent., I will start to believe him. If he cannot, I shall believe the others, who say that RECHAR money will be dissipated in a way that was not intended. It is time that the matter was looked at.
  8.4 pm
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell: The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) mentioned RECHAR. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State knows that all of us on both sides of the House are determined that the money should be made available to the areas that we represent. My right hon. Friend and his colleagues know that I succeeded in persuading the British Government to include my constituency in the RECHAR proposal. It was with great dismay, therefore, that I learned that the Commission had removed my constituecy from the list of those seeking RECHAR help. In adition to seeking to secure RECHAR money, I hope that we shall ensure that it goes to those constituencies that need it. I place on record my dismay that the Community has removed my constituency from the proposal.
  At the beginning of his speech, the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone said that he thought that the Government and the Secretary of State should stop knocking local government. It is pretty hard to sustain the
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  view that the present Secretary of State has knocked local government. He has consistently sought to bolster the pillars of local government and enhance its role.
  It is important to recognise that there is a strongly held view that it is the Labour party that has undermined the local government establishment. That is why many of us welcomed the strong emphasis that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State placed on the fact that there would be no amnesty for non-payers of the community charge. Like it or not, Labour Members must accept that it was the campaign by 30 or so of their number against payment that made it so much more difficult for local authorities to collect the money. The fact that non-payers have had the apparent sanction of members of the Labour party has made it that much more difficult for authorities to collect the sums.
  Mr. Tony Banks: Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting that non-payment is attributable entirely to the actions of a mere handful of Labour Members of Parliament who decided that they would not pay? If so, the hon. Gentleman is giving those hon. Members powers that none of them ever believed they had. Their rejoinder would be, "Oh, that we had."
  Mr. Mitchell: That is not quite what I said. I am not saying that those hon. Members were pivotal. I am saying that the campaign for non-payment by 30 or so Labour Members sent a material message to the country. It is all very well for the hon. Gentleman to say that they were a mere handful; they made up more than 10 per cent. of the parliamentary Labour party. That is a large number, and they sent a clear message to the country.
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Lest it should be thought that we are referring only to Labour Members of Parliament setting a bad example, will my hon. Friend confirm that, in our own county of Nottinghamshire, senior Labour members of county hall—the very people who were setting the charge—did not pay until they were the subject of court orders? That was the kind of example being set by Labour councillors throughout the country as well as by Labour Members.
  Mr. Mitchell: My hon. Friend has eloquently demonstrated the truth of my remarks.
  The position was even worse than that. The authorities which are determined to collect, which challenge the concept of non-payment by the use of the courts and which are successful in collecting are Conservative councils, whose record of collection is infinitely better than that of Labour councils. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) said, the Conservative councils in Nottinghamshire have been successful and determined in collecting the community charge. It is the Labour councils which levy the highest charges and which are the least successful in collecting.
  Mr. Allen McKay: It is a pity that we do not have time to go into the way in which charges are made. The hon. Gentleman is doing himself a disservice both on that subject and by talking as he does about non-payment. He has not got down to the nitty-gritty of why non-payment has occurred. I should like to tell the hon. Gentleman about the people in my constituency who have had to pay the 20 per cent., but I hope that we have now got rid of that

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  rule. Others who have not paid the poll tax are those who cannot pay. They are counselled, and the payment comes late.
  Then we come to the small core of those who will not pay, and the problem is getting those people into court. The police will not serve warrants. The police have received an increase in their allocation to pay for 17 civilians because the chief police officer does not believe that his officers should waste their time serving such warrants. The increase for the police this year will simply pay for civilians to serve warrants on those who will not pay the poll tax. It is ironic that that increase will be paid for by those who have paid their poll tax.
  Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is talking about the difficulties associated with collecting the community charge. Conservative Members would not disagree that it is difficult. However, like several of my hon. Friends, I am talking about something else—about the signals that the hon. Gentleman's colleagues have given the country about non-payment.
  I turn now to the level of the settlement and to the way in which the spending assessments are determined. The settlement that has been obtained by the Department of the Environment this year seems fair and just, all in all. Of course each of us would like our own local authorities to have more money, but taking the constraints on Government into account, this seems a fair and defensible settlement.
  On this as on other occasions, I have noted the points that have been made about the SSAs. When the new system was introduced, I looked hard at the SSA for my constituency of Gedling and at those for other local district councils in Nottinghamshire. I had to conclude that, by and large, the way in which the SSA was constructed was fair. I emphasise that I should like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to find more money for Gedling. We can and will spend well every penny that he provides for us.
  Having considered Broxtowe, Rushcliffe, the city of Nottingham and neighbouring borough councils, I recognise that, broadly speaking, the settlement is fair. I wonder how easy it would be to start uprooting the system again. It is clear that there is logic and sense in the way in which the SSAs have been calculated around the country. I am sure that my right hon. Friend does not need me to tell him that it could be dangerous and difficult to uproot the system at this point.
  It is immensely frustrating that, although local government receives funding through its own community charge precepts and from central Government allocation and grant, it for ever complains about and lays at the feet of the Government any shortfall between what it would like to do and what it can deliver because of cost constraints.
  Local government must face up to the fact that it has its own revenue-raising powers and grant from central Government, from which it must meet the needs that it seeks to meet and was elected to meet. It must justify its allocation and its spending priorities.
  Schools in my constituency badly need capital spending. I am relatively happy that the Government have massively increased the amount of money available for capital spending on schools this year in Nottingham, but I now look to the county council to live up to its responsibilities and to spend on those schools the amount
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  that is required by the children who are educated in them. Some county councils continually shuffle off responsibility for their decisions and difficulties on to central Government, but in doing so they undermine local government.
  We have heard today the litany that we hear in all local government debates—that the bad decisions that have been made by local government have come almost entirely from councils that are controlled by the Opposition parties. I say "parties" because I am referring also to the Liberal Democrat party which, sadly, is not at the moment represented in the Chamber. Hansard is littered with such examples and, in a positively brilliant speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) listed many of them.
  All our local government debates have contained examples of Labour's spending in Hackney, Lambeth and Liverpool and around the country. My hon. Friends and I are driven to the irresistible conclusion that, if that is what the Labour party is like when it is in power, we have many lessons to learn about what it would be like if it were ever to form the Government at Westminster.
  The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) has said that the Government have undermined local government but, quite apart from what I said earlier about non-payment, I put it to him that the extraordinary behaviour of some of those bizarre councils has done more to undermine local government and the respect in which central Government and local people hold local government—
  Mr. Allen McKay: Again, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. His attitude to local government is set, narrow and shallow. If he thinks that the conduct of one local authority affects other local government thinking, he is wrong. Local government is an entity on its own. Its affairs never spill over its own border. That has been one of the problems of local government, not what the hon. Gentleman has referred to.
  Mr. Mitchell: With respect, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The chapter of the way in which some Labour councils have behaved is well documented. That is what has done so much damage to local government.
  My final point relates to the important work of the Audit Commission. All hon. Members are consumed by analysing how much money has been spent and whether more money will be made available for particular services, but we do not spend anything like enough time considering whether that money is well spent. I pay tribute to the work of the Audit Commission. It has saved billions of pounds by writing reports that are always respected and independent, and which suggest ways in which local government—and, now, the health service—can get better value for money.
  The Audit Commission has examined achieving value for money in areas such as the management of the council housing stock, and has produced reports on absenteeism through sickness, on the police, on refuse collection and on schools. It has performed an outstanding service to local government and to local and national taxpayers by seeking to get more from each pound that is spent in public service. Although the citizens charter and the charter mark are an excellent extension of the other reforms that we have introduced to make local government more efficient and

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  responsive to the people it represents, the work and commitment of the Audit Commission are our best guarantee that that money will be well spent.
  I very much regret that it appears that the Labour party's plans for the Audit Commission may water down its effectiveness by handing control to the Labour party's chums in the unions and local government. If the Audit Commission is to continue to do the work that it does so successfully for local government, and to achieve better value for money, it must be independent and impartial, and its reports and work must be respected. I very much hope that the work of the commission can be significantly extended after the general election. It could do much more work on housing associations and housing management. We must ensure that we can further benefit from the work that it performs so well.
  8.18 pm
  Mr. Tony Banks: The feelings of the young hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) about the way in which local government has broken up were expressed subjectively and I suspect that he will not agree with me when I say that they seemed to date from about 1979—and we know what happened in 1979 when the hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) was first elected. She was elected, in part, on a manifesto which said that it was her intention to take Whitehall off the backs of the town halls. That was her claim, but what followed was a complete lie in terms of the manifesto pledge.
  The relationship between central and local government has deteriorated partly because a series of Conservative Administrations have continually attacked and deprived the local authorities of resources, and subsequently because of the poll tax.
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo rose—
  Mr. Banks: I shall warm to my theme and then give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  When the hon. Member for Gedling mentioned the Secretary of State being a great supporter of the pillars of local government, I could not avoid a little chuckle. That reference immediately brought to mind Samson, who pulled the pillars down. The Secretary of State has indeed pulled those pillars down. I then went on to think about who had clipped Secretary of State Samson's golden locks and, once again, I realised that it was the right hon. Member for Finchley. However, he is still with us, and his contribution from the Dispatch Box was in his usual style, as if this House was not made up of Members of Parliament, but delegates, all with their blue rinses and red necks, applauding to the rafters when he makes one of his roustabout speeches to the Conservative party conference.
  Mr. Brandon-Bravo: The hon. Gentleman is right that there was a change in 1979, but for different reasons from those he advanced. However, I do not believe that I will be able to disabuse him of his beliefs.
  Prior to 1979, most local authorities were Conservative-controlled and they considered themselves to be local authorities, not Governments. When the Labour Government asked those of us in local government to exercise restraint on spending, we did it because they were the Government, and we were the local authority. After 1979 there was a marked increase in Labour-controlled
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  local authorities and that understanding went out of the window. Consensus went out of the window, and those authorities decided locally that they were the Government and to hell with what was said in this place. That is why the Conservative party had to legislate to get done those things which were done by agreement prior to 1979.
  Mr. Banks: I should like to consider that argument in some detail, but time does not permit it. However, I cannot let the hon. Gentleman get away with it altogether.
  Everyone in local government would accept that central Government set the broad parameters for overall spending, which is perfectly legitimate. The hon. Gentleman spoke about a Labour Government asking for cuts to be made. It is important to remember that, then, central Government gave a rate support grant equivalent to about 60 per cent. of all local government spending. We are now talking about a rate support grant of about 42 per cent.—considerably lower. When the Labour Government called for cuts, local government spent a great deal more. The hon. Gentleman has not made his case.
  The interference in local government by central Government is not just financial, but political. However, we should interfere in local government with some trepidation because local democracy and local accountability underpin parliamentary democracy and accountability. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House have cut their political teeth in local government and one would expect such Conservative Members to show more loyalty towards it.
  I accept that one can make some criticisms about Labour local authorities, but what I dislike about the Secretary of State's usual contribution is that it is so clichéd, simplistic and grotesque. He seems to say that Tory councils equal good, Labour councils equal bad. That does not bear any analysis. If one seeks to understand the way in which politics is gradually dragged into the gutter, it is because hon. Members come out with such a simplistic approach. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) has only just ambled into the Chamber. If he would like to sit there for a while and learn something, I will then cheerfully give way to him.
  Mr. James Hill rose—
  Mr. Banks: I do not normally give way to someone who has just ambled into the Chamber, but I shall make an exception on this occasion, because I rather like the hon. Gentleman's florid looks.
  Mr. Hill: The hon. Gentleman cannot separate his several lives. He is unable to separate his contribution to what should be a well-informed debate from a satellite television knockabout. If the hon. Gentleman is as clever about local government as he is trying to impress us, perhaps we could hear something about local government. We know that he was a member of the Greater London council, and there are plenty of things that he could talk about. However, he is just offering us a knockabout contribution, and I do not believe that that will get the debate any further.
  Mr. Banks: I am glad that I did not miss that intervention, because it has contributed so much to the debate. The hon. Gentleman, who has only just wandered in, should realise that I am responding to points raised earlier by his hon. Friends. Although he may not agree with what I have said, and what I am about to say, he

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  should at least extend to all of us the courtesy of sitting quietly in his seat, especially if he joins us at such a late time.
  There are times when I do not believe that the Secretary of State understands what is happening in local government. I know that the right hon. Gentleman gets around the country, but does he realise that it is almost impossible to maintain services in many of our local authorities? I have never known a time when central Government have interfered so much in the day-to-day running of the town halls. We should allow them to get on with their business and we should not interfere so regularly in what they do.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) have already mentioned the particular problems that we face in our borough. We are the second most deprived local authority area in the country according to the Department of the Environment's own indices. We have a raft of problems with which to deal and the Secretary of State should understand some of them by now.
  The particular problem to which my hon. Friends have referred has arisen because we will have to pay back about £6 million, which was awarded by the rates valuation courts because of previous overpayment of rates. As my hon. Friends have said, the original calculations were made by the Inland Revenue and had nothing to do with the borough of Newham. We had a stable rate base for a long time and we saw no reason to doubt that there was anything untoward in the ratings that had been made within our borough. We now find ourselves confronting a massive pay-back.
  I do not intend to say any more about this issue, which has already been referred to by my hon. Friends. However, we were received promptly and courteously by the Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities yesterday when we explained the situation to him. I would not want to pre-empt any joyous, or even hopeful, news that he might tell us tonight. I would even say something nice about his new-fangled haircut if he were to say something hopeful to the London borough of Newham.
  It is important to consider the wider implications of the revenue support grant settlement as it applies to all London. It appears that London is well represented tonight, but we are all from one particular borough. As chair of the London group of Labour Members of Parliament, I should like to consider the difficulties being experienced by other London boroughs.
  It is the opinion of the Association of London Authorities that the level of revenue support grant does not reflect the wide diversity of problems that are faced by ALA Labour boroughs. Considerable evidence has been collected about the additional costs arising from refugees. It is known that more than 80 per cent. of refugees admitted to this country make their way to London, for many good reasons. However, the Government have effectively wiped their hands of any responsibility and have left London boroughs, essentially Labour ones such as Haringey, Newham and Islington—I accept that there are also refugees in Kensington and Chelsea—with the responsibility for those refugees and all the problems that they bring with them. Camden has calculated that the additional spending required on unaccompanied refugee children in 1992–93 will be just short of £1 million. Similar figures apply to other ALA member authorities.
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  London is also experiencing a great problem with homelessness. Any hon. Member who wants to go round with his eyes open will become aware of that problem quickly. An analysis conducted by the London Housing Unit has suggested that, by March 1992, and on present trends, nearly 50,000 households in London could be in temporary accommodation. The net cost of providing such temporary accommodation will be about £265 million. There is no adequate recognition of such costs in the revenue support settlement.
  The Secretary of State really must address the unique problems of London. I realise that many of my hon. Friends do not have much sympathy with Members who say that, but they at least work in London and appreciate that the capital city has a series of unique problems. We do not want an unfair share of what is being handed out by the Government; we want a share that reflects the peculiar circumstances in the capital city. The changes in standard spending assessment methodology have upset a number of Labour councillors. That methodology is not fully understood. Indeed, I suppose that very few people understand it.
  I want to put to the Minister of State a question about foreign visitor nights. The Association of Local Authorities is simply opposed to the inclusion of foreign visitor nights in the measure of enhanced population in respect of SSAs for other services. The rationale of using visitor nights, rather than where visitors spend their time during the day, is very questionable. Secondly, the data source is completely inadequate, being based on 1981 census data. Thirdly, the financial effect of the inclusion of foreign visitor nights is totally unfair.
  I do not want to point an accusing finger at the Secretary of State. Actually, I do point an accusing finger at the Secretary of State, but not at the Minister of State, who is a decent, honourable person. I hope that, when he winds up the debate, he will say something nice about Newham. [Interruption.] If the Minister, having induced me to say something nice about him, betrays me at the Dispatch Box I shall take horrible revenge. However, that will come at a later debate.
  When one looks at the inclusion of foreign visitor nights, one sees that Westminster, which has a Conservative authority, gains £5·3 million and that Tory Kensington and Chelsea gains £4·5 million, but that Labour Hackney loses £600,000, Islington loses £700,000, and Newham loses £700,000. One wants to know a little more about this question of overseas visitors.
  The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. Michael Portillo): Camden?
  Mr. Banks: Perhaps Camden, too, has gained—I hope so—but I shall want to know whether it has gained as much as Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea.
  Then there is the matter of the Inner London education authority transitional grant. ILEA is concerned about the rapid rate of withdrawal of that grant. The reduction for 1992–93 represents more than 28 per cent. in cash terms, or one third in real terms. The authority believes that the profile of the grant should be reconsidered and that the grant for 1992–93 should be increased by at least £60 million to prevent further deterioration in education in inner London. I hope that the Minister will address that problem.

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  I come now to the elements of spending that the ALA says should be disregarded for capping purposes. Again, I put a perfectly reasonable question to the Minister. Why should not all expenditure on council tax preparation, which is not met by specific grant, be excluded? The poll tax will be very difficult to collect in 1992–93, as every hon. Member acknowledges. Many authorities face a stark choice between allocating resources to poll tax collection and enforcement and allocating resources to front-line services such as education and social services. Poll tax administration costs must be placed outside the capping level.
  That seems to be a perfectly reasonable proposition. The hon. Member for Gedling referred to Members of Parliament and councillors who are not paying their poll tax. Everyone has a civic right—a civic duty, some would argue—to refuse to pay a tax that they think is peculiarly unfair. Those people must take the consequences, of course, and for many of them the consequences are dire. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mr. Fields)—perhaps I cannot now refer to him and others as my hon. Friends, as they are no longer in the party—
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell: They have been sacked.
  Mr. Banks: Exactly. They have been sacked from the Labour party, and I expect that they will have to leave Parliament. They have paid a very high price for taking their stand. I disagree with them, as, no doubt, do most other hon. Members. However, the hon. Member for Gedling should never disparage a person who puts his job and his reputation on the line when he sees a tax or a law as grotesquely unfair. We all know that the poll tax was grotesquely unfair. That is why the Conservative Government got rid of it.
  Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman makes a point about the civic duty of citizens. He should accept that there is a very different point to be made in respect of a Member of Parliament. Members of Parliament, having taken part in the process of making laws, cannot then break them. Two of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends may have forfeited their seats in this House. What about the other 28, who still have the sanction of the Labour party?
  Mr. Banks: I have made the point that I do not agree with the stand that has been taken. I am merely trying to emphasise that those people have paid a very high price. In those circumstances, hon. Members should not be so critical of them. Indeed, the price that has been paid is one which I suspect very few other hon. Members, on either side, would be prepared to pay for a principle. That ought to be recognised.
  There is much about the rest of the situation in London that I should like to comment on, but I see that many hon. Members are eager to speak, and there is no audience so unreceptive as a bunch of people waiting for someone else to sit down so that they can get up.
  I have great affection for local authorities. I cut my political teeth in a local authority; I went to a local authority school; I lived in a local authority house; and I learned music in a local authority concert hall. In those circumstances I have great reverence for local authorities, which are grotesquely attacked by Conservative Members.
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  We want to see local authority services in this country improved, but that will not be achieved by hon. Members who constantly attack and denigrate decent officers and councillors who give up their time, their jobs and all sorts of other things. Those people want to provide services, and we should make sure that they are able to do so. However, I am afraid that they will all have to wait for the election of a Labour Government before local democracy can be put back on the road.
  8.37 pm
  Mr. James Paice: Like the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), many Conservative Members cut their political teeth in local government. I should hate anybody to get the impression that affection for local government is the preserve of the Opposition. It is not. Many Conservative Members have spent many years in local government. One of our advantages is that we were in local government at a time when there was a Labour Government and recall how things were in those days. That is something to which I shall return in a moment.
  I want to associate myself very closely with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) about the settlement for Cambridgeshire. There was some concern that Cambridgeshire, as a very fast-growing county, would not receive the SSA that it felt it needed. Needless to say, it still has not received what it feels is needed, but that is beside the point, as it never will. The SSA that the Government has awarded to Cambridgeshire under the formula is substantially higher than those of many other areas, and we believe that the county has been treated extremely well.
  The Minister of State will recall that my colleagues and I met him to discuss the situation in Cambridgeshire, as did hon. Members from other counties. The points that were put to the Minister have already been enumerated, so I shall not repeat them. I should like, however, to make a brief comment on the additional area cost adjustment. It is nonsense that, on one hand, the civil service recognises the extra costs of living and working in Cambridgeshire by awarding premiums, whereas the Department of the Environment does not recognise those costs when it comes to settling grants. I very much welcome the changes in the recognition of notional interest from capital receipts. That important point was made by Cambridgeshire, and the Government have recognised and acted upon it. In the end, we have had a very good settlement.
  Concern will always arise from what is known as data lag. In any fast-growing county such as Cambridgeshire, data lag is bound to be of some significance, although not as much so as some of my Cambridgeshire colleagues believe. Inevitably, any population statistics will become out of date in a growing county.
  When considering that problem, one comes to the fundamental fact that any formula to distribute a central grant is bound to create problems. For one to gain from an adjustment of the formula means others losing. So, in the Government's efforts to ensure that any changes to the formula meet with the general approval of the local authority associations—a worthy desire—any change which means that the majority might lose will be

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  vigorously opposed. Hence, any measure which tries to overcome the data lag means that those who represent areas with falling populations will oppose it.
  Almost all areas in which there have been population reductions in recent years have been urban areas, often or usually represented by Labour authorities. So my constituents are still losing because urban local authorities are gaining more grant than they would be getting if the population statistics were right up to date. It will be difficult to overcome that problem. Perhaps, as a Lambeth poll tax payer, I should welcome the fact that Lambeth is getting a bit more grant than it would have got if the population statistics were absolutely up to date, but I would rather sympathise with my constituents, who to some extent still lose from the system.
  That problem is not unique to SSAs: it applies to any formula used to distribute any sort of central grant. There will always be authorities which take the view that they are being ill treated by whatever formula or system is adopted, and that is exacerbated the higher the level of central grant as a proportion of total expenditure. So Labour Members who pretend that they could increase the grant—suggesting that somehow the problem would go away—are fooling themselves and the public.
  I look forward to the day when education ceases to be a local authority function. I should like every school in Britain to be grant-maintained, given total responsibility for managing its own affairs. If one took away, say, 70 per cent. of expenditure, one would be left with a remnant of local authority expenditure, which would mean that the impact of whatever national formula was used for the central distribution of grant would be rapidly and considerably diminished. That would get over the annual event in which we are participating today and in which many of us—I am as guilty as any—fight our corners because of the way in which the formula has worked.
  I referred to some of us cutting our teeth in local government in the 1970s. I remember, even in those days, the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), when Secretary of State, exhorting local authorities to curtail their expenditure. I recall the glorious mess that the Government of the day made in the 1970s. If they understood, even then, that we must curtail local government expenditure—that it could not just be let rip—goodness knows what the Labour party today is thinking if it believes, as it appears to believe, that we can get rid of capping, increase government grant and allow local authorities full vent to all their ambitions for expenditure.
  Understandably, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) declined to answer an intervention of mine when he had clearly said, in answer to an earlier intervention, that a Labour Government would abolish the community charge forthwith. The implication was that it would be abolished during the next financial year, before its demise, already decided, on 31 March 1993. If that would be his intention, he must say how local government would be funded in the remaining 10, 11 or however many months remained of the following municipal year.
  That would involve another £6 billion to £8 billion having to be paid by way of public expenditure, perhaps out of borrowing. That would be paid for not by us but by our children and their children paying back, as always, the debts incurred by Labour Governments. One might describe it as a case of the mice playing while the cat is
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  away, in that the shadow Treasury team is not in the country just now, able to keep an eye on promises being made on behalf of the Labour party.
  I largely welcome the settlement. I recognise the limitations of SSAs. The problems involved are not unique to the SSA system. They will be with us whatever mechanism is used to distribute the money that the Government of the day decide is appropriate for local authorities to have from the centre. We cannot get round that feature of the system, but the sooner the totality of local government expenditure is reduced dramatically by taking education out of it, the sooner the effect of problems in the formula will be diminished. I shall support the Government in the Lobby tonight.
  8.46 pm
  Mr. Harry Barnes: The standard spending assessment is one of two great evils of the poll tax. The first was the poll tax itself, based on a flat rate, the worst form of taxation ever introduced in a democratic society. It has not been fully removed but merely sidestepped with the introduction of the council tax.
  The second evil was the method used for arriving at the standard spending assessment, meaning that in many cases the poll tax was pushed up to very high levels. That SSA remains in place as part of the council tax. So we still have with us one of the major problems that the poll tax introduced.
  Much has been said about the methodology that has been used in constructing the SSA. That methodology affects no district council worse than that of North-East Derbyshire, which covers much of the constituency that I represent. Other authorities in Derbyshire are also badly affected by the operation of the SSA, as is Derbyshire county council.
  It is often said that when league tables are produced somebody must finish at the bottom. North-East Derbyshire, with its areas of serious unemployment and former mining areas that are now in decline—places such as Clay Cross, which at one stage had quite a reputation in the House, Renishaw and Holmewood—has great problems requiring various types of assistance. Those areas come within North-East Derbyshire, which manages to finish in 365th position out of 366 district councils in England, with only east Dorset below it from the point of view of SSA per head of poll tax payers.
  I have just received a written answer from the Department of the Environment listing the statistics; it will be in the Library. It shows North-East Derbyshire's SSA as £81 per head, with many authorities above it receiving two or three times more because of the problems in their areas. That is a vast and almost unbelievable disparity for an area such as North-East Derbyshire. An examination of the breakdown of the figures leading to the area's SSA reveals many of the difficulties.
  There is another table in the Library in another answer from the Department of the Environment. It is about the distribution of the SSA: the percentage that is expected to be collected through poll tax, the percentage that comes from the business rate and the percentage that comes from the revenue support grant. Again, North-East Derbyshire is near the bottom of that league in terms of revenue support grant, but high up in terms of the amount that has to be raised in poll tax moneys in order to meet that SSA.

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  It is 13th from the top, or 13th from the bottom, whichever way one wishes to look at the list. This means that, when the two sets of figures are related, the SSA for the poll tax payers in North-East Derbyshire in terms of the grant that they receive is abysmal.
  The Audit Commission has produced sets of comparative statistics for similar types of authority. North-East Derbyshire finishes at the bottom of those lists, as it finishes bottom of the lists for all the authorities in Derbyshire, although those other authorities are themselves often badly placed. This is the position for a district authority because of the four main items used in assessing the SSA. There is the enhanced population. North-East Derbyshire loses in this connection because many people move into Sheffield or Chesterfield, or for the pits to places such as Markham, for their employment and are not there during the day. That has a knock-on effect, because that figure is then used and is multiplied into other figures which are used later. A considerable loss occurs there, because the moneys that North-East Derbyshire had to provide in no way relate to the loss of those amounts. I could go through those items one by one and there are very few that have amounts associated with them that could be said to be of relevance. They are often matters of relevance to county councils but not to district authorities.
  Then there are the characteristics of ward density and ward sparsity. When those two figures are added together, North-East Derbyshire manages to finish up with a smaller grant than any other authority.
  The shape of North-East Derbyshire has to be looked at, along with the services that it has to provide. It defies logic that it is seen to be an ideally shaped area, the best type of make-up that could possibly be found, therefore requiring the lowest possible SSA.
  In terms of the all-age social index, North-East Derbyshire falls down because it has a social mix whereby the eastern part of the district is very much a traditional working-class area and the western part is a middle-class area. That middle-class element reduces considerably the grant that is available. It is as if working-class people have to carry middle-class people on their backs.
  There are other problems for North-East Derbyshire, and these have been stressed by other hon. Members. There is the problem of the RECHAR money which is not being provided. The pit closure programme continues and workshops are now to close, which affects the level of the business rate.
  All this takes place in the context of Derbyshire itself. If its figures are compared, those of the last GRE with its current SSA, Derbyshire finishes at the bottom of increases for the shire counties. Yet it also has characteristics which mean that these policies should not be directed towards it. I am saying, not that a fiddle has taken place after the methodology has been established, but that the methodology produces this sort of nonsense and should be replaced.
  The fraud squad has visited the council offices in North-East Derbyshire. Instead, the fraud squad should be investigating what has been done in local government finance. An ordinary, decent authority is attempting to manage on wholly inadequate resources, and if it goes only slightly beyond the SSA, it moves into the capping area. That is an unbelievable situation for the people of
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  North-East Derbyshire. The position is similar in areas such as Chesterfield. Conservative Members such as the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell) will find that their authorities are also placed in a low position. They should be pressing for higher funding and for the alteration of the formula rather than seeking to defend what is taking place.
  8.55 pm
  Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: None of us tries to argue that the standard spending assessment is a perfect system, but, having lived through the old rate support grant mechanism, I do not believe that there is some magic formula, given the diversity throughout the country, that will meet with universal acclaim. I believe that the SSA is a legitimate and reasonable stab at establishing what each local authority needs, or needs to spend.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), in his opening remarks, specifically targeted his comments on shire districts. Believe it or not, the city of Nottingham is only a shire district, although I hope that that will not obtain for long after the next general election. Its adult population is just under 200,000 and its total population around 270,000—so it is hardly a shire district in that sense.
  In debates of this kind, Opposition Members only ever mention the amount of money districts such as the city of Nottingham get under the grant that flows from SSA or under the old rate support grant. This year the Government have given, I believe, just under £6 million direct targeted grant because we have inner-city problems. I was delighted that the city of Nottingham was successful in the city challenge. That is another £37 million over a five-year period. Those grants are in addition to the grants that arise as a result of the normal annual announcement about standard spending assessments. As they all form part of a local authority's income, which it is entitled to spend, it is wrong that those factors are ignored when we debate local government finance.
  I am dismayed by the attitude of the Labour-controlled Nottinghamshire county council which, having supported the city council in its first successful bid for city grants, has now decided not to support the city council's bid for the second tranche. As the population of the city of Nottingham is almost 30 per cent. of the county's population, my colleagues and I cannot wait for the present Secretary of State to introduce, after the general election, the necessary mechanism to give us our independence once again.
  My county is almost identical to other shires in that just 13 per cent. of its total net expenditure is handled by the districts and 87 per cent. is handled by the county council. In cash terms, that total represents expenditure of some £750 million, only £96 million of which is spent by the districts. Given that so much money is spent, I can understand why my constituents constantly ask where on earth it all goes. That is another reason why I wish the Bill that is currently in Committee speedy progress. It will give us the mechanism for doing away with our county council, which is the wrong structure for local government in my area.
  Because local people pay such a tiny percentage of the total amount spent, there is a gearing effect if a local authority spends more than its SSA. If, for example, it

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  spends £114 or £115 instead of £100, the charge that people will receive through letter boxes will almost double. That is a real worry. The Government are absolutely right to recognise that gearing effect and to build into the legislation a protection for the people who must pay the local bills. They are right to limit spending through their capping proposals. It is significant that, in the face of all the evidence of the adverse effect on people who cannot afford to pay extraordinarily high bills, both the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats oppose any limit on spending. Indeed, the hon. Member for Dagenham said that he can conceive of no circumstances in which the House would limit local government spending.
  Another problem that worries me is local businesses, particularly small businesses. From the available figures, there is no doubt that, in my county, businesses pay 35 per cent. of the total bill through the unified business rate which, with all its faults, at least protects our local businesses from the predations of what would otherwise be an insatiable, spending Labour authority. Nationally at least, businesses have benefited from some £2 billion as a result of changing from the old system to the current one. The Labour party now says that it wants local businesses to pay a greater share of the total bill. Businesses large and small pay enough and they should beware of an incoming Labour Government—heaven forbid—because the hon. Member for Dagenham has said unequivocally that they will pay a higher ratio. That would be a disaster for all my constituents.
  9.2 pm
  Mr. Peter Kilfoyle: I shall be brief, because I am aware of the time limit, and parochial because I was taken by some of the comments made by Conservative Members, who dragged up the hoary old myths about Liverpool. I understand that many Conservative Members are ignorant of the history of local government finance in Liverpool. I certainly understand the attitude of the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind). He reminds me of a child going down a country lane, whistling in the dark and looking for the bogeyman. The bogeyman who is coming is the electorate, because they will tumble the Conservative party.
  The history of local government finance in Liverpool is simple. When the Government changed the formula for the rate support grant in 1979–80, the rate was artificially depressed thanks to a combination of opportunistic Liberals and equally opportunistic Tories on the local council who, for electoral purposes, kept the rate down.
  The objective authorities agree that Liverpool was deprived of hundreds of millions of pounds in rate support grant. The words of Professor Michael Parkinson of Liverpool university are my evidence for that. Nevertheless, the unseemly local political problem of the mid-1980s occurred because of the obduracy of the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher), and the equal obduracy of Militant Tendency in Liverpool, which meant that the whole city was plagued with financial hardship that we feel to this day.
  I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not here, because at one time he was the Minister for Merseyside. I am told that he had a soft spot for Merseyside, but I have never heard him criticise Ministers in his Department who have abused Merseyside recently and who have maligned the good city of Liverpool.
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  While the authority in Liverpool has no time for the poll tax, it has struggled to stay within the law. At every stage, it has had to struggle to carry out its responsibilities, for several reasons. First, it has respect for the law if not for the actual poll tax legislation. Secondly, the authority did not intend to fall into the trap of being used as Tory propaganda and as an example of what a Labour council would do with laws that it did not like. Thirdly, the authority has a commitment to local people and local services, and it intends to defend their interests within the law.
  All through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the leaders of the council suffered tremendously—personally, politically and financially—because they upheld the law. They were attacked, physically on occasion, and maligned by people in the city with ulterior political motives and by Ministers for electoral purposes. Nevertheless, they have stayed within the law, and the authority has never been capped.
  Today I got the city treasurer's report faxed to me. What does it all mean for Liverpool? In 1992–93, there will be a grand total of £16·9 million in cuts in jobs and in services. As services deteriorate, those who suffer will be the old people, the children and those least able to protect themselves—the poor, the unemployed and single parents.
  I should like members of the Government to come with me to Arnot street school in my constituency, where there are two schools in one building. I have seen coping stones blown down on the floor. The money to repair the schools is not there. The council does everything it can to stay within the law and provide decent services. All it gets for its pains is abuse from the Government. Of course, the district auditor does not view the council in the same way. He sees it as a model of probity in running a public authority. Again, there is not a word from the ex-Minister for Merseyside to say, "Well done," to Liverpool city council.
  Tory Members think that they can use Liverpool for their own electoral purposes, but let me remind them that, in 1979, Labour did not control Wirral council or Sefton council. There were far more Tory councillors on Liverpool council then than the miserable two Tories now. The experience of those years has been an education.
  Liverpool put its house in order. It does not believe the lies and propaganda being put out by the Tory party from a position of advantage in government. Mark my words: that will show in seats in the general election in Merseyside and across the north-west. The moral is that Labour councils look after the people and that a Labour Government will look after Labour councils.
  9.7 pm
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: In Staffordshire, the council has had an increase in SSA over the last two years of no less than 25·5 per cent. By any stretch of the imagination, that is a significant increase. It comes at a time of economic difficulty throughout the country, when most businesses and households would be delighted to have had such a large increase in their income over a similar period.
  Despite that massive increase in SSA to £625 million, Staffordshire claims that it cannot make ends meet. It claims that it is being treated less favourably than other counties, so the speech of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) will be helpful to me

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  because I can show it to the county council to let it see that it is not the worst off in the country. At £808 per adult, the SSA takes Staffordshire well ahead of Sussex, Surrey. Avon and many other counties in the south of England.
  Members of Parliament in Staffordshire have always sought to make the case for Staffordshire to the Government when the case is good. Notwithstanding the fact that the county council is Labour-controlled, Conservative Members of Parliament have always been prepared to join in to support a good case.
  However, with regard to the allocation of budgets, local democracy is alive and at work. When deciding on their budgets, local authorities—whatever the constraints imposed on them by external factors—must decide where their priorities lie. Staffordshire county council has deliberately chosen to make a saving of £7 million in the education budget so as to inflict the maximum pain on my constituents and those of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley), who I see is in her place.
  The council claims that it needs a massive 10 per cent. increase in the education budget to provide the services, when we know that inflation is about 4·5 per cent. Even if one takes the highest inflation factor—teachers' pay—we are only talking about 6·5 per cent.
  Like the hon. Lady, I have a child in a Staffordshire school, and my family are affected as a household. The parents in my constituency are up in arms at the decision of Staffordshire council deliberately to inflict damage on their children.
  Ms. Walley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Howarth: No, I only have a couple of minutes—I was granted less time than the hon. Lady.
  The cuts have not been in education spending, but reductions in the increase that the county council would like to spend. But parents do not care who is to blame; they want quality education for their children. I understand that, but when the county council chooses to increase its social services budget by 20 per cent. in cash terms, it deliberately chooses to increase social services expenditure at the expense of our children's education, which is wrong.
  Ms. Walley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Howarth: No, I am sorry.
  Staffordshire council has £20 million in its reserves and could use some of that money. It could make hard decisions about social services budgets. My hon. Friend the Minister of State has to make hard decisions, as do county councils, district councils, businesses and families up and down the country.
  It may be that, thanks to local mangement of schools, some schools may have funds within their own budgets. However, it would be wrong were a county council to raid savings that a school had made through efficient management brought about by this Government. It would be wrong to penalise a school for being efficient.
  I hope that I have been able to show my hon. Friend the Minister the deep sense of anger felt by parents in my constituency and myself as a parent of a child in a
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  Staffordshire school at what the council is doing. It has failed to make a case to Members of Parliament to show why it should be given special treatment.
  We have heard throughout today's debate from various hon. Members that some parts of the country should be given special treatment. If all those demands were to be met, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to come to the Dispatch Box to announce a massive increase in taxation.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to add to the points that I have made about the treatment that Staffordshire county council has received from central Government.
  9.13 pm
  Mr. David Blunkett: The ill news is that the cup game between Sheffield Wednesday and Middlesbrough is currently drawn. If anyone can bring me better news, it will cheer my spirits and lift my speech.
  Today's debate has very much been a mirror of the one that we had exactly a year ago on revenue support grant and standard spending assessments, even down to the oldest of all tricks—Conservative Members rightly stating that their districts have specific problems or needs and recognising that there are hard decisions to be taken by a hard Minister who positively enjoys being hard. Most people wring their hands in despair while saying no.
  Conservative Members say—as they have repeated this afternoon-that Warwickshire is in a terrible plight. Last year there were even more hon. Members from Warwickshire present; perhaps some of them are out canvassing at this very moment, persuading the electorate that the Government are not responsible for the poll tax or service cuts—contradicting the county council leader and his colleagues in Warwickshire. Tonight we heard more pleading for Warwickshire, which is always followed by an assertion that that county is so needy, whereas counties under Labour control are unpleasant and unneedy—despite the fact that they find themselves in the same circumstances and confronted by the same problems.
  We heard also tonight pleading for the importance of investing in Norfolk's coastal defences to prevent the sea from washing over the Norfolk countryside. We all sympathise with the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss), who evidently feels that the tide is coming in on him, and probably agree that the necessary expenditure should be free from capping. Of course coastal defences are important, but every authority has a good argument for not being capped in respect of long-term expenditure to meet essential needs.
  We understood from the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth that the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) is responsible for encouraging such expenditure and providing—through the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—the funds that are to be capped in the coming year, but which will then be reimbursed. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food probably knows something about the sea washing over the coastal defences in Suffolk.
  The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal once held the ministerial post now occupied by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo), but did absolutely nothing other than to pretend that the only way to achieve

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  ministerial preferment was to be as nasty as possible about every Labour authority going, and as unpleasant as possible about those who need public services.
  The right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal was one of the eight present members of the Cabinet responsible for the poll tax. They did not just vote for it in Cabinet but had a hand in progressing that legislation through its Committee stage and implementing it.
  The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice) found it necessary to defend his county against the view held by Warwickshire and Norfolk that Cambridgeshire has been given far too good a deal. He felt that Cambridgeshire has not done too badly, but that it could have done better. In any event, the hon. Gentleman had got it wrong because he said that my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) would abolish the poll tax the moment that Labour returns to power.
  I hate to disabuse the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East, but we proposed that the poll tax should be abolished this April. The Government refused to join us in making that possible. Under another of our proposals, the 20 per cent. contribution would already have been abolished.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Labour Members did not vote for that proposal.
  Mr. Blunkett: The hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman), who has emerged from under one of the stones that she was examining at the time—
  Mr. Gould: It was her political gravestone.
  Mr. Blunkett: I would not wish anything as unpleasant as that on the hon. Lady—just mere defeat. The hon. Lady's memory is so short that she does not remember that we did vote on that proposal.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I remember the Opposition tabling the amendment in question, and that I spoke to it—and that the Opposition did not press it to a vote.
  Mr. Blunkett: I refer to the Report stage of the Local Government Finance Bill. We remember being here, and we all remember voting on that amendment. The hon. Member for Lancaster clearly nodded off at the time—
  Mr. George Howarth: There must have been a full moon.
  Mr. Blunkett:—but presumably she tells her electorate that she was not responsible for maintaining the 20 per cent. contribution rule.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North (Mr. Howarth) says that there must have been a full moon on the night in question, but obviously it was not bright enough for the hon. Lady to find her way through the Ayes Lobby. Whatever the reason, she missed the Division. As a consequence, we are left with the 20 per cent. contribution—for, as we know, the hon. Lady's vote would have made all the difference.
  Let me make it clear to the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East that we cannot now abolish the poll tax, technically and practically, before April 1993. In the week running up to what will presumably be a 9 April election, everyone will receive a reminder of that on the doorstep—a bill that says, "Vote Labour in the general election." That will be the legacy of Conservative
  inaction.
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  It is, however, the hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth) who most needs to be reminded why we are here tonight. It is not about technical arguments concerning the intricacies of absurd indices of social need—that is, the twisted standard spending assessments; it is not even about the way in which revenue support grant has been successively reduced. It was reduced from 61 per cent. in 1979 to 49·5 per cent. in 1981, and thence to only 26·6 per cent. in the current financial year. In spending terms—in real terms—the grant is now lower than the 1981–82 allocation, even when we include the £140 reduction which, along with a £4·3 billion VAT increase, went towards trying to placate those who had suffered under the poll tax.
  No; the real reason why we are here tonight is this. We are discussing how to meet the crying need that exists in our communities. The hon. Member for Cannock and Burntwood made a comment about the increase in Staffordshire county council's social service spending for the coming year; it seemed that he had missed what his hon. Friend the Minister for Health had said about the need to spend money on solving the problem—it was agreed that there was a problem—that had arisen from the pindown affair.
  Ms. Walley: Is it not wholly unacceptable that Staffordshire county council should have to find £7 million from its education budget, and an equal amount from other budgets—including its social services budget, which is now so much greater as a result of the pindown problems of the preceding financial year?
  Mr. Blunkett: I agree. Successive cuts have meant that a number of authorities—including Staffordshire and Hereford and Worcester—have had to increase social service spending.
  Mr. Gerald Howarth: As the hon. Gentleman may appreciate, I had to cut short my speech—partly because the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) had spoken for 20 minutes.
  It is true that a substantial flaw in Staffordshire's social services department was identified; but I have never called for the resignation of the chairman of the social services committee, because I recognise that the committee had a very difficult job to do. I do not consider that it has addressed the problem of delinquent children in Staffordshire, but I am certain of one thing: we all have to make hard decisions in life, and Staffordshire county council is not exempt from that. If the council is faced with the difficult choice between dealing with delinquent children and dealing with my children and those of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley), it must get its priorities right—and I believe that it has got them wrong.
  Mr. Blunkett: I, for one, am sick of hard decisions being made about the care of children in social services, or the education of children in schools. It is time for some hard decisions to be made about the country's top 5 per cent. of earners, who have made a cool £30,000 in tax cuts since the 1988 Budget. It is time to make some hard decisions about those who can afford to pay, rather than making them on the backs of those who cannot. It is time to make some hard decisions about spending on home helps. It is time to compare those who spend money on meeting needs with those who spend money on civic binges.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I draw your attention to column 22 of Hansard of 16 December 1991? We were discussing the 20 per cent. contribution for students and the Labour party did not put it to the vote.
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): That is interesting, but it is hardly a point of order for the Chair. It has nothing to do with me.
  Mr. Blunkett: On the following day, 17 December, we voted on the abolition of the 20 per cent. contribution for everybody on nil or low income. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Lancaster has scored another own goal, something that I hope that Middlesbrough will be doing right now. I remember that well, because I moved the motion and called the vote on it. I shall not argue about that any more because the facts speak for themselves.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: I remember that, too.
  Mr. Blunkett: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. We both remember it well.
  The debate should be about home helps and the authorities that are spending most on home help services. We should be talking about Newham, Sunderland, Sheffield, Lambeth, Derbyshire, Leeds, Gateshead, Islington, Newcastle and Salford. Those are the top 10 Labour authorities meeting the need for home help services. The 10 lowest spenders on home help services are Surrey, East Sussex, Hampshire, West Sussex, Shropshire, Dorset, Gloucester, Isle of Wight, Bexley and Hereford.
  Mr. Robert G. Hughes: The hon. Gentleman is saying that there should be extra spending on those services. If there were a Labour Government, how much extra spending would there be, how quickly would it take place and where would it come from?
  Mr. Blunkett: Those authorities have decided on their priorities and have not allowed them to be decided by the Government's capping system. It is clear that the Government have shifted the burden of providing services from a partnership between central and local government to the backs of ratepayers and now poll tax payers.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham made clear, the standard spending assessment and the revenue support grant are of the Government's making. The Government also decided to withdraw the area protection grant next year and the year after from key marginal seats such as Pendle, Hyndburn, Rossendale, York and Blackpool. The Government's decision also resulted in the £25 that will be added to the poll tax bills in those marginal seats. The Government decide the uniform business rate and are responsible for the level of non-collection and the additions that people will have to face in the coming year.
  Those additions have been made worse by the delay in taking action on the problems experienced in using computer records in court. It was a deliberate action to delay action in order to be able to blame Labour councils for continuing non-collection problems. That was revealed earlier today, when the Secretary of State had the cheek to blame a hiccup in the parliamentary timetable last week for a failure to introduce a Bill that would be carried through with the Opposition's co-operation.
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  There are also the problems of gearing. That means that, for every 1 per cent. that an authority has to raise above the Government's standard spending criteria, it has to find 8 per cent. on its local bills.
  To cap it all, we have universal capping. In the coming year, for the first time, every authority will be capped by the Government. They have capped key authorities for the past seven years and they have determined the expenditure and the raising of revenue in those authorities, but they still blame those authorities for so-called profligacy and high poll tax bills. The Government want it all ways. They blame the Labour authorities which have been capped for spending too much and then they have the cheek to claim credit for the expenditure on education and social services when they are pressed on whether the Government are interested in maintaining spending on public services.
  The Secretary of State for Education and Science bangs his chest—or the nearest thing he can come to it—and says that he favours expenditure on schools. He says, "Look how much the Conservative Government have spent on education in the past 13 years." In fact, it is the Labour authorities which have spent that money and the Conservative Government who have successfully tried to prevent them spending it.
  On social services, the Secretary of State for the Environment and his Minister of State are constantly bleating that they have increased the SSAs. As the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti) said this afternoon, they failed to tell people that SSA increases this year were not matched by revenue support grant increases. While 23 per cent. went on SSAs on average for personal social services in the current financial year, only 1·9 per cent. went on revenue support grant increases from central Government. It is the biggest con trick that the Conservatives have ever attempted to perpetrate on the British electorate—to deceive them into believing that the Government believe in spending, while they are cutting it, and to apologise for not spending on essential need—as we have heard hon. Members do this evening—while revelling in the prospect of universal capping and blaming authorities for the consequences.
  In the months ahead we shall be faced with the challenge not merely of how much the bills will be—important as that is at the beginning of April when the election takes place—but with the challenge in Conservative, Liberal and Labour-controlled authorities of trying to maintain a semblance of service for those who need it most. We shall face the challenge of ensuring that children such as mine get a fair deal in schools and for ensuring that in future—
  Mr. George Howarth: The hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) raised the canard that the Labour party had not voted for the 20 per cent. reduction during the various stages of the Local Government Finance Bill. I refer my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) to column 187 in Hansard of 17 December when we debated clause 1. Two hundred and thirty-five of my hon. Friends—including my hon. Friends the Members for Brightside and for Dagenham (Mr. Gould)—myself and the hon. Member for Lancaster voted on that subject.
  Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I correct that? I have been challenged and the truth must out. On 16 December we debated new

  219
  clause 17 tabled by Labour. It was entitled "Abolition of 20 per cent. community charge contribution and extension of community charge rebates to students from April 1992". I was prepared to vote for that, but the Opposition did not have the guts to press the issue to a vote.
  Mr. Blunkett: The hon. Lady compounds foolishness with farce. I said a few moments ago that the day after that to which the hon. Lady referred, we had a vote on the substantive motion of the abolition of the 20 per cent. contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North mentioned that.
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell: Oh, where is chivalry?
  Mr. Blunkett: Where is chivalry? I am in favour of treating ladies with respect, but not of patronising them when they are being so foolish. Perhaps we could put an end to the silliness once and for all.
  The Conservatives are responsible for their own actions. They are supposed to be responsible for knowing what they voted for. They ask the electorate to take them seriously on 9 April or on 7 May. They try to pretend that they were not responsible for the poll tax and for the £14 billion which it cost us. They try to pretend that they were not responsible for the 2·5 per cent. increase in VAT, and they try to avoid being held responsible for the misery that the poll tax has brought and for the cuts in services it has inflicted on people. They try to pretend that they do not know what cuts are taking place in education, in social services, in libraries, in transport, and in leisure. They then have the cheek to say that they did not know that a vote had taken place on the 20 per cent. contribution rule. That is compounding absolute stupidity with culpability.
  If that is the level of Conservative Members, we shall have no difficulty in sweeping them aside in the general election so that we can bring common sense back to local government, sense back into services and Labour back into government.
  9.35 pm
  The Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities (Mr. Michael Portillo): The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) decided to launch an attack on the Government for not being supportive of Liverpool. He did so at the very time when my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key), the Under-Secretary of State, is with the leader of Liverpool council and the leader of the Merseyside development corporation in the United States trying to drum up investment for Liverpool and Merseyside. The Government believe in working in partnership. We are sorry if the hon. Gentleman wishes to remain outside the partnership.
  During the debate, we have heard complaints about the inadequacies of the standard spending assessment in Newham, in Shropshire, in Wolverhampton, in Wigan, in Eastbourne, in Northumberland, in Calderdale, in the Isle of Wight, in Warwickshire, in Staffordshire, in Barnsley, in Langbaurgh, in Middlesbrough, in North-East Derbyshire—[HON. MEMBERS: "And Norfolk"]—and in Norfolk. That does not imply that there is any question of political bias.
  The question we face is how we arrive at a fair method of distribution and what the country can afford. How right my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) was to draw attention to the question of affordability. How pitiful it was to hear not a mention
  220
  from Labour Members, once again, of what the country might be able to afford. From them, we heard only that more money should be paid out here or there, with no reference to how that money should be found.
  It was easy for the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) to say that nobody was in favour of the standard spending assessment. The criticisms that we have heard today reflect opposite views. Some believe that we should have a larger area cost adjustment whereas others believe that we should abolish the area cost adjustment. Some believe that we put too much emphasis on the social index, whereas others believe that the social index does not fully represent the needs of a place such as Newham, in London.
  The Government have made an honest, well researched and reasoned attempt to distribute the moneys available to local authorities fairly. Let it be clear that the moneys that we distribute always need to be within an envelope—a total figure—which is what the Government deem to be affordable. Given the present circumstances, how right was my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) to point out some of the remarkable increases that have been possible. The metropolitan police authorities, for example, are getting an increase of 15·6 per cent. For education SSAs in general, the increase is 7 ·1 per cent. For personal social services, the increase is 7·2 per cent.
  The hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) was in some danger of misleading us in talking about the revenue support grant quantity which was increased. The amount of aggregate external finance—the amount that is made available from Government to local authorities—has risen by the same amount as the increase in the standard spending assessments.
  We had welcomes for the settlement from my hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell), for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) and for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Paice). I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West that we do not penalise police authorities for civilianising. If authorities indulge in civilianisation, the money that they receive can be used to provide more effective policing because, although the money is distributed among police authorities on the basis of their establishment numbers, it is there for all purposes and to cover all the work to be done by police authorities—by uniformed officers and civilians alike.
  All three Newham Members spoke in the debate, and it is worth spending time replying to some of the points that they raised. Let me put the matter in context. For Newham, the increase in SSA is 11 per cent. per adult, and Newham will be able to spend £20 million above this year's budget. That represents an increase of 8·3 per cent. I understand, however, that Newham has a particular problem with the late rating adjustment.
  Local authorities have always known that they would need to repay some general rates as a result of successful appeals against the 1973 list rateable values. Such repayments were a long-standing feature of the old system and, year in, year out, authorities had to budget for the repayments that they would have to make in the coming year. The amount to be repaid varied from year to year, but not usually dramatically and, by looking at the number of outstanding appeals as the old system came to an end, authorities could make a reasonable guess at the amount that they could expect to repay in 1990–91 and in succeeding years.

  221
  Most authorities have made provision for those repayments and now have no difficulty in meeting them. Evidently, Newham did not make such provision. We allowed that local authorities would be able to capitalise such late rating payments, but I understand that Newham has no capital receipts or credit approvals from which to cover them, so that provision is not helpful to it.
  The three Newham Members came to see me yesterday and put some more arguments to me. It would be absolutely wrong of me to raise their expectations or hopes, but I will consider their arguments carefully.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Mr. Carttiss) talked about his disappointment at a difference of nearly £500,000 between the first figure that his authority was given and the final figure. I sympathise, if only because my own authority—Enfield—had a shock when it discovered a difference between the provisional figure and the final figure of £1·6 million. Whereas, for my hon. Friend's authority, the decrease represented 0·1 per cent., for my own authority it represented 0·8 per cent. I would, suggest, however that a reduction of 0·1 per cent. on a budget of more than £400 million, although disappointing, is manageable. My hon. Friend also knows that the money spent on sea defences is recoverable in the subsequent year.
  Mr. Carttiss: The whole point is that the capping level can be met within this year, even though, next year, the money will be recoverable. That is the absurd state of affairs that I sought to draw to the attention of the House.
  Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the capping will bite on this year's budget, and his local authority will have to make allowances for that.
  The hon. Member for Langbaurgh (Dr. Kumar) mentioned the problems of both Middlesbrough and Langbaurgh, two authorities that are overspending considerably. In the case of Middlesbrough, the capped limit is 17·3 per cent. above SSA and, in the case of Langbaurgh, it is 28·3 per cent. above SSA.
  We had interesting observations on the question of Staffordshire—first from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Ms. Walley) and then from my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock and Burntwood (Mr. Howarth), who, I suggest, had much the better of the argument. Staffordshire county council has been allowed to spend £39 million more. Its standard spending assessment has increased by 7·6 per cent. per adult.
  In contrast to the rest of her party, the hon. Lady said that she did not think that there was anything wrong with the overall amount that was being made available to local authorities, but that she was bothered about the distribution. I believe that the overall amount that we are making available to local authorities is what the country can afford and that the distribution is fair. The amount that has been allocated to Staffordshire allows the county to make considerable increases, even if those increases fall some way short of what it had hoped, which was my hon. Friend's point.
  Ms. Walley rose—
  Mr. Portillo: No; I want to make progress and have only 15 minutes in which to reply to many hon. Members.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen) spoke about the difficulties in his area.
  222
  Obviously, I was sorry to hear about them. He asked particularly that the Government should be prepared to adjust the SSA from year to year. I can give him that assurance. We have two objectives which, to some extent, are in conflict. On the one hand, we want to meet the reasonable demands that are made of us, to respond to new evidence, and to adjust the SSA where that appears appropriate; but, on the other hand, we need to maintain consistency and stability in the system between one year and another.
  This year that has led the Government to propose six adjustments to the methodology. One of those adjustments had been called for by the local authority associations. They wanted us to quantify not only people spending the night in an area as visitors who had their origins in Britain, but also overseas visitors who may impose extra costs on the local authorities. I was surprised to hear that the hon. Members for Dagenham and for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) had some objection to that, because it seems clear that visitors do impose extra costs on local authorities and that we should do our best to measure those costs, whether the visitors are British or from overseas.
  Mr. Turner: Surely the Minister understands that visitors arriving in Westminster or Wandsworth are in transit on a visit that may take them throughout the United Kingdom. The Minister and the Government have not given any recognition to all the authorities throughout the country that deal with tourists. The Government are burdening local authorities by not recognising the commitment that they have to tourism. They have again been blatantly discriminatory.
  Mr. Portillo: The hon. Gentleman is simply not right. We take account of such people wherever they spend nights—
  Mr. Turner: No, not in Wolverhampton.
  Mr. Portillo: —whether in Wolverhampton or Bolton—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Portillo: The main beneficiaries of the change have been Camden and another London authority, Westminster. The standard spending assessment of Wolverhampton has increased by 6·7 per cent. per adult, so although the hon. Gentleman has been protesting, he can protest, not about cuts, but about reductions in the aspirations of his authority.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Stevens) made an excellent speech. He has devoted a tremendous amount of time and effort to the study of the standard spending assessment methodology. He must now rank as one of the experts in the House on the subject of local authority finance. He said that we need to continue to look at the SSAs. and I assure him that we shall. Last year, for example, we changed the additional amount that was put into education for special needs, varying that amount downwards, which benefited Warwickshire. This year, we have changed the distribution of the receipts of interest between counties and districts, which has been of general benefit to the counties, so Warwickshire has received benefits from the methodology changes in each of

  223
  the past two years. I share my hon. Friend's great enthusiasm for being able to incorporate the results of the latest census as soon as that is possible.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) wanted to know what will happen about capping. This issue is obviously relevant to several local authorities. After the budgets have been set by local authorities, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will test them against his capping criteria. He will then designate local authorities for capping and will propose a capping figure for them. A local authority will have the option of either accepting that cap and setting a budget and sending out bills on the basis of it or of challenging it. If it decides to challenge the cap, it will have 28 days in which to make representations to us. Ministers will be happy to receive delegations from authorities that want to make such representations and, at the end of the consultation period, Ministers will decide whether to confirm a cap at the original level or whether, in the light of representations, to vary it. Warwickshire is obviously familiar with that procedure.
  We heard a clutch of speeches by hon. Members from the north of England. My hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Riddick), in a valuable speech, told us what a Labour Government would be like in action. We also heard from the hon. Members for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) and for Barnsley, Central (Mr. Illsley). The hon. Member for Makerfield said that the Government did not take account of matters such as the rural hinterland, but he is not right. We measure things such as road length, and take account of factors such as sparsity. He said that we did not take account of social conditions, but of course we do.
  Much of the debate has been about social conditions and how one measures them. What we do not do—this is where we disagree—is measure economic conditions. People such as the hon. Gentleman have said that we should measure unemployment, car ownership and other indicators of economic conditions. I can tell the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends that I am interested in pursuing that argument to see what extra costs will fall upon local authorities with different economic conditions. I am not yet convinced that such conditions impose extra costs and that there are appropriate sources of evidence and data, but 1 am happy to consider that argument.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Martin) made a wide-ranging and interesting speech. He pointed out the different ways in which the Government have been able to provide help to Portsmouth. That important point goes well beyond the SSAs that we are debating today. Many authorities represented in the debate obviously receive large sums from the Government in housing allocations, in grants for inner-city development and so on.
  What has come through loudly and clearly from the debate is that the Government are determined to control the amount that local authorities spend, partly because that is an important means of controlling public expenditure and partly because we owe a measure of protection to local taxpayers. The Labour party—the same is true of the Liberal Democrats as represented in the speech of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Bellotti)—has no concern whatever about local authority spending and how much it would cost local taxpayers.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham naively said that local authorities believed that they had received £2 billion less in
  224
  the settlement than they needed. He implied that if local authorities said that they need £2 billion he would certainly give it to them. On top of that, he described last year's settlement as manifestly inadequate. I remind the House that, in terms of last year's settlement, we are talking of an increase in the SSAs of districts of 28 per cent. and increases for the counties of 19, 20 and 21 per cent. On top of that, the hon. Gentleman stated that he would abolish the 20 per cent. contribution rule at once. The Government have said that they will abolish that rule from 1993 and have made allowance in their public expenditure plans for that to be done.
  The hon. Member for Dagenham has produced a new promise to abolish that rule from the next financial year, April 1992. Therefore, he needs to account for another £500 million of expenditure, which is required for that purpose. He needs £2 billion, which he describes as the shortfall in this year's settlement, £500 million to abolish the 20 per cent. contribution rule and an unspecified amount which, presumably, is needed for him to make good the shortfall in last year's "manifestly inadequate" settlement.
  Who will pay for this? In his opening speech my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State put that question, but we have had no reply. Will the £2 billion be covered by £60 on the community charge or by a penny or more in the pound on the rate of income tax? During this debate Labour Members have not said, but we all know that the situation would be very much worse than that. As was very well said by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo), the hon. Member for Dagenham was on television recently, and he was pressed about whether, in any circumstances, he would cap authorities that had overspent. He said:
  "We are opposed to capping. Let me make that quite clear."
  The interviewer asked, "Whatever the circumstances?", and the hon. Gentleman replied, "Whatever the circumstances." Then the interviewer said:
  "You can't envisage putting up the rates by horrendous sums, by factors of 10 and 12 and 15—by putting them up by 100 per cent. if necessary? You will not intervene whatever they do. Let me just be clear about that."
  The hon. Member for Dagenham said, "Yes." He said that he would not intervene even if the increase were to be 100 per cent.
  Recently we have had very interesting evidence from Sheffield. It appears that the local authority there has set a budget that it believes would be allowed by a Labour Government. That budget involves increasing the community charge from the present £217 to £290 or £300—a rise of 40 per cent. Why does Sheffield council believe that a Labour Government would allow that? According to the Sheffield Star, the council believes it because Labour councillors, in confidential talks in London, have been told that
  "Neil Kinnock will allow their budget-busting plan to survive."
  Mr. Blunkett: I should like to put on the record the fact that that report is claptrap. No such meeting as was suggested by the Minister on Radio 4 on Friday took place, nor was any such assurance given to any authority in Britain.
  Mr. Portillo: I have been running this story for some time, and this is the first occasion on which I have heard from the hon. Gentleman any word of denial. If the hon.

  225
  Gentleman knows of all the meetings that have taken place, and if he knows that the Leader of the Opposition has not been involved in these matters, I shall, of course, take his word. But this story appeared in the Sheffield Star on 15 January, and I have been repeating it since last Friday, yet this is the first time we have had a categorical denial from the hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Blunkett: We were waiting for the Minister to use it.
  Mr. Portillo: I have been using it, and the hon. Gentleman has said nothing by way of denial.
  In any case, the hon. Gentleman is not yet entirely off the hook. On the same Channel 4 programme, the hon. Member for Dagenham was asked about his plans for a uniform business rate. We know that the Labour party intends to give back to local authorities the setting of the business rate. That would mean a much heavier burden for business, as local authority spending is rising so fast. The interviewer said to the hon. Member for Dagenham:
  "David Blunkett said a greater proportion of local spending will have to be funded by businesses, and they will make sure that's done in the first year. How will you control that?"
  The hon. Gentleman replied:
  "It may be said to you that that is what we will do. I'd like to know who was likely to say such a silly thing."
  The interviewer said, "David Blunkett, your colleague."
  As the hon. Gentleman is keen on saying, there we have it.
  Mr. Blunkett: I wish to make it clear for the record that I did not say it. "The Parliament Programme" on Channel 4 on Saturday night, on which I heard that quote, is unable to give me chapter and verse other than central office briefings.
  Hon. Members: "Withdraw".
  Mr. Portillo: When the hon. Member for Dagenham heard the comment attributed to the hon. Member for Brightside, he described it as "very silly".
  We know that we would have higher spending from the Labour party, which would allow local authority spending to go through the roof, with the bills being paid by the community charge payer. As though that were not enough, Labour would put the bills on to the business payer as well. That is why I commend the motion to the House.
  Question put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 295, Noes 198.

  Division No. 66]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Adley, Robert

  Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Batiste, Spencer

  Alexander, Richard

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Beggs, Roy

  Allason, Rupert

  Bellingham, Henry

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Bendall, Vivian

  Amess, David

  Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Amos, Alan

  Benyon, W.

  Arbuthnot, James

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Blackburn, Dr John G.

  Arnold, Sir Thomas

  Body, Sir Richard

  Ashby, David

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Aspinwall, Jack

  Boswell, Tim

  Atkins, Robert

  Bottomley, Peter

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

  Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

  Baldry, Tony

  Bowis, John

  226

  Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

  Harris, David

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Brazier, Julian

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Bright, Graham

  Hayes, Jerry

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Hayward, Robert

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Burns, Simon

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Butcher, John

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Butler, Chris

  Hill, James

  Butterfill, John

  Hind, Kenneth

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Carrington, Matthew

  Howard, Rt Hon Michael

  Carttiss, Michael

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

  Cash, William

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Chapman, Sydney

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Chope, Christopher

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Churchill, Mr

  Hunt, Rt Hon David

  Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

  Hunter, Andrew

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Clark, Rt Hon Sir William

  Irvine, Michael

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Irving, Sir Charles

  Colvin, Michael

  Jack, Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Jackson, Robert

  Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

  Janman, Tim

  Couchman, James

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

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

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Day, Stephen

  Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

  Devlin, Tim

  Kilfedder, James

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Dorrell, Stephen

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Dover, Den

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Dunn, Bob

  Knapman, Roger

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Knowles, Michael

  Evennett, David

  Knox, David

  Fallon, Michael

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Farr, Sir John

  Lang, Rt Hon Ian

  Favell, Tony

  Latham, Michael

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Fookes, Dame Janet

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Forth, Eric

  Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

  Lilley, Rt Hon Peter

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

  Franks, Cecil

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Freeman, Roger

  Lord, Michael

  French, Douglas

  Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

  Gardiner, Sir George

  Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

  Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

  McCrea, Rev William

  Gill, Christopher

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

  Maclean, David

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

  Gorman, Mrs Teresa

  Madel, David

  Gorst, John

  Malins, Humfrey

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Maples, John

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Marlow, Tony

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

  Gregory, Conal

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Mates, Michael

  Grist, Ian

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Ground, Patrick

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Hague, William

  Mellor, Rt Hon David

  Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mills, Iain

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Hannam, Sir John

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

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

  Mitchell, Sir David

  227

  Moate, Roger

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

  Speller, Tony

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Squire, Robin

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Steen, Anthony

  Moss, Malcolm

  Stern, Michael

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Stevens, Lewis

  Neale, Sir Gerrard

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Stewart, Rt Hon Sir Ian

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Sumberg, David

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Taylor, Sir Teddy

  Norris, Steve

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Thurnham, Peter

  Page, Richard

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Paice, James

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Patnick, Irvine

  Tracey, Richard

  Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

  Tredinnick, David

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Viggers, Peter

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Waldegrave, Rt Hon William

  Portillo, Michael

  Walden, George

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Price, Sir David

  Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

  Raffan, Keith

  Walters, Sir Dennis

  Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Redwood, John

  Warren, Kenneth

  Renton, Rt Hon Tim

  Watts, John

  Rhodes James, Sir Robert

  Wells, Bowen

  Riddick, Graham

  Wheeler, Sir John

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Whitney, Ray

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Ross, William (Londonderry E)

  Wilkinson, John

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Wilshire, David

  Rost, Peter

  Winterton, Mrs Ann

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Sainsbury, Rt Hon Tim

  Wolfson, Mark

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Wood, Timothy

  Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Woodcock, Dr. Mike

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Yeo, Tim

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Sims, Roger

  Mr. David Lightbown and

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Mr. John M. Taylor.

  NOES

  Allen, Graham

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Alton, David

  Carr, Michael

  Anderson, Donald

  Cartwright, John

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Clelland, David

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Cohen, Harry

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Barron, Kevin

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Beith, A. J.

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Bellotti, David

  Cousins, Jim

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Crowther, Stan

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

  Cryer, Bob

  Benton, Joseph

  Cummings, John

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Blunkett, David

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Boateng, Paul

  Dalyell, Tam

  Boyes, Roland

  Darling, Alistair

  Bradley, Keith

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

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

  Caborn, Richard

  Dewar, Donald

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Dixon, Don

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Dobson, Frank

  Canavan, Dennis

  Doran, Frank

  228

  Duffy, Sir A. E. P.

  Marek, Dr John

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

  Eadie, Alexander

  Martlew, Eric

  Edwards, Huw

  Meacher, Michael

  Enright, Derek

  Meale, Alan

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Michael, Alun

  Fatchett, Derek

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Fearn, Ronald

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Fisher, Mark

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Flannery, Martin

  Morley, Elliot

  Flynn, Paul

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Foster, Derek

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Foulkes, George

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Fraser, John

  Mullin, Chris

  Fyfe, Maria

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Galbraith, Sam

  O'Hara, Edward

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  George, Bruce

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  Patchett, Terry

  Golding, Mrs Llin

  Pawsey, James

  Gordon, Mildred

  Pendry, Tom

  Gould, Bryan

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Prescott, John

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Grocott, Bruce

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Hain, Peter

  Radice, Giles

  Harman, Ms Harriet

  Randall, Stuart

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Reid, Dr John

  Haynes, Frank

  Robertson, George

  Heal, Mrs Sylvia

  Rogers, Allan

  Henderson, Doug

  Rooker, Jeff

  Hinchliffe, David

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Hoey, Kate (Vauxhall)

  Rowlands, Ted

  Home Robertson, John

  Ruddock, Joan

  Hood, Jimmy

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

  Sheerman, Barry

  Howells, Geraint

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Hoyle, Doug

  Short, Clare

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

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

  Illsley, Eric

  Smith, J. P. (Vale of Glam)

  Ingram, Adam

  Soley, Clive

  Janner, Greville

  Spearing, Nigel

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Jones, Ieuan (Ynys Môn)

  Stephen, Nicol

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Stott, Roger

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Strang, Gavin

  Kilfoyle, Peter

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Kumar, Dr. Ashok

  Turner, Dennis

  Lamond, James

  Vaz, Keith

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Wallace, James

  Leighton, Ron

  Walley, Joan

  Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Lewis, Terry

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Litherland, Robert

  Watson, Mike (Glasgow, C)

  Livsey, Richard

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Loyden, Eddie

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  McAllion, John

  Wilson, Brian

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Winnick, David

  McCartney, Ian

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Macdonald, Calum A.

  Worthington, Tony

  McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

  Wray, Jimmy

  McLeish, Henry

  McMaster, Gordon

  Tellers for the Noes:

  McNamara, Kevin

  Mr. Jack Thompson and

  Madden, Max

  Mr. Ken Eastham.

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Revenue Support Grant Report (England) 1992–93 (House of Commons Paper No. 188), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  It being after Ten o'clock, MR. SPEAKER put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the other motions relating to local government finance, pursuant to the Order [4 February].
  Resolved,
  That the Revenue Support Grant Distribution (Amendment) (No. 2) Report (England) (House of Commons Paper No. 190), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  That the Population Report (England) (No. 3) (House of Commons Paper No. 189), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.
  That the Special Grant Report (No. 3) (House of Commons Paper No. 191), a copy of which was laid before this House on 24th January, be approved.—[Mr. Heseltine.]

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES 1991–92
  CLASS XX, VOTE 1

    European Community (Budget)
    Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken).
    10.16 pm
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Francis Maude): I beg to move,
    That a further supplementary sum not exceeding £450,000,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges for civil services which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1992, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 182 of Session 1991–92.
    Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is a very important matter, involving a great deal of money. I understand that at the moment our net contribution is of the order of £2,800 million in a year. The motion seeks to increase our contribution by £450 milion on the basis of a vote by the European Parliament the legality of which is disputed.
    My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will speak for the Government. We are grateful to him and are impressed by his ability, but my point of order to you, Mr. Speaker, is that perhaps at this time a Law Officer of the Crown should be present to explain the highly intricate legal aspects of this important issue, because a great deal of money is involved. I think that it would be for the benefit of the House if a Law Officer were present.
    Mr. Speaker: What has been said will have been heard by the Deputy Chief Whip, who is on the Front Bench. We must now proceed with the debate.
    Mr. Maude: As my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) has just pointed out in his point of order, the supplementary estimate which is before the House relates to our contributions to the 1992 budget of the European Communities.
    The estimate is needed because the European Parliament's recent adoption of the budget is open to legal question. The Council is considering its legal position, but, because of the legal uncertainties, the Government cannot at the moment treat the 1992 budget as agreed between the institutions. Therefore, for the time being, we must approach the 1992 budget and our contributions to it on the basis that the budget has not been adopted.
    When a budget has not been adopted, monthly contributions are calculated on the basis of one twelfth of the last adopted budget, in this case the 1991 budget. The European Communities Act 1972 gives authority to contribute on this basis, without further parliamentary approval. The Government are therefore seeking parliamentary approval for this estimate to cover contributions in excess of those due, had a budget for 1992 not been adopted.
    The procedure we have followed in presenting this estimate reflects comments by the Treasury and Civil Service Committee in a similar situation in the early 1980s. The Committee's second report in the 1981–82 Session expressed the view that the Government should refuse payment of any disputed sums unless the matter had been debated and decided by Parliament. On two subsequent

    231
    occasions, in January 1985 and 1986, when we again needed estimates provision for part of our contribution, it was possible to provide the opportunity for debate before the first payment fell due, but the circumstances and timing in the present case prevented us from doing so again. Nevertheless, we are presenting the estimate as early as we can and well in advance of the normal spring round of estimates to provide the House with an early opportunity to debate the issue.
    Mr. Chris Smith: I am grateful to the Financial Secretary for giving way, especially so early in his remarks. For the sake of clarity, will he confirm that the disputed amount between the Parliament's budget and the Council of Ministers budget relates to £12 million of expenditure by the United Kingdom, not £450 million?
    Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman is correct. The monthly amount that the estimate seeks authority from the House to contribute to the 1992 budget is only £1 million per month—that is the disputed amount.
    In the light of its legal advice, the Council will take a view on the basis for action in the European Court. Subject to that advice, the Government will urge the Council to bring a case against the Parliament. The Commission will implement the 1992 budget adopted by the European Parliament pending the Court's judgment, which we hope will soon be available.
    Mr. Marlow: I am afraid that my mind moves slowly at this time of the evening—
    Mr. Hugh Dykes: We understand that.
    Mr. Marlow: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments.
    As I understand it, we are being asked to vote an extra £450 million for an eventuality that may not arise, subject to a legal decision within European institutions—am I right or wrong? If I am right, why must we make a decision tonight on whether we are likely to approve the sum of £450 million? How does that sum relate to the £12 million or £1 million per month, which my hon. Friend has just agreed with the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith)?
    Mr. Maude: For reasons that we have previously debated in the House, the British contribution to the EC budget last year was abnormally and atypically low—about £1·2 billion. The underlying level of contribution is about £2 billion a year, so even if the budget had been as accepted by the Council of Ministers, a large sum in addition to last year's contribution would have been payable by the United Kingdom Government. Therefore, the amount in dispute, as has been said, is no more than £12 million in terms of the United Kingdom's contribution to the budget.
    Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Will my hon. Friend explain what he means by the "underlying contribution" and the "atypical contribution", as it is difficult for us to understand?
    Mr. Maude: That simply reflects an average taken over the years. For a variety of reasons, last year's abatement was substantially larger than that of the year before and that for this coming year.
    Mr. Budgen: Why should we regard the average as the underlying figure? As I understand it, there is an heroic
    232
    new role for the EC. More especially, we are hoping—as I imagine the House is, as it is in favour of the gradual move towards a common currency—a vast expansion of the regional fund. Why should we expect that the average should be the underlying figure? If we wish to be at the heart of Europe, we must expect a vast increase in our contribution to that heroic enterprise.
    Mr. Maude: We expect no such thing. We do not base our contribution for the coming year simply on the extrapolation and average of previous levels, but on the calculation, already available, of what the contribution will be in the coming year. Although my hon. Friend may prefer to think of it as such, it is not simply a shot in the dark.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: What is my hon. Friend's latest estimate of our net contribution in 1992, assuming its legality? Does he agree with the famous Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee report, which stated in paragraph 12:
    "If this situation"—
    which the Committee thought was unsatisfactory and unprecedented—
    "arose again, the Government should refuse payment"?
    Mr. Maude: My hon. Friend is right to refer to that report, which stated that, if a payment were to be made, this was the procedure that we should observe. This is not a new departure. The same procedure was used on occasions in the past, apart from those to which the report referred—such as in 1985 and 1986, when comparable circumstances arose.
    Mr. Roger Moate: We are asked to approve a vote of £450 million. The "Supply Estimates 1991–92 Class XX Net Contributions to European Community Institutions" baldly presents a figure of £450 million. The only explanation offered is:
    "Payments … resulting from the adoption by the European Parliament of a larger Budget for 1992 than that permitted by Community legislation."
    We are now told that the figure amounts to approximately £1 million a month, or £12 million a year.
    The motion asks for a sum of £450 million. Is the information I quoted all that the House is entitled to have, coupled with my hon. Friend's explanation—which was not at all clear? Are we talking about £12 million or £450 million? Will my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary explain why we are asked to authorise a payment of £450 million?
    Mr. Maude: That sum represents the difference between our contribution last year on the basis of the 1991 budget and our contribution this year on the basis of the agreed 1992 budget. Even if the budget agreed by the Council of Ministers had been adopted, it was only slightly smaller than that adopted by the European Parliament. The bulk of the £450 million to which the estimate refers is attributable to not just the purportedly illegal portion on which the European parliament voted but the operation of the United Kingdom's abatement this year, compared with last year.
    Mr. Tony Favell: A number of us are rather simple when it comes to such matters, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary knows. Is the sum of £450 million the total increase over last year in spending for the 12

    233
    months on which we are now embarking? Is it an extra £450 million for the whole of the year, or will there be more on top of that?
    Mr. Maude: No. The United Kingdom's contribution this year, as we made clear in the budget debate before Christmas, is likely to be in the region of £2·5 billion. That compares with a contribution last year in the region of £1·2 billion. Last year's contribution was abnormally low, and compared with a contribution in 1990 of close to £3 billion—which was abnormally high.
    This year's contribution not only reflects an average but is, as it happens, close to the underlying average level of contribution over the years.
    Mr. Budgen: My hon. Friend has performed according to the highest traditions of his old professions at the Bar, by obscuring in a very difficult case. I refer him to page 8 of the "Supply Estimates". Does he agree with the description of the payments concerned as
    "Payments to the European Communities resulting from the adoption by the European Parliament of a larger Budget for 1992 than that permitted by Community legislation"?
    If he agrees that we are giving authority to an illegal budget—a vast overspend—does he not also agree that that is somewhat unwise?
    In the bad old days, when we were trying to achieve a balanced budget—and when our previous leader was trying to get back "her money", as she was vulgar enough to call it—we were quite keen to reduce Community expenditure. If, late at night, we agree to illegal overspending by the EEC, will we not seriously undermine the Treasury's endeavours to prevent the same from happening in the future?
    My hon. Friend has been defending the Government's position in rather the same way as a highly intelligent barrister defending a very crooked fraudster. Let me sum up my two points. First, does he agree with the description given on page 8? Secondly, does he agree that it would be extremely stupid to take such action if we are to try to reduce Community expenditure in the future?
    Mr. Maude: It is always a pleasure to listen to my hon. Friend when he is trying to be helpful. His intervention is much appreciated.
    I concede that the passage on page 8 could have been more happily phrased; but it is wrong to interpret it as meaning that the whole £450 million flows from the disputed element of the budget.
    Mr. Budgen: What words would the Financial Secretary use?
    Mr. Maude: My hon. Friend has invited me to redraft the passage while I am on my feet making a speech. I shall certainly have a look at it.
    My hon. Friend has asked me to contemplate a further point, and I am very ready to do that, too. He suggests that the wording undermines the Treasury's endeavours to contain Community spending. I do not believe that it does. I should point out that this is not just a United Kingdom concern; the entire Council is unanimous, and, if the case is sustainable, we shall seek to challenge the budget in the European Court of Justice. That is the right course to adopt.
    234
    We no more undermine our desire to contain Community spending—which, I should tell my hon. Friend, is as intense now as it has ever been—by adopting the measures that I invite the House to adopt tonight than we did in 1985 and 1986, in comparable circumstances. In both those years, the Government invited the House to agree a supplementary estimate in very much the same terms.
    Mr. Budgen: But not for an illegal budget.
    Mr. Maude: The budget was in dispute, and was not capable of being treated as having been agreed between the institutions in the way to which the European Communities Act refers. On that occasion, the Government invited the House to accept the course that is being suggested tonight.
    Mr. Marlow: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way: he is being extremely courteous this evening.
    A couple of minutes ago, my hon. Friend said that the level of our net contribution to the Community last year—cash out of pocket per citizen—was about £25. This year, he says, it will be an extra £25. In other words, every family of four in my constituency will be asked to provide the European Community with a free handout of an extra hundred quid. What will they get for that extra hundred quid—and what do I tell them when they come to me and say, "Look, Mr. Marlow, we read our newspapers and find that European money in Italy is being fraudulently misapplied, it is ending up in the pockets of the Mafia, and you are asking us for another hundred quid, with all the other bills that we have to pay"? What does my hon. Friend think I should tell my constituents?
    Mr. Maude: I am confident that my hon. Friend is resourceful enough to think of an adequate reply without my assistance.
    My right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) negotiated in 1984 an abatement that is permanently in existence in Community law and can be changed only by unanimity. We have no intention of allowing it to be changed. Over the years, that has saved the British taxpayer large amounts of money that would otherwise have gone to the European Community budget in the form of an ever greater net contribution. The existence of the Fontainebleau abatements means that the amount that we contribute net to the budget, while still substantially larger than is acceptable to the House, is a good deal smaller than it would otherwise have been.
    Mr. Dykes: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to someone who, unlike some previous speakers, has an objective view of these matters. My hon. Friend is a financial spokesman for a Government, who, for whatever reasons, have gone from an original expectation of no deficit or borrowing requirement to a huge deficit and a borrowing requirement of, probably, £25 million. That is a factor about which my colleagues who are against the Community have made no complaint and which they have accepted with equanimity.
    Given that, could not the Financial Secretary defend the technical difficulties facing the Government with more robust energy? My hon. Friend does not have to apologise to anybody when he is talking about a mistake that represents 7 per cent. of the contingency reserve, which is an accidental aberration anyway.
    Mr. Maude: I appreciate that my hon. Friend is seeking to be helpful. However, even when the British public finances were in substantial surplus, we remained equally concerned to ensure that the EC budget and our contribution to it were constrained.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: The hon. Gentleman knows that the Government have continually expressed concern about expenditure being out of control in the Common Market. What sort of signal will this proposal send to the Common Market, which is still under heavy criticism for its excessive, not to say lavish, expenditure on, for example, the common agricultural policy? Will it not take this as a further signal that the Government are not concerned about scrutiny of financial expenditure?
    Mr. Maude: I do not believe that it will send that signal. There is nothing revolutionary or new in the approach that the Government are advising the House to take. This has been done before, and we preserve the legal position. If the budget is being illegally adopted, the place for that to be set right is in the European Court of Justice. That is where the Council will take the case—
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Maude: I am conscious that, when we debated the budget before Christmas, I was criticised for taking up too much time with my opening speech. I do not want to be subject to the same criticism tonight, and I hope that the House will recognise that most of the time has not been taken up by me.
    Mr. Budgen: My hon. Friend—
    Mr. Ron Leighton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Are there not two sides in the House? Although this debate is vastly entertaining and instructive, is it merely an internal party or family affair—or can members of the Opposition also join in?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): The Minister has already said that he does not want to take too much of the House's time in what is a fairly short debate. He has already been very generous in giving way.
    Mr. Budgen rose—
    Mr. Frank Haynes: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a very important point, and we want to pin it down. If we do not pin it down now, it will not be pinned down tonight.
    Mr. Budgen: May I make a final attempt to pin the Minister down?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is the Minister giving way?
    Mr. Maude: Yes.
    Mr. Budgen: My hon. Friend refers to previous years in which there has been a dispute between the United Kingdom—I assume that we are still allowed to refer to the "United Kingdom"—and our masters in the European Community. My recollection is that, on previous occasions, there was a dispute about the necessity for discretionary areas of expenditure, especially in relation to agriculture.
    There is a sharp distinction between that and what is set out in the supplementary estimates, which is illegal overspending. Will my hon. Friend confirm that, in
    236
    previous years when there was a dispute, there was no suggestion that the EC was illegally overspending and that, therefore, today's debate is about something quite different? We are being asked to give parliamentary support for expenditure which, as stated on page 8, is greater than that "permitted by Community legislation".
    Mr. Maude: I do not believe that we are asking the House to underpin an illegal arrangement. The right way to contest that budget, if it is found to be illegal, is in the Court and that is what the Council of Ministers will seek to do. When a budget has not been agreed between the institutions, arrangements have always been made to allow payments to be made in any event. That is the course that the Government are inviting the House to follow.
    Mr. Leighton: Bearing in mind the fact that many of the member states pay nothing in net terms, can the Minister explain why he uses the curious phrase that more than £1·2 billion is an abnormally low figure? He is telling us, I think, that we have to pay another £450 million this year. What exactly shall we get in return for that money? As we are one of the poorer nations of the Community, why are we not a net beneficiary? Is it not true that we are paying more money into the Community budget to subsidise nations richer than ourselves than we give in aid to the third world? Does that make much sense?
    Mr. Maude: We have discussed these matters before, so the hon. Gentleman knows that the amount that we pay in net contributions to the budget is substantially less today than it would have been had we not had to renegotiate a much better arrangement than that which we inherited in 1979.
    Mr. Leighton indicated dissent.
    Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he should acknowledge that the arrangements negotiated by the previous Labour Government were extremely disadvantageous to the United Kingdom. It took my right hon. Friend's negotiations year after year to improve the position which leaves the contribution as relatively limited as it is, although it remains unsatisfactorily large.
    Mr. Anthony Beaumont-Dark: We understand the Minister's problem although he is arguing a very poor case with his usual great charm and expediency. If it is true that the proposal may be illegal and we shall have to go to the Court, why the hell do we not wait to learn what the Court says? If it is ruled to be illegal, surely we would get the money back. The other lot, when they were in power, did not do a very good job of ensuring that we saved money, but it seems odd to most of us to argue that, because we have done a wonderful job, we are happy to make an illegal payment. To help with his problems, I suggest to the Minister that he withdraws the motion until we find out whether it is a legal or illegal payment. Is that not a helpful and sensible suggestion?
    Mr. Maude: I am deluged with helpful suggestions tonight, and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making yet another. My hon. Friend put his finger on the point. If the budget is eventually found to be illegal, it is perfectly possible—indeed, it would happen automatically —for the disputed amount of £1 million per month to be recouped as a matter of course. There is no problem about that. I stress to the House that the position of the United

    237
    Kingdom Government and their net contribution to the EC budget is not prejudiced by the supplementary estimate which I invite the House to adopt tonight.
    Mr. Haynes: I hope that the Financial Secretary will listen. The Government have their hands in our pockets again. Is it true that the Government have to bring expenditure to the House for approval first? Will the Minister nod to that? Is it true that any Government expenditure has to be approved by the House?
    Mr. Maude indicated assent.
    Mr. Haynes: The Minister agrees. Now we are getting somewhere. The point is that, in Europe, they have got it all wrong, and they have made a cock-up of the job. Now the Minister comes to the House for an additional £450 million because the European budget has already been approved. The Minister is here again because they made a cock-up over there. I will have to go back and tell my constituents that the Government have got their hands in their pockets again.
    Mr. Maude: It is not the Government who have their hands in the hon. Gentleman's constituents' pockets. It is the European Community financial arrangements which were negotiated with such skill by the Government whom the hon. Gentleman supported in the late 1970s. I have to—
    Mr. Haynes: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was not a Member of the House at that time, and I do not know what the Minister is talking about. Please call him to order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Mr. Maude: For the avoidance of doubt, I concede freely that the hon. Gentleman was not then a Member of the House, although I recollect that he sought unsuccessfully to become a Member. In support—
    Mr. Haynes: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was not a candidate until 1979. The Minister has got it wrong again. He gets it wrong all the time. Please pull him up, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Mr. Maude: I had not appreciated that the hon. Gentleman joined the Labour party so late in life. He has been a very welcome member of it ever since.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Maude: I am conscious that the House wishes to proceed. I have given way in the course of this speech more than I have given way in all my other speeches in the House since I became a Minister. I cannot be accused of treating the House with discourtesy.
    The interjections in the speech by my hon. Friends and by other hon. Members have enabled me to set out the case fully. On the basis of those arguments, I invite the House to approve the supplementary estimates.
    10.48 pm
    Mr. Chris Smith: The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) drew attention to the Government's description of the motion on page 8 of the supplementary estimates booklet. That description refers to
    238
    "Payments to the European Communities resulting from the adoption by the European Parliament of a larger Budget for 1992 than that permitted by Community legislation."
    The figure of £450 million is attached. If that were an accurate description of the situation, it would be a matter of great seriousness to the House. We would be talking about a total of almost £500 million for a budget that appeared to be illegal. However, that is not the situation that faces us. The Government's description is at best inaccurate and it is certainly misleading.
    First, in making the European Community budget, the European Parliament cannot and does not act alone. The Parliament and the Council of Ministers acting together form the budgetary authority in the European Community. The Parliament took its most recent decision on the budget on 12 December. It is perhaps worth noting that, when the budgetary committee of the European Parliament met on 9 December, the two Conservative representatives on that committee —Mr. Kellett-Bowman and Mr. Simpson—both voted in favour of the Parliament's budget. It is also worth noting that, when the budget went to the full European Parliament three days later, 29 Conservative Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of the budget.
    Mr. Budgen: Does not the hon. Gentleman recognise that there is a clear conflict of interest between Conservative Members of the European Parliament and Conservative Members of Parliament? Quite honourably, the MEPs have sworn their allegiance to a supranational federal structure to which they wish to give enhanced power and extra expenditure. It is naive to pretend that those who vote for extra expenditure in the European Parliament have the same views or the same interests as Members of this House.
    Mr. Smith: I was under the obviously mistaken impression that the Conservative party that the MEPs represented was the same as the Conservative party that the hon. Gentleman represents.
    The budgetary process, which is a matter for Parliament and the Council of Ministers, has not yet run its full course. As the Minister was forced to admit by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Beaumont-Dark), it is perfectly open to the Government to argue within the Council of Ministers for a challenge, through the European Court, to the budget that the Parliament decided on 12 December. The deadline for taking such a challenge to the European Court is 19 February. It is up to the Government and the Council of Ministers to decide whether they wish to mount such a challenge, and they have two more weeks in which to make that decision.
    Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman said that I was forced to admit that it was open to the Council of Ministers to do that—not a bit of it. I owned up to it perfectly freely—indeed, it is not a question of owning up or admitting to it; I set it before the House. It is clearly the case and there is no secret or anything startling about it.
    Mr. Smith: If it is, indeed, clearly the case, we must ask why on earth the motion and the supplementary estimates are before us today. The motion is totally unnecessary if the Council of Ministers is still making a decision about whether to go to the European Court—as it did two years ago—in a process that is a perfectly normal part of the budget-making process. If that is so, it would be wrong to

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    describe the present state of the budget as illegal and it is unnecessary to bring the motion before us. The Government have got the procedure about face.
    Mr. William Cash rose—
    Mr. James Hill rose—
    Mr. Smith: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill).
    Mr. Hill: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. I understand that the rules of the European Parliament have been the same for many years in that the Parliament has the ability to vary the budget that is presented to it by about 6 per cent. Of course, that can be challenged. which is where the difficulty is beginning to arise. At the moment, there is no approved budget and the supplementary £450 million is a contingency amount to enable the Community to be able to pay its wages and to keep the Community going. The European Parliament is in a strong position against the Council of Ministers and perhaps even the Commission. The money is needed until the difficulties are sorted out either by the law courts in Luxembourg or by the Council of Ministers giving way.
    Mr. Smith: As happened two years ago, it would have been far more sensible to mount a challenge in the courts if the Council of Ministers felt that appropriate and for the disputed elements in the budget—to which I shall come in a moment, because it is worth taking a look at the subject of the dispute—to be effectively frozen and for everything else to be released while the dispute was resolved by the courts. That would have been the sensible procedure, but I am afraid that that is not the way that the Government or Council of Ministers chose.
    Mr. Budgen rose—
    Mr. Smith: I have given way once to the hon. Gentleman and will not do so now because I should like to make progress and—
    Mr. Nigel Spearing rose—
    Mr. Smith: I shall give way for the last time to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Spearing: Referring to the answer that he has just given, is my hon. Friend aware of the 1982 recommendations of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service when the next such occasion arose when, whether or not it was sensible, the procedure that the Government have now adopted—however well explained or unexplained—was recommended? That is why they are doing it now.
    Mr. Smith: I believe that the Government have adopted an unnecessary and incorrect procedure, which has certainly not been well explained. My hon. Friend will be aware that the 1982 Select Committee report has already been mentioned. Instead of the Government's rushing to the House with a supplementary estimate vote, it would have been more sensible to ensure that the matter was sorted out in the normal budgetary procedure.
    Mr. Cash rose—
    Mr. Terence L. Higgins rose—
    Mr. Smith: I shall give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service, but must then make progress because other hon. Members want to participate.
    Mr. Higgins: The purpose of the Select Committee's recommendation at that time was that the House should have an opportunity to debate and consider the matter before the money was handed over. That seemed a sensible arrangement. If we were to proceed as the hon. Gentleman has just suggested and the court case were to go against us, we would be liable for penal rates of interest. The overall effect on our finances would thereby be worsened. That is why that is not a sensible way of proceeding.
    Mr. Smith: I follow the right hon. Gentleman about the need to ensure that the House has the opportunity to debate these matters. It is perfectly open to the Government to ensure that that takes place at any stage of the budgetary process. We had our all-too-brief debate on the budget a couple of months ago. As on several other occasions, I should certainly endorse greater openness and parliamentary accountability about what our Ministers get up to in the Council of Ministers.
    The first point to bear in mind is that I believe that the procedure we are undertaking tonight is unnecessary.
    Mr. Budgen rose—
    Mr. Smith: I shall not give way because of the pressure of time.
    The second point is that the increases in the budget, voted by the European Parliament in December, are within the financial perspective for 1992—a financial perspective endorsed and agreed by this Government some years ago.
    The 1992 budget, as voted by the Parliament, also represents 1·11 per cent. of Community gross national product, which is 0·09 per cent. below the upper limit of EC expenditure set when the financial perspective was agreed four years ago.
    It began to emerge from what the Financial Secretary said that the figure of £450 million is somewhat misleading. The dispute between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers relates to a far smaller figure than the £450 million British contribution that is before us. The Financial Secretary accepted that, on the Government's own admission, we are talking about an actual difference—an actual dispute—of £12 million for the year.
    The root cause of the difference lies with the Foreign Ministers of the Community. Some time ago they decided, collectively, that it would be a good idea if the EC made available substantial sums of additional aid to eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. They recommended amounts including 860 million ecu in aid for the former Soviet Union and the countries of eastern Europe, 300 million ecu for humanitarian aid, 300 million ecu to bring the structural funds into line with the real rate of inflation and other sums for the tropical rain forests.
    The Council of Ministers included those amounts in the budget. However, in recompense for adding those amounts, it said that it did not agree with some of the items that the European Parliament had included in the draft budget. Those items included an appropriation for improving the early-warning system relating to trends in

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    agricultural expenditure—an extremely important monitoring measure in which the Government should be interested—and appropriations for research and development expenditure at a level commensurate with the agreements reached between the Parliament and the Commission.
    The dispute is about additions to the budget for eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, which the Council of Ministers wants to include in the budget, and amounts, principally for expenditure on research and development, which the European Parliament wants to include in the budget.
    I have nothing against improving our aid profile to eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. We all know how important that task is and how strongly the Prime Minister has endorsed it in recent weeks. However, I do not believe that that should take place at the expense of research and development assistance, which our country desperately needs. In fact, Britain receives the lion's share of such expenditure by the EC. We are a net beneficiary of EC funds in terms of reserch and development rather than a net contributor. The Government's proposal would wish upon us a lower amount of such expenditure than would otherwise have been the case. The motion is not only unnecessary but, if the Council of Ministers had its way, it would reduce desperately needed research and development funds.
    I want to turn very briefly to the related, but not directly associated, issue of additionality. This concerns European Community budget moneys that we are in danger of being unable to use because of the fact that the Government refuse to accept the rules of procedure. At risk are potential grants of £114 million, under the RECHAR programme, to the coalfield areas of this country, as well as amounts under other regional investment programmes. The dispute is a simple one. It is between the Commission and the Government. The Commission points to article 9 of regulation 4253/88, which states that the money under the regional fund must have
    "a genuine additional economic impact in the regions concerned."
    Mr. Cash: Is anyone listening?
    Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman asks whether anyone is listening. In the coalfield communities of this country, there are many many hundreds of thousands of people for whom this issue is extremely important. As a direct result of the Government's activity and their refusal to abide by the rules, which they endorsed when they agreed the directive, we are losing a large amount in regional investment funds.
    Mr. Cash: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am confident that the hon. Gentleman's point is not directly relevant to this issue. However, may I ask whether it is not the case that Mr. Bruce Millan, the Commissioner, endorsed these very proposals when he was a Minister?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a point for debate, rather than a point of order.
    Mr. Smith: We are addressing ourselves to the European Community budget. It seems to me that it is extremely relevant that we should look at funds that are in the budget and ought to be available to the coalfield areas
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    of this country but are not reaching them. I realise that Conservative Members may not like to hear about additionality and about the RECHAR programme. I realise that they may not want to hear about what the Government's activity is denying us.
    Mr. Rupert Allason: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is this debate about the entire Community budget or strictly about this supplementary estimate?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is certainly about the supplementary estimate, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will address his remarks to that matter.
    Mr. Smith: Indeed, I am doing just that. I am addressing my remarks to the £450 million that the Government say should be included. Some of that money goes to the regional funds, which are the subject if the additionality dispute. It is entirely in order to raise this matter, which gives rise to very considerable concern. The hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) parrots the Secretary of State for the Environment. What he has said is a total misrepresentation of the truth. The rules on additionality came into effect only in 1988. That happened because our Government sat down with the other Governments and agreed that they should come into effect.
    Sir Hugh Rossi: I recall that, when I was in office in Northern Ireland in 1988, the principle of additionality then applied to moneys that were sought to be given by the Commission for the benefit of Northern Ireland, so I am not sure of the history to which the hon. Gentleman is referring.
    As the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the coalfields and has introduced that matter into this narrow debate, may I ask whether he is suggesting that the Government should deduct from the £450 million the money that the Commission is withholding from this country? Would he support the Government if that were the proposal?
    Mr. Smith: I was referring—had the hon. Gentleman been listening he might have noticed—to regulation 4253/88 passed by the Council of Ministers, including Ministers representing the British Government. I want to ensure that the British Government put enough openness and transparency into the system of regional aid and the RECHAR programme so that our coalfields can get access to the funds due to them. The Government are at fault in ensuring that the money does not come to the coalfield communities, and attempts by the hon. Member for Stafford and various Ministers, including the Secretary of State for the Environment, to say otherwise are nothing short of deliberately misleading.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment in 1989, commenting that the structural funds were to be almost doubled over five years, added that, without the principle of additionality, Community funding would become a farce. In 1989, he endorsed the principle of additionality, as had the Government in 1988, but now the Government are refusing to accept the rules that they helped to make. It is about time that the Government changed their approach and made sure that funds that are needed in the coalfield communities of this country reach the places that need them. If they are not prepared to do that, they should give up and make way for a Labour Government to take office, and we will ensure that it happens.
    11.11 pm
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I beg to move,
    That Class XX, Vote 1 be reduced by £100,000.
    I ask the House to support a brief and narrow amendment simply expressing our concern about the direction of policy that the Government are proposing, our outrage at the waste of money by the EC, and the total lack of control.
    In considering whether we are being told exactly how things stand, I appeal to the Financial Secretary to examine page 2 as well as page 8 of the estimates. Whereas we know that this is the result of an unlawful budget, page 2 talks not about £1 million or £10 million but says that the estimates increase spending by £450 million to £166,431,002,000. So basically it says that, as a result of what we are doing tonight, the estimates are being increased to that specified sum.
    But even if we say that that does not matter—even if we save just tuppence—I plead with hon. Members, before deciding on this issue, to consider what happened in 1982 when the same situation arose. The report of the Select Committee at that time said that a precedent was being created. Having said that it considered it to be an unsatisfactory precedent, it recommended that, if it ever happened again, we should not pay the disputed sum.
    That is the only issue before the House tonight. Is it right for Parliament to authorise payment for something that is unlawful? If local councillors did what was unlawful and exceeded their budget, they would be individually surcharged. On the same basis, hon. Members who tonight support what is proposed should be surcharged in the sum of £1 million. They would then think twice before lending their support, for I doubt whether many could afford such a surcharge. If a business firm were to spend money illegally, its members could be put in prison. When we consider the hardships suffered by many people in the country today, are we right to vote money illegally?
    Mr. Marlow: Opposition Front-Bench Members have suggested that the Government may not, with the other members of the Council of Ministers, challenge this illegal budget. Does my hon. Friend know whether this illegal budget will be challenged, and what is his reaction to that?
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I do not know. The same thing happened last time and the Committee asked why our Government did not challenge it. What is the point of saying that we will wait until the Twelve do so? Who are the Twelve? Are they all countries that are paying in money? We know that until recently Britain paid in and Germany paid in, and everybody else took out. Where is the financial control there? Where is the great desire to ensure that there is not extra or illegal spending?
    Mr. Budgen: May not my hon. Friend be out of touch with the more progressive and on-going attitude of our party at the present time? As I understand it, we now most of all desire to he at the heart of Europe. Surely that must mean that from time to time we simply lie down and give in to any illegal demands. Would anything else not be completely out of kilter with the modern desire to be friendly to everybody and to avoid confrontation? Surely consensus politics demands that we simply hand the money over. That is what has been done in a large number of other areas, and it would be monstrous not to do the same in relation to Europe.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I am sorry, but I cannot agree with my hon. Friend. I think that if Europe is to be a progressive, forward-looking entity it must have the same principle as we had in the House of Commons—that money is paid out only if it is legally justified, if Parliament authorises it. We do not pay it out and say that we will see if we can get it back later.
    It has been suggested that the amount is small. The Minister knows that that is a load of rubbish. Let us look at what happened in November 1987. Labour Members who attend all these debates faithfully will remember it. The previous Prime Minister said that we would make sure that we had strict budgetary controls. She said that we would give them lots of extra money and then the same thing could never happen again. And what happened? They overspent wildly by having a metric year of 10 months, with 12 months of income and 10 months of spending. There was a massive overspend. If hon. Members apply the metric principle to their own balance sheets, they will find that they do very well indeed.
    We were told what happened last time. A person called Mr. Spreckley, who works for the Treasury, gave evidence.
    He said:
    "As the Lord Privy Seal said at the time of his statement, it would have been preferable had everybody agreed not to pay these disputed sums."
    Does Parliament want to make illegal payment or does it not? That is the only issue.
    Mr. Allason: Would my hon. Friend care to speculate on exactly how the European Community can spend this money if it is not authorised to do so by the European Parliament? As I understand it, we are being asked now to make a payment which will be a part of the illegal budget. How will the Community be able to receive it and to spend it?
    Sir Teddy Taylor: I can tell my hon. Friend that it is because, sadly, as he well knows, there are accountancy fiddles daily within the European Community. He knows that what happened in 1988 was a fiddle and a fraud. All hon. Members know it.
    We should consider this simple issue: is it right, when the Select Committee told us in 1982 that we should not do it again, that we should not pay the money until there is a full debate?
    Any hon. Member who believes in democracy must agree that it is a disgrace and an outrage that we are discussing this vital issue at this time of night, when nobody will know about it, nobody will listen and no one will hear about it. It is a disgrace that all the dirty things to do with Europe, all the scandals of Europe, all the wastes and frauds of Europe, are always discussed here at the dead of night so that people outside do not know what is going on.
    Mr. Favell: Has it occurred to my hon. Friend that the winter Olympics will open next weekend? The draft general budget for 1992, which we are discussing today, refers to a second report by the ad hoc committee on a People's Europe, which relates to an appropriation of some £8 million. It then says:
    "This appropriation is intended to cover expenditure on financing certain public relations projects in connection with a major Community presence at the 1992 Olympic Games in Albertville and Barcelona, in particular participation in the opening and closing ceremonies and action to underpin the

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    Community identity of athletes from the Member States. To this end, the European Community flag will be used, particularly during the presentation of medals."
    That is to cost £8 million. The Community has already spent £700,000, on the world student games in Sheffield in July on what became known in Sheffield as "Europe Day". If my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East watched the rugby world cup, he will have seen that every time a player threw a ball in, a European flag appeared behind him. Unfortunately, I have been unable to discover how much that cost, but the advertising agent assures me that the Community was the patron.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: My hon. Friend is quite right, and hon. Members should be concerned about that. They should not smile about it because it is a waste of money.
    Mr. Budgen: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Sir Teddy Taylor: No, certainly not.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mrs. Gorman), who is always so conscientious, will confirm that the EC has just given Essex county council a grant to assist it in dealing with the problems created by Essex boy and Essex girl jokes. Furthermore, the EC has paid 170 million lira to a mafia-controlled firm for delivering non-existent fruit juice to NATO headquarters in Palermo, and it cannot get the money back. Ultimately, those who care about cash, especially hon. Members from Northern Ireland who know about poverty because they see so much of it, will be concerned that we should not waste money.
    Mr. Budgen: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Sir Teddy Taylor: Certainly not.
    There are one or two fanatics around whom we should disregard. One or two of the Euromugs, including the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith), give us the same old drivel every time. They say that the Common Market is wonderful and should be given more money to spend. The realists are concerned about people's problems. The time has come for the House of Commons to make a stand and say that we are fed up with fraud, waste and the European Community spending money that it is not authorised to spend.
    My hon. Friend the Minister has said that we should not bother about the matter too much because the paper does not really mean what it says. Although this expensive paper produced by the Treasury says that an extra £450 million is wanted to pay for an illegal budget, my hon. Friend says that it does not really mean that. Although it says that it will put up the Government estimates by £450 million to £166,431,002,000, my hon. Friend says that it does not really mean that. We are fed up to the teeth with this because we know that people are suffering from it. Money matters.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is always present during these debates because he is concerned about protecting people's interests. He was telling me what that £450 million will mean. For every pensioner on housing benefit, it will mean £5 a week, which is a lot of money. So we are not talking about silly amounts.
    We should bear in mind that, when this happened before, a Select Committee told us that next time it happens we should not be mugs and pay it but should just
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    say no. It told us that if the Community wants Britain to pay for illegal money, we should let it take us to court. The Council of Ministers should be aware that, if that matter goes to the European Court, we might win. The majority of the members of that Council are being paid cash for being in the EC. The time has come to say no.
    We have tabled a modest amendment. It does not seek to scrap the motion or wreck the Government's policy—
    Mr. Richard Shepherd: We have been trying to do that for years.
    Sir Teddy Taylor: My hon. Friend is right.
    We say to the moderate Members who feel that something is wrong and should be put right that they should vote in favour of reducing the payment by £100,000. Let us give that to the poor and to the places which need help. In other words, we are not suggesting that the Conservative party or the Labour party should stand on its head. We simply say that we are fed up to the teeth with the waste and extravagance throughout Europe, and with the fact that expenditure is not controlled.
    At the end of the day, the House of Commons should not be asked to pay for unlawful money. That is what we are being asked to do tonight. When that last happened, hon. Members will remember, a chap called King Charles had his head chopped off. The time has come for someone's head to roll. We have to stand firm.
    There are not many hon. Members present. By having the debate late at night, the Government have made sure that the public will not hear about it. We have to stand firm. I appeal to the Labour Members who are always here—the decent, conscientious people who fight for the interests of their country—and to Conservative Members too to remember that democracy is more important than party politics. Therefore, I appeal to the House to make a gesture by voting for the modest amendment. In that way the House will say that the time has come to say no, and it will give a warning that it is fed up.
    11.25 pm
    Mr. Denzil Davies: The Financial Secretary sought to give the impression that somehow the post-Fontainebleau arrangements negotiated by the Government were superior to those negotiated by the Labour Government. He is nodding his head. The system of payments that existed between 1972 and the Fontainebleau agreement of 1984 was negotiated by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) when the country acceded to the treaty of Rome. From 1972 to 1984 that was the system. From 1972 to 1977 there was a five-year transitional period. It was only in 1978 that the system of full payments came in.
    There was an election in 1979. It took the Government five years to reach the Fontainebleau agreement. I make no complaint about that and pay tribute to the Government for doing so, but the Financial Secretary should not give the impression that somehow the system that the Conservative Government negotiated was better than that negotiated by the Labour Government.
    Mr. Maude: I simply remind the right hon. Gentleman of what the Labour Government said at the time, which was that they had renegotiated the arrangements.
    Mr. Davies: They were never renegotiated.

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    May I make another point to the hon. Gentleman? Apparently some of the payments will be in respect of a possible illegal budget. This is not the first time that has happened. In 1978 there was a possible illegal budget exactly like this one, but the Labour Government did not come to the House and seek approval to pay money over while a dispute was going on. We stopped the cheque. By doing so, we got agreement fairly quickly. Stopping the cheque concentrates the mind, especially of the Commission. The Government should not pay the money. That would lead to the dispute being resolved quickly. The Government should not seek approval to pay money in respect of what could be an illegal budget.
    Let us consider the Fontainebleau agreement. Despite that agreement, the United Kingdom is still the second largest net contributor to the budget. There are only two net contributors, year in, year out—Germany and Britain. It is no good the Minister shaking his head. France sometimes becomes a net contributor; the following year it probably is not. Next year we will contribute £2·45 billion to the Community budget. Yet in terms of the per capita GDP, the wealth of the country, we rank below Luxembourg, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark and probably Holland. Despite that, we are the second major net contributor to the budget. Despite Fontainebleau, we are in the same relative position as we were before that agreement.
    There must be something wrong with such a system, and we know what it is. We import more, we consume more and the common agricultural policy does not benefit us because we do not receive the payments because of the size and structure of our agricultural sector.
    Some people fondly believe that if we could reform the CAP we would pay less. This is not the place to debate the MacSharry proposals—I do not understand them all—but, having read them cursorily, I do not think that we would pay less even if the CAP were reformed under the MacSharry proposals. I do not believe that it will ever be reformed from inside, but if it were there would be large redundancy payments to the smaller farmers of Europe. The motor car workers who return home at night and milk a few cows will receive redundancy payments under the MacSharry plan, whereas the official farmers will be thrown to the market place and will not receive payments. To think that a reform of the CAP, should it ever take place, would reduce our contribution is to live in cloud cuckoo land.
    It was suggested that if we could convert the CAP so that it withered away and became a sort of common regional policy, we would benefit. I am not sure about that. The Maastricht agreement contains a section dealing with "social cohesion"—I think that that is the latest phrase to be in vogue in the Community. As I understand it, the infrastructure fund is paid to member states in which the gross domestic product per head of population is below that of the Community average—£100. The rate for the United Kingdom is more than £100, countries with below average rates are Southern Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Therefore, even the new common regional policy will not benefit us, despite the fact that GDP per head in Wales is £85—or £87 last year—in Scotland the figure hovers around £100, for the north of England the figure is below £100 and in the west midlands it is below £100, as it is in the north-west. Even that attempt at social cohesion
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    does not benefit a country such as the United Kingdom in which the GDP per head is higher than the Community average.
    I do not know how we shall benefit from any of the systems, yet we must do so. If we move towards economic and monetary union, the countries and regions on the Community's fringes—such as Wales, the north-west and the south-west—will suffer from the concentration and centralisation of a common currency.
    Next year, we will repay £2·5 billion—a not abnormally high amount—in public expenditure. That money could be used for hospitals, schools, research and development—which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) rightly said was important. That money will go across the exchanges to the undemocratic, bureaucratic institution and we shall never get it back. I do not believe that that institution will ever be reformed from the inside. The only hope—and it may be vain—is that changes in Europe and the enlargement of the Community will bring down the whole, silly edifice. The sooner that that happens, the better.
    11.33 pm
    Rev. Ian Paisley: On the issue of additionality, it should be known that there is a constant fight between the Treasury and Ministers heading their Departments. Today I spoke to the Minister who is in charge of agriculture in Northern Ireland. He told me that he was fighting for moneys that his Department should receive, and that the Treasury was holding them up.
    I believe that money from Europe that is earmarked for a specific job in a certain district in the United Kingdom should be additional money used for that purpose. Many schemes, such as the Spede scheme in Northern Ireland, are suffering at present, whereas those benefiting from the system in the Irish republic are using that power and money to undercut our economy. They already have their money. All sorts of additional moneys should be coming to us, and we should try to settle that issue once and for all.
    If any Department had presented this estimate with such a degree of misrepresentation and falsehoods, the Minister involved would have been hounded out of the House. The Financial Secretary says that the House has not been given an accurate account of the provision for which it is asked to vote. We were given all sorts of explanations. Some tell us that we are voting for only £1 million a month, and others that the figure might be the whole £450 million. The House should know exactly how much it is being asked to pay.
    The Financial Secretary nodded when the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) asked whether the consent of the House was required. When the hon. Member for Ashfield said,
    "The Government have their hands in our pockets again",
    the Minister replied, "I do not have my hands in your pockets, but Europe does." It is the Minister's business to get Europe's hands out of the nation's pockets, because they are the hands of a thief. They are the hands of a law-breaker. They are the hands of a criminal. It is the Financial Secretary's duty to stop Europe's criminal practices.
    I am asked as a Member of the House to vote on something that is not permitted by Community legislation. Let us admit that. If that is so, how can a Minister who believes in law and order ask the House to vote for something that is illegal? I say to the Financial Secretary

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    that if he wants to impress Europe he must take the action suggested by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies), and tell Europe, "We're not giving you the money. Go to the courts and ask for the money. If the courts of Europe say that we have to pay, we will consider it again." He should promise not to pay, but only to reconsider. That is the attitude that the Minister should adopt.
    Mr. Cash: In view of my hon. Friend's extremely effective speech, does he consider that we ought to refer the matter to the Privileges Committee or to the Chairman of Ways and Means? If the House, even on the Government's own admission, is expected to make an illegal payment of as little, comparatively speaking, as £12 million—let alone £450 million on the Order Paper—that should be investigated by the House. We cannot be an engine of fraud. If the issue were referred to the courts, they would decide against the House. Does not my hon. Friend seriously consider having the matter thoroughly investigated—and not merely at this time of night?
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Anything that could stop a law-breaker should be employed. That is what we are saying in Northern Ireland. We should take steps to stop the law-breakers—and we have deliberate law-breaking here. It is for the Minister to take Europe's hand—and I trust that he has a supremely tough hand of his own—and say, "So far and no further." The House must make its view absolutely clear.
    If Europe gets away with it this time, it will do it again. Instead of a sum of £12 million, it could be £120 million, and so on. Let us stop it now. It rests with the Financial Secretary to stand up—and be an Oliver Cromwell, I was going to say—and decapitate the law-breaker.
    Mr. Moate: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. On several occasions this evening—including the Financial Secretary's statement—it has been stated that the motion is wrong. The Financial Secretary said explicitly that we were discussing a sum of £12 million; the motion refers to £450 million. The Financial Secretary said that it could have been more happily worded—which is a euphemistic way of saying that it is wrong.
    Surely, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have heard enough to realise that the House is being asked to pass a motion that has been admitted to be incorrect. Surely that cannot be permissible. What powers have you to urge the Government either to withdraw the motion, or to have it amended by manuscript amendment now, so that the House can at least be asked to deal with a motion that is correct and honest?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: That matter was raised with Mr. Speaker yesterday on a point of order. Mr. Speaker ruled that the motions were in order, and that if they were found in due course to be illegal, it would be a matter for the courts. That ruling is on the record, and I cannot add to it or subtract from it.
    Mr. Moate: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I appreciate your ruling, but, with respect, I am making a rather different point. It does not concern the question of legality; it simply concerns the accuracy of the motion. The motion suggests that the whole £450 million relates to illegal payments, but the Financial Secretary has
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    made it clear that the illegal payment is just £12 million. The motion is admittedly wrong; surely it should be withdrawn or ruled out of order.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for debate; it is not a point of order.
    Mr. Marlow: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have dealt with the point of order; and it was dealt with by Mr. Speaker yesterday. There is very little time left.
    Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As we have been told, we are discussing an illegal budget—an illegal payment. Can we somehow be given legal advice by a Law Officer of the Crown about the implications of the House conniving at an illegal payment—conniving at fraud? The House has agreed to pay money that is illegal.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are debating a matter that is in order. Hon. Members are perfectly entitled, when the time comes very shortly, to vote against it if they so desire. We would not be debating the matter if it were not in order.
    Mr. Budgen: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely there is a specifically legal point involved in advising the House about our rights in relation to the institutions of the European Community. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary, with his distinguished background as an Old Bailey criminal lawyer, was most effective in defending the Government in support of fraudulent activities; but surely it would not be unkind or impertinent to him to demand something rather distinguished in the way of advice from the Attorney-General. He says that there are many important manifestations of the federal law of the EEC that are unknown to the House. We should like to know our chances of preventing the payments by going through the no doubt very splendid procedures of the European Court. Until we have the Attorney-General's advice, we are in the dark.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may be in time to tempt the Financial Secretary to rise, but he certainly will not tempt me.
    11.43 pm
    Mr. Nigel Spearing: It seems to me that the question is not about illegality, but about whether or not the budget is legal. In a powerful speech, the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) put his finger on the point. We are now discussing political power and authority—the power of a person and, in the end, of the House. By tabling a motion on Friday, which unfortunately I did not see because I was not here, the Government have restricted our debate to an hour and a half. That is wrong. The Chairman of the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, which has produced reports on this matter, has not spoken. He should have been able to make a contribution. Also, for all his qualities, the Financial Secretary did not really explain what is going on. It would have been better if the Government had presented a document in the form of a White Paper to explain the background before the debate took place.
    Mr. Derek Enright: That is unreasonable.
    Mr. Spearing: In this Parliament, we want explanations from our Government before the debate starts. We have not had that, and that is why we will force a Division. The traditional way of showing dissatisfaction with the activities of a Government or their proposals that have not been properly debated is to move a motion suggesting a token reduction in the amount involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Smith) said that, technically, that might make some reduction in this, that or the other. However, everybody knows that, when we used to table motions about reductions of salaries or of a vote, it was a protest.
    We have not had proper procedural debates on this topic. The Government have not provided sufficient information, and there is confusion over whether the sum is £12 million or £450 million, not to mention the £1,000 million of contingency vote that is mentioned elsewhere but to which no hon. Member has referred. Given all that, hon. Members should feel justified in voting for the amendment as a token of their dissatisfaction at the way in which the House has been treated.
    I hope that the Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee will have a few seconds to address the House.
    11.46 pm
    Mr. Terence L. Higgins: I have only a few seconds. Can the Financial Secretary confirm that it is the Government's intention to oppose the illegal budget? Can he confirm that, if we go along with the estimate and win, the money will be returned to us by one means or another, perhaps by withholding VAT payments?
    It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Questions necessary to dispose of the motions relating to supplementary estimates 1991–92 and estimates 1992–93, pursuant to the Order yesterday.
    Question put, That the amendment be made:—
    The House proceeded to a Division—
    Mr. Budgen (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Can the Financial Secretary briefly answer the questions put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins)? Do the Government intend to oppose this illegal—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have put the Question and we are now proceeding to a Division. I cannot allow any further debate.
    Sir Teddy Taylor (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nobody shouted, "No." We did not hear anyone shout, "No."
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I do not want any confusion. I put the Question on the amendment of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor). To be completely clear, I shall put the Question again.
    Question put, That the amendment be made:—
    The House proceeded to a Division—
    Mr. Marlow (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There is general agreement in the House that the first time you put the Question a strong Aye was given, but there was no contrary indication, no "No".
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have been through this process twice now. It was wholly clear to me that there
    252
    were both Ayes and Noes, and we are now proceeding to a Division. [Interruption.] Order. There can be no further points of order.
    Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that the proceedings of this House are recorded. If it transpires on that recording that there was no No given the first time you put the Question, is not the second time you put the Question invalid, and does not the amendment therefore pass without a Division? The evidence is there and the matter can be checked.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The House knows the procedures very well. I have already put the Question on the amendment of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor), and we are now proceeding to vote on that amendment.
    Mr. Marlow (seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Question to be put a second time when the amendment was passed without demur on the first occasion?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are now proceeding to a Division. [Interruption.] Order. There are no further points of order.
    Mr. Tim Janman (Thurrock) (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order to proceed to a Division when there were no Noes when you first put the Question?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I shall take no further points of order until the Division is completed.
    The House having divided: Ayes 27, Noes 220.

    Division No. 67]

    [11.46 pm

    AYES

    Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Beggs, Roy

    Moate, Roger

    Body, Sir Richard

    Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

    Budgen, Nicholas

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Cash, William

    Ross, William (Londonderry E)

    Conway, Derek

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Cryer, Bob

    Skinner, Dennis

    Dover, Den

    Spearing, Nigel

    Gill, Christopher

    Winnick, David

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Janman, Tim

    Kilfedder, James

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Leighton, Ron

    Sir Teddy Taylor and

    McCrea, Rev William

    Mr. Jonathan Aitken.

    Marlow, Tony

    NOES

    Alexander, Richard

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Allason, Rupert

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Alton, David

    Boswell, Tim

    Amess, David

    Bottomley, Peter

    Amos, Alan

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Arbuthnot, James

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Bowis, John

    Arnold, Sir Thomas

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Ashby, David

    Brazier, Julian

    Atkins, Robert

    Bright, Graham

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Burns, Simon

    Baldry, Tony

    Butcher, John

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Butler, Chris

    Batiste, Spencer

    Butterfill, John

    Bellingham, Henry

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Carrington, Matthew

    253

    Channon, Rt Hon Paul

    Latham, Michael

    Chapman, Sydney

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Churchill, Mr

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Colvin, Michael

    Livsey, Richard

    Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Couchman, James

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Lord, Michael

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

    Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Day, Stephen

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Devlin, Tim

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Maclean, David

    Dorrell, Stephen

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Dunn, Bob

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Madel, David

    Evennett, David

    Malins, Humfrey

    Fallon, Michael

    Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Fookes, Dame Janet

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Mellor, Rt Hon David

    Forth, Eric

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Mills, Iain

    Franks, Cecil

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Freeman, Roger

    Mitchell, Sir David

    French, Douglas

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Morris, M (N'hampton S)

    Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

    Morrison, Sir Charles

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Gorst, John

    Moss, Malcolm

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Moynihan, Hon Colin

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Neale, Sir Gerrard

    Gregory, Conal

    Nelson, Anthony

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Grist, Ian

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Ground, Patrick

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Hague, William

    Norris, Steve

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Page, Richard

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Paice, James

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Patnick, Irvine

    Hannam, Sir John

    Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

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

    Pawsey, James

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Harris, David

    Portillo, Michael

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Hawkins, Christopher

    Price, Sir David

    Hayes, Jerry

    Raffan, Keith

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

    Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Redwood, John

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Riddick, Graham

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Hill, James

    Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

    Hind, Kenneth

    Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Sackville, Hon Tom

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

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Hunt, Rt Hon David

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Irvine, Michael

    Sims, Roger

    Jack, Michael

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Jackson, Robert

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Speller, Tony

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Squire, Robin

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Stephen, Nicol

    Knapman, Roger

    Stern, Michael

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    Stevens, Lewis

    Knowles, Michael

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Knox, David

    Stewart, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    254

    Sumberg, David

    Wheeler, Sir John

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Whitney, Ray

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Wilkinson, John

    Thorne, Neil

    Wilshire, David

    Thurnham, Peter

    Wolfson, Mark

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Wood, Timothy

    Tredinnick, David

    Woodcock, Dr. Mike

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Yeo, Tim

    Viggers, Peter

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Walden, George

    Wallace, James

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Mr. David Lightbown and

    Wells, Bowen

    Mr. John M. Taylor.

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Main Question put:—
    The House divided: Ayes 223, Noes 16.

    Division No. 68]

    [12 midnight

    AYES

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Fallon, Michael

    Alexander, Richard

    Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Fishburn, John Dudley

    Allason, Rupert

    Fookes, Dame Janet

    Alton, David

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Amess, David

    Forth, Eric

    Amos, Alan

    Fowler, Rt Hon Sir Norman

    Arbuthnot, James

    Fox, Sir Marcus

    Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

    Franks, Cecil

    Arnold, Sir Thomas

    Freeman, Roger

    Ashby, David

    French, Douglas

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Garel-Jones, Rt Hon Tristan

    Atkins, Robert

    Glyn, Dr Sir Alan

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

    Goodlad, Rt Hon Alastair

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

    Baldry, Tony

    Gorst, John

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

    Batiste, Spencer

    Greenway, John (Ryedale)

    Bellingham, Henry

    Gregory, Conal

    Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

    Blackburn, Dr John G.

    Grist, Ian

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Ground, Patrick

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hague, William

    Boswell, Tim

    Hamilton, Rt Hon Archie

    Bottomley, Peter

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Hannam, Sir John

    Bowis, John

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

    Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

    Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

    Brazier, Julian

    Harris, David

    Bright, Graham

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

    Hawkins, Christopher

    Burns, Simon

    Hayes, Jerry

    Butcher, John

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

    Butler, Chris

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Butterfill, John

    Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

    Carrington, Matthew

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Channon, Rt Hon Paul

    Hill, James

    Chapman, Sydney

    Hind, Kenneth

    Chope, Christopher

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Churchill, Mr

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Clark, Rt Hon Alan (Plymouth)

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

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

    Colvin, Michael

    Hunt, Rt Hon David

    Cope, Rt Hon Sir John

    Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

    Couchman, James

    Irvine, Michael

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Jack, Michael

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

    Jackson, Robert

    Davis, David (Boothferry)

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Day, Stephen

    Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

    Devlin, Tim

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

    Dorrell, Stephen

    King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

    Dunn, Bob

    Kirkhope, Timothy

    Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

    Knapman, Roger

    Evennett David

    Knight, Greg (Derby North)

    255

    Knowles, Michael

    Raffan, Keith

    Knox, David

    Raison, Rt Hon Sir Timothy

    Latham, Michael

    Redwood, John

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Riddick, Graham

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Roberts, Rt Hon Sir Wyn

    Lester, Jim (Broxtowe)

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Lightbown, David

    Sackville, Hon Tom

    Livsey, Richard

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

    Scott, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Shaw, David (Dover)

    Lord, Michael

    Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

    Luce, Rt Hon Sir Richard

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Lyell, Rt Hon Sir Nicholas

    Sims, Roger

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Maclean, David

    Speller, Tony

    McLoughlin, Patrick

    Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

    McNair-Wilson, Sir Patrick

    Squire, Robin

    Madel, David

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Malins, Humfrey

    Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

    Marshall, Sir Michael (Arundel)

    Stephen, Nicol

    Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

    Stern, Michael

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Stevens, Lewis

    Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

    Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

    Mellor, Rt Hon David

    Stewart, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Sumberg, David

    Miller, Sir Hal

    Taylor, Ian (Esher)

    Mills, Iain

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

    Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

    Mitchell, Sir David

    Thorne, Neil

    Moate, Roger

    Thurnham, Peter

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Tredinnick, David

    Morris, M (N'hampton S)

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Morrison, Sir Charles

    Viggers, Peter

    Morrison, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Walden, George

    Moss, Malcolm

    Wallace, James

    Moynihan, Hon Colin

    Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

    Neale, Sir Gerrard

    Wells, Bowen

    Nelson, Anthony

    Wheeler, Sir John

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Whitney, Ray

    Nicholson, David (Taunton)

    Widdecombe, Ann

    Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

    Wilkinson, John

    Norris, Steve

    Wilshire, David

    Oppenheim, Phillip

    Wolfson, Mark

    Page, Richard

    Wood, Timothy

    Paice, James

    Woodcock, Dr. Mike

    Patnick, Irvine

    Yeo, Tim

    Patten, Rt Hon Chris (Bath)

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Pawsey, James

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Portillo, Michael

    Mr. John M. Taylor and

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Mr. Neil Hamilton.

    Price, Sir David

    NOES

    Beggs, Roy

    Paisley, Rev Ian

    Body, Sir Richard

    Ross, William (Londonderry E)

    Budgen, Nicholas

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Cash, William

    Taylor, Sir Teddy

    Dover, Den

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Gill, Christopher

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Gorman, Mrs Teresa

    Janman, Tim

    Tellers for the Noes:

    McCrea, Rev William

    Mr. Bob Cryer and

    Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

    Mr. Dennis Skinner.

    Question accordingly agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That a further supplementary sum not exceeding £450,000,000 he granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges for civil services
    256
    which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1992, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 182 of Session 1991–92.

    ESTIMATES 1992–93 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT)
    Resolved,
    That a further sum not exceeding £1,000 be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for defence and civil services for the year ending on 31st March 1993, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 183 of Session 1991–92.—[Mr. Maude.]
    Bill ordered to be brought in upon the foregoing Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. David Mellor, Mrs. Gillian Shephard, Mr. John Maples and Mr. Frank Maude.

    CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL
    Mr. Francis Maude accordingly presented a Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31st March 1992 and 1993: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time this day and to be printed. [Bill 60.]
    Mr. Spearing: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. In the few moments at the end of the debate when I was speaking I referred to something that I thought had been said by my hon. Friend for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright). I want to make it absolutely clear that I mistook what he said. He suggested that I introduce the point of conciliation, but I thought that he said something else. Therefore, if anything I said, or the manner in which I said it, reflected upon my hon. Friend, it was completely wrong and my fault.
    Can you confirm, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the matter before us could have been debated until any hour but for the fact that the Government tabled a motion last night and no hon. Member, including any member of the official Opposition, objected to its being taken then by simply saying "Object?" Had that happened, we would have been able to debate this important matter until everyone who wished to speak had had the opportunity to do so. If you can confirm that, does that not show the unwisdom of the Government, or anyone else, in discussing matters relating to European Community finance on what is, in effect, a guillotine?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, he has, with his characteristic courtesy, set the record straight concerning the comments of the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Mr. Enright). On his second point, I should say that the debate was governed by the order of the House, which was agreed yesterday, that the debate should last one and half hours, and no more.

    WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE
    Ordered,
    That, during the proceedings on the Matter of education in Wales, the Welsh Grand Committee have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it shall meet; and that, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 88 (Meetings of standing committees), the second such sitting shall not commence before Four o'clock nor continue after the Committee has considered the Matter for two hours at that sitting.—[Mr. Kirkhope.]

  PETITION

    Roads (Leicester)
    12.15 am
    Mr. Keith Vaz: I wish to present a petition on behalf of Mr. Mick Jones of Evington, Mr. John Thomas of Thurnby Lodge and Mary Draycott of Coleman, in my constituency, and Mr. John Henwood of Oadby. They have collected 112 signatures against the proposed eastern district distributor road and the A46/A47 link road.
    As the House will know, there have been many debates, and many petitions have been presented on behalf of local people who are opposed to the road's going through the eastern part of the city. The desire is that the quality of life of people in Leicester should not be affected by this absurd proposal.
    The petition ends with these words:
    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House urge the Secretary of State for Transport to refuse to grant permission for these roads to be built and the new alternatives be put forward for consideration to direct the traffic well outside the residential areas.
    And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    This is the first of a number of petitions that I shall be presenting to the House on behalf of local residents opposed to this road.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Staffordshire Regiment
  Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.–[Mr. Kirkhope.]
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I understand that hon. Members other than the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) may seek to intervene. I should remind the House that the Adjournment debate is, as it were, the property of the Member who has it and of the Minister who is replying. Interventions can take place only with the agreement of the hon. Member and the Minister.
  12.16 am
  Mr. William Cash: I am glad to have this opportunity to raise again the case of the Staffordshire Regiment and its proposed amalgamation. The matter raises serious and substantive issues which have evoked deep concern among right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, many of whom—particularly those from Staffordshire—are here tonight. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, who will reply to the debate, and to hon. Members on both sides of the House who, by their presence here after midnight, are demonstrating their anxiety about the amalgamation. As the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Mr. Hamilton), will be aware, there is immense concern amongst my constituents and those of all hon. Members from Staffordshire and the west midlands and, indeed, Cheshire about the proposed amalgamation.
  Soon after 23 July 1991, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made a statement to the House outlining the shape of regimental amalgamations, a campaign to save the Staffordshire Regiment was initiated by the Save Our Staffords campaign committee. The strength of feeling about the unreasonableness of the amalgamation was amply demonstrated when, in October, I and other hon. Members presented to Mr. Speaker a petition containing almost 100,000 signatures from the people of Staffordshire and the west midlands. Tonight right hon. and hon. Members are once again demonstrating their support for a review of the rationale for the proposed amalgamation of the Staffordshire Regiment.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces has on numerous occasions said that it is not possible to reconsider the proposed amalgamations or justify them, even when the rationale appears to be far from clear.
  Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Does not my hon. Friend agree that a political decision was taken to preserve the Royal Welch Fusiliers without any amalgamation and to amalgamate the Staffords with the Cheshires, and that that was plainly in breach of the undertaking that was given to the Staffords when the North Staffords and the South Staffords amalgamated in 1959?
  The House now requires a proper explanation of the political decisions that were taken. It is plainly unsatisfactory for the Minister who made those decisions, and who appears before the House to justify them, simply to say, "It wasn't me, guv; the Army Board decided this." He is the person responsible and if a political decision has been taken, it is for him to explain it and justify it.
  Mr. Cash: I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is precisely why we were dissatisfied with the answers that were given, as shown on television, when the Minister was cross-examined by the Select Committee on Defence, the report of which is due soon.
  The Staffordshire Regiment has already been amalgamated once since the second world war; it was not recommended for re-amalgamation by the Colonel Commandant of the Prince of Wales Division—an important factor; it meets every criterion laid down by the Army Board for retention, when many regiments do not; and it was never given the opportunity to put its case to the Army Board, when others were. I should welcome my hon. Friend's comments on those issues, should he feel able to discuss them tonight. I suspect that he may not be willing to do so.
  Mr. Budgen: Why not?
  Mr. Cash: That is a matter for the Minister when he replies. It is not acceptable for him or his officials to hide behind the pretext that, because decisions on amalgamations have now been made, they cannot be considered because that would open a Pandora's box and lead to every regiment clamouring for a review of its case.
  Mr. Nicol Stephen: I support the hon. Gentleman's campaign. Is he aware that there is equally strong feeling in Scotland about the amalgamations of the infantry battalions there, that all-party support has been given to the campaign to save the Scottish battalions and that we, too, are awaiting an explanation of the military rationale for the cuts? No such explanation has so far been given, and it appears that the cuts have been made purely for financial reasons.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that the Adjournment is related to the future of the Staffordshire Regiment.
  Mr. Cash: Just because a decision might have been ill-judged and might prove embarrassing to review is insufficient reason to refuse to review it. In any event, I draw the attention of the House to other aspects of the case for the amalgamation of the Staffordshire Regiment that do not make sense, politically or militarily.
  My right hon. Friend has said frequently that he supports the regimental system. This amalgamation, which would combine people from Liverpool with those from the midlands, demonstrates no social, historical or regional communality. As one who lives north of Watford, I do not believe that those who made the decision have the faintest idea that that is a real problem.
  I come to the issue of regional representation. In an interview with Severin Carrell of The Scotsman on 27 January of this year, my right hon. Friend said that it would not be "politically acceptable" to have a large number of regiments in one part of the United Kingdom and fewer in another. I agree. I agree also with his contention that
  "there is demand from the people of the United Kingdom that they should have local regiments to join."
  Where then is the political or military rationale for retaining six English infantry regiments north of the Humber-Merseyside line, some of which are struggling to recruit, and only two in the huge population area and recruitment reservoir of the midlands? Pooling the two
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  regiments into one will not only reduce pride in and commitment to them; it will reduce the prospects for recruitment when employment patterns change.
  The Secretary of State and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces have said that, because there will be fewer regiments, those that remain will be better able to be recruited at full strength. "Smaller is better" have been the watchwords, but how can this be so when some recruiting areas, judged by the published demographic projections, can always be expected to experience greater difficulties than others in maintaining their peacetime establishments?
  Let me take the example of the King's Division, where published demographic data strongly suggest that it will not be possible to sustain the number of infantry regiments located in the area. I understand that the King's Division recently asked the Scottish Division for 100 soldiers to make up its strength in anticipation of a tour of duty in Northern Ireland. Since the King's Division cannot meet its recruiting targets, what possible justification can there be for sacrificing the Staffordshire Regiment on the altar of amalgamation when demographic projections show clearly the Staffords' huge and largely untapped recruiting potential for infantry, particularly in the core recruiting age group of 16 to 24-year-olds?
  Mr. Tony Favell: It is quite clear from the speech that my hon. Friend is making that feelings run very high in Staffordshire. Is he aware that feelings run just as high in Cheshire about this proposed amalgamation?
  Mr. Cash: I am indeed, and I have heard the same thing. After all, my own constituency virtually borders on Cheshire and there is absolutely no question about the feelings in both counties. I will go further and say that when the Cheshires were asked which regiments they would want to amalgamate with they put the Staffords at the bottom of the list. That is not a very good recipe for harmony.
  I put it to my right hon. Friend that insufficient time —this is important—was made available in those last 36 hours for the many balances and nuances to be adequately weighed and discussed. The result is that the infantry will be overstretched to an even greater degree. The result is, too, that the Staffordshire Regiment has been unfairly singled out for amalgamation, despite the fact that it met the Army Board's own criteria, which should have militated against its amalgamation.
  "Options for Change" crucially failed to take account of the unexpected, as I said in a previous debate. To be fair, who, in June or July last year, could have been expected to anticipate the abortive putsch in the old USSR, that country's subsequent collapse and the emergence of the Commonwealth of Independent States? Who could have expected the upsurge of violence in Northern Ireland or the request for a United Nations peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia, or what remains of it? And all this is in addition to any commitment we may have to the advanced rapid reaction corps. The uncertainties in this situation, the instability and volatility in Europe and elsewhere in the world speak for themselves.
  I understand that in a recent letter my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence wrote to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs regarding the Staffordshire Regiment in the following terms:
  "the excellent work done by the Regiment in the Gulf is not forgotten."
  I truly trust that it is not.

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  It would be a tragedy if the Staffordshire Regiment were to be re-amalgamated at a time when other regiments have not been amalgamated once since 1945, when the regiment has an outstanding record of service to the county and to the country, when its recruitment and retention are good, when demographic trends show clearly its sustainability, while other regiments' demographic projections do not, and when the geography and regional representation arguments simply do not stand up to examination.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the crux of his very excellent argument is that both the Staffordshire Regiment and the Cheshire Regiment entirely meet the criteria of the Army Board for retention as they are, while many regiments that have remained unamalgamated and unmerged do not meet those criteria, and that is the unfairness of the situation?
  Mr. Cash: That indeed is the case, combined with the total inadequacy of consultation before the decision was taken.
  Mr. Budgen: It is all very well talking about fairness, but a political decision was taken and, therefore, the politicians ought to explain it.
  Mr. Cash: Indeed, we shall wait to hear what the Minister has to say.
  I urge the Minister to consider the fact that the Staffordshire Regiment was never given the chance to put its case to the Army Board, because of a breakdown in the military hierarchy. That is where the problem lies. I also urge my right hon. Friend, in the strongest possible terms, to look again at the rationale for the amalgamation.
  12.30 am
  Mr. Bruce George rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Does the hon. Gentleman have the agreement of the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces to make a speech?
  Mr. George: Yes, Sir.
  I thank the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) for allowing me to intervene. I speak on behalf of my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) and many thousands of people in Staffordshire, the west midlands and Cheshire.
  My objections to "Options for Change" and to the enforced merger of the Cheshire and Staffordshire Regiments are many. The reduction to 116,000 and 38 infantry battalions is absurd and dangerous. Overstretch is inevitable, especially as a result of our commitments in Northern Ireland. In one crisis some years ago, there were a dozen infantry battalions in Belfast alone and only 36 will now be available for Northern Ireland.
  Was our leadership of the rapid reaction corps gained on a false prospectus? Will NATO be happy with the double hatting of the rapid reaction corps and forces engaged in Belfast and Belize? Will we keep control of the Allied Command Europe rapid reaction corps?
  The Ministry of Defence has got the threat analysis wrong. How long will it be before that folly is exposed?
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  The Treasury smoking gun is visible for all who wish to see it. Why should an analysis of security be determined by the Treasury rather than the Ministry of Defence?
  The key question is whether an Army of the size proposed by the Government will prove sufficient in peacetime, let alone crisis and war. I am certain that it will not. The method by which the Army Board and Ministers chose the regiments for merger was shameful, and was exacerbated by their wilful refusal, in public and in private, to give the Defence Select Committee, the Staffordshire Regiment and hon. Members an opportunity to understand why they were chosen. It is an issue not of national security but of politics. Why do not the Government come clean and tell us why the regiments were merged? Silence will prove more costly to them in the long run.
  The decision to merge the Staffordshire and Cheshire Regiments is bizarre and has not been explained. The Minister hopes that the issue will go away, but it will not. I guarantee that it will return to haunt him, his colleagues and the members of the Army Board who endorsed it.
  12.33 am
  The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) on securing this debate. I am well aware of his close interest in this subject and that he has argued diligently on behalf of the Staffordshire Regiment.
  The House will be aware of the background to the Army restructuring under which the Staffordshire and Cheshire Regiments will merge in 1993. It is important that the necessity for this restructuring should be fully understood and I make no apologies for repeating some of the many points which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence and I have made before in this House.
  The past two years have seen radical changes in the European security environment, where the scale of conventional forces now facing the west has declined significantly. It was against that backdrop that what has now become widely known as the "Options for Change" exercise was born.
  Forty years of peace under NATO demonstrated that the security of the United Kingdom is best served by maintaining effective national forces as part of a powerful alliance. With the collapse of the Warsaw pact and the withdrawal from eastern Europe of forces of the former Soviet Union, the risks of conflict have changed. Europe no longer faces such a threat from massive forces able to move forward across a wide front in a matter of days. But there remain political and economic changes in Europe and continuing turbulence in the middle east and elsewhere.
  I am aware that many believe that those events call into question the small size of the reductions announced. Others argue for even smaller forces. The Government have taken full account of all those considerations and cannot agree with either those who say that the cuts are too great or those whose enthusiasm for cuts in defence would leave the nation without effective armed forces. I must emphasise that our plans were developed with a considerable degree of caution in recognition that the future course of events, in Europe and elsewhere, is still far from certain and that dangerous instabilities continue to exist. The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) made that point. We will be vigilant and, as always, keep

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  our force levels and force structures under review. That said, only a major change in future commitments, requiring additional long-term deployments, would require reconsideration of the size and shape of the Army overall and, in particular, the number of infantry battalions.
  Turning now to the Staffords, the regiment and its predecessors have a fine and distinguished history, most recently in the Gulf but also in both world wars and in the Peninsular and Crimean wars. It is right and proper to pay credit to so many achievements over so long a period. I share the sadness of all those who regret that this arid other famous regiments should now have to merge or be disbanded.
  Of course, the decision to amalgamate the Staffords and the Cheshires was not welcomed by many of those associated with either regiment. I think it would be fair to say that every regiment would rather remain unchanged, but change to the decisions we have made can be done only at the expense of another regiment. A similar degree of pain and disappointment has been felt by all those affected by the changes, although I realise that this is no compensation for those concerned.
  Mr. Budgen: Is it not the case that before the Secretary of State's announcement it was generally thought that the Royal Welch Fusiliers would be amalgamated, that there was some surprise when that regiment was left unamalgamated, and that plainly a political decision was taken to amalgamate the Staffords and the Cheshires? Will my right hon. Friend, who is the political head, please tell us what the political considerations were?
  Mr. Hamilton: I am not prepared to comment on the process of the decision-making.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Why not?
  Mr. Hamilton: I am about to reply. If my hon. Friend will be kind, I will make my point without him shouting at me. Military considerations were taken into account and recommendations were made to the Army Board, of which other Ministers and I are members. Those military considerations were accepted by the Army Board as a whole.
  Mr. Cash rose—
  Mr. Hamilton: I am also aware of a great deal of parliamentary and public interest in support of the Staffords. It is heartening to know that the regiment is held in such high public esteem.
  Mr. Cash: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Hamilton: No. I have a lot to say and I cannot give way.
  Many of those seeking to challenge the decisions taken about individual regiments have quoted various criteria in support of their views. Past and present manning patterns, previous amalgamations—my hon. Friend made the point that the Staffords were the result of such an exercise in 1959—future demographic changes and the need to retain appropriate regional representations are all cases in point. But I must repeat that those criteria were fully taken into account when addressing the future of individual regiments. Taking any of those factors in isolation is
  264
  misleading, and it was the Army Board's task to weigh those factors, along with all other relevant issues, in coming to its decision.
  Mr. Cash: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Hamilton: I am not giving way. Containing, as it does, the senior serving members of the Army, the board was uniquely placed to weigh all the issues involved.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Hamilton: This is an Adjournment debate and I have a very short time to answer it.
  The board was also uniquely placed to devise a solution which was in the best interests of the Army as a whole. If we were to go into detail on what points were considered when it came to the different amalgamations that were put forward, that would not satisfy anybody who was unhappy about a certain regiment being amalgamated with another. It would merely give people a reason to question the assumptions, and the whole process would go on and on. If my hon. Friends and hon. Members think that it is good for the Army to reopen the whole issue, and to have the whole thing thrown back into the melting pot, they are totally and utterly wrong. The best thing we can do is to accept the decisions that have been made, unpalatable to some as they may be.
  Mrs. Llin Golding rose—
  Mr. Hamilton: I am not giving way. I wish that hon. Members would not try to invervene. I am not going to give way because I have a lot to say.
  If hon. Members feel that it is for the benefit of the Army to reopen all these questions, they are wrong. Supporters of the Staffords and other infantry regiments facing changes have expressed concern about current overstretch and the possibility of its continuing—the hon. Member for Walsall, South made that point—or even worsening, following the restructuring. Regrettably, many inaccurate figures have been quoted by those who seek a reprieve. It may assist the House if I set out again the facts which underlie the Government's effort to eliminate overstretch as part of our commitment to a better future Army.
  Regular infantry commitments in Germany will be reduced by a total of 10 battalions: three from Berlin and seven from British Army of the Rhine. The diminished land threat and increased warning time will allow five regular battalions previously committed to military home defence to be replaced by the Territorial Army, and withdrawal from Hong Kong will, by 1997, release a further four battalions. Thus by 1997, infantry battalion commitments will be reduced by 19. By contrast, the number of regular battalions will reduce by only 17, thereby leaving us with two additional battalions which will be made available to the Allied Command Europe rapid reaction corps.
  The future Army will therefore be well placed to meet expected NATO readiness and availability requirements for the Allied Command Europe rapid reaction corps, while at the same time being able to meet existing emergency tour plot obligations with much improved tour intervals. Longer warning times in Europe have given us greater flexibility over how we meet our emergency tour plot commitments and it will be possible for units based in Germany to play a greater role in those deployments than

  265
  has been possible up to now. We plan also to make more frequent use of the Royal Marines and other arms in the emergency tour plot. Overall, we are well placed to ensure that the preferred 24 month tour plot—which is not always achieved now—will be achieved in the future.
  Mr. Cash: Will my right hon. Friend explain what connection this matter has with the decision that was taken last July to amalgamate the Cheshires with the Staffords? What is the relevance of what my right hon. Friend is saying? We understand the basic arguments in relation to "Options for Change", but fail to understand the relevance of the arguments that my right hon. Friend the Minister is now advancing to the decision taken last July.
  Mr. Hamilton: One of the arguments being proposed is that, in practice, we shall not have enough infantry battalions to do the jobs that we are being asked to do.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: There will not be enough.
  Mr. Hamilton: My hon. Friend clearly has not listened to what I have been saying.
  Mr. Winterton: I do not believe it.
  Mr. Hamilton: If he does not believe it, that is a different matter. It is up to him to decide whether he believes me or not. There will be two more infantry battalions to meet our commitments due to the reorganisation. That is important when addressing the overall issue made by the hon. Member for Walsall, South who believes that the reductions in number in the Army are too great and mean that we will be unable to meet our commitments. That is not the case.
  Mr. Budgen: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Hamilton: No, I shall not give way because I have much more to say.
  To the hon. Member for Walsall, South I say that, if there is a long-term change in our commitments and we become involved in long-lasting commitments that tie up additional infantry battalions, we shall have to reconsider the changes that we have made. However, we are happy that we have the battalions to carry out our present commitments. Therefore, we have had to take hard and difficult decisions on cap badge regiments. I agree that some people will always be unhappy. It is not only the Staffords and Cheshires who are concerned; there is anxiety in Scotland.
  I was amazed at the intervention of the hon. Member for Kincardine and Deeside (Mr. Steven) who complained about the amalgamations in Scotland, when the Liberals call for a 50 per cent. cut in defence spending by the end of the century. It is difficult to see how that policy could be achieved without amalgamating even more regiments in Scotland.
  I cannot stress enough that eliminating overstretch was a primary concern during the decision-making process. The difficulties that the infantry are experiencing are largely a result of undermanning and the reality is that the existing 55 infantry battalions are effectively reduced in manpower terms to the equivalent of only 51. That has meant that units have suffered increased turbulence and
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  some battalions have had to undertake emergency tours at intervals significantly below the 24-month period that it has been long-standing Army policy to achieve.
  Following amalgamation with the Cheshires, the new regiment should be able to achieve full strength, thus eliminating the cause of overstretch—
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: They are over-recruited now.
  Mr. Hamilton: They are not over-recruited now. The Staffords are not over-recruited, but under-recruited now.
  Mr. Winterton: They are.
  Mr. Hamilton: They are not. This is an absurd conversation. I am telling my hon. Friend that the Staffords are under-recruited.
  It is neither efficient nor effective to have units continually under strength. They struggle to meet their commitments, and, when deployed for an emergency tour, have to borrow men from other units to make up a full deployment, thus exacerbating overstretch in other battalions.
  The number of battalions in the future Army is designed to ensure that that kind of overstretch will not normally occur, especially at a time when demography is having an adverse effect on recruitment.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford raised also the criticisms that have been made of a lack of consultation before the decisions were announced. It was recognised from the outset that it would not be possible to consult about every conceivable option during the initial consultation phase. Consultation was therefore designed primarily to allow regiments to put forward their own ideas on amalgamations and to state their general positions.
  I assure the House that the Staffords' wish to avoid amalgamation was fully taken into account, but the same wish was expressed by many other regiments, and I regret that it was not possible to satisfy them all. The ultimate decision in favour of a merger with the Cheshire Regiment was made in full knowledge of the objections that might be raised by the regiment and its supporters.
  My colleagues and I have been pressed on numerous occasions to embark on detailed explanations of judgments as they affect individual regiments, including how and why they were made. The Army Board concluded that to do that would inevitably be divisive, painful for the units concerned, and altogether unproductive. For those tempted to believe that view was imposed by Ministers, I may point out that it is the view of senior Army officers on the board, with whom Ministers agree.
  The question of suitable regional representation was also raised on a number of occasions, and was an important consideration during the board's discussions. The significance of local affiliations and the "family" feeling of infantry regiments is in no way underestimated. It is part of what makes the regimental system the success that it is.
  The new regiment will continue to recruit from areas covered by its predecessors, and will seek to maintain and build on existing local links. Those two factors will help to ensure that the county continues to be represented in future, and will mean that those living in the area will have no difficulty identifying with their local regiment.
  The motion having been made after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at fourteen minutes to One o'clock.

TRANSPORT

  Radioactive Materials
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what data on radioactive materials transported into and within the United Kingdom is routinely collected by his Department.

  Mr. McLoughlin
  Data supplied about consignments of radioactive materials that have to be notified to the Department of Transport before shipment were detailed in the reply given to the Hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) on 29 January.

  Macclesfield Relief Road
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport when he expects work on the new north-south relief road in Macclesfield to be completed.

  Mr. Chope
  I expect the section of road between Flash lane and Hibel road to open to traffic on 10 February. Work on the remaining section between Hibel road and Mill lane should be completed shortly after Easter.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the reasons for the delay in completing the new north-south relief road in Macclesfield.

  Mr. Chope
  Additional contract works, difficulties with the diversion of statutory undertakers apparatus and the late delivery of the Middlewood way footbridge are the main reasons for the delay in completion.

  Mr. Nicholas Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport which supplier was commissioned by his Department to provide the Middlewood way foot bridge for the north-south relief road in Macclesfield; at what cost this contract was placed; when it will be fulfilled; and why it was late in delivery.

  Mr. Chope
  The Middlewood way footbridge was included in the Department's contract for the relief road with Fairclough Civil Engineering at an estimated cost of £370,000. I expect work on the bridge to be completed in the next two weeks. The reasons for the delay in delivery are matters between Fairclough's and its suppliers.

  Lorry Drivers (Diabetes)
  Mr. Martlew
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many lorry drivers who treat their diabetes by injections of insulin have had their HGV licences revoked since April 1991.

  Mr. Chope
  Forty insulin treated drivers had their large goods vehicle—previously HGV—licence entitlement revoked between August and December last year. Prior to that, no manual or computer summary record was kept of the numbers of insulin revocations.

  Motor Taxation
  Mr. Prescott
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what was the total revenue raised from motor taxation in each year from 1979 to 1992; and what is the estimated revenue for 1992–93.

  Mr. Rifkind
  The figures are as follows:

  Motoring Taxation (United Kingdom)

  £ million

  Vehicle Excise Duty

  Fuel Duty

  Total

  1979–80

  1,162

  2,667

  3,829

  1980–81

  1,360

  3,338

  4,698

  1981–82

  1,618

  4,425

  6,043

  1982–83

  1,840

  5,030

  6,870

  1983–84

  1,997

  5,414

  7,411

  1984–85

  2,264

  5,871

  8,135

  1985–86

  2,426

  6,253

  8,679

  1986–87

  2,520

  7,302

  9,822

  1987–88

  2,599

  7,651

  10,250

  1988–89

  2,767

  8,501

  11,268

  1989–90

  2,948

  8,556

  11,504

  1990–91

  2,923

  9,455

  12,378

  1991–92

  12,957

  111,000

  113,957

  1 Revenue for 1992–93 will depend on tax rates in that year.

  Vehicle Excise Duty
  Sir Gerard Vaughan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what information he has as to the arrangements similar to United Kingdom vehicle excise duty applicable in each of the other countries of the European Community.

  Mr. Chope
  Information on the vehicle taxes imposed by other EC countries can be found in "World Road Statistics 1986–1990", published by the International Road Federation. A copy is held in the Library.

  Sir Gerard Vaughan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what are the categories of vehicle in respect of which vehicle excise duty is chargeable; what is the current rate for each such category; when was the most recent change in respect of each category; what was the previous rate; and what was the revenue derived from each such category in the latest convenient period.

  Mr. Chope
  The categories and current rates are set out in Form V 149, available from post offices and vehicle registration offices. I attach a copy for my hon. Friend.

  For road taxation revenue purposes, these categories fall into five vehicle classes. The estimated VED revenue for each is published in "The allocation of road track costs 1991/91", a copy of which is available in the Library.

  The 12-montly rate for cars and light vans was £90 prior to 1985. Rates for motor cycles were increased by between £5 and £10 in 1991. The tax structure for taxis, buses and coaches was reorganised in 1989, with increases of between £47·50 and £395 related to passenger-carrying capacity.

  The VED structure for goods vehicles exceeding 3·5 tonnes was simplified in 1990, involving increases in rates of between £20 and £470 for 140,000 lorries and reductions of between £30 and £570 for 3,800 vehicles. Rates for 320,000 lorries remained the same. The "other vehicles" class comprises recovery vehicles, special machines—mobile cranes, and so on—and "special types"—exceptionally large or heavy vehicles. The rate for recovery

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  vehicles was increased by £25 and the rate for special machines by £14 in 1991. The rate for "special types" was increased in 1990 by £150.

  Motorway Services
  Mr. David Marshall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will take steps to ensure that Mercury telephone boxes are installed at all motorway service areas in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Chope
  Leases for motorway service areas—MSAs —in England, require as a standard the provision of public telephones. The choice of supplier is a matter for the MSA operator. MSAs in Wales and Scotland are the responsibility of my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and for Scotland respectively.

  Mr. Michael Brown
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what progress he has made towards(a) increasing competition in the provision of services on motorways and (b) increasing the number of service areas on motorways.

  Mr. Chope
  The citzens charter announced the Government's intention to deregulate the provision of motorway service areas with the aim of providing more services more quickly. Detailed proposals will be announced shortly.

  Norwich Southern Bypass
  Mr. John Garrett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) who specified the mix of materials which has been found to be faulty in the construction of the Norwich southern bypass; and if(a) his Department, (b) the consulting engineers or (c) the contractors are liable for the resulting cost;

  (2) what is the estimate of the cost of remedial work on the Norwich southern bypass following the discovery of a faulty mix of materials in its construction.

  Mr. Chope
  [holding answer 27 January 1992]: The Department's specification for highway works which incorporates British standards is used on all its trunk road contracts including Norwich southern bypass. It lays down criteria for road materials which allow contractors and suppliers a wide choice to encourage the use of local and low cost sources of raw materials to minimise transportation and environmental costs. At Norwich each of the four contracts is using a different combination of ingredients for the bituminous mix. The sources of supply for each varies and some local Norfolk aggregates are being used.

  The particular combinations of aggregates and bituminous binder used in the heavy duty macadam exhibited unexpected deformation causing a suspension of work while the possible causes were investigated.

  Adjustments have been made to the mixes within the British standard to provide a material which has greater resistance to deformation.

  The extent and apportionment of any additional costs will be resolved under the terms of the contract.

  Present indications are that the completed bypass will be opened to traffic by the original contract completion date.

HOME DEPARMENT

  External Frontiers Convention
  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the compatibility of the external frontiers convention with the universal declaration of human rights, the international covenant on civil and political rights, the European convention on human rights, ILO conventions 97 and 143, the Helsinki final act and the Paris charter and the Council of Europe social charter.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  We have no reason to believe that the draft external frontiers convention, signature of which has been held up by disagreement with the Spanish Government over a provision concerning application to Gibraltar, is in breach of any of the United Kingdom's international obligations.

  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what assessment he has made of the compatibility of the external frontiers convention with the European convention on the legal status of migrant workers and the international convention on the protection of the rights of all migrant workers and their families.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The United Kingdom is not a party to either of the conventions on migrant workers.

  Working Men's Club (Membership Application)
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will investigate the allegation that applications for membership of a Birmingham working men's club featured in the recent Commission for Racial Equality case were made without the applicant's knowledge; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  The conduct of formal investigations and the issuing of non-discrimination notices are matters for the Commission for Racial Equality.

  Births (Airports)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children since 1981 have been born in the departure lounges of airports at(a) Heathrow, (b) Gatwick, (c) Leeds/Bradford and (d) Manchester; and how many such babies were affected by provisions of the British Nationality Act 1981.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  The Home Office does not keep records of how many children were born in airport departure lounges, but any child born in such a place would be affected by the British Nationality Act 1981, section 1 of which determines whether or not the child has acquired British citizenship by birth.

  Mentally Disordered (Press Coverage)
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what date he received a copy of the Matthew Trust report on the Press Complaints Commission and BBC regarding media coverage of the mentally disordered and distressed; and whether he will make a statement.
  103
  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  My right hon. Friend received the report on 14 January. He has noted its conclusions and the director of the Matthew Trust will be receiving a reply shortly.

  Prison Ships
  Mr. Kilfoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what consideration he has given to the reintroduction of prison ships; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  On Monday 3 February, there were 1,221 prisoners held in police cells. My right hon. Friend has asked the prison service to examine a range of options for reducing this number. Among other possibilities, officials will be investigating the use abroad of floating facilities to house prisoners. However, we have no plans at this stage to introduce such facilities here.

  Births (British Citizens)
  Mr. Madden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many children born in the United Kingdom since 1981 are not British citizens.

  Mr. Peter Lloyd
  This information is not available.

  Spring Hill Prison
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether following the recent escape from Springfield prison he will institute an immediate inquiry into security at the prison.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I assume that the hon. Member is referring to Spring Hill prison.

  The prisoner who absconded from Spring Hill prison on 5 December 1991 has now been recaptured. Security at Spring Hill is appropriate for an open prison. The allocation of prisoners to open prisons always carries with it an element of risk.

  Electronic Tagging
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) when he proposes to introduce electronic tagging of offenders under the Criminal Justice Act 1991;

  (2) what progress has been made towards implementation of electronic tagging of offenders.

  Mr. John Patten
  Our proposals will be announced shortly.

  International Criminals
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now take steps to ensure that international criminals serve their sentences in a high security environment.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Offences committed abroad are already taken into account in the categorisation and allocation process. That process is set out in circular instruction 7/1988, a copy of which is in the Library.

  Prison Closures
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has reached a decision as to(a) whether Warrington young offenders institution and
  104
  (b) which other prison department establishments, are to close following the estate review 1991; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) on 30 January at column 647.

  Prison Security
  Mr. Sheerman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now implement all recent recommendations for improving prison security.

  Mrs. Rumbold
  Chapter 2 of the White Paper "Custody, Care and Justice", Cm 1647, set out the Government's plans for improving security in prison service establishments. Those plans are being implemented. As to the recent report of an audit of security in prison service establishments holding category A prisoners, conducted by Mr. Ronald Hadfield and Mr. Gordon Lakes, I would refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given by my right hon. Friend to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Sir J. Wheeler) on 16 December 1991 at column 13.

  European Year of Elderly People
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home department what plans his Department is making for the European year of elderly people and solidarity between the generations in 1993.

  Mr. Kenneth Baker
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health is leading the Government's work on this, in conjunction with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security: I refer my hon. friend to his reply. He is drawing up plans in consultation with a wide range of national voluntary and professional bodies, statutory authorities and other relevant Government Departments.

  Immigration Rules (Marriages)
  Sir John Wheeler
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what are the procedures followed by registrars who conduct marriages so as to ensure that there is no evasion of immigration rules.

  Mr. Dorrell
  I have been asked to reply.

  Superintendent registrars are statutory officers exercising functions under the Marriage and Registration Acts under the direction of the Registrar General. They are not immigration officers. If a superintendent registrar has good reason to suspect that the proposed marriage of a person from abroad has been arranged for the sole purpose of evading statutory immigration controls he/she is instructed to report the facts to the Registrar General. If the Registrar General is satisfied that the marriage is purely one of convenience then the facts will be passed on to the Home Office.

NATIONAL FINANCE

  Civil Servants
  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what departments and numbers of civil servants are due to be relocated to the north-west in future plans; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The table lists, with likely timings, the plans which departments have announced for relocating or locating civil service jobs away from the south-east which have still to be implemented or completed.

  Department and Dispersal location

  Number of posts

  Likely timing

  Inland Revenue, Birkenhead

  170

  1992

  Social Security Child Support Agency, Birkenhead

  500

  1993

  Customs and Excise, Liverpool

  1,301

  1990–95

  Customs and Excise, Manchester

  390

  1990–95

  Employment Group, Runcorn

  613

  1990–93

  Employment Group, Bootle

  61

  1992

  Land Registry, Birkenhead

  110

  1992–93

  Total number of posts

  3,145

  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will list by department the number of civil service jobs to be relocated in the west midlands, specifying the geographic location of the areas to which they will move and detailing the dates upon which it is planned to make these relocations.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The Department of Social Security and the Home Office have announced plans for relocating or locating civil service jobs in the west midlands which have yet to be implemented. The Department of Social Security will be opening a Child Support Agency Office in Dudley from 1 April 1993, creating 500 new administrative jobs. The Home Office will be relocating 12 posts from the forensic science service to Birmingham within the next 18 months.

  Income Tax
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much 1p on the basic rate of income tax would yield in 1992–93 in(a) England, (b) Scotland and (c) Wales.

  Mr. Maude
  Increasing the basic rate of income tax to 26 per cent. would yield about £1·95 billion, at 1992–93 levels of income. Separate information for England, Scotland, and Wales is not available.

  Board of Inland Revenue
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer further to his answer of 28 January,Official Report, column 487, when he expects to make his decision on proposals relating to the review of management and trading and the review of the organisation and structure of the Board of Inland Revenue; and what consultation he has undertaken.

  Mr. Maude
  I have nothing to add to my answer of 28 January at column 487.

  Excise Duties
  Mr. David Porter
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the implementation of EC single market legislation associated with excise duties.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  The Commissioners of Customs and Excise have issued draft Finance Bill clauses relating to holding and movement of goods subject to excise duties to relevant trade representative bodies for consultation. I have arranged for copies to be placed in the Library of the House.

  Customs and Excise
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the terms of reference of the study commissioned from University college, Cardiff, concerning the efficiency of the Customs and Excise Agency in its service at airports and seaports; when he expects it to be completed; when it was initiated; and if he will make a statement.

  Mrs. Gillian Shephard
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: The Economic and Social Research Council sponsored Mr. E. Maguire, Professor R. Morgan and Mr. C. Kemp to research complaints to and against central Government Departments. The immigration service and Her Majesty's Customs and Excise were selected to be researched, in a project which started on 1 October 1989. Research was completed in September 1991. A draft report has been produced, and is with the Government Departments to identify factual inaccuracies before publication.

  The terms of reference of the research were to construct a comprehensive picture of complaints received in all areas of the Department, analyse the grievance mechanisms, examine internal attitudes towards complaints, and examine any managerial or policy making use made of complaints patterns or outcomes. The research therefore extended far wider than the efficiency of the service at airports and seaports, although this area was covered in two small exercises seeking travellers' and complainants' views through questionnaires.

  The survey of travellers concluded that most had no contact with officers of Customs and Excise, and of those who did have contact, most rated the officers positively. The sample of complainants found that few were happy with the responses that they had received from the Department, but nearly half felt that they had achieved something and more than half were impressed by some aspects of the response—especially its speed and the quality of the written reply.

EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

  Nursery Education
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many places in nursery schools and classes were provided by local education authorities in 1990–91 and 1991–92 in England and Wales; how many of these places were(a) full time and (b) part time; and what was the total number of full-time equivalent places provided.

  Mr. Eggar
  Information on the number of pupils in maintained nursery schools and nursery classes in primary
  107
  schools in each local education authority in England in January 1991, the latest date for which information is available, is given in the table. The table also contains information about the number of pupils under five in

  All pupils under the age of 5 in maintained nursery and primary schools as at January 1991

  Nursery schools

  Nursery classes in primary schools

  Other pupils under 5 in infant classes in primary schools

  All pupils in nursery and primary schools

  Number of pupils

  Number of pupils

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Total pupils

  Full-time equivalent of pupils

  City

  0

  0

  13

  7

  11

  0

  31

  27·5

  Camden

  105

  44

  432

  454

  525

  0

  1,560

  1,311·0

  Greenwich

  352

  323

  237

  2,121

  961

  30

  4,024

  2,787·0

  Hackney

  61

  111

  760

  1,241

  719

  8

  2,900

  2,220·0

  Hammersmith and Fulham

  240

  333

  397

  483

  467

  12

  1,932

  1,518·0

  Islington

  143

  131

  848

  697

  642

  12

  2,473

  2,053·0

  Kensington and Chelsea

  165

  88

  389

  164

  307

  5

  1,118

  989·5

  Lambeth

  193

  250

  550

  1,329

  919

  53

  3,294

  2,478·0

  Lewisham

  100

  130

  363

  1,825

  865

  80

  3,363

  2,345·5

  Southwark

  182

  288

  622

  1,519

  911

  19

  3,541

  2,628·0

  Tower Hamlets

  441

  252

  990

  842

  805

  2

  3,332

  2,784·0

  Wandsworth

  112

  97

  612

  1,460

  839

  21

  3,141

  2,352·0

  Westminster

  78

  84

  421

  377

  410

  13

  1,383

  1,146·0

  Barking

  0

  0

  37

  1,353

  1,269

  0

  2,659

  1,982·5

  Barnet

  18

  487

  43

  1,827

  1,972

  96

  4,443

  3,238·0

  Bexley

  20

  160

  0

  791

  870

  0

  1,841

  1,365·5

  Brent

  178

  70

  333

  1,778

  1,919

  0

  4,278

  3,354·0

  Bromley

  0

  0

  1

  142

  1,039

  7

  1,189

  1,114·5

  Croydon

  47

  386

  0

  446

  2,494

  19

  3,392

  2,966·5

  Ealing

  20

  564

  29

  2,579

  2,199

  3

  5,394

  3,821·0

  Enfield

  0

  0

  0

  1,437

  2,003

  22

  3,462

  2,732·5

  Haringey

  206

  36

  344

  1,777

  1,688

  3

  4,054

  3,146·0

  Harrow

  0

  0

  0

  950

  1,487

  41

  2,478

  1,982·5

  Havering

  0

  0

  9

  228

  864

  910

  2,011

  1,442·0

  Hillingdon

  0

  120

  0

  3,011

  52

  69

  3,252

  1,652·0

  Hounslow

  0

  0

  1,755

  2,385

  9

  2

  4,151

  2,957·5

  Kingston upon Thames

  69

  144

  10

  865

  466

  465

  2,019

  1,282·0

  Merton

  0

  0

  2

  2,314

  828

  195

  3,339

  2,084·5

  Newham

  42

  967

  52

  2,579

  0

  783

  4,423

  2,258·5

  Redbridge

  0

  0

  39

  844

  818

  17

  1,718

  1,287·5

  Richmond upon Thames

  8

  52

  0

  630

  32

  985

  1,707

  873·5

  Sutton

  0

  240

  0

  1,247

  46

  1

  1,534

  790·0

  Waltham Forest

  53

  262

  101

  2,061

  817

  0

  3,294

  2,132·5

  Total Greater London

  2,833

  5,619

  9,389

  41,763

  29,253

  3,873

  92,730

  67,102·5

  Birmingham

  840

  1,514

  2,047

  5,713

  9,721

  0

  19,835

  16,221·5

  Coventry

  50

  318

  29

  1,825

  2,766

  7

  4,995

  3,920·0

  Dudley

  9

  300

  120

  2,371

  1,223

  25

  4,048

  2,700·0

  Sandwell

  143

  108

  197

  3,941

  2,709

  31

  7,129

  5,089·0

  Solihull

  0

  0

  0

  1,673

  1,746

  18

  3,437

  2,591·5

  Walsall

  92

  671

  36

  3,389

  2,364

  5

  6,557

  4,524·5

  Wolverhampton

  0

  821

  1

  3,046

  1,056

  4

  4,928

  2,992·5

  Knowsley

  0

  0

  8

  2,252

  1,569

  0

  3,829

  2,703·0

  Liverpool

  163

  424

  524

  5,181

  4,429

  0

  10,721

  7,918·5

  St. Helens

  5

  68

  0

  1,534

  1,542

  0

  3,149

  2,348·0

  Sefton

  1

  316

  1

  2,080

  2,361

  0

  4,759

  3,561·0

  Wirral

  23

  283

  2

  1,873

  2,870

  0

  5,051

  3,973·0

  Bolton

  59

  450

  311

  2,223

  2,406

  0

  5,449

  4,112·5

  Bury

  68

  72

  193

  1,075

  1,505

  1

  2,914

  2,340·0

  Manchester

  431

  133

  3,975

  2,791

  2,148

  2

  9,480

  8,017·0

  Oldham

  0

  0

  780

  1,491

  2,183

  0

  4,454

  3,708·5

  Rochdale

  52

  884

  129

  980

  1,923

  0

  3,968

  3,036·0

  Salford

  534

  362

  1,610

  725

  1,993

  0

  5,224

  4,680·5

  Stockport

  157

  717

  0

  626

  2,316

  13

  3,829

  3,151·0

  Tameside

  0

  341

  31

  2,084

  1,981

  4

  4,441

  3,226·5

  Trafford

  0

  0

  0

  1,509

  1,633

  0

  3,142

  2,387·5

  Wigan

  28

  157

  12

  1,851

  2,702

  119

  4,869

  3,805·5

  Barnsley

  0

  179

  6

  2,746

  998

  3

  3,932

  2,468·0

  Doncaster

  0

  0

  64

  3,306

  2,787

  0

  6,157

  4,504·0

  Rotherham

  0

  387

  252

  2,276

  1,100

  0

  4,015

  2,683·5

  Sheffield

  135

  656

  288

  4,512

  2,046

  388

  8,025

  5,247·0

  Bradford

  200

  307

  193

  5,055

  2,532

  443

  8,730

  5,827·5

  108
  infant classes in maintained primary schools. Information on schools in Wales is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Wales.
  109

  Nursery schools

  Nursery classes in primary schools

  Other pupils under 5 in infant classes in primary schools

  All pupils in nursery and primary schools

  Number of pupils

  Number of pupils

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Total pupils

  Full-time equivalent of pupils

  Calderdale

  0

  0

  317

  1,366

  1,650

  0

  3,333

  2,650·0

  Kirklees

  3

  539

  2

  3,668

  2,088

  0

  6,300

  4,196·5

  Leeds

  14

  272

  78

  7,116

  3,104

  582

  11,166

  7,181·0

  Wakefield

  0

  459

  101

  3,570

  1,695

  116

  5,941

  3,868·5

  Gateshead

  8

  57

  17

  1,539

  1,606

  0

  3,227

  2,429·0

  Newcastle upon Tyne

  578

  142

  717

  1,524

  2,244

  2

  5,207

  4,373·0

  North Tyneside

  65

  231

  28

  2,389

  1,565

  7

  4,285

  2,971·5

  South Tyneside

  19

  753

  10

  1,453

  1,520

  0

  3,755

  2,652·0

  Sunderland

  58

  945

  12

  2,149

  2,681

  0

  5,845

  4,298·0

  Total Metropolitan districts

  3,735

  12,866

  12,091

  92,902

  82,762

  1,770

  206,126

  152,357·0

  Avon

  862

  684

  369

  2,458

  7,343

  5

  11,721

  10,147·5

  Bedfordshire

  255

  1,108

  344

  3,352

  978

  805

  6,842

  4,209·5

  Berkshire

  129

  2,019

  86

  3,396

  329

  43

  6,002

  3,273·0

  Buckinghamshire

  1

  509

  0

  1,724

  907

  1,924

  5,065

  2,986·5

  Cambridgeshire

  90

  565

  39

  1,276

  5,377

  118

  7,465

  6,485·5

  Cheshire

  30

  801

  40

  4,541

  8,113

  12

  13,537

  10,860·0

  Cleveland

  0

  146

  42

  8,655

  5,397

  163

  14,403

  9,921·0

  Cornwall

  25

  87

  1

  1,435

  1,759

  1,510

  4,817

  3,301·0

  Cumbria

  1

  869

  0

  2,020

  3,728

  25

  6,643

  5,186·0

  Derbyshire

  147

  1,337

  599

  6,604

  3,778

  1,482

  13,947

  9,235·5

  Devon

  42

  254

  118

  2,245

  3,556

  275

  6,490

  5,103·0

  Dorset

  0

  0

  0

  781

  1,023

  3,448

  5,252

  3,137·5

  Durham

  216

  2,290

  42

  3,487

  4,525

  28

  10,588

  7,685·5

  East Sussex

  3

  294

  4

  1,058

  2,211

  2,261

  5,831

  4,024·5

  Essex

  19

  236

  114

  2,040

  6,064

  84

  8,557

  7,377·0

  Gloucestershire

  0

  0

  15

  0

  4,050

  32

  4,097

  4,081·0

  Hampshire

  0

  339

  0

  1,610

  5,640

  577

  8,166

  6,903·0

  Hereford and Worcester

  0

  0

  117

  1,172

  2,178

  32

  3,499

  2,897·0

  Hertfordshire

  88

  1,598

  43

  6,422

  3,957

  417

  12,525

  8,306·5

  Humberside

  202

  899

  594

  6,540

  4,853

  142

  13,230

  9,439·5

  Isle of Wight

  0

  0

  5

  175

  912

  1

  1,093

  1,005·0

  Kent

  0

  84

  27

  1,773

  7,247

  3,415

  12,546

  9,910·0

  Lancashire

  103

  3,297

  3

  3,534

  12,074

  6

  19,017

  15,598·5

  Leicestershire

  0

  50

  1,583

  3,810

  3,266

  647

  9,356

  7,102·5

  Lincolnshire

  88

  211

  64

  828

  4,104

  25

  5,320

  4,788·0

  Norfolk

  2

  399

  0

  460

  3,056

  1,769

  5,686

  4,372·0

  North Yorkhire

  33

  334

  126

  2,905

  4,100

  357

  7,855

  6,057·0

  Northamptonshire

  15

  584

  62

  2,181

  5,060

  36

  7,938

  6,537·5

  Northumberland

  19

  115

  38

  2,204

  2,399

  18

  4,793

  3,624·5

  Nottinghamshire

  17

  549

  217

  12,311

  1,838

  228

  15,160

  8,616·0

  Oxfordshire

  67

  1,007

  69

  1,368

  421

  286

  3,218

  1,887·5

  Shropshire

  0

  168

  0

  1,255

  1,669

  473

  3,565

  2,617·0

  Somerset

  0

  0

  36

  51

  3,631

  52

  3,770

  3,718·5

  Staffordshire

  952

  1,015

  1,434

  2,760

  7,792

  206

  14,159

  12,168·5

  Suffolk

  6

  90

  0

  2,700

  2,399

  38

  5,233

  3,819·0

  Surrey

  92

  326

  5

  2,346

  3,083

  223

  6,075

  4,627·5

  Warwickshire

  0

  755

  2

  1,300

  3,856

  15

  5,928

  4,893·0

  West Sussex

  13

  505

  19

  111

  1,926

  32

  2,606

  2,282·0

  Wiltshire

  0

  0

  0

  520

  2,059

  156

  2,735

  2,397·0

  Total Non-metropolitan counties

  3,517

  23,524

  6,257

  103,408

  146,658

  21,366

  304,730

  230,581·0

  ENGLAND

  10,085

  42,009

  27,737

  238,073

  258,673

  27,009

  603,586

  450,040·5

  Private Schools
  Mr. Fatchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether he has any plans to extend the citizens charter so as to cover any grievance which a parent might have against a private school; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Fallon
  No.

  Primary Schools
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what are his estimates for the increases in public spending necessary if all primary schools in England were to have a maximum limit of(a) 30 and (b) 32 on class sizes.

  Mr. Fallon
  I refer my hon. Friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) on 24 January at column 343.

  Pupils (Learning by Rote)
  Mr. David Nicholson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what guidance he gives(a) to local education authorities and (b) to Her Majesty's inspectors regarding the desirability of pupils learning multiplication tables by rote; and what representations he has had on the matter.

  Mr. Eggar
  The national curriculum sets out what is to be taught in schools, and this includes the requirement for pupils to learn mutiplication tables up to 10 times 10. It is for teachers to decide how to deliver the curriculum, and I have not given any guidance on how pupils should learn their tables, nor received any representations on the subject.

PRIME MINISTER

  Engagements
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Tuesday 4 February.

  The Prime Minister
  This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

  Hong Kong
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Prime Minister, pursuant to his answer of 28 January,Official Report, columns 503-4, how many of the Ministers listed, other than the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and himself, took part in party political activities during their visit in addition to their official duties.

  The Prime Minister
  This information is not centrally recorded and can be provided only at disproportionate cost.

  Further to the answer I gave the hon. Member on 28 January, at columns 503-4, the list of ministerial visits omitted the visit to Hong Kong of Lord Brabazon, Minister of State for Transport, in February 1991.

  Table 1: United Kingdom Trade in Manufactured Goods Value, £ billion

  EC

  USA

  Japan

  Other Countries

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  1985

  22·1

  31·8

  8·1

  8·4

  0·8

  4·0

  21·5

  14·1

  1986

  24·4

  35·3

  8·2

  7·0

  0·9

  4·9

  21·1

  15·6

  1987

  28·6

  39·8

  8·7

  7·8

  1·2

  5·4

  22·4

  17·9

  1988

  32·4

  45·9

  8·9

  9·3

  1·5

  6·5

  23·3

  21·9

  1989

  38·1

  52·8

  10·2

  11·9

  2·0

  7·0

  26·2

  24·4

  1990

  44·1

  54·1

  10·6

  12·6

  2·3

  6·6

  27·2

  24·8

  1991

  48·0

  49·6

  9·6

  12·0

  1·9

  6·7

  26·5

  23·9

  Note: EC includes the former East Germany throughout.

  Source: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.

TRADE AND INDUSTRY

  Skelmersdale
  Mr. Hind
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the assistance available from his Department and the European Community for trade and industry projects in Skelmersdale new town.

  Mr. Leigh
  Skelmersdale is within the development areas, so firms there are able to benefit from the complete range of assistance available under the DTI's enterprise initiative. The individual measures of support are described in existing departmental publications on the initiative, which are widely available and arrangements have been made for copies to be placed in the Library of the House.

  Skelmersdale new town also forms part of the Mersey basin operational programme area, which qualifies as an objective 2 area under the European Commission structural funds regime. As such, Skelmersdale is eligible to receive European regional development funds and structural funds for appropriate projects related to infrastructure, business support and training.

  Maxwell Companies
  Mr. Irvine
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what response he has made to representations concerning the adequacy of the supervision by the Securities and Investments Board and the Investment Management Regulatory Organisation of the managers of the pension funds of companies of which the late Robert Maxwell was a director.

  Mr. Redwood
  My Department is in close touch with SIB and IMRO about regulatory lessons on supervision of pension fund managers to be drawn from the Maxwell case.

  Manufactured Goods
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will state the annual size and increase in the value of exports and imports of manufactured goods in each year since 1985 to(a) the European Community, (b) the United States, (c) Japan and (d) all other countries; and also express the year on year changes as an index with 1985 as the base.

  Mr. Sainsbury
  The available information is contained in the following tables. Manufactured goods are defined as sections 5 to 8 of the standard international trade classification.
  113

  Table 2: United Kingdom Trade in Manufactured Goods Increase in value over previous year, £ billion

  EC

  USA

  Japan

  Other Countries

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  1985

  1986

  2·3

  3·6

  0·1

  -1·3

  0·1

  0·8

  -0·4

  1·4

  1987

  4·2

  4·5

  0·6

  0·8

  0·3

  0·6

  1·3

  2·3

  1988

  3·8

  6·1

  0·2

  1·5

  0·3

  1·0

  0·9

  3·9

  1989

  5·7

  6·9

  1·3

  2·6

  0·5

  0·5

  2·8

  2·6

  1990

  6·0

  1·3

  0·4

  0·8

  0·3

  -0·4

  1·1

  0·4

  1991

  3·9

  -4·5

  -1·0

  -0·6

  -0·4

  0·0

  -0·7

  -0·9

  Note: EC includes the former East Germany throughout.

  Source: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.

  Table 3: United Kingdom Trade in Manufactured Goods Value Index, 1985 = 100

  EC

  USA

  Japan

  Other Countries

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  1985

  100

  100

  100

  100

  100

  100

  100

  100

  1986

  110

  111

  101

  84

  114

  120

  98

  110

  1987

  130

  125

  108

  93

  149

  134

  104

  127

  1988

  147

  145

  111

  111

  181

  160

  108

  155

  1989

  172

  166

  127

  142

  239

  173

  121

  173

  1990

  200

  170

  132

  151

  274

  164

  126

  175

  1991

  217

  156

  120

  144

  232

  165

  123

  169

  Note: EC includes the former East Germany throughout.

  Source: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.

  Table 4: United Kingdom Trade in Manufactured Goods Year on year percentage change

  EC

  USA

  Japan

  Other Countries

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  Export

  Import

  1985

  1986

  10·3

  11·2

  1·5

  -15·7

  13·7

  20·5

  -2·0

  10·2

  1987

  17·4

  12·7

  6·8

  10·8

  31·4

  11·3

  6·3

  15·0

  1988

  13·4

  15·3

  2·4

  19·0

  21·3

  19·2

  4·1

  21·9

  1989

  17·4

  14·9

  14·3

  27·7

  31·8

  8·2

  12·0

  11·7

  1990

  15·8

  2·5

  3·8

  6·6

  14·7

  -5·3

  4·1

  1·5

  1991

  8·8

  -8·2

  -9·0

  -5·0

  -15·4

  0·7

  -2·6

  -3·7

  Note: EC includes the former East Germany throughout.

  Source: Overseas Trade Statistics of the United Kingdom.

  Auditors
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will bring forward proposals to prevent auditors from taking appointments as liquidators, administrators or receivers; and if he will consult the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland about the necessary changes to their rules.

  Mr. Redwood
  I have no plans to do so. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland have published ethical guidelines for their members and these preclude any firm, or member of that firm, which has had a "continuing professional relationship" with any company from accepting an appointment as an insolvency practitioner in respect of it. In this way conflicts of interest are avoided, particularly between those who may have acted as auditors to the company and any subsequent liquidator.

  Peter Dixon and Peter Cameron-Webb
  Mr. Gould
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what progress has been made in the investigation into the activities of Peter Dixon and Peter Cameron-Webb at Lloyd's.
  114
  Mr. Redwood
  The City of London police and the Serious Fraud Office announced in December 1988 that warrants had been issued for Peter Dixon and Peter Cameron-Webb in connection with the Lloyd's PCW investigation. Both were, and are understood to have remained, resident in the United States, but due to certain restrictions could not be extradited.

  The final report of the Companies Act inspectors who investigated the affairs of Minet Holdings plc and WMD Underwriting Agencies Ltd., which details the activities of Dixon and Cameron-Webb at Lloyd's, was published in August 1990. At that time, the Secretary of State announced his intention to make applications under section 8 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 in respect of Dixon, Cameron-Webb and John Wallrock. On 31 October 1991, Wallrock was disqualified for five years. The proceedings in respect of Dixon and Cameron-Webb are due to be heard on 6 February.

  Insolvency Service Staff
  Ms. Quin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will supply a figure for the cost of issuing name badges to the staff of the insolvency service.

  Mr. Redwood
  The cost was £3,657·60.

  Hinckley, Leicestershire
  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether Hinckley in Leicestershire is placed under objective 2 of the European regional development fund.

  Mr. Leigh
  [holding answer 31 January 1992]: No. The European Commission refused the Government's proposal that it should be.

HOUSE OF COMMONS COMMISSION

  Clocking In
  Mr. Cox
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick upon Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission if he will list the grades of staff employed who are required to clock in and clock out at the start and finish of their day's work.

  Mr. Beith
  All grades of Refreshment Department industrial staff are required to register their attendance by clock.

  Staff Insurance
  Mr. Tony Lloyd
  To ask the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, as representing the House of Commons Commission whether(a) police and security staff, (b) catering and cleaning staff, (c) Library staff, (d) Official Report staff, (e) Committee Office staff, (f) Fees Office staff and (g) hon. Members' secretaries and research assistants are covered by an insurance scheme in the event of (i) industrial injury or (ii) an act of terrorism in the Palace of Westminster and its outbuildings.

  Mr. Beith
  [holding answer 22 January 1992]: All staff employed by the House of Commons Commission are covered against injury or death sustained in the course of their duties by the provisions of the House of Commons staff pension scheme.

  Insurance cover has been arranged for Members in respect of employers' liability to provide for any of their staff who suffer injury or death at work due to the Member's negligence. The House of Commons Commission is considering the question of further provision to cover Members' staff against acts of terrorism.

  The terms and conditions of service of police officers and security staff employed in the parliamentary estate are the responsibility of the Home Office.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

  Parliamentary Cable Channel
  Sir David Steel
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will take steps(a) to arrange for the cable parliamentary channel to be available on the monitors in No. 1 Parliament street and (b) to remove from them the interruption caused by noises from the House of Lords annunciator.

  Mr. MacGregor
  As I said in reply to a question from the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) on 27 January(Official Report, columns 701-2), the
  116
  question of supplying Members' offices with the parliamentary cable channel (or the clean television feed direct from the Chamber) is to be discussed shortly by the Broadcasting Committee. If it approves the proposal in principle, the Committee will then wish to consider whether such facilities should be made available immediately to those parts of the parliamentary estate (such as No. 1 Parliament street) which are already suitably cabled, or whether it would be preferable to introduce the service for all Members, as far as practicable, simultaneously.

  The provision on the monitors of information from the House of Lords annunciator service has been considered to be generally useful. Unfortunately, it would not be possible to suppress the information from individual monitors.

  Braille Transcription Service
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Lord President of the Council if he will make it his policy to provide a Braille transcription service to enable hon. Members to correspond with their blind constituents; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  I shall ask the right hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) as Chairman of the Administration Committee, to invite the Finance and Administration Department to examine the feasibility and possible cost of providing such a service for Members.

  Members' Pensions
  Sir Gerard Vaughan
  To ask the Lord President of the Council what provision has been made in recent years in the estimates of pensions for the staff of hon. Members; how this provision compares with the amount notionally available; what the amount actually disbursed has been; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. MacGregor
  The maximum sum available to an hon. Member to make pension contributions in respect of a person employed by him and paid out of the office costs allowance is limited in any one year to 10 per cent. of the limit of the office costs allowance for that year.

  Although the total sum notionally available is therefore equal to 10 per cent. of the provision for the office costs allowance included in the Estimates for the House of Commons, the sum actually available is further restricted by the application of a pension provision limitation of 10 per cent. of the gross salary paid to an individual secretary/research assistant. Given that most Members are unlikely to devote the whole of their office costs allowance to salaries, because of the need to meet other expenditure, the notionally available figures shown below are not very relevant.

  With that proviso, the total sums notionally available, together with the total sums actually expended in each of the last three completed years, are:

  Notionally available £

  Actual expenditure £

  1988–89

  1,468,000

  776,795

  1989–90

  1,560,000

  836,961

  1990–91

  1,775,000

  948,219

FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS

  Croatia
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what information he has on the number of tanks obtained from European nations by the Republic of Croatia for the defence of its borders, and their source.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  We have no evidence that any European nation is in breach of the United Nations embargo.

  Yugoslavia
  Mr. Bellingham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the reports produced in Yugoslavia by the international team of experts have now been submitted to the Hague conference on Yugoslavia; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Douglas Hogg
  I presume that my hon. Friend is referring to the team of experts alluded to in the report published in The Guardian on 17 January 1992. We have no report of the identity of this team or its activities.

EMPLOYMENT

  Offshore Oil
  Mr. Janner
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will introduce a licensing fee for oil companies operating in the North sea to cover the cost of providing health and safety inspectors in connection with their operations.

  Mr. Forth
  The Health and Safety Commission has not adopted a general policy onshore of charging to cover the costs of health and safety inspection, in view of the difficulties of devising an equitable and workable system. Similar considerations apply offshore, but charges will continue to be made to cover the costs of regular examinations of life-saving appliances and fire-fighting equipment on installations.

  Holidays
  Ms. Mowlam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will introduce legislation to ensure that all employees have a statutory right to two weeks minimum paid holiday.

  Mr. Forth
  We have no such plans.

  Idnal Fisher Ltd.
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if the Health and Safety Executive is to initiate a prosecution against Idnal Fisher Ltd., Bradford following the death of Jashir Singh on 9 April.

  Mr. Forth
  The Health and Safety Executive is considering what, if any, action is appropriate following the investigation into the fatal accident to Jashir Singh on 9 April 1991 at Idnal Fisher Ltd., Bradford. I have asked the HSE's area director for West and North Yorkshire to write to the hon. Member when a decision has been made.

  Crane Accident, St. Mary's
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when investigating the accident to a crane on 13 July 1991 at St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly, following the discovery that the safe load indicator was defective due to the damaged crane, what other sources of information were sought to verify its condition when the crane was operational.

  Mr. Forth
  As part of the Health and Safety Executive's investigation to establish the condition of the safe load indicator on the crane immediately before the accident on 13 July 1991, the HSE inspector interviewed witnesses to the accident to determine whether the warning bell had been ringing when the crane began to overturn; obtained from the company a copy of the crane manufacturer's data sheet which describes the crane's main dimensions and lifting capacities; observed the engraved plastic cards in the crane cab which also describe the dimensions and capacities of the crane; examined the cam fitted in the automatic safe load indicator; obtained a copy of the last statutory examination of the machine by a competent person.

  Allied Colloids Ltd.
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment when the investigation into the accident to James Armstrong at Allied Colloids Ltd., Low Moor, on 25 April 1988 was concluded; what recommendations for improving the loading arrangements were made; if these were implemented; and if he will make a statement on the safety of current arrangements.

  Mr. Forth
  No accident to James Armstrong at Allied Colloids Ltd, Low Moor on 25 April 1988 has been reported to the Health and Safety Executive.

  Mr. R. K. Palmer (Accident)
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will obtain from the Health and Safety Executive information regarding the accident to R. K. Palmer on 5 August 1991; and whether a prosecution is to be undertaken against either Nationwide Access Platforms Ltd., or A & P Appledore (Falmouth) Ltd.

  Mr. Forth
  Mr. R. K. Palmer, and employee of A & P Appledore (Falmouth) Ltd., suffered injuries to his legs and head while working on a mobile elevated work platform.

  The Health and Safety Executive has initiated prosecution action against Nationwide Access Platforms Ltd. for an alleged breach of section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

  Industrial Injuries
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment, pursuant to his answer of 20 November 1991,Official Report, column 215, what guidance is given to Health and Safety inspectors about the reliance to be placed on statements taken by an employer from employees in investigating accidents where employees are injured.

  Mr. Forth
  Health and Safety Executive inspectors carrying out investigations into accidents in which
  119
  employees are injured, conduct their own independent inquiries. Inspectors are advised to collect all the relevant information during their investigations and this could include statements taken by an employer from employees which may be helpful. However, inspectors personally interview whoever, in their professional judgment, is able to assist them in establishing the facts and do not rely on statements taken by employers.

  A. Marks and Company Ltd.
  Mr. Cryer
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what action is being undertaken by the Health and Safety Executive regarding the fatal accident to Mr. Lewis Drake at A. Marks & Co. Ltd., Low Moor, Bradford, regarding prosecution; and what changes are to be made to operational procedures to avoid any repetition of the accident.

  Mr. Forth
  The Health and Safety Executive has completed its investigation into the fatal accident to Mr. Lewis Drake at A. Marks & Co. Ltd., Bradford. It has deferred a decision on what if any further action may be appropriate until after the inquest into Mr. Drake's death has been held. Following advice from the HSE, the company has already carried out a number of modifications to the plant to prevent a repetition of the accident.

  Labour Statistics
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people have been employed in(a) agriculture and horticulture, (b) coal extraction and solid fuels, (c) shipbuilding and repairs and (d) iron and steel, in Great Britain in 1991.

  Mr. Jackson
  The information is given in the table:

  Employees in employment industries (SIC 80)

  Great Britain Thousands September 1991

  Agriculture and horticulture (Class 01)

  280·8

  Coal extraction and solid fuels (Group 111)

  79·7

  Iron and steel (Group 221)

  47·4

  Shipbuilding and ship repairing (Group 361)

  46·0

  Industrial Disputes
  Mr. Gregory
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was the number of working days lost because of industrial disputes in the six months to(a) December 1978 and (b) December 1991; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Forth
  There were 380,000 working days lost as a result of industrial disputes in the six months to November 1991, the latest available period. This is a fraction of the 6 million working days lost in the six months to December 1978. There are fewer strikes now than there have been for more than half a century.

  Business Statistics
  Mr. Wallace
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the total number of(a) business start ups and (b) business failures in (i) Great Britain and (ii) each of the regions for the last five years for which figures are available; and if he will make a statement.
  120
  Mr. Forth
  Regional estimates of VAT registrations and deregistrations, for the years 1980 to 1990, were published in the November 1991 issue of the Employment Gazette, a copy of which is available in the Library.

  These show clearly the sustained expansion of the small firms sector during the 1980s, in all regions of the country.

  Training
  Mr. Blair
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what budget is allocated for(a) employment training and (b) youth training respectively in each region of his training and enterprise and education directorate for the years 1991–92 and 1992–93; and what were the numbers of unemployed people in each of these regions at the latest available date.

  Mr. Jackson
  The budget allocations for 1991–92 for employment training and youth training in each region of the training enterprise and education directorate—TEED —are given in table(a). The figures for 1992–93 are still subject to negotiation and therefore not available.

  The number of unemployed people in each of the TEED regions as at December 1991 are given in table (b).

  Table (a)

  £ million

  England and Wales

  YT

  ET

  South East

  89·46

  32·22

  London

  49·18

  52·09

  South West

  65·28

  25·18

  West Midlands

  84·50

  48·71

  East Midlands

  96·58

  39·94

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  91·40

  52·80

  North West

  123·59

  65·17

  Northern

  67·76

  46·67

  Wales

  50·88

  32·32

  Note: ET budgets exclude national allowances (ie unemployment benefit + £10).

  Table (b)

  Unemployed claimants as at December 1991

  TEED regions

  Persons

  South East

  347,357

  London

  385,316

  South West

  190,128

  West Midlands

  246,987

  East Midlands and Eastern

  245,786

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  222,975

  North West

  325,792

  Northern

  134,440

  Wales

  122,910

  Scotland

  228,766

  Great Britain

  2,450,457

  Sunday Trading
  Mr. Hain
  To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will bring forward regulations to prohibit contracts of employment which require shop workers to work on Sunday; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Forth
  We have no plans to do so.

NORTHERN IRELAND

  Security Forces (Compensation for Injuries)
  Mr. William Ross
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) if he will list for each year since 1 January 1968 the sums paid in compensation for death and injury inflicted by members of the security forces where the victims were engaged in illegal or terrorist type activity at the time they suffered the injury or were killed; how many persons were paid compensation in each year; in how many of these cases the compensation was paid in out-of-court settlements before a court hearing; and in how many cases an award was granted by the court;

  (2) if he will publish a table to show for each year since 1 January 1968 the number of applications for compensation for (a) injury, (b) death, inflicted by the security forces, (c) injury and (d) death resulting from activity by persons other than the security forces, in Northern Ireland for which compensation was refused because the injured party or parties had been involved in terrorist type activity.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  I shall write to the hon. Gentleman as soon as possible.

  Nursery Places
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many places in nursery schools and classes were provided by education and library boards in 1990–91 and 1991–92 in Northern Ireland; how many of these places were(a) full-time and (b) part-time; and what was the total number of full-time equivalent places provided.

  Dr. Mawhinney
  The number of full-time equivalent places provided in controlled nursery schools and classes under the management of education and library boards in each of the years 1990–91 and 1991–92 was:

  Nursery schools

  Nursery classes

  2,925

  1,700

  The number of pupils attending on a full-time or part-time basis is a matter for determination by the education and library boards and boards of governors. The 1991–92 statistics are not yet available, but in 1990–91 the number of pupils enrolled was as follows:

  Full-time

  Part-time

  Total

  Controlled nursery schools

  1,860

  1,947

  3,807

  Controlled nursery classes

  1,234

  796

  2,030

  Harland and Wolff (Pension Surpluses)
  Mr. Hoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the date prior to privatisation when the pensioners' trustees meeting agreed to pension surpluses being used to subsidise the building of ships by the new owners of Harland and Wolff; if he will publish the information on which this decision was based; whether a similar scheme has been considered with the 122
  privatisation of NIE; and what rights have previous members of the scheme who object to the course of action taken.

  Mr. Needham
  Pension fund moneys have never been used by the new owners of Harland and Wolff to subsidise the building of ships. The pension fund scheme remains unaffected by the privatisation arrangements and members continue to have the right to take up any relevant issues with the trustees. In relation to the Northern Ireland Electricity superannuation scheme, its committee of management and trustees have been given an assurance by the Government that pension scheme surplus will not be prejudiced by the privatisation process.

WALES

  Employment Action
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will state the latest figures for(a) the number of employment action places provided and (b) the number of places filled; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  Contracts for employment action are not expressed in terms of places. The numbers of people in Wales receiving employment action allowances on 9 January, the latest date for which figures are available, was 600.

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give his latest estimate of the drop-out rate for employment action in Wales.

  Mr. David Hunt
  It is too early in the programme to do So.

  Public Libraries
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales which county or borough libraries he visited in 1989, 1990 and 1991; and if he will make a statement on his policies covering public libraries in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  My right hon. Friend's policies in relation to public libraries conform to his statutory responsibilities as defined in the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964. In pursuance of these duties, my officials have visited a number of public libraries in the last three years, but my right hon. Friend has not had occasion to do so.

  Physically Handicapped People
  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will visit the Deeside physically handicapped club at the Melrose centre, Shotton.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  I have no plans to do so.

  Mr. Barry Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on his policies concerning the physically handicapped and their social and physical needs.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Advice and guidance on services for people with physical and/or sensory disabilities was issued on 8 May 1990 to all local and health authorities in Wales, and on 7 November 1991 those authorities were
  123
  sent further advice in the Welsh Office "Protocol for Investment in Health Gain: Physical Disability and Discomfort: Physical and Sensory Disability". Copies of both documents are in the Library of the House. Local and health authorities are required to take them carefully into account in the preparation of their social care plans and local strategies for health.

  Bus Demonstration Projects
  Mr. Gareth Wardell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what plans he has to make funds available for bus demonstration projects in Wales.

  Sir Wyn Roberts
  A total of £0·5 million in supplementary credit approvals has now been made available to local authorities for 1992–93 to promote innovate bus priority schemes. This is additional to the capital provision for local authorities announced by my right hon. Friend on 11 December. Officials will be writing shortly to invite applications.

  Bus priority schemes will also be considered during the next capital spend.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what will be the sum of the precepts of the spending authorities on the collecting authorities in Wales in 1992–93, on the assumption that local authorities spend at their standard spending assessment; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  Precepts on collection funds in Wales assuming expenditure at standard spending assessment level and no drawings from reserves should be £257 million.

  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales how much he estimates will be raised from standard community charges on empty properties and second homes in Wales in 1992–93.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The standard charge, with limited exceptions, is payable for properties which are no one's sole or main residence or have been unoccupied for more than six months.

  The level of standard charge is determined by reference to the level of personal charge an authority sets for its area. In the main, these have not yet been set for 1992–93.

  Alcohol Misuse
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what sum was ear-marked for allocation by his Department as the Welsh share of the central funding initiative for combating alcohol misuse; what sum has has(a) earmarked for each county in Wales, (b) granted to each county in Wales in respect of 1990–91, 1991–92 and 1992–93 and (c) how much was spent for each county in 1990–91; and how much has been spent so far in 1991–92.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The initiative to combat alcohol misuse in Wales is independent of other campaigns and there is therefore no Welsh share. As part of this initiative a recurring amount of £150,000 was made available in 1990–91 and a further £150,000 was added in 1991–92, also recurring. Funds are not "earmarked" for each county; bids are considered on their merits. In 1990–91, the individual projects funded were as follows:124

  Title

  Cost (£)

  1. Drinkwise material

  22,647·00

  2. "Psst". Education video and supporting teachers packs for secondary schools

  13,974·00

  3. Rhoserchan Project—Rehabilitation centre

  6,790·00

  4. West Glamorgan Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse

  568·00

  5. Youthlink Wales

  1,358·00

  6. South Glamorgan Council on Alcoholism

  15,156·00

  7. Clwyd and Gwynedd Council on Alcohol

  19,965·00

  8. Ty Palmyra Rehabilitaion Centre, Gwent

  1,623·00

  9. Dyfed Alcohol Advisory Service

  3,480·00

  10. Alcohol Concern Wales

  2,379·00

  11. Rhythm and Booze Radio 1 Campaign Broadcast Support Service

  3,500·00

  Total cost

  91,440·00

  It is not possible to identify expenditure by county for 1991–92, as plans have yet to be finalised and grants claimed. In view of the delay, funds will be allocated to additional projects on a non-recurring basis. Forecast outturn is estimated to be around £230,000.

  Patients (Referrals)
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what steps he intends to take to fulfil ministerial assurances that contractual arrangements by health authorities in Wales will not interfere in the freedom of general practitioners and clinicians to refer patients to the most appropriate hospital and consultant.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  I shall be issuing consolidated guidance on the management and operation of extra-contractual referrals later this month, and this will again emphasise the principle that GP's and other clinicians should be free, when necessary, to refer in the best interests of their patients.

  Health authorities when setting contracts and establishing mechanisms for managing extra-contractual referrals are required to have as their objective the pattern of referrals which local clinicians and GPs prefer.

  From this year, the annual performance review with the Department will he held jointly with district health authorities and family health service authorities so as to further enhance the partnership between primary and secondary care in the setting of contracts.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received about difficulties and delays experienced when patients are referred by clinicians in Wales for treatment and its transpires that this must be done by means of extra-contractual referral.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The Department has recorded only one representation about delays or difficulties arising from extra-contractual referrals. Upon investigation, I was satisfied that the problems raised by the correspondent were not related to the extra-contractual referral process.

  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make it his policy that all patients in Wales waiting for treatment will be counted in the appropriate Welsh Office statistics; and if he will instruct health authorities that any patients who are described as waiting to go on a waiting list or awaiting extra-contractual referral must be included in that authority's reports and any other published figures.
  125
  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  The monthly returns produced by district health authorities in respect of the treatments they secure for their residents, include statistics for all patients waiting for treatment, whether out-patient, in-patient or day case attendance, across all specialties. Health authorities are required to include extra-contractual referrals in the figures given. They do not operate a system involving people having to wait on one list before being eligible for entry on to another.

  Health Service Resources
  Mr. Gwilym Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales whether he has now reached decisions about the allocation of resources for hospital and community health and related services in Wales for 1992–93; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. David Hunt
  I announced on 28 November at columns 1081-1082 my decision on the allocation of resources for health and personal social services in Wales for 1992–93. Within the £1,877 million resources available, I propose to allocate on a provisional basis £1,420 million for the hospital and community health service and for the cash-limited element of the family health service in Wales. This sum, which is subject to parliamentary approval of the supply estimates, includes the full costs arising from the introduction of charging in respect of many of the services provided in England and Welsh patients. This represents a cash increase of £116·6 million, or 9 per cent. over 1991–92 estimated outturn provision. Of this sum, £54·5 million is to be made available for family health service authorities for their administration expenditure in 1992–93 and for the cash-limited element of the practice expenses of general medical practitioners and GP fundholders. The allocations to family health service authorities will be announced in the course of the next few weeks.

  Excluding the cost of the artificial limb and appliance service, which is administered through a service level agreement between my Department and the Welsh Health Common Services Authority, and other centrally financed services, £1,357·1 million will be provided for hospital and community health services—£1,228·7 million for current purposes and £128·4 million for capital spending.

  For current spending, this represents a cash increase of £102·3 million or 9·1 per cent. over estimated outturn for the current year. This sum, together with the additional £13 million which it is anticipated authorities should, as a minimum, realise from further cash-releasing cost improvement savings and income generation schemes provide an effective increase in resources over 1991–92 of 10·2 per cent. £13·5 million of this sum will be allocated to fund the continuing and full-year cost of developments which are being funded centrally in 1991–92. £10£1 million will be allocated to other centrally funded developments which will be announced in due course.

  The £78·7 million balance of the provision available will be made available for the discretionary use of district health authorities. This provides for a 7·0 per cent. increase in DHA's discretionary revenue provision in cash terms or 2·5 per cent. in real terms, taking account of the latest forecast of general inflation in 1992–93. In addition
  126
  authorities will be expected to generate a further £13 million—that is, 1·1 per cent.—from new cash-releasing cost improvements and income generation schemes through their contracts with service providers.

  Thus, in total, DHAs should benefit from a 3·6 per cent. real terms improvement in their purchasing power, exclusive of any reductions in unit costs that arise from productivity gains as throughput increases. As a consequence, authorities should be able to make substantial improvements in the services offered to patients in accordance with the objectives of the patients charter.

  This increase in DHA revenue provision in 1992–93 is considerably in excess of the 0·5 per cent. per annum growth assumption which was used to calculate the figures given in my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) on 21 March 1991 at columns 1081-82 regarding progress toward capitation shares. As a consequence, I am able to ensure that all DHAs in Wales will receive a minimum revenue cash increase of 6·5 per cent. in 1992–93, and that those which would otherwise be more than below their capitation formula targets will also receive the balance of growth funding in proportion to their respective distances from target.

  The resulting discretionary revenue allocations for 1992–93 and the increases over their 1991–92 discretionary revenue provision in cash and percentage terms are shown in the table:

  Allocation

  Cash increase

  £ million

  £ million

  per cent.

  Clwyd

  160·4

  11·4

  7·9

  East Dyfed

  97·9

  6·9

  7·6

  Gwent

  170·1

  10·3

  6·5

  Gwynedd

  96·6

  7·2

  8·2

  Mid Glamorgan

  217·4

  13·1

  6·5

  Pembrokeshire

  43·4

  3·2

  8·0

  Powys

  55·5

  3·3

  6·5

  South Glamorgan

  191·6

  9·4

  6·5

  West Glamorgan

  142·5

  8·6

  6·5

  When authorities' estimated shares of the proceeds of capital charges are added to these calculations, each DHA's percentage share of gross discretionary revenue provision in 1992–93 by comparison with its capitation formula target, updated for estimated population changes is as follows:

  Gross Discretionary Revenue Provision Percentage

  Capitation Formula Target Shares Percentage

  Clwyd

  13·8

  14·3

  East Dyfed

  8·5

  8·8

  Gwent

  15·7

  15·2

  Gwynedd

  8·3

  8·7

  Mid Glamorgan

  19·1

  19·2

  Pembrokeshire

  3·8

  3·9

  Powys

  4·7

  4·1

  South Glamorgan

  13·5

  13·0

  West Glamorgan

  12·6

  12·8

  Accordingly, the revenue planning assumptions for individual authorities in subsequent years which I gave in my answer of 21 March 1991 have been revised as in table 3:
  127

  Percentage growth on previous year for 1992–93 to 2001–02 assuming 0·5 per cent. growth

  1993–94

  1994–95

  1995–96

  1996–97

  1997–98

  1998–99

  1999–2000

  2000–01

  2001–02

  Clwyd

  1·27

  1·10

  1·10

  1·10

  1·09

  1·09

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  East Dyfed

  1·10

  1·03

  1·02

  1·02

  1·02

  1·02

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  Gwent

  0·00

  -0·10

  -0·10

  -0·10

  -0·10

  -0·10

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  Gwynedd

  1·50

  1·20

  1·20

  1·19

  1·19

  1·18

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  Mid Glamorgan

  0·00

  0·62

  0·62

  0·62

  0·62

  0·62

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  Pembroke

  1·37

  1·15

  1·14

  1·14

  1·14

  1·13

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  Powys

  0·00

  -2·15

  -2·22

  -2·29

  -2·37

  -2·45

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  South Glamorgan

  0·00

  -0·27

  -0·27

  -0·28

  -0·28

  -0·29

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  West Glamorgan

  0·00

  0·76

  0·76

  0·76

  0·76

  0·76

  0·45

  0·45

  0·45

  These growth planning assumptions assume that capital charges remain the same over the planning period. Although growth of 0·5 per cent. has been assumed on the recurring revenue total, this is exclusive of capital charges, and this becomes 0·45 per cent. when expressed as a percentage of the recurring revenue and the recycled capital charges combined.

  I must stress that the figures in table 3 are for planning purposes only. They will be revised and rolled forward each year to take account of actual allocations. The redistribution of resources indicated by these figures will affect the purchasing positions of health authorities, but the provision of services will depend on where purchasers choose to place their contracts. The future of individual hospitals will therefore not always depend on the relative funding position of authorities in which they are located.

  Under the new capital allocation arrangements which become effective on 1 April 1992, £97 million will be earmarked for the purposes of the all-Wales major capital programme. Further details of this programme will be announced in due course. £35 million will be made available for the discretionary capital requirements of DHAs and the new Pembrokeshire health trust, as well as the minor capital needs of various other service providers which are not managed by DHAs. This provision includes a sum of £3·4 million which is available as a result of authorities repaying brokerage loans from earlier years.

  £1·7 million of this £35 million will be allocated in the form of additional revenue provision to the prospective pruchasers of the Pembrokeshire trust's services. It will thus form part of the trust's income for 1992–93 which can then be recapitalised to meet its capital requirements. The trust's capital expenditure will, however, also be subject to the external financing limit which I shall be issuing to the trust when its financial plan for next year has been updated to take account of the allocations to its prospective purchasers that are covered in this announcement.

  A further £2 million will be held in reserve to meet the minor capital requirements of various other service providers such as the dental hospital, Breast Test Wales and the Welsh Health Common Services Authority.

  The £31·3 million balance of capital provision will be allocated between the DHAs on behalf of their directly managed units; and in order to ensure the fair distribution of this sum between service providers, it will be allocated between authorities pro rata to the anticipated revenue income which their units will attract next year. In this way, minor capital provision, like revenue will "follow the patient".
  128
  The resulting capital allocations are set out in the following table. No allocation is shown for Pembrokeshire health authority because, when the Pembrokeshire trust comes into operation on 1 April, it will no longer be responsible for the capital needs of a directly managed unit. The trust's capital requirements will be met as previously noted.

  Capital allocation £ million

  Clwyd

  4·0

  East Dyfed

  3·3

  Gwent

  5·l

  Gwynedd

  2·1

  Mid Glamorgan

  5·9

  Powys

  1·1

  South Glamorgan

  5·5

  West Glamorgan

  4·3

  In addition, property sales in 1992–93 are expected to generate a further £5·2 million and it is anticipated that authorities will benefit from £4·2 million of these receipts. In total, I expect authorities to achieve additional savings and to generate additional income amounting to at least 1·1 per cent. of their recurrent revenue allocations.

  These allocations together represent another major increase in the provision for hospital, community and family health service. They once again underline the Government's commitment to the NHS and they underpin the assurances given about service availability and quality in the patients charter. They accord with the new resource allocation arrangements that flow from the NHS and Community Care Act and, in particular, make real progress toward weighted capitation funding. Indeed, they provide a secure basis on which to take forward the "Agenda for Action" which my Department recently published, and to which the NHS in Wales is fully committed. I am therefore sure they will be widely welcomed.

  Council House Sales
  Mr. Edwards
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales what capital receipts have accrued since 1980 to each local authority in Wales from the sale of council houses; what proportion of these receipts in respect of Monmouth borough council have been invested in social housing; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  [holding answer 29 January 1992]: In-year capital receipts are shown in the table. Information on the proportion of these used to fund specific housing programmes is not held centrally.
  129

  In-year capital receipts from the sale of council houses1

  £000

  1981–82

  1982–83

  1983–84

  1984–85

  1985–86

  1986–87

  1987–88

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Total 1981–82 to 1990–91

  Alyn and Deeside

  691

  388

  446

  847

  1,155

  943

  1,150

  2,257

  3,724

  2,147

  13,748

  Colwyn

  754

  705

  532

  415

  544

  605

  758

  1,305

  1,407

  787

  7,812

  Delyn

  773

  651

  1,068

  3,889

  453

  681

  1,089

  1,070

  1,986

  1,471

  13,131

  Glyndwr

  791

  1,212

  627

  438

  1,498

  727

  709

  1,875

  2,017

  867

  10,761

  Rhuddlan

  412

  335

  373

  391

  627

  467

  844

  1,541

  1,457

  881

  7,328

  Wrexham Maelor

  2,009

  1,388

  719

  867

  1,320

  1,997

  3,095

  4,433

  10,329

  4,322

  30,479

  Carmarthen

  1,628

  1,348

  963

  944

  632

  741

  845

  1,549

  1,793

  1,697

  12,140

  Ceredigion

  1,628

  1,888

  1,193

  819

  580

  1,020

  869

  2,291

  3,133

  1,877

  15,298

  Dinefwr

  712

  596

  336

  329

  484

  768

  730

  1,198

  1,279

  1,260

  7,692

  Llanelli

  1,645

  1,874

  2,139

  1,352

  1,141

  1,695

  1,984

  3,258

  3,383

  2,236

  20,707

  Preseli Pembroke

  2,623

  1,539

  1,666

  1,108

  1,053

  1,123

  1,245

  3,137

  4,217

  2,367

  20,078

  South Pembrokeshire

  112

  1,121

  1,511

  1,009

  456

  446

  728

  1,745

  1,976

  1,151

  10,255

  Blaenau Gwent

  954

  1,586

  1,005

  723

  3,406

  1,386

  1,511

  2,932

  4,750

  2,162

  20,415

  Islwyn

  1,653

  8,274

  2,775

  1,767

  1,541

  2,193

  2,550

  4,118

  4,229

  1,531

  30,631

  Monmouth

  285

  260

  3,036

  2,563

  1,974

  2,088

  2,763

  4,097

  4,689

  2,144

  23,899

  Newport

  1,878

  2,623

  2,884

  3,135

  7,534

  3,486

  3,490

  6,972

  8,513

  2,745

  43,260

  Torfaen

  2,674

  3,722

  3,009

  2,552

  1,465

  4,811

  3,532

  7,170

  9,380

  4,875

  43,190

  Aberconwy

  1,095

  1,270

  804

  692

  734

  858

  1,071

  2,566

  3,201

  1,188

  13,479

  Arfon

  1,054

  2,200

  723

  851

  548

  777

  738

  2,085

  2,570

  1,242

  12,788

  Dwyfor

  1

  512

  244

  156

  220

  143

  129

  352

  521

  591

  2,869

  Meirionnydd

  0

  1,013

  664

  341

  394

  407

  590

  1,054

  1,296

  497

  6,256

  Ynys Mon

  1,085

  875

  486

  517

  1,144

  920

  739

  2,918

  3,868

  1,910

  14,462

  Cynon Valley

  0

  2,494

  1,120

  560

  526

  1,062

  1,015

  1,302

  557

  2,078

  10,714

  Merthyr Tydfil

  1,379

  1,784

  1,032

  849

  1,257

  1,627

  1,842

  2,663

  3,156

  1,213

  16,802

  Ogwr

  1,403

  3,816

  9,104

  3,204

  3,106

  3,674

  2,998

  5,144

  6,220

  3,466

  42,135

  Rhondda

  362

  191

  230

  202

  275

  398

  355

  557

  738

  628

  3,936

  Rhymney Valley

  1,880

  2,659

  2,073

  1,719

  1,615

  2,839

  3,175

  3,023

  4,407

  3,541

  26,931

  Taff Ely

  20

  992

  1,886

  1,724

  1,802

  2,910

  3,663

  4,707

  6,155

  3,539

  27,398

  Brecknock

  1,922

  328

  1,149

  1,015

  918

  1,159

  1,324

  1,977

  1,325

  1,086

  12,203

  Montgomeryshire

  10

  104

  946

  648

  782

  1,207

  1,065

  1,864

  2,230

  1,068

  9,924

  Radnorshire

  701

  670

  689

  281

  317

  296

  595

  774

  881

  500

  5,704

  Cardiff

  2,355

  1,515

  4,015

  5,039

  6,312

  11,529

  9,179

  14,349

  16,819

  8,319

  79,431

  Vale of Glamorgan

  1,449

  2,762

  2,766

  2,274

  2,084

  3,297

  2,947

  5,755

  5,079

  2,260

  30,673

  Port Talbot

  890

  435

  1,950

  1,850

  2,080

  2,517

  3,063

  4,211

  5,182

  2,624

  24,802

  Lliw Valley

  734

  1,266

  502

  623

  960

  1,372

  1,343

  1,731

  2,968

  2,475

  13,974

  Neath

  1,636

  1,140

  714

  947

  1,410

  1,539

  1,864

  2,482

  3,038

  1,951

  16,721

  Swansea

  0

  1,607

  1,831

  6,027

  1,580

  2,260

  3,588

  8,467

  9,624

  4,375

  39,359

  Total Districts

  39,198

  57,143

  57,210

  52,667

  53,927

  65,968

  69,175

  118,929

  148,097

  79,071

  741,385

  1 Includes the repayment of principal on local authority mortgages on council house sales.

  Local Authority Capital Receipts
  Mr. Soley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will publish a table for each region and each class of local authority in Wales, for housing capital receipts and other capital receipts, showing(a) total cash-backed capital receipts available to local authorities at 31 March 1990 and the amount of those receipts that were set aside as provision for credit liabilities, (b) the total of capital receipts received by local authorities in 1990–91 and the amount of those receipts set aside as provision for credit liabilities, (c) total capital receipts spent by Welsh local authorities in 1990–91, (d) the estimated total of capital receipts local authorities received in 1991–92 and the amount of those receipts that are likely to be set aside as provision for credit liabilities and (e) the estimated total of capital receipts spent on capital projects in 1991–92.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  [holding answer 29 January 1992]: I have placed a copy of the information available in the Library of the House.

  Hospital Waiting Lists
  Mr. Michael
  To ask the Secretary of State for Wales if he will require health authorities in Wales to include all patients awaiting treatment, including those awaiting 130
  extra-contractual arrangements, in their returns to the Welsh Office and ensure that such cases are included in the totals of figures published by his Department.

  Mr. Nicholas Bennett
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: Welsh Office waiting list returns already require district health authorities in Wales to report information on all patients resident in their area, including those subject to extra-contractual referral.

ENVIRONMENT

  MINIS
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the development of MINIS in his Department since its inception; and what proposals he has for its further development.

  Mr. Heseltine
  My Department is currently engaged on the 13th round of MINIS returns and reviews. Since I introduced the system in 1980, there have been many detailed changes over the years in the way material is collected and presented. In the early rounds, the emphasis was on establishing the full range of functions being undertaken within the Department and the staff and other
  131
  costs related to each. The next stage of development was to include better defined aims, objectives and targets in order to clarify what was being achieved and to ensure that these achievements fully supported Government policies and priorities. The most recent developments have concentrated on making MINIS more useful as a system for top management and Ministers, which has entailed the development of supporting line management systems at all levels through the Department; and on considering the allocation of administrative resources alongside the setting of objectives and targets, to ensure that resources are in the right place to do the job.

  MINIS returns are published after each round and a copy is placed in the Library of the House. Copies of MINIS 13 returns will be made available in the same way in due course.

  Radon
  Mr. Harris
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made in exploring possibilities of an accreditation scheme for builders engaged in remedial work on radon, pursuant to his Department's response to the sixth report from the Select Committee on the Environment, Session 1990–91, into indoor pollution.

  Mr. Baldry
  Discussions with the National Radiological Protection Board and representatives of the building industry in the south-west have established that training and experience are essential prerequisites for developing any accreditation scheme. The Building Research Establishment is now arranging a series of training courses for builders and building professionals on radon remedial measures.

  Local Government Finance
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received from local authorities on the need for supplementary credit allocations to deal with the possible roll-out of previous swaps deals; and what replies he has made.

  Mr. Portillo
  Two local authorities have asked my Department for supplementary credit approvals in respect of potential restitution payments on interest rate swaps. They have been told that it would be premature to consider such requests until the amounts involved can be estimated with reasonable certainty. They have also been told that, while requests for SCAs will be carefully considered, we do not have a reserve of resources for this purpose, so any additional allocations to one authority would be at the expense of others, or would require an increase in capital expenditure.

  Mr. Beith
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the sum of the precepts of the spending authorities on the collecting authorities in England in 1992–93, on the assumption that local authorities spend at their standard spending assessment; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  The sum of standard spending assessments for precepting authorities in England for 1992–93, on the basis of the reports laid before the House on 24 January, is £20,444·1 million.

  Planning Applications
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he intends to revise the criteria used in determining whether to call in planning applications under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to reflect the new priority being attached to development plans by section 54a of the 1990 Act, as inserted by the Planning and Compensation Act 1991.

  Mr. Yeo
  We have no plans to do so.

  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he intends to require local planning authorities to determine whether planning applications are in accordance with the development plan before their determination.

  Mr. Yeo
  Authorities are already required by the Town and Country Planning (Development Plans) (England) Direction 1981 to take a view on whether planning applications depart from the development plan, to advertise any such application which they do not intend to refuse and to notify certain departures to the Secretary of State.

  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will amend the directions made under section 77 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to require the Secretary of State to be notified of planning applications which depart from the local plan as well as the structure plan and which the local planning authority do not intend to refuse.

  Mr. Yeo
  We are considering the need for a fresh direction. The basis for notifying applications which depart from development plans to the Secretary of State would be an important consideration in making such a direction.

  Compulsory Competitive Tendering
  Mr. Blunkett
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, further to his answer on 24 January,Official Report, columns 351-53, by what criteria he concluded that there is no case for statutory action in instances where there is evidence of a breach of statutory provisions.

  Mr. Portillo
  The Secretary of State's conclusion in relation to any case has regard to the circumstances of the case and to the balance of evidence.

  Derelict Land
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, further to his oral answer to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) on 22 January,Official Report, column 309, what plans he has to continue the national register of vacant and public land; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Yeo
  My Department's register is expected to remain in existence as long as my right hon. Friend's power to direct disposal is limited to sites entered on it. However, only sites for which the possibility of a direction is under consideration are being added to the register. For the longer term, as stated in our 1990 consultation paper "Encouraging The Use of Vacant Public Sector Land", it remains our intention to replace the national register with statutory owners' registers for all relevant public bodies.
  133
  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to the oral answer to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) on 22 January,Official Report, column 309, what other measures, in addition to the requirement for local authorities to maintain and publish registers of their derelict or disused land, are being considered by his Department to address the problem of derelict or disused land in public ownership.

  Mr. Yeo
  We shall announce any further measures when we are ready.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to the oral answer to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) on 22 January,Official Report, column 309, how many local registers for derelict or disused land in public ownership there will now be in England and Wales.

  Mr. Yeo
  A total of 430 local authorities in England will be required by the regulations to make available to the public at their principal offices registers of unused and underused land in their ownership. Under the 1989 code of practice, some 200 other local public bodies including health authorities and development corporations as well as Government Departments and other national public bodies are asked to provide similar registers. All bodies have been asked to deposit relevant extracts with district and London borough councils so that they can be made available locally.

  Responsibility for land registers in Wales is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to the oral answer to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) on 22 January,Official Report, column 309, if he will make it his policy to require a six monthly return from local authorities to his Department, based upon their registers, reporting on the amount of derelict and disused land in public ownership in each local authority area.

  Mr. Yeo
  Local authorities are required to make annual returns to my Department of aggregate information relating to their registers and other public sector owners have been requested to do so under the 1989 code of practice. I have no proposals for altering these arrangements.

  Mr. Steen
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to the oral answer to the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) on 22 January,Official Report, column 309, what is the likely cost to local authorities of the scheme of local registration for derelict or disused land in public ownership.

  Mr. Yeo
  The extra cost to local authorities of maintaining registers of unused and underused land in their ownership is expected to be minimal. They should be recording this information themselves anyway in accordance with the 1989 code of practice and in the ordinary course of efficient property management.

  Planning Policy
  Mrs. Ann Winterton
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will revise planning policy guidance note 1 to withdraw the general presumption in favour of development as it relates to the preparation of development plans.
  134
  Mr. Yeo
  A draft revision of planning policy guidance note 1 was issued for consultation in October last year. The final version of this guidance will be published shortly in the light of the many responses we have received.

  Lowland Peat Bogs
  Mr. Redmond
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the future of the lowland peat bogs at(a) Thorne moors, Yorkshire, (b) Hatfield moors, Yorkshire, (c) Fenns and Whixall moors, Shropshire and (d) Wedholme flow, Cumbria.

  Mr. Baldry
  The Department gave consent for the then Nature Conservancy Council to purchase the freehold and leasehold interests of Fens Whixall and Bettisfield mosses site of special scientific interest in 1990. Thorne and Hatfield moors, and Wedholme Flow are sites included in the recent announcement by English Nature and Fisons. The sites are being handed over to English Nature at no cost. All the areas where vegetation exists will be managed immediately for nature conservation purposes, and the remainder will be returned to nature conservation over a phased programme agreed between Fisons and English Nature.

  Falkland Islands
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if monitoring of ultraviolet radiation is carried out in the Falkland Islands; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer the hon. Member to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office on Monday 3 February 1992 at column 11.

  National Parks
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of each of the national parks in England are designated as environmentally sensitive areas; and what is the ESA acreage in each instance.

  Mr. Baldry
  Substantial parts of the existing Pennine dales, North Peak and the Broads ESAs fall within the Yorkshire Dales national park, the Peak District national park and the Broads Authority respectively. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's recent announcement of further ESA designations included areas in the Lake district, Peak district and Exmoor and Dartmoor national parks. Detailed work on the ESA boundaries to reflect the particular purposes of each new scheme is still underway. The precise proportion of new ESAs in national parks cannot be determined until their boundaries are set, and for existing areas the information can only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

  Revenue Support Grant (Bournemouth)
  Mr. David Atkinson
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement about the revenue support grant 1992–93 for Bournemouth in 1991–92; and what account he has taken of the tourism factor.

  Mr. Portillo
  Bournemouth's revenue support grant for 1992–93 is £34·766 million, an increase of 20 per cent. over
  135
  the comparable figure for 1991–92. The allowance for overnight visitors in the authority's standard spending assessment is £1·088 million, also an increase of 20 per cent. on this year's figure.

  Local Government Commission (Guidance)
  Mr. French
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when, and with whom, he proposes to consult on the draft procedural guidance for the Local Government Commission to be issued under clause 15 of the Local Government Bill.

  Mr. Portillo
  The draft procedural guidance will be published shortly. The main consultation will be with the local authority associations, but we intend also to publicise the availability of the draft, and we shall, of course, be happy to consider comments on it from any interested individual or organisation. The draft will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Solent Wetlands
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress he has made with English Nature on designating the Solent wetlands and saltmarshes under the Ramsar convention.

  Mr. Baldry
  English Nature has identified the Solent marshes, together with Southampton water, as a potential Ramsar site, but they have not formally recommended designation to Government.

  Merseyside Fire and Civil Defence Authority
  Mr. Wareing
  To ask the Secretary of state for the Environment what discussions he has had with the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority respecting the provisional standard spending assessment and capping criteria; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Portillo
  My right hon. Friend has had no discussions with the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority on his proposals for the 1992–93 local government finance settlement, nor during the consultation period did he receive any representations from the authority on these matters. My right hon. and noble Friend, the Minister of State for the Home Office, met a delegation from the authority on 23 January 1992 to discuss their review of standards of fire cover.

  My right hon. Friend laid the Revenue Support Grant Report (England) 1992–93 and associated reports before the House on Friday 24 January. The SSA for Merseyside fire and civil defence authority for 1992–93 is £45·859 million, an increase of 7·4 per cent. on 1991–92, and, as a result of changes in underlying data, £12,000 greater than the provisional SSA proposed on 26 November. The authority's SSA per adult (£44) is the highest of the metropolitan fire and civil defence authorities.

  My right hon. Friend reaffirmed on 23 January that he remained minded to adopt as capping criteria the provissional criteria announced on 26 November. On the basis of these criteria, the Merseyside fire and civil defence authority could set a budget 7·4 per cent. higher than for 1991–92 without falling to be designated for capping.

  Public Records
  Mr. Latham
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals the Lord Chancellor has to maintain collections of public records currently held by county councils in the light of the proposed restructuring of local government; and whether he has sought comments from the Advisory Council on Public Records about this matter.

  Mr. Portillo
  In recommending any unitary authorities, the proposed Local Government Commission would have to be satisfied about the delivery of archive services. There will be ample opportunities for bodies concerned with archives to offer advice and comment on the commission's recommendations.

  Minerals
  Sir Trevor Skeet
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what assessment he has made of the effect of the Town and Country Planning (Development Plan) Regulations 1991/2794 upon the ability of the mineral industry to supply the construction industry with the materials it needs.

  Mr. Yeo
  The statutory duty for all mineral planning authorities to prepare a minerals local plan will provide the mineral industry with an up-to-date planning framework which will assist with the continuing supply of minerals for the construction industry in an environmentally acceptable manner. The regulations set out the detailed requirements for the preparation of minerals and other development plans.

  Sir Trevor Skeet
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what restraints he has placed upon district authorities to prevent them either deferring or overriding county mineral and waste disposal plans; and what mechanism he has provided for reconciling the conflict between county and district authorities on issues of importance to the mineral industry in discharging its role as supplier of aggregates.

  Mr. Yeo
  District local plans and minerals and waste local plans have to be in general conformity with the relevant structure plan. County planning authorities must be consulted on the preparation of district local plans and have the right to object to any policies or proposals of such plans. The Secretary of State has reserve powers to direct modification or to call in, all or part of a plan should that be necessary. The Town and Country Planning (Development Plan) Regulations 1991 provide that in the event of conflict between the provisions of a minerals or waste local plan on the one hand and a district local plan on the other, the provisions of the more recently adopted or approved plan prevail.

  UN Conference on Environment and Development
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what response he has made to the proposals by the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection Committee of the European Parliament on European Communities' participation in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Brazil in June; and what plans he has to work more closely with the European Parliament on environmental matters.
  137
  Mr. Baldry
  The European Parliament's Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection Committee last year presented an interesting report on the Community's participation in the UN Conference on Environment and Development. This report, sent to the Commission and member states, will be taken into account in the Community's preparations for UNCED. On future relations with the European Parliament, I refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on 30 January at column 641.

  Standard Spending Assessments
  Mr. Harry Barnes
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, pursuant to his answer of 30 January,Official Report, column 642, if he will publish tables based on the same criteria for the 1992–93 standard spending assessments which were laid before the House on 24 January.

  Mr. Portillo
  A table containing the information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Water Treatment
  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement concerning his consultations with the chairman of the National Rivers Authority regarding the implementation within the United Kingdom of the 1985 European Community municipal waste water treatment directive.

  Mr. Baldry
  The European Community's proposed municipal waste water treatment directive was adopted in May 1991 as the urban waste water treatment directive. The department has set up an advisory group to assist in the task of implementing the directive in the United Kingdom. The National Rivers Authority is represented on this group.

  Mr. Morgan
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when he proposes to issue guidance on the definition of sensitive waters for the purposes of the implementation in the United Kingdom of the 1985 European Community municipal waste water treatment directive.

  Mr. Baldry
  I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave him on 13 January 1992 at column 432.

  Fuel and Power Industry Processes
  Mr. Couchman
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment when the remainder of the process guidance notes for the fuel and power industry processes prescribed under part I of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 will be available; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Trippier
  I am pleased to report that we have issued the chief inspector's guidance to inspectors for 16 processes in the fuel and power industry. These notes have been drawn up following completion of research reviews; and relevant industries and other bodies have been given the opportunity to put forward their comments. The notes will provide a sound framework within which inspectors can assess applications for the authorisation of new processes and existing processes. They represent a further stage in the introduction of integrated pollution control.
  138
  A set of the notes has been placed in the Library of the House.

  The preparation of guidance notes for the remaining processes to come under control is well advanced. Further notes will be published in the next few months.

  Preston Farm, Stockton on Tees
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions his Department has had with the Teesside development corporation about Preston farm, Stockton on Tees.

  Mr. Portillo
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement announced today that the defence quality assurance laboratories will not be relocating to Preston farm. This leaves the way open for a series of new developments on the site. The Teesside development corporation will be announcing the first of these today, a £7 million investment by Livera Foods plc. The new factory is expected to create up to 700 new jobs. In addition, it is expected that a further 100 jobs will be created by the company's suppliers, and the construction contracts for the new factory will employ about 80 people.

  The development corporation has received a number of other inquiries about the possibility of development on the Preston farm site and hopes to be in the position to make further announcements shortly.

  Renovation Grant
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment how many applications for renovation grant were successful in each year since 1979(a) in England, (b) in Yorkshire and Humberside and (c) in each local authority in the Yorkshire and Humberside region.

  Mr. Yeo
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: Information about grants paid to private owners and tenants by local authorities are shown in the publication "Local Housing Statistics: England and Wales". The relevant issue numbers are as follows:

  Year

  Issue number(s)

  1979

  53–55, 57

  1980

  57, 58, 61

  1981

  65

  1982

  right">69

  1983

  73

  1984

  77

  1985

  81

  1986

  85

  1987

  89

  1988

  93

  1989

  97

  Copies are in the Library.

  Regional and national totals for 1979 and 1980 did not appear in this publication and for England are 65,359 grants paid in 1979 and 74,465 in 1980. The corresponding figures for Yorkshire and Humberside are 7,900 and 9,478 respectively.

  The latest figures for 1990 and the first nine months of 1991 are as follows:
  139

  Grants paid to private owners and tenants under

  (a) Housing Act 1985

  (b) Local Government and Housing Act 1989

  1990

  first nine months 1991

  1990

  first nine months 1991

  England

  89,094

  22,703

  7,523

  43,244

  Yorkshire and Humberside

  13,901

  3,327

  583

  5,164

  Barnsley

  644

  19

  48

  364

  Doncaster

  245

  38

  1

  169

  Rotherham

  1,538

  177

  44

  645

  Sheffield

  1,232

  300

  33

  571

  Bradford

  (3)451

  85

  (3)—

  155

  Calderdale

  1,042

  204

  15

  280

  Kirklees

  (3)699

  829

  (3)—

  89

  Leeds

  (3)750

  209

  (3)25

  503

  Wakefield

  (2)367

  374

  (2)5

  200

  Beverley

  (3)35

  23

  (3)11

  82

  Booth ferry

  92

  36

  53

  92

  Cleethorpes

  191

  50

  120

  188

  East Yorkshire

  1—

  28

  1—

  44

  Glanford

  157

  50

  23

  99

  Great Grimsby

  324

  58

  11

  234

  Holderness

  39

  9

  —

  20

  Kingston upon Hull

  1—

  1—

  1—

  1—

  Scunthorpe

  (1)48

  1—

  (1)12

  1—

  Craven

  (1)15

  1—

  (1)—

  1—

  Hambleton

  42

  11

  —

  7

  Harrogate

  100

  37

  21

  96

  Richmondshire

  103

  6

  5

  31

  Ryedale

  51

  (2)15

  8

  (2)30

  Scarborough

  128

  (2)41

  1

  (2)18

  Selby

  145

  36

  6

  66

  York

  165

  16

  19

  132

  1 No returns received.

  Notes: Figures in brackets give number of quarters for which information has been returned if not complete.

  Management Agreements
  Dr. David Clark
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment (1) if he will list the number of management agreements under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 which have been entered into in(a) national nature reserves and (b) sites of special scientific interest for each year since 1981 in England; and whether the proposed damage in each case was due to (i) agriculture or (ii) forestry; and if he will make a statement;

  (2) if he will list the number of management agreements that have been entered into in England under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 where payments have been given in the following ranges (a) up to £9,999, (b) £10,000 to £19,999, (c) £20,000 to £29,000, (d) £30,000 to £39,999, (e) £40,000 to £49,999, (f) £50,000 to £59,999 and (g) over £60,000;

  (3) if he will list (a) the ten sites of special scientific interest and (b) the ten national nature reserves in England which have the most expensive management agreements giving the name of the site, county in which it is located and the amount which has been or is due to be paid out; if the landowners are required to positively enhance the site as part of the conditions of payments; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Baldry
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: Few management agreements under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 have been negotiated on national nature reserves, as these are mainly already under
  140
  sympathetic management and the payments are negligible compared with payments on the agreements on sites of special scientific interest which follow.

  Management agreements entered into in England under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 on sites of special scientific interest still active total 1,098.

  Of these at least 61 arose from proposed damage arising from forestry. A further 1,037 arose from other proposed damage, mainly from agriculture.

  The approximate number of agreements entered into or renewed each year and which are still active are as follows.

  FY

  Number of threat cases

  Number due to forestry

  Number due to agriculture

  1982–83

  4

  2

  2

  1983–84

  8

  3

  5

  1984–85

  16

  1

  15

  1985–86

  25

  2

  23

  1986–87

  49

  5

  44

  1987–88

  57

  2

  55

  1988–89

  63

  3

  60

  1989–90

  247

  15

  232

  1990–91

  257

  14

  243

  1991–92

  372

  14

  358

  Total

  1,098

  61

  1,037

  Agreements which have expired and those renewed at present are not included.

  Payments have been made as follows under the 1,098 management agreements entered into England under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. This covers currently existing agreements but not those that have expired.

  141

  1,098 agreements

  £'s

  Number of cases with capital costs

  Number of cases with annual payments

  Less than 9,999

  139

  946

  10,000—19,999

  18

  20

  20,000—29,999

  3

  8

  30,000—39,999

  5

  8

  40,000—49,999

  3

  2

  50,000—59,999

  0

  0

  Greater than 60,000

  5

  3

  Total

  173

  987

  A few have both capital payment (lump sum) and an annual payment.

  Details of management agreement payments are confidential between English Nature and the owner or occupier of land, and cannot therefore be provided.

  Development Plans
  Sir Neil Macfarlane
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the organisations and local authorities he has met to discuss the provisions of the Town and Country Planning (Development Plans) Regulations 1991; what cost assessment has been made for local authorities and the industry; and if he will make a statement.

  Sir George Young
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: Proposals for the regulations were issued for consultation, together with a draft of planning policy guidance on the new development plans system. About 1,000 copies were sent out, and some 170 responses were received. A list of responses has been placed in the Library. Ministers have not met any local authorities or other organisations to discuss the provisions of the regulations.

  We do not expect the new regulations to have any significant extra cost implications for local authorities or other organisations, because they largely rationalise and standardise the arrangements for development plans contained in existing regulations on structure plans, local plans and unitary development plans.

  Empty Council Homes
  Mr. Arbuthnot
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the 20 local authorities which have the highest proportion of empty council homes.

  Mr. Mans
  To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will list the 20 local authorities which have the largest number of empty council homes.

  Mr. Yeo
  Local authorities reporting the highest percentage of their stock empty in their housing investment programme returns for April 1991 were: Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Burnley, Brent, Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Knowsley, Newcastle upon Tyne, Wolverhampton, Easington, Southwark, Newham, Carlisle, Oldham, Sheffield, North Tyneside, Sunderland, Stockton-on-Tees and Rother. Other authorities have higher numbers of empty houses and flats than some in this list but when account is taken of the size of stock their percentage vacancy rates are lower.

AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

  Wages Board
  Mr. Strang
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what plans he has to(a) modify or (b) abolish the agricultural wages board.

  Mr. Curry
  None.

  Calves
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many calves have been exported from the United Kingdom in each year from 1987 until the present.

  Mr. Maclean
  The numbers of calves exported from the United Kingdom in each year from 1987 as shown by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise overseas trade statistics are:

  Numbers

  1987

  373,205

  1988

  248,788

  1989

  319,301

  1990

  345,800

  19911

  364,637

  1 To end of November.

  Veal Crates
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what recent representations he has made to European Community institutions seeking the abolition of the veal crate.

  Mr. Maclean
  In negotiations leading to the recently adopted directive on the welfare of calves, the United Kingdom pressed most strongly for a European ban on veal crates. However, this was unacceptable to some member states and the directive, adopted by majority vote, does not impose a ban. The United Kingdom was the only member state to vote against the proposal.

  Hydatidosis
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the estimated annual financial loss to the farming and food industries attributable to hydatidosis.

  Mr. Maclean
  Returns received from a sample of slaughterhouses indicate that approximately 2 per cent. of cattle and 0·2 per cent. of sheep slaughtered in 1990–91 were affected with hydatidosis. However, this information is far from comprehensive and would not allow an estimate to be made of annual financial losses to the food and farming industries attributable to this condition.

  ESAs
  Mr. Jopling
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will give estimates of the numbers of farmers eligible for the environmentally sensitive area scheme in the Pennine dales, including those announced in his 15 January statement, giving the numbers for each of the 18 eligible dales;

  (2) if he will give estimates of the numbers of farmers eligible to benefit from the environmentally sensitive areas

  143
  schemes already in existence as well as those eligible in his recent announcements, giving the numbers in each individual area.

  Mr. Curry
  It is not possible to determine accurately the numbers of farmers eligible to enter the ESA schemes because the boundaries of the schemes do not coincide with parish boundaries in respect of which such data might be obtained from the agricultural census. There are currently 3,105 agreements in the 10 English ESAs, of which 303 are in the Pennine dales ESA. With the enlargement of some of the existing ESAs and the designation of 12 new ones, the number of agreements is expected to increase considerably but it is not possible to make an overall estimate until completion of the review of those environmentally sensitive areas designated in 1988 and determination of the boundaries for the 12 new areas to be introduced this year and in 1993.

  Sea Trout
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what quantities of sea trout were imported in 1991; and what tariffs were applied to non-EC imports.

  Mr. Curry
  Information on sea trout cannot be distinguished from import figures for all trout. For 1991, figures for trout are available from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise up to the end of August, when 660 tonnes had been imported from EC partners and 108 tonnes from third countries. For the period September to December 1990, the comparable figures were 654 tonnes and 138 tonnes.

  The general import duty rate applicable is 12 per cent. except for smoked trout for which the figure is 14 per cent.

  Regional Health Authority

  General Dental Services (GDS)

  Hospital Dental Service (HDS)

  Community Dental Service (CDS)

  Northern

  869

  149

  109

  Yorkshire

  1,094

  120

  111

  Trent

  1,218

  167

  115

  East Anglia

  605

  70

  61

  North West Thames

  1,512

  96

  144

  North East Thames

  1,226

  207

  111

  South East Thames

  1,341

  285

  118

  South West Thames

  1,240

  118

  107

  Wessex

  949

  113

  124

  Oxford

  826

  66

  80

  South Western

  1,209

  161

  92

  West Midlands

  1,395

  218

  182

  Mersey

  764

  100

  87

  North Western

  1,232

  160

  156

  Total

  15,480

  2,030

  1,597

  Note: There may be some duplication in the numbers of dentists practising, as dentists can practise concurrently in the GDS, HDS and CDS.

  The numbers of new or returning entrants in each of the last three years are for 1988, 1,409; for 1989, 1,453 and for 1990, 1,581.

  Growth Hormone Therapy
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total expenditure on general practitioner prescribed hormone therapy in each national health

  Falkland Islands
  Mr. Simon Hughes
  To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what studies his Department has made or plans to make regarding the possible effects of exposure to ultraviolet light on fisheries in the waters around the Falkland Islands; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Curry
  My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has responsibility for such matters in relation to the Falkland Islands.

HEALTH

  Prescriptions
  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is(a) the total value of prescriptions which have been dispensed in each family health services authority area, and in NHS regions in the last five years (b) the average cost of each prescription and (c) the cost of prescriptions dispensed per head of population for the same areas and periods.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information requested has been placed in the Library.

  Dentists
  Dr. Hampson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many dentists are registered and how many are practising in each health authority; and how many new or returning entrants there have been in each of the last three years.

  Mr. Dorrell
  At the end of 1990 there were 26,320 dentists registered in the United Kingdom with the General Dental Council. The numbers of dentists practising in each regional health authority (RHA) in England at 30 September 1990 are shown in the table:

  service region in 1990; and if he will express that sum as a figure of expenditure per head of children under 16 years of age in each national health service region.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information relating to growth hormone therapy is set out in the table.
  145

  Expenditure on Growth Hormone Therapy in 1990—England1

  Regional Health Authority

  Net ingredient cost (NIC)2 (£000)

  Cost Per child under 16 (pence)

  Northern

  96·1

  15·6

  Yorkshire

  854·1

  114·3

  Trent

  432·2

  46·2

  East Anglia

  31·2

  7·5

  North West Thames

  1,837·7

  261·0

  North East Thames

  777·5

  101·5

  South East Thames

  520·0

  72·9

  South West Thames

  162·0

  28·7

  Wessex

  718·1

  125·9

  Oxford

  963·9

  177·8

  South Western

  944·9

  151·9

  West Midlands

  178·0

  16·6

  Mersey

  382·8

  77·3

  North Western

  1,238·8

  148·7

  England

  9,137·3

  95·2

  1 The data are estimates based on a sample of 1 in 200 prescriptions dispensed by chemists.

  2 The Net ingredient cost is the basic cost of drugs before discount and does not include the dispensing costs or fees.

  Mr. Cousins
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what were the total sums expended on general practitioners prescribed growth hormone therapy in each year since 1985.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  The information requested is set out in the table.

  Total Net Ingredient Cost1on Growth Hormone Therapy—England 1986 to 19902

  Year

  NIC (£000)

  1986

  1,190·2

  1987

  2,229·0

  1988

  4,622·8

  1989

  8,875·0

  1990

  9,137·3

  1The Net Ingredient Cost is the basic cost of drugs before discount and does not include the dispensing costs or fees.

  2The data relate to calendar years and are estimates based on a sample of 1 in 200 prescriptions dispensed by chemists. No prescriptions were dispensed in 1985 for growth hormone therapy.

  Fresh Fruit (Cariogenicity)
  Mr. Couchman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to his answer of 16 December 1991,Official Report, column 54, if he will give references to the epidemiological evidence that suggests that fresh fruit appears to be low in cariogenicity.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Committee on the Medical Aspects of Food Policy (COMA) Report, "Dietary Sugars and Human Disease" (1989) shows reference to Rugg-Gunn A. J. "Starchy foods and fresh fruit: their relevant importance as a source of dental caries in Britain, London: Health Education Council, 1986 (occasional paper; No. 3)" as included in its consideration of the cariogenicity of fresh fruit as eaten by humans.

  Macfarlane Trust
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what payments have been made, and on what dates, to the Macfarlane Trust to help those infected with HIV; and what proposals he has to keep this fund topped up to meet future needs.
  146
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  A payment of £10 million was made to the Macfarlane Trust on 16 March 1988. Payments have been made to the trust annually in respect of its administrative costs. The Government have made it clear that the amounts available to the trust would be kept under review.

  Employment (Learning Difficulties)
  Mr. Wigley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations he has received from the Welsh initiative for specialised employment on the effect of residential costs on the livelihood of people with learning difficulties; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  None.

  District Nurses
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list by health authority the number of full-time equivalent district nursing posts and the number of potentially elderly domiciliary clients, as defined by the Department of the Environment under section 80 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, for 1976, 1981, 1986 and 1991.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  This information is not available.

  Transport Pollution
  Ms. Walley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will provide details of current Department sponsored research(a) as to the links between transport pollution and health and (b) the reported growth in incidents of asthma in children.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The Department is not currently supporting any such research.

  Homeopathic Medicines
  Mr. Tredinnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the average cost of an item of homeopathic medicine on the national health service and the corresponding figure for its conventional counterpart.

  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley
  Information is not available in the form requested.

  Acute Patients
  Mr. Morley
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the average number of days patients in acute wards spent in hospital in each year from 1987 to the present in(a) Yorkshire health authority and (b) Scunthorpe district health authority.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The information available centrally is given in the table.

  Mean duration of stay in days of ordinary admissions to acute sector beds in NHS hospitals

  Year

  Yorkshire region

  Scunthorpe district

  1987–88

  6·3

  4·7

  1988–89

  5·8

  4·4

  1989–90

  5·0

  4·3

  Mentally Disordered (Press Coverage)
  Mr. Corbett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health on what date he received a copy of the Matthew trust report on the Press Complaints Commission and BBC regarding media coverage of the mentally disordered and distressed; and whether he will make a statement.

  Mr. Dorrell
  We received a copy of the report on 15 January 1992. The specific issues which the report raises about the Press Complaints Commission's code of practice and the editorial policy of the BBC are primarily a matter for those bodies.

  We have asked the chairman of the Special Hospitals Service Authority to investigate the complaints in the report alleging breach of confidentiality and to take any necessary action.

  Southern Derbyshire Health Authority
  Mr. Oppenheim
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will give figures for the real-terms change in spending by the Southern Derbyshire health authority since 1982.

  Mr. Dorrell
  The annual accounts of the Southern Derbyshire health authority record total revenue expenditure of £74·9 million (cash) for 1982–83 and £132·9 million (cash) for 1990–91. This represents an increase in real terms of some 14·1 per cent. measured at 1991–92 prices. Over this period in-patient and day cases activity on a comparable basis has increased by 31 per cent.

  Fluoride
  Mr. Hinchliffe
  To ask the Secretary of State for Health what procedures exist to ensure that water fluoridation is introduced only where there is clear public support for such a measure.

  Mr. Dorrell
  It is for district health authorities to make decisions to apply to water undertakers to increase the fluoride content in the drinking water supplied by them. Section 89 of the Water Industry Act 1991 lays down procedures to be followed by district health authorities. The procedures include wide publication of proposals and consulting each of the local authorities whose areas are involved.

SCOTLAND

  Primary School Testing
  Mr. McAllion
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what has been the cost of Scottish Education Department officials attending public meetings in Scotland in support of national testing.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  About £160.

  Construction Projects
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will list those construction projects undertaken by the Scottish Office in conjunction with the private sector since 1979, and subject to a local planning inquiry, which involved the formal conclusion of a joint commercial contract in advance of the construction of the local planning inquiry; and if he will make a statement.
  148
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 27 January 1992]: No joint commercial contracts for the execution of Scottish Office construction projects subject to public local inquiry have been entered into since 1979 except in the case of proposals for the Skye bridge. This is the first project to be advanced using procedures in the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (the relevant sections of which came into force on 21 October 1991) that envisage the signing of a contract in advance of any public local inquiry that may be held. However, execution is still conditional on the outcome of the inquiry.

  School Crossing Patrols
  Mr. Kirkwood
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) what criteria are recommended by his Department for use by regional and islands councils when deciding to establish school crossing patrols;

  (2) if he will publish the number of existing school crossing patrols per 1,000 head of school population for each relevant local authority in Scotland;

  (3) what guidance is given to local authorities about steps to be taken when school crossing patrols are withdrawn.

  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: Section 26 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 enables regional and islands councils in Scotland to provide school crossing patrols. Guidance on the establishment of school crossing patrols is contained in technical memorandum SH7/87 issued to regional and islands councils by the Scottish Office in December 1987 after consultation with local authorities and the police. The guidance does not specifically deal with the withdrawal of particular crossing patrols.

  Information about the number of school crossing patrols per head of school population is not held centrally.

  Nursery Care
  Mr. Matthew Taylor
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will provide an estimate of the money spent by the education authorities in Scotland in 1990–91 and 1991–92 on providing education and nursery care for three and four-year-olds.

  Mr. Michael Forsyth
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: The latest available figures for net revenue expenditure by local authorities in Scotland on nursery education and day nurseries are:

  £ million

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Nursery Education

  39·7

  45·2

  Day Nurseries

  11·8

  113·5

  1 provisional

  Expenditure on provision for three and four-year-olds specifically is not available.

  Planning Inquiries
  Mr. Kennedy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will state the average length of time involved between the conclusion of a local public inquiry into a planning matter and(a) the submission to him of the reporter's recommendations and (b) his public response to the reporter's recommendations; and if he will make a statement.
  149
  Lord James Douglas-Hamilton
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: The length of time varies, but it usually takes about three weeks of reporting time for each week of inquiry. If parties request the right to comment on part I of the report, that consultation process can add four weeks to the time taken to submit the completed report to my right hon. Friend.

  During the year to 31 March 1991, the average time which elapsed between submission of the report to my right hon. Friend and the issue of his decision was 14 weeks. In the current year the average time taken to decision is 10 weeks.

DEFENCE

  Kirkcudbright Range
  Mr. Foulkes
  : To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what representations he has received concerning irregularities at the Kirkcudbright range.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  : None—other than those from the hon. Member.

  Procurement
  Mr. Pawsey
  : To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the amount of procurement orders placed with United Kingdom companies by his Department over the last two years.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  In the financial year 1989–90 we placed some 122,000 contracts, valued at £5·9 billion; and for 1990–91, about 90,000 valued at £6·3 billion.

  Mr. Kilfoyle
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent discussions he has had with industrialists in the defence sector regarding the release of information on his long-term procurement plans.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I regularly meet defence industrialists to dicuss a wide range of issues. Subject to necessary constraints of security and confidentiality, we would always wish companies to be briefed as fully as possible on future requirements in which they may have an interest.

  AWE Aldermaston
  Mr. Cohen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on safety at the atomic weapons establishment Aldermaston.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  We place the highest priority on safety at Aldermaston. The establishment has an excellent safety record and the highest standards will continue to apply.

  "Options for Change"
  Mr. Robert Hicks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what will be the impact of proposals and decisions arising from "Options for Change" on defence establishments and defence-related enterprises within the Plymouth travel-to-work area; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that we will continue to base Royal naval ships at Devonport. As part of our 150
  policy of matching training and support to the smaller front line, weapons processing will end at al naval armaments depot, Ernesettle and RAF Mou atten will close. The effect on defence-related enterprises has to be a matter for the management of the companies concerned.

  Helicopter Maintenance
  Mr. Bill Walker
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence is he can give details of the inquiry into tri-service third-line helicopter maintenance facilities; and if he will make a statement on the impact the report has concerning the future of the royal naval aircraft workshops, Almondbank, Perthshire.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The inquiry was a wide ranging efficiency scrutiny of helicopter repair work. I cannot say what implications the report might have for staff at RNAW Almondbank until its recommendations have been properly considered. But I can assure my hon. Friend that I fully recognise the skill and loyalty of the Almondbank work force.

  RAF Fylingdales
  Mr. John Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will pay an official visit to RAF Fylingdales.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  My right hon. Friend currently has no plans to do so, but I visited Fylingdales last March.

  "Options for Change"
  Mr. Home Robertson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a further statement on the progress of the "Options for Change" programme in relation to the Army.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The measures affecting the Army are being brought into effect in a phased manner over the next few years in accordance with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence's announcement of 23 July 1991.

  Confidence-building Measures
  Sir Patrick Duffy
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he next expects to meet Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, Defence Minister of the Commonwealth of Independent States to discuss confidence-building measures.

  Mr. Tom King
  I met Marshal Shaposhnikov on 30 January when he accompanied President Yeltsin on a visit to London. We discussed a wide range of subjects of mutual interest, including ways in which the United Kingdom might provide assistance in the fields of nuclear weapons disposal and defence management.

  Nuclear Deterrent
  Mr. Andrew Mitchell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps he is taking to ensure the effectiveness of Her Majesty's Government's nuclear deterrent.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Government are proceeding with plans to replace Polaris with Trident and intends in
  151
  due course to update Britain's sub-strategic nuclear capability. Taken together, these measures will ensure that our independent nuclear deterrent remains credible and effective well into the next century.

  Submarines
  Mrs. Ray Michie
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence when he last met representatives of the fishing industry to discuss submarine activities.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence I met fishing industry representatives to discuss submarine issues in June 1991. In addition I discussed the same issues with an all-party group of MPs in November 1991.

  Nuclear Weapons
  Mr. David Evans
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the change in the level of the threat to the United Kingdom posed by nuclear weapons in the former Soviet republics since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

  Mr. Tom King
  The threat of nuclear confrontation in Europe has greatly reduced: but it will take many years to reduce the huge nuclear arsenal of the former Soviet Union, and the Commonwealth of Independent States faces an uncertain future and there are risks of nuclear proliferation elsewhere. The Government will therefore maintain an effective, minimum deterrent.

  Small Arms Firing Ranges
  Mr. Martyn Jones
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he has any plans to publish the guidelines for the construction of small arms firing ranges.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  There are no plans to publish any such guidelines. Broad technical advice on range safety (including range construction) is however provided to civilian shooting clubs through the National Rifle Association and the National Small-Bore Rifle Association.

  Household Division
  Mr. John Browne
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what recent representations he has received regarding his proposed cuts in the public duties of the Household Division.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  I have received a number of representations regarding the execution of public duties by the Household Division all of which have been noted.

  Queen Victoria School, Dunblane
  Mr. Canavan
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what support his Department gives to the Queen Victoria school, Dunblane, for the education of the sons of people serving in the armed forces.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Queen Victoria school, Dunblane is funded almost entirely from Ministry of Defence votes.

  HMS Endurance
  Mr. Barry Field
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what plans he has for the disposal of the ship's bell belonging to HMS Endurance.
  152
  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  The bell from HMS Endurance is at present held at HM naval base Portsmouth. Applications for the bell have been received from a number of interested parties but no firm decision has yet been made about its future.

  Training Land
  Mr. Burt
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what review is presently taking place of the need to retain all current training land in the United Kingdom.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  As the planned restructuring of our Armed Forces will mainly result in a reduction in the number of units based in Germany, the need for training land in the United Kingdom is unlikely to diminish. Indeed, it could marginally increase. A number of studies are in progress aimed at setting out our future training requirements including frequency, priority, duration and space and at matching these requirements with our available training facilities. The precise impact of these studies on existing training areas and ranges is not yet clear.

  Iraq (Military Equipment)
  Mr. McFall
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what analysis his Department has made of the effectiveness of the military equipment available to Iraq during the Gulf war.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The equipment of the Iraqi armed forces included a wide range of systems of varying age, origin and effectiveness. Examination of recovered equipment in collaboration with the allies is still in progress.

  Iraq (UN Inspection)
  Mr. Robert Banks
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a further statement on the findings of the United Nations team investigating production facilities and stockpiles of mass destruction weapons in Iraq.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The findings of the United Nations special commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency investigating Iraq's compliance with United Nations Security Council resolution 687 were last circulated in United Nations document S/23268 of 4 December 1991, a copy of which is in the Library of the House.

  The United Nations special commission is still far from satisfied that Iraq has provided all the information required by SCR 687. A report reflecting the Secretary-General's latest assessments of Iraqi compliance will shortly be circulated as a United Nations document; a copy will be placed in the Library of the House.

  Quality Assurance Laboratory Services
  Mr. Devlin
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he has completed his studies into the future of his Department's quality assurance laboratory services.

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle
  My Department announced on 6 August 1991 that "Options for Change" reductions had made it necessary to review the plan announced in 1989, to relocate the Ministry of Defence's quality assurance staff
  153
  at the Preston farm site on Teesside. A study was set in hand to compare the costs and benefits of that course with the alternative option of merging the quality assurance laboratory services with those of the Defence Research Agency on sites operated by the latter.

  The study has now been completed. The impact of reductions in the defence programme for the 1990s is such that the most economical and operationally effective way ahead for the quality assurance technical support division is for it to be dispersed and consolidated into the Defence Research Agency, which will have considerable spare capacity on its existing sites. This will result in capital savings of more than £40 million and running costs savings rising to £9 million a year.

  The Ministry of Defence has therefore been able to release the site at Preston farm which will be available, through the Teesside development corporation, for commercial development. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment is today making an announcement about future developments on the site.

  Hunting
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence which organisations and individuals he has consulted in the past 18 months regarding nature conservation on Ministry of Defence land where licences are issued to allow foxhunting and deerhunting.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Ministry of Defence consults the local MOD conservation group where hunting licences cover an area with a nature conservation interest and it is designated as a site of special scientific interest. These groups consist of individuals and organisations representing the specific conservation interests of a particular site.
  154
  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 21 January,Official Report, column 185, when the fees payable by fox hunts for licences to hunt on Ministry of Defence land were last increased.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The hunting licences where fees are payable were last increased in 1988.

  Mr. Meale
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to his answer of 21 January,Official Report, column 186, if he will publish the regulations or codes of good conduct attached to or relating to licences issued to hunt on Ministry of Defence land.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Hunts are expected to abide by the respective codes of conduct of the recognised hunting organisations. It is not possible to give details of the regulations applying to each licence as each one is different depending on the establishment concerned and its usage.

  Trident
  Sir Eldon Griffiths
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what effect the United States decision to cancel production of W88 warheads for multiple-warhead nuclear missiles will have on the Royal Navy's Trident programme; whether W76 warheads of the type that are now to be used in United States Navy strategic submarines are compatible with and available for use in British SSBN boats; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  The United Kingdom's Trident system will use warheads which have been designed, and are being manufactured, in the United Kingdom. The United States decision will not, therefore, affect the United Kingdom Trident programme.
  155
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will now review the requirement for Trident following the cancellation of the Trident warhead production programme in the United States.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  No. Trident is essential if the United Kingdom is to maintain an effective and credible nuclear deterrent into the next century.

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will now make it his practice to release information on(a) the Trident programme and (b) the date on which he will order the SSN 20; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence made a statement on the Trident programme earlier today. On the SSN20 order, I have nothing to add to the answer I gave the hon. Gentleman on 29 November 1991 at column 684.

  Defence Budget
  Mr. Harry Greenway
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether he has plans to make any further savings in the defence budget; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  The Government's future intentions for defence expenditure are set out in the 1991 Autumn Statement and provide funding for the new force structure described in the Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1991 (Cm 1559). There are no plans to change these forecasts.

  Iraq
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what discussions he has had with his United States counterpart regarding the export of equipment to Iraq by the firm Terex.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  None.

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment he has made of the ability of the Iraqi Government to convert civil equipment into Scud missile launchers.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Scud launcher production is subject to United Nations monitoring under Security Council resolution 687, which calls for both the elimination of launchers themselves and of the associated production capability. Although Iraq assembled fixed and mobile launchers for its longer range Scud missiles before the Gulf conflict, it would face some difficulty in converting civil equipment to this purpose. Such equipment would need to be of correct specification which may not be readily available in Iraq and which would be hard to obtain under the current United Nations economic sanctions.

  Coal and other solid fuels

  Crude oil

  Petroleum products

  Natural gas

  Electricity

  Total

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  £ million

  Imports (f.o.b.)

  n/a

  3,698

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  7,064

  Exports (f.o.b.)

  98

  4,440

  2,630

  —

  —

  7,168

  Net exports (f.o.b.)

  n/a

  742

  n/a

  n/a

  n/a

  104

  156
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what assessment his Department has made of the military significance of equipment exported to Iraq by the firm Terex; and if he will make a statement.

  Mr. Alan Clark
  My Department has noted recent allegations in the press and is looking into the matter together with the Department of Trade and Industry. But I am not at present aware of any exports of military equipment to Iraq by Terex.

  Operation Granby
  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what changes to his policy of chartering merchant vessels have been made as a result of Operation Granby.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Pending the outcome of current work within the Department, no changes have been made.

  Mr. O'Neill
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether the MoD police fraud squad is investigating the alleged fraud in the chartering of merchant vessels to support Operation Granby.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  Yes.

  Ministerial Speeches
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether his Department keeps centralised records of all speeches and media interviews given by departmental Ministers speaking in areas of departmental responsibility.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton
  No.

ENERGY

  Fuel Exports
  Mr. Dobson
  To ask the Secretary of State for Energy if he will provide a breakdown of the figures underlying the figures for net exports of fuel in 1991 given in his press notice of 27 January; and if he will indicate how imported electricity from France is treated in the calculation.

  Mr. Wakeham
  [holding answer 3 February 1992]: The convention used in the balance of payments, when comparing imports and exports, is to record figures on an "f.o.b. basis" (i.e. free on board). The figures used in the Department's press notice of 27 January are consistent with the balance of payments figures published by the Central Statistical Office on the same day. Figures on electricity imports are included and were obtained from Customs and Excise data in the same way as those for other fuels. Figures for 1991 are as follows:
  157
  n/a Figures on an f.o.b. basis are not available separately for fuel categories other than oil.

  — Less than £0·5 million.

SOCIAL SECURITY

  Council Tax
  Mr. Allen
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if there are any plans under the council tax benefit scheme to alter the position of the groups currently exempt from deductions for non-dependents; and if he will make a statement.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The proposed system of nondependent deductions in council tax benefit will follow broadly the rules which apply in housing benefit. However, exemption from deductions will be extended to include non-dependents on income support, or those who would otherwise give rise to a discount.

  Disability Working Allowance
  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the estimated number of disability working allowance claimants in 1992–93 who will be liable to pay income tax.

  Mr. Scott
  Disability working allowance is a new tax-free benefit to be introduced from April this year. It is not possible to estimate the number of disability working allowance recipients who will be liable to pay income tax on other income in 1992–93.

  Mr. McMaster
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the estimated administrative cost of disability working allowance for 1992–93.

  Mr. Scott
  The administration of disability working allowance is 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.

  State Benefits (South Yorkshire)
  Mr. Patchett
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many south Yorkshire families were dependent on state benefits in 1979, 1990 and the latest available date in 1991.

  Miss Widdecombe
  I understand from Mr. Michael Bichard, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency that the information is not readily available and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost.

  European Year of Elderly People
  Mr. Andrew Bowden
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what plans his Department is making for the European year of elderly people and solidarity between the generations in 1993.

  Mr. Jack
  My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health, has lead responsibility in this area, and I refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to him by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, on 3 February.

  Housing Benefit
  Mr. William Powell
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many housing benefit applications were determined by each local authority in Northamptonshire in each year since 1980–81.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The available information is as follows:

  Number of Housing Benefit Claims Received

  1988–89

  1989–90

  1990–91

  Corby

  4,714

  10,652

  13,293

  Daventry

  2,607

  3,639

  8,246

  East Northampton

  7,882

  11,138

  7,309

  Kettering

  10,131

  9,722

  8,509

  Northampton

  5,558

  n.a.

  10,208

  South Northants

  n.a.

  n.a.

  2,793

  Wellingborough

  n.a.

  n.a.

  10,725

  Notes:

  (i) n.a.= information not available.

  (ii) Data is not available for years prior to 1988–89.

  (iii) Unsuccessful applications are included in these figures.

  (iv) Information on the determination of applications is not collected.

  (v) Source: Housing Benefit Management Information System.

  Mr. Thurnham
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security how many housing benefit review boards heard cases in each of the years 1989, 1990, and 1991, respectively; how many were decided in the claimants' favour and how many claimants were represented.

  Miss Widdecombe
  Information for calender years is not available, however, the housing benefit and community charge benefit management information system suggests that, in 1989–90, approximately 3,000 requests for a further review by a review board were reported, of which, about 700 resulted in a revised determination.

  In 1990–91, approximately 3,000 such requests were reported, of which, about 500 resulted in a revised determination.

  Data as to the number of review boards decided in the claimants' favour and claimant representation are not available.

  Mobility and Attendance Allowance
  Sir John Hannam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what were the numbers of(a) initial claims and (b) renewal claims for mobility allowance and attendance allowance in 1991; how many were (i) refused and (ii) refused but later awarded on review.

  Mr. Scott
  In 1991, there were 231,000 initial and 45,000 renewal claims for mobility allowance. 120,000 claims were unsuccessful. 11,000 awards were made following a review.

  There were 539,000 initial and subsequent claims to attendance allowances. 108,000 claims were unsuccessful. Complete information is not available about renewal claims to attendance allowance, although of some 45,000 processed by regionally located disability benefit centres, the majority resulted in an award. Information is not available about the success rate, on review, of unsuccessful initial and renewal claims.
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  Notes:

  1. Claims for both mobility allowance and attendance allowance which were received in 1991 were not necessarily processed in that year.

  2. Generally a renewal claim is one which is made on an existing limited period award to extend that award, but a subsequent claim is one made following disallowance of an earlier claim or sometime after a previous award has lapsed.

  Sir John Hannam
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the reasons for refusing attendance allowance during the 12 months to December 1991 where(a) an initial claim was refused and (b) an existing claim was withdrawn; and how many claimants were affected in each category.

  Mr. Scott
  Such information as is available is in the tables.

  Initial claim refused

  Number

  Medical criteria not satisfied

  107,678

  Constant attendance allowance total overlap

  10

  Residence and presence tests not satisfied

  77

  107,765

  Existing claim withdrawn (by claimant or third party)

  Number

  Deceased

  8,561

  Other reasons1

  5,832

  14,393

  1 A detailed breakdown of this figure is not available.

  Pensions
  Mr. Janman
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be(a) the extra cost of increasing the state pension to £110 per week for a single person arid £220 per week for a couple expressed as (i) total national cost and (ii) per contributor and (b) the corresponding reduction in the cost of housing benefit payments and income support payments if the pension figures in (a) were introduced.

  Miss Widdecombe
  The extra cost to the national insurance fund of increasing the basic state retirement pension to £110 per week and £220 for a married couple in 1991–92 would be £30·4 billion. The corresponding reduction in the combined cost of income support, housing benefit and community charge benefit would be £3·1 billion

  The combined extra weekly cost of this change in national insurance contributions for a man on average earnings and his employer would be £39·50 per week.

  Cold Weather Payments
  Mr. Winnick
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security if he will list the areas where the cold weather payments have so far been paid in 1992; and also the number of areas where such payments have not been paid.

  Mr. Scott
  Such information as is available is in the Library.

  National Insurance Numbers
  Mr. Marlow
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what action is required to establish that an applicant for a national insurance number is properly resident in the United Kingdom and is so entitled; and if he will make a statement on the enforcement of these conditions.

  Mr. Jack
  On receipt of an application for a national insurance number we require acceptable and verifiable evidence of identification. This could include a birth certificate, a passport or a Home Office immigration form. The Home Office is informed in any case where a passport indicates that there is a restriction on taking up employment in the United Kingdom or where there is a limit on length of stay which has expired, or is about to expire.

  Questions on residence are matters for my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

  Pension Schemes
  Mr. Flynn
  To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what is the estimated total amount payable to personal pension schemes from the national insurance fund in respect of the year 1991–92; and what increase in the basic retirement pension could be given at the same cost.

  Miss Widdecombe
  [holding answer 24 January 1992]: By December 1991, 4·6 million people had taken out personal pensions as an alternative to remaining in SERPS. The Government Actuary estimates that the amount of revenue foregone by the national insurance fund in respect of 1991–92 will be £2,740 million made up of £2,055 million in respect of the contracted out rebate, similar to that available to contracted-out occupational pension schemes, and £685 million in respect of the additional 2 per cent. incentive.

  This gross cost does not take into account the numbers of people who would join a contracted out occupational pension scheme if appropriate personal pensions were not available, nor does it take into account the future reduced burden of the national insurance fund brought about by people being in receipt of a personal pension rather than SERPS.

  The gross sum referred to above would not, therefore, be available to fund increases in the basic retirement pension.

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

CAP and Developing Countries
Lord Judd Lord Judd asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will propose a review of the implications of the common agricultural policy for food security in the third world.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Baroness Trumpington): My Lords, in both the CAP reform and the GATT negotiations the Government take full account of the potential implications of change for developing countries. The Government have no plans for a review at present.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. However, does she agree that over the past decade highly subsidised agricultural exports from the Community and from the United States have severely undermined agricultural production and food security in the third world, and exports by the third world? How can that situation be in the interests of sound social and economic development in the third world, or indeed in the interests of consumers and taxpayers in the Community? Is it not high time there was a comprehensive review of how development policy and agricultural policy could support each other?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the European Community's export policy for agriculture is primarily directed towards managing Community markets and enabling Community produce to compete in world markets. The Community has other policies which are directed specifically at the interests of developing countries. These include arrangements for preferential imports from these countries as well as the provision of food aid where that is needed. For the future, policy will be influenced by the outcome of CAP reform and the GATT negotiations where the interests of those countries are being fully considered.
Lord Hatch of Lusby: My Lords, is it not the case that there is an anomaly between the attitude of the Community's development policy overseas and its agricultural policy within the Community? Would it not be far better both for the Community and for the people of the third world if instead of giving food aid, the Community were to make provision for a great deal more exports of foodstuffs from the third world, which would necessitate undermining and cutting the subsidies on food production in Europe?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is a question of the relationship between GATT and the CAP. Significant changes to the CAP would be necessary to implement a GATT agreement. But the CAP reform
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proposals do not address the key issues for the round, which are import access and export subsidies. Agreement in the Community on CAP reform will not be reached quickly. Therefore we want agreement on GATT to he reached first to provide a framework for CAP reform.
Lord Harmar-Nicholls: My Lords, are we not whistling in the dark? A satisfactory settlement regarding GATT is impossible without a fundamental change in the common agricultural policy. Should not that fact be faced up to and dealt with? I recognise the matter is not completely in our hands, but energetic efforts to settle the first problem of the CAP would appear to enable us to start to solve the GATT question.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I am afraid I do not agree with my noble friend. It is vital that the GATT discussions succeed because they will provide boundaries within which CAP reform can take place.
Lord Gallacher: My Lords, in the current discussions on the restructuring of the CAP, is regard being paid to the preferential arrangements whereby member countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific group are permitted to export to the Community agricultural products on favourable terms? As regards the main part of my noble friend's Question, how is it possible for us to achieve some radical reforms of the CAP to take account of the needs of developing countries so long as the powers on initiatives for change rest in the hands of the Commission?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is the only body we have to deal with. As regards the ACP countries, I presume the noble Lord refers to bananas. That is a complicated and ongoing subject. The Commission has so far not put forward proposals on that matter.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: My Lords, has any progress been made in achieving agreement in the Uruguay Round of the GATT?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the current state of play on GATT is that the draft agreement produced by Mr. Dunkel requires some clarification but it provides the basis for a possible agreement. However, several EC member states maintain strong reservations, and further negotiations will be needed before an agreement is possible. The UK will continue to work with our European partners towards achieving an early and successful settlement.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that on all sides of the House the successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round is regarded as one of the most important political issues in the world today, and that failure to resolve it will have the direst consequences right across the globe, including in this country?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I can only agree with the noble Baroness.
Lord Cheshire: My Lords, can the noble Baroness give a definition of the terms "third world" and "developing world"? Both have been used. Are they synonymous? Times change; and Poland, for example, is now below the breadline owing to circumstances. Do those terms apply to such countries or is third world a fixed term applying to certain countries only?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, it is my understanding—and I stand to be corrected—that the current phraseology refers to developing countries rather than the third world.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware of the figures which my noble friend Lord Judd quoted a few weeks ago; namely, that 1,000 million people in the world are starving; 170 million of them die each year. Of those 170 million, 92 million are children; and of those 92 million, some 30 million are babies? Is it outwith the ability of governments of countries which have food and are capable of growing food to do something about that?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, the Government's prime objective is to help countries with food deficits to produce food for themselves; for instance, to provide fishing rods rather than fish. For example, the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which does the most wonderful job, provides assistance for Commonwealth countries, financed largely on the basis of concessional loans from the aid programme.
Lord John-Mackie: My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that 10 years ago when I entered this House the noble Lord, Lord Renton, whom I do not see in his seat today, made a speech on this subject in which he told the House that both the teaching of such people to grow their own food and providing food for starving people were long term matters. That has proved to be the case. Here we are 10 years later and there is still a problem.
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, we have to produce suitable food. There is no shortage of suitable food. The problems of delivering food to famine areas are usually due to factors such as lack of resources, poor transport and inadequate distribution. What is the use of sending milk powder to countries where the water is contaminated?
Lord Judd: My Lords, does the Minister agree that whatever may be said about the relationship between the common agricultural policy and the Uruguay Round, many people in the world believe that there cannot be a satisfactory outcome to the Uruguay Round in the interests of the third world before there is a fundamental reform of the CAP because of the CAP's ruthless commitment to social priorities within Europe whatever the cost to the third world?
Baroness Trumpington: My Lords, I have already answered the point about GATT and the CAP.

EC: Role of UK Civil Servants
2.46 p.m.
The Lord Bruce of Donington The Lord Bruce of Donington asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many civil servants in Grades 1–7 inclusive in the Home Civil Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office respectively are wholly or mainly engaged on matters concerning the European Community and which Minister and Cabinet committee is responsible for co-ordinating their activities.
The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington): My Lords, it is not possible to give a precise figure because of the difficulty of defining what are matters concerning the European Community and how many of the very large number of people who spend part of their time on European Community business are mainly so engaged. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office have the prime roles in co-ordinating the Government's policy towards the Community but other departments may take the lead on matters within their responsibilities.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, but does he not think it remarkable that apparently, according to his reply, there is no thorough co-ordination of policy in the various departments of state towards the EC? Is the noble Lord aware that in 1992 the United Kingdom share of total EC expenditure after taking abatements into account amounts to £5.5 billion? Does the noble Lord agree that when the preliminary draft budget for 1993 is published some account should be given to the Westminster Parliament as to how that money is to be spent and the attitude which the Government will adopt towards the items of expenditure, covering all ministerial departments, incorporated in the budget? Surely he agrees that the British Parliament is entitled to be suitably informed through a co-ordinated effort by the Government.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, he is in error when he suggests that there is no thorough co-ordination of government policy towards the European Community. Every government department is affected to some degree by our membership of the European Community. It is right that individual departments should take the lead in matters affecting their own areas of responsibility.
That is where the expertise lies. However, interdepartmental discussion on policy takes place under the auspices of the Cabinet Office. As I said, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in conjunction with the Cabinet Secretariat, co-ordinates Government policy towards the Community. The noble Lord is rightly concerned about resources. I suggest to the noble Lord that it would be a waste of resources to enlarge the bureaucracy in this country in order to have some new department ostensibly to deal with European matters when they can be dealt with perfectly effectively in the way that I have described.

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Obviously the noble Lord is entirely right to talk about the need for us to watch very carefully our share of the European Community expenditure. However, he will be aware of, and will pay tribute to, the Herculean efforts made by the former Prime Minister to reduce the contribution that Britain has to make.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell the House the number of officials employed by the European Commission at the present time? How many of them are employed in the four centres in this country?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, the total staff in the European Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice and Court of Auditors in 1991 was 24,629. That compares with 18,007 in 1981, but, of course, the Community was enlarged in the intervening years.
I am sorry, but I missed the second question put by the noble Lord.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, I understand that officials of the European Commission are employed in four centres of this country, including London, Edinburgh and Cardiff—I am not sure of the other. Will the noble Lord indicate how many officials there are?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I can certainly give the noble Lord the number of British officials working in Brussels. There are 114 UK secondees to the European Community institutions of which 56 are civil servants at grade 7 or above. We are well aware that we could do with more British officials in the Community institutions. That is why we set up a European fast stream recruitment scheme to prepare people for the competitions for European Community posts.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, I can supply the particulars for which the noble Lord searched. The total number of Commission employees in Brussels is approximately 14,000. Is the noble Lord aware that in the supplementary that I asked I was not implying that there should be further staff engaged in the United Kingdom? I was suggesting that in view of the co-ordination that the noble Lord said existed, the British Parliament should be provided with information prior to the decisions being made behind closed doors in Brussels on the size and content of the European budget.
Lord Waddington: My Lords, as noble Lords know, we have the most sophisticated system for scrutiny of European legislation and European proposals of any country in the Community. However, I do not doubt for one moment that we could improve matters further.
The figures that I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Cledwyn, were correct. I gave the total number for all the institutions. If one were to take the Commission alone, the figure is 16,426 permanent employees and 749 temporary employees.
Baroness Seear: My Lords, those figures seem remarkably small when we hear so much about the extravagant staffing of the Commission. For the
154
record, will the noble Lord tell us how they compare with an average government department or an average local authority in this country?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I need notice of that question. However, I do not believe that many of us consider staffing on the scale of 23,212 permanent officials and 1,417 temporary officials is a negligible matter. The cost is considerable. The total expenditure on staff in the European Community in 1991 was about £850 million.
Lord Bonham-Carter: My Lords, will the noble Lord be good enough to inform the House how many of those people are engaged in translation?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I shall have to write to the noble Lord on that as I do not have the breakdown between the various functions carried out by the officials. However, I can give the noble Lord the number of people involved in the various parts of the European Community. Three thousand people are employed in the parliament, and another 503 who are temporary, 2,711 are employed in the Council; 16,426 are employed in the Commission and 749 who are temporary; 693 are employed in the Court of Justice and 101 who are temporary; and 320 are employed in the Court of Auditors with 64 who are temporary.

Alzheimer's Disease: Research
2.55 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking to encourage research into and help for those with Alzheimer's disease.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper): My Lords, the Government support biomedical research through the Medical Research Council which receives its grant-in-aid from the Department of Education and Science. In 1990–91, the council spent well over £3 million directly on research into Alzheimer's disease generally and a considerable sum on basic research which may be relevant to the disease. In addition, the Department of Health directly funds research about policy and service delivery for mentally ill people including those with Alzheimer's disease; and there are further European Community studies.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, what are the Government doing to encourage those organisations outside the Medical Research Council and the Universities Funding Council which are doing important work in this field? Is the noble Baroness aware, for example, of what is being done by two bodies with which I am connected? The Teesside Development Corporation has contributed a substantial amount to the new £1.34 million Alzheimer's building in the area? It is a unique project; it will offer residential and day care. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, sits next to the Minister on the Front Bench. She visited the building on Friday. I am sure that she was impressed with it.

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Is the noble Baroness, Lady Hooper, aware of the significant and costly research undertaken by the Parke-Davis research laboratories? Are the Government showing an interest in the impressive work carried out by the Royal Society of Chemistry? Such projects ought to be fully supported by the Government.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the examples that the noble Lord quotes fully accord with government policy in this matter; namely, that decision making should be at the lowest possible level. Local funding of local projects is therefore very desirable. The noble Lord has pointed to an example.
Through our director of research and development in the Department of Health, we are able to co-ordinate all research that goes on. He directs our efforts towards encouraging further research at a local level to meet local needs.
Lord Carter: My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Alzheimer's research team at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, has two sections the clinical research section and a laboratory section? The whole of the laboratory section is moving to the United States in the course of the next year. Are the Government satisfied that the move is in the best interests of Alzheimer's research in this country?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am of course aware of that. I am also aware that my noble friend Lady Denton answered a specific question on the matter less than two weeks ago.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is it true that Alzheimer's disease is linked to aluminium and, therefore, aluminium cooking pots? That is an important factor when one considers the number of aluminium pots used in cooking.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I understand that the danger from cooking in aluminium utensils represents a very small degree in relation to the normal aluminium content of, for example, water. The risk is therefore very slight.
Lord Carter: My Lords, perhaps I may refer the Minister to the answer that she gave. She stated that the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, answered the question about St. Mary's Hospital. In fact, the noble Baroness, Lady Denton, stated that the question on St. Mary's Hospital was wide of the Question on the Order Paper at the time. Will the Minister now answer my question? Are the Government satisfied that the move of the whole of the laboratory section from St. Mary's Hospital Paddington, to the United States is in the best interest of Alzheimer's research in this country?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, my noble friend's response pointed out that the whole team was certainly not moving from St. Mary's Hospital to the United States.
Lord Skelmersdale: My Lords, further to the question asked by my noble friend Lord Gisborough, will my noble friend Lady Hooper accept that
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unconfirmed results of research can cause health scares? What are the Government doing to prevent that?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, we are encouraging the dissemination of responsible information to older people about their needs. For example, a booklet issued recently counters some of the scare stories. It gives sober, sensible, factual information to older people in order to help them with some of the conditions which they face and counteracts the unnecessary scare stories.
Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos: My Lords, can we in this country afford to lose to the United States the director and all the members of the laboratory section? The House will wish to have an answer to that question. Can the Minister say why they are going? Is it the case that they are being tempted to go because in the United States the salaries paid to research workers are very much better?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, the noble Lord must consult the individuals concerned if he wishes to know exactly why they are choosing to go. I can reassure him only that the research work will continue at St. Mary's Hospital.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is time that the rewards offered to scientific workers in this country were surveyed because in many cases they are pitifully low?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, no. My noble friend will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with him. As I said in my original Answer, the MRC alone has spent some £3 million directly on research into Alzheimer's disease. The overall figure spent on research into diseases affecting older people is considerably more.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, does the Minister agree with the widely held view that Alzheimer's disease is now the fourth most common cause of death in the Western world? In those circumstances, does she really accept that the £3 million said to be spent directly on research is sufficient if proper progress is to be made?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, that sum is spent directly on research into Alzheimer's disease. Considerable additional moneys are spent on basic research which could be relevant to the disease. Departmental research, local research projects, such as that mentioned by the noble Lord, and surveys are also being carried out. In any event, what counts is not merely the amount of money that is spent on this area of research but the quality of the research.

Housing Revenue Account Surpluses
3.3 p.m.
Lord Dean of Beswick Lord Dean of Beswick asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will reconsider their decision to compel certain local authorities to make financial payments into the local authority financial accounts from housing revenue account surpluses.
The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Baroness Blatch): My Lords, Schedule 4 to the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 requires a local housing authority to make a transfer from its housing revenue account to some other revenue account if its housing revenue account subsidy calculation results in a negative amount. The transfer must be equal to that amount. An authority not entitled to housing revenue account subsidy may also transfer any end-of-year surplus on its housing revenue account to some other revenue account. The Government have no plans to change these principles.
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, is the Minister aware that I find that a very disgusting Answer, bearing in mind—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Dean of Beswick: My Lords, I withdraw the word "disgusting". Is the Minister aware that I find that a very disappointing Answer? Is she further aware that the Department of the Environment has issued a directive to 18 local authorities stating that the surplus on their housing revenue account must go into the general fund in order to keep the poll tax low? Does the Minister understand, therefore, that the people meeting their full commitment by paying their full rent and poll tax are being forced to subsidise others who are not paying their poll tax? How does that situation accord with the Prime Minister's persistent trumpeting about fairness for people under the Citizen's Charter?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the noble Lord used a great deal of energy in responding to my Answer. The same energy might be better deployed in persuading some of his colleagues in local authorities to pursue non-payment of both poll tax and rent. Of the 10 worst local authorities in terms of pursuing rent, Southwark, for example, has failed to collect 38.5 per cent., which is £35 million. In Brent the figure is £15 million; in Hammersmith, £11 million; and in Lambeth, £12 million. I could go on. That is what needs to be changed. The ring-fencing of housing revenue account encourages authorities to manage their housing in a more accountable and businesslike manner. We should be deploying our energies in encouraging that.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, would the Minister care to reconsider that answer? Not content with insulting my noble friend—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, after insulting my noble friend she went on to give an entirely irrelevant answer about uncollected rents. However, is it not the fact that the Question refers to the ring-fencing of housing revenue account? Is it not also a fact that this year, as regards 18 councils, the council tenants, who are on the whole the poorer in our society, will be forced to subsidise the rest? Can the Minister in social justice defend that situation?
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I beg to move—
Noble Lords: Order, order!
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, I beg to move in reliance on Standing Orders that the Clerk be instructed to read Order No. 30 relating to biting and insulting remarks.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, the Question is, That this Motion be agreed to?
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, we appear to be in a pre-election period. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will feel able to withdraw his Motion. I believe that no insult was intended either by my noble friend or by the noble Baroness. If things have gone wrong, I hope that the noble Lord the Leader of the House will encourage the House to persuade the noble and learned Lord to withdraw his Motion because I do not believe that it helps our procedures.
Lord Simon of Glaisdale: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord the Leader of the House whether it is the case that the Motion of the noble and learned Lord is not debatable?
Lord Waddington: My Lords, I am informed that the Motion is debatable. Perhaps my noble and learned friend will take the view that he has made his point. It is necessary for us to use moderation in all things in this Chamber; that is what we are famed for. Perhaps we can proceed after my noble and learned friend has made his point.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: My Lords, if what I have done has reduced the temperature—
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I shall be perfectly prepared to withdraw my Motion, but I shall not do so another time.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Consolidation Bills: Joint Committee
3.8 p.m.
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
I should also like to take the opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks, and indeed those of the whole House, to the noble Earl, Lord Grey, for the conscientious dedication that he has shown in his membership of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills during the past nine years.

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We are all indebted to the effects of the Joint Committee for the vital work that it carries out in scrutinising and examining consolidation legislation put to it. At times membership must seem a somewhat thankless task far from the public eye, but I know that I have the support of the whole House when I say that without the sterling efforts of the committee the clarity of legislation on our statute book would be considerably lessened.
I should also like to welcome the incoming committee member —my noble and learned friend Lord Browne-Wilkinson. I am confident that his proven abilities as Vice-Chancellor will render invaluable his service as a committee member. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Lord Browne-Wilkinson be appointed a member of the Joint Committee in the place of the Earl Grey, resigned.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Local Government Finance Bill
3.10 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now again resolve itself into Committee.—(Baroness Blatch.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Schedule 10 [Local Government Finance: England and Wales]:
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 226:
Page 117, line 37, at end insert:
(". In section 43 of the 1988 Act (Occupied hereditaments: liability) in subsection (5) for the words "in accordance with the formula—
AxB/Cx5"
there shall be substituted the words "as nil.".
In section 47 of the 1988 Act (Discretionary relief) in subsection (1) (b) the words "to (6)" shall not apply.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 227, which deals with the same subject matter.
This amendment is intended to exempt charities from the non-domestic rate. Currently charities are entitled to 80 per cent. mandatory relief on buildings which they occupy and 90 per cent. relief on unoccupied buildings. As to the balance, local authorities have a discretion to award further relief but of that further relief, only 25 per cent. of the cost is borne by the national non-domestic rate pool.
This amendment is supported by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which reports difficulties that charities have in obtaining discretionary relief and, indeed, problems in gaining access to mandatory relief. Voluntary organisations are affected when they own or rent offices, community centres,
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advice centres and training workshops—the various facilities on which local communities depend. Rate relief has been an important element of support for the voluntary sector. Indeed, voluntary groups received something in the order of £145 million relief in 1989–90.
Discretionary relief is bound to be further eroded by constraints on local authority spending—in other words, capping. As a result of that, I suggest that voluntary organisations are certain to be affected. As the council budget is constrained, increasingly councils will be spending on statutory responsibilities. Voluntary organisations, as we have already seen, are likely to be affected by that.
The extension of the relief would generate an extra £7 million for the voluntary sector, which, as I say, has been hard hit by funding cuts. Indeed, Members of the Committee may be interested to know that the cuts have been of the order of £29 million in 1990–91. In the forthcoming year they are expected to be £42 million—considerable sums of money.
The cost of extending the relief can perhaps be put in the context of an increasing area of cost to voluntary organisations; that is, the increase in VAT which occurred less than a year ago. The increase to 17.5 per cent. has cost the charities £6 million.
There is a subsidiary reason—or perhaps an argument—for proposing this amendment to the Committee; that is, if there were to be 100 per cent. relief, a small amount of administration would be avoided. However, it is the financial argument—a genuine argument—which may appeal to the Committee. It will not cost a huge amount of money but it will make a great difference to the charities concerned. I beg to move.
3.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: On these Benches, we support the amendments with one qualification which I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, will understand. If the amendments were to be carried and there were an increase in mandatory relief for charities, there would be a reduction in the distributable amount made available from the national non-domestic rate to local authorities. The distributable amount forms part of the aggregate external financing. It also covers revenue support grant and specific grants. If the Government are minded to accept the amendments—and I hope that they will —it would be part of the deal, so to speak, that any reduction in the distributable amount should be made up by government grants.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I am not happy with these amendments. That is not because I do not support charity. Indeed, at present I am chairman of a charity which raises funds to help children in the third world. To my surprise, in these very difficult times, we have had great success. As someone said the other day, many businesses would welcome the increase in turnover which we have achieved.
What disturbs me is that this formula would mean that every charity would receive the relief, whether or not it needed it. The element of voluntary help for a

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charity would be removed by this provision. The local authorities would be obliged to give the relief. I do not believe that central government could or should make up the difference. It is taking away a council's discretion.
At present, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, there is a discretion to grant relief and councils do what they can. Also, they are able to differentiate between the causes which they wish to support and those they do not. I believe that an overall blanket formula is unnecessary. It could be greatly to the disadvantage of the local community or council tax payers.
Lord Ross of Newport: I declare an interest, in that my son manages the Oxfam shops in London and the South East. There are some 160 shops. He tells me that they have difficulty because not only are their rents going up but their income is falling. When people are hard up, they tend not to hand in their second-hand clothes so frequently. I am sure that the charities will need extra assistance.
As the noble Baroness said, it may be that that will be left to the discretion of the local authorities. However, they will not be inclined to grant extra relief because they are so hard pressed. If we want Oxfam and similar charities to continue to bear the burden which they hear on behalf of this nation—they do a wonderful job—the Government should listen to the proposal and consider it carefully. I hope that they will make some concession on this point because the situation is becoming rather desperate, particularly for charities which raise substantial sums from the shops which they run in various parts of the country.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: If the noble Lord acknowledges that the local authorities are now hard pressed, why is it suggested that there should be a mandatory requirement on them to provide the relief?
Lord Ross of Newport: In this country we rely more and more on charities to bear the burden. Local authorities would like to help but are often not in a position to do so. The matter comes back to national taxation. The Government have taken on the role of running the uniform business rate. Therefore, what we propose must be achieved in this way.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: Many of us might have a great deal of sympathy if the benefit—after all, it is a contribution from a local authority to a charity or indeed, from the Government to a charity—were directed specifically towards Oxfam or other charities of which we warmly approve. However, there are other charities of much less widespread interest and which are much less rewarding. It seems extraordinary that all organisations with a charitable status should be exempted in a mandatory way. The whole purpose of charity is that it should be selective. While I am sympathetic to the point which the noble Lord makes as regards Oxfam, it does not support the need for 100 per cent. blanket coverage as proposed in this amendment.
Baroness Phillips: I support the amendment. I ran a charity for 25 years. The staff were badly paid. They
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worked, because they were dedicated. We acquired a building from a church for a very small sum. That same charity now—a women's organisation which has done remarkable work—has to pay the business rate and various other high rents. That will make it extremely difficult for the charity to continue.
The Government depend on charities. If anything is required in the medical or educational world, who do they go to? We now have to make appeals for research into medical matters which should be the responsibility of the National Health Service. We have to make appeals for research into education, and appeals on behalf of animals, children and the homeless.
Charities have always been a remarkable part of British life. It will be a sad day if they go out of existence simply because they cannot afford the running costs imposed upon them. It may be that Westminster will be generous to them, but that is not my experience of Westminster. However, I am assured that the noble Baroness will change that.
In general charities, like most people, are suffering. It is a sad day for all. Perhaps even a few could be supported. I could not follow the differentiation between charities made by my noble friend. People who work for charities are never overpaid. There are no shareholders, there is no expensive chairman. People work through sheer dedication and are supported by volunteers. For heaven's sake, we ask the Government just for once to be generous. I can tell them that they will get some votes.
Lord Skelmersdale: Before my noble friend replies perhaps I may say that I agree with the points of view expressed by my noble friends on these Benches. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, brought up one point which causes me some anxiety. Under the 1988 Act charities receive mandatory relief of 80 per cent. if their premises are occupied and 90 per cent. if they are unoccupied. However, the noble Baroness led us to believe that the Act was not being followed and charities were finding difficulty in obtaining their legislative dues. Perhaps my noble friend, when he replies to the amendment, can answer that specific charge.
Earl Howe: As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, Amendment No. 226 deals with Sections 43 and 47 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 which provide for mandatory relief of 80 per cent. on non-domestic rates bills for charities, which can be increased at the discretion of the charging authority to an amount up to 100 per cent. We know from a survey we carried out that almost 19,000 deserving charitable occupiers obtained top-up relief in 1990–91. The amendment would make 100 per cent. relief mandatory. Amendment No. 227 makes similar provision for unoccupied property which would otherwise attract half the occupied rate.
The amendments should be seen in the context of charities generally. The Government have always recognised the special position of charities and the valuable role they play in society. They have already provided a range of tax incentives which are designed to increase the funds available to them. Under general rates, the level of mandatory relief to charities was a

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minimum of 50 per cent., which could be topped up at authorities' discretion to an amount up to 100 per cent. But during the passage of the 1988 Local Government Finance Bill we were persuaded to increase the relief to charities to 80 per cent. because we saw that many charities were likely to face substantially increased bills under the new system. We have, therefore, already done a lot to relieve the burden on them. In addition, the transitional arrangements we introduced to protect ratepayers against large changes in their rates bills will have cushioned a large number of charities from the full effects of the reforms in the first years of the new system.
In our view, that is already a significant list of concessions and I do not think that we should go so far as to remove the burden of rates from charities as an automatic right. All charities benefit from the range of services provided by local authorities, like other non-domestic ratepayers. Many charities have retail outlets which occupy High Street premises which profit from the particular services provided there. It therefore seems right that charities should be asked to contribute something towards the costs of those services, unless the local authority decides, having regard to the interests of its chargepayers or council tax payers, that it is appropriate to remit the bill completely, and that is their right.
Baroness Phillips: Perhaps the Minister will allow me to intervene. If one has a commercial enterprise charity shop, it must be separate from the charity.
Earl Howe: My understanding is that charity shops such as Oxfam shops fall within the ambit of the regulations. They are entitled to the charity relief. I checked that with officials beforehand and therefore I hope I know what I am talking about.
On a final note, mandatory relief for charities is currently borne by the non-domestic rates pool as is 25 per cent. of the cost of any additional top-up relief. The remaining cost of the top-up relief is met by local chargepayers: this is intended to ensure that authorities exercise their discretion responsibly. It is not clear from the amendments, nor from what was said by the noble Baroness, how the proposed increase in the level of mandatory relief for charities would be financed: would it fall on the community charge or council tax payers, on other non-domestic ratepayers, or taxpayers in general? It is easy to make concessions for charities, but someone else has to pay for them.
For all those reasons I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment, in the knowledge that the gulf between us is not all that great. It is a matter of emphasis. We all believe in charities. However, the element of discretion at local level is the deciding factor, at least for the Government.
Baroness Hamwee: I thank the Minister for that response. I too checked on the position with regard to so-called "charity shops" this morning. The advice I obtained was directly contradictory to that just given by the Minister. I understand that charity shops which
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are not charities—they are trading organisations associated with charities—are not subject to the mandatory relief.
Earl Howe: There may be differences of definition. The definition that I obtained is that where premises are being used for the sale of goods donated to a charity and the proceeds of sale, less expenses, go to charity, then that shop falls within the ambit of the regulations. There may be other types of shop that do not.
Baroness Hamwee: I know that this is a difficult area for charities, which need to be careful to remain within their charitable objectives and not infringe into trading activities, in the same way that they may not infringe into campaigning and political activities and so on. I shall look at what the Minister said. It may be something which of itself bears further examination.
For the reasons the Minister gave, having identified that charities require concessions, I ask the Committee, through the amendments, to consider that the concession should go all the way. I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, regarding the cost to local authorities, and for that reason I shall not press the amendment this afternoon. It is perhaps something I should reconsider, taking on board the need to express the source of the funding.
Perhaps I can turn to the point made by a number of noble Lords with regard to a distinction between charities. I accept that there should be individual decisions taken by people as to which charities they wish to contribute. I do not extend that argument to this subject by saying that a local authority should distinguish between different charities. It seems to me that some comments verged on the idea that some charities are more deserving than others. If so, I do not know why some charities deserve 80 per cent. and not 100 per cent. I do not accept the logic of the argument.
I shall reserve the right to come back to the matter, having looked at what the Minister said in regard to shops and dealing with the source of the finance. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 227 not moved.]
3.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227A:
Page 118, line 48, at end insert:
("Non-Domestic Rating: Multipliers
( ) In Schedule 7 to the 1988 Act (Non-Domestic Rating: Multipliers) for paragraph 2 there shall be substituted the following paragraph—
"2.— (1) The Secretary of State shall by order in respect of each financial year from the year beginning on 1 April 1993 by order introduce a scheme of non-domestic rating under which a billing authority shall determine the multiplier for the hereditaments in its area.
(2) Before making such an order the Secretary of State shall consult—

(a) the Audit Commission and the local authority associations; and

(b) such representations of business, industry and other non-domestic ratepayers as appear to him

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to be concerned on the need for accounts payable by small businesses to be abated from the amount that would otherwise be payable.

(3) No order under sub-paragraph (1) above shall be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament".").
The noble Lord said: With this amendment we come to an issue of the very greatest importance to local authority finance and one on which the Government have failed to take the opportunity to set right an evident injustice and error. I refer to the relatively recent provision that the non-domestic business rate should no longer be determined on a local basis but nationally and that the revenues, although collected locally, should be sent straight into central government and allocated and distributed by central government on such a basis as they determine.
Perhaps I may briefly refer to the effect that that has on local authority expenditure and on the proportion of that expenditure which is variable locally. I shall not use the phrase "collected locally", because theoretically the non-domestic rate is collected locally, although, as I have made clear, local authorities are acting only as agents of central government. In 1991–92, the current year, if one takes into account the poll tax transitional benefit, the poll tax benefit subsidiary and the income support allowance, locally raised taxation and locally variable taxation count for only 15 per cent. of the total local authority expenditure.
The effect is that for every pound that a local authority wants to raise for expenditure at its own discretion or in order to fulfil its statutory obligations, it has to raise anything up to £7 or £8 or even more—it would be more in the City of London—in order to finance that expenditure. Naturally enough, the government grant is not extended to meet all the requirements of local authorities. The first problem that we have with the effect of a national non-domestic rate is that the gearing of expenditure of local authorities is wildly exaggerated.
The second problem is that this means that local authority expenditure is extremely vulnerable. Therefore, what the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy calls a "robust financing system" cannot be achieved, as the Audit Commission points out, without some other control on it.
Perhaps I may read what the Audit Commission said in its response to the government consultation paper, A New Tax for Local Government. Having begun by saying that restoring local authority control over changes in the non-domestic rate levels would extend the local tax base and give more meaning to consultation and partnership between local government and the business sector, it goes on to say that there should be some protection for the business sector against excessive increases, with which we entirely agree. I say in parenthesis that it may have gone unobserved that we supported, or certainly did not oppose, Clause 65 of the Bill which provided for better consultation between the business community and local authorities.
The Audit Commission goes on to say:
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"the low proportion of expenditure now to be raised by local taxation combined with the very high gearing on tax rises"—
that is the point I was making earlier—
"may make the system unsustainable in the long term without either extensive capping or a reduction in the functions of local government. Neither would be supported by the commission".
I remind the Committee that the Audit Commission is in an entirely neutral sense a creature of the Secretary of State. It has to comply with any of the directives issued to it by the Secretary of State. In its constitution it is not an independent body, yet on this occasion the Audit Commission clearly feels so strongly about the issue that it points out that the alternatives to an improved system of local authority finance which increases the taxable base of local authorities, which in turn is locally based, is so important that it makes this quite remarkable response to the government consultation paper.
It is not only the Audit Commission that feels that way or the experts, although they certainly do. I have mentioned the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy. I refer also to the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, the Society of County Treasurers and all of the local authority associations. The feeling that something is wrong here and that the business rate should remain local extends to business itself. It is particularly true in the South East, where many businesses, particularly the small ones, feel that they have been very hard done by because of the business rate. The London Chamber of Commerce and many other chambers of commerce in the South East have expressed the view that the national non-domestic rate should be returned to local control.
The most interesting view on this matter is expressed by the Institute of Directors, which carried out an independent survey of its members before expressing its views in its response to the government consultation paper. The institute says:
"Having the national non-domestic rate as a national tax also is contrary to the concept of genuine local government".
It concludes,
"Business rates should return to local government".
When this matter was raised in a probing amendment last week by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, having confirmed what I had said, observed that under the present system rises in the non-domestic rate are limited to the rate of inflation. He pointed out that in the 1980s there had been a 37 per cent. increase in real terms in the non-domestic rates. What he failed to point out—we were perhaps a little slow off the mark in responding to what he said—was that that was a period in which central government support for local authorities was reduced from 61 per cent. to 46 per cent. of their total budgets. Therefore, looked at mathematically, that sort of increase in real terms is hardly surprising and is entirely to be expected.
What local business people are saying to the Institute of Directors and to their chambers of commerce, as well as to the councillors whom they know and with whom they have good relations, is that their dialogue with the local authority, which is so much helped by Clause 65 of the Bill, becomes much

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less meaningful if there is no impact on that dialogue in tax-raising terms. My noble friend Lady Hollis points out to me that that is particularly true when a local authority is capped and is therefore unable to respond to the suggestions being made to it by local business people.
The shopkeepers in Norwich want the city council to improve security measures for their shops. Norwich City Council, having been capped, is unable to accede to that very modest request which would cost only £20,000 a year. If the money came to Norwich City Council from the business people, they would have the right to demand the protection which I am sure they need and they would have some assurance that the local authority would be able to negotiate sensibly with them. As it is, much of the consultation in Clause 65, valuable though it may be, is a foot or two off the ground. It is not related to money or what is being paid or received.
In the face of this almost universal desire to return to a locally determined business rate, why have the Government missed the opportunity? I suggest that it would be no discredit, political defeat or loss of face to the Government if, even at this late stage, they were to agree with this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Renfrew of Kaimsthorn: The noble Lord has made a number of interesting points. Clearly he continues to feel very strongly that business rates should be set by decisions reached locally rather than by decisions reached nationally. However, that is not what the amendment is specifically about; although, as he has explained fully, the amendment requires consultations. Indeed, there are a number of amendments before us this afternoon which require consultations. No doubt there comes a balance, as it were, where too many consultations become cumbersome. I shall leave my noble friend the Minister to answer that point.
I should like to ask a question to which I am quite uncertain of the answer, though I have a suspicion what it may be. I refer to subsection (3) of the amendment which states:
"No order under sub-paragraph (1) above shall be made unless a draft of the order has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament".
I take that to be an affirmative resolution. Is it not unusual that there should be a requirement for an affirmative resolution on what will be a routine procedure? There will be an annual order. Subparagraph (1) states:
"The Secretary of State shall by order in respect of each financial year".
The Secretary of State determines a scheme by which the multiplier will be calculated. That is an annual procedure. Is it not unusual to have a requirement for affirmative resolution for an annual procedure in this way?
My understanding is that the affirmative resolution procedure is, in general, to scrutinise, as it were, special actions by the Secretary of State. I may be completely wrong about that—I am not well informed—but I should be grateful for guidance from the noble Lord or from others in the Committee.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: The noble Lord is completely wrong.
Baroness Hamwee: As the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said, this amendment follows an amendment which I moved in Committee last week. I did not see that amendment as a probing amendment but as an enabling amendment because I was quite content to allow for the details of the return of non-domestic rates to local authorities to be worked out quietly and calmly and to be brought back. However, since that did not meet with acceptance I am happy to support the amendment which is now before the Committee for the reasons which have been given —primarily the risk to democratic local government by the increased gearing which has been identified, the reducing amounts which are raised locally, and the reduced local discretion.
We on these Benches believe that land value rating would be a better way to go about raising local taxes from businesses —a point extracted from me by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, at an earlier stage. However, as it appears that we are not to have local income tax and neither is land value rating on the agenda, I believe that the amendment which is proposed is a distinct improvement on the present position.
We have heard the list of organisations which have spoken loud and clear with regard to the return to local discretion of non-domestic rates. They are not loony Left-wing organisations. Quite the contrary—they are respected, they are respectable, and we should pay heed to them.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: The proposal in this amendment is important. One must accept what the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said as to that. However, I find his argument unpersuasive. To suggest that it is undemocratic that the business rate should be fixed nationally rather than by local authorities ignores the fact that most of the business premises involved are not operated by people necessarily living in the area and, therefore, by people who have a local vote. They are parts of business organisations, many of them on a national basis. There is no reason to believe that those in the area concerned are going to have a vote or any say whatever in the decision.
It therefore seems sensible that the amount of the business rate should be determined nationally. In addition, of course, there is the fact—and I do not want to raise the temperature of the debate—that in many cases local authorities under Labour control have pushed rates so very high as to discourage the operation of businesses. The businesses concerned have no defence. As I said, they have no vote. Therefore, they will continue to be highly vulnerable to the "depredations"—and I think that is the right word—of high spending local authorities. I hope, therefore, that my noble friend the Minister will reject this amendment.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, has just tried to perpetuate the myth that has grown that the reason for high business rates is the profligate spending of local authorities. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Noble Lords: Oh!
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: I shall explain that. The reason for very much increased rates was the withdrawal, and the progressive withdrawal year by year, of government central support through the rate support grant. During the whole of the period of this present Government more than £20 billion has been lost to local government by the reduction in central government grant. In my view, and that of many others, it was for that reason business as well as domestic rates increased inordinately. In the main, it was not the fault of high spending local authorities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): Yes it was.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: But it was not. If the noble Lord will just examine the facts he will see that the high rates all the way along have been engendered by reducing the level of government support for local authorities.
Baroness Blatch: Will the noble Lord answer this question? Why was it that rates to businesses were very high in high spending authorities and very low in low spending authorities?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: There are reasons for that. One reason is that the Government so distributed the grant as to benefit certain local authorities. Perhaps the noble Baroness will consider the position. During the period of Tory Government the proportion of grant, or the proportion of expenditure net from the centre, has gone down from roughly 59 per cent. to roughly 39 per cent. It is that withdrawal of the grant which has caused the problem and which has generally accounted for the rise in domestic and business rates.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: How does the noble Lord reconcile the argument that it is due to a reduction in central grant that, for example, in Wandsworth rates were kept very low and in Lambeth they were very high?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: As I have just tried to explain, it was the distribution of the grant and the way in which the Government decided to distribute it that led to some areas being hit hard and to other areas being hit not quite so hard. For example, one of the areas that has been badly hurt by central government is Berkshire, a Tory-controlled council. People living in Berkshire, as the noble Lord will know, have suffered huge increases in their domestic rates, although the amount spent on individual services is less than in many other parts of the country. That is not due to high spending by the local authority. It is due to low grant from central
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government. That is the reason for the disparities and it is something which I am afraid the business community did not understand when it supported the system of the uniform business rate.
When I served on the Select Committee on Overseas Trade I can well remember the CBI coming before us and putting forward a completely mistaken view of what was happening to business rates. From there on it made the mistake of supporting a policy which even the Daily Mail agreed yesterday was a very bad policy indeed. The present system discriminates against small businesses and businesses in the South of England, where the Tory Party hopes to get a great deal of its support at the next general election. It is not just my colleagues and I who make this point. It is the Daily Mail, which is hardly a Labour newspaper. I advise the Government and Members of the Committee opposite to read yesterday's article in the Daily Mail. The article is edited by Margaret Stone. If Members of the Committee opposite read it before Report stage, their attitudes may well be rather different.
There are very good reasons why the business community should be involved in what is happening locally. One of the deleterious consequences of the uniform business rate is that members of the business community take less interest in what is happening locally. I happen to believe that that is a very bad thing indeed. A good thriving business community enables the people in an area to live better, to have a better standard of living, to have more jobs, and so on. Therefore it is important that the business community has an interest in and takes an interest in what is going on around it.
When local authorities collected the rates, members of the business community were interested enough to want to serve on the local authority. They had not only a domestic interest if they lived in the area of the authority but also a business interest. That encouraged them to want to make a contribution to the good government of the area and indeed to look after the financing of the area by ensuring that money was not wasted by the local authority. I had a good deal of experience in local government as a leader of a county borough council for 18 years. I happen to believe that the levying of rates on the business community by the local authority brought a good deal to the good administration of the area. That is now missing.
There is now no accountability. The business community accounts to no one and no one accounts to the business community. The Government do not account to the business community in any sense because they have nothing to do with the governance except in so far as they interfere from the centre with a locality. Therefore it is necessary to involve the business community in the administration of the area. It would be well worth improving and increasing the influence that the business community has on the decisions of local authorities provided that the business rate is payable to the local authority to enable it to administer the area in the way the area needs to be administered.

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For example, what incentive is there for a local authority to keep its rates down in order to attract business? There is no incentive for it to run the area better in order to attract new business or to ensure that business is not repelled and driven away from the area. There is a very good business case—never mind about democracy for the moment—for returning the business rate to local authorities. It is good for local authority administration and it is good for business as well.
I urge the Government to take this matter seriously. If they believe in real local government they should use this opportunity and this method to widen the taxation base for local authorities so that there is at least some modicum of independence and a significant amount of tax to be collected rather than the 15 per cent. which local authorities have available to them at present. The noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, should consider this point seriously. The Government should consider it very seriously if they believe that there is a real role for local government.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: The amendments relate to Schedule 10, which applies to England and Wales, but I presume that if they were to be accepted by this House and agreed to by another place there would be consequential amendments for Scotland, as the Government have made it clear that the two countries should move on all fours. Therefore I wish to say a few words about this matter as it applies to Scotland.
In the early and mid-1980s there was what can only be described as an enormous outcry from the business and commercial community against the way in which local authorities were using their independent rating powers to clobber local businesses. There was also an outcry from many parts of the country over the fact that there was little equalisation in the rating burden between one area of Scotland and another and indeed between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. Business and commerce with one voice wanted—indeed demanded—a uniform business rate.
While I completely understand the Labour Party's position, because in Scotland as in England and Wales the Labour Party is perfectly open about its intention to remove the uniform business rate and, so to speak, repatriate it to local authorities, I have to say that I have been rather intrigued by the position of the Liberal Democrat Party. Perhaps the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, will tell me whether in her campaign against the uniform business rate and in favour of repatriating this aspect of local government funding to local authorities she speaks for Scotland as well as for England and Wales. If she does, I shall be interested to hear that, as will the business and commercial community in Scotland.
I have to tell her that the Federation of Small Businesses and Self-Employed, the Confederation of British Industry in Scotland, the chambers of commerce and every other business and commercial organisation of which I know are not taking part in any campaign to remove the uniform business rate. On the contrary, the campaign they are taking part in is to persuade my right honourable friend the
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Secretary of State to hurry up with the process of equalisation and making level playing fields between Scotland and England and Wales. When my noble friend the Minister replies and points out, as I am sure she will, that we are determined to stick by the uniform business rate, will she also undertake to draw to the attention of her friends in the Scottish Office the remarks made by the parties opposite, in particular by the Liberal Democrats? I am certain that they cannot list any commercial and business groups in Scotland that are in favour of the abolition of the uniform business rate and of a return to the position where business and commerce in Scotland, as in England and Wales, were hammered into the ground by profligate local authorities which put up the rates just as they saw fit and saw their businessmen and commercial people as there to be used to gain more and more money for their spending plans.
4 p.m.
Lord Ross of Newport: The noble Lord's remarks have caused me to rise to my feet. I suppose that I should, first, declare an interest as I actually pay uniform business rate on two lots of commercial property. I am surprised to note that the noble Lord probably did not listen to a programme on Radio 4 this morning. It featured a very good discussion—although it did not include Scotland—involving several commercial operators: one from the North of England, one from the South, one from the Midlands and one from Hereford. Three of them were pleading for the uniform business rate to be given back to local authorities. I agree that there has been a change of view; indeed, I believe that the chambers of commerce about three or four years ago rather wanted it to be put on to central—
Lord Henley: I trust that the noble Lord will give way. I too listened to the programme. I do not think that those people were pleading for the uniform business rate to be returned—or "repatriated" as my noble friend put it—to local authorities. They may have been objecting to some of the levels of rates that they were paying; but they were certainly not asking for the rate to be returned to local authorities.
Lord Ross of Newport: I am sorry, perhaps I misunderstood. That may have been because I was in my car, which was parked in a car park waiting for the arrival of a train which had been held up due to a bomb alert or something of the sort. However, I did not take that view. I believe that I am right in saying that the view was expressed that they would prefer to deal with local authorities and for very good reasons, such as those put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. I have no hesitation in saying that we do believe in local democracy. Therefore, while it is always very tricky for anyone who is not a Scot to speak on Scottish matters—although I am a Scot by descent—I am quite convinced that my colleagues in Scotland would certainly want the matter left with local authorities.
However, we want people on local authorities who represent the business interest. Written into the Bill is a most extraordinary provision that the non-domestic

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ratepayer must be consulted, yet, in fact, the council has no role in that process. I do not understand it. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, talked about multiple companies operating most of the shops in the country. They may operate in the main cities and towns, but they certainly do not do so in the market town where I live. Indeed, there is not a single multiple company in the town. Moreover, that goes for many market towns with, say, up to a 10,000 population. Although it may seem surprising to Members on the opposite side of the Committee, people do look to their local authority to help them out when they are in distress. As leader of a county council, I remember how in 1981 people came to the council in droves saying, "You must help us". They looked for local relief. That is why I still believe in local government.
Finally, when the Minister replies, I hope that she will tell us when all the appeals which were put in something like two years ago will be heard. We have been paying enormous rates for the past two years on assessments which many of us believe to be far too high and nothing has, as yet, happened. Indeed, I have not heard a single word from the district valuer in the Isle of Wight as regards a situation in which I am paying something like £12,000 a year in rates. I believe that the assessment is way over the top. It is time it was dealt with. There are something like 16,000 cases which remain outstanding. When shall we receive some response on the matter? I hope that we shall receive a response on this occasion.
Baroness Hamwee: I should like to accept the invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, to explain the position of those of us on these Benches. It seems to me that by posing the question, he makes it clear he has entirely failed to understand our position. In local government, as in other areas of policy, we aim to do what people who are affected are telling us they would like done. That is the reason for the amendment which is before the Committee this afternoon with regard to non-domestic rates in England.
Of course, the amendment does not refer to Scotland. I was most interested in what the noble Lord said about Scotland. I should have thought that he would have been quite glad that, for once, an experiment might be conducted in England rather than in Scotland. It is precisely because of the calls by those who are affected for the system to be changed that the amendment is before the Committee today.
Baroness Blatch: The amendment is similar in effect to Amendment No. 125A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, which we debated on Monday. Like that amendment, it would pave the way for the abolition of the national non-domestic rate by permitting the reintroduction of locally-determined business rates—and, perhaps I may say, without the automatic protection for business by subjecting it to rate increases greater than the rate of inflation. The only real difference behind the previous amendment of the noble Baroness and the one before the Committee today is that the Secretary of State would be required to consult various bodies before introducing a local rating system.
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In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said that if a local authority wants to spend £1 then it has to raise five, six or seven times that amount. In fact, that was what the noble Lord said; but I am sure that it was not what he meant to say. If local authorities want to spend £1 then they must raise £1 and if they want to spend £1 million then they must raise £1 million. I am repeating what I believe the noble Lord meant to say in respect of gearing. I see that the noble Lord wishes to intervene. I am happy for him to do so.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Perhaps I may correct myself on that issue. The Minister is quite right; I did not express correctly what I meant to say. I meant to say that if local authorities want to raise expenditure by 1 per cent., then they have to raise the poll tax by 7 per cent. or by different amounts in different parts of the country. I apologise for the error. The Minister is quite right to draw it to my attention.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord's explanation has certainly set the record straight. It takes me on nicely to the point that I want to make. If a local authority wishes to raise its expenditure, then, as the noble Lord rightly said in respect of gearing, it would have to be levied on the domestic ratepayer. Local authorities throughout the country receive the income from either the community charge or, as will be under the new system, the council tax. It also receives its share on a per capita basis of the revenues from the yield from the uniform business rate. The rest is made up to SSA by rate support grant. The only possible reason for arguing that the uniform business rate should go back to local level is that when local authorities wish to increase their expenditure they can increase it on the business community as well as on the domestic community. There cannot be any other reason for it. The noble Lord's point was mainly about gearing. Indeed, the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, were also all about gearing.
It seems that the idea behind the proposal is to levy less on the business community. In the circumstances, I should like to return to some figures. I am reminded of the remarks made by the noble Lords, Lord Stoddart of Swindon and Lord McIntosh, in respect of my noble friend on the Front Bench, Lord Henley, when he referred to the rate increases on businesses during a period prior to the introduction of the community charge. Perhaps I may say that, had the business rate been with local government for the past two years, we would now be taking £1.8 billion more from business if it had to be commensurate with local authority spending. Local authorities are spending at a rate which is well above that of the business community; that is, even within the capping regime.
We are talking about a party opposite which is prepared to take all limits off local spending thus allowing local authorities to spend at whatever rate they wish and to levy not just on their domestic community but also on their business community. Then, as an addendum to the amendment, is the requirement to abate the bills for small businesses. In other words, "Go hang" if you are a medium-sized business or a large business which also make up the

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business community. I must tell Members of the Committee on the opposite side that I think they are putting up a very poor case for returning business rates to the local community.
Perhaps I may refer to the Daily Mail article and also link that with the programme on Radio 4 this morning. The business community is rightly saying at present that times are very difficult. The recession has hit businesses very hard. The business community is concerned about revaluation; indeed, it is concerned about all those factors. I do not hear great cries stressing that we should go back to Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester and—if I dare mention a Scottish authority—Strathclyde. I do not hear that cry. The CBI in England is not saying that now.
However, having said that, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Newport. I take the matter most seriously. I, too, believe that more should be done and that we should continue to keep up the pressure as regards the speed at which appeals are being dealt with. It is absolutely right that we should do what we can to speed up the appeals process. I can tell the noble Lord that my department is applying as much pressure as possible in this respect. As an addendum to that, I can also say that when and if those bills are modified downwards, people will be reimbursed and reimbursed with interest. But that is cold comfort if a business has undergone very difficult times sufficient to cause it to go to the wall in the meantime.
I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, muddled his arithmetic when he cast his mind back to local authorities. He first referred to Wandsworth and the differentials between one authority and another. The question was posed: what about Lambeth and Wandsworth? Of course the noble Lord had no answer. It is a good comparison because the amount of external support per capita for people in Lambeth is infinitely greater than it is for people in Wandsworth. Therefore the comparison that my noble friend made was a good one.
On business rates, I asked a straight question of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon. I asked him why it was that rates levied on businesses were high in high-spending authorities and low in low-spending authorities. I am not sure what the noble Lord said, but he did not come back with a clear answer. He said that it was something to do with grants.
Perhaps I may remind the noble Lord that in the last year of the old system when the national average rate poundage was 258 pence, in Sheffield it was 400 pence; in Haringey 382 pence; in Manchester 376 pence; on North Tyneside 369 pence; in the Wirral 361 pence; and in Liverpool 356 pence. Those figures speak for themselves. High-spending authorities, high rates; low-spending authorities, low rates, because the rate support grant, as the noble Lord is aware, is an equalising grant. It recognises the needs of different areas. That is why Lambeth receives more external support than Wandsworth.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: The Minister misquoted me or perhaps she misheard me. I said that Berkshire County Council, which has been for many years under
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Conservative control, is a high rating authority. Its poll tax is very high although its services per capita are below those of many other areas. That is accounted for by the amount of grant which Berkshire receives. If Reading received grant on the same basis and the same amount as Wandsworth, the poll tax that Reading would raise would be nil.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord again does the equivalent of mental gymnastics with his comparisons. I am afraid that we cannot compare Reading with Wandsworth. They are different classes of authority. It is important to compare a London borough with a London borough.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: They are not different classes of people.
Baroness Blatch: If the noble Lord can prove that high-spending authorities did not levy high rates and low-spending authorities did not levy low rates on the business communities, I should be interested to see his evidence.
The purpose of consultation appears to be primarily to soften the blow which such a change would undoubtedly deliver to small businesses. No doubt it will fall to the hard-pressed taxpayer or the medium sized or large business to finance any such reliefs. But coming from the party which claims that a return to local rates would be beneficial to business there can be no greater indictment of the proposal than the fact that the need to protect small businesses arises at all. Medium and larger businesses of course would merely have to grin and bear it.
As my noble friend Lord Henley said in the earlier debate, the re-introduction of locally set poundages would return businesses to all the vagaries and uncertainties of the old rating system. It would mean that once again the burden of rates could differ dramatically from one part of the country to another for reasons which had more to do with the spending policies of local authorities than with local economic activity. Changes in the poundage would no doubt be sprung on businesses with little or no warning, so making it impossible for them to plan ahead; and, despite the lip-service which Members opposite pay to the principle of accountability, businesses would still have no direct electoral influence over local taxation decisions which affect their competitiveness and scope for investment. They would once again merely become milch-cows for extravagant local authorities.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that my only experience of Liberal influence on local government was in my authority. The Liberals' first action was to increase the rates by a record 33 1/3 per cent. That took a large sum of money out of the business and commercial sector in Cambridgeshire in one year. It did huge damage. No apologies were made to local businesses. Despite their protestations about the well-established link we had with local businesses, they failed to liaise over such matters.
By contrast, the uniform business rate offers businesses much greater certainty, as well as avoiding the economic distortions I have mentioned. By linking

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it to the rate of inflation, businesses have been spared the consequences of real increases in local authority spending since 1989–90. If the uniform business rate had not been introduced, businesses would have had to pay an additional £1 billion last year and a further £850 million this year. As it is, many businesses will share in our success in bringing down inflation with rates rises of only 4.1 per cent. next year.
The only rationale for the amendment is to levy a rate on business that is greater than 4.1 per cent. and to make it more commensurate with that increase in local authority spending. All the evidence that we have shows that businesses are worried at the moment because of the combination of recession, revaluation and redistribution through the revaluation from areas that were less affluent to other areas. I would have hoped that all Members of the Committee would have approved of that shift of the non-domestic rate burden from one part of the country to another.
Given those advantages of the uniform business rate, a return to locally determined rates would not bring the benefits which Members opposite claim. For those reasons, I hope that the Committee will reject the amendment.
4.15 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It is important that we should try to separate the two strands of this interesting debate. I can show that either of the two strands in itself would be enough to justify a vote for the amendment; but they are different arguments and they should be put separately. The first is the issue of local democracy where we pointed out—I made a mess of some of my figures, for which I apologise—that the system of local government finance introduced in the past few years by the Government has resulted in a locally variable element of local authority finance being reduced to 22 per cent., if we take it literally, or 15 per cent. if we take into account all the other elements of central government expenditure which contribute to local government services. The effect of that—perhaps I should repeat it to make it clear—is that, if a local authority wants to expend an additional 1 per cent. of its budget, it has to raise an additional amount, which could be as much as 7 per cent., from the domestic poll tax payers in its area.
It is not just those involved in local authorities, although they are unanimous on the point, but the professionals, and, above all, the Audit Commission, which have pointed out the dangers of the position. The Audit Commission, in an especially trenchant passage in its response to the Government's consultation paper, pointed out that when there is gearing to that extent, then there is long-term instability in local government finance, and unless we have universal capping and/or a restriction on the functions of local government, something will have to give.
The Audit Commission says—we agree with it—that neither universal capping nor restrictions on the functions of local government are satisfactory alternatives to a better system of local government finance. On those matters, the local authorities
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themselves, the professionals in the field, and, above all, the Audit Commission, are unanimous. That is the argument on local democracy.
The second argument is a business argument. That argument too stands on its own two feet and has been amply justified in the views that have been expressed. A number of Members of the Committee, notably the noble Lords, Lord Boyd-Carpenter and Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, pointed out that business rates were not popular in the past. That has always been the case. Business people, responding to the admirable campaign of the Local Government Chronicle in favour of a return of the business rates to local control, have always said that they did not like paying the business rate but they recognise, as Members opposite appear not to recognise, that the level of business rates was not entirely at the discretion of local authorities.
The relationship between business rates and domestic rates was established by central government. Local authorities had no discretion to change that relationship. If local authorities wanted to spend more, they could not just raise the business rate at will; they had to raise the rate for domestic ratepayers too. I suspect that much of the argument of Members of the Committee opposite is based on a misunderstanding of that fundamental point, although they also recognise that a good deal of the discontent with the business rate in recent years stems from revaluation rather than the absolute level of the business rate.
We must now address not historical references but the present situation. It is not just small businesses or large businesses but rather businesses of all sizes that are expressing a wish to return to locally controlled business rates. Only today a press release was issued by the federation of small businesses. The policy chairman of that federation, Mr. John Harris, stated:
"Business rates are an unfair tax not related to ability to pay. Businesses are not making much in the way of profits yet their business rate bills continue to go up and up".
He makes those remarks in the context of the argument for wider use of local authorities' discretionary powers to remit business rates for small businesses. I believe the Minister had an adequate reply to some aspects of that argument.
Baroness Blatch: Will the noble Lord produce the evidence to show that businesses wish to return to local authority control?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I have already done that.
Baroness Blatch: You did not say that!
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I did not say that the federation of small businesses said that businesses wanted to return to local authority control. I said that the Institute of Directors had said that businesses want to return to local authority control. A large number of chambers of commerce, particularly in the south and south-east of England, have also expressed that wish. If businesses say that, it does not come well from a Government, who are supposed to be sympathetic to business, to argue the opposite case. On the grounds of local democracy and financial

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accountability for local government and on the grounds of the interests of businesses, I propose to take the opinion of the Committee on the amendment.
4.22 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 227A) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 92; Not-Contents, 152.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Jeger, B.

Airedale, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Annan, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Ardwick, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Aylestone, L.

Judd, L.

Birk, B.

Kennet, L.

Blackstone, B.

Kilbracken, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Kinloss, Ly.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B

Bottomley, L.

Lockwood, B.

Broadbridge, L.

Longford, E.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Carter, L.

Molloy, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Nicol, B.

Crook, L.

Parry, L.

Cudlipp, L.

Phillips, B.

David, B.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Prys-Davies, L.

Desai, L.

Richard, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Donoughue, L.

Rochester, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Ross of Newport, L.

Ezra, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Fitt, L.

Seear, B.

Foot, L.

Serota, B.

Gallacher, L.

Shackleton, L.

Galpern, L.

Shaughnessy, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Shepherd, L.

Glenamara, L.

Stallard, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Stedman, B.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hampton, L.

Thomson of Monifieth, L.

Hamwee, B. [Teller.]

Tordoff, L.

Harris of Greenwich, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Underhill, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Whaddon, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Wigoder, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Hooson, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Howie of Troon, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, 1

Hughes, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Blatch, B.

Aldington, L.

Blyth, L.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Borthwick, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Alport, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Ampthill, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Arran, E.

Brigstocke, B.

Astor, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Atholl, D.

Butterworth, L.

Auckland, L.

Caithness, E.

Balfour, E.

Caldecote, V.

Barber, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Carnock, L.

Beloff, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Belstead, L.

Charteris of Amisfield, L.

Bessborough, E.

Clanwilliam, E.

180

Clitheroe, L.

Manton, L.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Marlesford, L.

Cockfield, L.

Marsh, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Melville, V.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Merrivale, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Mersey, V.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Milverton, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Derwent, L.

Morris, L.

Digby, L.

Mottistone, L.

Dundee, E.

Mountevans, L.

Elibank, L.

Mountgarret, V.

Ellenborough, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Elles, B.

Munster, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Nelson, E.

Erroll of Hale, L.

Orkney, E.

Fanshawe of Richmond, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Fisher, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Forbes, L.

Pender, L.

Fortescue, E.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Fraser of Carmyllie, L.

Quinton, L.

Gainford, L.

Rankeillour, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Rawlinson of Ewell, L.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Reay, L.

Geddes, L.

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.

Gisborough, L.

Renwick, L.

Glenarthur, L.

Richardson, L.

Gray, L.

Rodney, L.

Gridley, L.

Romney, E.

Grimthorpe, L.

St. Davids, V.

Halsbury, E.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Hankey, L.

Sanderson of Bowden, L.

Harding of Petherton, L.

Savile, L.

Harlech, L.

Selborne, E.

Harmar-Nicholls, L.

Selkirk, E.

Harvington, L.

Shannon, E.

Henley, L.

Shrewsbury, E.

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Skelmersdale, L.

Hives, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Holderness, L.

Strathclyde, L.

HolmPatrick, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E [Teller.]

Hood, V.

Hooper, B.

Sudeley, L.

Howe, E.

Swansea, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Swinfen, L.

Jeffreys, L.

Tenby, V.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Terrington, L.

Joseph, L.

Teviot, L.

Kintore, E.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Kitchener, E.

Trefgarne, L.

Knollys, V.

Trumpington, B.

Lauderdale, E.

Ullswater, V.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Vivian, L.

Long, V.

Waddington, L.

Lyell, L.

Westbury, L.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Wharton, B.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Whitelaw, V.

MacLehose of Beoch, L.

Wise, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Young, B.

Malmesbury, E.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
4.31 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227AA:
Page 121, line 17, leave out ("the aggregate of").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 227AA I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 227AB and 227AC. Schedule 10, which contains a great deal of meat for a schedule tucked away at the very back of the Bill, includes an interesting provision about the local government finance report for the year. Under that provision, in estimating the national non-domestic rate and the distributable amount,

181
which is the proceeds of the national non-domestic rate, the Secretary of State is not required to disclose the assumptions on which the estimate is based. Instead he may make,
"such assumptions as he sees fit",
in making his estimate. We believe that there should be a provision on the face of the statute that instead of just the aggregate of the figures the individual figures should be shown. That is the implication of Amendments Nos. 227AA and 227AB. We consider that the assumptions in the local government finance report should also be made explicit.
This is not an amendment on which we propose to divide the Committee. It is principally designed to make sure that the legislation is as explicit as possible and that there is as much freedom of information as possible. I understand that the details of the calculation have been made available by the Department of the Environment on request. We now ask that details which are not secret and which are made available to local authority associations should be included in the local government finance report for each year. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: Amendments Nos. 227AA, 227AB and 227AC seek to change the way in which the Secretary of State produces his estimate of the amount distributable to local authorities from the non-domestic rates pool and to require him to publish his assumptions in the local government finance report. Since they would require him to make a separate estimate of each of the thousands of payments into and out of the pool for the coming year I am not sure that that is what the noble Lord intended with the amendment. However, I have to take the amendment literally as it appears on the Marshalled List.
At present the distributable amount is calculated before each financial year on the basis of the national total of rateable values, adjusted for changes such as the effect of rating appeals, and multiplied by the national poundage. Any surplus or deficit carried forward from previous years is also taken into account. While we can be reasonably confident that the estimate of yield produced in that way is as accurate as it can be for the country as a whole, we cannot make reliable forecasts at the level of detail suggested by the amendments, nor can I envisage any way in which we could do so.
We have no objection in principle to disclosing how the calculation of the distributable amount is made. However, the local government finance report does not seem to be an especially appropriate vehicle for such information. That report is concerned principally with the quantum of resources to be given to local authorities and its distribution, not with the methodology for arriving at the sums to be paid. Also the report comes late in the annual cycle. This year it arrived two months after the date on which the distributable amount was announced. We are certainly not averse to revealing the basis of our calculations, but we see no merit in being tied to the specific mode of dissemination to which the amendment refers. Instead, the basis of the calculation could be made available in the autumn when the
182
distributable amount and the poundage are announced, and we are prepared to do that with effect from autumn 1992.
I hope that that meets the request which the noble Lord made in speaking to the amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am most grateful for that reply. I recognise the justice of what the Minister said both about the detail which would he required if our amendment were taken literally and the problems which would arise if the disclosure were delayed until publication of the annual report. Moving the amendment has proved entirely justified by the offer the Minister has made to make the information available in the autumn of 1992, and presumably annually thereafter. On the basis of that very helpful reply I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 227AB and 227AC not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227AD:
Page 121, line 34, at end insert ("and the Secretary of State shall not less than three months before the laying of the report consult such persons representative of local government as appear to him to be concerned as to that basis").
The noble Lord said: This is also a probing amendment. It arises from a certain amount of puzzlement about the wording of the Bill. It also relates to the basis of distribution of the national non-domestic rate and the timing of the consultation. The council tax technical sub-group, which is the point of contact between the local authority associations and the Department of the Environment, has discussed the matter. This is not the place to challenge the Government's decision that the distribution should be made on a population basis, particularly since the way in which the national non-domestic rate is distributed is then reflected in the way in which other forms of external financial support are distributed. We accept that the effect is the same at the end of the day however the national non-domestic rate is distributed.
However, there has been a problem this year in that the proposals for local authority finance were issued by the Secretary of State on 24th November last year and the revenue support grant orders were finally laid only on 24th January. Can the Minister, in response to this advertisement, give an indication that greater efforts will be devoted to making sure that the relevant orders are issued before Christmas? It would be of enormous help to local authorities if the Government could give an indication that that is the case. I beg to move.
Earl Howe: As the noble Lord explained, the amendment deals with consultation with authorities on the basis of distribution of the business rate pool. It seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult authorities three months before laying the local government finance report for the year.
Under the council tax it is intended that the business rate pool will be distributed to each area on the basis of a fixed amount for each person. We propose to use OPCS population figures for that purpose. Their use is already precedented in the

183
construction of SSAs. The precise rules to apply will be set out in the local government finance report for the year, which will be subject to approval in another place. The Secretary of State will be under a duty to notify representatives of local government of the general nature of the basis of distribution of business rates before making the local government finance report each year. Local government then has a chance to comment and make representations.
That is in line with the present arrangement whereby the rules for distribution are set out in the population report and the Secretary of State is required to notify authorities of the general nature of its contents before it is made. In practice, authorities have at least four weeks before the making of the report in which to make representation to the Secretary of State about the proposed distribution. That period has proved adequate for the purpose. We do not consider that a longer period or a requirement for formal consultation would add anything. I therefore hope that, on reflection, the noble Lord will not feel it necessary to pursue the amendment further.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I had always thought that the Government made policy on the hoof. But to have a response in which one Minister is altering another Minister's brief as he speaks is new to me. I do not know now what alteration was made and what effect those last minute thoughts have had on the response that the noble Earl gave. I am not as encouraged by what he said as I was by the previous answer. However, I shall read carefully what he said. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227AE:
Page 122, line 9, leave out ("one further calculation") and insert ("one or more further calculations").
The noble Lord said: I wish to speak also to Amendments Nos. 227AF, 228ABA and 228ABB, all of which seek to make the same point. There is a curious anomaly in the way in which the final decision is made among authorities about the distribution of revenue support grant and the national non-domestic rate.
The Bill provides that the Secretary of State may make one further calculation. In other words, he may think again once only in making the calculation of the figure. However, elsewhere the Bill provides that the Secretary of State may make one or more amending reports which amend the distribution specified in the original local government finance report. Why in an original report should there be only one opportunity for making a further calculation whereas there is opportunity for making more than one amending report? What are the circumstances under which a recalculation will be made when making the original report? What are the circumstances in which an amending report will be made? I beg to move.
4.45 p.m.
Earl Howe: As the amendments stand, they could undermine the stability which is such an important feature of the grant system as we know it. The amendments deal with the calculation of the amounts of redistributed business rates and revenue support grant to be paid to each individual authority. The calculations involve the sharing out of fixed amounts in accordance with a distribution methodology. That methodology or basis of distribution will be set out in the local government finance report each year and must be approved in another place before the calculation can take place. The distribution of non-domestic rates will be calculated by reference to resident population. The amount of RSG for each receiving authority will be calculated in relation to its SSA and its taxable resources under the council tax.
Once those amounts have been calculated for each authority, it is not our intention that they should be changed. We intend to retain the stability which underpins the present grant arrangements. In particular, we do not intend to return to a system where grant could be adjusted again and again long after the settlement has been made. Certainty has been a cornerstone of the system introduced by the Local Government Finance Act 1988. We do not intend to go back to a situation where authorities could be subject to a series of recalculations after the end of the financial year, with all the uncertainties about increases and decreases in grant that that would entail.
For that reason, we do not intend to take a power that allows the annual settlement to be recalculated any number of times. We propose to continue to be able to make one further calculation to correct technical errors. We have therefore provided, as a fail-safe device, that one further calculation may be made.
I hope that that clarifies the question that the noble Lord posed. The position mirrors the existing arrangements under the community charge. I hope that I have sufficiently explained the position and resolved any uncertainties in the noble Lord's mind. If not, I shall be happy to know.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: That reply was made in a most conciliatory tone. Nevertheless it was an extraordinary reply. If the Government seriously claim that they have introduced certainty into local government finance, the claim will be met by a hollow laugh from large parts of local government. After all, this is the Government which introduced in-year capping to local authorities. The rare, exceptional-case capping of previous years had always been made in advance so that local authorities knew what their budgets would be. Now we have been given only non-statutory indications of what the principles underlying capping will be. Capping takes place after a local authority has announced its budget, forcing it to announce a new budget.
At the same time, in 1991, after many local authorities had not only determined their budgets but sent out their poll tax bill, the Government announced the special £140 provision and the consequent increase in VAT. That again forced local authorities to send

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out extra bills, in many cases two or three months late. Therefore, for the noble Earl to tell us that the Government have introduced certainty into local government finance is a little rich.
Similarly he asked me to accept that, in pursuit of certainty, the opportunity to make other further calculations should be restricted to one further calculation. I have no difficulty in accepting that. Can he explain why it is possible under the Bill as drafted to have more than one amending report?
Earl Howe: The position as advised to me is clear. Only one amending report can be made and approved. If there is an anomaly in the Bill, I shall be happy to write to the noble Lord.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: There is clearly an anomaly because the Bill as drafted makes provision for one or more amending report. I shall be interested to receive the noble Earl's letter. It will enable me to decide whether it is a matter which we should pursue at a later stage of the Bill. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 227AF not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227B:
Page 124, line 23, leave out paragraph 9 and insert:
("9.—(1) Section 78 of the 1988 Act shall be amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2) after the word "section" there shall be added "having regard to the matters specified in subsection (2A) below.
(2A) In making any determination under this section, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the impact on each receiving authority of the interaction of the following—

(a) the amount of the Standard Spending Assessment of that authority in relation to any comparable authority and the total amount of revenue grant support for the financial year concerned;

(b) the reduction in the authority's council tax base resulting from the operation of the system of discounts established under section 11 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992; and

(c) the proportion and amount of non-domestic rating income which is likely to be allocated to the authority and shall secure so far as practicable that revenue support grant is allocated on an equitable basis between classes of authority and to authorities within each class."

(3) In subsection (3) after the word "year" there shall be inserted—
" "(aa) the reasons for the allocation made in respect of each authority,
(ab) a statement that the distribution proposed is equitable as between classes of authority and to authorities within each class."
(4) Subsections (6) and (7) shall cease to have effect").
The noble Lord said: Again it may seem to be in a curious place, but Schedule 10 contains matters of great importance which ought to be more to the forefront of our discussions about local government finance and the amendments that are being made by the Bill to the system of local government finance.
Part II of Schedule 10 refers to the system of grants. It is only by attacking the issue as it is raised in Schedule 10—in other words, in the distribution of the
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national non-domestic rate—that it is possible to raise the vital issue of the way in which standard spending assessment, the basis of government grant, is calculated, and how that reflects the needs and resources of individual local authorities.
The formal basis of the standard spending assessment is clear. It is claimed to be the basis for the cost of provision of a standard level of service. There are supposed to be measures which take account of different cost elements in different local authorities. That produces a standard spending assessment for each authority. We are anxious about the fact that, even on the face of the matters and before we go into the detail, the variation is so great between one authority and another. However, that is a subject to which we may return.
We also understand the purpose of the standard spending authority. It is to work on the basis that if each local authority were to spend at the standard spending assessment all local authorities would be levying the same poll tax or. as regards this Bill, the same council tax. In order for that to work, we must have an accurate, realistic and fair assessment of the needs of local authorities and of their resources. I suggest here, as in the following two amendments, which enable the Committee to consider the matter in more detail, that the standard spending assessment as at present drafted does not represent either the needs or the resources of local authorities.
Amendment No. 227B requires that the Secretary of State shall have regard to the impact on each receiving authority of the decisions he takes on grant and national non-domestic rate distribution specifically in relation to the standard spending assessment, the calculation of any authority's tax base (the resources element) and the distribution of grant and national non-domestic rate between authorities and within classes of authority. We referred to some of those issues in our discussions on Amendment No. 227A.
Perhaps I may summarise, first, the most important issues of resources and, secondly, the most important issues of need. It will be seen how far the standard spending assessment as a basis for grant departs from the principle which it seeks to claim to espouse. First, the tax base is calculated on the basis of property values. With the laudable aim of simplicity the Government have defined property values only as being capital values. There have been a number of interesting but irrelevant interventions about the greater complexity of the Labour Party's alternative basis for the assessment of property values. However, as we approach the end of the discussion of this Bill in Committee we are in a position where capital values are the basis and the only basis of the assessment of the tax base. That is so despite calls by Members on all sides of the Committee and by Government Back-Benchers in another place that, for the Government to recognise in the light of the huge differences in capital values that occur between one region and another, that is not the best way to assess the tax base.
The second element that local authorities must take into account in assessing their tax base is the level of

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discounts. It is not the level of rebates because they are funded by central government. Local authorities are urged to conduct canvasses and to look at poll tax registers in order to assess the level of discounts. Those paying the council tax will have to cough up for all the discounts that are granted. Unfortunately, despite urging from these Benches, the Government have not recognised the need to give local authorities a statutory authority to demand the information that is required in order to achieve that assessment. Therefore, one must presume that estimates of discount levels, particularly in the first year, will be pretty rough and ready. In other words, here too the resources element will be inadequately described in the legislation and inadequately reflected in the grant.
The final element, which we hope will be less serious in respect of the council tax than it was for the poll tax, is that of non-collection. Again, those who pay will have to pay extra because of those who do not. We believe that the assumptions made on that issue should be spelt out more clearly.
As regards the needs side of the equation, we must say—and we shall repeat the argument in more detail in relation to the subsequent amendment—that the standard spending assessment does not represent the cost of the standard level of service. Instead it represents the share-out of a pre-determined cake made by government rather than a pre-determined level of service. So much for the Citizen's Charter. We shall be suggesting to the Committee that, because of the bad data used in the calculation of the standard spending assessment and because of arbitrary and changing judgments, the standard spending assessment is inadequate for the purpose for which it is intended.
Although there is little explicit reference in the Bill to the calculations which government use in granting this vital element in local authority finance—indeed, there is little explicit reference to the need for those government grants to be justly and fairly distributed among different local authorities—we believe that it is right even at this late stage of the Bill to draw the Committee's attention to the gaping holes in the Government's arguments about local authority finance. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: The amount of grant to support local authorities' revenue spending is decided annually in the context of the overall level of spending that the Government consider appropriate for local authorities. We take into account new burdens on authorities, reasonable pay awards and demographic pressures. But we also have to consider what the taxpayer, locally and nationally, can afford to pay in support of this expenditure. The settlement that my right honourable friend has made for the coming financial year allows authorities an increase over last year's settlement of 7.2 per cent. Rate support grant has been increased by 14.7 per cent. to £16.6 billion. This is a fair and realistic settlement and considerably above the forecast level of inflation.
The spending needs and resources of individual authorities will be taken into account in the distribution of RSG to authorities. In the past few
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years we have put considerable effort into improving RSG distribution. We have achieved a system which is fair to individual authorities in its assessment of their different needs and resources and which is not overly complex or cumbersome to administer. We shall continue to operate the tried and tested principles of this system under the council tax. But it may be helpful if I set out what we propose.
It is a fundamental principle that revenue support grant will be distributed so that each authority can provide a standard level of service if it charges a standard rate of council tax. A standard spending assessment will be calculated separately for each local authority representing the amount of revenue expenditure necessary to provide a standard level of service. A great deal of work goes into ensuring that each year SSAs reflect as accurately as possible the different characteristics of each authority's area and the different costs faced by authorities. They are based on a substantial amount of detailed research evidence and are extensively discussed with local authorities. The method of calculating SSAs, which is the basis for the grant allocation to each authority, will be set out in the Local Government Finance Report each year and debated in another place.
Members of the Committee may have been approached by some authorities which claim that they are less favourably treated than some neighbouring area. But when there is a limited sum for distribution some will always feel disadvantaged compared to their neighbour. Perhaps I may pose another direct question. Is there to be no control of grant for local authorities? If there is to be control, on what basis will Members of the Committee opposite make that judgment? Are they to have no judgment about the needs? If they are they will have to resort to many of the factors—they may well put different weightings on those factors—which make up the profile of communities in each of those local authority areas. I can assure Members of the Committee and local authorities that the distribution of grant depends only on formulae dependent on the circumstances of the authorities' area. We do our best to construct those formulae in the fairest possible way.
Grant is paid to bridge the gap between each authority's income and its standard spending assessment. The income taken into account is the amount an authority receives in redistributed non-domestic rates from the national pool, plus the revenue it can raise locally by levying the council tax for standard spending. I can therefore assure Members of the Committee opposite that grant distribution will take full account of an authority's income from non-domestic rates. I can also give an assurance that the income from the council tax for standard spending will take full account of the discounts that each authority estimates it will need to give.
Finally, it is our intention that under the council tax grant will be paid to each tier of authority. I have already outlined the method of grant distribution. Payment to each tier will enable people to see clearly

189
on their bills which tier in their local authority area is overspending or underspending against their SSA. It will greatly enhance accountability.
As I say, unless Members of the Committee opposite are to have no view at all as to how each local authority will spend and unless they are prepared to spell out that the profiles of communities will not be taken into account or that there should be different factors, then it is important and incumbent upon them to spell out the system which they would advocate.
The arrangements for determining the total amount of grant to authorities and the principles of distributing that amount between authorities are fair and comprehensible. We do not propose to change them. The noble Baroness will now have an opportunity to address my questions and I hope that the Committee will reject the amendment.
5 p.m.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Before the noble Baroness sits down, will she make the same spirited defence of GREA and say that the factors there were appropriate to the local authorities assessment of grant? If she does defend that, how can GREAs and SSAs both be right when between 1989–90 and the current year, in the county of Norfolk, in Norwich SSA over GREA was increased by 25 per cent., in Brecklands it has increased by 80 per cent., and in King's Lynn by 78 per cent? In other words, the growth between GREAs and SSAs in two years varied between 25 per cent. and 80 per cent. Therefore, they cannot both be right. Which was right? Has the Minister any more confidence in SSAs than she had in GREAs?
Baroness Blatch: The noble Baroness did not answer the questions which I posed but chose to go back to a system which is no longer on the table. I revert to a point made by my noble friend Lord Renfrew when he spoke earlier. The factors which went to make up GREA were vast in number. I wish that I could remember them. I used to know them very well. It was a highly sensitive system with a large number of factors taken into account. We know the problems that that caused and we know the difficulties of understanding the relativities and sensitivities of using so many factors.
The present system uses fewer factors. As my noble friend said, with fewer factors and a more sensible and understandable system there is always some rough justice. Perhaps Members of the Committee opposite have a key to a system which either increases or reduces the number of factors, uses different factors or, as I suspect, puts different weightings on them because they would operate the system differently.
Under GREA the system was applied fairly and equitably across all classes of authority. The present system is applied fairly and equitably across all classes of authority. Therefore, I am able to defend it because there is no selectivity in terms of being subjective about the system. It was an objective system. We believe that this is an improvement on the previous system which had too many factors.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The Minister has not answered my noble friend's question. Both systems cannot be right. I have many detailed criticisms of the standard spending assessment to make which I was proposing to make in the debate on Amendment No. 227BA. However, if the Minister wishes me to do so, I shall gladly embark on that now. It is clearly impossible for an opposition party, with the resources which we have, to devise out of thin air a new system of grant.
However, we can say—and it is our job to say—that the existing system is not fair, does not work and produces results which are not only inaccurate but also favour specifically Conservative local authorities.
As I have been challenged, I shall give examples. All the examples are a combination of had data in the first place and bad opportunities for arbitrary judgment in the second place. As regards education, the calculations for the education standard spending assessments are based on pupil numbers with a factor which claims to assess areas of special need, which is called the AEN factor. That factor has three components but two of those three components have not been updated since the 1981 census. Therefore, extraordinary results emerge from that. For example, in primary school expenditure Wigan is told that it can spend £1,588 per primary pupil while in Surrey the figure is £1,703. That is hardly in line with what one would think of rationally as being the relative educational needs of Wigan and Surrey. Looking at secondary school expenditure, Wigan is meant to spend only £2,302 per pupil while Berkshire—an area of less social deprivation and need—is allowed to spend £2,518 per secondary pupil. I take another example. Why is Manchester allowed to spend 20 per cent. more per pupil than Bolton next door? What possible justification can there be other than that the basic data are unsound?
I then look at the arbitrary judgments made on the basis of that bad data. In 1991 the Government claim that the analysis proved that 70 per cent. of the standard spending assessment for pupils under five should be distributed according to the AEN factor. However, in 1991–92 they decided to reduce that proportion from 70 per cent. to 50 per cent. No reason was given but that put £13 on poll tax bills in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.
I must take up the time of the Committee on this issue because I was challenged as to whether or not the standard spending assessment is good. Personal social services cover the provision of services for children in care and those who are being fostered, together with the care of old people in homes and the supply of domiciliary services such as meals-on-wheels and home helps. However, when the calculations are made, no account is taken of the actual number of people receiving services or the cost of provision. Instead, complicated formulae are used which attempt to predict the size of the client group population. That is because the Government believe that if local authorities were given the money on the basis of actual provision they would respond by providing more services for more people just to get more money.

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The formula uses 19 indicators of which 14 are based on 1981 census data. At a time when there is rapid change, with the care in the community policy and the Children Act, the spending of authorities is dictated by 10 year-old figures.
In the other services block, let us look at the issue of tourism. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, is not in her place. There is extra money and the population is adjusted to take account of tourism based on a visitor nights weighting. Again, there are nine factors based on data over 10 years old. The visitor nights factor is meant to direct resources to areas receiving a substantial number of overnight tourists. Nobody has suggested why that should be the case. Indeed, only two years ago at the Consultative Council on Local Government Finance the Government denied that visitor nights was an appropriate basis. They said:
"DoE do not consider the rationale for including an allowance for visitor nights is strong. As local authorities have the capacity to raise extra revenue from visitors through charging policy, it is difficult to identify what, if any, net costs are associated with visitors. Additionally, the data used is from the 1970s and therefore very out of date".
Despite that, not only were visitor nights included in 1991–92, but the Government decided—we can only think to help Westminster—that the weighting should be increased in 1991–92. The benefit—surprise, surprise!—is worth £37 per adult to Westminster; yet somewhere like Greenwich, which has lots of tourists who cost money but who do not stay overnight, receives no benefit. Stratford-on-Avon also receives nothing.
I can continue. In regard to highway maintenance the snow factor is a classic example. Cumbria had to appeal against the decision that it had fewer days with snow lying than either Brent or Camden and that had to be corrected in a last minute adjustment.
Lord Henley: If the noble Lord knows Cumbria, in which I can declare an interest, there is relatively little snow experienced there. I do not know about the figures in Brent. But before he claims that Cumbria is a snowy place, I can assure him that it is wet but that the snows are not that great except in the hills.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am fascinated by that response. The Government acceded to the complaint of Cumbria County Council and they were given two more snow days per year. Perhaps the noble Lord's experiences are not shared by Cumbria County Council.
To show how unstable the system is I give one final example—the way in which public transport in London is taken into account in the "other services" block of services. The changes for 1992–93 have the effect of redistributing standard spending assessment away from inner London to outer London. In outer London standard spending assessment increased by £19 per adult in Bromley and Havering, £18 in Hillingdon, £16 in Richmond and £15 in Bexley and Hounslow. In inner London the biggest losers were Westminster with £39, Islington £18, Hackney £17 and Camden £15. In order to compensate beloved
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Westminster the SSA for Westminster was increased by £39—exactly the amount otherwise lost—by a change in the visitor nights charge.
I am sorry but I have to say that the standard spending assessment will not stand up to a moment's examination. It does not come well from the Minister to seek to defend it on the basis which the Government claim.
These are not trivial matters. They are matters which account for and explain the large differences in standard spending assessments and therefore the large differences in the poll tax, and what will be the council tax, between one authority and another. But it is on the basis of these arbitrary and inaccurate assessments that the Government make all their claims regarding excessive expenditure by local authorities. Unless we introduce a system such as that proposed in the amendment, which provides an accurate estimate of the needs and resource of a local authority and puts them together in an effective and fair way, we will not have a just system of local authority finance. In those circumstances, I seek the opinion of the Committee.
5.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 227B) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 77; Not-Contents, 147.

Division No. 2

CONTENTS

Addington, L.

Hughes, L.

Ardwick, L.

Jeger, B.

Aylestone, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Birk, B.

John-Mackie, L.

Blackstone, B.

Judd, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Kennet, L.

Boston of Faversham, L.

Kilbracken, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Brooks of Tremorfa, L.

Lockwood, B.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Longford, E.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Macaulay of Bragar, L.

Carter, L. [Teller.]

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Mallalieu, B.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

David, B.

Molloy, L.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Desai, L.

Nicol, B.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Perry of Walton, L.

Donoughue, L.

Phillips, B.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Pitt of Hampstead, L.

Ewart-Biggs, B.

Prys-Davies, L.

Ezra, L.

Richard, L.

Gallacher, L.

Robson of Kiddington, B.

Galpern, L.

Seear, B.

Gladwyn, L.

Serota, B.

Glenamara, L.

Shackleton, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L. [Teller.]

Shepherd, L.

Stedman, B.

Greene of Harrow Weald, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Gregson, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hampton, L.

Tordoff, L.

Hamwee, B.

Turner of Camden, B.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Underhill, L.

Hilton of Eggardon, B.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

Hirshfield, L.

Wigoder, L.

Hollis of Heigham, B.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Wilson of Langside, L.

Hooson, L.

Winchilsea and Nottingham, E

NOT-CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Alexander of Weedon, L.

Aldington, L.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

193

Alport, L.

Joseph, L.

Ampthill, L.

Kintore, E.

Arran, E.

Kitchener, E.

Astor, V.

Knollys, V.

Atholl, D.

Lauderdale, E.

Auckland, L.

Lawrence, L.

Balfour, E.

Layton, L.

Barber, L.

Lindsey and Abingdon, E.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Long, V.

Beloff, L.

Lyell, L.

Belstead, L.

McColl of Dulwich, L.

Bessborough, E.

Mackay of Ardbrecknish, L.

Blatch, B.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Blyth, L.

Mancroft, L.

Borthwick, L.

Manton, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Marlesford, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Marsh, L.

Brentford, V.

Melville, V.

Bridgeman, V.

Merrivale, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Mersey, V.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Milverton, L.

Butterworth, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Byron, L.

Morris, L.

Caithness, E.

Mottistone, L.

Caldecote, V.

Mountevans, L.

Carnock, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Carrington, L.

Munster, E.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Nelson, E.

Clanwilliam, E.

Norrie, L.

Clitheroe, L.

Orkney, E.

Cochrane of Cults, L.

Orr-Ewing, L.

Colnbrook, L.

Oxfuird, V.

Colville of Culross, V.

Palmer, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Pearson of Rannoch, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Pender, L.

Cumberlege, B.

Peyton of Yeovil, L.

Denton of Wakefield, B.

Quinton, L.

Derwent, L.

Radnor, E.

Devonshire, D.

Rankeillour, L.

Digby, L.

Reay, L.

Dundee, E.

Renfrew of Kaimsthorn, L.

Elibank, L.

Renwick, L.

Ellenborough, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Elles, B.

Rodney, L.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Romney, E.

Elton, L.

St. Davids, V.

Faithfull, B.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Fisher, L.

Savile, L.

Forbes, L.

Selborne, E.

Fortescue, E.

Selkirk, E.

Gainsborough, E.

Shrewsbury, E.

Gardner of Parkes, B.

Skelmersdale, L.

Goschen, V.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Gray, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Gray of Contin, L.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E [Teller.]

Gridley, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

Sudeley, L.

Halsbury, E.

Swansea, L.

Hanson, L.

Swinfen, L.

Harvington, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Henley, L.

Trefgarne, L.

Hesketh, L. [Teller.]

Trumpington, B.

Hives, L.

Tryon, L.

Holderness, L.

Ullswater, V.

HolmPatrick, L.

Vivian, L.

Hood, V.

Waddington, L.

Hooper, B.

Westbury, L.

Howe, E.

Wharton, B.

Hylton-Foster, B.

White of of Hull, L.

Jeffreys, L.

Whitelaw, V.

Jenkin of Roding, L.

Wise, L.

Johnston of Rockport, L.

Young, B.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
5.22 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227BA:
Page 124, line 23, leave out paragraph 9 and insert:
("9.—(1) Section 78 of the 1988 Act (revenue support grant) shall be amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2) at the end there shall be inserted "based on the needs of the area of each authority".
(3) Subsections (6) and (7) shall cease to have effect.").
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 227BA concentrates on one particular aspect of the more general amendment to which I have just spoken. Since I was goaded by the Minister into saying in detail what was wrong with the standard spending assessment, she can be assured that I shall not repeat the evidence which I brought to the attention of the Committee on that occasion.
However, there is one more thing I wish to say in substantiating my conviction that the standard spending assessment is inadequate as a basis for estimating local authority expenditure needs. It is that in practice it favours Conservative local authorities. The evidence is clear from the details of the increases in the standard spending assessment being made for 1992–93 over 1991–92. The evidence shows all too clearly that Conservative controlled councils are being given greater increases than any other kind of local authority. In the country as a whole Conservative controlled councils are receiving an increase of 5.67 per cent. in their standard spending assessment. Councils with no overall control are getting an increase of 5.33 per cent.; Liberal Democrat controlled councils are receiving an increase of 4.87 per cent.; and Labour controlled councils have an increase of 3.82 per cent. That is true county by county. I can give many examples.
I shall concentrate on Norfolk for the benefit of my noble friend Lady Hollis. Authorities with no overall control have an average increase of 6 per cent.; Conservative controlled authorities have an average increase of 5.86 per cent. and Labour controlled authorities have an average increase of 4.76 per cent. In Staffordshire, the Conservative controlled authorities have an average increase of 6.11 per cent.; authorities with no overall control have an average increase of 4.47 per cent. and the Labour controlled authorities, 3.46 per cent. The same is true in county after county throughout the country.
It has been my claim, which I believe to be well documented, that the method of estimating the expenditure needs of local authorities is a bad one. It is a bad method because it is based on bad data and involves unwarranted and arbitrary judgments about the meaning of that data. However, to find it proved in practice that the system favours Conservative local authorities is a little hard to bear. I beg to move.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I wish to respond briefly to the points made by the noble Lord on this amendment and the previous one. I apologise to the Committee that other engagements made it impossible for me to reach the Chamber earlier. I find insufferable the charge that these figures are manipulated in order to favour councils of one political complexion over those

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of another. I can only imagine that the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has never had to sit down with teams of experts from the Department of the Environment to see how one can best devise a system that is fair.
The idea is laughable that any Secretary of State would sit with a group of officials around the table in his conference room and say, want you to devise a system which will make sure that in the county of Norfolk the Conservative controlled authorities get a substantially greater increase than those which are controlled by Labour". It is insulting to the officials who put in an enormous amount of work over a prolonged period to create a fair system.
The noble Lord is on fair ground when he says that some of the data is of necessity old. We subject the population of this country to a census only once every 10 years. As soon as the data from the 1991 census has been processed and is available, that information will be substituted for the earlier data. Some data—population data are an example—can be updated quite regularly. It would be as unreasonable for me to say that Conservative authorities get higher percentage increases in their grants; more people want to live in Conservative controlled authorities and therefore, year by year, their share of the grant increases because there are more people in those areas. I would not dream of arguing any such thing. It is far too simplistic.
However, it is rather more realistic than suggesting that my noble friends on the Front Bench actually get their officials to try to manipulate the figures so that they give favourable treatment to one council or another. If the noble Lord is saying that that is what they do, then he should have the courage to stand up and say so and expose his party to the ridicule and obloquy that would come from making such a charge. It is absurd.
Perhaps I may now turn briefly to the calculation of SSAs—
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: It may be helpful if I respond to the noble Lord at this stage since he has made a direct challenge to me and before he returns to the argument concerning the amendment. When I used the word "insulting" earlier today, the noble Lord was not present. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, sought to have read the standing order on asperity of speech. He did not pursue the matter. The noble Lord should read that exchange before he continues in that vein and before he seeks to make the accusation that I was saying that it was the deliberate policy of Ministers to seek to alter the standard spending assessment to political advantage. I said no such thing.
I said that the combination of bad data and arbitrary judgments also has the effect that it favours Conservative controlled councils as opposed to other councils. If I were a Minister in those circumstances I do not believe I would dream of, any more than the noble Lord, when he was Secretary of State, would have dreamt of, actually saying, "Fix this to suit my party". Of course not. One makes sure that the weights that are important in Conservative controlled
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areas are greater than they are in Labour controlled areas. It is not done in order to achieve that result, but that is the effect of what one does.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Even to suggest that is to suggest that officials will connive in what appears to be a deliberate manipulation to suit the interests of a political party. The noble Lord cannot get away with the excuse which he has just given. Of course I shall read the exchange he had with my noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham because I always enjoy seeing what my noble and learned friend has said. It is always worth hearing and reading.
The noble Lord really cannot wriggle out of the charge which he has sought to make across the Floor of the Committee this afternoon concerning Ministers and their officials. It would be laughable to imagine that Ministers could sit down with accrued data and work this all out themselves. They would not have the time; they would not, conceivably, have the expertise or the long experience which one needs of being able to use this data in order to favour councils which happen for the time being to be controlled by the party of their own persuasion. The noble Lord demeans himself and lowers the whole tone of what, on the whole, has been a reasonably sensible debate on this Bill by making charges of that sort.
I now come to the point. When trying to assess the needs of about 400 different local authorities, each with widely different circumstances, widely different populations and with different geographical and sociological conditions, one has to do it in such a way that general rules apply. That is the rule of law. One cannot single out authorities and say, "You are to have this, but we are going to have a different rule for another and a third different rule for another". One has to apply the general rules for the simple reason that, if not, one is immediately open to challenge in the courts under the procedures which many councils have used. Therefore general rules must apply. At the same time, as my noble friend on the Front Bench said in response to the earlier debate, it must be done with a degree of simplicity. Although that may produce some rough justice, at least it is tolerably easy to understand for those councils which have to examine the calculations and determine where they come on the scale.
That is a complicated enough process of itself. But to imagine that one sits down and systematically tries to build in factors that favour one's friends and disadvantage one's political enemies is quite absurd. The noble Lord has not added to the tenor of the debate by making that sort of charge across the Committee.
Baroness Blatch: I am grateful to my noble friend for intervening. I have to say that there have been some bizarre suggestions that SSAs are somehow based on political grounds. That really is a nonsense. There is not a shred of evidence to support those allegations. I hope that noble Lords opposite will listen to this information. The average SSA for Labour-controlled authorities in every class is higher

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than for Conservative-controlled authorities. For example, in shire districts Labour-controlled authorities have an SSA which, in per adult terms, is 27 per cent. higher than the average for Conservative districts. The higher SSAs in the country are for Labour-controlled London boroughs such as Hackney, at £2,117 per adult and Islington, at £1,722 per adult. That is a reflection of the high costs which they face.
Within the shire districts 20 of the top 30 SSAs in per adult terms go to Labour-controlled authorities. Indeed, the SSA for Barking and Dagenham, with which the noble Lord will be familiar, is higher than the average for all Conservative-controlled outer-London boroughs. I should also like to say that in all the examples given by the noble Lord he conveniently left out spending levels. What he was talking about was one increase on another year. It is interesting that where they were low spending they may well have had a higher increase. But it is not enough to give only one factor and to ignore all of the others.
The SSAs where the noble Lord sought to say there was political manoeuvering speak for themselves. Perhaps I may also say that the system that is currently in place is no different from GREA. Many local authorities complained under both systems. There are many people who shout, "It's not fair, it's not fair". One gain for one authority is a loss for another authority; unless, as I say—and noble Lords opposite are always very reluctant to answer this point —they propose a much larger cake from which the grant will come. If they do, who is to pay it? How much will it be? How will it be funded? If they do not, there are only two points they can argue: first, that they would use different factors and, secondly, that they would use a different method of distribution. But the same overall sum of money would apply. That would then be in conflict with something else that noble Lords opposite are saying. They have criticised almost every heading of spending in local government as being underfunded. Therefore, if they are to address that issue they can only argue for a much larger cake; but again there is a great reluctance on the Front Benches opposite to address that.
A great deal has been said about data. Until the 1991 census is published in all its detail we shall not be able to update the 1981 census. But my noble friend is absolutely right. One can use a number of mechanisms to make the figures more current. We have the registers of births and deaths that are used by all local authorities. Indeed, my department is in receipt of much of the data that comes from local authorities based on that information. There is a head count every single year of all school children of all ages—in every schoolroom and class of every school in the country. There are many ways of updating the information.
The Government accept that the determination of the total of grant should take into account new burdens on local authorities, reasonable pay awards, and demographic pressures. But those are not, and should not, be the only relevant considerations. The Government must also consider the overall level of spending that is appropriate for local authorities. That will depend on the need to maintain an appropriate
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balance between private and public expenditure. It will also depend on what it is reasonable to expect local and national taxpayers to pay.
Are Members of the Committee opposite really suggesting that we should write a blank cheque for local authorities; that we should allow local authorities to say that they need to spend so much on this and that much on something else, and then give them the grant to back that spending? Is that really what is being suggested by Members of the Committee opposite? That really would be a piece of highly irresponsible economic management. The Government will have no part in such irresponsibility. We believe that the aggregate spending of local authorities bears very substantially on the macro level of spending and on the economy generally. We believe that there has to be a view by government of the level of spending in local government.
This year's grant settlement allows a generous increase in RSG and allows spending increases that are above the rate of inflation. It is both a realistic and an equitable settlement. Above all, it is economically prudent. This amendment disregards prudence and I urge the Committee to reject it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Both the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and the Minister sought to erect something to attack which bore no relation to what I said. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, observed that I had criticised in detail the composition of the standard spending assessment. I notice that neither he nor the Minister sought to defend the accusations I made about it. He also observed that I pointed out that increases in standard spending assessments between 1991–92 and 1992–93 had in fact favoured Conservative authorities as opposed to authorities under other political control.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: Will the noble Lord kindly give way? Is it not an equally tenable explanation that what has happened is that in the case of some of the authorities their SSAs were too low in the previous year? Therefore, adjustments failed to be made in the light of subsequent data. The noble Lord's charge was —and he cannot run away from it—that my noble friends have been favouring Conservative authorities. That is the charge he made. He should withdraw that because of all the implications that has for the officials and all the other people who work with Ministers to seek to produce a scheme which can be operated.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I must respond. I made no such charge and I have nothing to withdraw. I certainly made no charge on the integrity of officials and I explicitly said that I had no reason to suppose that Ministers had said, "do this for a political purpose". I had no reason to suppose that and that is not what I said. I pointed out that the standard spending assessment was bad because it was based on bad data and arbitrary judgments and—pause—had the effect of favouring Conservative authorities. The noble Lord can draw what conclusions he likes from that but I made no charge as to the integrity of Ministers or civil servants.
Baroness Blatch: We had very clearly the accusation against those on these Benches of political manoeuvring and political manipulation. As my noble friend has said, all this work is done in conjunction with our officials, and therefore we accept the criticism.
Perhaps I may put two points to the noble Lord. First, he has ignored spending levels. Does he not agree that the spending levels of Conservative authorities across classes of authorities are on average lower than those of Labour authorities? Does the noble Lord argue with the figures that I gave that the SSAs for all local authorities are more favourable for Labour than for Conservative authorities? If the noble Lord puts the spending levels together with the figures that he has given, he will find that they do not prove political manipulation. What they prove is that by and large Labour authorities spend more than Conservative authorities.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: What they prove is what we have always said—Labour authorities represent areas of greater deprivation; no more, no less. I certainly would not deny that Labour authorities in general have higher standard spending assessments than Conservative authorities. But the economic and social polarisation of this country is such that the Labour Party on the whole represents the "have nots" and the Conservative Party on the whole represents the "haves". That is the truth of the matter and that explains the differences which we have pointed out.
I think that both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, will confirm when they read Hansard that I made no charge of manipulation. What I have said is that the system is bad and it has the effect, without drawing any cause, of favouring Conservative authorities. I stand by that accusation.
Baroness Nicol: I simply wanted to comment that at the moment both sides are in danger of falling foul of Standing Order No. 30. I beg the Committee to have regard to what is the normal practice of our debates and to cool it a little. Otherwise I too shall move that the Clerk be asked to read Standing Order No. 30. We are going well outside the normal practice of the House.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Baroness is uncharacteristically critical of what is happening at the moment. I am offended by what she has just said. There is an amendment on the Marshalled List which is highly critical of what the Government are doing and asks for a change of the system. The amendment was spoken to quite rightly. The noble Lord opposite had every right to speak to it in the way that he did. We believe that he made an unjustifiable criticism. I have done no more than respond to the criticism and respond to it in detail with as much evidence as I could muster against the evidence that he produced to evidence his amendment. I do not believe that that is breaking the rules and I am rather offended that the noble Baroness thinks that it is.
Baroness Nicol: My remarks were not addressed to the Minister. They were addressed to the noble Lord,
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Lord Jenkin. The point I was making is that unless the debate is cooled a little I feel that we shall have to stop and reflect. If it is not cooled I shall move that the Clerk be asked to read Standing Order No. 30. We can then debate that Motion.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to my noble friend for her intervention. I shall not return to this matter unless I am provoked. The fundamental case behind the amendment remains the same—the inadequacy of the standard spending assessment and the inadequacy of the way in which it has been devised. Clearly, there will be 100 or even 1,000 alternative ways of calculating a standard spending assessment, but I have to say that a standard spending assessment which results in a local authority finance system that in turn requires universal capping powers is almost by definition a failure as a system of local authority finance. For that I blame the Government's approach to the needs aspect of local authority finance as much as I blame their attitude towards the resources element. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.45 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 227BB:
Page 124, line 35, at end insert ("and the means by which the resource base of each authority has been determined").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I turn in a little more detail to the issue of the resources of local authorities, to which I referred in speaking to Amendment No. 227B.
The problem with the assessment of the resources of local authorities is that it is fundamentally based on the council tax. The council tax itself is to be based when the Bill becomes law—if the Bill becomes law —on a simple estimate of property values. The difficulty with those property values is not only that they are based on capital values alone but that capital values vary so much from one part of the country to another that the effect on any individual authority or even on any region is a severe flattening of the progressivity of the tax in any one area.
The matter is complicated by the fact that the estimate of property values is over-simplified. At this point perhaps I may revert to the previous amendment. There is a conflict that we ought to recognise between simplicity in calculations and accuracy and justice in calculations. I hope that the simplicity of the council tax basis is not claimed as an advantage. It can in fact be a way of encouraging injustice or allowing injustice to slip through. That is a serious problem.
The second element of the resources side of local authority finance is that it is very heavily dependent on an unknown quantity—the discount which will be paid by other council taxpayers rather than by central government, which is difficult to estimate in advance. There is also the problem of non-collection which has arisen to unprecedented peaks in recent years as a result of the poll tax. Therefore it is extraordinarily difficult to calculate the tax base of a local authority.

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The difficulty should not be underestimated. The purpose of the amendment is to put more rationality into the process. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: The amendment would require the Secretary of State to set out in the local government finance report the means by which the resource base of each authority is determined. It is our intention to do just that. The annual local government finance report will set out the basis of distribution of revenue support grant. We have made it clear that grant distribution will take into account the revenue that can be raised locally by each authority charging a standard rate of council tax. The tax base is therefore an integral part of the grant distribution system and we intend that the rules for determining the tax base of each authority will be set out in the report.
The Committee will want to know how we intend to calculate the tax base for grant distribution. I can assure all Members of the Committee that the tax base will take full account of estimates of exempt properties, empty properties and personal discounts in an area. We propose that it will include the estimated numbers of chargeable dwellings in an area, expressed as the equivalent number of band D dwellings, after allowing for personal discounts and reductions for physically disabled people.
I trust that the noble Lord will agree that there is no need for the separate duty on the Secretary of State proposed by the amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer which on the face of it I find entirely satisfactory. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 228:
Page 124, line 35, at end insert:
("The basis of the distribution shall take full account of the higher costs faced by receiving authorities in London and the South East of England.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 228ZA. We return now to the question of differentials across the country. The second amendment in the grouping relates to property prices and incomes and is not confined to the South East. It is perhaps a different way of addressing the point featured in Amendment No. 228A; namely, the costs faced by receiving authorities which the amendment before the Committee specifies as being those in London and in the South East.
During earlier Committee stages we looked at the issue of regional banding. I appreciate that the Government are not prepared to accept that system. However, the amendment proposes another solution for the Government to use to deal with the concerns which have been so vociferously expressed with regard to the discrimination, which is perhaps unintentional, but, nevertheless, there will undoubtedly be such effects in areas where property prices are higher, especially in London and the South East.
London is likely to lose something in the order of £300 million in external finance on the new basis which is proposed. There are huge variations among the
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boroughs. However, if I give the Committee the figures of £140 per adult in inner-London and £31 per adult in outer-London, I do not believe that they could be regarded by anyone as being wide of the mark. If no alteration is made to the arrangements to compensate Londoners for the grant losses which will result from higher relative property prices, it is even more important that the standard spending assessments should accurately reflect authorities' need to spend.
I believe that reference was made during earlier stages of the Bill—or it may have been on a previous local government Bill—about the difficulties which arise because there are two associations of borough authorities in London. I must tell the Committee that there is common ground on the following issue between the two local authority associations. I refer to the inadequacy of the present area cost adjustment. That adjustment is intended to compensate authorities for higher non-discretionary costs. But it is essentially a labour cost adjustment; in other words, it applies only to the share which is assumed to be the base of labour costs for individual services.
The total costs covered by the area cost adjustment vary quite considerably among different types of service. For example, in education 80 per cent. is covered by the ACA, for the police it is 85 per cent. and the figure for highway maintenance is as low as 50 per cent. The area cost adjustment takes account of higher labour costs but not of other costs such as rents and—dare I say it—non-domestic rates which are included in the adjustment.
I understand that the Department of the Environment accepts that there are cost differences. The local authority associations believe that they are being required to meet a very high level of proof with regard to that—indeed, a much higher level than the department requires with regard to other aspects of the grant-making process. If the ACA for each service was to be set at 100 per cent. of the SSA rather than at the assumed labour cost share, I believe that the increase will be just under £200 million, which I accept would result in a corresponding increase in grant. That is the point. If the problem were to be addressed, some of the unfairness of which I believe Londoners will become very conscious in the council tax provisions would be reduced.
In conclusion, perhaps I may deal briefly with Amendment No. 228ZA which would require the Secretary of State to,
"take into account relative property prices and household incomes".
We have spent a good deal of time in Committee discussing the differences in property prices and how they do not accurately reflect differences in household incomes. But I suggest that the evidence put forward is irrefutable. I do not think that that part of the debate needs to be repeated in detail. However, I should stress that I shall support the other amendment if the amendment before the Committee is not accepted. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: Perhaps the noble Baroness will be able to answer a question which will enable us better to consider the amendment. Is she arguing that

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there should be greater recognition of the South and the South East over and above the area cost adjustment factors—which cover inner-London boroughs, outer-London boroughs, inner-fringe districts and outer-fringe districts and other South-Eastern districts—which would mean money over and above recognising the costs of the South and the South East? Is the noble Baroness asking for even greater recognition?
Baroness Hamwee: Yes, I am, for the very reasons that I have already given. Not only are London and the South East discriminated against because of the way that the council tax will work; they are also discriminated against because of other factors such as rents and rates which I mentioned.
Baroness Blatch: But what is proposed would be discrimination in favour of them in respect of a very large sum of money. Is the noble Baroness ignoring that fact, or is she asking for more? If it is to be more, that would be at the expense of other parts of the country. Is the noble Baroness saying that even more money should come away at the expense of other parts of the country?
Baroness Hamwee: The answer to the Minister's question is yes. I have already given the figure of loss of grant of £300 million. I am told by the London local authority associations that the cost of the amendment which I propose and which they support—to that extent, therefore, I am speaking on behalf of all the London boroughs—would be under £200 million.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: Perhaps I may speak to Amendment No. 228ZA which is grouped with the amendment which is presently before the Committee. I shall not requote the figures cited by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, about the loss of London's external finance and the implication per head to inner-Londoners, and so on. I shall not do so because my amendment has a slightly wider implication. One of the concepts that we have been exploring in a whole series of amendments is that one of the many problems associated with the council tax and its banding is the mismatch between property values and income; in other words, the ability to pay. London in particular suffers from problems at both ends of the scale, some of which were rightly identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee.
Ministers on the Benches opposite and Members of the Committee sitting behind them have not supported opposition amendments which would have rectified that anomaly by going for individual valuations. They have rejected, or not supported, amendments which might have rectified that anomaly by going for regional banding and they have not accepted amendments moved by my noble friend Lord Desai for sensible coefficients which might also have rectified it. As a result, most property in the North is in the bottom two bands and most property in London is in the top three or so bands. That is why London is doubly affected. It means that the London boroughs not only do not receive proper proportionate contribution from the better off because their
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contribution, to use the Minister's phrase in an earlier Committee stage, is "artificially dampened" or constricted; it also means that those on the lowest incomes pay too much because their property has a high value.
For example, a bus driver who is a tenant of a housing association may have an income, which includes a London allowance, which is 15 per cent. or perhaps 20 per cent. higher—and it is no more than that—than his Northern counterpart. However, he will be living in a housing association property of which he is a tenant (in respect of which he has no asset) which is assessed at, say, three times the value of a similar property in the North. It is that problem that the amendment is seeking to mitigate to some degree. That bus driver who is occupying rented housing association property will be paying too much twice over in comparison not only with the better off in London, because they are paying too little or because of the cut-off of the top band, but also with people on similar incomes and with similar jobs, occupying similar but lower valued property elsewhere in the country.
The problem arises because the revenue support grant takes into account the value of the authority's property resource compared with its needs when determining grant. By virtue of the fact that London has higher property values, by definition the revenue support grant related to its resource element will be lower. The higher property values in London assume a higher resource and a higher capacity to pay, but, in the example I have offered, that means no such thing. For that point to be evident I have only to remind your Lordships that 1 per cent. of London's houses are in the bottom band but 16 per cent. of its households are in the bottom decile of income. London's property prices are about one-third higher than the national average and in the North they are almost one-third lower, whereas incomes are only about 20 per cent. higher in London and in the North only 6 per cent. lower. As it stands, the distribution is not fair to either the London authorities or their taxpayers.
While this amendment will particularly help London it will also pick up anomalies elsewhere. We ask the Secretary of State to take into account the relativities between property prices and household incomes—because we have that information from social and regional trends and the like—when distributing revenue support grant. That seems to be only fair, just and reasonable, and I hope to have your Lordships' support.
6 p.m.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I too have been sent a copy of the brief provided by the London Boroughs Association. At first sight they make a case which, apart from what the impact will be, looks a persuasive one. They argue that, if the council tax is being introduced a year earlier, there will be something of the order of £300 million more grant. It is said that London is being deprived of £300 million of grant because of the phenomenon to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has drawn attention. What

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both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, might have pointed out was that, of the London boroughs, on the whole those with the largest number of houses in the lowest hand—and Newham and Tower Hamlets are quoted in the report—will gain from the way the system works, whereas the boroughs which will tend to lose will be the ones with much higher property values equivalent to an average loss of "£288 for each household in Kensington and Chelsea".
Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, may care to note that the effect of the amendment to which his noble friend has put her name will presumably be to reverse that benefit which favours the poorer Labour-controlled or Liberal Democrat-controlled boroughs and give it to Conservative boroughs. I am quite sure that that is not what they intend but that is what will happen.
The case which has been advanced against this amendment in another place turns on the same argument as one heard about regional banding—namely, the appalling problem involved in drawing a line and the differences between people on either side of that line. I would not press my noble friends at this stage to go for a scheme which might give rise to precisely that problem—a problem to which at the moment one can see no solution.
I simply ask my noble friend to take on board the report from officials to members of the LBA, which ends with a paragraph that states:
"LBA officers will carry out a major research project on the area cost adjustment in the Spring of this year, and put forward the findings to the SSA sub-group for discussion and consideration for inclusion in SSAs for 1993/94".
All I ask is that, when that evidence arrives, my noble friends will look closely at it. There is a feeling that because of the higher costs in London, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said were not all covered by the labour cost adjustment, it is losing out. It so happens that the boroughs with the highest property values lose out more than those with the lowest property values. No doubt that is something to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, can address herself at a later stage. There is a sense of grievance here. I have no doubt that, if my noble friends could look not at the first year but at 1993–94 when they have the results of the "major research project", they would consider it very carefully and sympathetically.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: I have no real support for the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. I think it looks extremely complicated. It is quite impossible to assess household incomes except on a personal basis with the rebate system which comes into the council tax. I do not support that.
I have quite a degree of support for the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. As I think my noble friend Lord Jenkin said, there is a sense of grievance. Whether or not it is justified I should like the Minister to establish. Not only the LBA but the AMA feel they are being unfairly treated. One point I was asked to raise was about the former discounts scheme which used to exist under the old domestic rating scheme. Under it, rateable values in London were discounted by about 17.5 per cent. partly to compensate for the much higher rateable values in
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London. I know my noble friend the Minister has said that all the other allowances which are being made more than compensate for that, but I should like to be assured that that is so.
The figure of £300 million as the loss to London has been bandied about. Unless something is done to help London in particular and the South East in general, that sense of grievance will remain. Either something can be done or at least it can be clearly proved that we are getting support through SSA topping up or some other mechanism. It may be that the Minister was right when she said at the beginning that the assessments were there and the money was already being given, but I should like to see that clearly established and on the record in Hansard so we can all study it afterwards.
I do not support the amendment at this stage but I should like to see something on this from my noble friend the Minister that we can consider so as to assess whether we are getting fair treatment.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I have listened with some interest to the special pleading of London and the South East in the debate. Perhaps when my noble friend sums up she can help me on two things that both me. First, the size of the local government funding cake is constant. It can be increased in total but it is looked at in the round. Therefore, any increase in the amount of money coming to London and the South East from that cake will be to the detriment of other parts of England. If she confirms that I wonder whether, like me, she is wondering whether the two parties opposite are telling people in, say, the north of England or the south west of England that they are campaigning to redistribute local government funding in favour of London and the South East and away from what are largely agreed to be the peripheral areas of England, let alone the United Kingdom, where I am quite sure that the tune they sing is that London and the South East get a disproportionate amount of this country's resources.
I should be grateful if my noble friend, in her summing up, can help me in that regard so I am quite sure that the case advanced by the opposition parties is a false one.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Before the Minister replies perhaps I can respond to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, who put it to me that our amendment would favour Conservative areas at the expense of Labour areas. If he reads Amendment No. 228ZA more closely he will see that it states:
"the Secretary of State shall take into account relative property prices and household incomes within each receiving authority".
If we were to be accused of being vague in the amendment, on the basis that it could be 90 per cent. property prices and 10 per cent. household income or 90 per cent. household income and 10 per cent. property prices, we would accept that charge because in the amendment we seek to draw attention again to the need to have a system which reflects ability to pay. Nothing in the amendment justifies the charge that we are seeking to benefit Conservative areas.
Baroness Blatch: I wonder whether the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, would help me by answering a question before I deal with the amendment. How will she assess the household income part of the amendment?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I said in my opening remarks—perhaps I talk too fast—that there is plenty of evidence of regional trends in Social Trends published just a week ago. I consulted the figures. They give the regional banding of incomes.
Baroness Blatch: Can I take it from that helpful answer that the assessment of the income of households will be done on a crude regional basis and there will be no assessment of income of individual households?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: If the Minister were minded to think that there was substance in the amendment such that she would like to take it away and consider it, I would say that the matter is obviously best worked out in consultation with the local authority associations. I was trying to say that there was reliable evidence of the banding and patterning of household incomes by regions, for example, in Social Trends. That information can obviously be desegregated.
6.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: Then I shall address not just the iniquity of applying that system but the inequalities within a region. If someone on a very low income lives in a high income area—if I am to take the noble Baroness at her word that the basis would be regional —the disadvantages would be considerable for people on low incomes because they would be banded generally for living in a high income area.
Amendment No. 228 requires that revenue support grant distribution takes full account of higher costs faced by receiving authorities in London and the South East. We indeed recognise that local authorities in different parts of the country face different employment and other costs because of local market conditions over which they have little or no control. The existing grant system addresses that by taking the higher costs faced by authorities in London and the South East into account in the calculation of standard spending assessments. These area cost adjustment factors involve significant amounts; under the proposed settlement for next year they will increase the amount of grant by 26 per cent. for certain services. I can assure the noble Baroness that we do not propose any change to that principle under the council tax.
I say to my noble friend Lord Mackay that a serious question is being posed here. Either the size of the cake is enlarged substantially or, in addition to the positive discrimination in favour of the South and the South East which is paid for by the rest of the country, a serious increase in the amount to be raised in local tax can be expected in all areas other than the South and South East. It is fair to point out that in those parts of the country there is an active campaign, through amendment to the Bill, to ensure that there is
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a switch of resources from the North and the Midlands to the South and the South East over and above the discrimination the Government apply which is based on sound information.
I say to my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, that SSAs incorporate substantial allowances for higher costs in London and the South East. Those allowances take account of higher staff costs which are by far the most important element in local authority cost. In comparison, other costs show smaller variations across the country and are much less important in overall local authority costs. For example, rent and rates represent 2 to 3 per cent. only of local authority spending. I can give my noble friend the assurance that if there is new information, based on research done by local boroughs, it will be considered seriously in the preparation of the budget following the submission of that information. We are up-dating information all the time and any new information that comes along will be considered seriously.
Amendment No. 228ZA would require the Secretary of State to take into account relative property prices and household incomes when determining the basis of distribution of RSG. I shall deal with the question of household incomes first. Why should the amount of grant paid to a local authority depend upon the income of its residents? There might be two reasons. The first would be to reflect the amount which the local authority would have spent to provide a standard level of service. It might be entirely reasonable in such cases to take account of household incomes, although there will be other appropriate measures too.
The other reason for reflecting household income in RSG would be if the amount raised in local taxation were to be related to personal incomes; but, we do not have a local income tax and shall not have one for the very good reasons that have often been explained from these Benches. So household income cannot be a legitimate input into the calculation of a local authority's notional revenue for grants purposes, although I have said that staffing and general living costs are taken into account in the area cost adjustments.
The amendment refers also to relative property prices. The Government already propose to take into account property values in each area when distributing RSG. Each authority will get RSG sufficient to finance a standard level of spending on the assumption that it levies a common level of council tax. Clearly the amount it will raise from such a levy will depend upon the number of dwellings in each valuation band within the authority's area. The calculation will take account also of the number of exemptions and personal discounts. Variation in property prices is therefore a central element in the distribution of RSG.
We have returned again to regional banding. The Committee should be clear what regional banding would mean. It is important to note it. It will result in higher bills in regions where house prices are low. A typical property in the North would pay the same as

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a typical property in the South East regardless of the fact that earnings and average property prices are lower in the North. That would not be fair.
Although regional banding has been debated widely, it may help the Committee if I explain the basis of our proposals. The Government recognise that there are areas with high property prices. Under the council tax, in any street the most valuable homes will attract the largest bills. Similarly, in any town the most valuable homes will attract the largest bills. The same rationale applies not just to larger homes but to homes in more expensive parts of a town or even a village.
A three-bedroom house overlooking the park will be more expensive than an otherwise identical property in a less attractive part of the same area. It is fair that council tax bills should reflect this. The same logic applies across a county, a region or the whole country.
The Government believe that regional banding would be not just unfair, but it would give rise to unacceptable regional distortions. Distortions arise because at the boundaries of regions there would be a sudden change in the band, and therefore in the council tax bill, of otherwise identical properties.
To take a specific example, taxpayers in Enfield would, not surprisingly, be delighted to find that their homes had been allocated to a lower band than similar properties of the same value just over the border in Hertfordshire. The house in Enfield would be in a lower band because, on average, house prices are higher in London than in the rest of the South East. That is despite the fact that house prices just outside London are often higher than in the capital itself. Such anomalies should be avoided.
We are looking for some honesty in this matter. Either the whole sum of money made available to local authorities is increased substantially or we discriminate, over and above the positive discrimination that is already part of the system, in favour of the South and the South East at the expense of the Midlands, the North East and the North West. If that is the case, Members on all Benches opposite should tell the people of the Midlands, the North East and the North West that that is what they mean.
Baroness Hamwee: Without repeating the debate on regional banding, I hope I may just refer to the matter of anomalies on either side of boundaries. In a previous debate in an attempt at alliteration I compared Carlisle with Kelso. Those towns are situated on either side of the English-Scottish boundary. I also in a previous debate referred to Ludlow and Llangollen which are situated one on either side of the English-Welsh boundary. There are clear anomalies between those parts of Great Britain as regards the proposals in the Bill. I cannot see any logic in referring to anomalies between different regions of England if we are to accept anomalies between England and Scotland and England and Wales. I wish to use the terminology used in debates earlier in this Committee stage by the noble Lord, Lord Mackay. We have endeavoured to assist peripheral parts of Britain in the way we have approached the question.
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As regards the gainers in London, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, understandably drew attention to the fact that some London boroughs will gain. I do not dispute that. I am using the figures of the Association of London Authorities rather than the London Boroughs Association figures because the former figures were nearer to hand and there is no substantial difference between the two sets of figures. There are five gainers. Those in the gaining areas will gain, per property, £31 in Newham. That is the highest amount. I am rounding that figure up in order to be fair. People in the other four gaining areas gain between £3 and £11.
I have not tried to pick out the highest figures. I have simply tried to give a few figures to illustrate this point. Of the losers, Greenwich will lose £383. That compares with the highest gain of £30. The noble Baroness, Lady Parkes, will be aware of the figure—or a figure very like it—I am about to mention. Westminster will lose £233. If I have identified five gainers, there are, by definition, 28 losers. Almost all of those stand to lose three figure sums and many of them stand to lose more than £200.
I am obviously grateful for the assurance that has been given that the further work of the London Boroughs Association will be considered. I appreciate the assurances that have been given. I hope a dialogue will be established with officials at the department with regard to that matter. I shall study what the Minister has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 228ZA not moved.]
Baroness Hamwee Baroness Hamwee moved Amendment No. 228A:
Page 124, line 37, leave out from beginning to ("the") in line 38 and insert ("consult and take full account of the views of the representatives of local government with regard to").
The noble Baroness said: This amendment is grouped with Amendment No. 228AA. The terminology used in this amendment is similar to that used in Amendment No. 228AA. The Bill contains a requirement for the Secretary of State to notify representatives of local government of the general nature of the basis of grant distribution. The difference between the two amendments depends on whether one construes the word "consult" as meaning to take account of or whether one construes it as meaning to have a conversation with someone and then ignore the content of that conversation. To that extent the amendment I have tabled goes a little further than Amendment No. 228AA.
In any case the word "consult" must mean considerably more than merely to notify. Is there any particular advantage in notifying other than that local authorities and local authority representatives will need the information in question? But does it take the process of a dialogue to persuade local authorities that the procedure is fair and, most importantly, to persuade indirectly the taxpayers that the procedure is fair? On the Local Government Bill we talked a great deal about consultation. I hope that that is a word we can write into this Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I wish to support Amendment No. 228A. Amendment No. 228AA which stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, is grouped with this amendment. The difference between the two amendments—the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has mentioned this—is that Amendment No. 228AA does not go as far as Amendment No. 228A because we on these Benches pay the Minister the courtesy of assuming that if the local authority associations are consulted by the Minister or the Secretary of State, the Government would, as a result, take on board their opinions and perhaps moderate or change their views. However, in substance the two amendments make the same point.
We believe that something as important as the general nature of the basis of grant distribution should be the result of consultation and not merely of notification. I would have hoped that that principle is by now well established in a whole range of legislation under this Government. I believe I am right in saying that the Local Government Finance Act 1982 required the Government to consult local authorities and trade unions on appointments to the Audit Commission, for example. I believe that during discussions on the Local Government Bill which is now in another place we decided that the Audit Commission was required to consult councils on performance indicators. The Minister will correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that under social security legislation following judicial review, where it affects housing benefits administered by local authorities, the Secretary of State is required to consult and not merely to notify.
I am reasonably confident that in the Planning and Compensation Act that passed through this Chamber —the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, and Members on this side of the Chamber were heavily involved in that legislation the Government willingly and gracefully accepted a number of amendments and themselves introduced a number of amendments to strengthen consultation. We hope that within that spirit and within the spirit of the Citizen's Charter the Minister will tell us that this amendment is not necessary because, by regulation perhaps, the Secretary of State will ensure that he will consult local authority representatives to enable him to take on board the broadest cross-section of views in ensuring the most equitable, fair, sensitive, simple and just means of distribution of grant.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I hope I may make some brief remarks. During my period at the Department of the Environment I probably spent as much time consulting, listening to and taking full account of the views of local authorities as I did on almost any other single activity in which I was engaged in what was a fairly turbulent two-and-a-quarter years. Much of this matter depends upon the general climate of opinion prevailing. No one would pretend that while one is introducing legislation to provide for a fall-back general rate capping power—I introduced such a measure—or when one is seeking to abolish a powerful authority such as the Greater London Council or the unwanted metropolitan regional councils one will have an easy ride with local government.
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Nevertheless I have a distinct recollection of meeting after meeting with representatives of local authorities where we sat round the table on the podium on the third floor of the Department of the Environment and spent many hours discussing and listening to the representations which local authority representatives made. That occurred at the end of a process in which the DoE officials, with the officials of the local authority associations, had chewed over everything. I am sure the local authority representatives were as carefully briefed as I and my colleagues were as regards what each side was likely to say in response to representations that might be made.
I like to feel that during that period, despite the difficulties over controversial legislation, we were able to establish a rational dialogue on this crucial annual issue of the distribution of the rate support grant. I have no doubt that many local authorities thought that the consultation should have gone further and lasted longer. I may be completely out of date since I am talking of the period 1983 to 1985, but it is my recollection that even despite the turmoil and the antagonisms which existed at the time and despite the difficult leaders of certain councils, many of whom are no longer in local government because they were subsequently disqualified, we were able to conduct a rational dialogue on that issue.
I do not know whether the Bill needs to be amended but the Committee may wish to know that, even in a difficult period, each year there was serious consultation—with serious talking and serious listening—on the issue of the distribution of the rate support grant. Ministers and local government leaders took part in those talks in total good faith.
Baroness Blatch: Once again I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing the attention of the Committee to the record of the department in consulting local authorities, not only at ministerial level but also at official level—Ministers to local authority members and officials to officials. The record is a good one. Consultation with authorities is an integral part of the annual revenue support grant round and will continue to be so under the council tax.
The Secretary of State will continue to consult authorities on the total amount of RSG, as now. He will continue to be required to notify authorities of the general nature of the basis of the proposed distribution of RSG, as now. Authorities will therefore have full opportunity to comment before the Secretary of State makes the report. In practice the present arrangements have given authorities at least four weeks before the Secretary of State makes the RSG report in which to make representations to him about it.
The new system does not weaken the consultation process. As I said, the Secretary of State will continue to consult authorities on the total amount of RSG, as now. Before the local government finance report is made authorities will be notified of the proposed distribution of RSG, as now. Additionally, they will be notified of the proposed distribution of NDR because under the new arrangements that also will be set out in the local government finance report.

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The principles of grant distribution under the council tax and the related arrangements for notification and representations are to be based on existing practice, which has worked well. We have no reason to depart from that. Given that there will continue to be a period in which representations can be made, I do not see that a requirement for formal consultation would add anything to those arrangements. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hamwee: I am puzzled, not by what has been said but by the words in the Bill. I accept that there was consultation under the previous arrangements. The Local Government Planning and Land Act 1980 provided a duty to consult. The word used on page 124 of the Bill is "notify". If the arrangement is to be consultation rather than notification, why does the word "consult" not appear in the Bill?
Baroness Blatch: The noble Baroness obviously missed what I said. As has always happened within my department, the Secretary of State will of course consult. However, the Secretary of State has a duty to notify. He will consult and then notify the local authorities and then await the comments of local authorities. That has been the practice. It is well tried and tested and will, I believe, continue.
Baroness Hamwee: That is my point. There was a duty to consult. I do not suggest that the individuals who are at present involved in the process would fail in what would now be a moral duty but not a legal duty. However, the horrible apparition of a Secretary of State who may not be of the same leanings as Members on the Government Benches might cause them to give some thought as to whether a duty to consult ought to be written into the Bill. I am not getting anywhere now, but I do not think that I shall leave the matter alone for ever.
Baroness Blatch: The record of both the Labour Party opposite and our party is tried and tested. I cannot envisage another party not continuing the good practice.
Baroness Hamwee: If it is tried and tested perhaps the noble Lords would like to put their names to it and sign it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 228AA not moved.]
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 228AB:
Page 125, line 11, at end insert:
("( ) The calculation made under subsection (1) above shall not cause the aggregate of the amounts payable in respect of revenue support grant and redistributed non-domestic rates to exceed the authority's budget requirement.").
The noble Baroness said: We have heard much about people receiving services they do not pay for, which was the rationale for the 20 per cent. contribution to the poll tax. Under the council tax we are now faced with a structure under which local authorities may offer services and taxpayers receive services which they do not pay for.
Under the council tax, it is clear that a number of authorities may receive more government money in the form of grant and business rate than is needed to cover their budgets. Not only will they not need to raise a council tax —in other words, their services will be free to their council tax payers at the point of use—they will have a surplus, which the Government propose should be attributed to shire districts to offset the county council bill. That means that in certain shire districts local authorities would provide, but people would not pay for, street cleaning, refuse collection, environmental health, planning, amenities and the like.
That is a bizarre situation. One might ask oneself whether it is because those shire district authorities are particularly poor. Are we at last to have some rough and ready measure of social justice? Hardly. It will usually be the more prosperous southern shire districts, plus, I have no doubt, Wandsworth, which have a relatively high number of affluent commuters and professional people, which will benefit. For example, if one projected the council tax into 1991-92, some 30 shire districts would have a negative tax. They would receive more from this Government in revenue support grant and business rates than they would spend. Of those 30 authorities only three are north of the home counties belt. The authorities are located in Oxfordshire, Dorset, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Kent, Wiltshire, Surrey, Buckinghamshire and so on. Therefore, the grounds are not those of poverty.
Secondly, will they pay nothing because of their prudence and because they have kept their spending below their standard spending assessment? As my noble friend Lord McIntosh argued so well earlier today, standard spending assessments are a crude, volatile and inaccurate index of need. Standard spending assessments privilege southern coastal towns which are prosperous and attractive enough to benefit from additional tourist nights and are therefore able to adjust their population base, but they take no account whatever of the deprivation reflected by unemployment and hopelessness in northern cities. To return to an earlier debate on SSAs, how can anyone justify privileging tourist nights as a definition of greater need while ignoring unemployment, homelessness and deprivation altogether in the standard spending assessment?
Standard spending assessments, on which 85 per cent. of local authorities' income will now hinge, are based on some 22 controls. Of those controls only eight refer to district councils and four to debt charges and interest rates—and those which I have checked are inevitably inaccurate, and I can give examples. Two controls refer to flood or seawall defences and one to transport. Only one control, determining the whole of the local authority grant, relates to an authority's range of services from amenities to cemeteries, environmental health, planning and the like.
Under GREA there were some 60 variables, 29 to 35 of which affected district councils. I accept that that was more complex, but it was more sensitive and to that extent it was fairer. In moving to SSAs sensitivity

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has been traded for simplicity at the cost of fairness. In relation to an item which will fund 85 per cent. of local authority income fairness is central. As a result, shire districts, which are not poor and not necessarily prudent, will nevertheless find, through the variables that determine standard spending assessment, that their needs, although fewer, attract a disproportionate advantage.
In addition, such districts gain a third privilege by the patterning of the flow—who gains, who pays—in terms of business rates. Perhaps I may cite figures from Norfolk because I know them best. Norwich business pays £42 million into the national pool. On the basis of the population, the local authority receives back £33 million. That is a shortfall of £9 million. That, to some extent, explains why so much has to be compensated for by its council tax. It is the democratic choice of the two adjacent local authorities to choose low services, low rates and low spending patterns. However, the businesses in those two rural areas contribute about £9 million to the national pool and receive back respectively from the pool £27 million and £28 million. They do nothing for business. But the business rate is distributed on the basis of population. It allows them, in conjunction with a favourable SSA, to receive from central government resources which are higher than their assumed spend were council tax now to be in operation. As a result, some local authorities—I do not refer specifically to the two adjacent local authorities—need not levy any district council tax. Because the needs of low spending authorities are less pressing, they are aided by an over-generous standard spending assessment and a quirky effect of business rate which help them at the expense of more deprived areas.
Those authorities which spend below their SSAs will receive more than they need because their SSAs are artificially high since they are inaccurately judged. That offers a positive bonus to local authorities to spend below the the level of SSAs which Government have set in order to provide certain levels of service. Because grant will increase the more those local authorities spend below SSA, there will be a positive incentive to them not to provide the services that Government consider necessary. Indeed, we shall see a local government version of set-aside. Additional grant will go to local authorities to provide no services or fewer services. The fewer services authorities provide the more grant they will receive. The less services one provides the more grant one receives. The less one does the more one receives.
That must be perverse. It is certainly absurd. It means that external finance—it comprises 85 per cent. of local authority's income from revenue support grant and business rate—will be thrown at districts that do not need it but denied to councils that do. Those who most need such finance will not receive it; and those who least need it will do so. As a result, the residents of the more prosperous shire districts will pay nothing for their services while those in the least prosperous will pay very much more.
That was a structural problem even under the poll tax. However, it was relatively concealed because
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there was a shared collection fund. Under the council tax there is no such shared collection fund. The grant will go to the individual shire districts. It will be made transparent that at least 30 districts, and perhaps more, will receive more grant than the assumed level that they have determined they need to spend. As a result Government propose that that surplus should offset the county council precept.
I understand why Government might be embarrassed. Perhaps Members opposite will also be embarrassed by a situation in which a swathe of the more prosperous districts with lower need will receive more money in grant than they judge they need to spend to provide services.
Earlier, the Minister pressed us, asking, "Where will the money come from?". I answer, "From there". I beg to move.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes: The noble Baroness drew attention to the overnight bed allowance and implied that it was unjust. I wish to place on record that that was highly relevant to Westminster City Council. It was a matter that had never been taken into account before because there were no figures. It gives Westminster a benefit of £44. However, it has now been charged more and has lost benefit because it was considered that it should pay a greater contribution to London Transport than out-of-London boroughs. Therefore it has gained £44 and lost £49. It is important to place on record that it was not the bonanza that it may have seemed.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Henley: I thank my noble friend. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, made an interesting case. However, she will not be surprised to hear that I do not accept a word of it.
The effect of this amendment would be to remove a billing authority's ability to use surplus amounts of revenue support grant and non-domestic rates to offset the county precept in its area.
At present revenue support grant and redistributed non-domestic rates are paid into the collection fund administered by charging authorities in respect of local authority services in an area. The charging authority sets the community charge to meet the balance of its own and precepting authorities' demands on the collection fund.
As my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr. Key, explained when a similar amendment was considered in another place, some shire districts have been able to make very small demands because of prudent housekeeping and the generation of interest receipts arising from asset sales or from other sources of income. In such cases the community charge has been made up basically of only the cost of meeting the county precept, offset by the full amount of revenue support grant and non-domestic rate paid into the collection fund in support of all local authority services in an area, including those services provided by district councils. Under the council tax, RSG and NDR—if the noble Baroness does not object to my using initials—will be paid directly to both main tiers. Those districts which are

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now able to offset county precepts because of low budgets will receive more RSG and NDR than they need to finance their own expenditure.
On 6th November my honourable friend the Minister for Local Government, Mr. Portillo, announced that the Government did not intend to claw back RSG and NDR in such circumstances. Instead the Bill seeks to preserve the present situation in which local residents benefit from low budgets by allowing authorities in this position to use surplus RSG and NDR to offset the county precept for their areas. One or two districts such as Rochester upon Medway and Wellingborough are already in the happy position of being able to do so entirely, and a score or more others—as the noble Baroness suggested—are able to do it to a lesser but worthwhile extent.
This amendment would remove the ability of such authorities to use surplus RSG and NDR to offset the county precept for their areas. As I explained, the Bill does no more than preserve the present position by continuing to allow RSG and NDR to be used to reduce local taxes. It would not permit authorities to pay a dividend to their council tax payers. In the rare event that anything was left after offsetting the entire county precept, then these funds would remain in the billing authority's collection fund to offset council tax in future years.
In my view, this amendment is an example of the politics of envy. It seeks to penalise authorities for past prudence by removing funds which they would have received if the present arrangements had continued. There would be no benefit to other authorities. The amounts saved would remain with the Exchequer because authorities' entitlements to RSG and NDR are set before their budgets are known. The only practical effect would be to worsen the position of council tax payers in numerous prudent authorities' areas. That might not trouble the noble Baroness opposite, but it is not an outcome that I could countenance. I hope therefore that the noble Baroness will withdraw the amendment or that the Committee will reject it.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The Minister made the comments that I expected. I hoped that to some extent I had anticipated them when I suggested that we are not referring to prudent housekeeping. That is the phrase I used; indeed the Minister used it. I thought that I had responded to it. We have sought to argue from this side of the House that the reason that the charge is negative, with people in some 30 authorities, for the most part prosperous shire districts in southern England, paying nothing, is not because of prudent housekeeping but because of absurd standard spending assessments and the generous patterning of—
Lord Henley: We cannot go back over the whole argument of standing spending assessments. The matter was argued long and hard by my noble friend Lady Blatch and the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh. In my view, that point was resolved and I believe that the Committee accepted that it was resolved.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I can understand why the Minister is embarrassed if I refer to standing spending assessments. I can also understand why he might wish that I should not do so. The point remains that—and this is central to my argument—the reason why many of those prosperous shire districts in the south of England can have a negative council tax is because of the absurdly generous standing spending assessments. That builds on the arguments advanced in previous amendments, to which we shall certainly return.
It is also the consequence of the patterning—as I tried to argue but the Minister did not respond—of the way in which UBR works. Again, for the most part it favours prosperous, more rural, suburban or commuter shire districts in the south at the expense of cities and northern areas. When one puts the two together one has a situation that is undeniable and one that even the Minister has not sought to deny; that had the council tax been in place this year some 30 shire districts would not have to charge their residents for council tax services—
Lord Henley: I made the point clearly. If the residents are lucky enough to have had a previously prudent authority which has spent responsibly, has saved money and has perhaps had income from other sources—as was the case in Rochester, an example that I cited—why should the council tax payers of that authority be penalised merely because the noble Baroness cries, "It's not fair"?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The Minister repeats the phrase "prudent housekeeping" and believes that he has said something new. I repeat that the problem lies not with prudent housekeeping; that is not a problem, because obviously we all welcome prudent housekeeping and value for money. The consequence is the result of the distribution of standing spending assessments.
I had not intended to make this point but the Minister has made it irresistible for me to do so. We had GREAs only two years ago. Perhaps Members will do me the courtesy of letting me finish my point. They were based on some 60 variables. I was chair of a finance committee and leader of a council at a time when the Government were saying that GREAs were the best thing ever in terms of allocating the grant to local government. They were simplified to standing spending assessments. I take the point that sometimes there is a trade-off between fairness and simplicity. During the course of three years we have seen in the change from GREA to standard spending assessment—again I take the case of Norfolk—in the city of Norwich an increase of 24 per cent. But Breckland—a Conservative authority, although I am sure that that is an accident—has been increased by 80 per cent.; King's Lynn has been increased by 78.9 per cent.; South Norfolk by 80 per cent.; Broadland by 64 per cent.; and North Norfolk by 67 per cent. The point that I am making is that GREAs cannot have been right then and SSAs right now unless the percentage increase in the allocation in all those authorities is equal.

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The gap between 24 per cent. for one authority and 80 per cent. for another on two sets of criteria for allocating grant both of which were vigorously defended by Members opposite as being the right and proper way to allocate grant surely proves my case that SSAs are crude, inaccurate and volatile. As a result of SSAs and the patterning of business rates many of the shire districts are receiving from central government a bonanza which they neither need nor merit allowing their taxpayers to pay nothing at all for local services. That is the problem, but I give way to the Minister.
Lord Henley: The noble Baroness follows in the footsteps of her noble friend. Once again they are trying to imply that Ministers on this side of the Committee were up to funny business in fixing the SSAs. The noble Baroness shakes her head. She cited an example of an authority which gained as a result of SSA as opposed to GREA. She then said in a rather snide voice, "Oh, I am sure that is an accident". In exactly the same way, the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, said—and it will read perfectly all right in Hansard tomorrow—"Surprise, surprise", when giving the same example. In other words, on both occasions they have tried to make the accusation that my noble friend Lord Jenkin has repudiated; that we were up to funny business in fixing the SSAs so that Tory authorities would benefit. There is no truth in that whatever.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: The point we have made but which Ministers opposite have refused to hear—we can tell them but we cannot make them listen—is that they have established a system of SSAs which, in so far as it simplifies and departs from GREA, has done so to weight those factors which most benefit rural, shire and district councils which happen—and I say "happen"—largely to be Conservative. That is irrefutable. Any system which benefits, for example, additional tourist nights but ignores homelessness and unemployment will inevitably redirect grant into those more prosperous and attractive areas to which tourists go. Any system which takes from cities which have businesses and redistributes on a population basis will inevitably privilege rural areas over urban areas. That is the consequence of the formula adopted and that is the point that we have consistently made—
Baroness Blatch: Does the noble Baroness disagree with the figures that I gave earlier? They showed that SSAs for classes of authority are more favourable to Labour authorities than they are to Conservative authorities across the country.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My noble friend Lord McIntosh and I entirely accepted that those authorities which have higher needs and lower resources have a proportionately higher SSA. We have not challenged that position. However, how can Members opposite justify the distribution of SSAs and UBR, the business rate, which constructs 85 per cent. of the funding that local authorities receive? How can they justify that out of some 30 authorities all but three, so far as I can tell, are below the Home Counties
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belt? Only three are in the North and the rest are in the south of England. Those tax payers in the South will contribute nothing towards the services which they enjoy.
I would have hoped that that would generate in the minds of Members opposite some faint worry that perhaps SSAs are not quite accurate and not quite meeting need. The system allows prosperous shire districts to charge their taxpayers nothing for services while other authorities, ranging from inner London boroughs to urban authorities in the North—for instance, Wigan, Manchester and Barnsley—are severely penalised. They have higher needs and less resources with which to meet their bill.
The Minister repeatedly spoke of the politics of envy. It is a phrase that trips off his lips and he uses it often. Whenever Members on this side of Committee challenge the structural—I do not say "political"—unfairness of the council tax we are told that we are prompted by the politics of envy, as though it is right to defend structural unfairness within a public tax, spending public money raised through VAT as well as income tax, which falls on us all. I hope that Ministers will consider before using phrases such as this because we are tying to rectify the structural flaws of unfairness which privilege with public money some districts which need it least while denying it to others which do. I am sure that we shall return to the matter again and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
On Question, amendment negatived.
[Amendments Nos. 228ABA and 228ABB not moved.]
7 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 228AC:
Page 127, line 45, leave out ("may, with the consent of the Treasury") and insert ("shall").
The noble Lord said: I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos. 228AD and 228AE. It is my fault that they were not linked together in the groupings. I hope that it will not inconvenience the Government if I deal with them together.
Lord Henley: Perhaps I may just make sure that I understand the noble Lord. I believe that he wishes to speak to Amendments Nos. 228AC, 228AD and 228AE together. They were originally grouped together and then ungrouped.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I apologise for any inconvenience but, in the end, it may save the time of the Committee.
These amendments are concerned with what in Clause 13 are called "reduced amounts" and in the schedule are called "other grants". I understand them to be about transitional relief. I still do not understand why they are not only called by euphemistic terms but by different euphemistic terms at different places in the Bill.
These are relatively minor amendments. They are concerned with the detail of implementation of Clause 13, which we debated at some length and to which I do not propose to return in substance.

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Amendment No. 228AC replaces "may" by "shall" because we need to be certain that local authorities will receive reimbursement for council tax forgone by transitional arrangements. Amendment No. 228AD, in paragraph (2) (a) puts back in a part of the Bill which would be taken out by Amendment No. 228AE but adds, in paragraph (2) (b), a provision that there should be reimbursement for reasonable administrative expenses caused by the transitional arrangements. I beg to move.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I object to the removal of the provision requiring the consent of the Treasury. It is obvious that this involves substantial matters of national finance. National finances will get into a terrible mess if the co-ordinating control of the Treasury is removed. Therefore, on that specific point I hope that that amendment will be rejected.
Lord Henley: I shall certainly advise the Committee to reject the amendment, or perhaps the noble Lord may wish to withdraw it.
The amendment seeks to do two things, neither of which we believe is in the best interests of sound government. Amendment No. 228AC would impose an obligation on the Secretary of State to pay grant under an amended Section 88A of the 1988 Act every time that regulations are made under Clause 13. However, this ignores the perfectly sensible proposition that there may be cases where it is more appropriate and more efficient for grant to be paid under some other power.
We have said that regulations under Clause 13 may provide for a scheme of transitional reductions. We have also said in our consultation paper that the cost of that relief will be found within the overall total which is available for central grants to local authorities but it is likely that in this case a separate grant would be more appropriate since it would be of a transitional nature and probably subject to retrospective adjustments.
We have also amended Clause 13 to allow for regulations providing relief for people with disabilities. Under this scheme the bill for a disabled person's property will be reduced to that of a property in a lower band. Because it should be possible for local authorities to show the amount of relief they award in the tax-based returns which they send to the Department of the Environment or the Welsh Office, it would be possible to compensate them through revenue support grant rather than through an administratively burdensome grant scheme. I am sure that the Committee would welcome any attempt to minimise rather than maximise bureaucracy.
Amendments Nos. 228AD and 228AE would require the Secretary of State to pay grant under the amended Section 88A in respect of administrative expenses incurred by the authorities. I am afraid that that would ignore the possibility that such expenses may be covered elsewhere and, in particular, by the council tax preparation costs grant which we are proposing to pay under Section 146 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. I hope that that brief explanation will be sufficient to persuade the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am extremely interested in that answer because the Minister is suggesting not that grant will not be paid in some form or another but that it may be paid under some other power. Perhaps the Minister will take a layman through that proposition. I need to be told that there is somewhere in the Bill an assurance that grant will be paid even though it is not to be paid under this part of the schedule.
Lord Henley: I take it that the noble Lord is asking about the administration costs. I have mentioned that certain administration costs would be covered by the grant which we are proposing to pay under Section 146.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: That is not quite right. The Minister made the point twice. He referred to the grant being made under another power when responding to Amendment No. 228AC. Therefore, it is both the grant as a whole and the administration element of it in which I am interested.
Lord Henley: My understanding is that we would have other powers that we could use which may be more appropriate and more efficient to use for the grant. That is what we would intend to use.
As regards administration costs relating to the two later amendments to which the noble Lord spoke, there the expenses could be covered elsewhere. What I said in particular was that they may be covered by the council tax preparation costs grant which we are proposing to pay under Section 146 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: We shall come to the council tax preparation costs grant when we deal with special grants in the next pair of amendments. My problem as regards what the Minister said—although I am glad that he said that the Government intend to pay grant, which is very helpful—is that I understand that compensation through RSG would work only for spending forgone up to the standard spending assessment whereas there could be expenditure above the standard spending assessment.
Lord Henley: Rather than responding immediately at the Dispatch Box on that point, I should prefer to write to the noble Lord.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I am grateful. I understand that it is perhaps better to do so. In the light of what the Minister said and his undertaking to write to me, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 228AD and 228AE not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 228AF:
Page 128, line 17, leave out ("may, with the consent of the Treasury") and insert ("shall").
The noble Lord said: In speaking to this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 228AG. I readily acknowledge that Amendment No. 228AF will bring forward the same objection from the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, as he raised on the previous amendment.
We now turn to the issue of compensation grant for the setting up costs of the council tax. We tabled these amendments not because we expect the Government to move on this issue but because it should be on the record in Hansard that CSL—the consultants employed by the Department of the Environment to estimate the start-up costs of the council tax—estimated a figure of no less than £156 million. That is a very large sum of money. I do not wish to become involved in issues of privilege but I suggest that the public should know the kind of figures which we are talking about and the costs of the about-turn in which this Government in this Parliament have indulged on local government finance.
I understand from the consultation paper issued at the end of November that in compensation for that expenditure it is proposed there shall be a 75 per cent. payment of the estimated revenue element of the £156 million and that the capital element—some £40 million—will be subject to supplementary credit approval. That means that local council tax payers will be paying 25 per cent. of the enormous costs of setting up a new council tax scheme. Eventually, over the lifetime of the capital borrowing, they will be paying all the costs of the additional capital expenditure required.
Clearly those are heavy burdens on local authorities, especially when one bears in mind the gearing about which we spoke in relation to earlier amendments and the fact that a considerable number of the authorities concerned are to be capped. What it means is that the expenditure will not be additional expenditure; it will be expenditure on administration of a new council tax taken out of the budgets of expending departments like education, social services, highways and so on.
That is a matter which ought to be drawn to the attention of the public. I know that the Government are adamant about percentages but they should not be other than ashamed of the financial implications of their behaviour in regard to local government finance. I beg to move.
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I hate to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, and I shall therefore once again object to his proposal to remove the provision in regard to the consent of the Treasury.
More seriously, Treasury control is an essential part of our system. To erode it, even in a fairly limited area, would be a mistake. I do not know why the noble Lord—on this as on the previous amendment—feels it necessary to do so. It is not an essential part of his general proposition. I shall leave that to my noble friend the Minister to deal with but remain immutably opposed to the removal of the provision for the consent of the Treasury.
Lord Jenkin of Roding: I suspect I may be able to help my noble friend. If we were to take the sentence and merely transpose "may" for "shall", it would read very rummily indeed as,
"The Secretary of State shall, with the consent of the Treasury, pay a grant";
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that is, that the Secretary of State is entitled to compel the Treasury to consent to his paying a grant. Of course the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, has to take out the words,
"with the consent of the Treasury".
I endorse everything my noble friend said. However, I question whether the amendment is necessary and perhaps my noble friend will be able to help. If a Secretary of State actually refused to operate this paragraph, refused to make a determination as required by (2) or, having made a determination, refused to pay the grant, I suspect that in either case he could be taken to court under judicial review and the court could declare that he was obliged to pay it. In other words, I do not believe that the use of the word "may" in the first line of the substituted paragraph 88B(1) merely gives the Secretary of State a discretion as to whether he pays it, but the word is necessary, if we intend to insert the words,
"with the consent of the Treasury"—
my noble friend made the point clearly why that is necessary —simply in order to make sense of it. It adds nothing to substitute the word "shall".
Lord Boyd-Carpenter: I differ a little from my noble friend. If we were to provide the words,
"shall, with the consent of the Treasury",
we would not be compelling the Treasury. We would be indicating that the Minister concerned is bound to pay the grant if he received the consent of the Treasury, and therefore it would maintain Treasury control. I differ from my noble friend, with respect, on the interpretation. Fortunately, this is academic because nobody is proposing to do it.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not wish to intrude on private grief. I do not mind which of the noble Lords opposite is right on the matter. If we look at the substantive amendment—Amendment No. 228AG—it will be seen that all we are adding is that there should be a statement of whether or not the amount which the Secretary of State proposes to pay reflects that authority's expenditure on the purposes for which the grant is to be paid; in other words, the start-up costs of the council tax.
We do not doubt that the Secretary of State is going to pay grant. He has already said so in the announcement about local authority finance which he made to Parliament on 26th November last. We do not like the intention that the grant shall cover 75 per cent. only of revenue expenditure and provide only supplementary credit approval rather than finance for the capital expenditure. However, the issue of whether he is going to pay grant is not an issue between us.
Baroness Hamwee: I support the amendment. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, that to say "shall subject to the consent of the Treasury", would probably meet the case. However, that is not the substantive point. I hope that the Government will feel that they can accept the amendment. The dispute as to the costs of introducing the council tax will run and run and the more certainty we can have as to what those costs have been, the more likelihood there is of disposing of at least one area of dispute.

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I support the amendment for another reason, which is the underlying reason of pointing to the costs that will be incurred. No one should be in doubt as to the difficulties that that will cause, and not merely to local authorities as abstract organisations but to those bodies as providers of services. They should be in no doubt either about the inevitable knock-on effect on those services.
7.15 p.m.
Baroness Blatch: Amendment No. 228AF seeks to place a duty on the Secretary of State to make a special grant. Special grant powers are exactly that. They give the Secretary of State the power to make a grant to one or more receiving authorities following the approval in another place of a report setting out the purpose of the grant. We intend to use those powers to pay grant in support of council tax start-up costs. We have already said that grant of some £86 million will be paid to meet 75 per cent. of local authorities' council tax implementation revenue costs before 1st April 1993.
Perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, in regard to his reference to start-up costs, that the CSL estimate of start-up costs was £115 million of revenue expenditure, funded by £86 million, which represents 75 per cent. of new money by way of special grant, the remaining 25 per cent. coming from other sources but taken into account in fixing the aggregate funds for 1992–93.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not believe the figures are in dispute. I said £156 million, which is the total figure of £115 million revenue expenditure and £41 million capital expenditure. I do not believe that we are in disagreement on the figures.
Baroness Blatch: That is right but they are different sums of money used in different ways. I was going to go on to say that the noble Lord was right that £41 million is capital expenditure and the Government will be providing supplementary credit approvals up to the full amount.
The powers are not limited solely to that purpose; they may be used to give grants in special cases where there is no specific statutory power. It is important to say that they are genuinely discretionary granting powers for special cases which may arise. This amendment is therefore a complete nonsense. It simply does not make sense to place a duty on the Secretary of State to make a grant the purpose of which is not known and will not be known until the need to use these powers arises.
I now turn to Amendment No. 228AG. This amendment is unnecessary. As the Bill is presently drafted, a special grant determination may state the total amount of grant and the method of its distribution to authorities. Amendment No. 228AG would require such a determination to state, in addition, whether or not the amount to be paid to each authority reflected that authority's expenditure on the purpose for which the grant was to be paid. As the Bill stands, the amount to be paid to each authority will depend on the basis of distribution specified in the determination. If that basis of distribution is related to
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the expenditure of individual authorities, as may well be the case, then the determination will say so. There is no need for a separate requirement on the Secretary of State.
The new Section 88B allows more flexibility over the contents of special grant reports than is possible under the existing provisions in the Local Government and Housing Act 1989. Our aim is to ensure that expenditure related grants under these powers can be given at an earlier point—I hope the Committee approves of that—than under the existing powers. This is a sensible modification which will I am sure be welcomed by local authorities and Members of the Committee. I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: At the end of what started to be an eminently reasonable reply I felt that the Minister was over-reacting to some extent. To describe the amendments as nonsense does not do justice to their content. We already know that the special grants for start-up purposes are going to be paid. They were announced to Parliament by the Secretary of State on 26th November. I have no reason to doubt what the Secretary of State does even if his Minister of State appears to believe that the issue is in doubt. It is not whether he is going to pay grant but the level of grant he intends to pay.
Even then our Amendment No. 228AG does not specify the level of grant that he is going to pay. It simply requires him to include a statement as to whether the grant he proposes to pay reflects the authority's expenditure on that purpose. All we are asking for is a little open government. We are not restricting the Secretary of State in any way at all. I believe that this is a case where a reasonable and moderate amendment was responded to in an immoderate way and I regret that. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 228AG not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 228AH:
Page 132, line 23, leave out from ("rules") to end of line 26.
The noble Lord said: This amendment arises out of a genuine sense of puzzlement as regards the provisions for the 1993–94 council tax, which is its first year. It is well understood, and it has been the case in all local government financial legislation, that the actual collection fund may be in surplus or deficit in any one year or from year to year. That is to say, no one will be able to forecast accurately exactly what will be collected and whether to some extent it will be above or below the budget. The provision for the future is that any surplus or deficit will be shared between the billing authority, which is the district council, and the precepting authority, which on the whole is the shire county. That seems fair enough. Why then for 1993–94, and for that year only, should any deficit or surplus be borne solely by the billing authority? I ask out of genuine curiosity. I beg to move.
Baroness Blatch: I suspect also that the noble Lord is concerned mainly about the treatment of deficits rather than surpluses, although he will accept that some authorities will have surpluses to carry forward. Let me first assure the Committee that there is no question of including deficits in the budget requirement. They will therefore not affect liability for capping, though of course they will have to be met by the council tax payer. There can be no question of either an amnesty for people who have not paid their community charge, nor of government provision to local authorities to write off losses from non-collection. Let there be absolutely no illusions on this point: due community charges are to be collected.
That said—and I regret that it needed such emphasis—we can see two possible approaches to the treatment of deficits carried forward into the first year of the council tax. First, we could adopt the approach which is most consistent with the treatment of deficits under the community charge, in which they are taken into account in the community charge calculated by the charging authority and shown on the bill. There are sound arguments for adopting that approach. After all, the deficits will have arisen under the community charge and will be largely the result of action (or lack of it in some cases) by the billing authority in its previous capacity as a charging authority.
The alternative would be to adopt the approach which we are proposing for subsequent years under the council tax and to apportion any deficit or surplus between the billing authority and major precepting authorities. This approach would be consistent with overall arrangements in which each main tier will calculate its own amounts of council tax. But to adopt this approach in the first year of the council tax would mean that any deficit accumulated under the community charge would be reflected in the amounts of council tax calculated by both the billing authority, which would have been largely responsible for that deficit in its previous incarnation, and by major precepting authorities.
It is not difficult to imagine what the major precepting authorities would think of that approach, especially in areas where they would be responsible for the greater part of the council tax and hence the greater part of any community charge arrears. Nor is it an option which is likely to encourage every charging authority to do its best to collect the community charge next year.
We have not yet made any firm proposals for the treatment of community charge surpluses and deficits in the first year of the council tax. Whatever we decide, the regulations prescribing the treatment of the surpluses and deficits will be subject to the negative resolution procedure and Parliament will have the opportunity, if it so chooses, to debate them.
For the moment our concern is to avoid restricting the options available. I hope that this amendment can be withdrawn.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: In responding to the amendment I find it very curious that the Minister should refer with some emphasis, as she says, to something which is not said either in the amendment
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or in my speech. There is no suggestion in the amendment or in my speech that there should be any amnesty for those who do not pay their poll tax. The law is the law and the taxes will have to be collected. The Minister's statement is a complete red herring.
I find the rest of the Minister's speech curious for perhaps less political reasons. It is an interesting reflection on the Government's thinking. Is the noble Baroness suggesting that, if there is a deficit which could be quite serious on occasions and require an authority which inherits the deficit in the collection fund either to charge more or to make cuts in services, those cuts should apply only to the services of the district council and billing authority and the much more expensive services of the precepting authorities such as education and social services would not be affected?
That strengthens the argument for single-tier authorities, but I do not believe in quite the way the Government intended. I find it curious for the Minister to say that the blame for deficits in non-collection should be the responsibility of the billing authority. I thought that the Prime Minister said, when he was first retreating from the poll tax, that it was uncollectable. I thought that a great many of the problems with the non-collection of the poll tax were caused by the Government dithering over the abolition of that tax. The impression given by the Prime Minister when he wrote in the House Magazine on 7th October was that they had already abolished the community charge. It is not surprising that some people believe that it has been abolished and therefore that they do not have to pay it.
Under the circumstances, what began as an innocent amendment has turned out, through the Minister's insistence, to have political resonance over and above that which was intended. I shall be grateful for a comment on this specific point: I still do not understand why a shortfall should come only from the billing authority in one year whereas in future years it will come from both the billing authority and the precepting authority.
Baroness Blatch: The noble Lord asked a straight question about the choice of cutting services and whether that was a consequence of having to find the moneys. I said when I first spoke to this amendment, and I say again now, that these moneys are not part of the budget—in other words, the actual services are not affected by this measure. The moneys owed will have to be collected through the council tax.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I understand that and I am grateful it is on the record that they are not part of the budget and therefore that they will not be taken into account for the purposes of capping. But I still do not understand why there should be a difference in 1993–94. But I do not suppose there is any point in asking for the third time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.30 p.m.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 228AJ:
Page 132, leave out lines 48 to 51.
The noble Lord said: Again, this is an amendment arising out of puzzlement. I do not understand the purposes of the regulatory powers which are introduced in lines 48 to 51 on page 132:
"The Secretary of State may make regulations providing that sums standing to the credit of a billing authority's collection fund at any time in a financial year must not exceed a total to be calculated in such manner as may be prescribed".
I do not understand what those powers are and I do not understand why they should be necessary or under what circumstances they may be used. I beg to move.
Earl Howe: I hope that I can help the noble Lord on this amendment. The amendment would remove the Secretary of State's power to make regulations prescribing a maximum for amounts held in a billing authority's collection fund at any one time. This is a reserve power that my right honourable friend possesses already under subsection (4) of Section 99 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, which this paragraph seeks to amend.
The collection fund, which will be retained under the council tax, is akin to a trust in which the billing authority will hold income from the council tax and non-domestic rates pending payment of sums due to major precepting authorities, to the Secretary of State and to its own general fund. The billing authority will be entitled to interest earned by the collection fund, but it would be wrong for it to abuse this incentive to efficient tax collection. The proposed power is needed in case authorities should be tempted to try to manipulate the collection fund at the expense of tax payers and major precepting authorities.
My right honourable friend has not had to use this power under the present system, and I hope that he will not have to do so under the council tax. Charging authorities have not abused their trust in the past and we do not expect billing authorities to do so in future. But it would be imprudent to dispense with a power just because one hoped and expected never to have to use it.
I hope that I have reassured the noble Lord and the Committee that there is nothing sinister in this reserve power. I trust that the noble Lord will not consider it necessary to pursue the amendment further.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: Talk about the nanny state! The noble Earl has given the feeblest excuse that I have ever heard for the continuation of powers which were introduced and have never been used. I do not blame him, but I must say that had I been faced with a brief of that kind I would have been sorely tempted to tear it up and throw it away.
What on earth do the Government think is going to happen that has not happened in these recent years: wicked local authorities conspiring to defeat the Government on all occasions; conspiring to stop the collection of the poll tax; conspiring to charge their local poll tax payers higher sums than they need in order, presumably, not to get re-elected? Here is a power which is not necessary, has never been
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necessary and ought to be abolished. I am sorely tempted to divide the Committee on it, but I shall not. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 10 agreed to.
Schedule 11 [Water and Sewerage Charges: Scotland]:
Lord Strathclyde Lord Strathclyde moved Amendment No. 228B:
Page 139, line 20, leave out ("domestic") and insert ("non-domestic").
The noble Lord said: This is a small technical amendment. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: I do not think that the Minister should get away with that. It is a mistake in the Bill which is now being corrected. It is not a technical amendment at all.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 11, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 12 agreed to.
Schedule 13 [Minor and Consequential Amendments]:
Baroness Blatch Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 228C:
Page 163, line 36, at end insert:
("Caldey Island Act 1990 (c. 44)
90A. In section 2 of the Caldey Island Act 1990, after the words "to the community charge" there shall be inserted the words "to council tax".").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 13, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 14 agreed to.
In the Title:
[Amendment No. 229 not moved.]
House resumed: Bill reported with amendments.

Licensing (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill
7.37 p.m.
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Tourism (Overseas Promotion) (Wales) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill [H.L.]
7.39 p.m.
Lord Goff of Chieveley: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time. The Carriage of Goods by Sea Bill provides a long awaited opportunity to reform and update the law of this country in respect of rights to suit relating to contracts for the carriage of goods by sea. It gives me great personal satisfaction to propose this legislation as from my experience at the Bar and on the Bench of that most international of domestic courts, the Commercial Court in London, I am only too well aware of the need for reform.
A very large number of contracts for the carriage of goods by sea are expressly governed by English law

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even though the ships, the cargoes and the ports involved have no connection with this country. London's role in the making of these contracts and the settlement of disputes which may arise under them results in a significant contribution to our invisible earnings and helps to secure the status of London as the world's leading maritime centre and centre for the resolution of maritime disputes.
The basic problem is that, since the contract of carriage is made between the shipper and the carrier, at common law only those parties could sue and be sued under that contract; for example, for damage suffered by the cargo on the voyage, or for short delivery of the cargo at destination. Thus, although the goods subject to the contract may have been sold and even resold while afloat—and there can be long chains of contracts—at common law the buyer of the goods afloat was unable to sue on the contract of carriage. The Bills of Lading Act 1855 was passed to remedy this defect. However, as I will shortly explain, for some considerable time lawyers and commercial interests have considered that the statutory provisions in the 1855 Act relating to the right to sue the carrier have themselves become out of date, because the statute no longer reflects commercial practice and is unduly restrictive in the rights it grants. Recent decisions of the courts have reinforced these views, as has the development in other jurisdictions of statutory provisions which are considered to be better fitted to meet modern commercial expectations and requirements.
Although there has long been agreement on the need for reform, until the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission took the matter in hand, lawyers and commercial interests had found it difficult to agree upon the scope and form of change which was needed. We owe a particular debt of gratitude to Mr. Brian Davenport QC, then a distinguished Law Commissioner, whose initiative led to the Law Commissions' reports. These were published in March of last year, and the very widespread support which the proposals received reflects the quality of the work undertaken by the commissions and the appropriateness of the balance which they struck. The text of the Bill now before the House is the culmination of the commissions' work, and support for its early enactment has come not only from United Kingdom interests but also from other European interests which adopt, and wish to continue to adopt, English law as the basis for their contracts for the carriage of goods by sea.
Based on their consultations and their examination of the law in other jurisdictions, the Law Commissions concluded that the Bills of Lading Act 1855 no longer meets commercial requirements or accommodates commercial practice, for the following reasons. The Act enable, the receiver of goods shipped under a bill of lading to sue the carrier for non-delivery or defective delivery if the property in the goods has passed to him "upon or by reason of" the consignment or endorsement of the bill of lading. This requirement causes difficulty whenever property either has not
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passed at the relevant time or has passed independently of the transfer of the bill of lading with the result that the transfer of the bill of lading is in no way causative of the passing of property.
For example, a common problem under the 1855 Act concerns sales involving bulk cargoes. The Act does not enable a purchaser of part of a cargo shipped in bulk under a bill of lading to sue the carrier because the Sale of Goods Act prevents property passing in part of a bulk cargo before the goods constituting that part have been ascertained. This means that, for example, any of the purchasers of part of an oil tanker's cargo who purchase it during the course of the tanker's voyage cannot sue the carrier under the terms of the bill of lading. Again the 1855 Act does not reflect current commercial practice whereby goods are often carried under a document other than a bill of lading, notably a sea waybill. Finally, the 1855 Act does not allow for future developments in commercial practice in this field, and in particular the increasing use of electronic data interchange.
In summary, the Bill now before the House solves these problems, first, by simply providing that any lawful holder of a bill of lading has the right to sue the carrier and further by conferring the same right on a person who is identified in a ship's delivery order covering part of a cargo originally shipped in bulk. In addition, the Bill provides that a person entitled to take delivery of goods under a sea waybill which contains or evidences a contract for the carriage of goods by sea is likewise enabled to sue the carrier. In turn, any person thus entitled to make a claim is placed under the same liabilities towards the carrier as if he had been party to the original contract of carriage. The Secretary of State for Transport will be given authority under the Bill to make regulations governing electronic data interchange, though it is recognised that the timing of any such regulations will depend on the development and acceptance of electronic data interchange by the industry. Finally, the Bill does not seek to restrict other rights to sue, for example, under a charterparty or in tort, nor does it affect in any way the application or operation of the international Hague Visby Rules on liability and limitation in respect of cargoes carried under a bill of lading.
Perhaps I may turn briefly to the individual clauses of the Bill. Clause 1 lists the shipping documents to which the Bill applies and allows the Secretary of State for Transport to make regulations, subject to negative resolution, to apply the provisions of the Bill to electronic data interchange. Clause 2 is the heart of the Bill and allows the lawful holder of a bill of lading, the consignee identified in a sea waybill, or the person entitled to take delivery under a ship's delivery order, to sue the carrier under the original contract of carriage even though he may not have been party to the original contract. The lawful holder of a bill of lading can sue a carrier even though the bill of lading is no longer a transferable document of title so long as he became holder of the bill of lading before it ceased to be such a document.
A person entitled to sue under a ship's delivery order will be able to do so on the terms of the

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undertaking contained in the order, such right being confined to the goods covered by the order. For example, if the order covered 1,000 tonnes of a 10,000 tonne cargo of grain shipped in bulk, his rights are confined to the 1,000 tonnes and do not extend to the whole 10,000 tonne cargo. Where a person who is given a right of suit has not himself suffered any or all of the loss in question, he is allowed to exercise the right of suit for the benefit of such persons who have suffered the loss.
Finally, the clause makes provision for the rights of suit of the original shipper and of intermediate parties entitled to sue by virtue of the provisions of the Bill.
One of the points of balance in the Bill to which I have referred is that those who gain contractual rights against the carrier will also be placed under contractual liabilities towards the carrier. Clause 3 therefore provides that a person who is entitled to sue under Clause 2 or who takes or demands delivery or otherwise makes a claim against the carrier becomes subject to the same contractual liabilities as if he had been an original party to the contract of carriage. Similarly, a person who takes or demands delivery before he has acquired any contractual rights will become liable when he subsequently has the rights conferred on him.
Clause 4 relates to bills of lading only and provides that a bill of lading representing goods to have been shipped or received for shipment is conclusive evidence against the carrier of such shipment or receipt so long as the bill of lading is in the hands of the bill of lading's lawful holder. This disposes of a widely criticised court ruling dating back to 1851 to the effect that a ship's master who signs the bills of lading could only bind his principal, the shipowner, in this way if the goods had actually been placed on board the ship.
Clause 5 covers interpretation and other matters. Clause 6 contains the short title and commencement and extends the Bill to Northern Ireland.
Since publication of the Law Commissions' reports and the Bill which I have just outlined, the matter has been studied and discussed in detail by the different commercial interests involved. I am pleased to say that the Bill has gained the support of all the commercial interests affected. Though cargo interests might have been expected to support it, I am glad to say that the Bill also has the support of shipowners and their insurers. The Law Commissions have struck their balance well and should be commended on their achievement.
It is some considerable time since the enactment of the Bills of Lading Act 1855. Much has been written on the 1855 Act, not all of it complimentary. However, there is now considerable evidence that commercial practice has moved on and that our law in this area needs to be amended and updated. Indeed, the common thread running through the discussions and correspondence which took place following publication of the Law Commissions' reports was that the proposed updating was badly needed and long overdue. Further delay could erode London's international position. With the enactment of the Bill now before your Lordships' House, Parliament will
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move our law in this area from the middle of the 19th century to well into the 21st. I commend the Bill to your Lordships.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Goff of Chieveley.)
7.50 p.m.
Lord Byron: My Lords, I take the opportunity to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff of Chieveley, for introducing this important measure which will change significantly the basis upon which a shipowner can sue and be sued in respect of the carriage of goods from the position which has been maintained over the past 137 years. Perhaps I may say, first, what a pleasure it is to be able to welcome a new piece of legislation dealing with international trade which has its origin not in a convention named after a hitherto obscure European city but in the much more domestic confines of the Law Commission. However, that is not to say that the commission has been at all domestic or parochial in its outlook. It has consulted widely at home and has studied corresponding law in a large number of other countries before producing a Bill which, while in many ways radical, nevertheless builds upon existing statutory and common law principles.
The inadequacies of the present Bills of Lading Act have been widely debated for many years. Cargo underwriters and those who advise have understandably been pressing for change. On the other hand, shipowners and P&I Clubs have perhaps been a little nervous at what form the new Bill might take. I believe it fair to say, as regards the Bill's present form, that such fears are largely, if wholly, groundless.
It would be presumptuous of me—indeed, it is unnecessary —to attempt a detailed analysis of the Bill. However, I should like to mention one or two points. By divorcing the rights of suit from the passing of property, there must be at least some risk of double jeopardy for the shipowner. The Law Commission addressed that point and concluded that the position was not materially worse for the shipowner than at present when a duplicity of claims is always possible, especially in the case of claims from both a charterer and a holder of a bill of lading.
I am not wholly convinced by that argument, especially as it is not always the ultimate payment of damages which may concern the carrier. It is often the requirement to secure potential claims. For understandable reasons, those involved—that is, cargo underwriters and others—are more anxious than ever to obtain security for their claims. The possibility of shipowners having to secure a number of different claimants, perhaps in different jurisdictions, is not, I think, wholly fanciful. Clearly, we shall have to see how that works in practice.
As was explained by the noble and learned Lord, a key concept in the Bill is that of the "lawful holder". I, for one, would be grateful if the noble and learned Lord could help a little further with that phrase. One can think of obvious examples where the holder might not be lawful, as in the case of theft or fraud by the holder himself. On the other hand, the commentary to the Bill and the Law Commission's report talks about

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being in possession of a bill in good faith. I am not certain that the concept of "lawful" is wholly synonymous with good faith. For example, it would be possible to hold in good faith a bill which was in origin an entirely fraudulent bill. I cannot say that I have researched the use of the word "lawful" in other statutes, but I should be most grateful if the noble and learned Lord could further assist us on the point.
Broadly speaking, I believe that the Bill achieves a fair balance between respected interests. Cargo underwriters will no longer find that their claim collapses because of the difficulty over title to sue. On the other hand, shipowners are probably less likely to find themselves facing claims in tort where they will be denied the benefit of their bill of lading contract. They have also acquired better rights to sue the receiver for claims such as those concerning the shipment of dangerous cargo, and so on.
There has been some criticism of a policy, which has its origins in the original 1855 Act, depriving the shipper of his right to sue after the endorsement and transfer of the bill of lading to a third party. I do not associate myself with that criticism; I think that it is misplaced.
As to the drafting of the Bill, I must confess that there are one or two areas where it seems to me that the language possibly lacks some clarity. Under Clause 2(2) (b), there is reference to,
"rejection to that person by another person of goods or documents delivered to the other person in pursuance of any such arrangements".
I believe that the intention is entirely clear as to when documents or goods may be rejected up the line to the original seller. However, I am not entirely happy with the concept of rejection "to" a person. It does not seem a very happy use of the word "to" in that context.
In conclusion, I should like to make a very small point in relation to the naming of the Bill which, I believe it is fair to say, has not met with universal acclamation. I can understand why it was thought not possible to have the Bills of Lading Act 1992. It is because the measure does not deal solely with bills of lading; indeed, it has other important ramifications in relation to waybills, and so on. However, it is perhaps a pity that we already have a number of Carriage of Goods by Sea Acts.
I do not wish to appear to be carping. The Bill is very much to be welcomed. It will undoubtedly help to keep the Commercial Court in London as a major centre for the resolution of international trade and shipping disputes—something which recent European Community legislation has not always helped. Again, I should like to express my thanks to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff of Chieveley, for introducing the Bill. I wish it well.
7.56 p.m.
Lord Donaldson of Lymington: My Lords, it was in 1946 that I was called to the Bar and became a pupil of my noble and learned friend Lord Roskill, who I am happy to see is now in his place. Very shortly afterwards he started the long road of introducing me to the arcane mysteries of the Bills of Lading Act 1855.
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Throughout my time as a practitioner at the Bar—and, indeed, as a judge of the Commercial Court in the Queen's Bench Division—I liked to regard myself as a shipping law specialist; and, possibly towards the end of the time, I actually was. When I went to the Court of Appeal I regret to say, in some ways, that I had to become a general practitioner. Therefore, I suppose that my proper description tonight is a "lapsed specialist". But in so far as a lapsed specialist has any right to address your Lordships' House, I should like to commend the Bill as meeting very long felt wants in shipping law.
However, more to the point is the fact that for some years now I have been president of an organisation, known as the British Maritime Law Association which is the British chapter of a much wider and worldwide organisation called the Comité Maritime Internationale. The BMLA is not an organisation of academic lawyers; indeed, very far from it. It is highly representative of all the various commercial interests which are concerned with the shipping industry. My reason for saying that it is rather more to the point tonight is that I have been specifically asked by the executive committee of the association to assure your Lordships, in confirmation of what my noble and learned friend Lord Goff of Chieveley said, that the proposals in the Bill have universal support throughout the industry.
It used to be said in years gone by that trade followed the flag. However, I believe that it would be much truer to say today that trade follows the law and that the law, in its turn, follows trade. If we do not modernise British commercial law as and when the need arises, commercial interests—which in this field operate on a worldwide scale—will undoubtedly start adopting other laws. Noble Lords would be making a great mistake if they thought that that would be a loss solely for the lawyers. Indeed, in that respect our hearts need not bleed for the lawyers. But once English law is abandoned as virtually the international basis of shipping contracts (which includes the associated insurance, brokering and chartering contracts) those who are concerned will start consulting other nationalities and other commercial centres because it will be natural to do so —if your contract is governed by Dutch law then for goodness sake go to Amsterdam where they understand Dutch law and use the Rotterdam shipping market, and so on.
There is a real economic interest in the Bill being passed. I trust that the need for Members of another place to get themselves re-elected (of which I read in the papers) will not interfere in any way with the passage of the Bill and that in due course I may see it as a 1992 Act, perhaps with a different Short Title.
8 p.m.
Lord Roskill: My Lords, perhaps I may begin by echoing every word that my noble and learned friend Lord Goff of Chieveley and my noble and learned friend (and former pupil) the Master of the Rolls has said. Since the war everybody who has practised in the Commercial Court or been a judge in that court has been alive to the point I raise.

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I ought to declare a particular interest. In 1968 I was sitting as a judge in that court and it fell to me to decide the question whether the buyer of a part cargo or parcel of wheat or grain of some sort could sue the ship in tort when he had not been the owner of the goods at the time they were damaged. Unless he could, the shipowner could escape a claim for negligence. Most reluctantly, I was constrained by a long line of authorities going back over a century to hold that there was no cause of action in those circumstances. I earnestly hoped that the Court of Appeal would find a way out, but nobody tried to do so.
About six or seven years ago that point came up again. It went to the Court of Appeal of which my noble and learned friend Lord Goff (then a Lord Justice) was a member. In a dissenting judgment he vigorously disagreed with me and thought he had found a way out. The case came to your Lordships' House. I am happy to say—but only moderately so—that in the end I was said to be right and, almost incredibly, my noble and learned friend was said to be wrong. It takes this Bill to establish that I was wrong and he was right. I think that is a means of achieving immortality.
Everyone hopes that this Bill will go onto the statute book quickly. Perhaps I may echo what my noble and learned friend Lord Goff said by way of tribute to Mr. Davenport and Mr. Beatson of the Law Commission whose energy and ingenuity has found a way around the problem with which we have lived.
My noble and learned friend Lord Goff also referred to Clause 4. That has got rid of the most monstrous rule called the rule in Grant v. Norway on which all of us were brought up. It is an enormous relief to see that that has gone and shipowners cannot escape liability when goods have been lost by saying that they are not bound by the acknowledgement in the bill of lading.
I should like to say one word about the Short Title and make a particular plea to the draftsman. My noble and learned friend said, absolutely rightly, that the Bill did not affect the Hague-Visby Rules. Those rules are now enshrined in the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1971. That in turn repealed the famous Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1924 which first introduced the Hague Rules into this country. To have another Act called the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992 is, with great respect to the draftsman, a complete misnomer. This Bill is about documents of title and documents which are not of title but which by statute are given very much the same effect. I appreciate that a purist may see a possible difficulty in calling it the Bills of Lading Act 1992 because it does not deal only with bills of lading. But why should it not be called the Carriage of Goods by Sea (Documents) Act or given a name which limits its effect to documents of the class with which it deals? The reform is necessary, but to give it the same title as the 1971 Act, when quite rightly it does not even suggest that it has to be construed together with the 1971 Act, is a route to confusion hereafter. I hope that that suggestion, which others have also made, will not he met by the rather obdurate approach, "This is the way we like to do it". I strongly support the Bill.
8.5 p.m.
Lord Underhill: My Lords, when the Bill first appeared on the Order Paper in my innocence I thought it was a straightforward transport Bill. For that reason my name was added to the list of speakers. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff, for explaining the Bill. At least I know a little more about it. The noble and learned Lord must he gratified by the powerful support of other noble and learned Lords. I pondered whether or not I should leave my name on the list. I decided to leave it for one reason only. When I realised that the Bill was to replace the 1855 Act, of which I knew nothing, I decided the best thing to do was not to seek a brief about which I would know nothing and would simply have to read out, but to listen carefully to the debate to be satisfied that the 1855 Act needed to be replaced and that it was being replaced with legislation that was wanted and deserved. From what I have heard tonight, I am satisfied that that is the case. Any minor points can be dealt with at the next stage of the Bill. Therefore, in my innocence of the law I wish the Bill success at its next stage.
8.6 p.m.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, like other noble Lords, I should like to thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff of Chieveley, for his very able introduction of the Bill. The Government wholeheartedly welcome and support it and hope for its early enactment.
This Bill, as the noble and learned Lord indicated, represents the fruits of several years' work by the English and Scottish Law Commissions. One of the most impressive features of that work was the consultation exercise undertaken by the two Law Commissions. They canvassed and obtained the views of all interested parties, including commodity and other traders, shipowners, underwriters, arbitrators and bankers. They also received invaluable advice from many distinguished commercial lawyers with expertise in marine cargo disputes, including practitioners, academics and members of the judiciary. Indeed, the commitment of the commercial Bench and Bar has continued today as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff, is himself no stranger to the workings and concerns of the Commercial Court.
The result of the two law commissions' extensive consultations has been the production of a commendable piece of law reform which seeks to preserve the position of London as a major financial and commercial centre, with all that that implies for our invisible earnings.
I single out four features which I think call for particular comment. First, the Bill would overcome the restrictions on the right to sue currently faced by holders of bills of lading. Secondly, the Bill looks to the future by anticipating certain problems which are increasingly likely to cause difficulties unless legislative action is taken soon. I am thinking in particular of the provisions made for sea waybills and electronic data interchange. Thirdly, the Bill would bring our

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law on right to sue in marine cargo cases much more into line with the law of our European partners and that of other leading maritime jurisdictions. Fourthly, the Bill is non-controversial. The policy and balance contained in it has obtained the support of all the commercial parties. Indeed, the Law commission has succeeded admirably in achieving a result which offers something for everybody, or at least everybody engaged in the world of carriage of goods by sea.
Clause 1 empowers my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport to make regulations regarding the application of the provisions of the Bill to electronic data interchange. Though considerable work is being done in this field it may be some time before it will be appropriate to make those regulations. As electronic transmissions could transfer rights and liabilities under contract law appropriate safeguards will have to be in place and there will have to be international agreement between commercial interests on what those safeguards should be.
I commend the work of the two Law Commissions which has resulted in the Bill now before us. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff, for taking it forward. The noble and learned Lord referred to the need for early enactment. I trust that with your Lordships' agreement we will be able to speed this Bill on its way onto the statute book.
8.10 p.m.
Lord Goff of Chieveley: My Lords, I am most grateful to your Lordships for what you have said about the Bill. I am especially grateful to the Minister for expressing the Government's support for the Bill. In view of the general support which I understand the Bill has received, I do not believe that there is much to which I need refer. On the two short points that have been taken, the first by the noble Lord, Lord Byron, about the meaning of the words "lawful holder of a Bill of lading" I should merely like to say that I imagine that that was included to exclude the unlawful bill of lading—one who had come by the bill unlawfully. I shall gladly communicate with the noble Lord elsewhere if it would be of assistance to him.
With regard to the Bill's Short Title, I take the criticism. The Long Title makes it plain what the Bill is all about. I do not believe that I need add anything more. I commend the Bill to your Lordships' House.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Severn Bridges Bill
8.11 p.m.
Read a third time, and passed.

Social Security Administration Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Social Security Contributions and Benefits Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.
Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Bill [H.L.]
Report received.

Kurds and Kuwaitis in Iraq
8.12 p.m.
Lord Molloy Lord Molloy rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are taking any action to alleviate the plight of Kurds and Kuwaitis still in Iraq.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I should like to put on record that I have been to Kuwait and have seen the terrible things that have happened there. One of the most moving experiences was to see in street after street in Kuwait City, and way out to the oil fields, little green flags which said, "Thank you very much to the British people". I have seen some of the conditions in which our troops and our American allies had to fight. We were fortunate to have two brilliant commanders, Sir Peter de la Billiére and—I understand that I am allowed to say this—Sir Norman Schwarzkopf. Everything was wonderfully organised.
I should also like to pay tribute to those men and women who supported our Air Force and Navy and the various regiments and corps. Remarkable work was done by the allied forces. There was wonderful co-operation and superb planning. The only thing that I found irritating when I spoke to the British people there, the Kuwaitis themselves, and the Americans, was that they could not understand—I cannot give the words they used—why the dickens we did not continue the process of occupation as we occupied Germany. There was a similarity in the behaviour of both dictators. It is still something about which people ask and do not understand. I pay tribute also to the BBC and ITV personnel, both of television and sound radio, for the remarkable way in which they were able to keep us informed of what was going on.
There is a matter that is causing great anxiety to the people of Kurdistan, the Kurds in northern Iraq. They desperately want to return to rebuild their country. What happened to the people of Kuwait is probably one of the most sorrowful stories I have ever heard,

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even set alongside the many ghastly stories that emerged when we first entered Germany during the Second World War. People have given gruesome details of what occupation by the Iraqi army meant—how they had to stand by and see their mothers and sisters raped, and how men too were raped. Sometimes the Iraqi soldiers were most gleeful if they were able to have an audience that included the family. What has hurt the Kuwaitis most is the fact that the Iraqi soldiers took back to Iraq about 1,000 women and that hardly any of the soldiers taken prisoner by the Iraqis have been returned to Kuwait.
The refugees and prisoners of war are still in Iraq. People were abducted in their thousands and taken to Iraq. Yet the agreement upon which we insisted was that Saddam Hussein should pay £50-odd million for the oil fields; that everyone who was not Iraqi and belonged in Kuwait should be returned; and that the Kurds should be protected. We say those things but do nothing to enforce the United Nations resolution and the agreement made by senior officers at the time. Many people are unable to understand why we did not continue. One has to go there to understand what happened. There is anger and grief. When they are mixed, a dangerous situation is created.
There is one other aspect I should like to mention. Iraqis who were hidden by the Kuwaitis because of the enormous help they had given them have said, "First and foremost you will not get Saddam Hussein out easily". In saying "you", I believe that they meant the Americans. They have said, "You are more concerned with Saddam Hussein holding down the other awkward people in the north of his country. That will suit the policy of the United States of America". I believe there is some truth in that, disgraceful though it is. People also said that they must start forming an Iraqi government in exile. They hate Saddam Hussein and his evil Ba'ath people as much as anyone else. They feel that they must have an Iraqi opposition in exile.
I understand that in the other place Mr. Campbell-Savours has had discussions with the Prime Minister and has asked whether he will support any move by the Iraqi opposition to set up a parliament in exile. They would be an official Iraqi government, able to consider the United Nations sanctions and war reparations. In view of the terrible things that happened to the Kuwaiti people and the Kurdish people we should not have to negotiate with Saddam Hussein. We should respond to the pleas of those Iraqis who are admired in Kuwait—that is saying something—because of their hatred of their fellow countrymen, the Iraqi soldiers, for what they did.
Many crimes were committed. People can recognise the junior and middle grade Iraqi officers who enjoyed raping, killing and beating. They know who they are. Today those Iraqis are laughing at the United States and Great Britain. I cannot imagine what Sir Peter de la Billiére and General Norman Schwarzkopf are thinking, because I do not understand why we stopped. The fact that it was a short, quick war was due to the fantastic precision bombing of the Royal Air Force. It made a supreme contribution to the swift victory.
While in Kuwait I saw the oil wells that had been set on fire. As your Lordships are aware, one has to be a specialist in oil matters to be able to set an oil well on fire. There they were still blazing away by the hundreds. I was moved when the Kuwaiti people showed me stacks of anti-personnel and anti-tank bombs. I had some experience of such bombs in the invasion of Europe when I was a sapper. I had to deal with some of them. The British soldiers—the sappers—cleared the mines. They cleared away both the heavy anti-tank mines and also the hundreds of anti-personnel mines. There were, of course, a few deaths during that process but had it not been for the efforts of the Royal Engineers—the sappers—hundreds and perhaps even thousands of Kuwaiti children could have been killed or maimed.
I hope that the Government will consider carefully what can be done to improve the situation. We must think of a way in which we can ensure that the civilian hostages kidnapped by Saddam Hussein can be returned to Kuwait. We must obtain a watertight guarantee that prisoners of war who were captured by Saddam Hussein's army and taken back to Iraq will be returned. The Crown Prince of Kuwait has told me that the number of people who have been taken to Iraq, including prisoners of war, runs into thousands. Heaven knows how many people have survived that ordeal.
The Crown Prince remarked on the terrible grief of those who are left in Kuwait. He said the Kuwaitis feel grateful to the United States of America, to Great Britain and to all those who gave them their country back. He said he did not want to criticise those who had aided Kuwait but he said everyone must face up to what is happening now. The Crown Prince also referred to the position of the Kurds. He said he had heard accounts of what was happening to the Kurds. Those accounts were just as horrifying as the accounts of what was happening to the Kuwaiti prisoners in Iraq.
A number of years ago I visited Baghdad. I went there to investigate what was happening to the Kurdish people. Saddam Hussein, as well as being evil, is a cunning man. He told me I could visit the Kurds and speak to the Kurdish leaders. As soon as I met the Kurdish leaders I realised something phoney was going on as they were so exceedingly well dressed. They were wearing military uniforms. I realised they were Kurds as they spoke Kurdish. One or two Christians were present, but the others were Islamic.
The Kurdish leaders told me they were treated exceedingly well by the great Saddam Hussein. They said there were no problems and all the bad reports had been whipped up by the ridiculous, democratic Western press. I realised that some Kurdish leaders were prepared to sell their own people to a person who would destroy them by the hundred thousand as has occurred. It was awful to have to swallow what they told me.
There was a great deal of TV coverage of the misfortunes of the Kurds during the terrible winter of last year. However, they are now looking ahead. They must have seed to enable them to plant crops so they can grow next year's food. The Kuwaitis for their part

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want to see their missing relatives again. Many Kuwaitis pleaded with me to help them get their sons, daughters, fathers and mothers back to Kuwait.
I am sure that had this kind of situation occurred in this island anyone who had perpetrated such evil acts would know full well that every Briton in Scotland, Wales, England and parts of Ireland would be his sworn enemy. Such a person would be afraid of not seeing the sun rise the next day. We, however, have never had the need to act in such a way. I can quite understand the bitterness, anguish and terrible emotional pain felt by the Kurds and the Kuwaitis. All I am asking is that my country, through its Government, should endeavour to ensure that Saddam Hussein is removed, that people can return to their homelands and that that part of the world can enjoy the peace it so richly deserves.
8.24 p.m.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I greatly appreciate this opportunity to speak briefly in the debate this evening. I am sure we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Molloy for giving us the opportunity to consider this subject together. I wish to speak in this debate because I visited Iraq towards the end of last year. I was able to go up to the north to visit the Kurds and also go down to the south and visit the Shi'as. I visited Sulimaniya, Said Saidiq, Basra and Asmara. I was able to talk with the heads of the UN operation there and their staff operating in the field in the various UN agencies, with personnel of the humanitarian voluntary agencies, and with various Iraqi officials and Iraqi leaders, particularly in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Since my visit I have tried to keep in touch and up to date with the latest news. The situation at the moment with the Kurds appears to be that the Iraqi Government are continuing their strict embargo on the north and indeed seem to be tightening it. The UN is experiencing increasing difficulties in getting things through from the south. Access from the north is, of course, difficult because of the mountains. That has led to food prices rising sharply. There is food to be had but only at a price. There is, however, an absolute shortage of kerosene and other heating fuels and the winter is severe.
Shelters provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees are now more or less complete and most people are housed in what are called "hard" shelters. However, we have to face the fact that those shelters were self-built—the United Nations supplied the materials—so families which could not provide labour (for example, families with female heads of households) are still badly housed in tents, prefabs or rehabilitated public buildings which had to be abandoned. Engineers from humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam have been helping to provide water and sanitation. Most of the efforts of the United Nations are taken up with emergency aid. This means that nothing is being done about agricultural regeneration for the longer term. Pressure is mounting for longer-term aid so that the Kurds can once again become self sufficient.
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One urgent problem with which help is needed is the clearing of the mines which were heavily sown in agricultural land by both Iraqis and Kurds. Maps showing where the mines are situated are not available. As the mines are plastic, they are particularly difficult to detect. That acute problem must be dealt with before agricultural regeneration can go ahead.
I wish to say a few words about the Shi'as in the south because I believe the media have rightly highlighted the problems of the Kurds in the north, which are acute, but I am disturbed by the degree to which the plight of the Shi'as has not received the same amount of attention. There does not appear to have been any new news in the past few days and weeks apart from information that the situation remains unstable. There are continuing reports of resistance activities and evidently the marshes still harbour guerrillas. However, as I have said, hard news is still difficult to come by.
Oxfam and other humanitarian agencies that are operating with the Shi'as are beginning to think about training programmes, for example to enable engineers to maintain machinery—to make do and mend—as the difficulties of importing new parts for machines mean that self-reliance will be necessary.
As regards the Kuwaitis in Iraq, my latest information is that human rights groups here in the United Kingdom report some 1,200 people still missing. As my noble friend Lord Molloy has said, that is a grave situation and a challenge to us all.
We should note that the next round of oil sale talks between the United Nations and Iraq is due to start in about a week or 10 days' time. In the previous round—if one is trying to look for any encouragement in a grim situation—it seems that Iraq gave some indications that it was beginning to look for compromises. Indeed, there are indications that it admitted the invasion of Kuwait to have been a mistake. That is easy to say, but it is at least something that it has been said. Saddam Hussein has recently admitted that Iraq suffered a military defeat, although he continues to claim a moral and spiritual victory.
I should like to make one further observation in our debate this evening. We are faced with a special situation in Iraq. It is not a situation which can be compared with that of Germany in 1945. There has not been a total defeat of the enemy resulting in the challenge of rebuilding a country from scratch. It was specifically declared that the war aim was not to remove the government in Baghdad and that that was a matter specifically for the Iraqi people.
We have seen what happened. The Kurds made their stand, and look how they have been treated. The Shi'as made their stand. In Basra and Asmara I was appalled by the damage caused not by the allied war but as a result of the Shi'as trying to do something about their own situation in response to encouragement from outside the country.
The present regime remains in place. We continue to say that it is an internal task for Iraq and the Iraqi people to change the political situation. In view of the nature of that regime I would take second place to nobody in standing by firm and strong sanctions.

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They are essential. However, in a situation in which we say that change must occur internally, I wonder whether we should introduce a carrot as well as a stick. When one visits the country and sees at first hand the scale of the damage to the infrastructure—water systems destroyed, sewerage systems destroyed, health programmes in tatters—and sees the reality for the ordinary people, it becomes very clear that that cannot be put right by voluntary humanitarian agencies operating from outside, nor even by the UN agencies. It is a major task, and the social infrastructure should be restored by the government of the country.
I should like to suggest that, without in any way relaxing sanctions, we should be prepared to make the following proposal to the Iraqi administration. If they will come to us with the first instalment of a humanitarian programme which they will run with our co-operation to tackle the humanitarian challenges of the destroyed social infrastructure of the country, we will be prepared to allow Iraq to sell sufficient oil to undertake the first instalment of that programme. We will monitor progress extremely carefully and, depending on what happens in that first instalment, we will be prepared to consider a second instalment.
The problem with the present situation is that, while we are prepared to allow Iraq to sell some oil to generate funds for a humanitarian relief programme, that programme would in effect be administered by the United Nations and outsiders. Therefore, while we say that political change must come about internally we bypass all the political realities of the country. We do not thrust any responsibility on to the administration—however appalling and however much we condemn that administration—to force it to face its responsibilities before the people. I am fearful that Saddam Hussein may try to turn the situation into a propaganda victory by saying that outsiders are insisting on doing everything and he is not allowed to do anything.
I believe that, if we really care for the Iraqis, who have had no opportunity to influence events under tyranny, and for the Kurds, the Shi'as and the Kuwaitis caught in that country, we face a tremendous challenge to our ingenuity in our diplomacy. Without in any way relaxing our firmness on sanctions, thereby guaranteeing that only goods of which we approve enter that country we must at least try to begin to open up the situation and find crevices and nooks in which some internal chemistry of change might begin to take place in that country.
8.34 p.m.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Molloy for giving us an opportunity to raise the issue of the Kurdish people. I feel that we have an obligation to debate the subject because, while there are no easy solutions, at least awareness of the problem should be demonstrated by those who appreciate how dreadful the conditions are.
My noble friend Lord Molloy described graphically the terrible conditions to which the Kurds have been subjected. The honourable Member for Cynon Valley in another place, who is responsible for the Official
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Opposition's overseas aid programme, has written a very moving article in this week's edition of Tribune in which she describes a visit to the Kurds and the appalling conditions which they are suffering.
I have spoken previously in your Lordships' House about the plight of the Kurdish people. I have referred to the appalling events at Halabja where there was a chemical attack resulting in enormous loss of life. The problem must not be forgotten. It is one to which there has to be a political solution. There are over 20 million Kurds. I believe that it is the largest nation group which does not have a state of its own. While the present situation continues we must keep searching for a political settlement.
Links with the Kurdish leaders should he developed as far as possible. Some of the Kurdish leaders were invited to be present at the Labour Party Conference last year. I hope that that will happen again. I know that the Government will do what they can to establish and maintain links.
The suffering is appalling. The winter is particularly bitter. I am told that in places supplies of electricity and gas have been cut off. I hope that the ideas put forward by my noble friend Lord Judd from his wide practical experience of these matters will be considered seriously.
A form of genocide has been committed against the Kurdish people. We must remember that it is not only in Iraq that they are persecuted. They have also suffered in Syria, Iran and to some extent in Turkey. They are basically a peaceful people. If they are given the opportunity I am sure that they will live in peace with their neighbours because they have not had control of their own land for some 400 years yet they have always done their best to get on with the people who have been in charge.
There is now a great deal of talk about a new world order and tomorrow your Lordships will hold a substantial debate on the aftermath of the break-up of what we knew as the Soviet Union. I mentioned last week that it is surprising that those of us who have lived under the shadow of the cold war for all our adult lives and thought how wonderful it would be when that shadow was lifted find that, now that that great monolithic bloc has disintegrated, the world faces all sorts of problems. One could say that in many ways the world is a more dangerous place now than when the cold war was at its harshest.
I do not expect the Minister to give us any easy answers. I know that he is very concerned about these matters. During the Gulf War a great deal of publicity, particularly television publicity, was given to the plight of the Kurds. There was great awareness of their plight. To some extent that has diminished and we have to make sure that the issue is kept in the minds of people who are in a position to influence events.
There are some 12,000 Kurds living peacefully in this country. They do not demonstrate, take hostages or explode bombs to draw attention to their case. We should not only think of the people who are suffering but also of the Kurds in this country and do what we can to foster links. I hope that working through the

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United Nations and the relief organisations we can bring some amelioration to this appalling human tragedy.
8.40 p.m.
Lord Tordoff: My Lords, we are indeed grateful for the opportunity to put Iraq on the agenda, in particular in relation to the Kurds, the Kuwaitis and, as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, properly said, the Shi'as in the south. I have not been into Iraq; noble Lords will know that I was on the Iranian side of the border last year looking at the refugee camps in both the Kurdish areas and the Shi'ite areas in the south. That brings home to one what life is like at the tough end of society.
Perhaps we have dwelt on the results of last year's conflict. We should not forget that the problems go back 10 years. In 1980, before the Iran-Iraq war broke out—before Saddam Hussein invaded Iran—he called together a group of 1,250 businessmen to go to a seminar. After they had had a brief discussion in the morning they were invited to dinner in the evening. They were put on buses and at the point of machine guns were forced over the Iranian border and told that they were Iranian spies. That was bad enough for them, but the government of Iraq then started to take hostages among their families. The whereabouts of many of those hostages are still not known today. One of the matters that we must determine if we possibly can is what has happened to those poor people. I am sure that many are now dead. But for the sake of their families and relatives, many of whom now live in Western Europe, we ought to do our best to give them the peace of mind of knowing where their relatives are.
Rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has brought the Kuwaitis into the discussion. The situation is slightly different with regard to the Kuwaitis. They were deported from their country by Saddam Hussein's regime in the course of the Gulf War. Again, no one knows where a number of those people are today.
I listened with considerable interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said. I find it interesting that he suggests there are carrots which can be offered. I hope that he is right. It is very easy to take a totally negative view of the Iraqi regime. On balance, I believe that one is right to do so. However, if there is any hope that by offering some carrots we can begin to unravel this wretched situation, what the noble Lord said from his considerable experience ought to be taken into account.
Over a period of 10 to 12 years the number of people about whom we speak runs into hundreds of thousands. Some of them have been released and have been able to return to their homes. But many have disappeared, I fear for ever.
Can the Government bring us up to date on the situation of the United Nations? I understand that there is an inquiry team which is either in Iraq or about to go there. If so, I should be interested to know what questions it is empowered to ask. For instance, is it able to visit prisons to try to establish where some of those people are? I understand that the
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International Committee of the Red Cross has been trying to get into some of the prisons and has been refused access. Is that true?
If the inquiry team is able to make contact with the parts of the Iraqi government which are capable of rational discussion, the questions that need to be asked are these. Why are those people being imprisoned? Have they committed crimes? Have they ever been tried? What are their specific sentences? What are the conditions of their detention? What humanitarian contact can be made with people who are in prison? Can their families send them letters? That at least would be some relief to the people who have been deprived of contact for many years and doubtless for those who are incarcerated. We know that the hostages in Lebanon were greatly perked up by the ability to receive messages, whether through the World Service of the BBC or by letters which eventually managed to reach them. Those questions ought to be asked of the Iraqi regime, either directly by the Government or through the various agencies.
We should bear in mind that a number of those people are not prisoners of war; they are not prisoners of conscience; they are not political prisoners. They are hostages. The Iraqi government took those people hostage in order to put pressure on their families in Kurdistan and in Western Europe. That is one of the most abominable ways of dealing with people.
It is very easy to become over-emotional over the situation. However, we need cool heads. We need to work out precisely, step by step, what we can do, not to assuage our own feelings but to improve the lot of the people who are being kept hostage in prison and in particular to help their families in this country and in other parts of the world.
It is a terrible situation. I do not go along with those who say that the troops should have continued to fight. The political situation in the Middle East would have been made much worse if we had not had a clear mandate from the United Nations. The Gulf War was fought on a very clear agenda. To have stepped outside it, to have gone beyond it, would have totally undermined our credibility in the whole of the Arab world. The war was successful in so far as it was capable of being successful. Nevertheless, we are all conscious of a sense of failure that we were not able to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and that we left so many of those people in his hands.
I hope that the Government are using every means in their power to ensure that international agencies are doing their best to secure the release of those poor people.
8.47 p.m.
Baroness Ewart-Biggs: My Lords, I too am grateful to my noble friend Lord Molloy for tabling the Motion and for introducing the debate in his vivid and emotive fashion. His loyalty in upholding the cause of the Kurdish people has been constant and much admired by the House.
We have heard from the speakers in the debate about the political impasse which is the background to the situation affecting the Kurdish people while at the same time a serious humanitarian situation affects

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them. Iraq's abuse of human rights has been well documented by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Middle East Watch. I fear that it is only too evident that Saddam Hussein's dictatorship has been characterised by repression and horrific cruelty. No words can be found to describe one's feelings about the system which Saddam Hussein has used against the Kurds. Torture, extra-judicial killings and massacres have been quite routine within his country.
The price of opposition is often death. Saddam Hussein's forces have killed thousands of men, women and children and depopulated whole areas of the country. As is known, much of that was achieved with weapons and military equipment which were sold by Western governments and armaments companies. It is our hope that such exporters will now be more discriminatory in their sales of arms in the future.
As my noble friend Lord Cocks said, Saddam Hussein's barbarity towards the Kurds amounted to genocide. For example, the operation A1-Anfal, launched in 1987, claimed thousands of lives as whole villages were razed and their Kurdish inhabitants massacred. The exact death toll will probably never be known. However, it is safe to say nearly every family in Iraqi Kurdistan lost at least one relative in that slaughter. Those people were targeted because they were Kurds.
In 1988 more than 5,000 Kurds were killed at Halabja, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cocks, when Saddam Hussein's forces used chemical weapons against them. There is mounting evidence to suggest that that was just one tragic episode in what was and will be again a systematic campaign of genocide, unless the UN prevents it.
Will the Minister indicate whether any advances have been made by the UN team investigating the evidence on Iraqi genocide in its steps to consider and punish those responsible for perpetrating such outrages? Will he give the House an assessment of the human rights situation in Iraq and indicate any progress made by the UN in securing the release of those Kuwaitis and other nationals abducted by the Iraqi army at the end of the Gulf War?
Saddam Hussein's conduct in the aftermath of the Kuwait conflict suggests that he plans to continue as he started against the Kurds—by using the maximum force and cruelty against them. Such fears are borne out by the fact that Iraqi forces have continued their attacks on the Kurds in the north and the Shi'as in the south. It is indeed tragic that these attacks have taken place despite the allies safe haven strategy and the passing of various UN Security Council resolutions to protect the Kurds.
Another aspect of Iraqi aggression has been the imposition of an economic blockade against the Kurds. Will the Minister indicate the advances that are being made by the UN in putting pressure on Iraq to lift the blockade that it has imposed on the Kurds in the north? Surely that must be a matter of the greatest urgency.
In a most powerful speech my noble friend gave an account of his visit to Iraq a few months ago. He suggested an approach which included a carrot as well
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as a stick. Given the impasse that now exists, I believe that the suggestion warrants consideration. He maintained his belief in sanctions remaining in force while at the same time encouraging Saddam Hussein and his regime to comply with Security Council resolutions.
I fear that Saddam Hussein's intentions towards the Kurdish people are very clear. The Kurds are most anxious that the allied forces and their cover and the presence of the United Nations organisations will disappear. Again, will the Minister indicate how long the forces will remain in the region; and does he believe that that will give the Kurds the reassurance that they need?
My noble friend Lord Judd gave an idea of the relief programme that is being carried out. I have had reports from UNICEF, which is an active force in the north of Iraq. It reports the most serious conditions pertaining to women and children, given the extreme weather conditions, the extreme poverty and the lack of valuable resources. I had a report from UNICEF Baghdad only this morning describing the hospital in Sulaymaniyah. Clearly the death rate among children even in the hospital is high. However, people are worried even more by the fact that few children are brought to the hospital because of the high cost of getting in there and the severe weather conditions. Therefore, the mortality rate among children is very high.
My noble friend Lord Judd also illustrated that relief work is not the answer when so much work needs to be done in reconstruction. He gave examples of the way in which we should be moving away from the patchwork relief work, which of course is alleviating the problems but is not striking at their roots towards reconstruction.
Will the Minister comment upon the elections that are scheduled to take place in Kurdistan on 3rd April? After all, they will be the first democratic elections to take place on Iraqi soil. Will UN or EC observers be sent to the elections? How will the elections affect dealings with the present Baghdad regime?
It is clear that the Kurds remain in a desperate plight, despite the safe haven operation, the passing of different UN resolutions to protect them and a UN relief operation to protect their basic humanitarian needs. Continuing Iraqi aggression and Saddam Hussein's imposition of an economic blockade have placed the Kurds in the gravest of dangers. Given the UN's role in the much heralded new world order we can hope only that it will be empowered to bring immediate pressure to bear on the Iraqis to lift the blockade and to stop the attacks on the Kurds. A great deal depends on that.
Everything that I have read indicates that Kurdish leaders have a great fear that the world will forget about their plight and that international opinion will again move to some other crisis. If that happens they know that any hope of their problems being solved will pass away yet again.
8.57 p.m.
Lord Canvendish of Furness: My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, for giving us the opportunity to draw attention once again to the Iraqi Government's blatant disregard for internationally accepted norms of behaviour. He spoke with passion and from first-hand experience. The comments made by your Lordships tonight illustrate only too well the way in which Saddam Hussein's regime continues to inflict suffering and hardship both on his own people and on his neighbours.
The appalling human rights record of the Iraqi Government is also well documented. The abuses inflicted by the Iraqi dictatorship include the use of chemical weapons against its own unarmed civilian population in 1988; appalling atrocities committed during the occupation of Kuwait; the mistreatment of Western hostages and prisoners; and the brutal suppression of uprisings by the civilian population in the north and the south of Iraq after the Gulf conflict.
Perhaps I may turn first to the situation in northern Iraq. We are very concerned about reports that an economic blockade imposed by the Iraqi authorities on northern Iraq has become more severe in recent weeks. We are monitoring developments carefully in consultation with our allies. We are also discussing with the UN relief agencies how to ensure that adequate humanitarian supplies continue to reach the population of northern Iraq in spite of the blockade. Security Council Resolution 688 demanded that Iraq end its repression against the civilian population and co-operate with the humanitarian effort. We have told the Iraqis that we expect them to respect this resolution. We are determined that they shall do so.
When the current phase of the Kurdish crisis began in March 1991 we were at the forefront of the international response. Thanks to the initiative of the Prime Minister, safe havens were established in northern Iraq. An enormous international relief effort was mounted to sustain the civilian population there. Many lives were saved.
The international relief effort continues. We have contributed more than £45 million to it since April 1991. We shall continue to be ready to respond to humanitarian needs in Iraq. The UN and other international agencies have done an excellent job in protecting the Iraqi people from the worst of the privations visited on them by their government. They have provided shelter, food and medicine. The UNHCR winterisation programme in the north has provided shelter for more than 500,000 displaced Kurds and enabled them to face the onset of winter in safety. In addition to the provision of shelter they are repairing and upgrading hospitals and water supplies. Thousands of kerosene stoves, blankets and tents are being distributed.
However, as the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, has explained so graphically, there is no room for complacency. The Kurds will not feel secure while Saddam Hussein continues to oppress them through the economic blockade and while the threat of military action remains. Fortunately, international assistance continues to reach the area. The international community must sustain its efforts. We shall not idly
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stand by. The Minister for Overseas Development has proposed an international donor conference with the United Nations later this month. The aim of the conference would be to ensure the continued effective co-ordination of the international response to the latest UN inter-agency appeal for relief operations in Iraq. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, perhaps I may say that that will be an opportunity to consider long-term structural development needs. In that, we should include agriculture.
We have kept in close touch with Kurdish political leaders and assured them that we will not lose interest in their plight. We continue to maintain a coalition deterrent force in southern Turkey to deter any renewed systematic repression in northern Iraq. We are grateful to the Turkish Government for hosting that force and for agreeing to a further extension of its presence until June 1992. The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, asked for how long that would last. As I understand it, the agreement with the Turkish Government is renewed on a six-monthly basis.
This force has been successful in deterring further large-scale military attacks on the civilian population. It has been a significant factor for stability in the area. We have assured Kurdish leaders that we shall keep up the pressure on Saddam Hussein to respect his obligations. We shall not be prepared to lift sanctions until he has implemented UN Security Council resolutions in full. We are determined to bring home to him that he has no alternative but to comply.
However, that pressure is directed at the Iraqi Government not the Iraqi people. The solution to the humanitarian problem in Iraq lies in Saddam Hussein's hands. The UN Security Council has established a mechanism under Resolution 706 and 712 for Iraq to finance humanitarian supplies out of oil revenues and for strict monitoring of the distribution of supplies throughout the country. Iraq is now discussing implementation with the UN. The scheme must be implemented promptly in order to ensure that supplies reach all those Iraqis in need. We will keep up the pressure on Iraq to do so.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, asked me about that mechanism. I was grateful to the noble Lord for his contribution and his first-hand experience. I know that he is closely in touch with these matters. He asked whether we should adopt a carrot and stick approach. Perhaps I should expand on the mechanism established by the UN which contains strict controls to prevent abuse by the Iraqis.
All revenues collected from Iraqi oil sales will be paid into a UN-controlled escrow account. Only when the UN has approved the humanitarian use to which the proceeds will be put will the funds be released. The UN would then monitor the distribution of humanitarian supplies purchased. Unfortunately, the Iraqi regime has not yet agreed to co-operate in the implementation of the scheme and they should do so now. I hope that that conveys that there is an element of carrot and stick. However, I was extremely interested to hear the noble Lord's views.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, asked why we left Saddam Hussein in power. I believe that the noble

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Lord, Lord Tordoff, accepted that there was perhaps not much room for manoeuvre. The coalition stated its war aims very clearly. The noble Lord will remember the sensitivity required to get a coalition in place. Those aims included the removal of the Iraqi forces from Kuwait and the restoration of the legitimate government there. With hindsight it is easy to say that we should have gone further, but the noble Lord will know that there would have been much hostility from many quarters had we done so.
The noble Lord mentioned the contact of Mr. Campbell-Savours with the Prime Minister about the Iraqi government in exile. We have met Iraqi opposition leaders and shall continue to keep in touch with them. We shall encourage their efforts. I hope that the noble Lord accepts —and I know it is easy to say—that it is not for us to decide who should govern Iraq. Ultimately it will be for the Iraqi people to choose the government when the time comes.
Lord Molloy: My Lords, that proposition came mainly from American Iraqis. I spoke to them. They wanted to see whether they could represent the Iraqi people pro tem to restore some of the honour of their countrymen after the disgrace which Saddam Hussein has imposed upon them. Once Saddam Hussein has gone, their role as a pro tem exile government would cease so that proper democratic elections could take place.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, as I have said, we quarrel with the regime, not with the people. I hope that it is understood that we do not blame innocent people for the atrocities. For the time being we shall continue to stay in touch with the leaders.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, spoke of the effect of sanctions. It is Saddam Hussein's misguided policies which brought Iraq to its present position. He continued to inflict suffering on his people by his stubborn refusal to implement Security Council resolutions in full. We want all Iraqi people to be able to receive food, medicine and humanitarian supplies and that is why we have made the contribution of £45 million since April 1991.
Lord Judd: My Lords, I am grateful that the Minister is replying so fully. Perhaps I can explain that there is a difference between the arrangements that might be entered into with the Iraqi government for humanitarian relief aid following the sales of a certain agreed amount of oil, and the income generated by that, and the task of reconstructing the social infrastructure of the country. Without that social infrastructure being reconstructed the needs of the people cannot be met.
Lord Cavendish of Furness: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, makes a powerful point. To confirm that, I shall consider the matter and consult with colleagues. I shall write to him and copy the letter to all who have taken part in the debate. I do recognise the noble Lord's experience.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, spoke also of the problems in the South. Although it is not strictly speaking the subject of the Question I should like to take this opportunity to say that we do not ignore the
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plight of the people there. The United Nations has a humanitarian centre in Basra and has been pressing the Iraqis to permit the establishment of a further humanitarian centre at Nasariya close to the marshes. Again, the Iraqis have so far refused. We strongly support an expansion of the United Nations presence there.
We raised our anxieties about the South direct with the Iraqis, the UN and with Mr. Van der Stoel, the UN rapporteur on human rights in Iraq. We have also met representatives of the Shi'a community to hear from them about the situation first hand. Since September 1991 we have given £1.5 million to UNICEF for medicines, water and sanitation in the South; £268,000 to Save the Children for water and sanitation in the South and almost £700,000 to the organisations working to help refugees from southern Iraq in south west Iran. We recently approved a contribution of £300,000 for further relief work in southern Iraq and my understanding is that that has been paid and is administered through the organisation CARE.
The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, asked about a visit by the United Nations human rights team to Iraq. He asked whether the International Red Cross gained access to Kuwaiti detainees and about the conditions under which they are held. Again, the United Nations rapporteur on human rights visited Iraq in January. We look forward to hearing the report of his visit which he will present to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights this month. I regret that Iraq has not yet provided details of the whereabouts of missing Kuwaitis or given access to the ICRC. The ICRC continues to press for information and in that it has our full support.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ewart-Biggs, asked about elections in Kurdish regions. We shall examine with interest proposals by Kurdish leaders to hold elections in northern Iraq. We have often told them that it is in their interests to work together and speak with one voice. We hope that any elections will promote that aim. We want to see a democratic and pluralistic system in Iraq in which all sectors of the population enjoy respect for human and political rights.
With regard to the question of whether there shall be visits I am afraid that I do not know what the normal code is for these things. I will need to write to the noble Baroness in that regard. The noble Baroness also asked about progress made by the United Nations investigating genocide by the Iraqi regime. The rapporteur on human rights to whom I referred presented an interim report on Iraq's human rights performance in November. Criticisms contained in it were damning. He will present his full report to the United Nations Commission this month for its consideration and we look forward to hearing his conclusions.
The noble Lord, Lord Molloy, also raised the question of Kuwaitis missing in Iraq. The Kuwaiti people have had to bear many cruel hardships over the past 18 months, as described in detail by the noble Lord, Lord Molloy. But few can have suffered more than the families of those Kuwaiti and other nationals

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who are still missing or unaccounted for in Iraq. We feel deeply for their plight. This is yet another example of the callous and inhuman attitude of the Iraqi Government.
Iraq's obligation to assist the International Committee of the Red Cross in tracing and repatriating Kuwaiti and other nations held in Iraq since the Gulf conflict was spelt out clearly by the UN Security Council in Resolution 687 of April 1991. It was reaffirmed in subsequent resolutions. The ICRC has tried patiently and persistently to pursue this mandate. We have given it our full support. The Kuwaiti Government have also provided details of some 2,000 Kuwaiti citizens whom they believe to be in Iraq. In spite of numerous approaches, the Iraqi authorities have failed to provide any adequate or convincing response to ICRC enquiries. They continue to delay or obstruct efforts to secure information about and access to these detainees. The UN Secretary General prepared a report on Iraqi compliance with the requirements of Security Council Resolution 687 for the Security Council's latest review of sanctions in January. That report sets out only too clearly the painstaking efforts by the ICRC to make progress and the inadequacy of Iraq's response. I am afraid that that is the very disappointing news that I have to give your Lordships' House tonight. The noble Lord, Lord Tordoff, is absolutely right in that in effect these prisoners are hostages.
The British Permanent Representative in New York has raised during the periodic reviews of
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sanctions by the Security Council the question of missing Kuwaiti nationals. The Security Council has concluded on each occasion that there is no case for relaxing the sanctions regime—in that I have had support from all sides of the House—while Iraq continues to flout the will of the Security Council. We shall continue to take every opportunity to remind the Iraqis of their obligations. We shall continue to impress on them that there will be no relaxation of sanctions until they meet those obligations.
In spite of all the efforts of the international community, many Iraqis continue to live in fear of the regime's intentions towards them. The people of Kuwait still wait for news of missing loved ones, for the return of looted property and for compensation for their losses. Saddam Hussein must know that the international community will not lose interest in any of these issues. I can assure noble Lords that we shall maintain sanctions until Iraq has implemented the UN Security Council resolutions in full. Only when Iraq has met its UN obligations in full can it possibly be accepted back into the community of nations. Continued international pressure will be necessary to prevent further excesses occurring and to ensure that the people of Iraq can live without fear of repression and their neighbours without fear of intimidation or attack. I can assure noble Lords that Britain will continue to play its full part in maintaining that pressure.
House adjourned at sixteen minutes past nine o'clock.

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